So Hafez al-Assad, father of the current president, allowed a handful of wealthy Sunni and Christian businesspeople to continue running their own factories, shops and restaurants. His son, Bashar, came to power in 2000 and opened up the country a bit more, allowing entrepreneurs with no regime connections to start their own businesses (as long as they gave the government a cut). Some opened boutique hotels or small-scale factories; others imported things like hospital equipment or auto parts. Anything American has been especially popular, one Syrian trader told me. In 2001, Bashar sought membership in the World Trade Organization (still pending), and three years later, Syria had its first private banks. There’s even a modest stock market now, the Damascus Securities Exchange, where wealthy Syrians can buy shares in a couple dozen companies, most of them banks or insurance firms.

This entrepreneurial openness in the cities, however, coincided with a multiyear drought, which has made the miserable conditions of Syria’s farmers even worse. Those who couldn’t make ends meet in the fields moved to crowded suburban slums or to poorer, second-tier cities. The uprisings began in these areas, and they’re where most of the violence is today.

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From the outside, it can be hard to see how Assad keeps his grip on the country. In Egypt and Tunisia, powerful militaries ditched their political leaders when they saw a coalition of urban middle class and wealthy people joining poor, rural protesters. But in Syria, the military is far more loyal to the political leaders. And even though the urban elite may not like the Assad regime, and even though they realize that life would be better in a country that doesn’t stifle free expression or support radical political elements in neighboring Lebanon, they’re afraid of what their lives would look like in a revolution’s chaotic aftermath.

As Landis notes: “They look out at the countryside and think: What if these people win? Are they going to respect capitalism? Are they going to preserve our wealth? Or are they going to come by and say, ‘Oh, you’ve been a collaborator for 40 years, and we’re going to take everything you own’? They don’t know.”

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Any way you look at it, the immediate future appears bleak for Syria. The incentives favor conflict. One side has nothing to lose; the other, everything. A year from now, Syria could be even more violent.

But it’s hard to imagine this conflict ending with the Assad regime firmly in control of the country. What comes next could well be grim, but there’s a glimmer of hope for the long term. The Syrian people are paradoxically fortunate that oil has not made their country rich. States with huge hydrocarbon wealth almost never become democratic because power belongs to whoever controls the pumps. Countries with diverse economies and an enterprise-oriented middle class have a much better chance.

Syria actually looks like Britain and much of Europe did centuries ago and like Korea, Japan, Taiwan and — more and more — China have recently: there’s a tiny and powerful elite, impoverished rural masses and, crucially, a small but growing middle class that, over a long period, tilts the country toward greater equality and democracy. Hard as it may be to see right now, Syria may turn out to be a role model for the Middle East.