The voice at the other end of the phone line from Beirut suddenly became nervous. "No, no, no, please!" the panicking nun said. "You cannot mention my real name, you understand, what we are doing is illegal." This is why I call her Sister Mary. Sister Mary does not launder money nor trade drugs. Instead, she leads an association that assists clandestine Christian Iraqi refugees whose plight leads them to travel to Lebanon by foot. She anticipated more refugees after the church massacre last October 31, a dark day for Iraq's Christian community, though the incident received little attention from international media and policymakers. A terrorist group took the Lady of Deliverance church in Bagdad by siege, holding the congregation hostage and killing 46 Chaldean worshipers, including two priests celebrating mass, and wounding some 67. This was not the first act of violence against Iraq's dwindling Christian community, but it was by far the most horrific. And it was not the last act of violence targeting the Christians of the Middle East. After surviving millennia of religious and cultural persecutions in its own cradle, Christianity in the Middle East, could face demise at the hands of this Christian West. In fact, political alliances sought by Western states and, most importantly, by the United States leverage existential threats against the remaining Christian minorities in the Middle East. Rescue is not high on the agenda. Realizing the magnitude of the plight for its community, the Iraqi Chaldean Archdiocese has dispatched a representative to Lebanon to oversee the needs of the Chaldean, Assyrian and Syriac refugees there. Father Rony Hanna noted that the number of refugees in Lebanon amount to 1,000 families, about 6,000 people in all. There are nearly 20,000 in Syria, and some 5,000 in Jordan. More than half of Iraq's Christians have left their home, he added, their numbers shrinking from 1.1 million to around 450,000. The 2000-year old Christian community has dwindled to some 0.5 percent since the US grand strategy to promote democracy in the Middle East made its debut in Iraq. Oddly enough, Father Hanna pointed out that under Saddam Hussein, the rights of minority Christians were protected. "Security forces were sent to our religious celebration to provide us with protection, and they did," he noted. "This is what we most miss now, being protected." The most likely scenario for Christians eludes scores of strategists: Sacrificing Iraq's Christian minority only reinforces intolerance, in a country where extremists find fertile ground to expand. Reducing the Christians also renders uniform one of the oldest multi-religious civilizations in the world. So far the issue has been met with astounding silence. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians soared, with reports of abductions, torture, bombings, killings and forced conversions to Islam. In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest was beheaded and mutilated despite a ransom being paid. In 2008, the Archbishop of Mosul died after being abducted. In January 2008, bombs exploded outside nine churches. Fleeing the violence has become an imperative. "Refugees are smuggled through the Iraqi-Syrian border, then through the Syrian-Lebanese border," Sister Mary explains, describing a 16-hour journey. "When we saw these thousands of refugees flocking into Lebanon four years ago, we thought we needed to do something." The refugees arrive to Lebanon bereft. "The little money or valuable items they might have been able to carry