Thanks, I’m glad you liked the article. (Though I don’t deserve credit for the map. IHS Jane’s made it, and I found it in the Washington Post).

More than any conflict I can think of, the Syrian civil war defies good guy-bad guy classification. Besides the many causes you mentioned, there’s also the Arab Spring, fallout from the Iraq war, the regional Sunni-Shia competition (especially a Saudi-Iranian proxy war), the international jihadist movement, and more.