> The US didn't become involved in Syria because of climate change - rather climate change caused the conditions for the conflict to erupt The Syrian conflict

> The US didn't become involved in Syria because of climate change - rather climate change caused the conditions for the conflict to erupt The Syrian conflict has nothing to do with climate change. There has been longstanding discontent among the Syrian population with the Assad family, namely 1) like his father, Bashar al-Assad is a dictator with a secret police that is quite nosy and bothersome in Syrians’ everyday lives, and 2) Assad comes from a minority sect of Islam that most Syrians are not sympathetic to (and he has given important positions and financial opportunities to other members of his minority sect). The country was already a powder keg of sorts, and gradual radicalization of the Muslim population and social media lit the match. Then, once the conflict broke out, the Syrian regime began forcibly conscripting Syrian young men to fight on the regime’s side. This was not an attractive prospect, to say the least, and so a lot of them began to flee the country, joining those who were forced out by the fighting itself, and some of them took up arms against the regime.