Assad was already backed into a corner. He was going to deal. If we’d just left Qadaffy and Assad on the trajectory they were on and had the Obama/Clinton Administration simply signed the SFA that had already been negotiated (we held every military and air base in Iraq) there’d be none of this mess.
The guy who did that would have earned the Noble Peace Prize. Note bene: earned.
IMO, Islam and individual liberty are mutually exclusive.
Thus, an Islamic nation will either be ruled by a tyrannical theocracy or a secular dictator, who is willing to suppress the theocrats.
The secular dictators have proven to be the lesser evil for non-Islamic minorities, women, and our national interests.
Going forward, I think punitive warfare is how we should manage Muslims. Inflict enough pain on them, so that they modify their offending behavior, and let it go at that.
In the case of Iraq, we were already there, and a SFA that would have allowed a transition to a stable non-Islamic authoritarian leadership is what we should have done.