I saw fissures widening already when I was in Iraq at the invitation on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees earlier this year: Christian communities are receiving financial assistance from the global faithful and therefore able to rebuild their houses of worship and their communities faster and more opulently than their Muslim neighbors. It is breeding resentment.

That resentment extends beyond those living in Iraq to those providing the assistance: The narrative is taking hold that the U.S. doesn’t care about Muslim lives or sorrows, only about Christians—which will make advancing America’s interests in the region more challenging.

President Trump’s announcement about relocating the U.S. Embassy reinforces that story line. By speaking only of Israel’s claims and underscoring their religious basis, the Trump administration demonstrated its indifference to the religious and political claims of Palestinians. The president could easily have also spoken of an embassy for Palestine to be located in East Jerusalem, as Martin Indyk has recommended. But he did not.

The administration’s discomfort with multinational institutions further aggravates the problem. By arguing that “our fellow Christians and all who are persecuted in the Middle East should not have to rely on multinational institutions when America can help them directly,” Pence ensures that the U.S. will not be associated with multilateral assistance that is received by Muslims.

The administration is acting on that bias by holding up funds pledged to the UN by USAID. Which is a shame, because the UN is doing work the government of Iraq badly needs done, and on which U.S. policy depends. The UN provides assistance to refugees on the basis of need and vulnerability, and that assistance is urgently needed by the victims of ISIS.

Would all of the UN’s projects meet stringent criteria for effectiveness? No. But development assistance never does—efficiency is not the right metric for judging development programs. Reach is a better metric—how many people are receiving assistance? Effectiveness is a better metric—is the assistance what the recipients want and need? The UN Development Program has 1,200 projects underway in Iraq, with assistance directed toward priorities established by the Iraqi government. Those priorities reach across religious communities to build the multi-sectarian Iraq that Iraqis, and the United States, want. Targeting assistance and attention to Christian communities to the exclusion of their Muslim fellow citizens is ultimately bad for Christian communities and bad for American interests in the Middle East.

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