The most popular military alternative in Syria, recently revived by Hillary Clinton, is to establish a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors where the United States could both protect civilians from Assad’s bombing campaigns and keep them from having to flee the country. Russia’s campaign in support of Assad, however, makes this dangerous and impractical because it raises the risk of confrontation between U.S. aircraft enforcing a no-fly zone and Russian aircraft attacking nearby targets. Even if such an effort were practical, partial solutions like this are likely to lock civilians into refugee camps to the detriment of both the refugees and the United States. In such camps, refugees often suffer serious health risks, predation from their neighbors, economic difficulties stemming from prolonged unemployment, and mental-health strain related to all of the above. Moreover, many refugee camps have also become sources of radicalization and political violence. In short, such camps produce terrible results.

Going in militarily is not the answer, then. Instead, those civilians under threat should get out. Refugees typically receive support in the countries to which they flee, but the vast numbers involved in this case threaten to overwhelm Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, which have so far accommodated the vast majority of the outflow. The United States could better employ the resources it has already demonstrated a willingness to expend in Syria by opening its doors to refugees and encouraging its allies, in the European Union and elsewhere, to do the same. The Obama administration has so far promised to take in just 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016. Meanwhile, European countries like Germany (which has pledged to admit 800,000 asylum-seekers, including Syrians, this year), Britain (which has pledged to admit 20,000 Syrians over the next five years), and France (which has pledged to admit 24,000 Syrians over the next two years) have committed to making significant contributions on this front. These expressions of a desire to find a solution, and the will to implement it, could be further leveraged.

For many refugees, resettlement could take the form of medium-term stays in host countries until it becomes possible for them to return home. For others, however, it could mean permanent resettlement. Without question the scale of the Syrian crisis, which has so far produced 4 million refugees, will make this process difficult. But there are precedents for this kind of long-term resettlement, albeit on a smaller scale. Almost 700,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled elsewhere in the wake of the Vietnam War, while hundreds of thousands fleeing conflicts in Russia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo have also found new homes around the world.

Most importantly, an open-door resettlement policy would save thousands of lives and improve the life prospects of millions more. The declared goals of Western intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have included the freedom and well-being of the people in those countries. Sadly, military campaigns by the United States and U.S.-led coalitions in such places have failed to provide any such thing. An open-door policy would finally provide concrete benefits to these people, and represent a morally superior alternative to forcing refugees to remain in dangerous camps or sending them back to deadly conflict zones.