I'm going to give the nutshell version of the Jerusalem Post's "Road to the White House" blog's redacting of some of the presidential candidates' responses to the question, "Which Assad do you believe? The one who threatens war or the one who says he wants to make peace?"

The candidates all gave responses which alluded to their future plans on how to deal with Syria's Hezbollah links, and with Syrian President Assad in general.

First, the Democrats:
Obama: "I would engage Syria in direct bilateral talks."
Clinton: "I have long argued that diplomatic discussions with Syria can aid our efforts..."
Edwards: "We must reengage Damascus today with tough diplomacy..."
Biden: "There could be real benefits to hard-headed diplomacy..."

McCain on the other hand does not use the word "diplomacy" (or any variant thereof) in his statement. He said "the US and the international community must face Syria from a position of strength". McCain being a known warmonger hell-bent on not bringing American troops home, I can only hope that he doesn't mean "position of strength" as being the military opposite of "diplomacy."

McCain said that Hezbollah must be disarmed "one way or another" - I fear that his "or another" means deploying more American troops or American weaponry.

Then again, maybe America does need McCain -- how else are we supposed to spend a whole $2 trillion on Iraq by 2016?