The bombing that claimed the lives of senior regime officials in Syria is just another sign that Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria will sooner or later be replaced. But the real question is what the region will look like in the months and years after its downfall.

The most likely scenarios for the post-Assad region depend on the duration and intensity of the current civil war. Clearly, the longer and the bloodier it is, the greater the bloodletting will be in its aftermath as the winners exact retribution for their suffering.

Assad and his minority Alawite sect, some 12% of the population, think they have few choices; the most likely is to fight to the bitter end and hope the prospect of a total no-holds-barred civil war is sufficiently terrifying that the majority-Sunni opposition will either give up or sue for peace with some kind of a “kinder and gentler” Assad-led regime.

Another option Assad and company are likely to consider is to carve out an Alawite area, buttressed by Syria’s Christian minority that has been terribly fearful of the rise of the Islamist elements in the armed opposition. Ensconced on the Mediterranean coast and centered on Latakia, which has an airport, the Alawite-cum-Christian area will seek to defend itself with help from outside supporters, Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization, Iran and maybe even Russia.