We must stop the war in Syria now
THERE’S a logical old saying: if you want to empty the bath turn the taps off first. I refer to the refugee/ immigration crisis convulsing Europe. The half- brains whom we saw last week rabbiting on in Brussels about “sharing out” the incoming tide – and provoking outrage in the smaller and poorer nations as they laid down the law – seem to have presumed that the existing million incomers is the final figure. Not a chance. These are the pioneers. Back where they came from millions more are watching eagerly.
It is obviously impossible to give a precise figure to the total number who lust to leave the hellholes where they live and come to Europe to avoid misery, war, death or poverty. But Syria is the tip of the iceberg.
With modern communications technology the word, plus pictures, will spread like wildfire as soon as the first wave is assimilated. Cousin Ibrahim has made it. Let us pack, pay our life savings to the traffickers and get under way. But Syria first.
Racked for four years by civil war Syria probably has the highest percentage of any country in Asia of those who want a new life far away. We can see on television mile after mile of rubble – once cities bustling with life and inhabitants.
Yet there is I believe an alternative.
The first step must be to end the civil war. We can hardly support the horrible dictator Assad but nor his enemies the barbarous IS.
And now the new player is Putin, moving his Russian forces in there in strength. We may not like him, we may know he orders the assassination ( in London if need be) of political opponents. But someone once said we do not have friends or enemies abroad, we have interests. Swallow deeply, we will have to work with him to bring that war to an end. It cannot go on for ever. No wars ever do.
The Spanish Civil War was foul but it ended. In 1945 Germany was shattered, all her cities in ruins. But the Germans did not quit for
Argentina – they stayed to rebuild their homeland. The Syrians must be given every incentive to do the same. Once settled in Europe they will never return home.
The second thing we could do is create armed and secure living zones inside Syria but up against the three friendly borders: Turkey in the north, Lebanon in the west, Jordan in the south.
But it will mean foreign troops, under Nato or UN flags. It is crazy to presume the barbarians of either side will just allow that to happen. Such safe zones will need border guards facing outwards: that is, into Syria’s IS- occupied heartland. It is no use relying on semi- trained Syrian militia, like the Iraqi militias they just run like hell if the IS fanatics attack.
If there were such zones the rich West could pour its aid into them, helping the Syrians to rebuild and make new lives. It would cost less than settling these millions in Europe.
Slowly these zones could expand inwards, defeating IS until their borders joined to create a new federal Syria. We have done it before. Back then it was shattered Europe. The enemy was Stalin. The shield was Nato. The funding was the Marshall Plan.
Today the territory is the Middle East and we have friends there who cannot take all the strain: Turkey and Jordan. The enemy is Al Qaeda/ Al Nusra/ IS. The funds are what we pour into the bottomless pit of the gigantic and useless bureaucracy of Brussels.
Either that or we stand by wailing helplessly as in Brussels last week.