Beirut, Lebanon – On the day after his 51st birthday, Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, took a victory lap through the dusty streets of a destroyed and empty rebel town that his forces had starved into submission.
Smiling, with his shirt open at the collar, he led officials in dark suits past deserted shops and bombed-out buildings before telling a reporter that – despite a cease-fire announced by the United States and Russia – he was committed “to taking back all areas from the terrorists.” When he says terrorists, he means all who oppose him.
More than five years into the conflict that has shattered his country, displaced half its population and killed hundreds of thousands of people, Mr. Assad denies any responsibility for the destruction.
Instead, he presents himself as a reasonable head of state and the sole unifier who can end the war and reconcile Syria’s people.
That insistence, which he has clung to for years even as his forces hit civilians with gas attacks and barrel bombs, is a major impediment to sustaining a cease-fire, let alone ending the war.
The new cease-fire, less than a week old, is already tenuous. On Saturday, the United States acknowledged carrying out an airstrike that killed Syrian government troops in eastern Syria. Attacks have resumed across the country, and aid meant for besieged residents of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, is still stuck at the Turkish border.
Mr. Assad has become a central paradox of the war: He is secure and kept in place by foreign backers as his country splinters, although few see the war ending and Syria being put back together as long as he stays.
Although he remains a pariah to the West, and scores of militant groups continue to fight to oust him, even his opponents acknowledge that he has navigated his way out of the immediate threats to his rule, making the question of his fate an intractable dilemma.
Life During the Cease-fire The rebels are unlikely to stop fighting as long as the man they blame for the majority of the war’s deaths remains.
But fear of what might emerge if Mr. Assad is ousted has deterred many Syrians from joining the insurrection and may have helped prevent countries like the United States from acting more forcefully against him.
The result has been a crushing stalemate. Mr. Assad’s standing as leader of Syria is diminished – and yet stable.
“The problem is that he cannot win, and at the same time he is not losing,” said Samir Altaqi, the director of the Orient Research Center in Dubai. “But at the end of the day, what is left of Syria? He is still the leader, but he lost the state.”
Indeed, recent events give the impression that Mr. Assad has succeeded in muddling through, without being held accountable.
August came and went with little mention of the anniversary of the chemical attacks by his forces that killed more than 1,000 people in 2013.
Turkey, a key backer of the rebels, dropped its demand that he leave power immediately, and the United States has stopped calling for his removal.
And the day before Mr. Assad’s birthday on Sept. 11, for which his supporters created a fawning website, the United States and Russia announced a new cease-fire agreement with surprising benefits for Mr. Assad.
Besides making no mention of his political future, the agreement brought together one of his greatest foes, the United States, with one of his greatest allies, Russia, to bomb the jihadists who threaten his rule.
Years ago, few assumed that Mr. Assad would join the ranks of the world’s bloodiest dictators.
