those of us with memories better than those of your average gerbil will recall that the reason we're in this mess in the first place is that the saudis were trying to stop the syrians from moving to a constitutional republic.

what the media refers to as a "civil war" in syria has always been a foreign backed invasion to stop the country from moving towards democracy. i have to repeat this point when i make it: what the americans have been doing in syria is not spreading democracy, but rather helping the saudis to stamp it out before it spreads.

i don't know how the americans walk this back, in the end. they're still talking about assad as a dictator, even while he's openly planning a democratic transition. i suppose they'll probably claim the elections are rigged.

so, when you hear talk of these opposition groups demanding that the constitution be altered as a pre-condition, you have to put it in context. syria just fought a brutal war to save a constitution that was passed less than ten years ago.

all of these people can't have died for nothing.

https://en.unesco.org/creativity/policy-monitoring-platform/syrias-new-constitution