Leaving almost half a million dead and displacing an estimated twelve million people, the Syrian Civil War is a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale. Syrian Requiem analyzes the causes and course of this bitter conflict?from its first spark in a peaceful Arab Spring protest to the tenuous victory of the Asad dictatorship?and traces how the fighting has reduced Syria to a crisis-ridden vassal state with no prospect of political reform, national reconciliation, or economic reconstruction.