Assad is a secular Muslim dictator. The people wanting to overthrow him are Islamists that hate Christians. As bad as Saddam was, Iraq had a large population of Christians that lived safely there until we got rid of him and gave them democracy, which in that part of the world means Islamists who, while fighting and killing each other’s factions, together hate and kill Christians.
This isn’t about overthrowing him. The administration has said it does not want him out now. It would like to see him leave later, voluntarily, after the Syria is not an active war zone.
I think things will be more clear in the near future. Trump is not interested in continuing military operations in Syria. He’s hoping Assad will stop with the chems. They can blow around BTW, and we have 1,200 troops there.