From Colin Powell to the Christians of Iraq

The American strikes currently taking place in northern Iraq are intended to save the Christians of the country, who have been living in this region for a millennium and are now under threat from “Islamists.” It is a boomerang effect. But why are they under attack all of a sudden?

Once upon a time, before 2003, the multifaith population of Iraq lived in peace. There were Muslims (Shiites and Sunnis), Christians (Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox), Yazidis (a monotheistic religion practiced by Kurds) and Mandaeans (a religion whose origin divides researchers). All of these people practiced their religion in harmony.

That was before then-American President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq, in agreement with the United Kingdom. It was done without a United Nations mandate, but with lies to justify their intervention. Colin Powell, the American secretary of state who was put in charge of this task, resigned a year later and retired from politics. At the time, the opinion of the international community was “formatted” around the idea that it was necessary to put to an end to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship that began in 1968. This led to the victory over Saddam and to his hanging on the day of the Festival of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha) in 2006.

Today, the reality is incontestable. The Iraqis, regardless of religious or ethnic affiliation, must bitterly regret the American invasion. It destroyed the country and divided its population. Now, prior to announcing the strikes, President Obama said in his latest speech last Friday that the solution could only come from the Iraqi people (reconciled) and asked for a government of national unity. Thus, we are witnessing him take the opposite trajectory of his predecessor.

We can also feel the weight of the disaster left in the wake of Bush on his shoulders: hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, tens of thousands of American military deaths and injuries, more than $60 billion lost by the U.S. in the invasion, not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars of destruction caused in Iraq. That is the sad legacy left by the Americans after their retreat, decided by Obama, in 2011 (the year that marked the beginning of the famous Arab Spring). That is why President Obama does not want to hear talk of military intervention on the ground — in Iraq or elsewhere.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was in Baghdad yesterday, is also right to call for unity among the Iraqis in order to “lead the battle against terrorism.” Unfortunately, he is the last of the observers not to have foreseen the ordeal that the Christians in Iraq have been experiencing since 2003. The general consensus was that the “Islamists” were only targeting Muslims. This was partly true, except that after dealing with the Muslims, their terrorism agenda turned toward Christians. The two religions of the Book are being targeted in the same way, only with a programmatic and chronological difference.

The French president at the time, Jacques Chirac, understood the situation so well that he formally opposed the invasion — an invasion in which no less than 34 countries became involved anyway, even Arab countries. Obama has not set a time frame for the strikes, but admitted that it will take “some time.” France and the U.K. have promised to help. There will be alternating humanitarian aid and bombings.

However, not far from there, the people of Gaza have also been massacred by a terrorist state every day for a month. Western leaders have selective human solidarity. Once again they are differentiating between a child killed in Gaza and one killed in the north of Iraq. They are still making the mistakes of 2003.