Don't you think that if they really wanted Assad out he'd be out by now? Part of that is that they have learned from Iraq. It's sort of funny how they could all come together to fight against a common enemy greater then they were to themselves, ISIS, while doing so commit to solving their differences afterwards to only go back and say sorry but you just like the Palestinians can't have a homeland, a right to be free from our dominate rule. It's crazy really, it could all be solved but they don't want to solve it.

Russia wasn't even in the game until Obama made a deal to exclude nuclear medicine from the list of sanctions if Russia went in and made
sure ISIS wouldn't fight against Assad while he was busy fighting the opposition. The US couldn't be on both sides, that was the only option. What else that is ironic is that after this recent bombing all the threats made by Putin his pay back is to tell Assad he will sell him more military apparatus...what a buddy huh? If you ask me he probably got a call from Trump who told him to look at this as a opportunity to sell more weapons to Assad, Putin agreed and moved his people out of harms way. Funny how that keeps happening.

Putting that all aside though life wouldn't be much better for a lot of the minorities over there even if foreign military wasn't there, every time they'd try and stand up for themselves they'd be traumatized watching their fathers, brothers, uncles and who all else tortured to death for not falling in line with whatever regime in charge expects. This isn't western propaganda selling that line it's middle eastern newspapers. I was a mod on a ME blog site and I made a genuine effort to figure it all out. I got so depressed over all the hate toward each other over there I had to quit. Yes one could say why don't they intervene in countries who brutalize their minority citizens who don't have resources if it was just about protecting people....but it still comes down to protecting people because it's the resources that enable them to buy weaponry that make them stronger to brutalize not just their own but to get brazen enough to brutalize their neighboring country, then another country, and another and it would keep spreading like that if someone didn't intervene. I think a common analogy would be careful what you wish for. I honestly can't give you a answer, from what I've read I don't really think there is one.