The promotion of a ‘good’ rebellion in Syria represented the latest effort to shape governance in a failing state. The rising threat of Islamic extremism in Syria served as kindling for this project, counteracting the more withholding impulses that had arisen from the last fifteen years of regime change and state-building. And, yet, those encouraging progressive rebel politics were unprepared to leverage decisive support on behalf of the uprising. Dipali Mukhopadhyay and Kimberly Howe will argue that a paradox – the ambition to exert limited means to the best possible ends – resided at the heart of this mini-maximalist campaign that framed (and hamstrung) every act of engagement with the opposition, forcing a set of constraints on the relationship that help explain the rebellion’s failed trajectory thereafter.