Civil war in Syria has forced partition

Any chance of peace in Syria requires the combatants to fight to a standstill, after which the commanders will need to see some advantage in merging their current independence back into a unitary state. They will have to swap their total freedom in a small (war-torn) territory for being a small part of a much larger (and peaceful) state. To date, this argument has had no traction at all and the fighting has been relentless.

Nonetheless, after more than four years of terrible civil war, Syria has ended up as four or five separate mini-states that may survive. These small enclaves are still fighting and their borders will continue to change, but it is just possible to predict what Syria may look like when the fighters finally come to an exhausted stop.

The first area will be the remains of the regime, controlling Damascus and the coast to Latakia. The second will be the secular and other rebels in Aleppo and Idlib and maybe another territory in the south. Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or its successors will have a large part of the centre and east, while a fourth area will be the Kurdish enclaves in the far north east and central north of old Syria.

It will be a real challenge to bring the commanders of these areas to any kind of mutual understanding of how they can all contribute to a shared future in a new Syria. They all have completely different visions of what they want, if they have any vision at all after their struggle for survival in a very brutal civil war.

The best that can be hoped for is their borders to remain stable and for each principality to find some common ground with its neighbours — maybe over apparently routine issues like getting the old Syrian water and electricity systems to work for everyone.

Small things like these may rebuild trust and start new alliances, which may eventually lead to some kind of national reconciliation. Or not.