I would love for someone to explain to me why there is a cheering section for Bashar al-Assad. I understand what Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is. I can read a Wikipedia page. HTS: not great. Got it. But why am I supposed to believe the Syrian Ba'athists are (sorry, were) a fulcrum of peace in west Asia? Someone give me the pitch. Is it really all a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner?

Russian propaganda operatives are active on every social network including HN.

As someone who's been to Syria, I can't place it either. There's no way this is worse that what came before -- especially since the status quo was propped up by Russia. This is at worst neutral and has a full spectrum of better potential outcomes. Sometimes, occasionally, any change is good. This is one of those times.

Do you think someone pointing out how bad the uprising in Libya turned out is in "a cheering section" for Gaddafi?

You do not have to love or even like Assad's regime to be concerned about an organization with past ties to Al-Qaeda and ISIS taking the reins. Some people in here have a lot of faith in their newly claimed moderate stance. I do not think that a group like that changes its colors over night, but we shall see.

No. Assad has a cheering section. I'd like to hear its pitch. If you're just uneasy about what's happening, I'm not asking anything of you. That just makes sense. Boring! I want to hear from the people who think the Ba'athists were a good thing. That's interesting.

Given how it played in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and to a less degree Tunisia, these revolutions have all been more catastrophic than the status quo.

The reason Lybia turned to shit was French and US secret services battling through interposed assassinations and supporting people with army but not popular support.

Us secret services seems to have won (at least Hillary's leaked emails make it seems US services got what they wanted), but since their candidate was really bad,the country split (not saying that what the French did was any better by any mean, but at least their initial candidate,pre assassination, had grassroot support.)

Still, the original Sin was French, so they're the main culprit of what happened in Lybia. Especially since it's possible that the war was started to remove witnesses of illegal campaigns fonds transferred from Gaddafi to Sarkozy, but we only have circumstancial evidence. Mostly because Gaddafi died shortly after being captured alive in the hand of french-supported rebels, his finance minister unluckily drowned himself in Vienna, and one witness retracted himself after a weird assassination attempt.

At best under Assad Syria is stuck in a shitty stasis. Sometimes a risky roll is better than things being stuck at terrible until the end of time - even if it’s “stable” which it clearly wasn’t

Puzzling indeed - it takes all kinds it seems. Having lived in a facist police state it seems these coddled people have no idea.

This is extremely reductive, the asaad regime ( current and previous ) had to go, they've caused immense pain to syrians since the 80s.. The idea that this is some consorted effort by global hegemony to topple them ignores the effort of the rebels themselves, and how much the war in ukraine have costed russia..

> XYZ just had to go

Yes, this worked out so well in the past. You people will definitely never learn. I honestly dread the times when your diplomats turn their gazes on my country.

Have the leaders of your country recently used chemical weapons on women and children, like Assad had? If not you're probably safe.

All of started with protests from Syrian people back in 2011. Assad responded with murder. This then all escalated in the civil war.

There isn't some sort of foreign forced regime change going on here.

Syria became a proxy flexing ground for Russia. We are about to enter negotiations on a major war. We have all kinds of money and rockets moving around the world in deliberate subversive ways.

If true, that reminds me a lot of "Anti-Soviet Warrior puts his Army on the Road"

You can blame other countries all you want, but the reality is that «Syria» is colonialist project that was always bound to fail.

There are very few muslim/arab countries that are also prosperous, successful and peaceful. They all seem to have good ties with the west, as a common factor (amongst others).

"There's no other way to view this."

America supports the (mostly kurdish) SDF, has even ground forces there with them. The SDF is at constant war with the turkish backed opposition.

They are quite secular, too. Socialist or communist even.

But they took part in that they advanced and prevented new Iranian/Iraqui Militias to get into Syria, by taking a important highway. Likely because of hidden deals.

In other words, there are many ways to view this, it is really not a simple conflict as you make it. And I hope some stability will now come, but I don't see how.

I'm not sure there is any particular evidence for America or Israel aiding them.

Also while originally an offshoot of Al Qaeda they do appear to have moderated significantly, working with many different religious and ethnic groups. I'm cautiously optimistic.

The Syrian civil war started before any other country got involved, I think people tend to forget about that. And Assad was pretty much as bad as gets, he went as far as to gas his own population, secular wasn't exactly the first thing which comes to mind to describe him.

Syria’s longest-serving detainee, “Ragheed Al-Tatri,” has been released after 43 years of imprisonment. He was moved through several prisons, ending up in Tartous Central Prison, and was freed with the last group of detainees following the fall of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

People crying crocodile tears for the fall of this dictator and tyrant.