Reckless decisions to invade and nation build in other countries leads to more harm than good.
Pope Francis just wrapped up a trip to Iraq this week for the first-ever papal visit to the country, a trip the Vatican has described as “an act of love for this land, for its people and for its Christians.” While there, Francis celebrated Mass in several cities and visited biblical locations like Nineveh and Ur. He also toured the remnants of Christian communities in one of the most ancient homes of the Christian faith.
This papal visit was meant to encourage Iraq’s few remaining Christians. It should also occasion solemn reflection in the United States, a country in which two in three people profess Christianity and also the country whose misguided foreign policy contributed to the near eradication of Christianity in Iraq.
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By Richard Walker
Across the Middle East, Christians are being slaughtered and forced to leave the lands of their birth.
The tragedy began with the destructive policies of the Bush-Cheney era, which provoked increased sectarian hatred between Muslims, generated anti-Americanism and gave birth to the virulently anti-Christian radical Islamists. The process has continued under the Obama regime and has reached a greater intensity with Washington’s unqualified support for Israel’s killing of Palestinians.
The situation is so grave, Christians have been leaving Iraq and Syria in large numbers and the pattern has been replicated in a host of other Muslim nations due to a vicious campaign of intimidation. In Iraq alone, where Christians practiced their religion freely under the government of the late Saddam Hussein, the numbers of Christians there have declined so much, there may be no Christians in Iraq within a decade, if not sooner.