Yes.
Basically, this leaves the west in a terrible dilemma because they are supporting regime change, but they're unwilling to destroy the Assad military, and they have a lot of resistance to it. America has spent $2 billion on Syria, which is about the equivalent of three days' spending in Iraq at the height of the Iraq war. We spent that over three years.
It's quite clear that this administration is not going to bring down Assad. Therefore, to ask for regime change is a recipe for getting nothing done. It's walking away from the problem because America doesn't care about Syria very much. That's the bottom line here, I think. This war is going to grind on because there are very powerful backers of Assad, and he's got the big military, but there are tons of Sunni Arabs who don't like him and they have the support of Saudi Arabia and many other Sunni regimes throughout the Middle East.
I see a recipe for a very long, grinding, sectarian battle.
Thank you.