@Atlantis
The point is that a violent overthrow of a regime usually makes things worse and not better.
Things have to get worse for it to get better later on.
No one said it's pleasant building from scratch.
And "peaceful" reforms don't work, they never do, because those in power are still in power, and they'll still project their authority with force.
That the regime change will lead to an improvement in the long term is pure speculation and cannot be proven. Even if there is an improvement in future decades, it'll probably be due to other causes.
It's a gamble worth taking.
As said before, in regards to the people of the middle east, there isn't really much left to be lost.
The current situation is one of endless oppression, starvation, humiliation, suffering, and torment, with any descent being severely punished.
There is not one country where the Arab Spring has led to an improvement. Even in Tunisia, which holds on by a straw to a fragile democracy, the economic situation has deteriorated. And don't tell me that you are prepared to take economic suffering to achieve abstract values of human rights or democracy, because virtually every protest movement is motivated by economic hardship. The Arab Spring in Tunisia, the current protests in Iraq and Lebanon, the Yellow Vests in France, the violent protests in Chile, ..., they are all motivated by economic grievances.
As they say, better suffer some deprivation now for a better future than to suffer a future of deprivation.
And, plus, the diasporas are all wanting to come back, the only problem is the powers that be are preventing that.
There is no scenario in which a regime change in Syria would be an improvement, no matter how bad Assad's police state was in the past.
Actually no, I would disagree; The revolution had failed, but there will be another revolution, and another, and another until it succeeds.
And if you think that the Assad fascist regime wasn't worse, you clearly haven't read the history of the Baath party, both wings.
The only difference now is that the massacres are exposed in the open.
A ruler who needs to defend his regime against a violent opposition has to use violent means to defend his regime.
And the same applies in reverse, if a ruler took control through violence, and enforced its rule through violence, then the opposition has to use violent means to overthrow it.
The Baath party in both Syria and Iraq took power using excessive and extreme violence.
If another tribal ruler manages to topple the regime
If the Baath regime fell, then Syria will either adopt a federal system or be partitioned into multiple states, mainly returning to the old borders.
In Europe, there are still a number of monarchies that never had a revolution because the rulers agreed to gradually give up their power to an elected parliament over centuries.
Dude, I've read European history. European democracy rose either through violent revolutions, fear of violent revolutions, or being forced upon a country by wars or outside powers.
All of the infighting in the ME is a thing of the past. It shouldn't happen today, because we won't have a future if we don't fight climate change all together. And don't tell me it doesn't concern you, because the ME will be hit particularly hard by increasing temperature and the shift away from fossil fuels.
The middle east has the same problem as the US does in that regard.
A while ago there were floods in Jordan that killed several people, the reason why it led to that is because of poor infrastructure which there because the king and queen bankrupted the country and were and are unwilling to give up their wealth to actually reform and overhaul the country to face climate change.
It's almost as if they're the obstacle to a solution, don't you say?
The Syrian war started with uprisings caused by droughts, which the regime was not willing to take measures to counter since it would've required a degree of decentralization and to spend money on it obviously, which means to give up both power and wealth. Again, the regime was not willing to do so. And here we are.
The same goes for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. And the same goes for Iran.
If you are concerned about climate change in the middle east, you'd be against the regimes there since they're the obstacle to any solution.