Three times during the vice presidential debate, Paul Ryan accused the Obama administration of being soft on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The administration, Ryan said, "called Bashar Assad a reformer when he was turning his Russian-provided guns on his own people." He repeated the claim twice more in the 90-minute debate. We decided to take a closer look. First, some background. Assad’s family has maintained a tight grip on power in Syria for decades. As the Arab spring rippled across the region in early 2011, Syria began to experience ...