Rich gulf states are doing little to stem the refugee crisis. Reuters.

Syrian migrants enter the border between Hungry and Serbia. Reuters. 

Rich gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, have done almost nothing to stem the refugee crisis, officially taking in zero refugees. Reuters. Though poorer countries in the region, including Turkey and Lebanon have taken in millions, none have arrived in the richer gulf states. Though the Gulf States have donated money to refugees, they have not taken any in. Sympathy for the migrants is on the rise as images on social media are having a shamming effect. Other countries, such as Tunisia, say they can not help the Syrians because they are already overburdened with refugees from Libya. One possible reason for the reluctance to take in refugees is the fact that in many of these countries foreigners outnumber native born people already. 

My Comment:

I'm on the record as saying that the best solution for the migrant crisis is to draft every single able bodied refugee, give them a month or two of basic training and then send them back to Syria to fight. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that refuse to fight for their country. If it was my country going to hell, I would pick up a rifle and fight so I really can't relate to people that don't. We need an army to fight ISIS in Syria and why not use the people that know the region and should have a reason to fight for it? Give them a chance to fight for their country. And it probably won't be any more expensive then letting them come to Europe.

Of course that solution is politically impossible for obvious reasons. Another possibility is to create a safe zone in Syria and send all the refugees back there where they would be safe. A safe zone, carved out by EU forces and protected from ISIS, would be the perfect solution. With rumors of Russians sending forces to bolster Assad and his regime, it may also be possible to send back all the people who are willing to live under him if Russia can turn the tide against the rebels and ISIS. 

As for how things stand right now, I just don't understand how Europe and the Middle East is going to take care of all these migrants. Europe has a strong social safety net and I can't see that lasting if they bring in millions of refugees. Not all of these people are fleeing warfare and the fact that they aren't settling in the border regions and are instead trying to get to Sweden, Germany and the UK shows they care more about the economic benefits then fleeing violence. Though I don't mind the prospect of social welfare programs dying in Europe, I can't understand why the Europeans aren't more upset about this. 

I don't really blame the Gulf states for not taking anyone in. Like the article said, some of these countries are already have minority majority populations. Qatar and the UAE have huge migrant populations for economic regions. Basically in those countries, the government imported an underclass to work for them. They have a vested interest in not allowing more people in as their hold on power is precarious enough. There is an argument to be made in both countries that their military is largely to reduce the chances of internal revolution from their large migrant population. Obviously, taking in more foreigners is not in these countries best interests. 

Still, Europe has many of the same concerns as well as the other local states, like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, that the Gulf States have and they have taken millions of refugees. It makes more sense to me for the Gulf States to take in people then Europe. They have a much closer culture to the Syrians and they share a common religion. That is not true for Europe. They are a secular/Christian region while most of the Syrian refugees are Muslim. Though it might make sense for the Europeans to take in Christian refugees it makes little sense to take in the Muslim ones when there are Muslim states that can take up the burden. 

One justification I have heard from the Gulf states for not taking in migrants is the fear that ISIS and al-Qaeda could infiltrate while hiding with the refugees. I think that this is an obvious concern and I'm amazed it doesn't come up more often. ISIS wants to conduct attacks in Europe but until recently didn't have a good way to enter the countries. They had to rely on local recruits acting on their own without outside support. If ISIS is infiltrating Europe with the refugees, and they would be insane not to try, they can build up networks to support and conduct terror attacks. I don't know how Europe is vetting the people coming into the region, but I have the feeling that whatever is being done is not enough. Even if they do find away to weed out the terrorists, they are still creating a huge population that are ripe for recruitment into terrorist organizations, especially if they have any economic or social difficulties in Europe at all. 

Of course there are millions of dollars to be made from this migrant crisis. I already posted about how al-Qaeda was making money from smuggling in migrants. Al-Qaeda is probably not the only group making money off of these migrants. Though the Syrians mostly cross over land, there are thousands of people making money taking these people over the Mediterranean. Some of this money is going to be funneled to terror groups. 

No matter what the refugee crisis is going to be something that will have long term effects. I've said before that the movement of people during the 21st century will be what defines it. And right now I don't see any good coming from it at all. Hopefully, a better solution will be found.