Human rights more than anything else; Assad's response to the Arab Spring was a pretty ugly one, especially by the standards of people who weren't overthrown. (

Human rights more than anything else; Assad's response to the Arab Spring was a pretty ugly one, especially by the standards of people who weren't overthrown. (The other issue is that Russia really likes that naval base. Wouldn't it have saved time to just give them the city and get them to stop interfering with the rest of this?)