The fight against Islamic State (IS) has been the focus of Western countries' policy towards Syria since late 2014, while the objective of finding a lasting political solution to the conflict has been relegated to the background. This policy focus has manifested as a military counterterrorism campaign, primarily in the north east and with no real link to political and security developments elsewhere in the country. There has been very little effort devoted to addressing any of the root causes of IS's rise. As the military campaign against IS comes to an end, many questions need to be raised to help design new policies that could translate IS's military defeat into political gains for stability and peace in Syria. IS had lost most of its territory by the end of 2017, following large-scale and destructive military operations initiated to combat it. However, the fundamental question of what political order may be built on the ruins of the self-proclaimed 'caliphate' remains unanswered. This issue cannot be dissociated from the broader framework of the Syrian conflict. At the same time, the fight against IS has noticeably changed the balance of power between local actors, by marginalising Syrian opposition forces and empowering the two main actors that made territorial gains through these military operations: the Syrian regime and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). It has also raised new challenges relating to the governance of these liberated territories. To prevent the emergence of a new form of radical jihadism, and indeed for any peace effort to be sustainable in eastern Syria, these challenges need to be identified and addressed. The stabilisation of post-IS territories is undermined by the persistent, multifaceted rivalries between the international, regional and local actors that took part in the fight against IS. Three distinct and competitive military campaigns were conducted to eliminate the terrorist organisation. The fight against IS has thereby amplified the proxy war between the main foreign powers intervening in Syria (the US on the one hand, Russia, Iran and Turkey on the other) rather than unifying them behind a common objective. For the Syrian regime and the PYD, this war has also become a struggle to gain international legitimacy. These two local 'winners' are likely to fight over the liberated territories as long as international and regional powers do not find a final settlement for the conflict. The governance of these liberated areas is likely to remain a serious problem. The local communities, primarily Sunni Arabs in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor governorates, are being governed by powers that have no real legitimacy and leave little room for the concerns and needs of local populations. The application of the Kurdish self-administration model to govern Arab-majority cities like Raqqa has illustrated the risks inherent in the imposition of governance mechanisms that are neither inclusive enough nor sufficiently democratic. The Kurdish leadership has certainly made efforts to establish a power-sharing model that allows local Arab notables to participate in the newly-established civilian administrative structures, through coopting tribal leaders. However, the civilian councils established hold no real political power, as this remains concentrated in the political and military apparatus of the PYD. In addition, internally displaced persons and refugees remain excluded from the decision-making processes that relate to the governance of their native cities. Finally, the root causes of IS's rise are linked primarily to the rejection of Bashar al-Assad's regime among Sunni Arabs of eastern Syria, who have historically been marginalised. The violence of the regime's crackdown on protest movements since 2011, and the subsequent four years of brutality and deprivation imposed by IS, have deeply alienated local Sunni communities and exacerbated their feelings of defeat and despair. The military defeat of IS brings the key question of Sunni Arabs' future to the fore, particularly as regards their political representation at the local level and their role in rebuilding a viable political order. However, the extreme fragmentation among Sunni communities, divided even within a single locality, remains a major obstacle. It is thus difficult to identify which actors, if any, may truly represent Sunni Arabs and may be capable of putting forward a political project that the majority of the community would deem acceptable. In areas of north eastern Syria that have historically been dominated by tribal structures, community divisions could even lead to inter-tribal violence. In the longer-term, the lack of a political project that meets the needs of Sunni Arabs could breed jihadist militant ideologies and new forms of extremism.
