Syrian tanks on Wednesday shelled residences in Homs, the country’s third largest city as Assad continues to defy Western warnings to halt the brutal suppression of a protest movement that refuses to surrender. Rebels reportedly have killed two soldiers.

A local video posted by the Associated Press shows tanks rumbling down the streets and broadcasts the sounds of thousands of bullets and shells as the death toll passes 700.
 
 
The United States and other Western nations’ jawbone tactics have failed to make a dent in what appears to be “life and death” struggle for his regime. His cousin told The New York Times that an unstable Syria could result in war and would cause instability in Israel.
 
Demonstrators have chosen to risk their lives rather than allow Assad’s secret police, soldiers and police to declare victory. Official Syrian media have maintained that the “terrorist” movement is subsiding and soon will be over.
 
Human rights groups said that Syrian forces have released some activists, but many more remain in jail or have “disappeared,” the same tactic used by the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad two years ago to suppress protests over his reelection, which they charged was rigged.
 
The United States still is making verbal demands to Assad to cease the violence, but a State Department briefing Tuesday did not provide reporters with answers why stronger action is not being taken, given U.S. President Barack Obama’s previous calls for the ouster of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. 
 
Mubarak’s forces killed more than 300 dissidents before he was forced out of office, and Qaddafi’s army has shelled and bombed vast areas, killing and wounding thousands of citizens.
 
The Obama administration is holding out for a hoped-for change in the policies by Assad, who last month was called a “reformer” by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
 
The Christian Science Monitor reported this week that Western nations actually are concerned that if it takes hand in toppling Assad, it will not be backed by the international community. The languishing war between Qaddafi and rebels has made President Obama more vulnerable to criticism from those who have said he has not taken enough action and from those who have said he should not have intervened.
 
Sen. Joe Lieberman said last week that many Middle East leaders see the United States as “hedging its bets” and that President Obama should “do as he did so effectively in the cases of Mubarak and Qaddafi” and declare that “Assad has lost the legitimacy to lead Syria.