A New Job for Ban Ki-moon.

Byline: Morton Abramowitz and Jonathan Kolieb (Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a board member of the International Rescue Committee. Kolieb is a research associate at the Century Foundation.)

Since the war in Iraq began, more than 2 million Iraqis have become refugees in their own country, and some 2 million have dispersed abroad. This massive exodus has already become a huge humanitarian disaster, and the worst may be yet to come. The crisis is engulfing Iraq's neighbors, and it could easily fuel greater instability in an area already notoriously unstable.

The United States precipitated the chaos by invading Iraq in the first place. Yet Washington has not met its moral responsibility to aid the refugees. That said, the problem far exceeds Washington's abilities. Indeed, the crisis has further internationalized the Iraq dilemma; almost every country in the Middle East shelters fleeing Iraqis, with Syria and Jordan bearing the heaviest load. No one nation can deal with the problem on its own.

Because addressing the cause of the refugee crisis--the unraveling of Iraq--will be an intensely political job, it will take a world-class political figure to lead it: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Only Ban, with the United Nations' backing, has a chance of bringing together the many nations caught up in the problem and providing a comprehensive solution.

The basic elements of the crisis are plain to see. One in seven Iraqis has been displaced since the war began, and sectarian strife is generating 2,000 more refugees daily. As a result, once heterogeneous Iraqi towns and neighborhoods are being ethnically cleansed, and the country has lost much of its intellectual elite and professional work force. Outside Iraq, the torrent is straining the services and treasuries of neighboring governments, testing the good will of their citizens, and in certain places--especially Jordan and Lebanon--threatening to sow political instability. No one knows how long it will be before the refugees can safely return home. And some countries are starting to slam the door in their faces.

The U.S. response has been woefully inadequate. Washington long delayed even acknowledging the refugee problem, and since it has, the U.S. government has granted only a pitiful number of asylum visas--less ...