Syria is a perfect way to do so
Syria was the staging ground for Al Qaeda and Saddam era dead enders waging the insurgency in Iraq with the full support of Assad
Bush was training Syrian dissidents in Jordan to take out Assad
When Bush won in Iraq, the al Qaeda insurgents retreated to Syria and decided that if they could not have Iraq then they would settle for Syria
At the same time, the Oil States decided they would like to oust Assad to put in a pipeline so they saw the dead Enders and terrorists as the perfect tools to form a mercenary proxy army to oust Assad and install a Muslim Brotherhood government in Syria
Obama co opted the Bush era anti Assad infrastructure and training programs and twisted them to his purpose as part of his disastrous Arab Spring plan to oust the stable secular Arab old guard leadership and support terrorists instead of fighting them. After all, one mans terrorist is another’s freedom fighter and there is not a lot of ways to background check mercenaries in the region.
If this is the case, then the biggest question in my mind is why there was ever a "Bush era anti Assad infrastructure" in the first place?