The Hama Rules, Take Two.

It looks like the Obama administration's proclaimed "reformer", Bashar Assad is trying to carry on in his father's footsteps.

Syrian army kills 100 in Hama crackdown

Tanks shell Syria's Hama for second day, 4 killed

Hama is infamous as the city where Hafez Assad killed between 20,000 to 30,000 Syrians to put down an uprising against his rule, introducing the term "Hama Rules" to the lexicon.

One would think that Obama's moral justification, as it was his only real justification for his Excellent Libyan Adventure would, being solely morally based on preventing a dictator from massacring his own people would apply to Syria.

For consistency's sake if he wants to maintain the pretense that the intervention in Libya was for a high moral purpose it would require him to take action in response to Assad's killings of his people in Syria.

Or perhaps Libya was just a way for Obama to look tough on foreign policy for what he thought would be a low cost, short and sharp bit of tactical air operations followed by an easy victory waged in the name of progressive values.

These progressive values in foreign policy being the furthering of the principle that the United States will not engage in war unilaterally, but shall only do so when it is not in America's interest, and then only so long as the action meets European approval.

Libya hasn't worked out so well, and there seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm to extend the Obama doctrine to the Syrian situation.