Offering $500 million to fix the refugee crisis plaguing Europe, billionaire currency investor and hedge fund manager George Soros gave a seven-point plan to deal with the crisis. “I am a refugee myself,” Soros told New York’s Concordia Summit, admitting he was forced to flee Nazi occupied Hungary as a teenager. However well intentioned, Soros must first apply maximum pressure on the White House and world leaders to end the nearly six-year-old Syria War. Refugees from war-torn Syria and economic migrants from North Africa have flooded across European borders causing the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII. When Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov completed a ceasefire agreement Sept. 10 the world cheered hoping that the war was finally coming to an end. One week later, the combatants are back at it again.
Kerry and Lavrov had high hopes that the U.S. and Russia could find common ground in a Syrian ceasefire. When U.S.-led coalition forces struck the Syrian army near Aleppo Sept. 17, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared the ceasefire over. U.N. Amb. Samantha Power added insult-to-injury blaming Syria and Russia for killing thousands of civilians during the war’s duration. Started March 15, 2011 during the Saudi’s Arab Spring, the Syrian War’s death toll has topped 300,000, displacing 12 million refugees to neighboring countries and Europe. Absorbing up to a million Syrian refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put her political future in doubt. Soros wants to help the refugee crisis but it’s up to the warring parties to reach an agreement to end the war before NGOs can make a difference. Even U.N. aid agencies find current conditions intolerable.
Pointing to the refugee crisis threatening Europe, 86-year-old Soros wants to ease the crisis but won’t hazard a political fix. While called a civil war by the U.S. and European Union, the Syrian War is actually a proxy war primarily funded by Saudi Arabia to advance its conservative brand of Islam known as Wahhabism to Syria. Saudi’s 56-year-old Foreign Minister Adel al-Jebeir hasn’t hidden Saudi’s dog in the fight. Al-Jubeir promised that the Kingdom wouldn’t stop the war until al-Assad was out of Damascus. Taking opposite sides of the war, the White House gives the Saudis 100% backing, funding rebel groups to topple al-Assad. Russian President Vladimir Putin back’s al-Assad’s goverbnebt against various terrorist groups because Putin sees al-Assad as the rightful sovereign power. Back in 2011, Saudi Arabia decided it was their duty to topple Mideast dictators.
Putin made his position known Aug. 28, 2015 at last year’s U.N. General Assembly. He stated clearly that toppling al-Assad would make a bad situation worse in the Middle East. Two days later, he started air strikes against Saudi-Turkey-U.S. rebel forces looking to topple al-Assad. When Lavrov and Kerry met Sept. 10 on the ceasefire, it looked like the two Cold War enemies had finally turned a corner. Obama’s position of backing the Saudi proxy war against al-Assad, runs counter to Russia, turning back the clock on the Cold War. Soros’s ambitious proposal can’t be implemented unless the Syrian War ends. Soros wants the EU, like Merkel, to take more refugees, something resisted by many EU states, like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Soros’s Open Society programs in Eastern Europe have helped promote early-life education but can’t end the Syrian War.
Asking the EU to pony up 30 billion euros to handle relocation, training and refugee assimilation, Soros isn’t dealing with current economic conditions, putting the EU dangerously close to recession. Soros wants the EU to control its borders yet expects EU countries to expand their quotas of refugees. Expecting poor nations in Africa to absorb more Mideast or North African refugees is unrealistic, especially because economic migrants find little opportunity in Africa. No amount of cash paid to African countries will encourage the kind of economic development needed for long-term jobs growth. If Soros wants to deal with Mideast refugee crisis, it requires the U.S., Russia and other key players in Geneva to stand up to the Saudis to end the Syrian War. As long as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the U.S. fund rebel groups to change regimes in Damascus, the War will go on.
Philanthropists, like Soros, have their place in long-range development plans but can’t end the Syrian War, causing today’s refugee crisis. Encouraging the EU to pony up more cash, strengthen borders or create an immigrant-friendly environment won’t stop the nearly six-year war from threatening to break up the EU. When you consider the EU backs the Saudi-Turkey-U.S. proxy war against al-Assad, there’s little hope in solving the refugee crisis. If there’s any way to salvage the U.S.-Russian ceasefire, it requires the U.S. to stand up to the Saudis, telling the Kingdom the war must stop. With donors like Soros ready to help, he can’t put the cart-before-the horse. Starting NGOs to help refugees requires the war to end first, before throwing cash at the current problem. Instead of blaming the Russians, the U.S. must take an honest look at how backing the Saudi proxy war has caused the problem.
