Assad's regime was not really a backbone of anything, not even itself. But it was a sine qua non condition for the resistance to even exist. Without Syria it becomes very difficult if not impossible to supply Hezbollah, reducing Lebanon to the country it was designed to be: something that can be easily occupied at Israel's leisure. Likewise since Syria no longer has much of an army, it too is having even more of its land occupied at Netanyahu's whim.

That said, I do agree that at one point we were gonna cross this bridge. Even if Baa'thist Syria wasn't a dead end, Assad was not particularly good at bucking that trend.