ATLANTA – The head of the Georgia-based relief agency CARE, Michelle Nunn, called Thursday for the international community to peacefully work out differences with the Islamic terrorist organizations and warring factions in Syria that triggered the ongoing refugee crisis.
“We need to lift up our voices. There must be a diplomatic and political solution in Syria in order to protect the lives of the citizens there,” she said.
Finding a diplomatic solution may be difficult because many of the refugees are fleeing the Islamic State, which is a terrorist organization rather than a government. At the same time, the government that is in Syria is under attack from rebels – some backed by the United States. The rebels are trying to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad who is receiving military support from Russia but who Western nations generally consider to be repressive.
Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pooh-poohed Nunn’s suggestion.
“What’s happening right now in Syria is tragic, and we’ve got to focus on the cause creating this major migration,” said Perdue, who defeated Nunn last year to win election. “This problem is compounded by the power vacuum that is a result of President Obama’s failed strategy in the region and the war President Bashar al-Assad is waging on his own people. Resolving this migration crisis will require a global response, but I question how can we have a diplomatic solution with ISIS involved?”
Many conservative commentators have recommended that the best way democracies like the United States can address the refugee flood is to use military force to remove the brutal leaders causing them to flee.
“The administration’s half-hearted, half-measures have produced little progress in Iraq and even less in Syria,” argues James Phillips, the Middle Eastern expert at the right-leaning Heritage Foundation in Washington. “The net effects of the administration’s policies have enabled the Islamic State insurgents to inflict many more civilian casualties and attract a flood of fanatic followers.”
Nunn, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in last year’s U.S. Senate race, took the reins of CARE in July and made her comments as featured speaker at an Atlanta Press Club luncheon.
She also called on the United States to take in 100,000 more refugees than the 85,000 President Barack Obama has said would be settled here. When asked about the possibility that the Islamic State might infiltrate the refugees, she downplayed the risk.
“We are in support of other advocates in this goal of increasing our absorption rate and recognizing that it takes, on average, 18 months to go through the security screening if you are coming in from a place like Syria, and so there is a lot of intentionality around the security issue,” she said.
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