A couple of days ago, I posted some thoughts on how we might look at this latest war in the Middle East. I pointed out that the proper way, really the only way, to think about, initiate, and execute a war is in human terms. What I meant by that, I wrote, is that we must see the human cost of modern conflict as a deciding factor in conducting war, not to mention starting one.
I was surprised by the reaction of some of my readers. A few people texted me directly, saying that they agreed with me, that war is never good, nor a first option, and we, the American people, should think more about what we are doing to the “someones,” that is the people, in the Middle East, and less about the “somethings,” that is all the stuff we are blowing up.
Others had a less-than-favorable reaction. They unsubscribed as readers from my work. They made it known that I, as a writer, didn’t “understand” that we “have to take out” Iran, and that Iran “has been, is, and will continue to be” a threat to people everywhere.
They were asking me (accusing me, really) about the following: “What did I know,” anyway, about the terror apparatus of Iran, and the harm that it has done to people everywhere. OK, fair question.
My answer: I know less than many but more than most.
Let me explain.
I have been doing international humanitarian work since 2010. Starting in 2012, I began hearing about thousands of Christians in Iraq who were being terrorized, kidnapped, and killed by death squads of the Mahdi Army, an Iranian-backed, Shia militia headed by the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, from the slums of Baghdad.
Curious sort that I am, I traveled to the poor quarters of Zarqa, Jordan, the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the terror group, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, to talk with Iraqi Christians who were lucky enough to have gotten away from Iraq and the Mahdi Army. Among the many that I met was a young husband and father of two. To protect his identity, let’s call him John.
Before escaping to Jordan and exile, John and his father had operated a liquor store in a Christian neighborhood of Baghdad. One afternoon in 2012, John received a call from someone claiming to be with the Mahdi Army.
As a Christian, John had a valid permit from both the national government of Iraq and the city of Baghdad to sell alcoholic beverages, but the voice on the phone informed him that Sharia Law prohibited the sale or consumption of alcohol. If he valued his life, said the voice, John and his father would stop selling alcohol immediately.
John and his father promptly closed their shop, moved several miles away within the Baghdad area, and reopened their business, their only means of feeding their families.
Within a month John and his father received a letter from the same organization that had called, informing them that since they had failed to comply with the initial warning and insisted on selling alcoholic beverages in violation of Sharia Law, they and other members of the Christian community in Baghdad would be killed, both as a punishment for violating the law and also as an example to other Christians.
John gave me that letter to take with me. It was one of several that the terrified Christians hiding in Zarqa, Jordan, showed to me during that trip.
Here is the letter, along with an English translation from the original Arabic. I have redacted “John’s” name and the address of his business from both forms of the letter.
This letter, as an example of the terror of an Iranian-backed group, is as telling as it is chilling for the Christians who once lived in Iraq.
Note that the authors did not hesitate to identify themselves, even by name, and assert that they were both authorities and enforcers of Sharia Law. The validity of what “The Law” does or does not mean was, apparently, entirely up to them.
Presently, Baghdad and southern Iraq, which are controlled by Iranian-backed groups, are all but empty of Christians. Consider these numbers: Before 2003, the year that the Mahdi Army was formed in Iraq, Christians made up about 5% of the total population of the country. By 2007, thanks in large part to Iranian-funded terror groups, Christians made up between 40% and 50% of all of the people who had been forced to flee the country, never to return.
I get it. I had, unfortunately, a front row seat to the terror and resulting exodus inflicted by Iran on the innocent people in the Middle East.
The point of my post was, therefore, not to excuse, or even to minimize the responsibility that Iran bears for the terror and murder it has spread throughout the world.
Rather, what I meant (and still do) is that we must be very, very careful about how we view each other, especially when it comes to conflict.
In media and communication studies, we call this “framing.” A “frame” is a perspective, a point of view, loaded with any given number of assumptions that someone wants us to adopt.
What, we should be asking ourselves, are the authorities (think governments) and those who amplify their voices (think media), trying to get us to “see” when we look at this war with Iran? Are they encouraging us to see the human cost of what we are doing, even if it is the right thing to do? Or are they framing the event as a mere “excursion,” an adrenaline-filled romp through a string of “greatest hits” moments from so many of the action movies that we all love?
If you are unsure about how to answer this question, have a look at the recent post on X by The White House called “Justice the American Way.”
This is not right.
We as Christians should be especially sensitive to frames, and especially dehumanizing frames. Remembering the humanity in everything that we do to our fellow humans is our great commission. We are charged with seeing God in all others, even those who are our enemies. To help us do this, we were gifted by God with the center of our faith: Jesus Christ, the Christus (in Latin), the God-Man.
Remembering this is the whole point of our Christian life. It is the John 3:16 of our existence, both coming and going.
If we allow ourselves to be led around by dehumanizing framers and their frames, even and especially during this war, we will not set right whatever Iran has done wrong. We will simply pass the pain and suffering of it on to thousands of innocents.
That I do know.