War in Syria? Maybe not.

Quoth our president:

“I’m confident the Syrian government has heard us,” Mr. Bush said. “And I believe it when they say they want to cooperate with us.”

…

“It seems like they’re beginning to get the message,” Mr. Bush said of Syria.

Also two Congressmen, Darrell Issa and Nick Rahall, have met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

But Mr Issa said the Syrian president had given the congressmen a “twofold and absolute” assurance that Syria would not give asylum to any wanted Iraqis and would expel any that entered Syria, the Associated Press reported.

Mr Rahall said Mr Assad told them Syria had a list of wanted Iraqi war criminals not allowed into the country - a list longer than the one compiled by Washington.

“So, there’s no asylum being granted to any war criminals in Syria,” Mr Rahall was quoted as saying.

What worried me before were the very public threats directed at Syria by Bush and Rumsfeld about “consequences” if Syria was harboring Iraqi exiles or had chemical weapons. it looks like they are softening their public rhetoric and communicating more privately with Syrian officials through our congressmen. As Calpundit (who has a great new site) pointed out last week if we actually want Syria’s cooperation we shouldn’t make public accusations about them, we should negotiate with them more privately. We should only make public accusations to convince the American public and the world we need to take action against them. Being optimistic, I think I can write off the earlier bluster to the administration’s ignorance.