More on the Iraqi refugees in Syria..

The Economist: Iraq and Syria: The plight of the refugees
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Syria has taken in the lion’s share of Iraq’s refugees, about 1.5m of them, of whom well over half are probably Sunni, some 15% Shia and maybe 10% Christian. Jordan is thought to account for another 600,000 or so, but no one knows exactly. The Syrian survey will assess the needs of the refugees—and their effect on the host country, which has 19m of its own citizens. Many refugees are running out of savings, slipping into poverty, sometimes into crime and prostitution.
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AFP: UN spotlights ‘survival sex’ among Iraqi women refugees
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — A UN official on Tuesday underscored the growing problem of “survival sex” among Iraqi women refugees as advocates pressed the world community to help share the burden of sheltering those who have fled the war in Iraq.

Erika Feller, an assistant high commissioner for protection at the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said attention must be paid to the plight of women refugees in countries neighboring Iraq, particularly Syria.

Feller, who recently visited Syria, singled out the resurgence of problems such as “weekend marriages,” a euphemism for prostitution.

Families make available young girls for “a traditional marriage ceremony” for the weekend to men who are prepared to pay and “the divorce takes place on Sunday in accordance to traditional practices,” she explained.
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While Syria has been “a very generous country” in accepting Iraqi refugees, Feller noted that other countries are increasingly placing restrictions on their entry.
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And this is an interesting perspective of the Syrian-Iranian relationship…

Pilgrims’ progress
Al-Jazeera English
By Jane Dutton in Sit Ruqiya, Damascus

An estimated 8,000 Iranian Shia pilgrims pour into Syria every day, usually arriving in busloads into the capital, Damascus and their numbers are steadily growing.

Some of them travel for up to five days to arrive at Sit Ruqiya, one of Syria’s holiest Shia shrines.

Crossing the border, these pilgrims bring their faith, their culture and their money.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ahmed, a Syrian street trader, said: “The pilgrims started coming here in the 1980s. My business has improved. I learned Farsi, and the customers just keep on coming.”

In the past five years, Iran and other Shia communities around the world have pumped millions of dollars into the reconstruction of half a dozen Shia holy sites in Syria.

And Sit Ruqiya is one that has gone from humble beginnings to being one of the largest shrines in Damascus.

Sound economics
Many believe that this cultural crossover with the Iranians is fostering yet another symbiotic relationship and it is that of big business.

Al Jazeera visited the Sham Factory – a joint Syrian-Iranian project on the outskirts of Damascus and one of the first and biggest ventures yet.

Established in March this year, the factory aims to produce 40 cars per day off its assembly line, when the factory reaches full capacity, which it nearly has.

The final product is a Syrian car with a distinctly Iranian flavour.

On the ground, entrepreneurs are hoping the expanding markets will provide them with more business opportunities.

Sayyd Razi Vahedi is an Iranian businessman who works closely with his Syrian counterpart to make such opportunities happen.

“The trade and economic relationship between Syria and Iran is improving and we hope that this relationship will continue to grow stronger and stronger,” he told Al Jazeera.

Syria is hoping that Iran will pull it out of its decades-long recession – a situation seen by many as the reason behind many Syrians leaving the country.

UNDP says 15 million Syrians are living outside the country – a staggering number considering only 17 million people reside in Syria.

Strange allies
Bringing Syria and Iran together is the US-imposed isolation.

They are unlikely allies today with differing religions, economies and political ideologies, though some neighbours view the relationship with suspicion.

“Obviously there is awareness in Iran and Syria that they need to do more especially because the two countries are relatively isolated,” Jihad Yawing, an economic analyst, said.

“We are very happy with this relationship and we will expand it both politically and economically. That’s a fact of life in the Middle East today,” Abdullah Dardari, Syria’s deputy minister for economic affairs, said.

“But to say that Iran is using Syria as a foray into the Arab region is putting too much politics into this economic relationship,” he told Al Jazeera.

All eyes remain fixed on Syria and Iran to see how far this long-standing courtship will go.

It is a highly charged subject for the region, but for both countries, at the moment, it seems to make perfect business sense.

The question now is whether economics preserve this political relationship in the face of increasing international pressure.

Israel should be forced to accept most of the refugees since this war was at their instigation. You want a war, you deal with the consequences.

At least the US is finally now (after 4.5 years) owning up to its responsibility.

This is a clear lesson for the people of the region that the US in NOT a reliable ally. 4500 out of 4.4 million is a shame. If Syria and Jordan return the refugees to Iraq, this will be a threat to Maliki as most are Sunnis; this is already happening. Maliki just accepted 18 000 Shia into the army and hence is moving to fill the army with loyalists after finishing doing so with the police, this will revive the civil war anew after the surge is over. This a new ME but completely different from the planned ME that the administration and the neo cons and their Israeli allies anticipated. The US is riding a tiger in Pakistan and is about to do the same in the ME. Watch out what you wish for you may get it.

Isn’t this the same policy the US follows all over the world? If memory serves me correctly, the US reserves the right to pick their own refugees and do not accept the UNHCR refugees without screening. They are normally accused of only accepting those actually bringing something into the country, such as highly-educated refugees etc. The ones “most in need” as deemed by the UN, are not the ones going to contribute to the economy after all.

The latest numbers of Iraqis deaths from the invasion
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

I think it is pretty interesting that the US keeps complaining about Syria’s failure to effectively police it’s border with Iraq. We can’t seal our own border with Mexico even in good times. How is a much smaller country like Syria going to seal a border that is a significant portion of it’s entire land border in a situation where they have more than 1.5 million refugees from a war raging on the other side. We ought to be thanking them for their benevolence in assisting the refugees and cooperating any way we can in that effort.