"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem."
The Scriptural mandate seems appropriate given recent events in Iran: the U.S.-Israeli strikes and especially the demise of the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. When violence explodes in one area of the Middle East, the whole region can become a powder keg. And there are innocent casualties.
This is the exhausting, terrifying, maddening reality for the long-suffering persecuted Christians (and other religious minorities) in Iraq. It didn't take long for presumably Iranian proxies to launch a drone-strike attack on a Catholic Church residence in Erbil.
The residence was mostly empty — it had been evacuated in the wake of the initial strikes on Iran as a precautionary measure, as it is located very near the Erbil International Airport. But a convent was also damaged.
Now, please don't get me wrong — I am moved by the powerful images of Iranians around the world, and maybe especially in Tehran — celebrating the possibility that they will not always live under the tyranny they have suffered. And yet I cannot stop thinking of my friend Michael Ledeen, who died last year. He worked in the Reagan administration and was a longtime fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He contributed to the National Review Online when I was editor of the website. He dedicated his professional life to encouraging Iranian dissidents and freedom lovers — his typical sign-off to a piece or blog post on Iran was the words "Faster, please," encouraging the U.S. to do something to help liberate the country.
"The Iranian people have been standing for their own liberty for many years, as demonstrated by the terrible record of carnage they have suffered at the hands of the regime," Ledeen wrote in a piece with that plea in the headline in 2005. "Hundreds of democracy advocates are being tortured in Iran's prisons. Tens of thousands have been killed in the past six years, beginning with the mass murders of protesters in 1989. Public executions are commonplace, and women are routinely executed by stoning. The psychopathic regime of Ayatollah Khamenei and former president Rafsanjani has been proclaimed the greatest predator of press freedom in the Middle East. Daily reports from Iraq testify to the enormous support from Tehran to the terrorists killing innocent civilians, government officials, foreign workers, and American servicemen and women in Iraq. As everyone knows, a steady stream of information shows that these evil people are relentlessly pursuing their dream of building atomic bombs, which they foolishly believe will protect them against the forces of freedom."
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Needless to say, it continued long past that date.
"Iranians believe that nothing of consequence can happen in the world without American support," Michael told me in 2007. "Millions of Iranians have protested against the regime and called for its downfall, but no country outside Iran has supported them. If Bush were to stand up and say: 'We want regime change in Iran,' I think there would be a fundamental change in the world, including inside Iran."
Now may be the time. But the U.S. and the Western media must be cautious. The outcome isn't clear, and the road to a new way will not be as easy as some euphoric social media videos suggest. Think of the Arab Spring in Egypt and the freedom revolution that wasn't.
Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil emphasizes that the region "does not need another war. Our children deserve stability. Our families deserve peace. Ordinary people have paid too high a price for conflicts they never chose." Asking for peace, he also says: "Whenever state weakens, minorities suffer as non-state actors (militias, sectarian groups, extremist movements) fill the vacuum. History has shown this repeatedly, from ancient times to now. The true protection for minorities is a strong state governed by the rule of law."
None of us knows how this is going to end. I remember one of the best pieces of advice Michael ever gave me: "Lopez, they do not give awards for getting things wrong first." It's better to pray than pontificate as armchair generals. Pray for peace, pray for stability, and for basic human rights and dignity to be respected. And remember the Christians who, if history is any indicator, will suffer more.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
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