‘Epic Fury’ Gives Hope to Long-Suffering Iranians

‘P ray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

This scriptural mandate seems appropriate given the U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran and especially the demise of the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Violence rarely explodes in only one area of the Middle East, as the whole region is a powder keg. And there are usually innocent casualties irrespective of Western strategy.

This is the exhausting, terrifying, maddening reality for the long-suffering persecuted Christians (and other religious minorities) of Iraq. It didn’t take long. Operation Epic Fury began on February 28 at 8 p.m. in Iran. Drone strikes, presumably by Iranian proxies, on the Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil, in Iraq, started at 8 p.m. on March 4 local time.

The church residence had already been evacuated, as it is in the backyard of the Erbil International Airport, but a convent of religious sisters — the Chaldean Daughters of Mary Immaculate — was also damaged. Still, it’s “a miracle” that there were no casualties given that the target was about 500 feet from a catechetical center, which serves 1,000 children, Archbishop Bashar Warda wrote on X. Photos he posted show a chapel with a blown-out wall and destruction throughout, including the ruined altar. A music stand, notably, remains in place — a reminder that you can’t keep Christians from praising God, because He’s already victorious. The photos bring to mind a statue of the Virgin Mary that was beheaded by ISIS (frequently referred to as the Islamic State), her arms also chopped off, in St. Adday Church in Karemlesh (about 18 miles from Mosul) during the genocide of Christians there.

A friend of mine, Stephen Rasche, author of the book, The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East and producer of a documentary on Pope Francis’s March 2021 visit to Iraq, is from the United States and has been working with the Catholics in Erbil since around the time of the ISIS horror, living in that building that was attacked on March 4. (I wrote about the film here.) Rasche was the founding chancellor of the Catholic University in Erbil and is currently the director of the relatively new Institute for Catholic Humanitarian Service at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio. The Catholic University in Erbil was founded as a response to the genocide perpetrated by ISIS, which forced Christians in Mosul to flee. Exiled from their homes, they wound up in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where things were moderately safer. While some have since fled the land of their birth, in the cradle of Christianity — Christians have been in Iraq since the time of Saint Thomas the Apostle — others have made Erbil their home, in no small part because of the hope that the church there has provided through education, health care, jobs, and, of course, field-hospital pastoral care.

Another American friend, Andrew Walther (who died of cancer in 2020 — on All Saints’ Day, appropriately, since I think he probably was one), was instrumental, alongside Rasche, in the effort by the Knights of Columbus to construct the bishop’s residence that has now been bombed. Since then, diocesan staff, including missionary teachers from the United States — some of them from Franciscan U — have lived in the Blessed Michael McGivney Apartment Complex (named after the priest and founder of the Knights of Columbus, who was likely a saint as well). It also served as respite for Christian families who no longer had homes during and after the genocide.

“We are now in a time once again where we pray for the solidarity and support from our brothers and sisters around the world,” Archbishop Warda of Erbil said, “that these times of violence and war will come to an end, and that our suffering people may yet have a chance to return to lives of peace and dignity.”

Please don’t get me wrong: I am moved by the powerful images of Iranians around the world, maybe especially in Tehran, who are celebrating the hope that they will no longer live under the tyranny they have suffered for the past half century. Yet another friend, Michael Ledeen — who had worked in the Reagan administration and was a contributor to National Review Online when I was the editor — dedicated his professional life to encouraging Iranian dissidents and freedom lovers. His typical sign-off to a piece on Iran was, “Faster, please.” In 2005, he wrote: “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.” In 2007, he told me that “Iranians believe that nothing of consequence can happen in the world without American support” and that “millions of Iranians have protested against the regime and called for its downfall, but no country outside Iran has supported them.”

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 euphoric as some on social media might suggest. Think of the Arab Spring in Egypt and the freedom revolution that wasn’t.

“I lived through the eight-year war with Iran,” Warda wrote. “I endured the first and second Gulf wars. I witnessed the violence, displacement, and bombings that shook Iraq after 2003. These are not distant chapters in a history book for myself and my people; they are our living memories we carry every day.”

Warda emphasizes that the region “does not need another war.” Asking for peace, he also says: “Whenever state weakens, minorities suffer as non-state actors (militias, sectarian groups, extremist movements) fill the vacuum.” What minorities need is “a strong state governed by the rule of law.”

None of us knows how this is going to end. Michael gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received: “Lopez, they do not give awards for getting things wrong first.” It’s better to pray than to pontificate as armchair generals. Pray for peace, for stability, and for basic human rights and dignity. And remember the Christians who, if history is any indicator, will continue to suffer.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.