Is the war in Syria finally coming to an end? Most of the country’s centres of population are under regime control and it may well be that the regime and its allies are closing in on Idlib province, the last significant rebel-controlled territory, for the kill. But will this be the final showdown? And will Syria, at some time in the not too distant future return to normal?
All of these are reasonable-sounding questions, yet none of them make sense in the context of the Syrian conflict. First of all, it is absurd to ask if Syria can return to normal, when it was never normal in the first place. While the violence of the last seven years has been horrifying, Syria has always been a violent society, a place where government coercion backed with force has long been the norm. This force was exerted behind closed doors by the secret police, and when this failed, in open repression, as happened when the Muslim Brotherhood were savagely repressed back in 1982.
