Foreign Affairs
How Trump Can Promote Religious Liberty
Several U.S. allies and partners suppress minority faiths.
President Donald Trump visited the Middle East in May but devoted little attention to one of the region’s most pervasive challenges: religious intolerance and persecution. Virtually every country, including Israel, either officially abuses minority faiths or unofficially tolerates private violence and discrimination against unpopular believers. Indeed, Washington partners with some of the worst oppressors, most notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Of course, Trump has never paid much attention to human rights abuses of any kind. The most dramatic example during his first term was when Trump boasted about shielding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from any ill consequences after he had Jamal Khashoggi, a critical journalist living in America, murdered and dismembered. Moreover, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially bans any faith but Islam, putting it near the top of the religious persecution hall of infamy.
No president has found it easy to balance America’s claim to uniquely represent moral virtue with the realities of power politics in a messy world. Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, was a spectacular failure. He entered office promising to treat MbS, as the Saudi heir is known, as a pariah. When Biden visited the Kingdom, he did a veritable kowtow while begging for increased oil supplies. Spurned by the killer prince, a humiliated Biden ended up offering to turn the U.S. military into a modern Janissary force tasked to defend the Saudi royals.
Although any administration will have to be practical and prudent in dealing with foreign authoritarians, Washington should promote a world that values human life, liberty, and dignity. U.S. officials should accept the inevitable charge of hypocrisy while nevertheless seeking to move debate and policy forward. When it comes to religious liberty, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) provides a sensible reform agenda.
The ecumenical panel, filled by appointees of the president and congressional leaders, identifies nations in which the state either persecutes or tolerates persecution, making these governments deserving of U.S. attention. USCIRF highlights the worst of the worst, which it recommends that the State Department designate as “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPCs). In its latest report the Commission so tagged Afghanistan, Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. The International Religious Freedom Act, which established the Commission, reserves that label for nations guilty of “particularly severe violations.”
On a slightly higher circle in hell sit members of the “Special Watch List.” (The terms are clunky, but that shouldn’t surprise since they are a congressional creation.) Into this category fall countries responsible for “severe violations of religious freedom.” USCIRF cites Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. For good measure, the Commission also named several “Entities of Particular Concern.” The groups so tagged are: Boko Haram, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), Islamic State–Sahel Province, Islamic State in West Africa Province, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, and Al-Shabab.
Every faith faces persecution somewhere. Measured by sheer number of victims, Christians suffer the most. In terms of intensity, Jews are most vulnerable the world over. In Iran, Baha’is likely endure the worst treatment. In Russia, Jehovah’s Witnesses may be the most victimized. In some countries, oppression is particularly intense within faiths, such as between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Religious persecution is an affront to religious as well as secular values. Attempting to force someone to change their beliefs is an obvious and fundamental assault on freedom of conscience. That applies as much to atheists as to adherents to a formal faith. However, the greatest affront is to God, who seeks genuine belief and commitment. Consider Jesus’s instruction: “when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.” (Matthew: 6:5) Even when coercion causes someone to publicly recant their faith and profess another, the result is empty, verbal assent surrendered to avoid violence or other brutal acts.
Although almost any believer could be a victim, some are more likely to be perpetrators. USCIRF’s list highlights the most common determinants of religious crimes. The first is a majority Muslim state. Virtually every self-styled Islamic government disadvantages and abuses religious minorities. Many employ or encourage violence against “the other,” whoever the latter may be.
Islam is the dominant faith in seven of the CPCs: Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Of the dozen countries on the Special Watch List, only one, Sri Lanka, is not a majority Muslim country. All of the Entities of Particular Concern are Islamic. Although the degree of force employed varies, many on the list, especially the CPCs, are widely recognized for their barbarity.
Next is authoritarian rule, especially by avowed (or former) communist regimes. That encompasses seven CPCs: China,Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam. Of course, several of the Muslim-majority states are also highly repressive. The same with those on the Special Watch List. Tyrants especially fear belief in a transcendent order in which even the greatest secular powers are bound by divine rules. In North Korea the ruling dynasty is treated as possessing supernatural powers.
