“MANY OF THE members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.” Thus did Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton respond to a question on Sunday about Bashar al-Assad, the latest Arab dictator to respond with fusillades to calls by his people for democratic change. At the time she spoke, more than 60 Syrians had already been massacred by Mr. Assad’s security forces; others have since fallen.