After nearly five years of conflict, the Syrian Civil War saw a brief respite with the truce on the 27th of February, 2016. The idea behind it was simple; bring the primary belligerents to the table and discuss terms of each party and to allow humanitarian efforts to be deployed to the war stricken regions. However, the the temporary cessation of hostilities between the "moderate" rebels and the government forces opened the opportunity for redirection of their focus to a common enemy, the ISIL. The initial expectations of the truce was very straight forward. With the combined efforts of all parties, the greater evil was to be swiftly defeated, allowing for the rebels and the government to non violently settle their differences through diplomacy, not war.
In the first few months of the ceasefire, the diplomatic efforts seemed to be a resounding success as neither side dared to be the first in challenging the limits and focused their efforts in routing ISIL. The initial success of the ceasefire and consecutive victories against ISIL gave hope to the possibility of bringing the Syrian Civil War to a diplomatic conclusion, but underneath the facade of cooperation, the Syrian government forces saw an opportunity to their predicament.
Leading up to the ceasefire, the Syrian government suffered increasing criticism from the international community as attention from the Ukraine crisis shifted to the middle east (a common trend in the pattern of a prolonged conflict getting little to no attention in the first two years, gaining increasing attention for the following two years, and then fading into obscurity and left to be resolved by more directly invested parties). The increase in international attention not only brought political pressure to form a transitional government, but bolstered the ranks of the rebels and terrorists as they found success in local and international recruitment.
Given the nature of the conflict, the government forces are stretched thin across large amounts of territories against a multifaceted enemies. This poses several key challenges to the government forces, making the fight against the opposition particularly difficult. Because the opposition is composed of many factions, they lack a single command or logistics structure. This means that successive victories do not necessarily impact the opposition in a negative way as it would if they were a single entity.
Compounding to this issue is the fact that the vast majority of the opposition forces are local rebels, meaning that they can spring out in grassroots fashion from a number of locations, even from government controlled territories. Gaining territory and maintaining effective control over it requires rather heavy investment if the locals of the area have anti-government (more specifically, anti-Assad, as there are rebel groups that support the existence of a greater Syrian government, but not with Assad in power) sentiments.
With these conditions in mind, the ceasefire accomplished several key political and military goals for the government forces. First, the ceasefire gave the Syrian government reprieve from criticism by showing that they were "considering" diplomacy (although I would posit that they never really intended to listen to the opposition). It also effectively stopped large scale fights for a good duration, allowing the international focus in Syria to drop out of the spotlight in favor of other hot new topics. Another tactic employed during the ceasefire was propaganda to convince rebels to lay down their arms and to reintegrate to the state's fold. The lull in fighting was an excellent opportunity for the Syrian government to convince tired insurgents to surrender with the promise of being treated amicably.
Second, groups that were not part of the ceasefire agreement were open targets. While the most prominent groups not part of the ceasefire are ISIL and Al Nusra, any number of small factions could have also been excluded from the ceasefire. In addition, given the contentious nature of rebel factions and alliances, it is not an impossibility for the government forces to single out a group as being "terrorists". Even when the government forces violate the ceasefire against a single group, it is very unlikely that they are to suffer any consequences as the tangentially related rebel groups have little vested interest in coming to their aid. Rather, it is more likely that assisting would result in them getting singled out as well (Russia has adamantly claimed that they will retaliate with force against any groups that violate the ceasefire, although this undoubtedly do not apply to the government forces).
While the initial goals of the United States were to bring down Assad's government and to defeat ISIL, at the current time, it is likely that Assad will not step down, as he is in the best position he has been since the start of the civil war. The ceasefire was intended as a means of putting the civil war on hold to stem the growing tide of ISIL, but it has been instrumental in shifting the balance greatly in favor of the Syrian government. Through the ceasefire, they were able to play the idea of vanguard against terrorists, and starting the process of dividing and conquering all opposition.
While the idea of a transitional government may have been a possibility to save himself, Assad is no longer fearful of losing his station, and will not consider a move in which his power is called into question. In fact, it is entirely possible that Syria went into the ceasefire with no intentions of making peace with the rebels in the first place. According to UN diplomats, the Syrian government representative does not give any consideration to the propositions of the opposition, and acts only to mock and provoke them.
The Syrian Civil War has raged on for more than five years, and it is far from over. Territories have been taken, and retaken by countless factions, and lands continue to change hands to this day and the Syrian government have yet to resolve fundamental political, social, and economic issue that resulted in the rise of the rebellions. I don't doubt that the conflict will continue to rage for several more years to come. However, it is clear that the rebels no longer have the sufficient strength and support to bring the Syrian government to a compromise.
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