Why on earth would anyone support the murderous tyrant Bashar Al-Assad? Especially confessed Christians? Once we dive into the religious and sectarian situation in Syria, and the history of the last couple centuries, it will start to make sense. For Christians in the Middle East, political preferences aren’t really preferences. We, and by that I mean people in democracies, support a candidate for comparatively trivial reasons like taxes, the culture wars or even personality. Syrian Christians and other minorities support a candidate who will keep them alive. Alawites and Christians, for example, have many sound reasons for supporting the dictator and his regime, and they’re not really that selfish once you consider the history. And Russia’s bizarre desire to be involved in this mess may make a bit more sense, too.