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{
  "authors": [
    "Melissa G. Dalton",
    "Frances Z. Brown"
  ],
  "type": "other",
  "centerAffiliationAll": "dc",
  "centers": [
    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
    "Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center"
  ],
  "collections": [
    "Violence and Conflict"
  ],
  "englishNewsletterAll": "democracy",
  "nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
  "primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
  "programAffiliation": "DCG",
  "programs": [
    "Democracy, Conflict, and Governance"
  ],
  "projects": [],
  "regions": [
    "Middle East",
    "Syria",
    "Levant"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Political Reform",
    "Democracy",
    "Security",
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  ]
}

Source: Getty

Other

Don’t Give Up Yet: There’s Still a Chance to Salvage Eastern Syria

The United States can still salvage a marginally but meaningfully better outcome for its own interests and the Syrian people by pushing for greater formal decentralization in eastern Syria.

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By Melissa G. Dalton and Frances Z. Brown
Published on Aug 9, 2018
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Democracy, Conflict, and Governance

The Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program is a leading source of independent policy research, writing, and outreach on global democracy, conflict, and governance. It analyzes and seeks to improve international efforts to reduce democratic backsliding, mitigate conflict and violence, overcome political polarization, promote gender equality, and advance pro-democratic uses of new technologies.

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Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies

The U.S. ability to shape high-level outcomes in Syria is limited; Russia and Iran have outmaneuvered the United States. Eastern Syria still offers leverage to salvage a marginally but meaningfully better outcome for U.S. interests and the Syrian population. The United States must determine its sources of leverage, articulate its goals, connect those goals to a stabilization framework, and operationalize burden sharing under an eastern Syria framework. Failing this, the Assad regime will likely take over the east, which has proven to be the ultimate driver of instability and extremism in the country, with effects that will inevitably draw the United States back into the region.

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This article was originally published as a CSIS Brief.

About the Authors

Melissa G. Dalton

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Melissa G. Dalton is a senior fellow and deputy director of the International Security Program and the director of the Cooperative Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.

Frances Z. Brown

Vice President for Studies

Dr. Frances Z. Brown is a vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Brown served on the White House National Security Council (NSC) staff over the past three presidential administrations. Her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Africa, the Middle East, and governance.

Authors

Melissa G. Dalton
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Frances Z. Brown
Vice President for Studies
Frances Z. Brown
Political ReformDemocracySecurityForeign PolicyMiddle EastSyriaLevant

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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