So while I understand the Syrian's frustration, let's assume the US does the most extreme thing to help them and goes to all-out war to remove Assad. They would probably be able to do that even against the will of the Russians, since those would hardly fight American forces, if we ignore the increased verbal threats that would surely come.<p>So let's assume the US is victorious and Assad gone. And now? A lot of Syrian fractions, deprived of their common enemy, and a lot of them are extremists. I'm sure very few of them would be okay with an international occupying force.<p>What I'm missing in all the news is even a hint that the journalists are willing and/or capable of looking at <i>motives</i>. We are always told about this or that attack, and how many children died - never mentioning that if the table were turned it would just be the children of the other group(s) that would die (but the media could just stop reporting about them, the news articles are way too inconsistent in whom they are reporting about and whom not, that alone is a significant selection bias).<p>I have yet to see any article that tells us (in believable terms and not just superficially) what "Assad" (meaning more than just the one guy) actually wants. I only read that he and Putin are bombing hospitals and children. The German leading magazine and news source "Der Spiegel", where I get most of my daily news, is especially bad. They've had 2-4 such Syria articles on the front page every single day for a while now, without giving any actual (deeper) information or a (thorough) look at the alternatives. And then they wonder about the apathy among the readers? They enable the forum only under every 10th or so of those articles, and each time they do the tone is highly skeptical, not of any one party in the conflict, but about how we are informed and the lack of actually clear and good alternatives.