Wooing Syria Is Tougher Than Pelosi Thinks

The Wall Street Journal puts Nancy Pelosi's high profile visit to Damascus in perspective in a piece outlining the vexing complexity of relations between Syria and the U.S. A number of Pentagon and State Dept. counterterrorism officials support the  congressional effort  to moderate the President's hard line on Syria, in order to break its alliance with Iran.

But back-channel efforts to split Syria and Iran have met with little success, and  wooing President Bashar Assad into the U.S. camp may prove futile, experts say.
Some U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan have been trying to do the opposite in recent months -- courting Iran to draw it away from Syria.