What do we owe to the Syrian boy on the beach in Turkey?

Noah Rothman takes a look at Commentary at the complacency of the West and America to the plight of the people of northern Africa and the Middle East:

In the years that followed Obama’s shortsighted decision to abandon Syria (and the entire region, it would turn out) to violence, Europe would find itself in the midst of a refugee crisis. A great human tide has descended upon the continent as teeming masses of Middle Easterners and North Africans displaced by warfare take flight into Europe. The Czech Republic and Hungary, finding themselves on the frontlines of the crushing mass of terrorized Syrians, have taken emergency measures. Prague revealed this week that it simply lacked the manpower to detain those refugees racing for Northern European havens. Budapest has shut down rail lines and has created de facto detention centers in order to cope with the crisis. Italy is prepared to re-impose border controls at Germany’s request.

...Assad can only sustain his terrible war with the aid of foreign allies, and his most valuable benefactors are the mullahs in Tehran. On Wednesday, the final piece fell into place that would ensure the implementation of a nuclear accord with Iran that rewards the Islamic Republic with $150 billion in sanctions relief, as well as the eventual lifting of all weapons and missile embargos on the terrorism-sponsoring regime. “The Obama administration is hopeful that the Iranians will use the windfall to build schools, hospitals, and roads. But there’s an excellent chance that at least a healthy chunk of it will go to two U.S.-designated terrorist entities,” wrote the regional experts Michael Weiss and Nancy Youssef. “[T]he Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QC) and its proxy Lebanese Hezbollah, both of which are now in effect running Assad’s scorched-earth warfare.”

...The Syrian boy who washed up on a Turkish beach wearing a bright red t-shirt and shorts on Wednesday will not be the last. He is asleep now, and his suffering is over. Ours endures, and we must bear it. America and the West own a portion of the torment that characterized his short time on Earth. In our comfort, we allowed this great human catastrophe to metastasize. At the very least, it is incumbent upon us to look upon the face of the agony we permitted. Only then will it be possible to one day steel ourselves to the unpleasant task at hand. Only then will we eventually come to terms with the bloodletting we have abetted and to one day resolve to put an end to it. We owe that to that boy. Don’t look away.

read more here.