When negotiations between the US, Russia and Iran grow best in the dark, as they are bound to, Assad will realise that he is an expendable pawn in the game of nations.
When all else fails, an agreement to meet again is trumpeted as success. If the talks fail, they should do so in a way that leaves open the possibility of reconvening.
Bashar al-Assad and his circle will continue to refuse any Syria that is not theirs. There is no daylight for diplomacy here. A plausible scenario involves a war of multiple phases lasting years.
The civil war playing out in Syria is an extreme manifestation of a common problem: the creation of independent states based on boundaries that did not reflect social and demographic realities.
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