I agree with much of that assessment. I do not agree with the capital-O in OUG's rhetorical question.

It is true that Hafez al-Assad was a socialist who was trained by the USSR air force. However, there are many interpretations of Marx and for al-Assad (as for some of the Russians in 1917), one theory was that Syria needed to evolve out of feudalism and into capitalism before it could become socialist.

Hafez al-Assad liberalized trade and commerce in Syria, opening up investment. That - and his Alawite religion - made him an enemy to the Muslim Brotherhood.

His older son was supposed to become president, but he was killed in a car crash - his own fault, apparently, not an assassination. So, Dr. Bashar al-Assad left his practice in London where he was an ophthamologic surgeon at a children's hospital.

Supposedly, the US State Department was seeking pro-western parties in the Middle East. Oddly enough, for all of its relationship with the old USSR and then Russia, Syria actually was that: a modernizing secular state.

What is happening now is largely none of our business, even if much of it is a consequence of our meddling in the first place.

Putin is friends with Assad so he can have a base in the middle east. Putin's next move could be to invade Turkey so that Putin can have control of the mediterranean and the black sea

In a nutshell, Misery enjoys company!
Sure Putin has good reasons to remain on the good side of Assad and Syria but when Assad falls there will be another dictator in his place willing to side with the other outcasts in this world. The entire middle east is overloaded with tyrannical leadership from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt and many of the north African countries. All are to one degree or another outcasts and anti western civilization. Similar conditions exist in China and North Korea and a few other Asian countries. They have to band together to remain against the US and other allied countries.

Putin is playing for big stakes. He supports Assad to get a naval base in the Eastern Med and an Airbase in the heart of the fly lines between Israel, Jordan Turkey and Iraq. This solves the Black Sea fleet problem and supports Crimea. He fights in Ukraine for a land connection to Crimea. When you look at a map you can see how the Baltics, Ukraine, and Syria enable Russia to become a military force for controlling the politics in these areas.
Putin gets in Syria what we get by our troops in Lithuania and So. Korea... political power.
Israel's air force is neutralized by the Russian Base.
This is real strategy and Trump and most of US are naïve about the game. The US should take out the Syrian Air Force and topple Assad.

This is somewhat off topic but I've been bugged by it ever since I heard it. Since I have more projects going than I have room for during the day perhaps someone can enlighten me as to the veracity of the following: Assad sent missiles to a warehouse being held by ISIS which unknown to him contained stored Sarin gass which when exploded drifted to a nearby village. True or False?