In an interview with Foxnews.com, Dr Walid Phares said:"Instead of settling one million miserable refugees in Europe as a solution to the problems in the Mediterranean, make them a one million empowered Africans and Mideastern in their home countries. Back them up and help them create real change in their countries."

The misery of migrants through the Mediterranean

Interviewed by FoxNews.com about a proposal to settle a million refugees in Europe as a response to the trans-mediterranean chaotic flow of migrants, Dr Walid Phares made a counter proposal, "more strategic and a step to address the root causes of the problem" as he argued. "Such a proposal would be a “diversion” from the real problems of security chaos, failed governance and dire poverty that most of the migrants are fleeing, international security expert Dr. Walid Phares told FoxNews.com from Britain, where he is on a speaking tour.
“The proper response to this epic humanitarian crisis should not be via the politics of the ostrich, but via strategic policies of political change in Africa,” said the author of "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East,” which projected the region’s uprisings before they occurred.

“What would 1 million migrants absorbed into Europe do to stop genocide, human rights abuses and hyper-corruption in Africa?”

Former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi had spoken of dispatching tens of thousands of migrants to Europe as a political weapon to transform the identity of continent, Phares recalled – and now jihadist militias had “opened the path” for them.

“This is an urban militant campaign masterminded by jihadist forces on the ground in Libya,” he said, identifying the human-trafficking puppet masters as ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, the transnational Islamist organization founded in Egypt.

“This is about an organized abuse of refugees to use them as a shield for the passage of jihadists to Europe, and to also radicalize the migrants.” Phares, whose views differ from some European politicians attempts to address the rising tide, is calling on both the United States and the European Union to “go on the offensive” by returning the migrants to Libya – but to UN-administered-and-protected safe zones, where they would remain pending a focused UN effort to make their home countries “responsible.”

“Instead of sending a million miserable refugees to Europe, the UN should enable a million African (and Middle Eastern) refugees to stay home and be empowered,” he said.

Mediterranean refugees problem

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