Syria has become a graveyard for ancient Christianity.  What was once home to some of the world’s oldest churches is now rubble — its crosses toppled, clergy hunted, and Christian families driven from their homes or slaughtered outright.

Under Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime, Syria was no model of liberty.  But there was a fragile balance.  Christians, though never truly free, were tolerated — and even protected at times — as a stabilizing force against the rise of Islamist extremism.

That fragile order was severely destabilized by the Obama administration’s 2011 policy of regime change, followed by the rise of extremist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda-backed factions.  Despite Assad’s brutality, Christian communities found themselves caught between the devil and the deep blue sea — facing persecution from both Assad’s forces and the extremists who emerged in the power vacuum.

Today, in early 2025,* although the leadership in Syria has changed, the situation for Christians and other religious minorities has not improved.  The new regime, under al-Sharaa, has escalated the violence against these communities.  Human rights organizations have documented widespread abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, and forced conversions, particularly in areas controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group known for its extreme actions.  Although HTS claims to protect religious minorities, the reality on the ground is one of ongoing discrimination and violence.

The U.S. didn’t simply fail Syria’s Christians; it helped create the conditions that led to their destruction.  Barack Obama’s 2011 regime change policy in Syria destabilized the country and armed rebel groups, many with direct ties to al-Qaeda and jihadist networks.  That power vacuum allowed Islamist militias to rise, seize territory, and terrorize Christian communities.  Joe Biden’s policies compounded the damage — prioritizing optics over truth, downplaying religious persecution, and deliberately scrubbing “Christian” from official language.  By avoiding the truth, the U.S. opened the door to the radical regime now systematically slaughtering Christians.

America’s fingerprints are all over this catastrophe. While Christians were being crucified, burned alive, and massacred, Biden’s State Department deliberately refused to identify them as Christians — referring instead to “displaced civilians” or “ethnic minorities.”  This was not a mistake; it was a deliberate choice to ignore the Islamist ideology driving the persecution.  In doing so, they buried the victims twice — once with their blood, and again by erasing their identity from the record.

The Pentagon falsely claimed in early 2024 that only 900 U.S. troops remained in Syria.  But satellite intelligence and whistleblower reports exposed the truth: more than 2,100 troops were still there.  This was a deliberate political narrative to obscure the truth and avoid accountability.

The deception was clear — a calculated move to mislead the American public, wrapped up in bureaucratic language.

On March 9, 2025, secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the violence in Syria and called for accountability.  He acknowledged the slaughter of Christians and other minorities, and expressed solidarity with the persecuted.  But this must be more than just words.  It must be followed by action.

One person saw this coming long before the rest.  Tulsi Gabbard, now a former congresswoman, was one of the few who consistently warned about the dangers of U.S. involvement in Syria.  As early as 2016, Gabbard voiced her concerns about the U.S. policy in Syria, pointing out the rise of extremist groups and the devastating consequences of the regime change agenda.  Her warnings were ignored by the political elites — but now those concerns have been proven correct.  The U.S. foreign policy failures in Syria have paved the way for the atrocities we see today.

Trump inherited a world in flames — a world made more dangerous by globalists, appeasers, and diplomats who were more concerned with political correctness than protecting American interests.  Unlike his predecessors, Trump’s administration is led by people with clarity, conviction, and courage.  They understand that peace is won not through empty rhetoric; it’s won through strength, strategy, and moral resolve.  His team doesn’t shy away from confronting evil, from naming it, and from defending those who suffer under it.  Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard demonstrate that this team is restoring the clarity America lost under Biden.

Christians are bleeding in Syria, and the West is still pretending not to see it.  Where is the European Union — the same E.U. that rushed to welcome millions of Muslim refugees but shows no urgency for persecuted Christians?  Their silence is deliberate, and their selective compassion is evident.  This isn’t just a humanitarian crisis; it’s genocide.  And the West is complicit.

History will judge this moment.  Heaven already has.  The world may pretend not to see, but Heaven never blinks.

Wendy Kinney is a Christian, attorney, and legal strategist and the founder and CEO of Revere Payments, a company dedicated to protecting financial freedom and supporting values-driven businesses.  She writes about faith, freedom, and the fight for truth in an age of spiritual and political darkness, challenging both cultural complacency and institutional silence.

Image: watchsmart via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).

* Correction: An earlier edition of this article retained a sentence from an outdated draft, which stated (correctly at the time it was written) that Assad was still in power in Syria.  We regret the oversight.