If the rhetoric about Syria would ever match the actions we take in response, Assad would be on his way out.

Reuters:

The United States slapped sanctions on Syria's intelligence agency and two relatives of President Bashar al-Assad on Friday in Washington's first concrete steps in response to a bloody crackdown on protests.

Assad, Syria's long-serving ruler, was not among those targeted under an order signed by President Barack Obama but could be named soon if violence by government forces against democracy protesters continued, a senior U.S. official said.

"The sanctions that were announced today are intended to show the Syrian government that its behavior and actions are going to be held to account," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters after a meeting with Japan's visiting foreign minister.

Sanctions for alleged human rights abuses were imposed against Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother, and Atif Najib, one of his cousins, together with Syria's General Intelligence Directorate and its chief.

The "sanctions" include "asset freezes and bans on U.S. business dealings for those on the list." Not on the list is Assad himself, but rather two relatives. I ask you, does this "show the Syrian government that its behavior and actions are going to be held to account?" On what planet? The administration is giving Assad a pass on the same day that his tanks rolled into a city of 100,000 and began to spray bullets toward demonstrators:

Despite the heavy military deployments and mass arrests, demonstrators again took to the streets calling for Assad's overthrow on Friday.

Soldiers in Deraa killed 19 people on Friday when they fired on protesters who were trying to enter the city from nearby villages in a show of solidarity, a medical source said.

Syrian rights groups put Friday's death toll at 62, pushing the number of deaths since an uprising that has posed the biggest challenge to the Assad dynasty's four decades in power, to more than 500.

I guess 500 innocent people killed just isn't enough to trigger a "humanitarian intervention." Get back to us when the death toll hits a few thousand, says Obama. Then we'll talk.

Next round of sanctions; no more sales of Playstation games to Syria.