The Syrian refugee crisis is finally front-page news. Over the past two weeks, Syrian refugees forced their way across perilous seas, through the chunnel, and into the headlines in a desperate bid to reach Europe’s shores. The EU is scrambling to find a solution. Under pressure from its allies to do more, the U.S. pledged to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, only .25 percent of the four million Syrians who have fled so far.
For all the welcome focus on the Syrian refugees’ plight, the fact remains that current U.S. policy, which ignores Assad’s crimes in favor of a counterterrorism-centric “degrade and destroy ISIS” approach, can do little to solve the crisis. The waves of refugees now landing on Europe’s shores are a predictable result of allowing Assad’s escalating atrocities to go unchecked for over four years. From shifting chemical weapons red lines to anemic support for the Syrian opposition, U.S. policy has been a series of half-measures that has failed to confront what is really causing most Syrians to endure unscrupulous smugglers, hostile border guards, and an uncertain future.
{mosads}For now, U.S. Syria policy rests on a flawed premise: that ISIS is the primary destabilizing force in Syria. To be sure, from beheading journalists to enslaving Yazidi women and burning a Jordanian pilot alive, ISIS’ visceral brutality has no equal in modern memory. ISIS is barbaric, but it is just one among many Islamist groups menacing Syria’s population, and its violence is carefully staged for maximum shock value. Meanwhile, it has always been Assad’s barrel bombs and aerial assaults that have killed civilians at a rate seven times greater than ISIS. For all its cinematic viciousness, ISIS is a symptom of Syria’s disintegration, not the cause.
Syria’s refugee crisis cannot be fully understood without recounting the Obama administration’s tortured attempts to force Assad to blink. The U.S. started off with a strong hand. In 2011, citing Syria’s “ferocious brutality” against “peaceful protesters,” President Obama announced widespread sanctions against the Assad regime and called on Assad himself to “step aside.” Undeterred, Assad began using artillery and helicopter gunships against civilians, and enlisted sectarian militias to massacre entire villages. In 2012, Obama declared the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” resulting in “enormous consequences.” Assad proceeded to drop sarin gas on civilian neighborhoods, and continues to use Chlorine almost daily. Last summer, a high-ranking Syrian defector, code named Caesar, presented Congress with unassailable evidence that the Assad regime is torturing and murdering tens of thousands on an industrial scale not seen since Nazi Germany. Since then, the Obama administration, perhaps out of deference to negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, has gone out of its way to avoid antagonizing Assad.
Yet by staying silent on Assad’s crimes, U.S. policy has failed to address the looming long-term threat to Western interests: the disintegration of a sovereign state at the crossroads of the world’s most volatile region. A counterterrorism strategy focused on disrupting ISIS will not stabilize Syria or staunch the flow of refugees. Even worse, it gives Russia a convenient pretext for adventurism in Syria. Moscow now claims that its military buildup in Syria is to “supply the Syrian government…in its fight against terrorism”, and is now threatening to launch its own anti-ISIS bombing campaign if the U.S. will not allow Russia and Iran into the international coalition fighting the extremist group. But a Russia-led campaign would encourage more government attacks on civilians and would treat all opposition groups as a terrorist threat, including U.S.-backed rebels.
One thing is clear: at this late hour, there can be no military solution to the Syria crisis. For U.S. policymakers, shifting to a paradigm that privileges diplomacy over military force will involve tough choices; it is difficult to imagine a durable peace in Syria that doesn’t address the interests of Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime. Russia’s rapid development of a forward operating base in Syria demonstrates Moscow’s determination to double down on Assad, even at the risk of international censure.
Yet even in the face of Putin’s recent brinksmanship, the U.S. and its allies still have some cards to play. The key is for the Obama administration toreframe its Syria policy in terms of human security, as the U.S. did two decades ago in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. On the humanitarian front, the U.S. should convene an international summit to come up with a comprehensive aid and resettlement program that addresses the interests of Syria’s neighbors, which have absorbed the bulk of the refugees to date. Aside from urgent humanitarian needs, two million of the Syrian refugees are children. A long-term plan for their education and welfare is crucial to prevent a lost generation at the heart of the Middle East. Given legitimate concerns about ISIS fighters infiltrating Europe,protecting this vulnerable population from extremist ideologies is critical to any counterterrorism strategy.
On the military front, a safe zone on Syria’s Turkish and Jordanian borders, policed by NATO air power, would offer refugees solace from ISIS and Assad, and signal that the west is serious about protecting Syrian civilians. With their focus on saving civilian lives,buffer zones also have a sound basis in international law’s Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Finally, the U.S. needs to restart the stalled Syrian peace process, with buy-in from both Russia and Iran.
But the most crucial element of this strategy must be stopping Assad’s war crimes, which now rival the worst abuses of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The U.S. cannot regain the moral high ground without publically calling Assad to account. Since 2012, the U.N. and NGOs such as the Syria Justice and Accountability Center have extensively documented Syria’s state policy of attacking civilians with artillery, barrel bombs, starvation sieges, and chemical weapons.
The U.S. and its allies should leverage this international consensus. One optionis a contingent referral to the International Criminal Court, whereby the ICC would gain jurisdiction over the Syria conflict only if the parties refuse a durable peace within a time limit, or if they commit crimes in the future. This would expose all of Syria’s combatants to internationally recognized standards that rely on objective analysis, evidence, and well-settled legal norms. As long as U.S. strategy remains myopically focused on ISIS, however, the Syrian refugee crisis can only get worse.
Ulbrick is an international attorney, policy analyst, and investor focused on the MENA region.