Solution to the Syrian Refugee Crisis

There is only one solution to the current European refugee crisis, but it is not a solution anyone wants to adopt.  Before I express my thoughts I want to preference them with two points.  First, I believe the refugees trying to get into Europe at present are genuine refugees.  Second, the solution I will explore here is a high level solution.  There are many details which need to be fleshed out.

The solution is simple.  Someone needs to go into Syria and take over wiping out Islamic State in the process.  When they take over, they need to rule with an iron fist and get the country running in some semblance of order.  Perhaps Europe should unite and do this themselves.  Of course, this solution is unpopular with many.  It would mean Syria loses its independence.  It would mean Syrians don’t rule their own country for a while.  And of course, it might cause tension with neighboring countries.  But it is the only solution.

When the Japanese surrendered unconditionally to the United States, the USA moved in and ruled, occupying the country in the process.  The US kept Hirohito on the throne even though he was responsible for the war in the first place, or largely responsible anyway.  They did this to prevent any uprisings in the name of the Emperor.  Mistreating Hirohito would have been a mistake and the US did not make that mistake.

But the US was in control.  My mother, who was born in Tokyo in 1927 lived through the war and its aftermath.  The US told the Japanese what they could and could not do.  No martial arts.  Women get to vote.  No army to speak of, and so on.  I remember her telling me how she felt when she saw two US serviceman strolling casually through Tokyo.  Every ounce of her burned with despair and shame.  They were beaten and the US treated them like a beaten nation.  Well, almost.

The US helped rebuild Japan.  They had selfish motives, but the end result was a modern society with some western, and some Japanese values.  And a strange thing happened.  The people liked what they got.  Eventually, the US returned governance of Japan to the Japanese and the Japanese have been a strong ally ever since.  Japan has been a buffer against Communism, a real threat in the 50’s through 70’s, and the standard of living in Japan has consistently been high.  No terrorism and no civil war plagues the nation.  Aside from one really bizarre cult, Japan has experience peace and reasonable prosperity.

Compare this to how the US behaved in Iraq.  The US behaved in Iraq.  Instead of helping to rebuild Iraq, the companies supposedly there to do this engaged in blatant theft from the US purse and gave Iraq nothing in return.  Many people still have no running water and a decent infrastructure is a distant dream.  The US immediately propped up a government no one wanted and which was itself weak and corrupt.  Then the US left, leaving a power vacuum which ISIS was more than happy to exploit.  The government in charge there now is inept and incapable of doing much of anything.

What the US needed to do was what they did in Japan.  They needed to rule with an iron fist.  They needed to say to Iraqis, you don’t run this place anymore until we say you do.  You will do things our way.  Companies who were contracted to rebuild infrastructure but did not should be removed and their executives jailed.  Dick Chaney tops the list in my opinion.  The guy should be put in jail and the key thrown away and throw in some hard labor on top of it all.

Had the US managed Iraq properly, the people could have had running water, schools, and a strong government – all be it an occupation government – which forced them to shove their tribal differences out the window.  If the US had forced the country to use its oil revenue to pay for the rebuild, so much the better.  Once finished – and I think it would have taken longer than it did in Japan – the US could then leave and people would not tolerate a government which did not continue giving people running water and schools.

Iraq was more complicated than Japan because of two factors:  oil and religious divides.  Neither one of these were factors in Japan back in 1945.  Oil money is hard to resist and given the US congress being in bed with every rich and powerful company out there, this would have made the United States Iraq campaign even more difficult.

But if the American people had witnessed the abject misery of the average rural Iraqi, as I have, they might have been more willing to resist oil money temptation and actually help the place.  In short, whether you believe the second Iraq war was justified or not, I think it is quite clear that the USA completely mismanaged the aftermath of the war.  And it doesn’t even take hindsight to figure that out.  Many of us were critical of US management at the time.

Now we have Iraq as a basket case and civil war in Syria with Islamic State causing mayhem in both countries.  And the problem with the refugees is there are too many of them.  Even if there aren’t too many of them, they will keep coming and if they are not too many today – a point which can be debated – they will be too many tomorrow.

If somebody overthrew the current Syrian government and ruled with an iron fist, the refugees could return and take part in the rebuilding of their country.  In other words, the Syrians would suffer short term pain and even humiliation as they lose their independence, but if managed properly, the end result would far outweigh any negatives. 

If a coalition of US, Russian and European forces swept in with overwhelming military might, and blasted all armed opposition off the face of the earth, and if somehow there could be carefully thought out guidelines for running the place after the military victory so that no one power gained an advantage over another, then Syria would have a chance, and perhaps Iraq would too.  This would also result in a fair oil price which is combined with stability of supply. 

I’m not saying the US was perfect in Japan, but it seems to me our leaders were a bit wiser in the 40’s than they are now.  Yes, they did give us the cold war.  But we didn’t blow each other into the stone age and after all is said and done, Mutually Assured Destruction worked, at least so far.  There were some losers.  Hungary comes to mind so their perspective may be entirely different from mine.  We can throw Poland and Latvia into the mix of those who got the short end of the stick.  But there will always be super powers and there will always be small nations caught in the game of thrones as it were.  The best we can hope for is a decent outcome for most people.  And that is exactly what we got with post war policy.

The problem with the poor is there will always be poor.  The problem with refugees is there will always be refugees.  Maybe the west is lucky because we don’t have to run from our countries.  We might tomorrow but not today at least.  At the end of the first World War, the allies managed Germany much as the US managed Iraq recently.  We set up a government in Germany which no one really wanted and which was too weak to do anything.  German suffered violent factionalism and hyper inflation.  Eventually, Hitler emerged and the world was plunged into a second world war.  After the end of World War II, the west helped to rebuild Germany so that at least the western half of the country had a decent place to live.  And that stopped the refugees.  The only refugees Europe experienced were those trying to escape the Eastern Block which was dominated by a Soviet Union not particularly interested in rebuilding the conquered lands.  They had to rebuild themselves.  The allies ruled West Germany until the Germans took it back and ran the place.

  Maybe we have done a few things right.  That, combined with luck means we have had a decent run overall. 

Germany rose up and started World War II because the winners of World War I ground them into the dirt too much.  The Syrians we are seeing now have been ground down as well.  People can only take so much.  If you want to stop them from entering Europe, give them a reason to return to their country and stay there.  Otherwise, the one-way traffic of humanity will overwhelm us all eventually.  History is replete with mass migrations and these have changed nations.  The Roman Empire collapsed largely because of refugees running away from the Huns.

My solution is drastic and does involve short term pain.  It also requires a level of ethics and morality we don’t see in our leaders today.  I don’t know whether it will work.  But I do know this.  It is the only solution that has a chance to solve the problem.