It has been more than a year since the Assad regime was overthrown and the Syrian Transitional Government has held together despite provincial demands for autonomy, enormous economic challenges, Israeli occupation and military strikes, and pressure from the wars in Iran and Lebanon. In some respects, Ahmad al-Shara‘a is making substantive efforts to create a more inclusive and representative political system. However, he and his team are also replicating many of the same structures of governance that existed under Assad rule, this time in ways that favor the Sunni community and early supporters of Hayat Tahrir al-Shams in particular. Those structures are a natural reflection of the way Syrian society is constructed, and the country is constantly under the threat of falling back into an oppressive dictatorship. The question is whether al-Shara‘a  ...