Throughout the two-year-old Syrian civil war, the world powers as well as the Syrian parties involved have said that the country’s minorities, especially its Christians, face an existential threat. Despite warnings and condemnations of attacks by all sides, however, it looks as if what had long been feared is actually happening. Why? Perhaps because the tragedy of Syria’s Christians is linked to not only fundamentalist and ideological motives but also to geostrategic calculations.

Looking back at statements condemning the targeting of Syria’s Christians, one notices that both the regime and its opponents made such statements as either part of a propaganda effort or in confessing their own mistakes. For its part, the Syrian government has a long history of portraying itself as the protector of its minorities under the pretext that its partisan composition is “secular” and that it has fought Islamic militant groups for decades.

On the other hand, opposition officials have tried from the start to address the issue and minimize the Islamic aspect of its opposition. They have relentlessly placed non-Sunni figures at the forefront. The opposition made Abdulbaset Sieda, a Kurd, head of the Syrian National Council. That post was then given to George Sabra, a Christian. The Muslim Brotherhood then made another Kurd, Ghassan Hitto, head of the opposition’s interim government.

Such moves, however, have not assuaged the fear felt by Syria’s religious minorities, especially the Christians. Worse, the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra has gained control of several areas, after which it has imposed Sunni Islamic law. Thus the situation now involves religious persecution and the possibility of ethnic cleansing, genocide and population transfers.