Steven Heydemann is the Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 professor in Middle East Studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution. From 2011 to 2015 Heydemann directed the Syria program at the United States Institute for Peace, and during that time he participated in the preparation of a report titled “The Day After: Supporting a Democratic Transition in Syria,” which was widely used by activists, non-governmental organizations, and governments during the early phases of the Syrian conflict, and was endorsed by numerous Syrian opposition groups as well as the European Parliament. Diwan caught up with Heydemann in early February, during his visit to Beirut to participate in a Carnegie roundtable on post-conflict reconstruction, to get his views about an eventual reconstruction process in Syria.