Obama under pressure over Syrian refugee crisis

Having seen exodus of refugees from civil war-torn Syria, a number of well-known personalities including the Republican lawmakers, are blaming President Barack Obama for retreating from his commitment to hit President Bashar Al-Assad regime when he used chemical weapons against his own people. Now the world is faced with the crisis of refugees from Syria.
 While addressing a debate on the Iranian nuclear deal on September 09, Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate, blasted the American administration for 'doing nothing meaningful about conflicts like that in Syria that have led to a surge in refugees". Displaying a photo of the body of a 3-year-old Syrian refugee, Senator McCain said the photo has opened the world's eyes to this devastating crisis. He further said it should haunt Americans. While McCain was addressing the Senate, Secretary of State John Kerry had a closed-door meeting with lawmakers in the Congress. This indicated that the Obama administration is planning to raise America's total quota for resettling refugees from 70,000 to 75,000 next year and that the number could fluctuate depending on a range of factors, including the intensity of Syria's war, reportedly conveyed by the Secretary of State.
Senator Lindsey Graham of the Republican Party  and a presidential candidate also asked the government to accept refugees from the war-torn countries in the Middle East. Senator Graham criticised politicians and others in the United States and Europe to help alleviate the growing humanitarian crisis.  According to a report in the Washington Times of September 10, "the Obama administration has so far taken fewer than 2,000 of the  estimated 4 million Syrians forced into exile by the brutal four-year civil war".
Having met lawmakers, John Kerry said, "We are looking hard at the number that we can specifically manage with respect to the crisis in Syria and Europe." There is another story to the crisis which relates to infiltration of operatives by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the waves of refugees. But Director of the National Intelligence James R.Clapper said the US authorities have a pretty aggressive system for screening the backgrounds of those seeking entry into the United States. A spokesperson of the National Security Council of the Obama administration Peter Boogaard is reported to have said the administration is actively  considering a range of approaches to  be more responsive  to the global refugee crisis, including its resettlement.
Being pressed by criticism, President Obama has given directives to admit at least 10,000 refugees from Syria in the next fiscal year. Press Secretary Josh Earnest disclosed this to news media representatives covering the White House on September 10. According to a report by the State Department, around 1,600 Syrian refugees entered the US this fiscal year. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has made a request to accept more than 18,000. Apart from the UNHCR, there was a request from the International Rescue Committee to admit 65,000 Syrian refugees by 2016. In May this year, 14 Democratic Senators in a letter to the President urged him to accept the same number as mentioned by the International Rescue Committee. Following a meeting with the Secretary of State, ranking Democratic Senator Patrick J.Leahy said in a statement, it is not too late to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, the European Union in Brussels is imploring member-countries to share the burden of refugees flooding Europe. Half a million refugees have arrived in Europe while hundreds of thousands more are on their way. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Europe has a historic duty to act and relocate 160,000, but a number of East European and Baltic states have rejected imposition of any kind of quotas. The UNHCR reportedly said, Hungary could see 42,000 new refugees in about a week's time. Some of them arrived in Greece and 5,000 are in Serbia and Macedonia. Meanwhile, Hungary 's Prime Minister Viktor Orban had directed an increase in the number of workers to build a security fence on the 110-mile border with Serbia from where refugees reportedly enter Hungry through woods and meadows.
After the Second World War, there has been longest movement of population in Europe. Millions of Germans fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe and hundred thousands of Jews, survivors of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany, sought secure homes in different parts of the world. Similarly, other refugees from every East European country rushed to escape from the newly-established communist regimes following the fall of Nazi Germany. Similar influx of refugees was seen after partition of British India in 1947. The UNHCR recorded 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during partition of British Indian Empire on August 14 of 1947.
This writer wants to draw attention to what British Chancellor George Osborne said. He said Europe and Britain must offer asylum to those genuinely fleeing persecution but also need to boost aid, defeat smuggling gangs and tackle the conflict in Syria to stem a migrant (refugee) crisis.
The writer is a retired diplomat from Bangladesh.
amjad.21@gmail.com