Kristi Noem Fired, Iran Chooses Leader, and Pakistan Fights Taliban

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From Christianity Today, you're listening to The Bulletin,

a podcast about the people, events, and issues that are shaping our world.

I'm Clarissa Mall.

This week, the Department of Homeland Security receives a new secretary.

The first parent is sentenced for second-degree murder in a school shooting

and Iran chooses a new leader.

Mike Cosper and I discuss these headlines and Knox Tames joins us

to explain the conflict in Pakistan and the costs of religious freedom in South Asia.

Welcome to the show.

Last Thursday, President Trump fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome,

the first of his cabinet appointees to get a pink slip.

Quickly, the president moved to select Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullin to take her place.

Mike, what cost Christy Nome her job?

The hold for DHS operation has been the subject of bad press since she took over the institution.

No one was hired largely because so much of the way Trump thinks about leadership

in his administration is about the theater of it and how people do on television.

And no one has a certain set of instincts for those values.

You were always seeing these pictures of her often wearing tight t-shirts and posing with guns

and military fatigue kind of things or standing in front of prisoners.

She understood the performative nature of what Trump expected.

What seems to have happened is that her leadership was not that effective

and you saw these sort of like breakdown and discipline things that resulted in some deaths

in Minneapolis and a lot of controversy around that.

I mean, there are some people who would say, oh, that's not about breakdown of discipline.

That's about the complexity of what was going on in this situation.

But I think that it started to kind of weigh on Trump and then she spent $220 million

on an advertising campaign that really centered her and her face and her name.

And not only do I think Trump probably thought that was a waste of money,

but also look, there can only be one lead singer in the band, right?

So that's always a problem.

And then I think the other thing was that she just had a very disastrous appearance

before Congress shortly before she was fired.

Do you see Mark Wayne Mullin as a divergence from the sort of theatrics of the position

to someone who has more of a mega fidelity and is more qualified for the actual work before him?

Mark Wayne Mullin does not have the reputation as a senator of somebody who's really sharp on policy.

It's not like we're going from ice barbie to a policy wonk

who really understands how to manage these things.

What Mark Wayne Mullin brings to the table is that he's been a very, very consistent

and very good soldier for Trump.

And the process by which he'll be replaced in the Senate,

it's a pretty safe pick for Trump to make because it's very likely

the replacement will also be a very Trump-y senator as well.

He is somewhat a man of contradictions.

Newsweek noted that Mr. Mullin both defended the Capitol on January 6th.

He helped block one of the doors to the chamber.

He defended one of the police officers who shot Ashley Babitt.

And he also voted against certifying the election.

He said in an interview that the first lesson he learned was that when you get to Washington,

you have to build up relationships.

What is his relationship with Democrats and Republicans?

Has he been able to kind of speak across the aisle a bit?

Not particularly.

He's a mega warrior, I think.

The Senate in general is very different than the House.

You do have relationships across the aisle that are more civil

because these people have to live together for six years.

The House is always campaigning because it's only a two-year term.

And so there's much more sort of vitriol and everything like that.

So in some ways you can look at a person like Mullin

and see certain elements of civility,

a willingness at times to criticize his own party.

But again, I think when push comes to shove,

this is the guy who was willing to vote against the certification of the election

on the day when a mob raided the Capitol

and they were chanting that they wanted to kill Mike Pence

and they were looking for Nancy Pelosi and they brought flexibility cuffs.

And violence was intended.

Why on earth would you go through that and then turn around

and support the same administration that invoked that kind of mob violence?

Welcome to the modern Republican Party.

For Christians who are concerned about the way that President Trump's

immigration policies have played out,

is there a breath of relief coming with Mr. Mullin's appointment?

I think where the breath of relief probably belongs

was the moment when it seemed very obvious that Tom Homan

was essentially taking that whole process over.

I have my differences with Homan,

but Homan's a very serious person.

Homan is a policy person.

Homan has worked in this space for decades.

He's worked for multiple administrations,

including Democrat administrations.

And I think when things started to unravel

and Minneapolis Trump very quickly sent Homan in

and the dynamics changed.

No one was really leaning into the role as a cabinet member

in ways that resulted in these very unflattering stories,

firing a pilot because they forgot to bring a blanket off the plane

and then having to hire the pilot back

because they didn't have anyone to fly them along.

These allegations that she was in an inappropriate relationship

with Corey Lewandowski.

