The Syrian diaspora is really unfortunate.

It also seems to me that it was unnecessary.

Mr. Assad destroyed his country so that he could have power over it.  If there are complexities about the situation, they are not moral complexities.  For him to win this war and remain in power of any part of Syria would be evil.

Nobody needs to be a foreign policy professional to recognize that.

He attacked his own people.  He attacked his own culture.  A generation is about to grow up with (and without) Syrian parents and no recollection of the place where that generation is from other than bloodshed and chaos.

For this to have happened in any century would have been a tragedy.  For it to be happening in this century means that the world is not moving forward.