World entering new Cold War over religious liberty, former ambassador says

The efforts of authoritarian governments to control the worship practices of millions could have massive consequences for international security, a former ambassador for religious freedom told Congress on Wednesday, urging the Trump administration to take the issue seriously.

In a hearing before the Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee, former U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told lawmakers that religious freedom has broad implications beyond spiritual affairs.

“This represents an opportunity for us — if we will look at religious freedom not as some sort of side humanitarian issue or a human right, boutique human right, but would see it as a major global security issue,” he said. “Religious freedom is actually a symptom of a closing world, a new Iron Curtain against faith drawn not just against nations, but against conscience itself.”

Mr. Brownback, a Republican former Kansas governor who also served in the U.S. Senate, added that authoritarian governments such as Iran, China and Nicaragua see freedom of worship as a direct threat to their authority and are clamping down.

Other nations, including U.S. partner nations, have begun a separate crackdown on religious expression. Notably, Mr. Brownback called the committee’s attention to Syria, where international organizations say discrimination against Alawites, Christians, Druze and Kurds could lead to a genocide.

“I guarantee you today a genocide will happen in Syria, like happened in Iraq to the Yazidis and Christians, and this is a particularly important moment for Syria, for us to say that these minority communities must be allowed to protect themselves, because if they don’t … a genocide will happen in Syria,” Mr. Brownback said.

The Syrian government, which rose to power after the collapse of the Bashar Assad dictatorship in December 2024, has been supported by the U.S., and President Ahmad al-Sharaa last year became the first Syrian leader to visit the White House in more than a decade.

But recent massacres in Alawite, Christian and Druze communities have left thousands dead and displaced even more in the past year. Religious rights groups have called on the U.S. to help.

Mr. Brownback said the U.S. should leverage a key interest in religious freedom to gain concessions from both adversaries and allies. He also called for the Trump administration to foster ties with the Dalai Lama in Tibet and the leadership of the Chinese religious movement Falun Gong, which China has designated an “evil cult” and banned since 1999.

President Trump and his allies have made protecting Christian communities around the globe a prominent part of his agenda. In December, the U.S. launched unprecedented strikes against Islamic State targets in Nigeria after Mr. Trump declared that the government had not done enough to protect Christian communities, which he said were systemically killed by terror groups.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that Islamic extremists killed 162 people during attacks on two villages in western Nigeria in one of the deadliest assaults in recent months.

The Tuesday attacks came on the same day that the head of U.S. Africa Command said the United States had sent a small team of military officers to Nigeria, the latest step in its response to the security crisis. In December, U.S. forces launched airstrikes on IS-affiliated militants in Nigeria.

Some of Mr. Trump’s rivals have criticized the White House’s focus on Christian communities around the world, arguing that a single-minded, biased approach does not assist global religious freedom.

“Unfortunately, the White House has increasingly pursued a narrow, exclusionary vision of religious liberty, one that prioritizes Christian concerns to the near total neglect of other persecuted groups,” Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Stephen Schneck told the committee. “The administration has all but halted public advocacy for the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang, and it has withdrawn U.S. support for accountability mechanisms for the genocide of the Rohingya.”

Mr. Schneck and others told the committee that the State Department has yet to release its annual report on International Religious Freedom, which was due in March 2024.