Vaporize 'Em

Syria seems not to have noticed that John Kerry lost the election and if flagrantly supporting the insurgency in Iraq.

Much of the problem here is that the Syrians don't take U.S. threats seriously. "Congressional delegations continue to come," Mr. Assad said earlier this year, "and there are negative declarations and positive declarations. But to date, nothing is clear." The speculation in the Arab media is that U.S. sanctions were deliberately toothless--a sop, as one Lebanese columnist put it, to "the Jewish lobby and a few hard-liners in the U.S. administration." Mr. Assad's calculation is that the U.S. is too tied down in Iraq to entertain any action against Syria.

Clearly, John Kerry's diplomatic methods don't carry much weight in the Arab world. It might be time to send Syria a reminder of the Bush Doctrine.