Trying to Think Sensibly About the Syrian Refugee Crisis

I have been trying to think of an issue that has been handled worse by the chattering classes on both sides of the ideological divide and politicians on both sides of the partisan aisle since World War II, and I have trouble thinking of one.

At the level of highest generality, the issue is not that hard. The Syrian refugee problem is a major humanitarian crisis. Both biblical injunctions to be kind to strangers and the Statue of Liberty’s eloquent statement mandate a compassionate response. Holocaust comparisons that are now whizzing back-and-forth don’t tell you much except that the U.S. failed to meet the compassion test during World War II regarding especially Jewish refugees from and victims of Hitler.

On the other hand, if the Nazis had infiltrated the tiny movement of Jewish or other refugees into the U.S. before or during World War II—I know no evidence for it—the worst we could have suffered is an attack on a shipyard or port facility. Now, ISIS is indeed attempting such infiltration, and honesty and prudence require admitting that the worst case scenario for them succeeding could be a nuclear “dirty bomb” attack or worse. I’m not against taking risks out of compassion, but I am in favor of obliterating ISIS before it can exploit our compassion in horrendous ways.

The major problems are at the level of practicality and policy. If I were dictator, I would adopt a Chinese menu approach taking choices from both Column A and Column B by not cutting off the refugee inflow, but toughening vetting procedures, by creating “safe zones” in Syria, and distributing refugees more evenly across Europe as Merkel proposes, but not allowing in enough to tip the political balance in favor of Le Pen in France or Neo-Nazis in Germany. Yazidi and Christian refugees should be fast tracked, but no explicit religious tests against Muslims should be adopted. If you don’t want to make me dictator, I nominate French President Hollande.

The Ryan “pause” legislation, passed in the House with bipartisan support, is not really a pause; it just adds another layer of vetting procedures, creating a potential pain in the posterior for administers. This negative has to be weighed against the positive of allaying politically enflamed fears about the refugee influx on the home front. Whether it’s good or bad is debatable, but hyperbolic arguments for or against it are both false. The Feinstein bipartisan Senate proposal would bar European visa holders who have travelled back and forth to Syria in the last five years. Would probably be more effective and may be easier to pass and get Obama to sign.

The only thing I am sure of is that if we continue to give reign to a toxic combination emanating from varying directions of political posturing, guilt tripping, self-righteous effusions, and idiotic reflex responses, we are headed for a great disaster probably inevitable without divine intervention. I fear that won’t be forthcoming because God has about lost His or Her patience with us.