On March 17, the U.S. State Department designated the atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State against Christians and other religious minorities as “genocide.” For more insight into this and other developments in the Middle East, I interviewed Andrew Doran, a senior adviser for In Defense of Christians, a Washington, DC-based advocacy group for Christians in the Middle East. Doran, who previously served on the executive secretariat of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO at the State Department, has published dozens of articles about U.S. foreign policy and human rights in the Middle East.
In part I of a wide-ranging interview, Doran discussed the origins of the current perilous state of affairs in the Middle East and what the international community can do to assist Christians and other religious minorities in the region.
Here, in Part II, Doran discusses the presidential candidates’ visions for the future of the region and the four things that need to happen for Christianity not just to survive in the Middle East but to thrive in security and freedom.
What are your thoughts on what the presidential contenders are saying and plan to do on these issues?
The absence of substantive policy discussion in the debates has certainly been disconcerting. But the voices of persecuted Christians in the Middle East have not been drowned out entirely. Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, Sen. [Marco] Rubio and Sen. [Ted] Cruz have all declared what’s happened to Christians under ISIS “genocide.” But the candidates really haven’t gotten anywhere close to discussing next steps. That’s always hard in an election cycle – and America is all but perpetually in an election cycle.
Secretary Clinton is correct when she says that anti-Muslim rhetoric from Western leaders plays into the hands of [the Islamic State] and other extremists. These statements can imperil not only Americans in the Middle East but also Middle East Christians, who don’t need Americans making their lives worse as embattled minorities. On the other hand, most Muslims I’ve spoken to, in the Middle East and in the West, note that the principal source of anger among Muslims is not anti-Muslim rhetoric but the fact that America’s armed forces are taking the lives of Muslims in the Middle East, particularly civilians. (This is common sense of course but for some reason needs to be pointed out.) Muslims will say that just as Americans feel a sense of solidarity with terror victims in France, so Muslims feel solidarity with Muslims who are “collateral damage” in Pakistan or Iraq or Yemen. Violence, unsurprisingly, has begotten further violence. Our foreign policy suggests that we value Muslim lives less than our own, and this perception has to be changed.
It looks like we’ll have either a President Clinton or President Trump. Should this worry Christians in the Middle East and those who care about them?
It’s really difficult to say. On the one hand, Secretary Clinton has supported military intervention in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Each of these undertakings, whether overt or largely covert, has been an unmitigated disaster. They have led directly or indirectly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, the persecution and displacement of entire communities of Christians and others, and destabilization throughout the region. If a President Hillary Clinton were to continue the failed policies of the last two decades, there is obviously cause for concern. (It is worth noting that she, as chief diplomat, was generally hawkish while President Obama, commander in chief, generally preferred diplomacy.) On the other hand, Secretary Clinton remembers well her husband’s failure to stop the Rwandan Genocide, which he calls the biggest regret of his presidency. So it’s possible that she might take steps to see that Christians, Yazidis and others survive.
What Donald Trump would do is, of course, less predictable. It’s fairly clear that his foreign policy team would consist almost exclusively of realists, who have not had a preponderant role in a Republican administration since George H. W. Bush a quarter century ago. (Two pieces worth reading: Emile Simpson on the disconnect between Republican foreign policy elites and the base and Jacob Heilbrunn, who two years ago predicted that these same elites might bolt to the Democratic Party.) The bottom line is that no one really knows what a realist, right-of-center populist foreign policy would look like. Realism suggests that vulnerable minorities are not a foreign policy priority. On the other hand, Americans are increasingly aware and mobilized to protect vulnerable Christians. Whether it is President Clinton or President Trump, IDC will be advocating for the U.S. government to protect vulnerable peoples in the Middle East, including Christians.
And what if it’s President Cruz?
That’s difficult to say. He gives the impression that his view of the Middle East is Manichean, which suggests a continuation of the first term of George W. Bush. But he’s carved out unique territory on Syria, distinguishing himself from most Republican foreign policy elites. In this he is correct, I think: To make war on ISIS and [Syrian President Bashar] Assad simultaneously in the hopes that democracy will flourish in the immediate aftermath is lunacy. It would be a continuation of the disastrous policies that have brought much of the Arab Middle East to ruin. At the same time, the continuation of that conflict is hugely problematic for national security. There is a new Afghanistan forming and a new generation of terrorists, infinitely worse than al Qaeda, are preparing for the next generation of jihad. The conflict in Syria must be brought to an end and the Assad regime, sooner or later, should be brought to justice for its crimes against humanity. But Assad should come to his end as Milosevic did, in prison after a court conviction, not like [Moammar] Gadhafi, whose death created the vacuum filled by ISIS. My sense is that this is where Cruz is coming from but that’s speculation.
Victoria Coates, his national security adviser, seems to fit the mold of a principled realist. If that’s the case, and I think it is, she probably believes that America has a special role in the world but isn’t ideological or naïve about the possibilities of spreading democracy through military expedition. She likely grasps the limits of military force. The fact that she’s formed her own thinking quite independent of Beltway group-think is encouraging. Whether her voice will remain prominent as Cruz forms his “team of rivals” remains to be seen. I hope it will.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
