Archbishop of Canterbury criticizes British Mideast policy

From the Independent:

The British government yesterday bit back at the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who had warned that "short-sighted" and ignorant " policy in Iraq had endangered Middle East Christians.

The Foreign Office said that extremists rather than British policies were to blame for Christians suffering and that it "disagreed" with Dr Williams' views. The Archbishop spoke at the end of a three-day visit here with three other British church leaders, including the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

The two senior churchmen also drew attention to the plight of the Christian and wider Palestinian community in the Holy Land. Both urged greater international efforts to secure a peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Before he flew back to London, Dr Williams was asked on Radio 4's Today programme whether he still stood by the joint statement he issued with the Cardinal the month before the 2003 invasion, declaring that "doubts still persist about the moral legitimacy" of the war. He replied: "It's all too easy to use hindsight and say 'I told you so', but I think I can generally say I haven't yet seen cause to revise my views on that point."

What is so ironic with the fate of the Iraqi Christians is that they are back in the same situation as in the time of the Persian empire during the Sassanid era, when the Christians in Persia were considered (and prosecuted) as spies for the Byzantine empire.

The question is only if there will be any Christians left in Iraq to remember the martyrs of our time.