... the political realist in me heartily agrees; I couldn't have said it better.

Embracing Assad Is a Better Strategy for the U.S. Than Supporting the Least Bad Jihadis
Assad is not going to be overthrown in the foreseeable future. He is hardly an ideal ruler, but he is rational, has run a longtime functioning state and is supported by many in Syria who rightly fear what new leader or domestic anarchy might come after his fall. He has not represented a genuinely key threat to the U.S. in the Middle East -- despite neocon rhetoric. The time has now come to bite the bullet, admit failure, and to permit -- if not assist -- Assad in quickly winding down the civil war in Syria and expelling the jihadis. We cannot both hate Assad and hate those jihadis (like ISIS) who also hate Assad. We fight, crudely put, with al-Qaeda in Syria and against al-Qaeda in Iraq. But restoration of order in Syria is essential to the restoration of order in the Iraqi, Lebanese, Israeli and Jordanian borderlands. Permitting Assad to remain in power will also restore a Syria that historically never has acted as a truly "sectarian" or religious state in its behavior in the Middle East -- until attacked by Saudi Arabia for its supposed Shi'ism.