Over the past few months, Armenia has been pulled into an intense controversy involving the government and leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Some commentators — especially abroad — have tried to frame this as a full-blown “war on Christianity.” And one of the loudest voices pushing that angle is Tucker Carlson.
But here’s the simple truth: that framing is intellectually dishonest. It cherry-picks facts, ignores context, and whips up outrage for an American audience that doesn’t know the internal dynamics of Armenia.
Let’s break down what’s actually happening.
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A Deep, Complicated History — Not a Religious Crackdown
The Armenian Apostolic Church is one of the oldest Christian institutions on earth. It has guided Armenians through centuries of foreign rule, genocide, and national trauma. Naturally, it still carries enormous respect.
But it has also long been involved in politics, and its current top leadership has close ties to Russian political interests. That’s important, because Armenia’s government — since the 2018 revolution — has tried to reduce Russian influence and strengthen civilian governance.
That effort alone created friction.
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The Arrests Were Political, Not Religious
The recent controversy centers on two archbishops who were arrested — not for preaching, not for practicing Christianity, and not for challenging the faith — but for allegedly engaging in political activity that crossed into calls for a coup and even violence.
Leaked audio recordings show one archbishop discussing plans that authorities interpreted as encouraging assassinations or violent intimidation. The opposition did not deny the recordings — only insisted they were “out of context.”
No other clergy have been targeted.
Worship has not been restricted.
Churches remain open and fully active.
This is not religious persecution.
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So Why Are Pundits Calling It That?
This is where the foreign commentary comes in — particularly Tucker Carlson’s coverage. Instead of presenting the full picture, Carlson stripped away all context and repackaged the story as an emotional narrative: Christian clergy jailed by an anti-Christian government.
It’s a powerful narrative, but it’s not true. And Armenian analysts have pointed out that this framing mirrors the same Russian disinformation themes that aim to destabilize Armenia internally:
• Painting the government as anti-Christian
• Claiming Armenia is being “Islamized”
• Portraying the Church as the last defender of Armenian identity
• Casting political arrests as spiritual persecution
These narratives serve a purpose: they divide Armenians, undermine trust in democratic institutions, and make the country more vulnerable to outside manipulation.
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Religious Freedom in Armenia Is Not Under Attack
Despite the noise, Armenia still enjoys:
• Free worship
• Open churches
• Active clergy
• Constitutionally protected religious freedom
The government’s dispute is with specific individuals, not with Christianity.
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The Real Struggle Is About Sovereignty, Not Religion
At the heart of this controversy is a larger fight over Armenia’s future:
• How much influence should Russia have?
• Should religious leaders wield political power?
• Who gets to shape Armenia’s direction — elected officials or unelected networks tied to foreign interests?
This is a political struggle, not an attack on the Christian faith.
And when outsiders like Tucker Carlson present this as a religious war, they aren’t helping Armenia. They’re deepening the divide at a moment when the country is already fragile.
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Final Takeaway
Armenia is not persecuting Christians. That claim is misleading, inflammatory, and rooted in geopolitics, not facts.
The real story is about power, influence, and Armenia’s struggle to chart its own future. Recognizing that reality is the first step toward understanding what’s truly unfolding in the world’s first Christian nation.
On this holy in special day, please don’t forget about people in Warzone around the world. We are unable to celebrate as they would like.
Thank you to everyone who opened their hearts and homes to these puppies. We’re so grateful they’ve gone to such wonderful families. This community truly shows up in times of need, and we are incredibly thankful for every message, share, and offer of help. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas, Chuck and family! May you have a blessed time with family and the "grand babies."
I have fond memories of visiting Beckley back in '93 to visit Appalachian Bible College and spend some time with my uncle, who was the pastor at Mt. Tabor Baptist, aunt and cousin. I left Beckley only to return home to a flood.
One other thing I remember: It seemed like everything bore former Senator Robert Byrd's name.
Thank you for everything you do. May God richly bless all of you!
Reminder: Live Call with Chuck Tomorrow at 12PM
Join Chuck Holton and the Hot Zone crew tomorrow, December 20th at 12PM for a special live call!
We’ll be announcing the winners of the Christmas giveaway and giving you an inside look at what’s coming next for The Hot Zone.
Breaking news this Saturday: three Americans are dead in Syria tonight, three more are wounded, and the attack—described by U.S. Central Command as an ambush carried out by a lone ISIS gunman—has once again dragged the Syrian war back into the American consciousness for a few brief hours, which is usually all the time the public gives it before the news cycle moves on and the families are left to carry the weight alone.
CENTCOM says two of the dead were U.S. service members and one was an American civilian contractor, and that the attacker was engaged and killed as well, with names being withheld until next of kin are notified, which is the right thing to do; but even with those official facts in hand, I want to slow the pace down a little bit and do what I always try to do here—put this in context—because in a place like Syria, the story you get in the headline is almost never the story that explains why this happened.
I’m not interested in reporting tragedy like it’s a scoreboard, and I’m not interested in repeating a paragraph of breaking news without the background that makes it intelligible; I spent eight years in the military, and I’ve spent more than twenty years following the U.S. military across the globe—Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria included, with more than a dozen trips into Afghanistan, roughly fifteen into Iraq, and seven or so into Syria—so when Americans die in a place most people couldn’t find on a map, I feel a responsibility to show you what the map actually means.
