Just when we thought things might be “settling down” somewhat during the so-called “Arab Spring,” came the stunning news that at long last Al Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden had finally been brought to swift justice at the hands of brave U.S. Navy Seals (See Editorial, Page 8).

This was just after the news that a NATO air strike hit Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s compound, missing him but killing his youngest son and three of his grandchildren. While Qaddafi’s youngest son and three grandchildren did not deserve to die for his sins, it is Qaddafi who has their blood on his hands, along with the blood of the over 200 victims of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 101 over Lockerbie, Scotland and the American soldiers he killed at a Berlin disco.

Almost overlooked during these new developments is the ongoing horror of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s so-called “crackdown” on protesters in his own nation. Organized mass slaughter is a more apt description of what Assad is perpetrating in Syria since the peaceful protests began in various Syrian cities, including the capital city of Damascus. Assad became Syrian President when his father Hafez Assad died in 2000.

Back in 1982, when the elder Assad ruled Syria with a totalitarian iron fist, there was an anti-regime uprising in the Syrian city of Hama. Assad’s brother, at the time Defense Minister of Syria, led a massacre that claimed the lives of as many as 20,000 men, women and children, according to Amnesty International and many news sources.

Sadly the so-called “international community” over the years has chosen to look the other way when such atrocities as the Hama mass murder have taken place. We were told Hafez Assad was a brutal dictator, but he is a “force for stability” in the Middle East. He was described as being the kind of “strongman” who could deliver a solid peace agreement with Israel. And yet the elder Assad spurned countless attempts to enter into serious talks with Israel over the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six- Day War.

For 19 years, Syrian troops fired from the peaks of the Golan Heights to kill innocent women and children living in kibbutzim at their base. The late Warren Christopher, as President Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of State, made no fewer than 27 visits to Damascus, pleading with the elder Assad to make peace with Israel-but to no avail.

When the elder Assad died in 2000, we were assured by apologists for the Syrian dictatorship that the young Bashar Assad would be much different. After all, he was an ophthalmologist who was educated at a London medical school, where many of his classmates were both American and Jewish. Bashar Assad was Internet savvy, we were told, spoke good English and had an “elegant, educated British wife.” All of this wishful thinking turned out to be balderdash, as our British friends might say. Bashar Assad has proved to be just as ruthless and merciless as his totalitarian father. Syria and its terrorist client Hezbollah are believed responsible for the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harriri. Formal indictment has been held up as a political pawn at the United Nations by supporters of the Syrian regime.

To date at least 400 peaceful unarmed protesters have been mowed down in the streets by Assad’s multi-layered security forces, aided by Iranian goon squads imported from Tehran. Bashar Assad, a member of a tiny minority, the Alawites, an offshoot to Shia Islam, is closely allied with the brutal, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish regime in Iran. Syria and Iran have financed and sponsored Hezbollah, the Shia Muslim faction listed as a terrorist organization by our State Department, and which launched medium-range rockets into Israel back in 2006, setting off a major conflict. Reportedly Syria and Iran have supplied Hezbollah with 40,000 long-range rockets, which can hit any city in Israel.

Most recently, Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal with the approval of the post-Mubarak military government in Egypt. Those ships docked in Damascus. Ominously, Egypt has warmed up to Iran and has cooled towards its peace treaty with Israel along with brokering a deal between Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council met last weekend and failed to come up with any kind of resolution condemning Syria for its brutal “crackdown” on innocent protesters. But just let Israel approve construction of a few new housing units and then the U.N. Security Council will spring back to life.

Yes, it is a moment to savor now that Osama bin Laden has been brought to justice in a bold move by President Barack Obama. And yes, it is appropriate that NATO has stepped up the military and political pressure on Qaddafi. But it is past time for the United States and its allies to get serious about Syria. The brutal regime of Bashar Assad must be condemned for its crimes against humanity and its leaders formally branded as the war criminals they are. Justice was done in Pakistan when Navy Seals took down bin Laden. Now it is time to isolate Syria as the first step towards the removal of the brutal Assad dynasty from power once and for all.

Robert A. Cohn is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the St. Louis Jewish Light.