So Mark Wainwell is definitely going to be a break from that.

And I think there'll be less drama around it.

At the same time,

I think you look at the way the cabinet treats Donald Trump.

You see these cabinet meetings where it's like the gatherings with Stalin.

Like you don't want to be the first one to stop clapping,

you know, because that's the one that goes to the Gulag.

I think he'll get right in line

and participate in that just as the others have.

Last week, the first parent was convicted

of a second degree murder in a school shooting.

Colin Gray was found guilty of the deaths of four people,

two children and two teachers.

When his son Colt entered a high school in Georgia

and shot them with an AR-15 style gun,

his father had given him as a gift.

Mike, next month it will be 26 years

since the Columbine school shooting

and school shootings have become terribly common in the US.

This is the first second degree murder conviction of a parent.

What do we know here about Mr. Gray's involvement

and why would a judge see him as guilty

if he never pulled the trigger?

The prosecution made their case on the fact

that this young man who carried out this shooting

that there were warning signs.

He had been evaluated and diagnosed

as somebody who was a danger to himself and others.

And in spite of that fact and in spite of warnings

as well from the young man's mother,

the father gave this gun to him.

And so it was really seen as a case

of just sort of wild recklessness and irresponsibility.

I've also seen analysis of this case

that indicates that the ruling may not hold up.

It's kind of stretching the bounds of the law a bit.

There are things that are not crimes that are immoral

and oftentimes there are things

that are very much crimes that are immoral.

What I think we ought to all agree on

is that there seems to be a clear case

of moral irresponsibility here on the part of this father.

Some of the responses I've read in the media

have complained that this ruling is really just dancing

around the issue of gun control

that we want to find someone new to blame

because none of the other people we've blamed

over the last 26 years since Columbine

have stopped this, what has become really

an epidemic of school shootings.

How do you respond to that kind of critique?

There's this great line from Dallas Willard

where he says any system of law

is going to result in utopia

so long as everybody who lives inside

that civilization obeys the Ten Commandments.

So having a society that has a permission structure

for gun ownership that looks like the one we have,

that would work great if everybody obeyed

the Ten Commandments, particularly the thou shalt not kill one.

The other problem that we run into is lack of enforcement

and this is something that gun advocates

will talk about often that so often people

who are breaking the law with their possession of guns

with the way they handle them with the way they store them.

So often those laws are not prosecuted.

Now that's not the situation here.

This is a father giving a son a weapon

when he's being warned not to do it

and he's aware of the fact

that the kid has severe psychological issues.

That's a bit different, but I think

these are the things that make these issues so complicated.

I wonder how Christian parents should respond to this story.

You know, as we raise our children

there is that concern that the things

that we have taught them are not enough

that they are not transferred to that next generation.

And as parents, we may pay the cost.

This seems like a sobering ruling

even for Christian parents

who are concerned about, you know,

bring up a child in the way he should go

and when he's the oldie will not depart from it.

This is a ruling that whether it holds up or not,

morally it's true.

This is something that we have to take

a bit more seriously moving forward.

There's a sense oftentimes as Americans

that I'm not responsible for the actions

of somebody downstream from me.

You can't just say, well, I didn't shoot the kid at the school.

All I did was buy the gun.

There is a moral responsibility

for your participation in the life of your neighbors.

If we can't agree on that,

then we've got a real problem in the future.

Responsibility is weighing heavily

on Iran's new leader, Mojtaba Khameini,

who was chosen on Monday to lead the country

after the death of the Ayatollah.

Khameini is the son of the deceased Ayatollah

and Reuters reports that this choice,

quote, closes off any path to a swift end

to war in the Middle East.

Mike, what is Iran signaling here

in the choice of Khameini's son as its new leader?

They are holding fast to their ideology

and they are inviting more military strikes

against themselves.

Both the Israelis and the Americans

have more or less publicly committed themselves

to decapitating the regime.

And so if the regime is going to essentially replace

the Ayatollah with his son,

whose sort of second verse, same as the first,

I guess he's technically third verse,

same as the first and second verse,

we're going to see these strikes continue.

And it was interesting the way this whole thing unfolded

as well, they appointed him

and they didn't announce who it was for a little while

because they were like,

well, we don't want to say who it is

because the second we name new leadership,

somehow rather a drone or an F-35 shows up

and takes them out.

