Gee, Do You Think Maybe Syria Might Perhaps Believe The US Could Potentially Be...Pushovers?

Do politicians take courses in order to talk like this--or does it just come naturally.
Hillary Clinton gives a class on how to tiptoe around Middle East Dictators:

"We have expressed directly to the Syrian government ... in the strongest possible terms our concerns about these stories that do suggest there has been some transfer of weapons technology into Syria with the potential purpose of then later transferring it to Hezbollah," Clinton told a joint news conference with Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet. [emphasis added]

And of course, there are excellent reasons for all this:

"This is not some kind of reward for the Syrians and the actions that they take which are deeply disturbing," Clinton said. "It's a tool that we believe can give us extra leverage, added insight, analysis, information with respect to Syria's actions and intentions."

Extra leverage--Just how much has the US had so far--or used?
Added insight, analysis and information--Into a country that assassinates Lebanese leaders and is working on developing nuclear power?

Come on--the US had "insight, analysis and information" that Iraqi arms were being taken into Syria in 2003, before the Iraqi war--yet did not use "extra leverage" to do anything about it.

The US is treating Syria as a player--and that is exactly what they are doing: playing the US along.

Technorati Tag: Syria.