Before Ukraine there was Syria, a war so vicious and consuming that it was once considered to be the most consequential conflict of the last 50 years.
With more than half a million killed when the counting stopped seven years ago, nearly two-thirds of the country’s prewar population displaced or in exile, and its economy and social fabric in ruins, Syria is a shattered husk, its spoils eagerly eyed by the three leaders who gathered in Tehran on Tuesday.
