Iraq's Christians: Eighty Percent Have "Disappeared"

by Giulio Meotti • April 1, 2018 at 5:00 am

Tragically, Christians living in lands formerly under the control of the "Caliphate" have been betrayed by many in the West. Governments ignored their tragic fate. Bishops were often too aloof to denounce their persecution. The media acted as if they considered these Christians to be agents of colonialism who deserved to be purged from the Middle East. And the so-called "human rights" organizations abandoned them.
The West was not willing to give sanctuary to these Christians when ISIS murdered 1,131 of them and destroyed or damaged 125 of their churches.
We must now help Christians rebuild in the lands where their people were martyred by Islamic fundamentalists.

A fighter from the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) walks through a destroyed church on November 8, 2016 in Qaraqosh, Iraq. The NPU is a militia made up of Assyrian Christians that was formed in late 2014 to defend against ISIS. Qaraqosh is a mostly Assyrian city near of Mosul that was captured by ISIS in August 2014, and liberated in November 2016. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Persecution of Christians is worse today "than at any time in history", a recent report by the organization Aid to the Church in Need revealed. Iraq happens to be "ground zero" for the "elimination" of Christians from the pages of history.

Iraqi Christian clergymen recently wore a black sign as a symbol of national mourning for the last victims of the anti-Christian violence: a young worker and a whole family of three. "This means that there is no place for Christians," said Father Biyos Qasha of the Church of Maryos in Baghdad. "We are seen as a lamb to be killed at any time".

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Trump and the Fading Ghost of an Illusion

by Amir Taheri • April 1, 2018 at 4:00 am

The central assumption of Iranian strategists is that the US cannot sustain a long war. It is, therefore, necessary to pin down its forces and raise the kill-die ratio to levels unacceptable by the American public.
Iran did not seize the US diplomats as hostages with nuclear weapons; nor did it massacre 241 US Marines in Beirut with an atomic bomb. The mischief that Iran is making in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain is not backed by nuclear power either.

While Iran sets up all the technical, industrial and material means needed to produce nuclear weapons, it seems determined to continue its formal commitment to the "nuclear deal" as part of a strategy to drive a wedge between the Europeans and the Trump administration. Pictured: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini smile during a 2015 photo-op. (Image source: European External Action Servic/Flickr)

Does the appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser indicate President Trump's determination to formally renounce the so-called "nuclear deal" concocted by his predecessor Barack Obama?

The common answer of the commentariat is a resounding yes. Long before Trump promised to tear-up the deal, Bolton was on record denouncing it as an ugly example of appeasement.

Thus, next May, when the "deal" comes up for its periodical renewal, President Trump's idea of "tearing up a bad deal" is likely to have broader support in his administration. And that seems to be exactly what Tehran is expecting.

In fact, just days after Bolton's appointment, the spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, Behruz Kamalvand, broke a year of silence to boast about ambitious new plans for speeding up and expanding the Islamic Republic's nuclear project.

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