Syria
Once one of the safest and freest countries for Christians and tourists anywhere in the Middle East, Syria now lies largely in ruins due to a war imposed on it by foreign powers. It helps to think of Damascus as a valve: Assad had the oil and gas flowing from west to east (from Iran through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean) while the Sunni powers wanted it to flow from south to north (from Qatar through Saudi Arabia and Syria to Turkey). But that would require regime change to re-establish Sunni hegemony. And so it was that in early 2011, US-allied Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, pro-Muslim Brotherhood Qatar, and NATO-member neo-Ottoman Turkey moved under the cover of Muslim Brotherhood-led “Arab Spring” protests to pursue regime change in Damascus. In 2011 they pumped in weapons. When that failed, they pumped in transnational jihadists. For Syria’s religious minorities – Alawites, Shi’ites, Christians, Druze (who together comprise around 25 percent of the population) – as well as all Syria’s secular/nominal Sunnis (in other words, for the majority of Syrians), the war had become an existential struggle for survival
Today, the main threat to Christians is not the Syrian government. Indeed, government-held territory is where Syrian Christians are most safe and free and supported. While Christians in the now Kurdish-run Hasakah Governorate (contiguous to Iraq’s northern Nineveh Province) might be free, but they are however gravely imperilled by Turkish troops and their jihadist proxies, as well as by transnational terrorists. They are also routinely troubled by aggressive Kurdish nationalism, especially in education. Consequently, many Christians in Syria’s northeast would like to see the Syrian government back in control of Hasakah Governorate.
The greatest threat to the lives of Syrian Christians today comes from US sanctions.The US administration’s Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act essentially places all government-controlled areas of Syria in a state of economic siege. As with any siege, the Caesar Act is designed to escalate suffering as in a pressure-cooker in pursuit of regime-change. Maronite Archbishop Joseph Tobji (49) of Aleppo has labelled it “a diabolical Act”.
The Caesar Act’s sanctions have halted reconstruction and devastated whole sectors, including small business and agriculture. Syria’s once thriving health sector and pharmaceuticals industry have been totally crippled, leaving Syrians without medicines and treatments.
Recommended: “How economic sanctions negatively affect the health sector in Syria: a case study of the pharmaceutical industry.” By Ziad Ghisn, London School of Economics, 16 April 2020
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