But what next? Assad’s victory looks to be about as Pyrrhic as they come. Much of Syria lies in ruins. By some estimates, its economy has shrunk by 60% or even more. More than 12 million of the country’s pre-war population of 22 million are living as refugees inside or outside Syria.
The cost of rebuilding the country is usually estimated at about $250 billion, of which the regime itself says it can cover maybe $8 billion to $13 billion. Assad’s allies, Russia and Iran, are too cash-strapped to finance a reconstruction effort even if they could perform the construction work that’s needed.
China isn't a likely source. Anxious about mounting foreign debt, it has been having second thoughts about committing itself to funding infrastructure projects in dubious places where the prospects of getting paid back are poor. The West might be blackmailed into helping rebuild Syria as a way of enticing Syrian refugees back home, but as we will see shortly that is highly unlikely to happen. The Gulf states, the Middle East’s traditional moneybags when it comes to rebuilding, are cash-strapped too and are highly unlikely to help an Iranian client state rebuild. [...]
Cynical as may seem, Assad’s Syria 2.0 will turn out to be a good neighbor for Israel. Shorn of much of its population and with a shrunken economy, it won’t have the people or money to field an army of the size and scale it did before the civil war. It will be more reliant on the Russians as guarantor of the regime’s survival, and Moscow has already made clear it has no interest in its client state stirring up trouble with Israel.
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