Why are we hellbent on dumping Assad?

Many Americans are beginning to wonder why the U.S. shows so little interest in helping to protect Middle East Christians from the genocidal policies of ISIS.

But what is a far more puzzling question than that is why the U.S. has focused its military might on removing the one Arab leader who is actively defending the lives of Christians and who has their support.

That leader is Bashar Assad, the president of Syria.

He's no saint – trust me on that. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call him a puppet of Iran. He works closely with Hezbollah, perhaps the largest terrorist group in the world. He's an Israel-hater and an anti-Semite, without doubt.

Nevertheless, in the rough-and-tumble world of Middle East politics, Assad should hardly be public enemy No. 1 of the United States of America.

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So why is he?

That's the puzzlement. Why did Barack Obama decide more than a year ago to make Assad's overthrow a matter of U.S. national policy? Why did he advocate a bombing campaign against Assad's regime, while calling ISIS a JV team? Why did he not have environmental concerns about bombing Assad, while citing just that reason for treating ISIS with kid gloves?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Not only does Assad bring a measure of stability to his neighborhood in the Middle East, he has also protected and defended religious minorities in his country – of which he is one, an Alawite in a sea of Sunnis.

Last weekend, the leader of Syria's largest group of Christians, Moran Ignatius Aphem II, the patriarch of Antioch, pleaded with the U.S. to "stop arming and supporting terrorist groups that are destroying our countries and massacring our people."

That's a heartfelt plea, a sincere one – an accurate one.

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As in medicine, the business of foreign policy should be "first do no harm." That is not our policy in the Middle East. The U.S. has become an agent of evil and immorality in the Middle East, especially since Barack Obama took over the White House.

Note what the No. 1 Christian leader in Syria is saying. He's not asking the U.S. to defend his people. He's asking that we stop killing them by proxy. And that's what we do when we send aid and weapons to terrorists trying to overthrow Assad.

"State institutions need to be strengthened and stabilized," he said. "Instead, what we see is their forced dismemberment being fueled from the outside."

He added that the majority of Christians in Syria support Assad. As a Syrian-American Christian who has reported from the Middle East, I believe he's right. Assad is the best the world can do in Syria for the time being. Any regime change there in the short term will represent a likely holocaust for religious minorities.

"We recognize legitimate rulers and pray for them, as the New Testament teaches us," said the Syrian Christian leader. "We also see that on the other side there is no democratic opposition, only extremist groups. Above all, we see that in the past few years, these groups have been basing their actions on an ideology that comes from the outside, brought here by preachers of hatred who have come from and are backed by Saudi."

Need I remind you that ISIS' main objective right now is to topple Assad? Not only is the U.S. doing little or nothing meaningful in eradicating ISIS, it is aiding its allies directly and militarily.

This needs to stop.

Assad is hardly the solution for a peaceful Middle East. But he's also far from being the main problem. Right now, that problem is clearly ISIS – and no one in the Middle East is doing more to fight ISIS than Assad. So why is he Obama's enemy No. 1?

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