Here is the Solution to the Refugee Crisis

It is apparent that for all the top leadership in the world, whether Presidents, Prime Ministers, or a Pope, they have not been able expedite a strategic plan to stem the swelling refugee crisis. It is clear that the struggle for ancestral influence and intransigent sovereignty in the volatile region of the Middle East is at the core. Historically, this is nothing new. However, to resolve the current disaster that is displacing and claiming millions of innocent lives that has led to emerging serpents of evil that would make Medusa’s hairdo look tame; all factions and coalitions must decide to coalesce on an immediate stratagem. This blueprint is by no means diplomatically agreeable to everyone’s politics and principles; but as the Rolling Stone’s once said, “You can’t always get what you want”. In this case, the upshot would make certain that ISIS is destroyed while mottled democratic appeals remain deferred in the foreseeable future in some spheres; and the refugees have the utmost to gain – their lives.

While we need to focus on the international community taking action, one must take a moment to understand how the refugee crisis emanated, and thus understand where the obligation rests to sort it out. It is patently evident that the absence of a solid U.S. foreign policy doctrine and leadership under U.S. President Obama has resulted in the lethal blend of multiple power vacuums across the Middle East and little to no fear of consequential American military action challenging the war-crime infused tribalism filling these vacuums. This failed responsibility of the world’s Super Power to instill the strategic balance now has the European Community in uncharted chaos in the Obama-created refugee exodus. The refugee calamity was kindled by Obama when the President made the hapless decision to hastily draw the American military out of Iraq. Obama essentially received a relatively secure Iraq where the presence of U.S military bases in Iraq sustained reconciliation in a historically divided country struggling to become a democracy. This is not unlike America’s certitude to maintain military bases in Germany and Japan following their defeat in WW II, and then establishing a very effective military standpoint in the DMZ between North and South Korea following the Korean War. The assignment in Iraq was not carried through. The dreadful judgment allowed for a power vacuum where the Iranian-backed Shia and opposing Sunni tribes to once again rise in their archaic grapple for domination of the Shatt al Arab. Further to the north where seeds of democracy sought freedom in Syria, a simultaneous civil war was launched in an attempt to unseat the long-lasting and callous President Bashar al-Assad. The Russian-backed Syrian dictator unleashed his military power against the inept pro-democracy movement that resulted in President Obama drawing the notorious line in the sand where he claimed America would use its military capacity to combat the Assad regime if the massacring of tens of thousands of innocent people proceeded.

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Obama’s flop to keep his ‘line in the sand’ mandate and the choice to withdraw out of Iraq resulted in birth of the brutal and well-armed ISIS inserting themselves as the hostile force in the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars. President Obama’s muffled saber rattling was perceived as American frailty and afforded the Assad regime with the clearance to proceed with the indiscriminate slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children that eventually displaced millions of people across the Middle East. With nowhere to turn, the hundreds of thousands of refugees began their trek to the fruited plains of the European Community. Let’s be clear, ISIS never existed prior to Obama. Well there you have it in a nut shell on what has now become an increasingly complex tinderbox of an inhumane dictator, tribalism, foreign policy failure, persecution, death, and a broadening refugee crisis across Europe where present dangers and future consequences will certainly roost. Let’s move on from the blame. Here’s the deal. It’s actually not dissimilar to the contrasting nations deciding to act on a number of fronts to defeat Hitler, and a Nazi regime that ravaged Europe and became the ISIS of the day with the slaughtering of millions of Jewish lives. While the three heads of government in the USSR, USA, and UK were at odds with each other as they are today with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Obama, they put that aside temporarily to defeat a common cancer infecting the world. The United States and its coalition, for all its power and recent failure in the region, must now cede defeat in its attempt to topple the ruthless President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Military support for the opposing revolutionaries in Syria failed to materialize, the line in the sand was redrawn, and the ‘Russians are Coming’. Essentially, America failed to navigate a fissure of democracy and it sealed up. Russian military boots are now on the ground in Syria. Russia’s largest military cargo plane, the Antonov An-124 Ruslan – better known by its NATO codename, “Condor” are delivering arms to Syria which Moscow says are aimed at combatting terrorism. The preparatory steps are a big shift and indications of increased Russian involvement in Syria and its support for the Assad’s brawl against Islamic State insurgents or what is remaining of the loosely American-backed rebels. In other words, Assad and his regime now possess the vital military and political back up and his position of authority over the country is now rock-solid. In order to now bring some sense of stability to the region; yet not without long term implications, the Americans will now need to approach the Russians to discuss a regional plan to extricate ISIS from the planet whereby the US concedes to Assad remaining in power. This as we know, is a foregone conclusion anyways and the conflict would simply drag out with further death, destruction, and the equivalent conclusion. In cutting to the chase, Russia would be responsible for dismantling ISIS from within Syria, reestablish the borders, and contain Assad’s brutality under a short leash. America, Iraq, Turkey, and its Western Allies will assert the matching responsibility in Iraq with troops on the ground to obliterate ISIS. This can be achieved relatively quickly with the rapid deployment of the best military professionals and their advanced weaponry undoubtedly pursuing and encircling a retreating ISIS apparatus that would be decimated in its tracks. The air show alone will not do it. A number of strategic checkpoints will be necessary over the short term to allow the refugees to return home through protected corridors. The oil-rich Arab countries need to be ordered to ante up and foot a big part of the bill to rebuild homes and infrastructure for the refugees. After all, it is not their blood and sweat and it is their neck of the woods. The refugees fleeing to Europe can now come to an end and be rerouted back to their homeland. An agreement on the front side should include a pull out date of both American and Russian military forces simultaneously. Cost and exhaustion should eventually take care of that matter. The design is not without risk or implications on a longer term basis where Israel risks clashing with Russia when they face off with Syria over a border infraction by Assad’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah. As for Syria, Assad’s era in history will eventually befallen him. There is still the matter of what becomes of Iraq over time. One can only hope for lessons learned, stability, and a civilized country rising from this heap of ashes. In the meantime, the world should be able to turn the page on this current refugee crisis. If anything positive can come out of the Obama foreign policy legacy, he can right a wrong and claim to have led the campaign to rescue the desperate refugees, rid the world of ISIS, and either killed or brought to justice the leaders of this scourge. Will he lead or leave it for the next President? It is the next page and the next President of the United States that will be required to demonstrate strength and resolute in the face of escalating Russian aggression. The help from the ‘enemy of my enemy’ is at best the only solution at this present time now; similar to the USSR and USA during WWII when they put an end to the atrocities at the Jewish death camps. The Jewish people were provided the opportunity to return to their homeland, and so should their distant brothers and sisters in the refugee camps.