The U.S. president Friday called for the release of a number of Syrian human rights activists who took part on Dec. 9 in a courageous public protest against the regime's domestic policies and who were among the signatories of the Damascus Declaration demanding radical change.

Bush's strictures do not appear to have alarmed Syrian President Bashar Assad. He responded by arresting more dissidents and public critics of the regime, including Fidaa Horani, the head of the Damascus Declaration group, veteran dissident Akram Bunni, author Ali Abdullah, and others.

Syria today rests secure on the continued military support and growing financial clout of Iran. It is receiving more, and better, Russian weapons systems -- especially the Iskander tactical missile -- than at any time since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Its ally Hezbollah remains strong, confident, and defiant of Israel. Its other ally, Hamas, retains its hold on Gaza and is growing influence by the day on the West Bank. Further, as many predicted, the much touted Annapolis conference achieved nothing -- so far -- except to humiliate Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, dealing a further blow to waning Israeli and U.S. clout in the region.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Assad, a man whom U.S. policymakers and pundits have consistently underestimated and misread since he took power more than seven years ago, feels more emboldened than ever to defy the United States.

Therefore, far from encouraging or strengthening the pro-democracy movement in Syria, Bush's comments Friday appear only to have led to a further tightening of the screws against it.

Bush, of course, has only himself to blame. U.S. intelligence officials have quietly confirmed that in the year following the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, intelligence provided by Syria was of the greatest value in the drive against al-Qaida. But the Bush administration, then firmly in the grip of the neo-conservatives, spurned any appreciation for, or accommodation of, the cooperation they were receiving from an alarmed Damascus.

Today, of course, the pendulum has swung in the other direction: More than 160,000 U.S. troops remain bogged in Iraq, the U.S. intelligence community is tying itself up in very public and humiliating knots as it plays Hamlet debating whether Iran has, or has not nuclear weapons. Meanwhile U.S. leverage against Syria is close to zero.

Theodore Roosevelt famously extolled the virtues of talking softly and carrying a big stick. In Bush's case it's the reverse which seems to apply; the smaller the stick gets, the louder the shouting. But is anyone listening?