Which faction do you want to win the Syrian Civil War?

[KharmaTrain]

9. Which Side??

...there's a lot of different factions fighting against Assad and one another. This isn't some neat little good guy/bad guy here for a myriad of reasons; most important is that the U.S. has had little real contact with the Syrian government and especially their people. The government is headed by the Alawhite tribe that has dominated the other groups for decades and its their inability to unite that has prolonged the bloodshed. You also have Hezbollah that has a lot to lose if Assad goes down...Syria is their conduit to Lebanon and their bases to attack Israel. There's other factions as well that represents various cities...it's a mess that Assad both created by his repression and now can't control so he's resorted to his stockpile of chemical weapons.

The risk of a U.S. strike here is that it does weaken Assad enough for his regime to be toppled but that opens up a large power vacuum in the country that could accelerate the violence. From all I've read, our options of support here are far from democratic-minded groups...and a truly civil war between groups that have a long history of hatred among one another...