Bashar al-Assad

Bashar al-Assad’s security forces have brazenly slaughtered more than 10,000 Syrian civilians, and injured or detained tens of thousands more, since the anti-regime protests began in March 2011.

Yesterday the Washington Post inexplicably published a piece about the Vogue profile of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad—a profile published in March 2011. It’s inexplicable because it’s old news: Vogue removed the story, titled “A Rose in the Desert,” from its website long ago—and the fact that the glossy magazine was embarrassed by the timing is well known. Only a few weeks later Mrs. Assad’s charming husband went on a bloody rampage that, with about 10,000 dead so far, shows no signs of abating.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated President Obama’s August 2011 demand that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad step down.

Here's video from Homs, documenting yet more violations of the Kofi Annan-brokered Syrian ceasefire that the Obama administration is celebrating:

Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan sought a ceasefire in Syria between forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the opposition. The Obama administration insists that the ceasefire is holding. "What we saw in the last day or so was a very fragile truce emerge, a very fragile first step," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday in a press briefing.

The United Nations reports that over 9,000 have been killed in Syria during the anti-regime uprising that has been going on for the last year. So far, however, President Obama has taken a hands-off approach, relying exclusively on diplomacy and sanctions.

Reuters reports that "Iran is providing a broad array of assistance to Syrian President Bashar Assad to help him suppress anti-government protests, from high-tech surveillance technology to guns and ammunition, U.S. and European security officials say."

In an article today in NOW Lebanon, Tony Badran reports that Hillary Clinton “dismissed a number of forward leaning options on Syria” proposed by Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to the White House. “What this means,” writes Badran, “is that Washington, which at one point subcontracted its Syria policy to Ankara, has now called the Turks off the regime of Bashar al-Assad.”

Journalist Nir Rosen defended himself against accusations over the weekend that he’d collaborated with Syrian security services. Rosen, who spent four months in Syria reporting for Al Jazeera International’s English-language website, was implicated in emails published by Al Arabiya.

Robert Kagan: "America has made the world freer, safer and wealthier."

Ross Douthat: "Religion and the Social Crisis."

Working to suppress the protesters in Syria, the army there, the New York Times reports, is "gathering confidence":

During the decades of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, successive U.S. administrations yearned for regime change.