NOTHING – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  For those hoping for a change in our hopeless Syrian policy, be prepared to be disappointed.  A major statement today by Hillary Clinton indicates that President Obama is in no mood to do anything significant to end the killing in Syria. 

While we talk a good game about getting rid of the Syrian regime, a close ally of Iran, we do very little to back up our words.  Instead, we pledge fealty to the UN.  From Reuters:

ISTANBUL - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday to hand over power and leave his country, condemning a massacre near the town of Hama that opponents have blamed on his supporters as "unconscionable."

I'm sure Assad is quaking in his boots after that statement.

Clinton said the United States was willing to work with all members of the UN Security Council, which includes Russia, on a conference on Syria's political future as long as it started with the premise that Assad gave way to a democratic government.

A conference!  Incredible idea!  Why didn't we think of that?

"Assad must transfer power and depart Syria," Clinton told a news conference in Istanbul after meeting foreign ministers from Arab and Western nations to discuss counterterrorism.

"The regime-sponsored violence that we witnessed again in Hama yesterday is simply unconscionable. Assad has doubled down on his brutality and his duplicity and Syria will not, cannot be peaceful, stable or certainly democratic until Assad goes."

And...

The latest killings will heap pressure on world powers to act, but they have been stymied by divisions pitting Western and most Arab states against Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

Clinton urged the international community to unite behind an "achievable" plan and said Washington was willing to cooperate with any state as long as they agreed that Assad had to cede power.

"We are prepared to work with any country, including all members of the UN Security Council and we will do so, so long as any such gathering starts from the basic premise that Assad and his regime must give way to a new, democratic Syria."

Clinton said she would send her special adviser on Syria to Moscow on Friday to discuss with the Russian government the need for political transition in Syria.

Sending an adviser to Moscow!  Another brilliant move!  Aren't you impressed by the imagination and swiftness of the Obama team? 

This is no policy at all.  Obama seems to feel that he must do nothing that will cause ripples before the election.  He is exactly wrong.  Americans are watching weak, conniving leadership based entirely on electoral considerations.  The polls show Americans are not impressed.

June 7,  2012