{"id":6949,"date":"2014-01-29T11:46:45","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T19:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6949"},"modified":"2014-01-29T11:46:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T19:46:45","slug":"kerry-boasts-of-pluralistic-syria-once-assad-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/kerry-boasts-of-pluralistic-syria-once-assad-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry Boasts of ‘Pluralistic’ Syria Once Assad Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, was recently\u00a0interviewed<\/a>\u00a0about Syria. \u00a0While many of his assertions can be debated, one especially requires a response.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/a>
U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv via Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout the interview, he repeatedly insisted that, if Bashar Assad would only leave power, everything would go well \u2014 especially for all of Syria\u2019s minorities.<\/p>\n

In his words: \u201cI believe that a peace can protect all of the minorities: Druze, Christian, Isma\u2018ilis, Alawites \u2014 all of them can be protected, and you can have a pluralistic Syria, in which minority rights of all people are protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, Kerry declared that \u201cThe world would protect the Alawites, Druze, Christians, and all minorities in Syria after the ousting of Assad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem here is that we have\u00a0precedent<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 exact precedent. \u00a0We\u2019ve seen this paradigm before and know\u00a0precisely<\/em>\u00a0what happens once strongman dictators like Assad are gone.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0demonstrated in this article<\/a>, in all Muslim nations where the U.S. has intervened to help topple dictators and bring democracy, it is precisely the minorities who suffer first. \u00a0And neither the U.S. nor \u201cthe world\u201d do much about it.<\/p>\n

After the U.S. toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for\u00a0graphic images<\/a>). Indeed, Christians have been\u00a0terrorized into near-extinction<\/a>, so that today, a decade after the ousting of Saddam, more than half of them have fled Iraq.<\/p>\n

The \u201cworld\u201d did nothing.<\/p>\n

Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Libya\u2019s Qaddafi, Christians\u2014including Americans<\/a>\u2014have been\u00a0tortured<\/a>\u00a0and killed (including\u00a0for refusing to convert<\/a>), their\u00a0churches bombed<\/a>, and their\u00a0nuns threatened<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not much \u201cpluralism\u201d there.<\/p>\n

Once the Muslim Brotherhood replaced Mubarak in Egypt \u2014 and all with U.S. support \u2014 the persecution of Copts practically became legalized,\u00a0as unprecedented numbers of\u00a0Christians\u2014men, women, and children\u2014were arrested, often receiving more than double the maximum prison sentence, under the accusation that they had\u00a0\u201cblasphemed\u201d Islam and\/or its prophet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not only did the U.S. do nothing \u2014 it\u00a0asked the Coptic Church<\/a>\u00a0not to join the June Revolution that led to the ousting of the Brotherhood and Muhammad Morsi.<\/p>\n

In short, where the U.S. works to overthrow secular autocrats, the quality of life for Christians and other minorities takes a major nosedive. In Saddam\u2019s Iraq, Qaddafi\u2019s Libya, and Assad\u2019s Syria (before the U.S.-sponsored war), Christians and their churches were largely protected.<\/p>\n

Today, Syria is the third worst nation in the world in which to be Christian, Iraq is fourth, Libya 13th, and Egypt 22nd.\u00a0 Such are the fruits of U.S. intervention in the name of \u201cdemocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how can anyone, especially Christians and other minorities, have any confidence in Kerry\u2019s repeated assurances that religious minorities will be safeguarded once secular strongman Assad is gone \u2014 and by the \u201cworld\u201d no less \u2014 leading to a \u201cpluralistic\u201d Syria?<\/p>\n

And from an American point of view, what are we to make of Kerry?\u00a0 Is the U.S. Secretary of State\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0deluded and detached from reality, or, as Russian President Vladimir Putin\u00a0once said<\/a>\u00a0of him, also in the context of Syria: \u201che is lying and knows he is lying. It\u2019s sad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, was recently\u00a0interviewed\u00a0about Syria. \u00a0While many of his assertions can be debated, one especially requires a response. Throughout the interview, he repeatedly insisted that, if Bashar Assad would only leave power, everything would go well \u2014 especially for all of Syria\u2019s minorities. In his words: \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[127,225,227],"tags":[192,1062,139,30,1016],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1O5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6393,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-crosses-red-line-by-supporting-jihadi-terrorism\/","url_meta":{"origin":6949,"position":0},"title":"Obama Crosses Red Line by Supporting Jihadi Terrorism","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0Jihad Watch By now it should be obvious that whenever the U.S. interferes in another nation\u2019s politics in the name of \u201chuman rights,\u201d that that is only a pretext. 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