@Klein:

For almost two decades now, a bunch of Western academics and politicians, especially from America (see the Princeton Project), have been bent on undermining the UN and replacing it with an organisation more pliable to Western interests. One that can declare wars at a moment's notice.



My comparison with the plight of the Vietnamese is fitting in the case of Syria. For most in the West, the Assad regime is viewed as a Soviet-era relic and the efforts to topple it have an important ideological component, as indeed in Libya or Iraq.



For the past 60 years, the Middle East has been the sole preserve of the United States, not that of any European nation, least of all Germany. Whilst Europeans could provide assistance on humanitarian grounds, the US should have been the first country to help clean up the mess left behind by the war in Iraq, for example, or the covert support for anti-Assad rebels.



Instead, Merkel behaved more like a German Kaiserin than a Chancellor, going against the wishes of most European nations and her own coalition partners in Germany, on the refugee issue. In so doing, she gave the Turks the impression that the EU can be blackmailed for money and even for visas or accession talks. For the neo-Ottoman Turks, the 3 billion euros are just a first installment, many other financial assistance requests being sure to follow. As matters now stand, after the conclusion of the November agreement, 4,000 refugees per day have still crossed the sea to Greece in December !



The Turks are thus building on a long and established tradition of extracting tribute from weak European states in order to preserve the peace of the contributing countries. Or, what Mrs Merkel has done, in effect, is to make the entire EU tributary to Turkey for its security and social peace. The lure of cheap labour has also prompted her to put German social peace in jeopardy for decades to come.



An alternative course of action would have been to get tough with the Turks a month or two after this summer's refugee wave started, and to impose severe economic sanctions on this country for unleashing it. Turkey depends on EU states for half of its exports and German tourists are the biggest group holidaying in Antalya. As the Turks succeeded in policing the flux of refugees for 4 whole years, they should have been obliged to continue to do so, especially because they got involved early with the anti-Assad coalition and therefore they are at least as responsible as the Americans for the debacle there. Needless to say, ALL European heads of state would have endorsed such a policy, without any divisions whatsoever...which is not currently the case.



Imposing sanctions on Turkey for its handling of refugees on its territory does not mean that Europe should not help refugees, select some of them from Turkey, Lebanon,etc, and help feed the rest who are still forced to live in camps - but only via UN agencies. Harsh as this might appear, the Syrians themselves will learn that there are consequences to starting armed rebellions which fail to achieve their intended results. In this way, they will think three times before taking up weapons against their own government.