Finally, persecution in the remainder reflects a potpourri of causes. Particularly important are other militant faiths—violent Hindu nationalism in India and even more incongruous Buddhist nationalism in Burma and Sri Lanka. In only one of the USCIRF-cited nations, Russia, are Christians systematically using the state against other faiths, and in return they are being used by the authorities.
Although American politicians typically flaunt their faith and created the Commission to promote religious liberty worldwide, a surprising number of U.S. allies/friends/partners are on the Commission’s naughty lists. Afghanistan was a wartime ally; India is being cultivated to counter China; Pakistan is a complicated frenemy; a succession of presidents proclaimed their eternal friendship with Saudi Arabia’s royal family; for decades Washington has provided Egypt with abundant economic and military aid; the U.S. liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s rule and continues to maintain forces there; the Pentagon maintained bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to support combat in Afghanistan; and Turkey remains a NATO member with American military facilities and personnel. All of these governments not only violate religious liberty, but persecute Christians, members of America’s dominant religious faith.
Of course, the U.S. has long compromised on human rights to advance security interests. In 1941 Washington allied with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union to defeat Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Washington made many deals with many devils during the Cold War. Nevertheless, it is striking how many of the worst persecutors have enjoyed the favor of multiple U.S. administrations. Even now, after the president supped with Saudi Arabia’s murderous crown prince, the halls of power resound with talk of protecting the rules-based order and promoting democracy. No wonder much of the Global South has contemptuously rejected requests for support against Russia from Western countries widely seen as colonial powers, military aggressors, authoritarian sympathizers, and flagrant hypocrites.
Obviously, there are no panaceas to the problems of religious intolerance, hostility, and persecution. Enabling the world’s people to worship freely and live according to their faith will never be a central U.S. foreign policy objective. Even if it was, it would not be achievable, given how fearful tyrannies are of all forms of liberty, especially of conscience. And even if America’s record in promoting international liberty was substantially better, the U.S. government’s principal responsibility would remain to its own people, those expected to pay, and die, for its foreign misadventures. No matter how well-intentioned, the U.S. should not be a crusader state.
Nevertheless, Washington should push foreign nations to do better. Although America’s ability to influence the internal affairs of other countries will always be limited, the U.S. should include religious liberty when promoting human rights abroad. And Washington can do even more when other nations are seeking favors from America. For instance, the U.S. no longer should be subsidizing the Egyptians, and, even worse, defending the Saudis, especially when these systems are exemplars of tyranny. Turkey has long ceased to be an ally and cannot be trusted in a crisis; its NATO membership should be reevaluated. Having rightly dropped sanctions on Syria, Washington should point to the future treatment of vulnerable minorities as the proverbial canary in the mine in assessing the new regime’s direction. Moreover, if the president is going to weaponize trade, he could press India and Vietnam to better respect the lives and liberties of religious minorities.
People of faith should stand with one another for this essential liberty. Indeed, all people of goodwill should insist on the fundamental human right to believe freely and live accordingly. There should be no special pleading when it comes to religious liberty; everyone is entitled to pursue their understanding of the human person and his or her relationship to the transcendent. That freedom is essential for believers and nonbelievers alike. A system which does not respect the right of others to be wrong will not teach anyone how to recognize what is right.
The president is widely thought to desire the Nobel Peace Prize. Alas, he has found conflicts such as Russia–Ukraine more difficult to resolve than he apparently expected. He also is hampered by his unashamed transactional approach to international relations. If the U.S. is going to be cold and calculating, unaffected by moral principle, why should other governments operate differently?
Leavening his international approach with a commitment to human rights, including religious liberty, would provide him with an additional tool, increasing his persuasiveness and effectiveness. Even if doing so gets him no closer to that cherished Nobel Prize, it might make the world a better place, saving a few lives along the way. And that, more than his usual bluster, would earn a worthy assessment of his presidency: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
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