Oh come on, if we could live with Saddam and all those ruthless South American dictators we can live with Assad. The old dictum had it, “He might be a bastard but he’s our bastard.” Now of course he’s Putin’s bastard thanks to short-sighted American and European policies.
The West did their utmost to turn Syria into another Libya, their last triumph of foreign policy. But Assad wasn’t Gaddafi, despite all the jibes and sneers of a few years back that he was finished and on the way out. He wasn’t because irrespective of the posts above he did have the support of a substantial number of Syrians and there is no way he could have survived without it. I repeat, Hizbollah, Iran and Russia were not directly involved in the early years and although there were desertions in the Syrian Army enough of them were left to keep him hanging on.
Let’s face it, the West totally failed in Syria and the whole Middle East learned a valuable lesson. If you want a reliable ally choose Putin rather than Obama or his successors.