Name:   copperline - Subject:   More Questions? Date:   10/5/2015 11:42:56 AM

GF:  I made the assumption that the refugees were majority Shia, or perhaps Allawite (sp?)... but I can't find any reported demographics to back that up.  It doesn't really matter, I suppose, these people aren't welcome anywhere they turn right now.    I understand your position on not taking refugees unless or until Sunni countries take in a share, I'd rather see this conflict resolved by local powers and not spill out of the Middle East myself.... so increasing pressure on the oil-rich empires in the Gulf to take get effectively involved makes sense.

But I wonder if that is possible.   Reports I have read say that there are 2-3 million refugees in camps surrounding Syria due to the war... and another 12 million 'internally displaced' in country.   To me, that sounds like a bigger refugee crisis is looming and the difficulty of containing this problem is diminishing with time.

And then there is Putin, who apparently has arrived to prevent Assad's demise, but at the expense of changing the strategic choices we have available to us (which were never really good choices at all).     I am thinking that we should establish refugee safe zones ASAP, and increase support to all those refugees while they are still residing in the region and before they get so desparate that they make their exodus elsewhere.  If we trap them in place by refusing their entry and then fail to get vital supplies to them, I would see that as a really potent source of increased Islamic radicalism... just like the Palestinian ghettos have become.

What to do?  Maybe we should step back and let Putin have (part of) what he wants... the entire Middle East is a tar-baby, we should know that by now.    Perhaps we should accept that Assad will stay in play for a while longer and focus on the larger, more threatening problem of containing ISIS and regional stability.    Putin has more reason to fear Islamic radicalism than we do according to the geography of that part of the world.  His strategic interests are in the heavily Muslim countries between Russia and the Middle East, and this radicalism poses a much more immediate threat to his interests than to ours.   

Somehow... SOMEHOW... we have to find a way to let Middle Eastern Muslims conclude their religious war without trying to craft a settlement for them....