My humble suggestions on how to move forward in Syria

[Yavin4]

1. We should demand that Russia withdraw military support of Assad today or else face global sanctions on everything. Threaten to freeze their assets worldwide. We would need a global coalition to do this. Russia is aiding and abetting a mass murderer at this point.

2. Work with every Middle East leader to put pressure on Assad and donate money to help rebuild Syria and aid the refugees. I'm looking right at you Kuwait, kick in some money for the effort. You fucking owe us.

3. Work towards a cease fire and send in an international coalition to maintain the peace while the nation rebuilds.

4. The most important step of all is to employ all able body Syrians in the rebuilding of their nation. Pay them well to rebuild their war torn homes. This will promote immediate stability. Idle hands are the terrorists' workshop.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The problem, of course, is that Putin owns Trump.

That means that the US is not about to demand that Russia do anything about Assad (or anything else). The whole mess should be turned over to the UN but I'm not sure how effective even they can be if Trump is in Putin's pocket.

[Yupster]

2. Demand that Russia do something and expect they will do it?

That doesn't sound like much of a plan.

Maybe if you could find a way for Russia to quietly back out and be able to claim victory?

Russia probably wants out of Syria too, but they aren't going to do it if it's a humiliating backdown for them.

[Pachamama]

3. I agree completely...

...but Comrade Trumpsky does what Russia wants....

Perhaps some of the NATO nations could unite with the Arab Nations and the UN send in peacekeeping forces (if Russia didn't try to stop it in the UN) and it could happen...But then Traitor Trumpsky wouldn't support it as a key member of NATO and Russia would through a fit at the UN AND nations like Kuwait and Qatar etc would say "what, me pay?"

Honestly - I don't know what the solution is and yours sounds about right...but it seems that this situation is a mess and not solved easily (which is why Obama couldn't do much) and it seems the only thing that this situation and the strike on Syria achieved is getting the focus and conversation on Russian collusion with Trump Campaign and White House cover up off the radar of the minds of the US public and media.

Mission Accomplished as far as the White House and Kremlin!

[Lurks Often]

4. Your #1 is a very confrontational approach

1. Russia wants a year around warm water port that can not be blocked like the Black Sea ports can be and they will tolerate a mass murderer if that will achieve their goal.

2. Assad is not going to step down based on pressure from the other countries in the Middle East and most of those countries will not contribute a dime to help Syria re-build. I don't know what it will take to get the Sunni and Shia to work together, but I strongly doubt the United States can produce enough pressure to do that.

3. A cease fire requires all sides to be reasonable, given that there are at least 4 sides, all with their own agendas which are unacceptable to some or all of the rest of the belligerents, a cease fire is extremely unlikely.

None of the realistic choices available are acceptable:
Leave Assad in charge and he gets to kill his own people
Let ISIS win in Syria and give them access to Syria's military equipment and infrastructure
A full scale invasion of Syria: Russia would find that unacceptable, the American people would find that unacceptable and I'm not sure we could do with the military in it's current condition without extensive call ups of the National Guard & Reserves .

The most likely option that has any chance of success is that Putin either removes Assad and puts in a different puppet or Putin tells Assad to stop killing his own people, especially with nerve gas.

[Yavin4]

5. "Putin either removes Assad and puts in a different puppet or..."

"Putin tells Assad to stop killing his own people, especially with nerve gas."

That's the best option.