We saw this with Hezbollah as well.

It was an embarrassment to Hezbollah.

How as quickly as Hezbollah could appoint a new leader,

the Israelis were able to take them out.

We may see something similar unfolding here.

It certainly seems like the Israelis

kind of know where everything is in Iran right now

and know what's happening.

What we've seen in the military strikes

is they've been focused on the IRGC

and the Mullahs and the military leadership

and the American air strikes have been focused

on infrastructure munitions factories, this sort of thing.

So we are watching a generational shift

in the Middle East take place right now.

I think if it continues for another week or two,

I do think there's a possibility

that the regime topples.

And I think there's a variety of reasons

why that's the case.

We've talked about that over the last few weeks

that the Iranian people at large do not want this regime

that they desire something different.

And here we have more of the same.

Have we seen a response from the Iranian people

that they're receiving someone

who is little different from the leader they have before?

What I think we're seeing from the Iranian people right now

is a bit of an anxious hesitation

because the Iranian regime killed,

you know, according to various reports

between 30 and 40,000 people

who were protesting in the streets.

So you can understand why the Iranian people

are a little slow to take action in this.

I think the challenge for the Americans and Israelis

that are wanting to liberate these folks

is to figure out how do you prevent that from happening again?

There's two branches of military inside Iran.

One is like the Iranian military

that kind of folded over into the new regime after 1979

and then there's the IRGC.

This is basically the terror organization

but they're better equipped, they're better trained

and they're really tied to the regime.

The tipping point for Iran is probably going to be the moment

that the Iranian military itself says, okay, we're done.

We've weakened the IRGC enough that they say,

okay, we can topple them now

and you'll see a military coup.

I think that's more likely than a popular uprising

though I think it would be accompanied by a popular uprising.

One of the craziest stories that came out over the weekend

was that the Americans are flying B-52s

over Iran to hit these IRGC sites.

The B-52 is a platform that was designed 70 something years ago.

It's massive, it carries an enormous payload of weaponry

and it's extremely vulnerable to basically

any modern air defense system.

The only reason you can fly B-52s into Iran right now

is because that entire system of air defense has been crippled.

To me, that's a sign that there's certain kind of progress happening

where this military offensive is having a really profound effect.

Can you turn over a regime from the air?

No, somebody's going to have to do it from the ground.

But here's the other thing.

Israel clearly has the place wired up.

Their intelligence has been remarkable.

Is it possible that they know something we don't

about what comes next, about who's ready to step in,

about what a real toppling of the regime looks like?

I think that's very, very possible.

That speculation, though, critics of the war have often said,

well, there's no plan.

We don't know if there's a plan.

They're not going to tell us the plan and if there's a plan.

And I think we need to be patient for that.

This is one of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the world.

And for the sake of the Iranian people,

for the sake of Iranian Christians who are hiding,

we want to see this regime topple.

Global oil prices are plummeting.

Turkey has now intercepted a second Iranian missile

with its NATO defense system.

Are these signals that the world knows what's happening next here,

even if the White House doesn't want to admit it,

even if Americans don't want it?

What role Turkey plays in all of this,

both during and after is a significant question.

It's good that they're taking up sort of their NATO

responsibilities and defending their NATO allies.

But Turkey's doing some weird things in Cyprus.

There's a lot of disturbance there.

Turkey is also in a position where if the Iranian regime

does fall, they will be the power player in the Middle East

in many ways.

They'll at least be in competition with Israel

as the power player in the Middle East moving forward.

One of my concerns about the way this war unfolds

and potentially ends is that you see a turnover in Iran

and the liberation of the Iranian people.

You also see many of these Sunni Muslim countries

come into sort of normalization with Israel

and a different kind of normalization

with the West as a whole.

But you see Turkey become more aggressive and more hostile

particularly towards Lebanon and Syria

and of course Israel itself.

So you're seeing like these seismic shifts.

There's all these plates and they're moving

and they're moving in different directions.

And we don't know how it all lands.

We don't know how it all stacks up in the end.

One of the things that does concern me in terms of

how many Westerners are kind of a blurring this

is there's this sort of ra ra.

Let's go U.S. military and Israeli military

because they've been enormously effective.

But is there a plan?

It might be smart for them not to tell us a plan for a time.

But we should be hoping and praying that there is one

and that it does lead to a position

where Lebanese Christians, Syrian Christians,

Iraqi Christians, Iranian Christians,

I want to see this end in a way where all of them can flourish.

