In late November, the seemingly dormant civil war in Syria reignited and Syrian rebel groups began a new drive across western Syria. At first, the rebels captured Aleppo and Hama, and then moved on to the capital Damascus, finally toppling the Assad regime.
The fall of the Assad regime—the last secular Arab regime—represents a victory for Islamist, terrorist insurgents and their allies. These terrorists’ allies, most especially the US and the State of Israel.
Washington began to publicly and actively pursue this in 2013 when then-President Barack Obama declared that Assad “must go” during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, as now, the US was being repeatedly pulled into regional conflicts in the service of the Israeli state. Tel Aviv wanted a puppet regime installed in Syria that would facilitate Israeli land grabs in southern Syria.
This opposition to the Assad regime was packaged as opposition to Assad’s alleged human rights abuses, although Assad’s supposed war crimes now look almost quaint compared to the ongoing butchering of women and children by the Israeli state in Gaza.
Just as Tel Aviv respects no international law or limits on warfare imposed by just war theory, so also the Israeli state is not loath to support terrorists when they are helpful in toppling Israel’s stronger enemies.
For years, the US has kept thousands of troops in Syria—with about 9,000 there now—and, as Eric Margolis puts it, the US “with Israel, helps the jihadists while publicly denouncing them.”
Thus, Washington and Tel Aviv have both long supported what are essentially adjuncts of ISIS and Al-qaeda in Syria, including the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Now, with the Islamists triumphant over Syria’s secular state, Julani yesterday delivered a victory speech at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, declaring the success of the “mujahideen.”
Julani was formerly the leader of al-Nusra Front, which was the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. In 2016, Julani rebranded, claiming to cut ties with al-Qaeda, and changed his group’s name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which merged with other Islamist groups to form HTS in 2017.
With the end of Syria’s secular regime comes yet another devasting blow to the dwindling communities of Christians in the Levant and the Middle East overall.
For at least twenty years, Washington has been systematically engaging in policies that have destroyed ancient Christian communities in the Middle East. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 destroyed the secular regime there which had provided legal protections of Christians. In the wake of Bush’s war, violence and reprisals against Christians multiplied. Bush’s war there essentially created a power vacuum that allowed for the rise of Islamist gangs throughout Iraq, culminating in the rise of ISIS which systematically destroyed Christian holy sites, and Christians themselves, across northern Iraq.
While claiming to be against radical Islam, the Bush administration, and every president since, has chosen to ally with some of the most brutal Islamist regimes of the Middle East—especially Saudi Arabia—which has all but totally outlawed Christianity for generations. The US has instead set itself against the regimes of the region that actually tolerate and provide some legal protections for Christians, namely Syria (under Assad) and Iran.
With Assad gone, it is likely that Christian communities in Syria will suffer as they have in Iraq. We are likely to see Islamist waves of violence against Christian churches and communities, with new mandates for the hijab and other elements of Islamist dress imposed throughout the country. Given that the conquering group is essentially al-Qaeda, we might even expect the dynamiting of ancient Christian shrines and churches.
Syria, after all, is home to Damascus where St. Paul the Apostle first became a Christian and was baptized by St. Ananias of Damascus. Syria was an important center of Christian theology in early centuries under Church Fathers like Ephrem the Syrian. To this day—but perhaps for not much longer—ancient groups of Christians pray the Divine Liturgy in Aramaic, the daily language of Christ.
This may soon all but vanish as Christianity is forced underground at the hands of these allies of Washington and Israel.