maybe that is the best way to fight isis and create order. it s the devil you know. guess what. even israel subscribes to that theory because the bottom line is that russia has always been the patron saint of the assad regime for decades. it has a major naval military base there. syria is the largest purchaser of arms. most importantly for putin maintaining a shiite dominated assad regime is essential one because of the importance that syria is and an extremest sunni takeover in syria could pour more extremists into the southern part of russia chechnya. my friend has it absolutely right.