Is the Obama Administration Fed Up with Syria?

[Mosby]

Hussain Abdul-Hussain has a very interesting report in the Kuwaiti Al-Rai today (Arabic): As a result of its frustration with Assad's negative behavior, Abdul-Hussain writes, the Obama administration has decided against sending its ambassador back to Syria at this time, in a reversal of the announcement made 100 days ago.

This report comes a few days after Jackson Diehl wrote in the Washington Post that "George J. Mitchell, the Middle East envoy, appears to have given up on including Syria in the Middle East negotiations he is preparing to launch." Mitchell did not include Syria on the itinerary of his current trip to the region.

Abdul-Hussain spoke to unnamed sources and US officials who expressed to him that the Obama administration has had it with the Syrians, who, according to one source, "don't know the difference between normalizing relations and behaving like they've defeated the US in a world war."

Anyone who's read my commentary, whether here or elsewhere, knows full well that that's precisely how the Syrians were interpreting engagement. Remember Imad Shoueibi, the incomparable apparatchik who declared that Syria had "broken" the US, and that it was therefore "up to the defeated to present his menu and up to the victor to present his demands," even threatening then Acting Asst. Sec. Feltman?! And of course, who can forget the comedy classic, the list of conditions to "Abu Hussein" from the regime's most amusing clown, Sami Moubayed?

http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-obama-administration-fed-up-with.html