Assad is known to be the big loser in this. Iran bosses him and uses the Alawites as cannon fodder to fight Israel, while Russia is going to be there permanently to tell him what to do,
Considering that his ultimate aim is to survive and maintain his rule in Syria, he is very much the winner. Assad before the Arab spring was potentially a workable partner for the west, if not exactly an ally, however, if the west was going to go the way of ‘Assad must go’ they needed to follow through on that rhetoric, instead of being half assad (couldn’t resist) about it and allowing him to stay in place. America and the west need to decide whether they are interventionist or not, if we are going to intefere and intervene, do it properly or not at all instead of doing just enough to fk things up and then leave a power vacuum to be filled by enemies of the west.