Europe’s refugee crises direct result of USA’s failed strategy towards Afghanistan, Iraq & Syria

Spotlight: U.S.-backed “Color Revolution” deep roots of refugee crisis

Afghan refugees are temporarily sheltered at former Olympic hockey stadium in Athens, Greece, Oct. 1, 2015. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

CAIRO, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) — As waves of refugees displaced from Syria seem to have overwhelmed the continental Europe, the West-backed so-called “Color Revolution” that has brought endless wars and conflicts to the Middle East over the past several years is now under widespread criticism.

On Sept. 2, the photograph of the body of a three-year-old Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach has no doubt shocked the international community. The tragedy has forced the West to face up to the refugee crisis, which seems to be running wild.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, Syria’s four-year-old civil war has displaced 12 million people since the uprising erupted in 2011. Among them, four million chose to flee their homelands and moved to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

“The U.S. intervention in Syria, as well as its regional allies’ support for the oppositions have caused this humanitarian disaster. Syria is on the verge of a split-up,” said Samir Ghatas, chairman of Middle East forum for Political and Strategic Affairs.

Analysts say that the current refugees crisis, the worst in the post-war era, can find its roots in the U.S.-sponsored Color Revolution, which, under the pretense of spreading western-style democracy, aimed to facilitate regime changes by fanning anti-government protests.

The truth is that because of the intervention, the countries, including Syria, Yemen and Libya, have now been struggling with unprecedented level of chaos and bloodshed.

Saeed al-Lawendi, political professor at Cairo University, told Xinhua that ” revolutions mean change, but the change in the Arab world has destroyed the region. The United States has created new enemy for countries in the region: terrorism and sectarianism.”

Yousry al-Azabawy, political expert of Ahram Center for political studies, said the United States came to support the revolution for two reasons: one is to protect Israel, while the other is to prop up Washington-friendly governments.

The U.S. government is quite influential among the liberals in the Middle East. And that has helped Washington promote its own agendas in the region, like turning the younger generations there into advocates for the Western political systems, he said.

Samir Ghatas said that the United States also backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria and Tunisia under the table, which Washington could use as tools to facilitate the change it wants.

Now that the tide of the revolution has ebbed, the United States and its European partners have to deal with rampant terrorism and tremendous number of refugees, products of their their own making.

Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised that her country agrees to take in more refugees, which is applauded by the international community.

However, as large numbers of refugees have swarmed in, they are straining the ability of local authorities to host them, and causing a hardening of public opinion.

A new opinion poll in Germany showed that about 51 percent of Germans no longer believe that their country can handle the refugee tide.

German President Joachim Gauck recently warned that refugees’s assimilation could be the nation’s biggest challenge since the cold war ended in 1991. “We’re facing a challenge that will occupy us for generations,” he said.

According to a new government report, about 1.5 million refugees are coming to Germany this year, twice of the previous forecast. “It will be an extreme burden on state and local governments,” the report said.

On Sept. 20, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States will accept 85,000 refugees from around the world next year, up from 70,000, as Obama administration was under further pressure to accept more victims of the Syrian crisis.

“The United States is not an uninterested bystander in Europe’s refugee crisis. If mishandled, the mounting flow of refugees will pose multiple challenges to U.S. interests and could prove a divisive element in transatlantic relations,” Ian Lesser, political analyst from the German Marshell Fund, said.

“In the view of many Europeans, the United States is already implicated in the current crisis. It is not uncommon to hear that today’s unprecedented refugee flows are the direct result of failed strategy towards Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and the Mideast as a whole,” he added.

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