There have been three Republican debates so far, and the candidates have answered many questions. Some of them were weighty and substantive, but far too many were frivolous. We saw seasoned journalists ask presidential aspirants about their remarks on Rosie O’Donnell, whether or not they were actually opposed to “women’s health,” and for the names on their personal enemies list. What we didn’t hear is a single inquiry about the greatest foreign policy failure of the past three presidential administrations: the unleashing of Islamist extremists and their persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in a crucial strategic region. Our enemies are on the march, purging their nations of our natural allies, innocent victims of religious intolerance, and we have sat idly by. It is high time that the candidates were asked about this moral and strategic catastrophe.

It’s all too easy for the debate about Middle Eastern policy to get lost in the weeds of thoughtless posturing and cheap electioneering. But the stakes are too high for us to let that happen. The lives of millions of Christians and other non-Muslims are at stake — people trapped in chaotic or intolerant Muslim states, who have no consistent protectors or advocates in the region. Abandoned by Obama, they look to Vladimir Putin’s Russia for their only apparent hope.

Nor are these simply strangers, to whom we owe good will and perhaps our prayers. Many of them are suffering because of the direct effects of past American actions in the region. We helped to topple or prop up many of the governments in the region over decades, and played a role in extremely destructive wars — such as Iraq’s attack on revolutionary Iran. We overthrew the despotic but religiously tolerant Saddam Hussein — after which more than a million Christians were driven out of the country by various Islamist militias, despite the presence of a large, courageous American occupying army. That happened on our watch.

What would the Obama administration do if Hungary or Slovakia allowed vigilante militias to expel hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants, who are claiming refugee status — even though they left the safety of peaceful camps in friendly Turkey? There would be international outrage. But we as a nation allowed the expulsion not of refugees, but historic Christian communities which long predated the Arab/Muslim conquest of Iraq. And we barely lifted a finger.

Now we are concerned, understandably, about Russia muscling in on the Middle East, with its campaign in Syria — conducted in part, it claims, to protect that nation’s Christians from the threat of an Islamist victory there, either by ISIS, or the Al-Qaeda connected militias that have ended up with most of the American weapons we claimed that we were sending to “moderate” rebel groups. In response, the Obama administration is finally putting American boots on the ground, and conducting some small scale rescue attempts on behalf of threatened non-Muslims — more than a year after ISIS began its campaign of conquest, and started to sell captured Christian and Yezidi women as sex slaves. We are grateful to the brave American soldiers who conducted these recent raids, but the Obama administration’s efforts are too little, and too late.

America can serve her national interest and obey her conscience by adopting a much more comprehensive, humane policy toward persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the region — one which recognizes that they are the most threatened. For them, and them alone, a European nation may really be the “first safe country” to which they are legally entitled refuge under international law. They should receive preferential treatment over the much more numerous Muslim migrants, many of whom are in fact economic immigrants, seeking better lives in Europe. These Christians must receive military protection in their home countries, and those who have been driven out must be permitted to return, under safe conditions that preserve their cultural heritage and religious freedom. To accept any less is to collude in the greatest genocide of our time.

So here is the question I would pose to each of the candidates, at the next debate:

What is your strategic and tactical plan for preserving the lives, and restoring the freedom, of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East? Please be thorough and detailed, and explain to the American people the costs you would be willing to bear to make sure that this counter-genocide operation is successful.

Voters who care about religious liberty and human rights should demand a convincing answer from any candidate before offering their support. If America doesn’t stand for religious freedom anymore, then it doesn’t stand for much, and it won’t attract sympathy abroad or faithful citizenship at home.