is Assad better or worse than what would follow?
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/09/07/7-sep-16-world-view-2013-history-syrias-bashar-al-assad-created-isis/
You’ve got the right question from the Israeli standpoint.
The alternative to Assad is likely to be worse, but that doesn’t mean the Israelis want a stronger Assad. Keeping enemies divided is a traditional strategy.
Israel has chosen to address immediate threats immediately, leaving the future to the future.
ISIS hasn’t done much damage to Israel, so there’s no reason to antagonize the bigger powers that back ISIS one way or another.
I think the original plan was to install jihadists with Saudi and Qatari ties, perhaps a Muslim Brotherhood-Mohammad Morsi-Erodgan Turkish Islamist type government.
Assad is aligned with the Shiites of Iran, not the Sunnis so to speak.
Israel would win because Iran would not have a Syrian platform for launching its weapons against Israel now and in the future.
The Saudis-Qataris don’t want a war with Israel but they would like to see a “two-state solution” on the Palestinian matter.
If Israel and the Israel Lobby plus the Neocon supporters of Israel are indeed, in collusion with the Gulf Arabs in the “Arab Spring” designed to hurt Iran by isolating it and taking out allies, what is expected of Israel at the end of the road? (”Arab Spring” was bookended by the 2009 street revolt in Iran and the 2014 street revolt in Ukraine).
Is the end game a Palestinian Peace Accord with Jews being forced out by the thousands from their homes in Judaea and Samaria to accommodate the creation of Palestine alongside Israel.
Assad is better than what would follow