When Donald Trump publicly threatened possible US military intervention in Nigeria over the alleged “massacre of Christians", he reignited an old debate about America’s moral duty versus its strategic restraint. His declaration—to cut all US aid and perhaps go in “guns-a-blazing"—landed with the blunt force of vintage Trumpism: dramatic, populist, and politically combustible.

This is no mere outburst. Nigeria has now been re-designated a “Country of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act, reviving a label that could justify sanctions or military pressure. If Trump’s words translate into action, Washington could find itself on the edge of its first major African war of the 21st century.

THE MORAL IMPERATIVE: PROTECTING THE PERSECUTED

Trump’s supporters frame his threat as an overdue stand for global religious freedom. Islamist militants like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province have targeted churches, kidnapped girls, and razed Christian villages in Nigeria’s northeast for over a decade. To many evangelical voters and human-rights advocates,........

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