National Review, Nicholas Frankovich: Deposing Assad Could Hurt Syria's Christians

[TomSea]

Deposing Assad Could Hurt Syria's Christians
By Nicholas Frankovich
National Review Online
Posted 2017-06-23 16:55 GMT

In Syria, most Christians and other religious minorities, primarily Alawites and Druze, support Assad, certainly according to conventional wisdom. Polling data such as they are indicate that a majority of the total Syrian population, not just religious minorities, backs him in the civil war. "Even the Sunnis" will take Assad over "the extremists," Antoine Audo, the Chaldean Catholic bishop of Aleppo, told reporters in Geneva last year. He estimated that 80 percent of Syria's Christians would vote for Assad in an election. Syria's bishops, both Catholic and Orthodox, are adamant in their defense of the secular regime, which they see as the only practical bulwark against greater chaos or the establishment of a Sunni regime that would be hostile to Christianity.

In a proxy war between a U.S.--Sunni alliance and the Russian--Iranian alliance in Syria, the U.S. would be fighting not only Assad, Putin, and Rouhani but, it would appear, also the Christians remaining in or returning to Aleppo, encouraged by the Syrian government's recapture of the city last December. What persecuted religious minorities perceive to be their self-interest in the Syrian civil war complicates the argument for deposing or weakening Assad.

Or, rather, it should complicate that argument. If an American proponent of going to war against the regime thinks that the cost to Syria's religious minorities is one that they are tragically doomed to suffer for a greater good, he should say so. Or if he thinks that he knows what's in their interest better than they do, he should say that. Likewise, an American advocate for Middle Eastern Christians needs to have an explanation if he supports a military campaign to topple the Syrian government.

So I disagree with Max Bloom, though I sympathize with what I take to be his wish to see Putin defeated. Max argues that the parallel between Iraq in 2003 and Syria in 2017 doesn't stand up, but that's not how Syrian Christians I read and speak with tend to see it. They are keenly aware that the secular regime of Saddam Hussein gave Iraqi Christians some protection. Since it fell, they've been persecuted to the point that the European Union and the U.S. State Department have formally recognized their plight as genocide. Many of the Christians currently in Syria fled there from Iraq. They see history repeating. Are they wrong?

Continued: http://aina.org/news/20170623125547.htm

[bigheadfred]

The only refugees the U.S. should consider receiving are the Christians.

[Suppressed]

Toppling secular leaders has worked so well, it's no wonder Trump is smacking Assad! 

[Smokin Joe]

When I was saying we had no business getting involved in Syria when this was floated by Obama, the reason was that Assad was the typical badass ruler over there who kept the tribal factions jostling for power tamped down by being the meanest mother in the valley.

One of the benefits of this, though, was that Christians were as protected as any other group. Everyone play nice or heads get knocked (or lopped, or whatever), but they were going to tolerate each other or he'd kick their butts.

Unlike the MB inspired Muslims that took over other Middle Eastern countries after they were destabilized (likely with help from our Department of State under Hillary, et. al.) where Christians were being beheaded, herded into their churches, sealed in and burned with the church--in Syria, Christians were relatively safe under Assad if they weren't causing trouble.