You are viewing a page from our archive site. To browse the latest Christian TV content on The Stream, click here.

The Brew: It’s October 7 for Christians in Syria. Trump’s Team and The Stream Have Been Warning This Would Happen

omersukrugoksu/E+ via Getty Images

By John Zmirak Published on March 10, 2025

Sometimes The Brew is fun, maybe even funny.

This isn’t one of those times.

A savage persecution of Christians and other religious/ethnic minorities has erupted in Syria, and I wish I could say it surprised me. But for more than 10 years, The Stream has been joining Tulsi Gabbard, Pat Buchanan, and a few other dissident voices to warn that using U.S. pressure and even military force to bring “democracy” to Syria was a recipe for genocide.

The Left cheered on the “Arab Spring,” while swamp Republicans and neoconservatives assured us that “moderate rebels” (whom the late Sen. John McCain met with and vouched for) were the best hope for Syria instead of the secular dictator Bashir Assad, who at least repressed jihadists committed to wiping out the Christians. (Jason Jones and Johannes de Jong argued here for a decentralized Syria, modeled on the Kurdish-led enclave where religious freedom and fair elections prevail and Christian militias protect their own churches.)

But Assad was aligned with Russia, which we all know is the source of every evil on the planet. It even rigged the 2016 election for Donald Trump! (Remember that narrative?) Then Russia colluded with Trump, as the FBI proved via fake documents and agitprop, and so on. We’re now being goaded to risk a nuclear war with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by the same people who lobbied for years to let al Qaeda conquer Syria.

And now it has, with the help (as DOGE has exposed) of funding from our own CIA, via USAID. And what is the al Qaeda government of Syria allowing and enabling? Take a look at just a few of the hideous images and headlines emerging from the cradle of Christian biblical theology:


Mobs linked to the new jihadist regime are also massacring Alawites, a religious minority group in Syria that isn’t considered orthodox by Muslims:

Here’s a video that features an interview with a Syrian Christian on the ground, reporting what he witnessed.

What is the new Syrian government doing about these atrocities? It’s telling its fighters and sympathizers to stop filming them when they commit them. (Bad PR, don’t you know.)

Christians in Europe aren’t safe either, as members of the al Qaeda faction ruling Syria threaten one of the greatest churches in France:

 

Not Really Our Brothers in Christ … More Like Our Ancestors

The October 7 attacks shocked most of the world, outraging and sickening every sensible person. Do you feel the same way about tan Middle Eastern Christians whose worship style might seem alien to you as you did about Western-looking secular Israelis? Step back for a moment and think about that. If you don’t, maybe ask yourself why.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

The Christians in Syria aren’t just our brothers in Christ. They are our closer to the biblical model of Christianity than we in the West can understand. Their churches were recopying the Bible and evangelizing the nations while most of our forebears were worshiping pagan gods around sacred trees. These churches have weathered many centuries of the persecution endemic to Muslim occupation. They survived the Arab conquest, the Crusades and the Mameluke backlash, the invasion of Mongols and Timurids and Turks.

But you know what they might not survive?

The impact of Western neoconservative and liberal internationalist “nation-building” and “democracy” crusades. Later today, Jason Jones and I will analyze what Christians need to ask for from the Trump administration to save our elder brothers in the faith, now being savagely persecuted as a direct result of our government’s past policies. In the meantime, here’s a segment where Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec and Steve Bannon break down what’s happening in the region and what Trump might do about it.

Francis Collins Sings for His Supper

On a much lighter note, here’s Francis Collins, the man to whom many Christians proudly pointed because of his work on the human genome and loud assertion that faith and science don’t conflict. Is his science as bad as his singing?

Surely not. But his morals could use some improvement. We’ve learned a lot in recent years about Francis Collins from his work promoting vaccine mandates, silencing truth-telling COVID researchers, splicing the tissues of aborted babies onto mice in gruesome research projects, and trying to shut down scientists who believe in Intelligent Design. Later today, see a report on Collins’s new political activism by John West, author of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity.

France’s President Makes Nuclear Threat to Putin, German Patriots Call for a Teutonic Bomb

Gateway Pundit reports that French President Emmanuel Macron is upping his nuclear threats aimed at Putin’s Russia:

Macron is blasting Putin in the press after the Kremlin sternly warned him not to threaten it with nuclear rhetoric, making comparisons with Napoleon’s failed attempt to conquer Russia.

In a TV address on Wednesday (5), Macron alerted that Russia was rearming quickly and, Macron speculates, could attack other countries unless deterred, including with the ‘French nuclear umbrella.’

Meanwhile, the (only) patriotic party in Germany, the AfD, is calling for Germany to develop its own nuclear deterrent:

As seismic geopolitical shifts unfold and Europe’s dependence on the U.S. for security grows increasingly uncertain, the right-wing, anti-globalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is urging Germany to develop its own nuclear arsenal and reinstate universal military conscription—including for women.

Speaking to the German news outlet T-Online in an interview on Thursday, March 6th, AfD MP Rüdiger Lucassen, a former Bundeswehr colonel who serves as the party’s chief defense expert, argued that Germany can no longer depend on Washington’s nuclear shield to ensure its security.

“If the U.S. steps back, Europe must step up,” Lucassen stated, calling for an independent European security structure with Germany at its core. “We need our own nuclear deterrent, a European command structure, and a military capable of defending itself.”

Who knew that the U.S. acting like a normal country pursuing its own legitimate interests would wake other countries up enough to consider acting normally, too? (Instead of sulking like spoiled teenagers who both depend on and resent us.)

The New Normal: Gunman Shot at the White House

Details are still sketchy on what actually happened, but the Daily Wire reports that a gunman was detected at the White House and shot by the Secret Service early Sunday. For once, President Trump wasn’t in danger — he’s off in Florida. But maybe this member of the Resistance didn’t know that, which for once suggests that we don’t need to wonder if the Deep State was involved. Official bad actors would certainly have shared Trump’s location.

Along The Stream…

Later this morning, check out this fascinating interview from Eric Metaxas of pro-Trump tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who tries to explain why scientific progress has seemingly gotten “stuck” for the past several decades. Is it DEI in action? The decline of a Christian worldview which teaches that nature is orderly and reflects the Mind of a Creator?

Does some part of you feel a bit of hero worship toward Ukraine President Volodmyr Zelenskyy? Yeah, you were meant to feel that. Our media worked hard to plant that in your heart. In a few hours, read Chenyuan Snider‘s insightful piece on how media managed that, and how the Chinese Communist Party used similar tactics during its Cultural Revolution.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.