“We are going to see that the manifestation of that conflict will play out in a number of ways – right now it is playing out in this heart-wrenching vision of the people who are streaming out of the region”. “While there is significant work still to be done, he said the US and its allies have had some “real successes” in its efforts”. But now he looks nearly certain to be able to rely on enough Labour MPs to win a vote to target IS in Syria, despite some Tory rebels, given the revulsion at its reign of terror and the scale of the refugee crisis.

Despite the brutality of the war, Syria presents the US with a delicate situation in which it must tread cautiously. We just had a report out of the USA intelligence community that said that the Islamic State is replacing all of the fighters that we kill in our bombing runs, and why is that?

A colder and more analytical approach to the Syrian refugee crisis reveals that the Balkan route, leading to its Hungarian critical point, is no more than a year old. “There is still a significant question mark over the Assad regime and what happens there”, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Sky News on Sunday. The images of Aylan, the little boy who was found dead on a Turkish beach, seem to have suddenly woken up the world, as if tens of thousands of children had not already died in Syria during these four and a half years of war.

“Syria has got to have a political transition away from Bashar al-Assad”, he said. He can’t be part of the solution. “We’ll work very hard to have that political solution”. “And so we have to be in constant conversation with our worldwide partners and, ultimately, with the opposition elements within Syria to effect that transition because expanding or supporting the fight on the ground just increases the violence and its increases the conflict, and then it increases the refugee and humanitarian catastrophe that we face”, said Allen.

The retired Marine general declined to comment on the Russian military presence in Syria.

Former Ambassador Ford said Russian aid is on the rise because the Assad government is losing the civil war. Even if Islamic State is driven from its Raqqa stronghold, the extremists will still continue to try to impose their warped and brutal ideology.

Many believe the U.S.’s actions – or lack thereof – are the cause of the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe. The latter have sponsored rebels in various guises with weapons and money rather than encouraging peace building and some kind of a negotiated peace in Syria, one that includes rather than excludes the current government.

“What we would oppose, though, is any support to the Assad regime that expands or accelerates the conflict”, said Ford.

Allen, the Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, noted that ISIS has lost control of Tikrit to Iraqi security forces, and coalition forces helped hold off ISIS in the Syrian city of Kobani, and blocked access to Syria from Turkey for ISIS troops.