How well do you understand what started the civil war in Syria? Right after Assad took power from his dad, he started arresting political opponents (sound like anyone you know?). A few years later the US imposed sanctions because they were supporting terrorist groups and doing nothing to stop jihadists from entering Iraq to try to kill Americans. For years Assad continued to lock up any political dissidents which caused the general population to rise up in 2011. Internal violence continued with the government military killing anyone who stood up in opposition to draconian government action. Late in 2011 the Arab League followed Obama's lead by imposing sanctions on Syria and suspending them from membership. This is around the time several Syrian military leaders were defecting. Early 2012 saw the rise of the Al-Nusra front (made with influence of Al Qaeda and ISIS) and became the leading opposition force to Assad. During an attempted cease fire, Assad's military carried out massacres and assassinations. Shortly after was when the US tried to help militants (which predictably was of little help). In 2013 Assad began to use chemical weapons on his own people. That's [BLEEP] horrific. I still can see the images of those dead kids caught in the middle if this mess. Rebels strengthened their resolve in response and started making gains (captured Raqqa). At this point there were roughly a million Syrians declared as political refugees. Destabilization of the area allowed ISIS to sweep into Iraq in early 2014 as well as taking Raqqa. Weeks later the US and U.N. started to attack ISIS in Aleppo and Raqqa. Russia used this distraction to seize the Crimean Peninsula. They seemingly joined the party by attacking ISIS targets, but were also intermittently attacking Syrian rebels as well to prop up the guy who is buying all of their military supplies. Assad must not have minded ISIS advancing to take cities in his country as he started buying oil directly from them. You think Syrians want to go back to what it was before? Having anyone who speaks out against the government jailed or killed? What foreign policy would you have employed differently to calm the situation (I have proposed a black ops team and one bullet would have done the trick long before Russia was able to dig in, but that is hardly diplomatic). Instead of making a blanket statement about how awful Obama and Hillary handled things, give me your take on what would have been better.. like Trump is gonna solve an Arab nation's civil war when the Arab League also bounced them from the club. Where is the EU in all this? I don't know... maybe [BLEEP] Europe? This isn't their region. Syria doesn't border any EU nation I am aware of. But they are members of the UN force in the area. Easy to assign blame when you don't have any alternative solution or know what you're talking about.

---