As the battle rages to liberate the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah from ISIS, Iraqi Christian forces are contending whether or not they should bear arms supplied by the United States. The U.S. already spends billions training and equipping the Kurdish regional army, the Peshmerga, and various Sunni tribal militias through its Iraqi Train and Equip Fund. Congress recently voted to train and equip other minorities in order to carry out the final fight against the Islamic State. The issue acquires greater urgency as the Iraqi Christian forces prepare to dislodge the ISIS fighters conducting a reign of terror over Mosul. The 160,000 Iraqi Christian forces that stampeded out of the Nineveh Plain in August, 2014 are chiefly lodged in dreary Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Kurdistan. Some could return to the Nineveh Plain, and hundreds of thousands of other Christian refugees sheltering in neighboring Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan could resettle into the ancient homeland of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people if security could be assured, argue some observers. Many of the 1.3 million Christians that lived in Iraq in 2003 are still in the neighborhood. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, among them Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska, insist that Iraq's Christian minorities are assets in the war against ISIS genocide and a key to the goal of democratic pluralism. On May 19 the House of Representatives passed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4909) for 2017 that boosted the hopes of Iraqi Christian forces in the Assyrian Christian diaspora as well as Christians in Iraq who insist that returning to Nineveh Plain can only happen if all displaced minorities can have their own forces to defend lives and property. "Two months ago, Congress declared that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians, Yezidis, and other minorities," Fortenberry said in a press release on May 19. "The House of Representatives has now taken concrete steps to support the victims." The National Defense Authorization Act that has passed the House contains two new policy goals. First, the United States' strategy in Iraq now includes securing 'safe areas' so that genocide victims can return to their homelands. Second, a new provision empowers minority groups, including Christian and Yezidi security forces, in the integrated military campaign against ISIS. Christians, Yezidis, and others should remain an essential part of the Middle East's once rich tapestry of ethnic and religious diversity. They now have new cause for hope. The Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Raphael Louis Sakho, fired back that the measure would vilify Christians and lead to even more bloodshed, making it impossible for Christians to return. According to the Patriarch, "there are no 'Christian militias', but only politicized groups and simple people who are in desperate need of a salary. The remaining Christians in Iraq are only the poor and those belonging to the middle class, and among them, there are 100 thousand displaced people," he said in a statement to Agenzia Fides on May 19. "Sunni Arabs want to create an autonomous region in Mosul with the support of Turkey, while the Kurds want to accentuate the process of independence of Kurdistan," the Patriarch continued in his statement to Fides. "Another Christian political group is supported by the central government in Baghdad. It is a total mess!" he wrote. According to Patriarch Sakho:

Everyone wants to exploit Christians of Nineveh Plain for their ambitions and political interests. It is an area with different ethnic groups and religious communities, it is the dividing area between the region dominated by the Kurds and the region dominated by Sunni Arabs. I am afraid that all these talks will turn Nineveh Plain into a continuing conflict region, and in this case, no Christian will return to their homes.

Delia Kashat, the Director of Government Relations for the Nineveh Council of America said:

The Patriarch has reason to worry about the future of Iraq's Christians and other minorities within their own country. Diaspora groups that are calling for the direct arming of Christian militias -- those militias that are not aligned with the effective fighting forces on the ground, namely the Kurdish Peshmerga or the Iraqi Security Forces -- are only adding fuel to the fires of sectarianism.

"Not only does the direct arming of rogue militia groups go against U.S. government policy but it also places targets on the backs of minority communities," argues Kashat. "Patriarch Sako very much understands the political situation on the ground and would like to see more collaboration and integration of forces to free the Da'esh controlled areas." Strong support for the Fortenberry amendments came from Toufic Baaklini, President of the umbrella nonprofit In Defense of Christians and Robert Nicholson, Executive Director of the Philos Project. "IDC believes that the restoration of indigenous religious and ethnic minority communities to their ancient homelands should be a priority for the United States and the international community," Baaklini wrote. "As ISIS is driven back in Nineveh Province, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Yezidis, and other groups must be restored to their historic lands on the Nineveh Plain. "While Iraq has been torn apart by sectarian violence, Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, Yezidi, and other communities of Nineveh have lived in peace," said Baaklini. "This is a model for pluralism in Iraq and the region," and "other distinct communities be guaranteed by regional and national governments and by the U.S. and the international community." "The Philos Project welcomes the passage of the 2016 NDAA and the empowerment of Iraq's indigenous minorities to liberate and protect their ancestral homeland," Nicholson wrote in an email. "We thank Congressman Fortenberry and all those who worked to make this a reality. It gives us hope that Assyrian Christians and other minority communities have a future in Iraq as equal partners in the defense of the country." As a matter of fact, defense group staffed by Iraqi Christian forces of all the 12 Christian denominations in Iraq will be a rallying event and can unify the fragmented Christians in a fight against a common foe. The Nineveh Plains Protection Unit, for example, based in the northern tip of the Nineveh Plain, already has 300 soldiers trained and 100 of them engaged ISIS at the Battle for Tel Asqaf on May 3. The NPU soldiers are paid by Baghdad and are sanctioned by the Iraqi Security Forces. As many as 2,000 Assyrian men are ready to join when weapons and training are available, according to Jeff Gardner, the chief operations officer of the U.S.-based nonprofit, Restore Nineveh Now Foundation. Refusing aid from the United States and Baghdad means leaving the surviving Christian flocks under the control of and at the mercy of the Kurdish Regional Government. The Iraqi Christian forces are better served by taking defense responsibilities into their own hands, and with the U.S. Congress ready to help, opportunity is knocking.