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30
July 2015 by John Eibner
Even
though Turkey has been drawn into the campaign against Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria the future for the region’s non-Muslims remains far from secure.
However there are two important steps the US needs to take to help restore
peace there
Most
of Washington’s allies have been reluctant to join its anti-Islamic State (IS)
bombing campaign. One of the most conspicuous holdouts, NATO member Turkey, has
now reluctantly yielded to American pressure. But its rulers have exacted a
stiff price: the right to bomb the region’s most effective anti-IS fighting
force – the Syrian and Iraqi-based Kurdish militias.
With
restive Kurds making up roughly 20 per cent of Turkey’s population, the
country’s Islamist authorities feel more threatened by secular Kurdish
nationalism than by jihadism. Thus the grisly war in the Levant and Mesopotamia
threatens to spread into Anatolia.
Four
years ago this month, President Barack Obama made a fateful decision. He
announced that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside … for the
sake of the Syrian people”. This signal for regime change triggered a set of
measures, both overt and covert, involving a network of US-led alliances. While
the US leads, the UK is a significant element in its network of alliances.
According
to Vice-President Joe Biden, massive amounts of weapons and funds were
transferred from America’s Sunni regional allies – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and
Qatar – to al-Qaida and other jihadists. Following a meeting last May with the
CIA Director, Senator Lindsey Graham went further, stating: “We find ourselves
or our allies in the region supporting a terrorist group”.
As
it did Iraq, Libya and Yemen, America’s regime change policy has created
conditions in Syria for humanitarian catastrophe, including genocide. Much of
the country has now been cleansed of Christians and other non-Sunni religious
minorities. Most of the displaced Christians I encounter in my travels to the
region are impoverished, traumatised and fearful of the future.
While
the UN reported in August 2001 that 2,000 Syrians had perished, four years
later the death toll has topped 200,000. Over half Syria’s population of 22
million has been forced to flee their homes. Some 8 million have sought
protection behind the lines of Assad’s army. And 4 million have fled abroad.
The
so-called Islamic State (IS) has emerged from the mayhem as the chief
protagonist in this grisly Levantine drama. Its move for preeminence among
competing jihadist armies came last summer when it spectacularly walked into
the Iraqi city of Mosul, and religiously cleansed surrounding Christian, Yezidi
and Shi’ite villages – all without facing US airstrikes. But IS overstepped
Washington’s red lines by targeting vital economic and strategic interests:
Baghdad, Iraq’s Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, and Iraqi oil installations. So
began the airstrikes to contain IS.
Former
CIA Director and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has aptly compared the
conflagration in Syria and Iraq as akin to the seventeenth-century, sectarian
Thirty Years’ War in Europe.
To
untangle the mess and restore a semblance of civilisation to the region will be
a Herculean task. It will involve the diminution of Islamist influence within
the United States’ network of alliances, and the improvement of relations with
Russia and China.
Christians
can act as catalysts for peace and the preservation of Christianity in the
Islamic Middle East by amplifying Pope Francis’ recognition of the “genocidal”
character of the sectarian conflict, and by echoing his demand that it “must
end”. Last spring, the Vatican, in conjunction with Russia and Lebanon,
launched a UN initiative for the restoration of the peace in the region, based
on respect for religious pluralism. If progress is to be made, the Pope will
need to have the audible support of the entire Christian world when he carries
this message to Washington next month.
*John Eibner is a Director of Christian
Solidarity International (CSI), with responsibility for its Middle East
Programme. He travels frequently to Syria and Iraq
