In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the United States welcomed defectors from the Soviet bloc with open arms. Each and every one of them was a propaganda victory against their communist enemies, proof that their supposed paradise was nothing of the sort. Given the opportunity, those defectors preferred to live in the West. And while there were fears of spies or sleeper cells among those defectors, those dangers were alleviated by the propaganda value of proving that those walls around Berlin and Eastern Europe were designed to keep people in against their will, rather than the other way around.
So here we have ISIS building what it deems an Islamic paradise, and people in those territories are fleeing by the hundreds of thousands. You want to deflate ISIS, building them up as history’s latest greatest monster only plays into their hands. Making it harder for people to flee areas under their control only plays to their interests.
Because nothing delegitimizes ISIS more than saying, “you are so full of shit that most Muslims can’t wait to get the hell out from under your control.” That rejection from their very subjects is a stab of a knife, and the West accepting those refugees with open arms would twist that knife.
But no, we have xenophobes and bedwetters scared of scared refugees, preventing us from profiting from this propaganda windfall. It’s myopic and idiotic, and runs counter to our own history of welcoming those fleeing from our enemies with open arms.