Baby Assad = Daddy Assad = Mass Murderer

The Syrian President appears to have taken his cue from close ally Iran. While not an Arab country, Iran was the first of the convulsions in the Middle East.

Tehran used all the force it could muster to crush its uprising three years ago. The Ayatollahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did it brutally and efficiently.

Since then, across the Muslim world, other countries have been transformed by revolt.

Tunisia's uprising caught dictator Zine Ben-Ali by surprise, while the US forced Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt, and in Libya, NATO bombing was decisive.

But in Syria, Assad has had no real international pressure.

All he has is Iran's counsel, which is encouraging him to unleash the greatest possible force.

Hundreds of witness reports say the same thing: Assad's soldiers are indiscriminate in their killing.

Assad's father, Hafez, was also a mass murderer, slaughtering up to 20,000 people in Hama in 1982.

At that time, soldiers encircled the city and simply pounded it. Hafez al-Assad decreed that the Muslim Brotherhood was a terrorist group, so the killing of anyone in the city was justified.

Like father, like son. Bashar al-Assad's troops are also surrounding cities, bombarding them and moving on.

The death toll is hard to measure. The UN reached the point where it stopped counting but now guesses it to be 7500. Refugees and others along the Turkey-Syria border say it could top 10,000.

The UN also estimates that 200,000 Syrians are refugees inside their own country.

When the media is finally able to get back into the country, we are likely to find evidence of massacres and mass graves.

And Assad is likely to keep his grim title as the worst killer of the Arab Spring.