Category: Foreign Policy

ARTICLE: The State of U.S. Foreign Policy After Barack Obama

A two-part series on the state of U.S. foreign policy following eight perilous years of the Obama Doctrine.

obama-trumpBy Erin Rodewald // February 9, 2017

(This article originally appeared as a two-part series at The Philos Project, here and here)

What Leading from Behind has Left Behind in U.S. Foreign Policy

President Donald Trump was sworn into office a mere three weeks ago. Already, the fear of a new American isolationism, of retrenchment, and even the forfeiture of foremost leadership in world affairs has some longing for the “good old days” of the Obama Administration, when the U.S. seemed rooted in robust global engagement.

While it is still too early for a comprehensive retrospective on the Obama years, the basic principles that animated the Obama Doctrine are recognizable. Before a false nostalgia sets in, it would be prudent to make a clear-eyed examination of America’s foreign policy stature after eight years of “leading from behind.”

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ARTICLE: Brightening the Beacon of Light

Oppression is great in all corners of the world. At the core of such evil festers a deepening and deadly intolerance of religious freedom.

(This article originally appeared in the Washington Times)

It is Christmas week, and mankind is reminded of the promise of the gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This year, however, the darkness seems to have closed in. In Aleppo, the battered streets run with blood. Genocide has left Iraq’s ancient Christian community all but extinct. Nigeria is fractured along religious lines. Christians and other minorities in China are targeted for the gruesome practice of forced organ harvesting. Oppression is great in all corners of the world.

At the core of such evil festers a deepening and deadly intolerance of religious freedom. A staggering 75 percent of the world’s population lives in areas of severe religious persecution. To claim the promise of the gospel then, to pierce the darkness in these mean times, we must start by turning on the lights.

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ARTICLE: A Light in the Darkness

Passage of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act brings promise of hope to a darkening world

(This article originally appeared in The Philos Project)

It is difficult to see past the evil.

In the waning days of 2016, we are reminded of it on a daily basis, particularly (though not exclusively) the evil that is making headlines in the Middle East. Aleppo is drenched in blood. A Christian mother of five languishes in a dank Pakistani prison cell, charged with blasphemy and sentenced to death for drinking a glass of water. Lives have been shattered with the bombing of Egypt’s main Coptic Christian Cathedral during a packed worship service. Iraq’s ancient Christian community is all but extinct, ravaged by genocide and unspeakable atrocities.

Trace the roots of this evil and you will find at its core religious persecution–the attempt by a powerful few to crush the most sacred of human rights: the freedom of conscience. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, a staggering 75 percent of the world’s 7.2 billion humans live in areas of severe religious persecution. While the study revealed that the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion are found in the Middle East–where Christianity, Judaism and Islam originated–evidence of oppression in other corners of the world is all too prevalent.

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ARTICLE: The Art of the [Iran] Deal: Will Trump Abide or Abort the Agreement?

President-Elect Donald Trump has called the Iran Deal “disastrous” and “catastrophic,” yet his intentions about it remain unclear.

(This article originally appeared in The Philos Project)

There is no shortage of prognosticating attached to the forthcoming Trump administration. During the long election season, President-Elect Donald Trump was long on fiery rhetoric, but short on policy details, leaving observers uncertain as to how a President Trump would approach the highest job in the land. But then, that is the Trump way – keep ‘em guessing.

Will he actually build a wall? Will he blow up Obamacare? Is NATO truly on its last legs? Of the myriad foreign and domestic balls in the air between now and Jan. 20, perhaps the most supercharged international concern is the future of President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy initiative – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Trump has called the deal “disastrous” and “catastrophic,” yet his intentions about it remain unclear. In one major foreign policy speech earlier this year, he made two seemingly contradictory promises: to both dismantle the deal and enforce its terms.

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ARTICLE: In Search of Greener Pastures: A Comparison of Two-Party and Multiparty Political Systems

Election 2016 begs the question: Is a two-party system really the best option for American voters.

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

After a grueling primary season, two nominating conventions, three debates and months of campaigning, the 2016 election season will conclude in less than two weeks. The process has been particularly divisive this cycle, leaving many voters weary and puzzled. While every election tends to ignite fresh probing into the whys and hows of the American electoral process, this year has invited much historic reflection.

Chief among the questions voters are pondering: How did we end up with two such flawed candidates? Has America’s two-party system failed the voters? Would the nation be better served by a multiparty system – such as that enjoyed by Israel – which affords greater selection and diversity of thought?

