Abandoning Iraqi Christians after the invasion to die at the hands of Islamist animals is a blight on America’s soul….

(The Hill) — Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are fervently pressing the White House to stem mounting attacks on Christians in Iraq.

Since 2004, 40 Christian churches and institutions have been bombed, according to the Chaldean Assyrian Syriac Council of America, seven on the eve of Orthodox Christmas alone in 2007.

In a recent letter to President Obama, the group warned that the current situation “promises more innocent Christian blood in Iraq, more turmoil in that country, and more shame for America.”

Lawmakers hope they can steer the attention of the White House to the intensifying violence.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), the only Assyrian member of Congress and a close friend of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), remembers well listening to her grandparents’ stories of family members being slain or fleeing the region, as they did when they came to the United States.

“History is repeating itself,” the congresswoman somberly told The Hill.

Eshoo and the co-chairman of the Religious Minorities in Iraq Caucus, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), have been trying to bring awareness to the plight of Christians in Iraq since the invasion of that country by coalition forces upended the sectarian dynamic, provided fertile ground for extremist groups such as al Qaeda to take root and put religious minorities under new pressure.