your wisdom
Not wisdom, but experience from living there.
After 40+ years of dictatorship combined with steadily worsening conditions (economy, human rights, education, corruption, health care etc) the Syrian people decided they had enough. They went out on the streets to demonstrate peacefully, and were met with utter brutality by the regime. Live ammunition was fired against the very first peaceful demonstrations. I personally know people that were killed, injured or detained. Days later, bodies of detainees that were killed under torture started coming back...
Some people decided to fight fire with fire, while several foreign parties (eg. Qatar, Saudi, Turkey, Iran, Russia) saw an opportunity to manipulate things to achieve their our geopolitical goals - so they sent weapons and sometimes fighters to various sides of the conflict. Qatar, Saudi, and Turkey directly and indirectly supported Islamic radicals (even recruited them from abroad and sent them to Syria), while Iran and Russia supported the regime of Assad. The rest of the world turned the other way as the average non-combatant Syrian got crushed between the fighting parties.
Here is a very good video that explain the conflict. This is the most honest and factual effort I have seen about this subject so far. youtu.be/RvOnXh3NN9w
It is worth knowing and highlighting here three important facts:
1. The conflict is not caused by anything related to religion (in fact, there are Syrians of every sect fighting against Assad but they are largely forgotten by the media because their existence does not serve the agenda of any foreign parties). The sectarian violence is entirely exported to Syria by foreign parties.
2. The average Syrian (regardless of faith/religion) does not give a poop about religion. Syrians are some of the least religious people in their neighborhood. The average Syrian Muslim drinks alcohol and only goes to the mosque during special occasions (like Eid, twice a year). Syrians have been some of the most tolerant people on Earth, and they have absorbed and assimilated severals waves of migrants and refugees over the centuries, including Armenians (Orthodox), Circassian (Muslim & Orthodox), Turkmen (Muslim & Orthodox), Lebanese (Muslims & Christians of all sects), Palestinians (Muslims & Christians of all sects), Iraqis (Muslims & Christians of all sects), Kuwaitis (Muslims of all sects), Cypriots (Orthodox), Kurds (Muslims & Christian of all sects), Yugoslavians (Muslims & Orthodox) and this is just in the 20th century and only counting migration/refugee waves that included over 100,000 people. Before the conflict started, there was more than 1.5 million Syrians of Armenian ancestry (meaning 7.5% of the total population) and over 1 million Syrians of Kurdish ancestry. Syria was a multicultural country long before the west even talked about multiculturalism.
3. The majority of the fatalities of the conflict in Syria are Muslims, and the number one killer is the regime of Assad (which is responsible for about 93-94% of all fatalities). The regime of Assad targets people of all faiths, but more victims are Muslims because more Syrians are Muslims (about 58% of all Syrians identify themselves as "Sunni Muslim").