The religious cleansing and genocidal attacks by Islamist rebels against Christians in Syria show the horrors of what might happen to Coptic Christians in Egypt if battle lines are drawn. The threat has already been made perfectly clear, as in this video, where a "religious Muslim woman" screams,
"I have one word for you Christians: You live by our side. We will set you on fire! We will set you on fire!"
In light of these very real threats, the need for protection of the Christian minority in Egypt (and of course Syria) should be the primary foreign policy stance of the United States and the Western world.
What happens when the West ignores the reality of Muslim threats against Christians can be seen in the Armenian/Orthodox genocide perpetrated by the Muslim Turks from 1894 to 1922, which left 4 million Christians dead.
