Charles Krauthammer: Refugee debate is embarrassing

The Syrian refugee debate has become a national embarrassment. It begins with a president, desperate to deflect attention from the collapse of his foreign policy, retreating to his one safe zone – ad hominem attacks on critics, this time for lack of compassion toward Syrian widows and orphans.

This, without a glimmer of acknowledgment of his own responsibility for these unfortunate souls becoming widowed and orphaned, displaced and homeless, in the first place. A quarter-million deaths ago, when Bashar Assad began making war on his own people, he unleashed his air force and helicopters. They dropped high explosives, nail-filled barrel bombs and even chemical weapons on helpless civilians. President Obama lifted not a finger.

In the earliest days, we could have stopped the slaughter: cratered Assad’s airfields, taken out his planes, grounded his helicopters and created a nationwide no-fly zone.

At the time, Assad was teetering. His national security headquarters had been penetrated and bombed. High-level aides were defecting. Military officers were forming a Free Syrian Army.

Against the advice of his top civilian and military aides, Obama refused to intervene. The widows and orphans he now so ostentatiously champions are the product of his coldhearted refusal to do anything that might sully his peacemaking image.

Obama has also charged the Republicans with cowardice, afraid to grant admittance to “3-year-old orphans.” He gave zero credit to the very real concern of governors and other officials that terrorists could be embedded amid the refugees.

Obama’s own officials have admitted that the absence of thorough data makes it nearly impossible to properly vet Syrian refugees. In response, many Republicans (and some Democrats) called for a pause in admitting Syrians until alternate vetting procedures are developed. In my view, it would have been better to differentiate among the refugees: Admit women, children and the elderly under the current procedures, while subjecting young men of fighting age to a new regime of far stricter scrutiny.

The concerns of GOP officials were quite reasonable. But there was no need for the Republican candidates to allow the Syria debate to be derailed into a cul-de-sac on immigration – as if the essence of the Middle East issue is a relatively small number of potential refugees rather than the abject failure of Obama’s policies.

The GOP candidates have tried to outbid each other in being tough on Syrian refugees. This descent into xenophobia was led, as usual, by Donald Trump. Amid bushels of word salad, he concurred with registering American Muslims, raised alarms about Arab-American treachery and promised not only to deny entry to Syrian refugees, but to send back the ones already here.

Other GOP candidates have issued Trumpian echoes. The Muslim registry had no takers. But some have advocated shutting out all the refugees or taking Christians only. They are chasing the polls showing strong anti-refugee sentiment.

How deeply shortsighted. It may work in the GOP primaries. But Trump-like anti- immigrant, anti-foreigner, now anti-Muslim, anti-Arab rhetoric – and don’t forget those cunning Chinese stealing our jobs and ruthless Mexicans raping our women – will not play well in a general election.

Politically, it will be fatal. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has forcefully denounced this slide into the swamp. Where are the others?

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 5:52 PM with the headline "Charles Krauthammer: Refugee debate is embarrassing."