Stunner: Syria Drops Bid to Join UN Human Rights Council

I guess the image of murdering your own citizens in public while pretending to care about human rights isn't going over well. What Bashar Assad needs to do is become a little more versed with a teleprompter, talk hopeychangey stuff and lay off the crushing of dissent for a little while. Next thing you know he'll be running the human rights show at the UN and, who knows, there could be a Nobel Peace Prize in his future.

Syria dropped its bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council Tuesday following pressure from UN members. As Syria’s crackdown on anti-government protests continues, France's UN ambassador said it was "really not the time" for Syrian membership.

Whose time is it? North Korea, perhaps?

Several U.N. diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Kuwait had confirmed to Western officials that it planned to declare its candidacy for a spot on the 47-nation Human Rights Council in the Asian category.

They said Syria planned to trade candidacies with Kuwait, which was slated to run for the rights council in 2013, and drop out of the 2011 race for one of the four spots available to Asian countries. Other Asian candidates running this year are India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Ah yes, Kuwait, the longtime home of liberal democracy or something.

Here's the understatement of the year:

"It is not really the time for Syria to become a member of the council of human rights," French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters on Monday.

Like I said, pay a little lip service toward "freedom" and "transparency" and there's a spot waiting for you, Bashie.

Of course this council is a complete joke, something the grown-ups in Washington used to recognize.

The United States under former President George W. Bush had shunned the rights council, considering it a tool of anti-Israeli forces at the United Nations.

President Barack Obama reversed that policy two years ago, saying the United States could improve the rights council from within. The United States ran for and secured a seat.

Had Syria won a seat on the council, it would have followed other states accused of human rights abuses by rights watchdog groups including China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Yes, that really worked out. Another win for Obama!

Muammar Gaddafi's Libya is a member of the rights council, but the General Assembly suspended its membership rights in response to its violent crackdown this year against anti-government demonstrators that sparked a civil war.