Considering I can literally see Syria from my house (OK, from a hill on the edge of the farm), I suppose I should care more than I do.
Syria is a very complicated place.
You have the Kurds, who are generally OK, but really are only OK because they don’t have the upper hand. They have a terrorist group, the PKK, that are just as bad as anything there. They have legitimate beefs with Assad, ISIS, and Turkey, that span across three countries (Syria, Iraq, and Turkey). And some illegitimate beefs and dreams of a Kurdistan spanning Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.
You have Assad, the evil optometrist, who is a (kind of) Baathist, which is a sorta-fascist party that had its ideological and structural origins from literal German Nazis in Syria and really got going in the 1960s.
You have Hezbollah, which is really nothing more than an Iranian proxy, and complete assholes to everyone.
You have the Christians, who are not like Christians in the USA, but more like Christians in Germany, circa 1943. They are allied with Assad, which is bad, but probably out of necessity, all they can do. They are also the chief victims of ISIS.
You have the Druze, who can be some of the finest people you met, but also the worst. They seem to be extremely loyal to whatever government is in power. The Druze in Israel, for example, are some of the most Zionist, most Israeli, people I know. For example, one Israeli Druze I know liked to go to Germany and beat up Arabs in bars, just on general principle that he didn’t like people who talked trash about his country. Big tough dude, too. He’s also prone to yelling at Jews in the Diaspora, telling them they should go live in, and defend, their homeland.
There are several more significant groups I am leaving out because I don’t feel like typing a 12 page dissertation. Extreme summary is: they are all a mixed bag of assholes and victims, too.
I personally can’t think of any of them as “good guys”, in that every group is equally willing to kill women and children and, if in power, would be complete dicks to those not in power.
The only one I can say I legitimately want to get exterminated is Hezbollah because they are generally foreigners to Syria that have no business there except to cause trouble.
Any way, from a personal, Israeli, standpoint, I’d love about 10 divisions of the US Army, a couple Marine divisions, with about the same number of the US Airforce personnel stationed somewhere in the Israeli Negev providing air support. All with extreme, Soviet-style rules-of-engagement that killed anyone who so much as thought about being an asshole.
From a practical standpoint, I totally get why no American parent would want their child there. It’s an absolute quagmire, with little to gain, other than protection of me and mine.
Well, we Israelis are big boys (and girls). The safest place in Syria is the 100 mile or so zone in range of the absolute shit ton of very modern artillery we have placed on the high ground. Nobody acts up there (much).
Give us intelligence help (especially spy planes and satellites). Tell us what to blow up, and we will do it.
In sum, I really would love the USA to go in heavy, but it’s not your fight. So I get why you don’t. No other country would even entertain the idea.
With your help, we can keep the lid on it.
