To the editor:
Recent media reports from the Middle East and beyond indicate that many Christians of various denominations and rites in Syria are quite nervous, some going so far as to question whether the Arab Spring will wind up being the Christian Winter; this is also a concern for Alawite, Druze, and Shi’ite communities in Syria and Lebanon.
There is no question that what is going on inside Syria cannot be justified as far as implementation goes — unquestionably, the current regime is despotic and shooting at civilians with artillery and all the rest is simply beyond defense. However, seeing what has happened in Iraq and Egypt so far shows that perhaps helping the regime change is vastly preferable to changing the regime.
Americans rightly question whether they should be involved at all in any of this, especially in this uneasy calm betwixt two bad recessions.
However, it could also be seen that the United States working through channels to assure the right outcome for all is a responsibility as was their belated help for Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. Those areas were formerly part of Austria-Hungary; the Levant and Egypt were formerly part of Ottoman Turkey — perhaps it can be seen as cleaning up the mess from having joined the First World War and having done so on the wrong side.
Philip J.F. Schumacher, Stoughton