Lebanese anti-Government protest in September 2015. Hassan Ammar/ Press Association. All rights reserved.The UN still aims to facilitate a Syrian agreement for a transitional government by August, envoy Staffan de Mistura affirmed at the end of June. Although there are many reasons why a political settlement is unlikely to be near, recent geopolitical shifts and the upcoming election of a new US president could mean that a window for effective diplomacy would open next year.
Many of Syria’s current realities would continue even after such a settlement, however. Even if power changes hands in Damascus, the provision of security and services will remain a matter of competition and power-sharing between elites.
Political and economic power in Syria have long been concentrated in the hands of a few, and some of these patterns have continued since the outbreak of conflict. The coterie of regime-linked elites that dominated the economy in the years before the war are still in place. In addition, new wartime elites have emerged by accumulating weapons and the profits of a burgeoning war economy. Some of these are profiteers who control the movement across internal and external borders of goods, money, commodities and even basic services like water and electricity.
