Lots of individuals claiming consensus, but that's something fundamentally different.
What we should have done is based on what we think would have happened or should have happened. Much of what I've heard is CYA--if we didn't do what we did, pigs would fly as they anally mated with elephants to spawn sharks sort of scenarios. All life would end on all planets everywhere, or "our" President would have been disgraced. Same thing for some.
My understanding is this: Assad had a problem with militant/Salafist Sunnis and with liberal dissidents. The latter protested, we assumed that they were worthy of defense, and we encouraged them. We didn't like that Salafists were homegrown in Syria with an overlay of rejects from Iraq. Nobody wanted to see them as we Spread Democracy in the warmth of the Arab Spring and supported the educated, liberal, secular urban democrats.
Not all of the liberal, secular, urban democrats were any of those things, but no matter. We supported and encouraged them, gave them grounds to hope for more, and the army lost personnel. By the time we realized bad things resulted from our encouragement there was an incipient civil war, and next thing we knew the Salafi militants in the east were militating all over the place and the Kurds had sided with stability. Assad was embattled, Turkey enraged, Iraq was losing ground, and the West dithered. Things didn't go as predicted, as expected. LA-LA-LA-LA, but we avoided the elephant-pig orgies and the resulting sharky offspring.
What we should have done, what would have resulted in fewer deaths and misery, is deeply disturbing: Nothing. No embargo against Assad. Let him put down the dissent quickly. Yes, hundreds, perhaps a few thousands, would have died. *Probably*. In hindsight, that would have been better than the 10s of thousands dead, millions displaced, and extreme upheaval that we've seen in two countries (if not three), with the strife on-going. But it took a certain kind of intelectual sang-froid to do this, and people were emoting all over the place and exultant in how wonderful it was to be us and like us. The arc of history, yada-yada, turned into the arco de la historia (bow of history) with its arrows flying in al directions, and an ark of history to hold the deads' remains. Sometimes "Don't do something, just sit there" *is* the right course of action, even if it was a Reagan saying. It can be hard not to intervene.
It might have even been a chance to woo Assad away from some of his ideology and allies towards the West, and provided an opportunity for future change. Who knows? Probably Turkey wouldn't be aiming to continue the anti-Kurdish genocide it's waged for the last 150 years, Iran wouldn't be gaining clout, and Russia wouldn't be expanding its field of activities with the very open goal of establishing hegemony and weakening Europe economically and militarily because it sees itself as dominating Europe and Asia. (Da, eto ne tol'ko s amerikanskikh istokov, no i s russkikh.)
Alternatively, a massive ground invasion installing a kind of interim body would have been better. Yes, soldiers and civilians would have died, but odds are it would have been better in the long run. The Salafi militancy would have occurred either way, as it was ongoing (crushed to a great extent by Assad's thuggery, but still there). That, too, would have required a bit of grit to pull off.
We chose the middle ground. Safe for us, but at the cost of many thousands of lives and a massive social upheaval that will do good for very, very few, but lets many of us feel good and blame others.
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