What Can We Do?

This month old article in the Globe and Mail highlights the problem of ethnic cleansing in Iraq:

The Islamic State of Iraq, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, announced it carried out the cathedral attack to force the release of Islamic converts allegedly being detained by the Coptic Church in Egypt. The group later declared Christians everywhere to be “legitimate targets.”

As Christians converged on their churches Wednesday to seek counsel from their religious leaders, the capital's Syrian Catholic archbishop made an emotional appeal for Western countries to come to their rescue.

“It would be criminal on the part of the international community not to take care of the security of the Christians,” said Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka as he tried to console members of the Baghdad cathedral’s congregation.

I'll admit I feel helpless. I don't know what to do to help these embattled Christians. This is a country that our American allies paid dearly to liberate. Unlike Afghanistan, I don't think the Americans could credibly threaten to withdrawl their support from the country. There are far too many risks by simply leaving the country for Iran to meddle in.

I shall simply pray and hope whatever pressure our governments are able to apply will have some effect. In the meantime I will take some small comfort in the fact that the Iraqi Prime Minister is at least saying the right things:

Wednesday’s attacks came just a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the scarred cathedral and urged Christians not to leave the country. Iraqi security forces would protect them, he promised.