From the two posts I see that you believe that Syrian people have made their choice of HTS because of their action or inaction. However, history has shown me that most of general public do not make a choice but passively accept whatever fall on them, winner of power doesn't neccessarily represent people. CCP's was almost annihilated by KMT in the early 1930s, does that mean that majority of Chinese choose KMT and facism? Then in late 1940s the same population choose CCP over KMT, because communism? People choose whoever can finish quickly a fight, and they stay with whoever can deliver "quick" solution regardless long term. That is the sad reality. If today's Syrian deserve no pity, I don't think anybody does. Chinese are not different from anybody on the planet on this basic human nature, we are just "lucky" to have a strong leadership who made right choices and defeated our own evil.
You take a far too passive view of the people and the impact they have on their own fates.
While it is true that the people cannot easily prevent a mad or bad leader from dragging them into calamity, they do have a choice in how they react.
You think the CCP founding fathers were the Chinese Avengers Assembled to win the revolutionary war all by themselves? They won because the people flocked to their cause in vast numbers, swelling their ranks and fought and died in vast numbers to make their dream a reality.
When 9/11 happened, ordinary Americans enlisted in record numbers. Same thing with Ukraine and Russia when the Ukraine war happened. And what did the Syrian people do when foreign Jihadists started overrunning half the country when they already had the cautionary tale of Libya to show them the road they are headed on? Fair enough no one wants to join the loosing side, but even after Assad stabilised the situation with Russian and Iranian help, what did ordinary Syrians do? Sign up to fight for their homes or flee to the same countries actively trying to turn their homeland into a hellhole in vast numbers?
Suffering and hardship is the inevitable result that nations and peoples must endure if they themselves have become weak and foolish enough to allow their society to decay through greed, laziness and entitlement. The same way any family who doesn’t want to work will eventually blow through all their inheritance and come to ruin.
They can either learn from that and use it to motivate and galvanise themselves to fundamentally change their ways and improve, like the Chinese after the Century of Humiliation, or they can allow themselves to quietly fade into the long night of history like so many countless races and cultures have throughout human history. Evolution is an ongoing process and humanity is not above or beyond its reach.