They can worship in public

and the Middle East is changed in such a way

that it allows for that and that the institutions

that are governing these countries

because the radicalism is not going away.

But the institutions that are running these countries

are pushing against the radicals.

Listeners were reviewing stories like these all week long

as we cover the news for you

and we'll keep watching these and others as they develop.

Today I sit down with former diplomat

and human rights lawyer Knox Tames

to expand our conversation on the conflicts

between radical Islamism and the broader world.

This time along the mountainous border

between Afghanistan and Pakistan

and the costs of being a Christian

in places where Islamic rule is oppressive.

Enjoy the conversation.

Knox Tames, welcome to the Bulletin.

It's great to be back.

Knox over the last few months tensions have risen

at the Afghan and Pakistan border.

And last week the Pakistani government declared open war

on Afghans Taliban government.

How did this conflict begin?

Well, it's deeply ironic for the Pakistanis

to be complaining about terrorists coming out of Afghanistan

because while we were there in the country

they were some of the biggest supporters

for the Taliban and other extremists operating there

against what we were trying to establish,

a government that respected women's rights,

minority rights, was democratic.

Pakistan was the first country to celebrate

the fall of the Afghan government

in the return of the Taliban.

And so now to see the relationship return

or turn to open warfare is ironic, but also tragic

because these are two impoverished countries

with a lot of challenges.

And the fact that they're trading bombs

and not goods and services just means

the average Pakistani, the average Afghani

is just going to continue to suffer.

Is this tangentially related

to what we're seeing right now in Iran

or is it an entirely separate incident?

It hits its own universe of history

and overlapping ethnicities

and lines drawn by the British

when they were the colonial power.

But a common thread is sort of a radical terrorist community

that operates out of both countries

and is willing to use extreme violence

against those who think or pray

or believe differently than they do.

And the government's willing us to cozy up

to some of those factions

and use them as a way to project power in other countries.

Like Pakistan does in India.

Like Afghanistan has done against the United States.

So that's the through line I think

but we're seeing the Ayatollah supporting in Iran

with his Bala and what's happening

in more in the South Asian context

with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taliban sees the world through a religious lens.

You know, the Taliban means a return to Islamic education.

So that's the framework.

They're very narrow application of Sharia law.

It's how they decide to govern domestically

and how they engage internationally.

Pakistan's not too different.

They are more secular, but there is a strong strain

of Islamic extremism, interwoven into government,

interwoven into laws that also commands

how Pakistan engages at home and abroad.

So there's sort of two sides of the same coin.

And so again, the fact that they're fighting

is ironic and tragic

because they're both playing the same game

with these non-state actors

and both are paying a high price.

Why now?

I mean, the border between these two countries,

harbours al-Qaeda, harbours other Islamic state groups.

This isn't new this conflict.

No, then it's probably one of the most forgotten

since the Taliban government has no international relations.

It's been pretty isolated with Pakistan

being its one outlet to the wider world.

But these disagreements over where the border is drawn,

that it was called the Iran line.

Again, a colonial border that was arbitrarily laid down

amidst people groups that were once whole

and now they're divided.

There's a historical fight over where the real border is

and these skirmishes are just

insteadly escalating until now.

There are fighter jets dropping bombs

on Bagram Air Base, which listeners will remember

that was the center of the U.S. presence.

But these were Pakistani jets bombing Taliban military installations.

Is it communicating a message perhaps to Afghanistan

that they have been left behind by the larger world?

For sure, and it's demonstrating

in a military to military conflict,

Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

They have a modern Air Force.

They went toe-to-toe with India not too long ago.

So there would be no competition military to military.

But again, as we learned the hard way,

the Taliban and these terrorist groups

that operate in Afghanistan,

they don't play by the same rules.

And so they'll be very easy for them to infiltrate into Pakistan

to set off explosion, suicide bombs

into sensitive government locations.

And I think that could be a terrifying next phase

of this conflict if cooler heads don't prevail.

Ramadan could be a tool to help deescalate.

This is the most holy time of the year for Muslims.

A faith that is shared on both sides of the border.

There are Islamic leaders who are against this extreme violence

or against fighting that promote peace.

Will they be given a platform?

Will they be allowed to preach a return to sort of introspection

and prayer?

