Zachary laub biography

Zachary Laub
Council on Foreign Relations, Feb. 14,

“The Assads presided over a system that was not just autocratic but kleptocratic, doling out patronage to bind Syrians to the regime.”
 
Twelve years after protesters in Syria first demonstrated against the four-decade rule of the Assad family, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and nearly thirteen million people—more than half the country’s prewar population—have been displaced.

Today, the country is fractured by actors with apparently irreconcilable interests: in areas beyond the regime’s control, extremists promoting a Sunni Muslim theocracy have eclipsed opposition forces fighting for a democratic and pluralistic Syria, while regional powers have backed various local forces to advance their geopolitical interests on Syria’s battlefields.

The United States was at the forefront of a coalition conducting air strikes on the self-proclaimed Islamic State