Oil's sold on open markets - what national interest is involved?
Is there an ethical choice between Crips, Bloods, and Mexican Drug Cartels? Same in the ME. Islam will continue pumping out terrorists groups and monsters no matter what groups we stand with... and do it faster than we can throw our treasure and young at them.
I think the only ethical choice is that which brings the least 1) physical death and 2) spiritual death and daily misery and deprivation to the fewest number of people
That would make the Assad regime the ethical choice, with efforts to have him bring reform as a long term goal. Both Bashir Assad and his wife are quite exposed to western life and ideals by education ( him and her) and even by birth ( her)
The conundrum for Assad Jr. is reconciling the need to maintain social order and security without having to resort to vicious military and security service repression against vicious barbarians and foreign interventionists who used terror and murder against secular society in the name of islam ( or as allowed by taqqiya to call their subversion “ democratic reform”)
Too many state actors want Syria destabilized and chaotic no matter the human toll
Time to,admit that, call it, and step away from it as a U.S. policy