That's the hope for this to not escalate

into a broader conflict when we already have

on the other side of Iran,

as we know, missiles flying in every direction.

What is the end game here for Pakistan?

Do they have a plan?

I don't know.

The economy is in shambles.

The military continues to spread its tentacles

throughout businesses and the parliament.

So this could be a distraction.

Like stop looking at what's here.

Let's rally around the flag.

We've got an enemy next door.

India usually plays that role.

So now for it to be Afghanistan

is just another way to sing the same song.

But I don't think they have an end game in mind

because many an empire has tried

to conquer Afghanistan and all of failed.

So for the Pakistanis to have enough hubris

to think they could do something that we couldn't

or the Russians couldn't or the British couldn't

is the definition of insanity in my opinion.

What is the religious landscape of Pakistan?

It's an incredibly diverse country

of 250 million people.

It's overwhelmingly Islamic,

but that belies a much greater diversity

that's intra-Islamic.

So majority Sunni,

but that breaks into different denominations

or sects.

There's a very large Shia community.

And then there sort of Hedge Orthodox groups

like the Ahmadiyya community

that do themselves of Islamic,

but the Islamic establishment doesn't.

In addition, you have a Christian community,

a Sikh community, a Hindu community

with a whole overlay of different ethnicities.

So it's an incredibly complicated,

beautiful, but broken country.

And issues of religious persecution

are a steady narrative

in what's the daily lived experience

of religious minorities in that country.

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I was really interested to see the protests that broke out

across Pakistan after the death of the Ayatollah in Iran.

We have seen Shiite protests in the larger cities.

We've seen it in Karachi.

An embassy was stormed that resulted in some deaths.

And I'm curious about that Shiite population.

It's about 20% of the population of Pakistan.

They seem very loud right now.

Is that the norm for the religious makeup there?

The Shiite community has generally been oppressed

by the Sunni Muslim majority in Pakistan.

Most Shiites also identify as Hazara,

which is a distinct ethnic group

with more asianic features.

They've been attacked by ISIS.

They've been attacked by al-Qaeda

and they've been repressed by the Pakistani government.

The Iranians have allowed some Shia pilgrims

to come into the country, some Shia refugees to stay.

And so there is an affinity

because there were people on Iran

that cared more for them than their own country did.

But I'm generally very sympathetic

to the Pakistani Shia experience

because they've been repressed, attacked,

and have very limited agency in that country

despite being tens of millions of people.

They're as vulnerable as other minorities are.

Many Westerners don't know the stories

of these faithful believers

within the church in Pakistan.

You've written about a man named Shabaz Badi.

Why is he someone that Christians should know?

Shabaz was a great hero of the Christian faith,

a great Pakistani patriot.

He was a friend of mine.

And 15 years ago this week,

he was killed by the Pakistani Taliban

for speaking out against the country's onerous blasphemy law.

It was pretty rare to get to meet someone

who was willing to give it all

for the cause of a religious freedom.

He was courageous to speak up

for his own persecuted Christian community

but also persecuted Hindus, persecuted Sikhs, and others.

He really lived something that many of us aspire to one day.

That it was really interesting

that President Zadari of Pakistan

appointed Mr. Badi to a government position

even though he wasn't a Muslim.

Is that really unusual?

One of the unique things about Pakistan's parliament,

because it's this illiberal democracy

that you have reserved seats

for these religious minorities.

But as far as cabinet level positions,

it's very rare.

And so that Shabaz had an political savvy

to make himself relevant

to the ruling political party of the day was impressive.

He was able to bring tens of thousands of people

into the streets to protest for equal rights

for no discrimination based on religion or background.

And that got the attention of President Zadari

and his wife, the late Benazir Bhutto,

and they started to invite him to ally

with their political program

and eventually brought him into government.

So it was an impressive political feat

and what was so and also just impressive was

he didn't then think he was done.

He used that position to advocate for religious freedom

to advocate against the blasphemy law,

to advocate against his own government's policies

from within the government at that cabinet level.

Pakistan has the worst blasphemy law in the world.

It empowers individuals to make a claim,

a charge of blasphemy, which carries the death penalty.

And so once that charge is made by an individual,

the police are then required to arrest them.

It begins a legal process that can take years.

And right now there are at least 400 people

that are currently in detention under charges of blasphemy.

Of any religion.

It's actually more Muslims and non-Muslims

because this law has no guide rails.

