what s important, ezra, today it s hillary clinton, barack obama, the the united states, the european union, leaders of france, britain, germany and the u.n. all adding their voices to the voices of assad s arab neighbors. he may or may not care about hillary clinton. but if the eu follows through on petroleum sanctions, he s going to care about that. washington putting in place financial sakses to make it harder to prop up his regime, he s going to care about that. any chance this goes all the way to military intervention? no. three reasons. one you heard secretary clinton say it wouldn t. number two, you heard what she said the syrian people have been very clear they don t want that. third reason is, nobody s really got a good idea of how it would work. syria is a very fractured country. it is a small, densely populated country. it s not libya. it s not afghanistan. nobody thinks it s a good idea except maybe a few crazy people with more access to keyboards than good sense. h