The Syrian regime has become increasingly reliant on profiteers and external actors – specifically, Russia and Iran – pursuing their own interests.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the field researchers who helped gather information for this paper inside Syria and the external reviewers for their useful comments. Thanks to Mazen Ezzi for fact-checking and providing extensive reference material, to Kheder Khaddour and Omar Aziz for reviewing drafts of the manuscript, to Renad Mansour for his help in structuring the paper’s arguments, and to Jake Statham and everyone involved in the editorial process at Chatham House, especially Tim Eaton and Reni Zhelyazkova.