Articles I've used as source material for this post come from The Guardian and the BBC

During their joint tour of the USA, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have, as well as perhaps making Ms Rice look like a possible future Republican presidential candidate (another story), piled diplomatic pressure on Syria following the publishing of a UN report into the assassination of the former Lebanese PM, Rafiq Hariri.

The UN's investigation, commissioned by Kofi Annan, heavily implcates senior Syrian intelligence, defence, and governmental officials in the plot, which it says was so complex that it would have required high-level approval and participation by the Syrians, who hav eonly this year withdrawn their occupying forces from Lebanese soil (and are thought by many not to have completely withdrawn their influence and left the Lebanese to go their own way)

For once, it seems that France supports the move toward increased dimplomatic pressure on Syria to play nice, though maybe not for the same reasons; while US and British concerns might primarily be centred on concerns about Syria's support for the Iraqi insurgency, the French seem more motivated by concern for Lebanon.

While the other two permanent members of the UNSC (Russia & China) along with the current chair (Romania, it being their "turn" in the chair) are unlikely to support full sanctions, it is unlikely that Syria will escape censure.

All of which leaves Syria diplomatically very isolated - nobody is fighting their corner, even in the Arab world, where one might expect pan-Arab solidarity to soften attitudes toward them.

Syria is (rightly) on the radar in the "Axis of Evil", and these articles speculate that they might be drifting rapidly toward the kind of international pariah status until recently enjoyed by Libya.

Realistically, how do you think Syria should be treated?

How does this differ, if at all, form how you believe they will be treated?

How do you think Syria will respond to both scenarios?

Possibly the best thing to do (out of a limited number of choices) is to try to make Syria an international pariah in the eyes of the world, and to hope for change from within. There is internal opposition to the dictatorship which has ruled the country for decades.

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With the encouragement of other nations, united opposition to the current regime might have some success.

What will actually happen, I think, is a lot of talk and a lot of investigations. I don't expect formal sanctions (at least not yet) and I don't expect an invasion of Syria by American troops.

In either case, I suspect the Syrian government will be willing to make small concessions, and will engage in a lot of delaying tactics. Will there be a revolution from within Syria? Perhaps. Will such a thing lead to a Western-style republic, or another Islamist state? I suspect the latter.

I think they can be chalked up with a little bit more of a move in that direction as of today. Check out this article from a Bush speech today; expect this to be working its way into future speeches and escalating.

Syria has always been a chief sponsor of terrorism in the region and continues to be today. We should treat them as such and push the UN to do the same.

Beyond their involvement in Lebanon they are obviously heavily involved in allowing terrorists to cross into Iraq and they may very well be the country that received the “missing” WMD from Iraq.

Syria would not respond well to being treated as a pariah but it would surely send them a message that they NEED to receive from the international community