On August 4, 2020, the world watched in horror as videos from the Port of Beirut blast flooded the internet. For one year, we’ve also watched politicians evade responsibility for the illegal storage of ammonium nitrate. The reality that most people, especially the Lebanese, have come to accept is that justice is extremely unlikely.

A healthy majority of people in Lebanon continue to reject the sectarian, clannish, and quasi-tribal order of Lebanese politics, and the US should use Global Magnitsky sanctions against the country’s corrupt rulers.

President-elect Joe Biden must construct a foreign policy agenda that prioritizes confronting Turkey, on its belligerent international conduct, and stabilizing the spiraling economic, political, and security situation in Lebanon.

If the West remains interested in promoting pluralism in the Middle East and preserving one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, it must turn its eyes to Lebanon and provide suitable alternatives to Chinese intervention. Failure to do so could be a crucial and catastrophic mistake.

Washington and the West need to stop neglecting Lebanon, primarily for the sake of their own strategic and regional interests.

We as Christians are called to remember that “if one member suffers, all suffer together,” so we cannot forget these Iraqi Christian refugees.