BEIRUT (AP) — Two years ago, it seemed almost inevitable that Syrian President Bashar Assad would be toppled. Despite a fierce military crackdown, people were still taking to the streets in exuberant anti-government protests and rebels were pressing their fight deeper into the capital, even placing a bomb inside a high-level security meeting that killed top regime officials including Assad’s brother-in-law.

Western leaders predicted Assad would fall in few months. Almost no one thinks that now. As he prepares for elections through which he is set to claim another seven-year mandate for himself, the 48-year-old leader appears to be on a continuously upward path in the three-year-old conflict.