On Christmas night President Trump ordered U.S. forces to strike Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria after repeated reports that those jihadis were brutally targeting Christian villages, burning churches and slaughtering innocent worshippers. The White House announcement — amplified by the president on his social platform — was backed up by U.S. Africa Command, which said the strikes were carried out at the request of Nigerian authorities and that multiple ISIS fighters were killed.
Conservative leaders and commentators rightly cheered the move, and former Sen. Rick Santorum — a steady voice for persecuted Christians around the world — told Newsmax that President Trump’s willingness to act proves he is the most active president in protecting America’s interests and vulnerable believers abroad. That praise isn’t mere partisan cheerleading; it reflects a clear, moral foreign policy choice to defend the innocent when other administrations looked the other way.
This was not some aimless foreign adventure but a targeted response coordinated with Nigeria, showing American power used responsibly and in concert with a sovereign partner who requested help. Nigerian officials publicly acknowledged the cooperation and welcomed support to confront violent extremists who have terrorized communities for years, which undercuts the predictable chorus that the United States acted unilaterally or recklessly.
For too long Washington’s elites and the media shrugged at the slaughter of Christians in places like Nigeria, treating religious persecution as a statistic rather than a moral outrage. It’s refreshing and right that a president who talks like a commander-in-chief is actually willing to use the military’s precision tools to stop mass murder and send a message to killers: attacks on the faithful will not be tolerated on this watch.
Make no mistake — some will try to make this about politics, paint the response as PR or claim it complicates international norms. But defending the persecuted and striking terror networks that threaten regional stability is both morally correct and squarely within America’s national interest; weak, apologetic policies did nothing to protect those communities. Conservatives must stand firm behind force that is smart, surgical, and principled.
If Washington is going to reclaim strength and moral clarity on the world stage, it needs leaders who act — not lecture — when Christians and other minorities are hunted for their faith. President Trump’s decisive action in Nigeria, and the backing it received from conservative voices like Rick Santorum on outlets such as Newsmax, marks the kind of leadership hardworking Americans expect: unapologetic, protective of the innocent, and unafraid to defend liberty beyond our borders.
