One thing that gets me about the reporting from Egypt is terms like “sectarian strife” or “religious riots” or “communal tensions,” reflecting a moral equivalency, as though this is the kind of friction you have to expect when different peoples rub shoulders. On the contrary, what we’re seeing in Egypt are more accurately described as “pogroms” by Muslims against Christians. After all, it was two churches that were burned out in Cairo over the weekend, not two mosques. This is why the Christians of Iraq have come to lament our victory over Saddam and why the Christians in Syria fear the outcome of the upheavals there.

In the Islamic world, democracy equals dead Christians. This is no reason for us to get involved one way or the other, but we should at least understand the likely consequences of the “Arab Spring.”