The regime will not achieve a total military victory, but it can consolidate its grip on Syria’s cities, stabilize its economic situation, and hold the rebels at bay in peripheral parts of the country. Assad would be left ruling a Myanmar on the Mediterranean, boycotted by the West and some Arab states but surviving on the support of its external allies and the informal economic and trade networks that are already forming across its borders.
Something has to give—and soon. Time is running out. The regime cannot win. But the opposition can lose.
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