Genicide

Why Obama and Kerry Fear the ‘G’ Word

It’s not often that life gives you a second chance (or a third, or a fourth). But that’s exactly what Congress did today for President Obama when the House passed a resolution applying the word “genocide” to ISIS’s atrocities against Christians in the Middle East. The decision presents President Obama with a picture-perfect opportunity to do something bold, decisive, and morally right in foreign policy, and to help restore his tarnished legacy. This opportunity is probably his last. It’s not clear exactly what is being done to Christians in the Middle East right now (an excuse similar to that made by world leaders in the late 1930s when Jews were being rounded up and killed in Nazi Germany), but what we do know is grim. In 2003, over 1.4 million Christians lived in Iraq. By the summer of 2015, there were fewer than 275,000. Most were eking out a nightmarish existence in camps in Kurdistan. The numbers are similar among Syrian Christians: approximately 1.25 million in 2011, fewer than 500,000 today.