Syrian refugees could turn into the new Palestinians

Children flee the Syrian regime attacks in Daraa yesterday. Picture: AFP

The monstrous dictator has won. Bashar al-Assad has bombed, gassed and starved his enemies out of the biggest cities. He has made a fool of Barack Obama, who said he should go but did nothing to bring his departure about. He has shrugged off the missiles that ­Donald Trump fired at his bases.

Half a million people have died. Six million people are displaced within Syria; a similar number have fled abroad. Most of the refugees are Sunni Arabs, who made up most of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million. Still more may be pushed out as Assad moves to retake mostly Sunni rebel areas in the north and south-west of Syria. His state, meanwhile, is becoming more narrowly sectarian as Alawite (his sect), Shia and Christian ­minorities take over property abandoned by fleeing Sunnis.

Syrians could thus turn into ­another dispossessed, festering, ­violent diaspora. Like the Palestinians before them, they could become a destabilising presence across the Middle East. The world has every interest in stopping that from happening.

Assad’s survival is a lesson in the use of butchery, the rivalries of his foes and the emptiness of Western pronouncements. By shooting peaceful protesters, Assad provoked them into violence. By releasing jihadists from prison, he turned many into fighters for al-Qa’ida and the even more gruesome Islamic State. Thus he persuaded terrified Syrian minorities to rally behind him, deterred the West from giving the rebels meaningful help, even when he used chemical weapons, and provided the cover for Iran and Russia to save him in the name of fighting terrorism.

The opportunity to remove Assad has gone. So what now? Trump says he has no interest in Syria; once his troops have smashed Islamic State they will get out. Talking to Assad would legitimise his atrocities. Giving him money to rebuild his country would be doubly repulsive. Let Russia and Iran fix the mess.

Yet that would be short-sighted. Apart from the moral obligation the world has to help the brutalised Syrian people, the West has hard-nosed reasons to stay engaged. One is the need to stem the flow of refugees who, along with other migrants, have fuelled populism in Europe. Another is the danger that a large population of Syrian refugees could act as a lingering poison in the Middle East.

The experience of stateless Palestinians is sobering. Those who fled or were pushed out by a nascent Israel in 1947-48 fomented much violence. Their raids helped ignite the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Their fighters lost a civil war in Jordan in 1970; in Lebanon, they helped precipitate the 15-year civil war in 1975 and the Israeli invasion of 1982. Some also turned to international terrorism.

It would be no surprise if Syrian refugees — many times more numerous than the 750,000 Palestinians uprooted during the birth of Israel — became similarly radicalised. They would be easy prey for jihadists. Right now, even without violence, refugees are straining host countries, such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. A lesson from the Palestinians is that the longer refugees stay out, the less likely they are to return. Many flinch at the idea of going back, fearing they will be killed, forced into camps or dragooned into the army.

The first step to getting refugees home is some form of lasting ceasefire, and preferably a broader political deal. This should involve power-sharing in Damascus and the devolution of power to the provinces. Assad accepted little of this when he was losing. Would he do so now that he is winning?

He is reconfiguring the country in favour of those who stayed loyal. The West, and Arab states, have only weak levers. Still, he might want better ties with them to avoid becoming entirely dependent on Russia and Iran, to help him recover control of his borders and, above all, to find the billions of dollars he needs to reconstruct his shattered country.

The US, Europe and Arab states could test his intentions by offering limited humanitarian funds to help bring refugees home, on condition that he grants local autonomy.

A good place to start would be rebuilding ghost towns such as Daraya or Douma.

Having missed the moment to push Assad out, the world must hold its nose and try to limit the consequences of the devastation it has allowed him to wreak.