Syrian Refugees. Why do we treat the sympton but not the disease?

In the last twelve months, Australia’s relatively minor problem with unauthorised boat arrivals has been put graphically in perspective by the massive influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East into Europe. The most visible component of this tide of arrivals is the wave of refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. Some 4 million people have fled the war since it began and now much attention is being paid to the problem of how to deal with this mass of displaced humanity.

Germany has stepped up and agreed to take a large number of these refugees – perhaps because its economy is the strongest in Europe and also, perhaps, because its birth-rate is slow and it could actually do with a population boost, especially in the unskilled sector. Other countries are not so ready, willing or able to accommodate a wave of migrants and the burden on social welfare that it would entail. In 2014, a survey in France revealed that 80% of the refugees who had arrived ten years earlier were still unemployed and living on government benefits.

On top of the strain which a large number of new arrivals places on the economies, housing capacity and educational facilities of European countries, there is of course the overriding problem that accepting refugees en masse will dramatically increase the number of people seeking to relocate to the safety of Europe.

What is astonishing about the entire situation is that, despite the immense problems of resettling the flood of refugees and the horrors of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria, the western world remains resolutely resolved not to intervene in the war itself.

In other words, Europe would rather spend billions of Euros accommodating fleeing Syrians than spend considerably less committing troops to end the war that is creating the crisis.

If the leaders of Europe are looking for a solution to the refugee situation, the answer is not in some far reaching agreement to share the responsibility for resettlement, the solution is simply as follows.

1.       Send a multinational force of  80,000 troops into Syria.

2.       Wipe out ISIS completely.

 

3.      Demobilise government forces (due to defections there are less that 100,000 soldiers still fighting) arrest Assad and put him on trial for war crimes as the UN did with Milosovic.

4.       Institute democratic elections in the country.

This would require the major members of the EU, Britain, France and Germany to provide contingents of around 10,000 troops each. The smaller members would provide contingents of between 1000 and 5000 depending on their size.

It would be essential that the operation NOT be under the control of the UN because that body is completely ineffective at conducting any sort of military action and the US should also not be involved except in providing air support because it is hopeless at conducting ground wars. The main role of the US would be to help Iraq to deal with the IS forces that would flee over the border into that country. Without access to their home base the Iraqi branch of IS would be relatively helpless.

Why would this action succeed? Because there would be enough troops to complete the job quickly. Every war that has been conducted in the Middle East in the last two decades has been marred by insufficient troop numbers resulting in prolonged conflict with inconclusive outcomes. They have also been hamstrung by having to be disguised as “support” or “advisory” actions with forces wasting time and energy supposedly “training” the local incompetent troops. The purpose of a large expeditionary force would be to quickly disarm all three combatants in the war – the government, the democratic rebels, the Islamist rebels and essentially take control of the country.

It would also succeed because, unlike Afghanistan, Syria does not have an impenetrable mountain range where the Islamists can hole up indefinitely to emerge when the forces leave, nor is there a country next door to offer covert support to the rebels (yes, we’re talking about you Pakistan). In fact Syria's neighbours all hate Assad.

Such an action would also limit Iran's power in the region by removing Hezbollah from their position of influence and even have a collateral benefit in sending an important message to Vladimir Putin that if Europe joins forces as a single entity, it is a force greater than Russia.

Of course NONE OF THIS WILL HAPPEN.

So why will the west not intervene quickly and decisively to end a conflict that is characterised by an endless stream of atrocities and threatens not only the future of Syria itself but is destabilising the countries around it?

Because the West has been overtaken and essentially paralysed by five decades of anti-war polemics and middle class “I don’t want to get involved/it's not our problem” isolationism.

The middle class of the West is trapped between two contradictory positions (a) that helping refugees escape from a life-threatening situation is not only admirable and humane but a fundamental moral responsibility but (b) to take action to remove the life-threatening situation itself is war-mongering aggression and western imperialism.

Thus the democratic countries of Europe will flap and cackle about how to house a million refugees but not for one moment consider taking military action to eradicate the factors that are creating those refugees.

At the same time, while the Left is captive to a there are no good wars, imperialism is bad, national sovereignty is inviolable, blah blah blah doctrine, conservatives are also adverse to any sort of intervention - but in their case purely out of self-interest.

While not opposed to war in principle, and having little or no sympathy for the plight of warring Islamic factions, conservatives are still smarting from the flack they copped over Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Vietnam still lurks ghoulishly at the edge of memory in the US and Europe. After watching the vilification that George W. Bush endured over Iraq, Barak Obama is not the only US politician who will not even toy with the notion of a ground invasion of Syria. In Britain there are still people like the monumentally stupid George Galloway calling for Tony Blair to be tried for war crimes over Iraq. In other words, saving the Syrians from the brutal forces of Assad and the even more brutal forces of IS is simply not worth the effort politically. We feel sorry for the Syrians... but not that much. Let them fight it out amongst themselves, see what the outcome is, and then form a strategy. 

So, in the end, for the people of Europe, and the rest of the western world, it is easier just to find the extra money to house the refugees than to endure the inevitable backlash from the peace-nuts that will come from mounting a military invasion. Besides... it’s actually good to have some refugees to feel sorry for. It makes us feel good about ourselves.