The United States has a rare and decisive opportunity to protect Syria’s endangered religious minorities as President Donald Trump meets with Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday.
This marks an important step in Syria’s turbulent history following the fall of the Assad regime last December.
Defending a federal system of governance that decentralizes power will help ensure the survival of Christian, Druze and other vulnerable communities. Until decentralization efforts are undertaken, self-defense capabilities for these minority religious communities are essential to protect them from sectarian violence and ‘religious cleansing’.
President Donald Trump is expected to meet with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House. (Bing Guan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images; Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
As a new Syrian government seeks to rebuild a nation fractured by years of civil war and after a summer of horrific persecution, President Trump’s role in ensuring the fate of Syria’s religious minorities, especially Christians, has never been more crucial.
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In June, a suicide bomber walked into a Greek Orthodox church outside Damascus and detonated his explosives. The force killed 25 people and left 65 wounded. The grief-filled congregation sorted through the bodies of worshipers scattered among the shards of stained glass windows and rubble, as the eyes of the icon of the Holy Prophet Elias looked down over the bloodied church. Charred Bibles and shoes blown off the victims’ feet were piled up, a gruesome monument to the gruesome massacre.
Just a month later, the Greek Melkite Church of St. Michael, located in the predominantly Druze region of Sweida, was looted and set on fire. The flames consumed the holy shrine and sparked a new wave of religious violence.
Before the civil war started in 2011, more than 1.5 million people, 10% of Syria’s population, were Christians. Today there are only 300,000 Christians left.
Syria is the oldest homeland of Christians outside Israel. It was on the road to Damascus that the apostle Paul was famously called by Christ. It was in Antioch (now in modern Turkey) that Christ’s followers were first called Christians. The Patriarchate of Antioch was the first of the pentarchy in the early centuries of the Church.
Syria is the cradle of Christianity. Christians cannot sit idly by while the oldest traditions and peoples suffer.
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If Christianity were to disappear from Syria it would be like philosophy disappearing from Athens or freedom from America – it would be to wipe out one of the living foundations of Western civilization.
And while the geopolitical implications remain, the question is no longer relevant as The Syrian Christians will survive, but… How long Can they endure brutal oppression without major reforms? The price for cooperation with the United States should be a commitment by al-Sharaa to secure the protection of Syria’s religious minorities.
Since sanctions were lifted in June, President Trump has the political clout to make hybrid governance a prerequisite for limiting future sanctions or providing reconstruction aid.
By modeling a blueprint of existing local councils that manage day-to-day affairs, supported by regional authorities, reconstruction in Syria offers a unique opportunity to strengthen national unity by first stabilizing local communities and giving Christians and other religious minorities a voice in their governance.
This approach ensures U.S. support for reconstruction while protecting human rights in vulnerable communities.
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The new Syrian leadership would be wise to adopt this governance model.
A federated Syria would consist of autonomous provinces, each with the power to govern itself and protect its people. Syrian Christians are often left unprotected. Federalization stabilizes minority groups so that no single group, whether Alawite leadership remnants of the Assad regime or HTS militants, can dominate by force. Syria’s parliamentary elections this year have exacerbated these concerns, with minority groups citing a lack of representation in what feels like an “attempt to reproduce dictatorship.”
Northeast Syria provides a working example of what federalization can achieve. In areas once ruled by ISIS, local councils have built stability by ensuring representation of every community – Kurds, Arabs, Christians and Yazidis. These structures have promoted peace and social trust where there was once chaos. Dismantling it would erase years of progress. Instead, incorporating this model into a national federal framework would strengthen the country’s unity without returning to centralized control or strengthening the remnants of the old regime.
Syria has historically had a more integrated society. This offers the opportunity to lay a solid foundation for decentralization that guarantees local autonomy while respecting national identity and without undermining the state.
Syria’s complex group of players, including Russia, Iran, Turkey and the US, is more focused on strategic alliances and territorial control than on deepening sectarian divisions. This gives Syria a unique opportunity to establish a decentralized model that can stabilize its internal and external interests and protect its minorities.
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Al-Sharaa’s radical opposition to federalization stems from his view that local autonomy would threaten national unity and sovereignty. But federalism is actually the way forward to sustain a diverse Syria. Without local control and protection, religious minorities, especially Christians, will all be forced to flee, as is the case almost everywhere else in the Middle East.
The Syrian model should offer religious minorities a new way to survive in the region.
Balancing local self-government with national unity will create a future where religious minorities are no longer at the mercy of those in power, but instead are given the power to defend themselves and cultivate a stable, pluralistic society. The Kurdish region of Iraq is a very successful model of how this could work in Syria.
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Tears of Syrian Christians – of mothers tending graves, fathers wandering the rubble, and sons and daughters lost to exile – water a country known for killing innocents. As the hour of peace arrives through President Trump’s meeting with Al-Sharaa, we pray that it will be a lasting peace for all Syrians, both majority and minority.
Decentralization is not just an option. It is a necessity if Christians want to remain in this ancient homeland.
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Nadine Maenza is president of the Institute for Global Engagement, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, and former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
