Some time ago, back when the Arab Spring forces were beginning to rattle Mubarek in Egypt and Ghaddafi in Libya, I wrote a piece for the Times-Standard entitled “Boiling in the Bosphorous.” It was a survey of some of my students, and their opinions about what was then happening to their neighbors just across the Mediterranean.

“It is really boiling right now,” I recall one them saying. They were concerned that the effects of the so-called Arab Spring would eventually find their way across the Med and even as far north as the Bosphorous here in Istanbul. At the time, such worries seemed reassuringly remote. After all, Turkey is a relatively stable, prosperous nation, a model of secular democracy, at least in comparison with much of the region.

Moreover, at that time, Turkey and its southern neighbor, Syria, enjoyed a very amicable relationship. Tariffs and visas had been lifted, so trade and tourism boomed on both sides of the border. In the news, you saw images of the two leaders, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad embracing, addressing each other as brothers.

All of that has changed, of course, over the past couple years, as civil war in Syria has resulted in at least 100,000 deaths, some of the carnage spilling over into Turkey in skirmishes. At last count, more than half a million Syrian refugees, including children, have fled to Turkey. Erdogan, once al-Assad’s “brother,” has told him to pack it in.

And now we come to the arresting image that caught my eyes this past Thursday afternoon: the image of a Russian war ship passing through the Bosphorous en route to the Mediterranean. I found out later that not one, but in fact three war ships passed through the city. It is not a comforting thought, trust me.

Of course, we have been following the news closely here, as the Obama Administration has been trying to drum up support for “limited military intervention” in Syria, in response to allegations that chemical weapons are being used by al-Assad’s regime. As you probably know, Obama’s proposal has largely been opposed, with Russian president Vladimir Putin leading the charge.

What is Turkey’s position on Syria? Well, it’s complicated. Erdogan has condemned al-Assad, but the government here is concerned that intervention in Syria could embolden the region’s Kurdish minorities, who harbour ambitions of an independent Kurdish nation. Just this year, the Turkish government signed a peace agreement with the Kurdish separatist group, PKK, and are hesitant to do anything that would reignite the Kurdish separatists here in Turkey.

At any rate, most Turks (and a few Kurds) that I have spoken with (and observed on message boards, for what it’s worth) don’t support military intervention.

“Al-Assad is not worth it,” one friend says. “He’s not worth pissing off Russia and China. Let Syria deal with its own problems.”

That’s certainly a consensus. But then another friend remarks about the people lost in the struggle, the refugees.

“My daughter is starting her new school year,” he says. “Think of all those Syrian children refugees. They should be in school right now. In these matters, it is always the children who suffer most.”

The longer you live in this part of the world, the more complicated things get. Meanwhile, seeing the warships passing by, one feels the Bosphorous is truly boiling indeed. What can you do? You can only get on with your day, and hope that it is a bit of sabre-rattling, an effort to bring Obama to the negotiating table. It’s one of those days when you really hope that somewhere, over the horizon, beyond the Bosphorous, beyond the Sea of Marmara, beyond the Mediterranean, that cooler heads will prevail.

James Tressler was a reporter for The Eureka Times-Standard. He is now a writer and teacher living in Istanbul.