Business competitors will start levying accusations

of blasphemy so that then the competitor is in jail

on trial for his life.

And I can come take your property, take your home,

take your business.

But it's the minorities, the Christians, the Hindus,

who are even more vulnerable

because they don't have the larger community to fall back on.

And so when there's an allegation of blasphemy,

usually a mob is often a riled up, homes are burned down,

churches are destroyed.

And then it's the victim in all this

who's actually arrested and those who are leading

the mob attacks are not.

And that's part of the upside down nature of Pakistan.

But Pakistan leads the world in this.

They have more people detained for the crime

uplasts me than all other countries

combined times three, according to my research.

So it's a cancer that's eating away

at the heart of that country.

And because of the extreme actions,

terrorists will take to defend it,

like murdering Shabaz, murdering the Muslim governor,

Salman Tassir, politicians are literally scared

to death to touch it.

I remember visiting Islamabad

and driving through one of the nicest neighborhoods.

And in the middle of it,

along a drainage ditch was a Christian village.

And that was the only land that they could afford to

to buy living in tin shacks.

And so there is discrimination.

A lot of the Christians were originally

dollots back during the colonial period

and converted to Christianity.

And so there is a sort of racial discrimination to it

as well as religious.

And that was one of the great things

that Shabaz Bati did when he was in government.

They were able to pass a law to require

that 5% of all government jobs are set aside for minorities.

Because of these religious and ethnic discriminatory

tendencies, they just were left to sweep streets.

But now because of that,

it's not as many as we would like,

but there are more Christians,

more Hindus and others getting these professional jobs

so they can start to better themselves and their families.

But Pakistan is a hard place for anybody,

but particularly for Christians and other minorities

because of the discrimination, the violence

and the legal environment is just so oppressive.

And so when he was killed 15 years ago,

it was a great loss for the country.

It was a great loss to the world

or religious freedom advocacy.

I was a part of a project

that just published a new graphic novel

about his life called Blood and Water by Ignatius Press.

And it's a beautiful retelling of his commitment to Christ,

his commitment to suffering people

and his willingness to live out this command

to lower neighborhoods ourselves.

And I hope it will inspire the next generation

to be engaged in these issues.

How would you compare this then to the Taliban

and more broadly radical Islamism?

There are strains within the Pakistani political universe

that are fellow travelers with the Taliban.

There are more protections for minorities in Pakistan

than there ever were in Afghanistan.

Again, these seats set aside for minorities.

If you know the Pakistani flag,

it's green with a star and a crescent,

but also has a white bar.

That was put there by the founders

to commemorate the role of minorities

and establishing the country.

So it's not Afghanistan yet.

But these forces of extremism,

these forces of oppression,

they are taking notes from what's happening in the Taliban.

They are drawing from the same streams of extremism.

And there are definitely political parties

that have emerged in the last five years

that are calling for the death of converts,

calling for the death of amities,

calling for the death of anyone

at questions that blasts me law

and they're winning seats in parliament.

So again, it's going to take outside forces

like the United States and Europe

insisting that Pakistan go in a different direction

and trying to leverage the consequential diplomacy,

the tools that we have to exact a cost if they don't.

Because otherwise,

Pakistan is going in a very dangerous direction

and it can bring all of South Asia down with it.

What kind of response has the US given?

I know that we are working in Nigeria

to assist Christians who are under oppression there.

Are we seeing the same kind of response

from the US government to what's happening in Pakistan?

So the first company administration,

which I worked under,

they named Pakistan as a country of particular concern,

the same designation that Mr. Trump recently announced

for Nigeria.

First administration to ever do that.

It was great.

It was long overdue.

And I was actually one traveling to Islamabad

to negotiate with the Pakistanis about it.

What should you do to get off this list?

Sadly, the Biden administration didn't really pursue

this issue in Pakistan or religious freedom in general.

But what's troubling about the second Trump administration,

but for Nigeria,

their international religious freedom policy

is basically nonexistent.

Secretary Rubio met with Pakistani officials

and only wanted to talk about a rare earth minerals deal

and I mentioned a persecution.

The other 12 CPC countries that need to be re-designated.

There's been no action towards them.

China, Saudi Arabia,

Pakistan, Burma and whatnot.

So there's been opportunities missed

to leverage US influence

on this administration

to get Pakistan to make these reforms.

