Quote (Skinned @ May 14 2013 01:37pm)
If Assad stays it will be Saddam Hussein redux after the first Gulf War, massive purges. And again the West would be forced to sit and watch while the many men, women, and children would be shot, gassed, stabbed, and thrown into pits to be burned.
Hussein was mentally unstable, even before the Gulf War, during the Iran-Iraq war. Assad on the other hand, his personality is the complete opposite. Before his brother died in a car accident, he was a quiet, shy, unassuming eye doctor in London. He's certainly not mentally unstable, and he'd likely have negotiated to end the Civil War if the opposition didn't want his head on a pike as a concession. If the rebels capitulate, many of them will be tried and imprisoned, but there is little to no chance Assad will say "Well I won this war, but I'm feeling like another one so I'm going to goad Turkey into invading me".