The Syrian Civil War has been raging for so long that nobody remembers why the rebels are wrong.

The rebels are wrong of course because this war started, not because the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overzealous in repressing protesters, but because Assad was overzealous in repressing terrorists.

Today it is admitted by the United States that a significant portion of the Syrian rebels now fighting Assad belong to Jabhat al-Nusra, an organization that has close ties to al-Qaeda and is classified by the US and the UN as a terrorist organization.

However back in 2011, when the Assad regime was complaining that amid the protests terrorists were attacking the government, the United States said that wasn't true. Even with Russia's President, at the time, Dmitry Medvedev saying there were terrorists in Syria, the United States with implausible certainty said no, and that Assad was making the whole thing up.

In Sept 2011 the Associated Press reported that "The U.S. Embassy in Syria said President Bashar Assad is not fooling anyone by blaming terrorists and thugs for the unrest in his country". With hundreds of government security forces being killed, the US maintained terrorists were not responsible.

Even at that time though, with extremists having killed over 400 Syrian guards, Assad's response, which ballooned the then existing death toll to 2,200, was obviously not justified and it certainly was inexcusable.

But knowing why Assad violently reacted in 2011 does provide necessary reference for how the Syrian civil war began, and provides necessary consideration for how the war should end.

The Syrian government's intention was not to repress protest, it was to stop terrorists. And as such western countries and the world should not act like Assad is an ardent enemy of freedom, they should act like Assad is a man who went too far in attacking terrorists.

Western intervention could be justified if President Assad's sole intention was to gravely assault his people, but it wasn't. Assad's goal was to stop terrorism in his country, he just acted completely disproportionately in his blind pursuit of it.

In determining what to do with Assad, the United States of all countries should reflect on this, with perhaps some consideration of the irony that they are the ones who get to judge.