Anne-Marie Slaughter

A recent front-page photo in the New York Times of a boatload of Syrian refugees drifting on the Mediterranean Sea beneath an enormous setting sun could not have been more apt. The sun seems to be setting on Syria itself.In the words of David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary and current president of the International Rescue Committee, the Syria disaster has reached “almost biblical proportions.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that, over the last four years, nearly 250,000 people have been killed, including more than 100,000 civilians, many of killed in horrific ways by their own government. The U.N. estimates that over half of the country’s 22 million citizens have left their homes, something the world has not seen since World War II. Today’s rising tide of disease, hunger, squalor and illiteracy – more than half of the refugee children are not in school – will affect an entire generation for life.

Fortunately, the United States’ foreign policy elite finally seems ready to do something to protect Syria’s people. Generals, diplomats, national-security officials and development professionals are approaching a consensus in favor of a no-fly “safe zone” along one of Syria’s borders.

In fact, Turkey’s government proposed such a sanctuary four years ago. But it never proved willing to turn words into action – not that it received any encouragement. Indeed, until recently, the U.S. and most NATO countries resolutely opposed the idea.

The change of heart was driven by four factors. First, the migrant crisis in southern Europe, a threat more diffuse but no less dangerous than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to the International Organization for Migration, as of July, 150,000 migrants had reached Europe by sea this year, double the number during the same period in 2014.

But the headline-making stories of sinking boats and drowning children are just the beginning. An estimated 30,000 migrants are now crossing into Hungary every month, spurring the country’s right-wing government to launch the construction of a 110-mile fence to keep them out. And, in July alone, almost 50,000 migrants entered the European Union through Greece.

While Syria is not the only country fueling this refugee crisis, it is the largest contributor. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 34 percent of the 137,000 people who arrived in the EU from Jan. 1 to June 29 were Syrian, with the next-largest contributor, Afghanistan, accounting for 12 percent. Other notable contributors include Eritrea (12 percent), Somalia (5 percent) and Iraq (3 percent). The number of Syrians is thus triple that of the next highest group, a proportion that holds true among European asylum-seekers as well. With more than 10 million Syrians displaced, this trend will only continue unless something is done to ensure they can live safely within their country.

The second factor spurring a shift in America’s attitude is the recognition that a new Syrian government is vital to defeat – or even contain – ISIS. The fact is that ISIS is not the only violent and destructive force in the country: Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom the militant group is committed to overthrowing, is also a mass murderer and war criminal.

According to the Violations Documentation Center, the leading cause of death among Syrian civilians this year has been the indiscriminate use of aerial weapons – barrel bombs and chlorine gas dropped from helicopters by the Syrian military. For Syria’s many rebel groups, Assad represents the greater threat, and thus will have to be removed from power before attention can be focused on ISIS.

Third, the nuclear deal with Iran, despite facing continued scrutiny in Iran and the U.S., has raised hopes that the country could play a role in pushing for a political solution in Syria. Not only is Iran’s policy of supplying weapons and fighters to keep Assad in power unpopular at home; the country’s leaders also recognize that fighting ISIS in Iraq is a half-measure at best, as long as the group controls vast swaths of Syrian territory.

Finally, longer-term thinkers understand that a generation growing up alienated and angry in refugee camps, as generations of Palestinians have done, is a generation of potential radicals. With nothing to lose, they seek revenge for their parents’ expulsion from a homeland that, over time, becomes idealized. From this perspective, the current humanitarian crisis is, in the longer term, a strategic crisis.

Taken together, these factors are compelling the U.S. and Europe to change course. And the Western perspective is not the only one that is evolving. Syria’s neighbors finally seem to understand that the country could fragment into a Kurdish state that destabilizes Turkey and ISIS territory that destabilizes Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

By establishing a no-fly zone – which could be defended using sea-based missile systems – the U.S. and its partners would demonstrate to Assad that their patience has finally run out, and that they are prepared to defend Syrians within Syria. This, together with the knowledge that his army is weakening and the pool of new recruits drying up, would force Assad to reconsider his long-term prospects and, likely, force him to the negotiating table. After all, the only time he has been prepared to strike any deal during the last four years was when he believed the U.S. would intervene militarily after his use of chemical weapons.

Syria will take decades to rebuild, with future generations scarred by the political and psychological consequences of the current turmoil – like Bosnia, but on a much larger scale. The arms and money flowing to self-proclaimed holy fighters over the last four years have fanned revolutionary flames that may yet lead to a redrawing of the Middle Eastern map. But we cannot write off the millions of people caught in the middle. For moral and strategic reasons, the time for a no-fly zone is now.