Written by Noah Carl.
Since returning to office, President Trump has been outspoken in his criticism of mass migration into Europe. Speaking in Scotland last July, he referred to a “horrible invasion” and said that “immigration is killing Europe”. In a UN speech a few months later, he proclaimed, “I love Europe and I hate to see it being devastated by immigration”. Then in December he told Politico, “What they’re doing with immigration is a disaster”, adding that some European states “will not be viable countries any longer”.
Vice President Vance has echoed the same talking points. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he stated, “Of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration”. In a follow-up interview, he noted that “if you have another few million immigrants come in from countries that are totally culturally incompatible” then “Germany will have killed itself”. And in a CPAC speech, he said that western leaders have sent “millions and millions of unvetted foreign migrants into their countries”, describing this as “the greatest threat”.
In light of such rhetoric, you might assume the administration would be doing everything possible to avoid making Europe’s immigration problems any worse.1 Apparently not.
Trump has assembled the largest concentration of air power in the Middle East since the Iraq War, and is currently weighing up whether to strike Iran. Tehran, for its part, is refusing to discuss anything other than the nuclear issue, which means the prospect of a major conflict cannot be ruled out. Indeed, Ayatollah Khamenei has warned that “if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war”, presumably involving not only Iran but Iran’s allies/proxies in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.
If a major conflict does break out, it has the potential to make Europe’s immigration problems significantly worse.
In a bad-case scenario, the Iranian state collapses and civil war erupts, leading to a massive outflow of refugees. And in the worst-case scenario, we get this plus massive outflows from Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.2 Even if the Iranian state doesn’t collapse, there could still be a large outflow of refugees because the country’s critical infrastructure may get targeted. (In the Gulf War, the US destroyed or damaged 18 of Iraq’s 20 power plants, reducing output by 96%.)
It’s pretty obvious that armed conflicts create refugee crises, and indeed academic research confirms that they do.
The chart below plots the number of Syrians in Europe from 1990 to 2019. It skyrocketed a few years after the start of the Syrian civil war, as the US began arming the rebels and the fighting grew more intense. Importantly, the million Syrians who went to Europe represent less than 20% of the refugees who fled Syria. The vast majority ended up in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Most of them are still there.
The next chart plots the number of illegal crossings into Europe via the Central Mediterranean route, which refers to the route from Libya to Italy. In 2008, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi signed a cooperation agreement with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leading to a sharp fall in illegal crossings. Yet civil war broke out three years later, and Gaddafi’s government was toppled thanks to a US-led intervention on the side of the rebels. This ushered in a period of profound instability, including a second civil war, during which illegal crossings surged.3
If the Iranian state collapses, civil war is a real possibility. Like Syria, Iran has an ethnically fractionalised population, and like Syria, it already hosts various armed dissident and separatist groups. Where the two countries differ is that Iran has a much larger population — over 90 million people, compared to Syria’s pre-war population of just 21 million. Hence an Iranian refugee crisis could be much larger than the still-existing Syrian refugee crisis. Note that some thinktanks openly advocate breaking Iran apart through support for separatist movements.
I can envisage two scenarios in which regional war doesn’t lead to substantial displacement of people. One is the US managing to decapitate Iranian leadership and then immediately installing a Western-friendly government. This is by no means impossible, but it doesn’t seem particularly likely. Anti-regime sentiment in Iran is overstated and Tehran has apparently made contingency plans in case the country’s leaders are wiped out.
The other is Iran and its allies/proxies managing to inflict enough damage in the first few days of the war to get the US (and possibly Israel) to back down. This is not impossible either but, again, doesn’t seem particularly likely. In the event that the Iranian side manages to inflict some heavy blows, Trump will lose face if he simply takes the damage and walks away. Escalation at that point seems more probable.
A common response when you point to the risk of yet another refugee crisis is that Europe can just refuse to let the refugees in. This is unconvincing.
The fact that it could refuse does not mean that it will. Europe isn’t a single actor but rather dozens of individual countries, and some of those countries’ leaders may decide to take in fleeing Iranians. This is especially likely if regime loyalists gain the upper hand in any civil conflict that ensues, in which case the people fleeing will be cast as freedom-loving Westerners. Regime loyalists gaining the upper hand is a reasonably safe bet given that they control most of the guns.
Even if no European leader offers safe haven to fleeing Iranians, the continent will come under immense pressure from the states to which Iranians do flee. In addition to a 500km border with Turkey, Iran has a 1,600km border with Iraq. Both these countries already host large refugee populations (of 2.9 million and 300,000, respectively). Their governments are not going to accept the burden of hosting an additional, say, five million refugees — especially when their populations will surely blame the US and, by extension, Europe for the crisis itself.4
Suppose Iranians initially flee to Shia-majority Iraq. That country has a GDP per capita of barely $13,000 and its infrastructure has not been fully rebuilt after years of conflict, including the war against ISIS in which several cities came under aerial bombardment. Meanwhile, Turkey to the north boasts a GDP per capita of $36,000 and is a stepping stone to richer pastures. Large numbers of Iranians may therefore cross into Turkey, or go there via Syria, with the goal of eventually reaching Europe. And Ankara may not be able or particularly willing to stop them.
As of 2019, there were about half a million Iranians in Europe (not counting second generation migrants). Since many of them presumably have friends and family back home, European governments will also come under pressure from diaspora groups to take in those fleeing war — whether through refugee resettlement or family reunification.5
Trump claims to be deeply concerned about mass migration into Europe, having gone out of his way to berate European leaders for failing to control their borders. “Your countries are being ruined,” he insists. Yet he is poised to take action that could create the biggest refugee crisis since 2015, possibly even bigger. How his administration squares this circle remains unclear, unless the military build-up really is a giant bluff.
Noah Carl is an Editor of Aporia.
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It would also have enormous implications for Iranians and others living in the region, but I will not discuss those here.
There could even be outflows of refugees from Gulf states if regional war leads to their energy infrastructure being targeted by Iran and its allies/proxies.
US-led military interventions have also contributed to outmigration from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Turkey is already preparing for the possibility of a refugee crisis. While the country is unlikely to accept large numbers of Shia Muslims, there are 12 million Azerbaijani Turks in Iran.
The largest Iranian populations are in Germany, Britain and Sweden.
Great article, Noah. But you concentrate on the possibility of a European immigration crisis, while there are plenty of other nasty outcomes from such an Iranian war. An extremely high price for petroleum products. Will China and Russia allow Iran to be defeated? Probably not. Who will Iran retaliate against in the Middle East? Most likely US vassals and vessels in the area, and most surely Israel.
Iranian musicians in Germany - this is a favorite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f7ACBUihYQ