Syria divided but not partitioned

Syria Deeply Friday published What Syrians Can Expect in a Post-War Landscape. This is based in part on a longer piece that appears in the European Institute of the Mediterranean 2016 Yearbook. My summer MEI research assistants Rosemary Youhana and Katherine Preston took the lead in drafting both. The former starts this way: 

Whoever leads the postwar political transition in Syria will need to take into consideration the impact of more than five years of fighting. The Syrian government, opposition forces, the Kurdish PYD, the so-called Islamic State, and the former al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS) are all governing territory they control. The postwar transition will need to take these diverse governance dynamics into account.

Finding an effective political solution to the conflict in Syria must take into account how these wartime structures maintain security, provide goods and services and earn legitimacy in the eyes of the local population.

For the rest, go to Syria Deeply or for the longer paper the Yearbook.