Is the US a threat to Christians in the Middle East?

Religious persecution is a global constant, and no one is exempt. The most conspicuous threats to religious liberty arise in authoritarian and Muslim-majority states; however, Middle Eastern Christians point to an even greater threat: the United States.

At an international conference a couple weeks ago, a beleaguered Christian activist admitted to me what he was reluctant to state publicly: the US poses the most serious danger to his community. American political and military intervention fueled the destructive persecution that was driving Christianity from its geographic birthplace.

In its May 2001 report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) cited no Middle Eastern nations, only the peripheral states of Sudan and Pakistan. Its brief mention of the Middle East was directed at Israel, citing “with great apprehension the increasingly religious nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict following the outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.” In contrast, the latest volume listed Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.

Although those countries’ circumstances vary, most have been affected by forces unleashed by Washington’s response to 9/11. Especially Iraq, the main focus of American military efforts, even though it was not involved in the terrorist attacks on America.

Iraq is still recovering from Washington’s disastrous invasion two decades ago, and Baghdad’s inconsistent progress has offered little solace to religious minorities, whose lives and communities have been disrupted. The latest USCIRF report offers an unsparing assessment:

Nearly five years after the United States and its allies declared ISIS defeated, religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq continue to struggle to return and live peacefully in their homes. Almost one million Sunni Arab Muslims, over 200,000 Yazidis, tens of thousands of Christians, and smaller numbers of Kaka’is, Turkmen, and others remain forcibly displaced. Renewed ISIS attacks in 2021 reignited fear among religious and ethnic minorities seeking to return and rebuild their homes in former ISIS-controlled areas.

Christianity predates Islam in Iraq, which “was estimated to have nearly 1.5 million Christians before the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. They date back to the first centuries of the religion and include Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian and Armenian churches.” The secular Baathist state, though oppressive, was a relative religious oasis, in which minority believers flourished, largely unmolested, despite extremist currents elsewhere in the region. Although a small percentage of the population, Christians played an outsize role: “Christians operated seminaries, Christian children received religious instruction in state schools having a Christian majority, and the Vatican had diplomatic relations with Iraq.

The Bush administration’s ill-considered war created chaos and fostered religious extremism. Christians’ faith, role in the alcohol trade, small numbers and Western ties made them favored targets. They were treated as enemies by the extremists who took advantage of Iraq’s collapse, with “the al-Qaida terror network taking the lead. Killings, kidnappings and bombings became an everyday occurrence, sometimes with multiple bombings on the same day.”

In 2007, USCIRF expressed concern over Iraq, having recognized “that the nature and extent of the violations of religious freedom were not only severe but were tolerated by the government and, in some cases, committed by forces within the government.” Iraqi Christians have since scattered widely. They fled within Iraq, mostly to Kurdistan, and throughout the region, to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and beyond. The Christian population dropped dramatically, by as much as five sixths, leaving perhaps a quarter-million Christians in Iraq.

Yet this was only the first round. Al-Qaeda in Iraq morphed into the even more dangerous Islamic State, which ended up conquering parts of Iraq, including Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, with a significant Christian population, and of Syria, another secular dictatorship in which religious minorities had sought safety.

Those minorities again became a violent target, according to USCIRF: “Christians suffered killings, kidnapping, rape, enslavement, forced marriage and sexual violence. ISIL subjected Christians to high levels of violence and discrimination in the areas under its control, forcing Christians to convert to Islam, pay jizya or face death or expulsion. Following ISIL’s defeat, its potential to wage large-scale campaigns has been significantly reduced to low-intensity insurgency. However, the UN Security Council had repeatedly throughout 2019 and 2020 highlighted ISIL’s continued targeting of civilians and security forces.”

Other non-Sunni Muslims have also suffered greatly. Rita Izsak, then the UN special rapporteur on minority issues, highlighted “Shia — a minority in the North — Shabaks, Turkmen, Yazidis and others, who are being persecuted on the grounds of their religion and ethnicity. In several areas of northern Iraq, they are directly threatened by armed groups which have already shown the gross violations they are capable of committing.” Most notably, thousands of Yazidis have been murdered, kidnapped, and raped, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

Despite the Islamic State’s defeat, religious minorities remain at risk and many have been unable to return. Those who did remain in Iraq found life difficult, feeling “abandoned, bitter and helpless, some wary of neighbors with whom they once shared feasts and religious celebrations, Muslim and Christian alike.” Moreover, another conflict has arisen, this one with Turkey. Reported USCIRF, “religious and ethnic minority communities in northern Iraq are disproportionately impacted because of Turkish airstrikes targeting the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), Yezidi security forces aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).”

Yet Iraqi politics offers little hope of respite. Despite nonsectarian mass protests demanding better governance, the political system remains captive to self-serving elites. The October 2021 elections failed to deliver a stable government; only last fall did a new prime minister finally emerge.

Such instability placed another burden on religious minorities. Explains USCIRF: “In addition to intensifying religious division inherent in Iraq’s political environment, the government paralysis and escalation of the crisis in the second half of 2022 has both frozen potential programs and funds to benefit religious minorities and diverted attention from critical issues affecting these groups.” Hopes in the new government under Prime Minister Shia’ Sabbar al-Sudani, a former human rights minister, have risen, but past reality has always disappointed.

America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq was Washington’s greatest foreign policy blunder in more than a half century. The costs to Americans were high, yet the price paid by Iraqis was much greater. Religious minorities were among the biggest victims.

At the time, no one expected a nominally Christian nation to do so much harm to so many Christian believers. Victims like my friend must speak truth loudly to those in power, rather than sotto voce to people like me. How else to prevent an even worse repeat performance?