The reported location of the attack is Palmyra—Palmira on some maps—an ancient city in central Syria that sits on the edge of a brutal expanse of desert, the kind of wide open, sun-blasted country where outsiders assume nothing lives and nothing happens, when in reality it’s exactly the kind of terrain insurgents love because “nothing” is a perfect disguise, a perfect place to move, cache weapons, blend into small villages, disappear into wadis, and wait for opportunities.
Palmyra also sits inside territory controlled by Syria’s new administration under Ahmed al-Sharaa, and if that name makes you pause, it should, because this is where Syrian politics gets complicated in the way only Syria can do: al-Sharaa rose through jihadist ranks, he has a history tied to insurgent warfare against Americans in Iraq, he was captured and held for years, and he later returned to Syria and consolidated power with strong Turkish backing—so when you hear phrases like “new Syrian administration” or “transitional government,” don’t imagine a Western-style democracy that suddenly appeared out of the sand; imagine a patchwork of militias, alliances of convenience, old enemies wearing new uniforms, and a leadership class that wants international legitimacy while carrying a past that cannot be scrubbed clean with a new suit and a new flag.
Now layer on top of that the reality that ISIS is not gone from Syria, not even close.
U.S. estimates have long suggested there are still roughly 2,000 to 3,000 ISIS fighters operating in and around the central Syrian desert, and there are far more than that if you include facilitators, family networks, financiers, and the enormous number of ISIS-linked detainees and relatives held in camps and makeshift prisons; and while that fight has mostly slipped out of the American public’s view, it continues quietly, relentlessly, week after week, because the moment pressure is relieved in a place like this, the violence doesn’t fade—it regroups.
The United States currently has about 900 troops in Syria, a number that matters because it tells you how thin the margin is between “containment” and “collapse,” especially when the enemy has deep local roots and decades of practice living off the land and off the grievances of the people around them; and those American troops are there for one primary purpose: to keep a lid on ISIS so we don’t wake up one day to another wave of mass executions, terror-state governance, and regional destabilization that forces the world back into a far more expensive war.
That’s the mission, and it’s not abstract; when ISIS surged the last time, the human cost was staggering, and it wasn’t paid by politicians or pundits—it was paid by Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters, civilians, and yes, Americans too—and the reason our presence in Syria still functions as a deterrent is that in a powder keg region, a small, capable American footprint has a way of discouraging ambitious actors from taking the final step that turns instability into open war.
But here is the part that doesn’t get said out loud very often: the mission in Syria is increasingly tangled up in partnerships that are, at best, uneasy and, at worst, morally and strategically risky.
I’m coming to you today from Panama, where I’ve been digging into a story that’s far bigger than most people realize. It involves a shadowy network of ships—1,423 of them at last count—that roam the world’s oceans moving sanctioned oil for regimes like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Some call it the dark fleet, others the ghost fleet, but whatever the name, it’s become a lifeline for the world’s worst dictators.
Out of those 1,423 vessels, roughly 920 are sanctioned themselves. These aren’t just ships doing business in a gray area—they are part of a global ecosystem of deception, fraud, and corruption that props up authoritarian governments and undermines the international rules that keep maritime trade safe. They spoof GPS signals, turn off their transponders, swap oil with “cleaner” tankers in the dead of night, operate under shell-company ownership, and sail uninsured—floating environmental disasters just waiting to happen.
And for years, not much was done about it. But that may be changing.
Just days ago, the United States seized a massive VLCC tanker—the Skipper—carrying 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan crude bound for Cuba. It’s a move that seems small on its own, but it hints at something larger: Washington may finally be realizing that targeting the dark fleet isn’t just desirable—it’s strategically powerful.
That raises a fascinating question: What would happen if the U.S. and its allies cracked down hard on these ghost ships—everywhere, all at once? Could it reshape global power? Could it even topple Maduro?
Let’s dig into that.
These ghost ships function by exploiting cracks in the global maritime system. They manipulate AIS beacons, swap oil mid-ocean, hide ownership behind layers of shell companies, fly false flags, and operate without legitimate insurance. The UN’s maritime regulator has warned that these rusted, poorly maintained hulks are ticking time bombs—and we’ve already seen “Ukrainian sanctions” in action when Ukrainian sea drones blew up several shadow-fleet tankers in the Black Sea.
Imagine what happens if one of these decrepit tankers explodes in a global choke point like the Strait of Hormuz. You’d see a shock to oil markets overnight.
And yet, that’s the system that keeps Venezuela, Iran, and Russia afloat.
The seizure of the Skipper wasn’t random. It’s part of a broader pressure campaign—one that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has openly supported. He said plainly that going after these vessels is a direct way to choke off the revenue Maduro depends on to stay in power.
Pompeo also noted something key: Maduro’s regime probably has “weeks, not months” of financial runway without this illicit revenue stream. And Cuba—already experiencing rolling blackouts—relies on Venezuela for about a quarter of its total energy supply. This single tanker seizure hurts Havana even more than Caracas.
But perhaps the most important variable is geography. Satellite data reveals dozens of sanctioned tankers parked just off Venezuela’s northern coast. In theory, if the U.S. waits for them to exit Venezuela’s 200-mile EEZ, it could legally seize many of them—especially the stateless ones.
Imagine the U.S. grabbing one tanker per day.
The ripple effects would be enormous.
