“Who are the rebels anyway? ISIS? Al Nusra? How about that old favorite Al Quaeda?”
Probably all of them. The Neocons here think that some Islamic Thomas Jefferson will arise from the ashes if we just get rid of Assad. Just as they thought in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Iran (decades ago).
I hate to break it to the Neocons, but there are no Thomas Jeffersons in the Middle East (other than in Israel), and you’re only going to get more BLOODBATHS and ETHNIC CLEANSING by taking out the remaining leaders.
What we would get if Assad was removed would be a horror show of Sunni majority slaughtering Alawite and Christian minorities in the most hideous fashion as we have seen Isis beheading children, crucifying children burning people in cages etc. etc. This is far worse hands on cruelty.
If Assad fell, the cameras would quickly leave Syria so that American audiences would not see the atrocities that would follow. Just as the cameras left South Africa after apartheid ended. Now thousands of white farmers and their families have ben tortured to death in their homes and South Africa’s infrastructure and economy it falling apart as crime rises. But where is the Western media when you need them?