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ARTICLE: On Foreign Policy: The Candidates in Their Own Words

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. What distinguishes these presidential candidates on foreign policy and what should voters be looking for?

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. What distinguishes these presidential candidates on foreign policy and what should voters be looking for?

More than a few Americans are struggling to make sense of this year’s presidential election and the choice that awaits them at the ballot box in November. After a grueling primary season, voters are left with two of the most unpopular candidates in modern history. Hillary Clinton, who has long had her eye on the country’s top job, enters the final weeks of the campaign with a 55.4 percent unfavorable rating, according to a recent Real Clear Politics poll. Her opponent, businessman Donald Trump, fairs even worse, with a rating of nearly 60 percent.

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BOOK REVIEW: Is Jesus Worth It? A Review of ‘The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected’

“The Insanity of God” is an intense book depicting the struggles, heartbreak and power of God evident in the lives of Nik and Ruth Ripken.

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

As midlife crises go, Nik Ripken’s was a whopper. After years of blood, sweat and toil, his life’s work lay in ruins. His enterprise had failed, he was forced to flee his home, and he buried his beloved son, all in the span of a few months. Not surprisingly, Ripken was left with hard questions – just not the questions one might expect.

Ripken is a missionary. He and his wife Ruth followed their hearts to Africa in the mid-1980s, serving first in Malawi and then in South Africa. In 1991, with a young family in tow, they traveled to Somaliland, a region in northwestern Somalia devastated by drought and civil war. In the face of total societal collapse, the Ripkens aimed to bring humanitarian relief to a desperate people, and in so doing, demonstrate the love of God to an un-churched people.

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BOOK REVIEW: Christianity on the Brink: They Say We are Infidels

Mindy Belz chronicles the persecution of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community in her newly released, first-hand account, They Say We Are Infidels.

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

The door for Christians in Iraq is closing. That is the grim message received from Knox Thames, U.S. Department of State’s Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia, speaking on the systematic campaign by ISIS militants to eliminate ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. A new urgency may be attached to this headline, but persecution of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community has been building for more than a decade. Mindy Belz chronicles this in her newly released, first-hand account, They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

A seasoned war reporter and editor of World magazine, Belz provides more than a sterile accounting of the atrocities meted out against the Christian community in Iraq and Syria after more than a decade of war. They Say We Are Infidels introduces the real faces of conflict, the human predicament attached to a region afflicted by deeply rooted sectarian hatred and violence.

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ARTICLE: Will Pope Francis Raise Awareness of Today’s Genocide in the Middle East?

(This article originally appeared in The Christian Post)

When Pope Francis arrives in the U.S. this week, there are many who hope he will again speak the word that global leaders have been reluctant to speak: Genocide. In remarks made last June while in Bolivia, the Holy Father proclaimed, “Today we are dismayed to see how the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus…a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end.”
It is hard to ignore the horrifying images of the humanitarian crisis gripping northern Iraq and Syria in recent years: families struggling atop Mount Sinjar in a desperate attempt to flee ISIS death squads…ethnic minorities gunned down en mass for refusing to abandon their faith…the wholesale destruction of historical monuments and holy places.
Yet these images are incongruous with our modern sensibilities. Such barbarous accounts are more consistent with the brutality of the Middle Ages. Surely in the enlightened 21st Century we have learned from past mistakes.

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ARTICLE: No Church Bells Rang: Ancient Communities Under Attack

sister-diana-momeka
Sister Diana Momeka

(This article originally appeared in The Philos Project)

For the first time since the seventh century, there are no church bells ringing across the Nineveh Plain in northern Iraq. The region has been emptied of Christians and other religious minorities, forced to flee from the ravages of Islamic State loyalists who overran cities and villages last summer.

This week, Sister Diana Momeka of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in Mosul, Iraq – herself a victim of ISIS – traveled to the United States to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and bear witness to the atrocities of ISIS. She spoke softly, but her words resonated with power and truth. She has given a voice to the persecuted church.

Momeka described the impossible choices ISIS demanded of the Christians of Mosul, Qaraqosh and the surrounding towns: either convert to Islam, pay a tax (jizya) to ISIS or leave their ancestral homeland with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. By Momeka’s estimates, more than 120,000 Christians escaped to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where they languish even now in small, prefabricated containers and makeshift shelters. “This uprooting – this theft of everything that the Christians owned – displaced them body and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity,” she said.

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