Michael Rubin: Trump should recognize the expulsion of Christians from Artsakh as ethnic cleansing and hold Aliyev responsible

The 21st century has not been kind to Christianity. While Europeans have voluntarily relinquished their faith, many other Christian communities remain under siege. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump should, however, make defense of besieged Christian communities a cornerstone of his second-term foreign policy, Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes.

According to him, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power were “especially spineless” on this count. Not only did they fail to stop Azerbaijan’s illegal blockade of Artsakh in real time, but after Azerbaijan expelled the region’s indigenous, 1,700-year Christian community, they refused to assign blame. As noted, neither Blinken nor Power are willing to recognize Azerbaijan’s responsibility for ethnic cleansing, preferring instead the phrase “depopulation.” Blinken even vetoes referring to Artsakh’s “depopulation” as forcible, at the point of the gun. According to Rubin, exit interviews at the Armenian Embassy and a fireside chat with NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell alter Power’s legacy of cynicism and betrayal does not change reality. Rather, it only encourages racists and bigots to redouble their efforts. “Thanks directly to Blinken and Power’s weakness, Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev now threatens to bring his ethnic cleansing campaign to the rest of Armenia. Trump should direct Marco Rubio, whom he nominated for secretary of state, to recognize the expulsion of Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh as ethnic cleansing and hold Aliyev responsible,” Rubin notes.