U.S., Syria Trade Barbs over 'Provocation'

Dialogue between Syria and the U.S has taken a turn for the catty as embassy attacks and claims of provocation entrench both sides.

Relations between Syria and the U.S. have plunged in recent days after supporters of President Bashar al-Assad attacked the American and French embassies in Damascus. The attacks led Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call Assad “not indispensable” (or “dispensable” for the grammarians out there) to Syria, which the Assad regime then claimed was “provocation” and an intrusion into the state's autonomy. Last week, U.S. ambassador Robert Ford visited the flashpoint city of Hama to march in anti-Assad protests, a move the Syrian government called an interference in domestic matters. Clinton's comments come after months of the U.S. tacitly supporting Assad as a potential reformer, even as the body count mounted in Syria's four-month-long uprising in which more than 1,400 protesters are believed to have been killed.