[Brad from Tennessee]

[Over the coming weeks, we will be told that the international community has assured that, in return for military support, the Syrian opposition has granted greater power to “liberals”, aka secularists. This will be a lie.]

Even if the new order promised to protect Christians the more radical factions, embedded in a newly constituted police and military, would make life unbearable for them.

In Iraq, where the Shia dominate, more than half the Christians have left because nobody can guarantee their safety.

The post-colonial Middle Eastern leaders, including Assad's father, were secularists. This reflected the “modernist” view that theocracies were doomed to perpetual medievalism.

Now the fundamentalists are poised to be the new establishment across the whole region. This will be a dark age, at least as seen from the outside.

[Praxeologue]

Now the fundamentalists are poised to be the new establishment across the whole region.

... due to Saudi oil money, extending all the way to the White House.