The issue now is not whether Assad has committed crimes or not, that is for Syrians to decide on imho. The problem is that any criticism of foreign regime change operations (mainly led by US gov, hypocritically in the name of democracy, spending way too much money (look up US military budget) are countered with the accusation of being pro Assad. I, for one, am anti foreign regime change and have way too many things to say about Assad. There isn&#x27;t that much defense that could be said for proposing that IS is nothing but an intelligence operation that got out of hand, read Operation Cyclone.