And unfortunately,

I'm not saying any desire

to pick that up anytime soon.

Pakistan shares a border with Iran.

So it is a strategic partner of the US.

It's a non-NATO ally.

How important do you think it is

for Pakistan to sort of get this conflict right

so that it is sitting in an attractive position

for the US to get involved in other issues?

Pakistan recently signed a military pact

with Saudi Arabia.

And so if the shooting war continues to expand

and Saudi Arabian forces are drawn into it,

there may be a day where Muhammad bin Salman,

the Crown Prince is calling President Zadar

and say, hey, it's time.

Pakistan would be low to do that

because of the headaches it has

with Afghanistan, the long running tensions

with India to open up a third frontier of conflict

would just destroy the economy

and stretch the military beyond what it can do.

So they're probably just trying to keep their head down

right now, sort out this mess

with Afghanistan,

maintain a fragile status quo with India

and not be asked to intervene with Iran.

Does Pakistan stand behind the chant

that we're hearing in other places

in the Middle East, this death to Israel,

death to the US?

I know that after the death of the Ayatollah,

Pakistan's president released a statement saying

that they stood with the Iranian nation in their grief

and shared in their loss.

Does Pakistan really desire to separate itself

from radical Islamism?

I mean, that's the $64,000 question.

There is gonna be a fork in the road coming up soon

and they'll need to pick a side.

I think they, like I said, want to try to dance

and be nimble in their relationships.

You know, they're drawing closer to China.

They're drawing closer to Russia.

They have a relationship with the United States.

It's very complicated.

Their neighbors with Iran.

They have a large shea community.

They have a Sunni extremists.

So what Pakistan wants is really a question of about

with 250 million different answers

because it's so fractious.

There's so many different currents pulling

in different directions.

And I think time will tell which path they choose.

What do you hear from Christians in the diaspora,

Pakistanis who are here in the US?

What are their concerns as they look

at what's playing out in their country?

They talk a lot about the Pakistani Christians

that have chosen to flee to either Thailand or Sri Lanka.

Those are two places that Pakistanis can go without Avisa.

But once they get there, they get stranded.

And so there are large Pakistani Christian communities

in both countries that are living

on the margins of society, praying for the day

that they could get resettled to Canada,

to the United States, to Europe.

And they're incredibly vulnerable.

I mean, a whole generation of children

are missing out on school opportunities.

And they were already vulnerable

where they were in Pakistan.

So there's not the threat of terrorists

wanting to kill them in those countries.

But there are posts of other concerns

about trafficking, child exploitation

that are running rampant through the community.

So when I meet with the Pakistani diaspora here,

that's what they are concerned about.

I hear a lot of those concerns and asking for the US

to open up the doors again

to allow the resettlement of these persecuted minorities

to facilitate their transit to Canada.

And there's a lot of suffering people

that are very vulnerable right now

and there are a lot of them are Christians from Pakistan.

As we close your former diplomat,

you're used to playing the long game.

And so when you think about the long-term vision

for Pakistan, for Afghanistan,

what do you envision not only for the countries themselves,

but for the church in those places?

The church in Pakistan is one of the most beleaguered

yet faithful I've ever seen.

Because of the environment they live in,

the cross-currency must navigate every day.

When we talk about saving persecuted Christians,

we'd be mindful of Christians of Pakistan

because how we talk about these things

does reverberate there.

And that's why I've said,

like when we talk about religious persecution,

we of course remember our own,

but we talk about it holistically

that we as Christians stand up for anyone

who's being persecuted.

Christian or non,

both as a witness and testimony of God's love,

but also it helps the Christian minorities

who are in these tough environments say,

look, Christians care about everyone in our community,

not just us.

It doesn't segregate them or set them aside.

And if Afghanistan, the tiny church

that exists operates underground,

it's many left with the fall of the Republic.

I hear rumors that they're still there,

but it's one of the worst places in the world

to be a convert because if that becomes known,

it's hard to get out, it's instant death.

So Afghan Christians,

we need to pray for,

packs any Christians we need to pray for,

we need to pray for peace in both countries

because a lot of innocent are in harm's way right now.

Well, we have often heard that the blood of the martyrs

is the birthplace of the church.

So we will continue to pray for all of those

who risk their lives for their faith in Jesus.

Knox, thanks so much for being with me today.

Listeners, we'll see you next time.

The Bulletin is a production of Christianity today.

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