Why US?
Syria doesn't have much oil or we would be in there already.
Assad was a dictator I had a Syrian friend who described the situation there to me. He was brutal to political opposition, and the "normal" folks got along OK. However, if he or his relatives or henchmen wanted your business, they "bought" it for whatever they felt like paying. Sort of like the Mafia. There are worse regimes, though, with which we have no quarrel and even support.

We can't believe the reports about who is using what any more than we could believe the stuff about Iraq before the war. The public is spoon-fed whatever the powers that be want. I don't believe the al Qaeda stuff any more than I believed it about Iraq. I'd be curious to know exactly who is funding the revolution and why. We won't know that for years. You can bet Saudi Arabia is in it up to their ankles - they stand tall in the area. They were the biggest funders of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets. Despite what we read, they gave the resistance far more than America.

Civil wars are brutal, however. Look at the American Civil war. Reading between the lines of the sanitized versions of history we are given we can get an idea. Think "Andersonville".

Frankly, I don't think it's of any American concern. We do not have any moral standing, we gave up whatever high road we had during the Bush II administration, we really don't care about dictators or repression despite our self-image, there are no large economic interests and so the drums of war beat out the only message left - political. Our political enemies will gain if we don't do "something". I'm not sure I believe that, and if I did all we learned from Iraq is that we do a lousy job of nation-building. There isn't one American life that was worth what happened in Iraq.

Nope, I think we should leave Syria to the Syrians, it's none of our business. One American dollar spent there is another American dollar wasted, and one American life is untold grief for some family for absolutely no reason.