Cog wrote:The roots of the war in Syria go back to a minority Shia Alawite ruling class run by Assad dominating and oppressing the Sunni majority population. That is the spark that got things going during the Arab Spring.
But military support for the fighters came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who wanted to build a natural gas pipeline across Syria to supply Europe and cut out the Russians. Since Obama wanted to take a poke at Russia and side with the Kingdom, our CIA was given the task to insert our big nose into this mess. So here we are.
Don't forget Assad and his father before him were clients of the USSR and its successor Russia for many decades. The relationship has been mutually beneficial from their point of view, the economic benefits to the USSR/Russia of having a naval port in the Mediterranean so that their forces in the Black Sea can not be cut off totally without severe consequences for Turkey is one side, and the income for Syria along with military equipment, training and other support for the Assad regime(s) make it a natural alliance.
When the Arab Spring started in Tunisia Secretary Clinton got the wild idea that the USA should overturn all the Arab Dictatorships on the Mediterranean Coast. The EU gleefully went along with deposing Quadaffi because they wanted better deals on Libyan Oil and they convinced themselves that they could get a great deal from whomever they supported to take over the country in his place. Unfortunately Libya is not a naturally unified country, there are three major and many minor groups who pretty much despise one another much the same as it was in Yugoslavia in the 1990's. As a result instead of getting a unified friendly cheap oil source like they wanted they got a civil strife polyglot mess where oil exports have still not recovered or even approached a stable high production rate. When prices on the world market fell 25 percent in late 4th quarter 2014 and stabilized there in 1st quarter 2015 they pretty much washed their hands of Libya and have left it a festering cesspool ever since.
Along around the Arab Spring 'rebels' were encouraged in Syria like you stated, which under the UN charter is actually an act of war. Then for whatever reason the USA decided to get all excited and start proclaiming Assad must go. Funny story, the President who proclaimed that and the red Line and many other things about Syria is leaving office in 6 days, Assad on the other hand is quite secure barring an assassination, and with the aid of Russia is now rapidly pacifying the portions of his country in rebellion.