You could reroot the pipeline through israel? or egypt?

The syrian crisis was a sunni -shia powerblock escalation. The problem i have is that we - the west side with the wrong faction here. Assad had many minorities somehow getting along, no sunni country has that. Iran is quite inventive - even if the relgious fanatics try to come down on that. Western money flows through saudi arabia an finances wahabit missionarys everywhere.

Are we really assisting the good guys here?

Do you think hacker news is the good place to find the answer to such a question? This is the place where you ask about Javascript libraries and Go vs. Rust comparisons, not geopolitical advice. That's why I tend to dismiss any comment in this thread that's not properly sourced.

You are propably right. But sometimes such discussion can meta-stasize into intersting ones.

For example- what is the definition of a good guy? Is a good guy something stable, reliable, someone behaving reproducable?

Is a good guy somebody who gives you a short term reward, and costs you dearly in the long run? Or can a good guy be someone who costs you short term, but becomes a long term positiv force. What if somebody is hostile, but stabilizes out of self-interest a otherwise negative are in the world.

Its all very complicated, and the dynamics playing into it, can be horrifying for anyone idealistic.