I don't know that I agree with this characterization. Was Assad particularly stable? Was he able to prevent rebel groups effectively?

HTS of today might be different from HTS of the past, but that's very much could be just their propaganda. We'll see. Given "guaranteed evil" vs "probably evil" I'd probably prefer the lesser evil.

I very much suspect Russia is fully focused on Ukraine and cannot or will not project force in the region.

Iran has been remarkably restrained over the past little while, and I suspect they want to keep things cool and not hot.