Another Migrant Invasion of Western Europe?

Here’s some interesting news from the front. Not the front in what we call warfare, but the front in the ongoing culture war between Western Europe and the Middle East.

Apparently, the nations of Western Europe, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel did such a good job of bending over for Middle Eastern Muslim migrants that a new wave is forming. Call it a refugee crisis. Call it an alien invasion. Western Europe has already set down its policy-- compassionate, empathetic open arms. Eastern Europe is quickly building walls, thus barriers to entry.

Zero Hedge reports:

The German government is warning that a number of indicators suggest Europe could be on the brink of witnessing a new refugee crisis explode on its borders. 

Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said early this week that refugees and migrants are set to flood Europe on a scale even bigger that the peak of the 2015 crisis. 

“We must do more to help our European partners with controls on the EU external borders. We have left them alone for too long,” he told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper after returning from a visit to Greece and Turkey, where he inspected the renewed refugee crisis first hand. 

"If we do not do that we will once again face a refugee wave like in 2015 or maybe even greater," Seehofer warned  ominously. 

The warning lights are flashing red. Not only are these countries losing control of their borders, they are losing control of everyday life. 

Seehofer further said that if the EU doesn't unite to find “strength to solve this problem problem” it faces total “loss of control” if and when the next major crisis hits. 

At the height of the crisis three years ago, which was driven by the vastly destabilizing wars in Syria and Libya, and by the turmoil left in the wake of the Islamic State caliphate in western Iraq, there were near weekly mass drownings and accidents involving migrants attempting to traverse the Mediterranean, as well as fires and unrest at makeshift refugee camps in France and Greece. It further created turmoil in the domestic politics of multiple EU countries, with a number of right-wing populist figures and parties coming to power on anti-illegal immigration platforms. 

As you know, Turkey’s President Erdogan has been threatening to unleash the invasion. Apparently, he has said that he must have a safe zone for migrants in Northern Syria. If he does not he will let loose the tides of migrants:

And now, with Turkey on the brink of a major military incursion into northeast Syria, the Middle East is about to witness a major new conflagration resulting in potentially millions of new refugees being pushed out of the Turkey-Syria border region. 

Coupled with that, Turkey's President Erdogan recently threatened to release one million refugees on Europe if he can't have his so-called 'safe zone' which is to reach some 30km deep (19 miles) inside Syrian territory. He threatened early last month: 

"We will be forced to open the gates. We cannot be forced to handle the burden alone," while demanding that European countries give political support to the controversial plan that would end in annexing UN member Syria's sovereign territory. 

One thing is for certain, should "all out war" — as the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have promised — be the result of the expected imminent Turkish invasion of Syria, there will be a new refugee explosion out of northern Syria and possibly Iraq, given Iraq's Kurdistan region is precisely where many Syrian Kurdish as well as Christian civilians fleeing Turkish tanks would end up. 

This is in addition to a renewed grinding multi-party civil war in Libya unfolding as Gen. Khalifa Haftar's forces continue their push to wrest the capital of Tripoli from the UN-backed Government of National Accord. 

Admittedly, it feels like a sidelight to the current hot war in Northern Syria. But still, we should pay it all some heed. If Western Europe becomes radically destabilized, who will be next?

[See also Soeren Kern's article, via Maggie's Farm.)