as i recall , FSA have always wanted an election controlled by them that assad won't be a candidate and always said Assad must go. it was assad who offered an election
Look, let's be honest shall we... Will you let a Dictator and a Dictatorship control elections?
I mean, let's be realistic here...
ASSad and his father had Soviet like Numbers... 99%... I mean, come on...
Syrians protested against a corrupt regime/Dictatorship for a reason... to make it a bit more Democratic... and more accountable to their actions... And Not just protesting/dying and at the end of the day giving the control to the next election to a Dictatorship...
Ppl think that in the early days of the revo... they were only Sunnis... Come on... Latakia/Tartus/Damascus/Suweida and co aren't Sunni... They are Shia areas... and they protested too...
But That Dictator played the sectarian card later on, when Ppl started to answer back to his army... by using his family and tribe connection to call for help from the shia tribes/families... at the end of 2011/beginning 2012... a year after the beginning of the revo...
Few weeks ago, they were protest in Suwaida/Damascus and other Shia areas against ASSad gangs... Who were abusing their power against the ppl (Theft/Taxes/Corruption etc...) The same reason the revo started...
I mean, you know all of that... it's not like Iran isn't far from such thing... The entire region is governed like that...
I can understand that an outsider of the region may "maybe" try to find excuses about X or Y regime in ME... but ppl living/knowing those countries for decades... aren't dumb either... We know what they do or don't...