Civil wars that spread devastation and suffering across a whole country have no real victors. But one war in Syria - that against the Islamic State (IS) group's so-called caliphate - is well on the way to being won.
Earlier this week IS's last urban bastion in eastern Syria, Deir al-Zour, hard up against the Iraqi border, fell to Assad government forces. IS will remain in some form or another as an insurgency and source of ideological inspiration but as a territorial entity or physical caliphate, it is finished.
But what of Syria's other war, the uprising against the Assad regime and its efforts - aided by Iran and Russia - to crush the opposition?
The current situation on the ground means that forces from the above countries will be in close proximity to United States troops, who are supporting some of the anti-Assad groups.
Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and professor at Oklahoma University, summed it up in simple terms. "Assad has won the Syria war militarily," he told me. "He has defeated the original uprising or revolution. The rebel groups that remain have been pushed to the margins of Syria.
"The international community has all but abandoned them as a lost cause. The rebel militias," he argues, "still have some teeth in defence, but cannot mount a credible offensive against Assad's military."
Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, and another close watcher of Syria, has a slightly more cautious assessment. "President Assad," he notes, "sits more comfortably in Damascus than at any time since 2011."