Nickie Muir: UN needs to create safe zone in Syria

The UN needs to act now to make a safe zone for Syrian refugees.

Being the opposition in Syria right now must really suck. By opposition I don't mean Isil - they're fine with Assad continuing to do the whole psychotic despotic leader gig so that they can keep recruiting. Assad and US foreign policy must be Isil's best recruiting devices ever.

Syrian doctors accuse Assad of unleashing chlorine gas and chemical weapons against his people, including toddlers and pregnant women, and he has a small black moustache and an unnerving habit of greeting people by raising his entire right hand.

Murray McCully's observation is right that the UN Security Council will lose credibility if the Syrian crisis continues because there is not much point talking about the refugee crisis if we're not also talking about what's causing it.

The generally dis-United Nations - with Putin vetoing almost anything that sanctions Syria has agreed to investigate the perpetrators of the gas attacks.

It's all very well to pass resolutions to say that killing small children by using a gas that suffocates them in silence is, well, just not done.

It's another to be able to determine who has been killing the people of Syria and with what.

There is a lot at stake with Assad refuting knowledge of toxic weapons and yet reputedly being the only one to have the helicopters to deliver them and Putin insisting that Syrian refugees are running from Isil and not Assad.

The refugee crisis is incredibly complicated - although anyone with a Syrian passport would qualify as a refugee, where does that put the thousands of people waiting, sometimes for generations, in refugee camps in Thailand, Manus Island and Nauru or Indonesia?

New Zealand ranks 90th on the list of countries accepting refugees on a per capita basis so we're not even close to doing our bit - and there is no doubt that a humanitarian crisis of such huge proportions is unfolding that we need to offer immediate support.

Lets not forget, however, when we took the position on the Security Council that we did so in order to contribute to international security and peace.

When John Key entered us back into the fray of Iraq, NZ became linked with the US - the US airstrikes in Syria will be convincing the population that Isil, who started as opposition to Assad and then spread, is right about the West.

What will shut down Isil's narrative is if the UN unites and creates a zone within Syria that can protect its people and offer humanitarian aid.

Key needs to worry less about "getting some guts" and more about growing a brain, and work out what will actually help grow an opposition in Syria that does not include Isil or their narratives of terror.

We need to review our policy on refugees so it reflects our international civic responsibilities now that we're one of the big players on the UN Security Council.

Refugees are not burdens - the initial spend is repaid in the hard work and richness they bring.