In March, the Syrian regime began slaughtering peaceful demonstrators in Deraa, a small city close to the Jordanian border. In August, the American president called for the man responsible for the killing to step down. It took six very long months, but President Barack Obama’s statement of August 18 seemed quite definitive: “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way,” he said. “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.”
Given this stated policy, you would think that news of the Syrian opposition gaining ground on Assad’s regime—the Free Syrian Army, for example, now has 17,000 men under arms and has carried off a number of daring operations—would be welcomed in Washington. But you would be wrong.
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