The fall of Syria’s Assad dynasty last December brought a glimmer of hope to a country mired in a 13-year-long civil war. Indeed, “Syria’s current transition to a new form of government is in a category of its own,” Zaid Al-Ali wrote in April. “Desperate to avoid the mistakes that their counterparts in other Arab countries have made in recent decades, the new interim authorities under President Ahmed al-Sharaa have achieved impressive progress.”

Yet despite fragile public confidence in its transitional government, Syria faces profound threats as it seeks to rebuild, from the resurgence of the Islamic State to the legacy of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program and family separation policy.