Is Assad a fanatic who can't be reasoned with? The Europeans and US are finally starting talks with his ministers. Over the past few years they've been trying to undermine his government. They're still trying to undermine his government.

Syria and Iraq were fairly peaceful places, but the US began poking them, and working to undermine their secular "pan-Arab socialist" leaderships, and invading them. Once the US and Europe were done torturing people in Abu Ghraib, making sick sexual photos of prisoners, and blowing Iraq and Syria to kingdom come, they turn around and call the soldiers trying to expel them "fanatics who cannot be reasoned with", "savages" and so forth.

Of course that's the attitude of the imperialist invaders, it always will be. The French who colonized Syria, who have been bombing Syria have this attitude as well, so the only thing they understand is returning their bombs with bombs.