There is reason to fear and reason to hope. I remember that Syria was a country with great history, great consciousness of its history (which applies to Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon for better or worse). Syria had a lot of ethnic diversity and one of the current concerns is the Alewites, because their Muslim faith is more 'cosmopolitan' than the Shia or Sunni, and they are the religion of the Assad family.
There used to be Jews in Syria, but in several decades of the last century a Canadian Housewife was pivotal in getting most of them out of a dangerous situation.
Meanwhile, there was a high population of secularly educated professional civilians and a highly regarded military back about thirty plus years ago. The dictator ship was ruthless. The NYTimes columnist Thomas Friedman used the term "Hama Rules" (meaning NO rule) to commemorate an action when the recnt despot's father, Hafez Assad, dealt with an Islamist revolt in the city of Hama by bombing it with his own military to the loss of tens of thousands of people, and he ADVERTISED the events as a warning.