Why must America win the war in Iraq?

I got to attend a hearing of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in the Senate on Tuesday, and the discussion centered around witness testimony about Christian persecution in Iraq. Several witnesses told horror stories about the killing, kidnapping and torture that has been leveled against the Christians in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, such as the Ninevah Plain, by Muslim extremists. The Reverend Canon Andrew White is an Anglican minister in Baghdad where General Petreaus attends church, and 36 members of his 1,300-member congregation have been kidnapped in the last month, only one having been returned. Many Christians are having to flee their homes to seek safe havens, and many are refugees in neighboring Syria and Lebanon trying to survive day to day.

This tragedy depicts a unique glance at one of the primary underscoring reasons for the violence in Iraq and the hatred toward Israel. Many Muslim extremists feel that the Christians are representative of the Western world (regardless of the fact that Christianity was born in the Middle East), and that the Coalition fighting to uphold democracy in Iraq is trying to “westernize” the Middle East and suppress traditional Islam. On our side of the ocean, it’s important when debating about Iraq to remember that most people in the Middle East have no concept of the government and the church being two different entities. While religious principles have proven effective in raising up a successful nation, as we have seen in the U.S., religion and government cannot become so entangled as they have in the Middle East.

Several of the witnesses on the ground in Iraq said it is imperative that the U.S. and coalition stay the course to win the war, or even more blood will run in the streets and that Iraq will turn into a breeding ground for radical Muslim terrorists who wish to destroy the U.S. here at home and its interests overseas (including killing, kidnapping, and torturing Christians since they are associated with the West). Hard to argue with that.