The newest Atlantic has a piece by Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack that takes a look at where the estimated 1.2 million refugees from the Iraq war have headed and what the large-scale exodus could portend for the region. If history is any indication, the ramifications could prove catastrophic. Byman and Pollack remind us of the continuing tremors caused by the displacement of Palestinian refugees and caution that the current Iraqi refugee crisis could prove even more destabalizing. They write:

Refugees...can...corrode state power from the inside, fomenting radicalization of domestic populations and encouraging rebellion against host governments.  The burden of caring for hundreds of thousands of refugees is heavy, straining government administrative capacity and possibly eroding public support for regimes shown to be weak, unresponsive, or callous. And the sudden presence of armed fighters with revolutionary aspirations can lead disaffected local clans or co-religionists to ally with the refugees against their own governments, especially when an influx of one ethnic or religious group upsets a delicate demographic balance, as would likely be case in some of Iraq's neighbors. 

With over 700,000 Iraqis in Jordan (a country of 6 million), 450,000 in Syria, significant numbers in Lebanon, Iran, and Kuwait, and no sign of a drop off in sectarian violence in Iraq, the real instability may lay ahead.