How about this alternative Story ......
After the Arab Spring in Tunis and Egypt where people demanded the military to back seat the global powers and their Lords stationed in certain countries were a bit worried and then a strategy was employed why not we start up (rattle a storm) in syria and we can of course blame the Arab Awakening (Arab spring) for this distrubance
So USA unilaterially decided to Jump into the mix to kick start a secert armnament project to arm up few rebel groups who were anti Assad , and US project managers (Some may call them Contractors or Agents) landed in Syria or near by places and had secret meetings with the rebelious groups. US promised them future role in Government of Syria , and enticed them with full Diplomatic support and opening of US embassy in region, if they only gather up support of 2,000 to 5,000 Militia men , and carried out the initial disturbances.
US had secret meetings with regional partners to explain to that that US feels it is must that Al Assad must be ousted and this strategy should not take mroe then 2-3 months of operation , and as usual American plan was
horribly planned. Syrian forces defended ferociously their main city areas and Later Russia quickly understood teh game being played.
Now in between this mix , an unexpected thing happened , militia force from Iraq started to march towards Syria and then you had US allied rebels , and then you have PKK perhaps same group all become interconnected in a tussle war and for moments no one knew what was happening in region.
So eventually at this point Saudia kick started wars in Yamen and Iran fully understood the move made few moves of their own to stategically balance out the equation.
Now during this mismanaged war , no one accounted for 5-6 Million or may be 10 million Syrian population who were living their daily lives peacefully who had businesses running in their own country how their lives would be impacted.
For US it was just "Collateral" Damage as it is always been ....even with Native Indian days , ok we need to move such and such Indian Tribe from the Farms fine , we will kick them out and this kicking our of syrian from their cities is similar displacement
Israel follows the same rules of kicking out and pushing out Palestinians ....destroy their business and bomb their homes and then build settlements on top
With Syria it was bit different they just decided to give rebels Heavy Lethal Weaponry in hope that they can weaken Syrian forces, and then Israel will waltz in and take over Syria
Or at least that was the initial plan or the plan was to install a "Dormant" leadership in Syria who would plant garden trees all day
Evantually Mr Putin reviewed the Syrian case and he felt it was needed to protect human lives in Syria and so he sent his Brave Russian forces to save lives and due to their efforts
Of course all rebellious forces were defeated
And thus Syria was able to go back to their old lives once more thanks to Russian Heroic Nation
Now while the Brave Russian Troops and Syrian Army defened their front , the Western Media went on a campaign to save their faces , so they launched smear campaigns against Russian , as usual (Been doing it since 50's) and made up stories about Russian causing damage to their Ambitious rebels.
So US and Russia met in a Private 1 vs 1 meetup and Russian said ok how about you shoot few abondoned missiles launchers and then make a exit from Syria and Russian will also reduce their forces and thus both global parties reduced their influence in region
**Also forgot Turkey also had enough of these Sponsored rebels so they also Joined the party to kick some arse
Nice little Training mission to clean up trouble makers inside Syria , excellent progress by Turkey
Helped end the Humanitarian crisis in region with great Professionalism
Deserve Nobel Peace prize without doubt
Also this indirectly helped ease up flow of refugee to Europe and hopefully Syrians can go
back to Syria