Europe’s willingness to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees while seeking cooperation with Tehran plays into Iran’s hands and its goal of preserving a friendly, pro-Shia regime in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is an act of complicity in the systematic rape of Syria. And it will only work if Europe resigns itself to absorbing millions more migrants.

Instead, Europe should recognise the effectiveness of its sanctions policy against Iran’s nuclear programme. Instead of dismantling sanctions, it should replicate these measures now because of Iranian involvement in Syria. Iran’s air supply to Syria’s military machine is, after all, the Assad regime’s lifeline. Consignments of weapons and military personnel are frequently carried on Iranian commercial aircraft. Yet, incredibly, the European Union has never banned Mahan Air, the Iranian carrier that the US Treasury Department accuses of routinely conducting  weapons deliveries. Mahan flies to numerous European destinations and procures its commercial fleet and spare parts through European suppliers.

Much of the financial and military aid that Assad receives from Tehran comes from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Yet Europe has imposed sanctions on only a handful of its senior officers and companies, and almost none of its business executives. The Guard, despite its leading role in war crimes and atrocities, and its active role in training and sponsoring terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah’s military wing, which are on Europe’s terrorist list, is itself not designated as a terrorist organisation or the chief financier of terror groups. It should be.

Sanctions will neither stem the flow of refugees nor bring Syria’s civil war to a halt. But they can force Iran to rethink its support for Assad, the main cause of his people’s misery. That is something Europe can do, as long as it stops deluding itself that working with Iran is the answer to the Syrian tragedy.