Sometimes The Brew is fun, maybe even funny.

This isn’t one of those times.

A savage persecution of Christians and other religious/ethnic minorities has erupted in Syria, and I wish I could say it surprised me. But for more than 10 years, The Stream has been joining Tulsi Gabbard, Pat Buchanan, and a few other dissident voices to warn that using U.S. pressure and even military force to bring “democracy” to Syria was a recipe for genocide.

The Left cheered on the “Arab Spring,” while swamp Republicans and neoconservatives assured us that “moderate rebels” (whom the late Sen. John McCain met with and vouched for) were the best hope for Syria instead of the secular dictator Bashir Assad, who at least repressed jihadists committed to wiping out the Christians. (Jason Jones and Johannes de Jong argued here for a decentralized Syria, modeled on the Kurdish-led enclave where religious freedom and fair elections prevail and Christian militias protect their own churches.)

But Assad was aligned with Russia, which we all know is the source of every evil on the planet. It even rigged the 2016 election for Donald Trump! (Remember that narrative?) Then Russia colluded with Trump, as the FBI proved via fake documents and agitprop, and so on. We’re now being goaded to risk a nuclear war with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by the same people who lobbied for years to let al Qaeda conquer Syria.