Syrian protestors greet US ambassador Robert Ford with roses as his car entered Hama this afternoon during the midst of more Friday protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Ford wished to show his solidarity with the opposition, but is he also signaling a change in American policy?

So far the administration has refrained from demanding Assad step down and counseled only that he open up a dialogue with the opposition, a dialogue that Ford himself has helped broker.The problem is that in contrast to this regime-generated opposition, the real opposition, those Syrians who are risking their lives in the streets of cities like Hama, don’t want dialogue with a ruling class that has killed well more than a thousand Syrian civilians. What the opposition wants, as it chants here, serenading Ford, is to “topple the regime.”