Post-Assad Syria: ‘Now Comes the Hard Part’

EXPERT INTERVIEW — The headlines would have seemed fanciful two weeks ago: “Rebel Army Ousts Assad” – “The Fall of Assad” – “Assad Flees to Russia” – or our own, from Sunday: “Syria’s Political Earthquake – and What Comes Next.”

On the day after a coalition of rebel groups marched into Damascus and ended the five-decade rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father, the late dictator Hafez al-Assad, the answers to those “What comes next” questions are at the heart of the Syrian story – for the country itself and the volatile geography it occupies.