Note: The Muslim Brotherhood is democratic, though barely. Though that is damning with faint praise it is more than can be said for any other large Sunni organization, and the reason the H. Saudis spent millions to bring it down in Egypt..Claiming that Erdogan “was never interested in democracy or reform in Syria but merely wanted to secure the return of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Assad accused the Turkish prime minster of having “a closed and reactionary mind which does not recognize honesty.”
Assad is undoubtedly also noting with satisfaction the rising international concern that al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria might grab the country to establish a regime that is no more democratic than the current one. That concern appears to have established a strange but unspoken coalition which includes the United States and Europe as well as Russia and Iran, who all consider Sunni fundamentalism a threat. [Emphasis added.]
The last sentence is also my view. It is not the Saudi view.
Google-selected images for Jabhat al-Nusra, a Saudi-backed Sunni fundamentalist battalion, fighting to secure the Syrian coast for Saudi Arabia:
