Modern politics is remarkable. Until recently the situation in the Middle East, and Syria in particular, seemed to have come to the deadest of ends, to the blindest of alleys when assessed in terms of political results. It was a tangle of incompatible interests involving a legion of different actors and a hopeless proxy war between Moscow and Washington.
Now, here comes a sudden U-turn. If we can trust various leaks ahead of the long-awaited summit between the two leaders, Syria is the only matter US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin can be expected to agree on July 16 in Helsinki. Why is this the case?