Meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin continue the charade talking about a humanitarian ceasefire in Syria. Obama finds himself on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, backing the Saudi proxy war and a variety of rebel groups, like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] and al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra Front, seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Fueling the proxy war over the last five years has cost over 280,000 lives, displacing 11 million more to neighboring countries and Europe. Obama knows that the intolerable influx of Syrian refugees drove the U.K. out of the European Union June 23, asking inescapable questions. Also attending the G20 in Hangzhou, Brussels-based European Council President Donald Tusk sent Obama and Putin a message: Europe’s at the breaking point.
Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry pretend that they have no say in the Syrian war, when both know they’re backing the Saudi’s Arab Spring, seeking, like they did in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and now Syria, to topple all Mideast dictators that don’t agree with the Kingdom. Putin made his position clear Sept. 28, 2015 at the U.N. General Assembly that toppling al-Assad would repeat the same mistakes in Iraq and elsewhere spreading more death, destruction and terrorism to the region. Obama and Kerry have failed to convince Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to throw al-Assad under the bus. With less than five months in office, Obama won’t change the U.S. position of backing the Saudi proxy war, no matter how many more locals starve or get caught in the crossfire, or, how the refugee crisis continues to stress the European Union to the breaking point.
Speaking in Hangzhou, Tusk laid down the gauntlet for the EU, U.S. and international community. “The practical capabilities of Europe to host new waves of refugees, not to mention irregular economic migrants, are close to the limits,” putting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others on notice that the Syrian War now threatens the EU. U.K.’s June 23 Brexit vote was no fluke, with other EU countries tightening borders and refusing EU pressure, especially from Merkel, to take more refugees. Tusk’s the first EU official to tell the truth about the intolerable burden from the Syrian War. Obama isn’t expected to confront Saudi Arabia anytime soon about refusing to stop funding Syrian opposition groups. If Obama accepted Putin’s logic on the Syria War, the conflict could be over next week. With Russian backing, al-Assad has regained large swaths of Syrian territory, including Aleppo.
Crying out for to end the Syrian refugee crisis, it’s time time for the White House to admit failure, change its policy and notify Saudi Arabia that the war must stop. Neither Merkel nor Tusk can see the forest-for-the trees, only pressuring more EU countries to take more refugees. Tusk wants other non-EU countries, including the U.S., to pick up the slack on the millions of refugees still seeking asylum. “In light of an unprecedented number of 65 million displaced people all over the world, the G20 needs to scale up its share of the relationship. We need to address the root causes that force millions of people to leave their homes and seek shelter elsewhere,” said Tusk, pointing fingers at the U.S. and EU, both backing the Saudi proxy war that responsible for at least 20% of the world’s refugees. When Tusk talks of “root causes,” he’s referring to Saudi Arabia funding the Syrian War.
Expecting other nations to share the burden of housing refugees isn’t dealing with the “root causes.” Putin’s position is clear: End the proxy war, letting al-Assad stay in power. Tusk need to confront Obama about rubber-stamping the destructive Saudi proxy war that only brought more anarchy to the Middle East. There’s no more obvious “root cause” of Syria’s refugee crisis than Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the U.S. backing rebel groups to topple al-Assad’s Shiite government in Damascus. No matter how objectionable to Riyadh, Washington or Istanbul, funding rebel groups has led to what London-based Human Rights Watch calls the biggest humanitarian crisis since WWII. It makes zero sense for Obama talking to Putin about a humanitarian ceasefire when he could pressure the Saudis to stop the war. Pressuring other countries to take more refugees is not the answer.
Instead of running around Asia promising trade pacts he can’t deliver or climate change, Obama should spend his time working feverishly toward ending the Syrian War. Working with his Russian partners, Putin would like nothing more that to have the White House pull the plug on backing the Saudi proxy war. Tusk should wake up the EU that it’s been on the wrong side of the Syrian War, also backing Saudi Arabian, Turkish and U.S. rebel groups to topple al-Assad. Addressing the “root causes,” as Tusk suggests, means the U.S. must stop backing the Saudi proxy war that sewn so much destruction in the Middle East. No matter how much the Saudis, Turks or U.S. despises al-Assad, he has a right, as any U.N.-member state, to defend his sovereignty from foreign terror groups. Ending the Saudi-backed Syrian proxy war is only way to solve the refugee crisis threatening the EU.
