When one-time presidential candidate Gary Johnson made a colossal misstep by asking a reporter, “What is Aleppo?” while live on air — the former governor of New Mexico probably inadvertently captured the confusion many may possess as to what “Aleppo” actually “is.”

One may understand that Aleppo is, for example, Syria’s largest city (population approximately 2.13 million) and one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

“We’ve seen … [i]n a sense … the suicide of Syria.”

One may further understand that it is a tangled knot of four millennia of divergent civilizations that predate the Old Testament, flourishing on through the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman times. Yet the question persists: What is Aleppo now, in these times? And why is it the focal point of so much of the reporting in today’s political landscape? There are two ways to answer the question. The first is on a policy level; the second is on a personal level.

The short answer on policy is, Aleppo — in this time — is the epicenter of a confluence of forces that are vying to shape and control today’s geo-political landscape.

[lz_ndn video=31915980]

A few years ago, Anne Richard, then assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said of Syria’s civil war: “We’ve seen … [i]n a sense … the suicide of Syria.” This writer was confounded as to why any nation would embroil itself in a conflict that could be likened to suicide.

The standard explanation went something like this: The turmoil grew out of the “Arab Spring” movement taking place in the Middle East. And when Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s prime minister, asserted control in response, outside players became involved to escalate the situation in the attempt to remove Assad.

These outside players included the U.S. under Obama, Clinton and Kerry, with the end of accomplishing a regime change. That regime change (as opposed to facilitating an organic democracy movement) was the goal disclosed by General Wesley Clark in 2007 during an interview with investigative reporter Amy Goodman.

“This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

In the interview, Clark cited a memo he had received from the then-secretary of defense’s office: “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” (It is worth noting that six out of the seven countries – the exception being Lebanon — are those included on President Donald Trump’s moratorium on Muslims’ entry to the U.S.)

To that end, with the “Arab Spring” conveniently underfoot, the Obama/Clinton and later Obama/Kerry administration partnered with other international globalists in arming mercenary jihadists (non-Syrians) to escalate the fighting in Syria in a contrived “civil war,” regardless of the fact that the Syrian people themselves did not want war. (The arms were being funneled through Benghazi, but that is a story for another time.)

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

Being jihadists, many of these hired “rebels,” in turn, switched their allegiance and ended up fighting for the “JV team” Islamists who, now armed with supplies given by the Americans, asserted themselves in vying for control in the region to advance their caliphate.

Then there is Assad, the country’s legitimately-elected leader, who was fighting for the sovereignty of his country in determining its own destiny. He defended and ultimately prevailed to that end, with Russia’s help, when his forces re-took Aleppo in December 2016. Syrians celebrated Christmas last year for the first time in four years.

Related: The Ongoing Inaction Against a Christian Genocide

The result has been an estimate of 400,000 people killed (according to the United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria), with 4.8 million Syrian refugees and 6.5 million displaced within Syria.

So no, this war has not been a suicide. It is an attempted fratricide.

This, then, paints a picture of the second answer to the question: What is Aleppo?

Aleppo is the hometown of Wissam Zarqa, 34, and his wife, Aisha, who in 2011 left Aleppo for Saudi Arabia, as the tumult was beginning, to teach at university. After three years he decided to return to Syria, his homeland, to be with his people who needed his help. He said (in an article from the BBC): “I decided to come back — it was a duty, in fact. I did not feel happy at all while I was in Saudi Arabia. I was living a good life there when my people were suffering.”

He returned to his disintegrating country with the mission to help his people as an English teacher. He established the Institute of Language Studies in 2015 with the hope of  giving “the people of Aleppo a voice.” When Assad retook Aleppo in December 2016, Zarqa and his wife were among the last to leave in the evacuation. “This was forced displacement. We are now refugees in our own country.”

“I decided to come back — it was a duty. I did not feel happy at all while I was in Saudi Arabia. I was living a good life there when my people were suffering.”

What has happened in Syria, generally, and Zarqa specifically, shows two sides of the same coin depicting what Aleppo actually is: a “proxy battleground,” as noted in a piece in the BBC News (Dec 19,2016). It is a campaign that bequeathed to the Syrian people a legacy of orphaned children stepping over fallen buildings, broken windows, and dead bodies.

The stories of Syria and Zarqa converge in the refugee crisis. The conflict forced millions from their homeland while millions more, like Zarqa, desire to remain, even as refugees in their own county, in the hope of rebuilding.

Americans, as people of conscience as well as belonging to a nation whose policies carry some responsibility for the devastation, are asking: What can be done?

Here are some small steps: First, remember Zarqa and the millions like him who desire to be home and to rebuild. To this end, reach out to relief agencies (there are many) who are on the ground in the region, working to help the Syrian people.

Second, for those displaced, support all efforts to safely house these people as near as they can be to their homeland with the intention to return when the situation is stabilized. More attention ought to be given to the efforts of the Trump administration, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, to establish safe zones for housing refugees. “If realized, these zones would be a crucial first step toward ending conflict in Syria,” noted Andrew Doran in The Hill (on Feb. 20).

Related: How We Can Live as God’s People in Troubled Times

Third, where refugees have been given entrance into the U.S., reach out to agencies, such as World Relief, who sponsors Neighborhood Teams in local municipalities to support these people in transition.

In a heart-wrenching exchange between a Syrian woman and Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) at a public forum recently, she pleaded with him to save her country by stopping the bombing: “For me to hear what you are saying there is no good option [for what to do in Syria], I refuse to believe that. The good option right now is to take Saudi Arabia and Iran and force them to stop supporting the two [opposing] sides in Syria. And you could do it by diplomacy and negotiation, not bombs, Senator McCain. We cannot afford to shed more Syrian blood. I have a cousin who was killed 10 days ago by the so-called ‘rebels’ and Al Qaeda, and they’re not Syrian. They’re coming to Syria from all over the world. I beg you, there are so many good Syrians. The majority of the Syrian people want to save their country.”

There are many agencies in the region including Barnabas Fund, Voice of the Martyrs, Food for the Hungry, Samaritan’s Purse, and Mennonite Central Committee.

Wendy Murray served as regional correspondent for TIME magazine in Honduras in the early 1990s, and later as associate editor and senior writer at Christianity Today. She is the author of 10 nonfiction books and a novel.