He kept terrorists in check?
really?
Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad openly run offices in Damscus.
When wanted terrorist Imad Mugniyeh, the militant leader of the terror group Hezbollah and the guy responsible for blowing up a couple hundred US Marines, torturing the CIA chief Buckley and a US Colonel to death, the brutal killing of Navy diver Robert Stetham on board a hijacked airliner, and more recently involved in terror attacks in our hemisphere - was finally killed in 2008 in a car bomb, it was in Syria, shortly after one of his numerous meetings with Syrian officials.
Since when are terrorists “kept in check” by treating them as contractors?
You have more details than I, and I don’t deny he’s still a moslem, which by pure definition is anti-western society and anti-Christian, with barbarianism in his blood. However, he has kept an overall stability in his country, which has allowed Christians to live in “peace”.
Syria has been a hindrance to the pipeline that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the US have wanted for decades. I believe that has a lot to do with his overthrow, as well.