The Assad regime has been in power in Syria since 1970. For many analysts, the Syrian state could not exist without the regime, and the regime could not exist without the leadership of the Assad family. However, there still is a debate whether an alternative power to the Assad family could run the Syrian state, in a hypothetical transition period from Bashar al-Assad's rule. Alexander Bick, Research Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Faysal Itani, a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council, and Kaleigh Thomas, the Research Associate for the Middle East Security Program at CNAS, join Nicholas Heras to discuss.