Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[TheCurmudgeon]

I don't think any of the three feel they are in a corner. The almost universal consensus is that Asad is going down.

Perhaps among the Western powers. I don't think that is as inevitable as they would like to believe.

Sure, policymakers wish it would happen faster, worry about spillover and blowback (arms, radical jihadists), and worry about CW stockpiles. Generally, however, I think the view is that this will prove to be a gain in the end, and produce a Syria that will (eventually) be more friendly to the West and more responsive to its population than the Ba'thist dictatorship was.

I am not so confident that the result will be a better Syria, or even a better Middle East. Anyone interested in getting involved here is doing it based on their own interests not those of the Syrians (us included). Assad may have been a dictator but he kept a lid on things. I am not positive that letting those existing hatreds fed by outside interests is a better path.