Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Helman: Refugees a Measure of Security Conditions

Juan Cole 09/10/2007

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Ambassador Gerald B. Helman writes:

In current discussions of the situation in Iraq, insufficient attention is being paid to perhaps the most sensitive barometer available, that of refugee flows. To date, of Iraq’s pre-war population of about 30 million, about 13% have either fled their country or are internally displaced–a historically very large proportion of a population. That means that a very large percentage of the Iraqi people have found conditions so dangerous or otherwise unacceptable–constant threats to life, polluted water, uncertain electricity, broken medical facilities, bad sanitation, uncertain educational opportunities and more–that they have left home, family, friends, jobs for the uncertainties and often miseries of the life of a refugee. Think about what that means in personal terms. And, according to reports of refugee organizations such as the IOM, the outward flow continues.

Organizations such as the IOM and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have learned from decades of experience that refugees flows also constitute a sensitive barometer of when conditions in the home country have improved. Refugees maintain contact with family and friends still in place and typically will be sensitive to their advice on when conditions are safe for return–no one wants to stay a refugee if there is an alternative. Clearly, that’s nowhere near happening in Iraq, a more telling fact then all of the other contradictory statistics of attacks and deaths being bandied about in the current debate. It says that life in Iraq remains dangerous, brutish and, too often, short.

Gerald B. Helman “was United States Ambassador to the European Office of the United Nations from 1979 through 1981.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • Iran's Hypersonic Missiles Hit Israeli Refinery, Military Sites, as Israel does the same to Tehran
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Why did Israel defy Trump – and risk a major War – by striking Iran now? And what happens next?
  • Will Iran reply to Israeli Attacks with "War of Attrition?" Will its Nuclear Red Line Hold?

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved