Nina Shea, writing in National Review Online, notes that the New York Times has finally decided to cover the story. (Where have they been all these years???) Shea writes:
The obliteration from Iraq of its ancient Christian presence — and with it the reality of religious freedom and pluralism — is an unintended consequence of the U.S. invasion but has never been factored in as a U.S. strategic concern. There is no Obama policy, not even a safe-haven or refugee policy, designed specifically to help Iraq’s Christians as they confront religious cleansing.
Similarly, Mindy Belz, writing in World Magazine, asks, "Why has U.S. war strategy left out religious minorities in the Middle East?" She writes:
[...] It's always been curious to me that the successful strategy to stamp out sectarian violence somehow did not extend to protecting Iraq's minorities, particularly a Christian population that stretched back nearly 2 millennia and numbered up to 1.5 million under Saddam Hussein. By December 2007, church leaders estimated, that population had been halved through death and displacement to somewhere under 700,000. . . .
Leaving Christians out of the counterinsurgency equation has itself proved decisive. And the result of U.S. military and civilian leaders' unwillingness to take a vocal and visible stand against targeted violence toward religious minorities continues to unfold—not only in Iraq but across the region.
Consider recent attacks in Iraq: the Oct. 31 assault on a church in Baghdad that killed 58; the Nov. 9 bombing of Christian homes in western Baghdad; Nov. 10 Islamic hits to more than a dozen homes with mortar fire and bombs, leaving four Christians dead and dozens wounded. Some of the homes were singled out because they belonged to mourners who attended funeral services for the Oct. 31 victims. On Nov. 15 in Mosul militants stormed two adjacent homes belonging to Christians, killing two men, then bombed others. On Nov. 16 a Christian father and his 6-year-old daughter were killed by a car bomb. As Elizabeth Kendal, writing for the Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, pointed out, "This terror has led to a surge in Christians fleeing Iraq. They will join the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians struggling to survive as refugees in Syria, Turkey and Jordan. They no longer see any reason to risk their lives for a state where, even if they survive, they will be condemned to live as second class citizens (dhimmis)." . . .
But the failure of the military to leave a legacy of equal protection for all is part of a larger U.S. failure to address forcefully the authoritarian repression residing within Islam. It will no doubt resound to other minorities and to Muslims who stand against it. Today the Christian population in Iraq is about half what it was in 2007. It may have been spared actual genocide, but to go in one decade from 1.5 million to under 400,000 is extermination by any other name.