The people who are arguing to keep Assad in power ignore the fact that the war is never going to end and Syria will remain a lawless wasteland as long as he stays in power. The Syrian people have already proven this especially by submitting to extremist groups like ISIS and Nusra. Assad remains in power only because of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah who have completely exacerbated the conflict for their own geopolitical purposes (Syria is necessary for Iran to pressure Israel, Russia wants its warm water port).
To give any sort of political solution in which we give into them and allow Assad to stay completely destroys any American credibility in the Middle East. I can think of a hundred good reasons to have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia and a lot of the other repressive Arab states but losing their trust because of Assad would cause the loss of America influence in the Middle East for generations.
The current strategy is the only plausible option: keep ISIS from expanding and consolidating territory, support credible rebel forces as much as possible, and wait for Russia and Iran to inevitably pull out, as they cannot project the force necessary to allow Assad to completely win the war.
My biggest concern is protecting the minority religions in Syria (and Iraq for that matter) from extermination. I worry that the Syrian Sunnis have radicalized to the point where there are no credible alternatives to Assad (or again, my suggestion, a non-psychotic member of the Assad government).
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