assad probably wasn't that popular, but the issue is that he downsized his military drastically due to the poor post-war economy crippling his government's spending ability, causing his military to be substantially smaller than the force that united against him within the last two weeks. as a result, he faced the sdf (~100k, possibly bolstered in recent weeks as well), sna (100k+), and turkish army (400k), while simultaneously being attacked by israel, with only a small force of 50k soldiers. outnumbered more than ten to one, we saw the natural consequence happen.
Confederate