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The Assad regime is clawing its way back to a position of dominance in the Syrian conflict. But it can only maintain that position as long as the armed conflict endures.
Since the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant a year ago today, the rivalry between Iraqi and Syrian militant leaders has grown into a full-blown jihadi civil war.
Made up of thousands of fighters, the Mujahideen Army dominates a chunk of the strategically important countryside west of Aleppo and exerts influence over at least some of the main supply routes from Turkey to Aleppo.
The time when Assad might have been defeated by a truly inept opposition leadership and fragmented rebel movement has passed.
Many Syrians are well-aware of the role that major powers could play to determine the outcome of the war, but the public is divided on its support for the West. The United States and NATO are neither fully embraced nor universally reviled.
It is far too early to tell whether it will have any impact on the ground, but a new Syrian rebel leadership is finally taking form after the splits of this spring.
Syria’s oil and gas resources are too small to be considered a prize in the struggle over the country’s destiny, but energy issues still play an important part in the conflict.
As one of many cousins of Bashar al-Assad, Hilal al-Assad was perhaps on the outskirts of absolute power, but his death will still have come as a chilling reminder to the elite in Damascus of how precarious their position really is.
There have been attempts to directly address the Syrian humanitarian situation without getting caught up in the divisive politics over Assad’s future. But these attempts have so far made little progress because the conduct of the war is nearly indistinguishable from its politics.
The growing influence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the National Defense Force may eventually lead to President Bashar al-Assad’s demise.
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