Last November, in response to the ISIS sponsored terrorist attacks in Paris, I wrote a special post in which I referred to the date, November 13, 2015, as one we will remember as a “game changer” in our war with radical Islam. Then in December came San Bernadino and in March came Brussels. Now on June 12 we had yet another such event to remember in Orlando which was even more devastating and my first thought was, has the game really changed since Paris? The answer is absolutely not–ISIS is on the march around the world and President Obama is still in denial as to the threat we face and even to the religious and ideological sources of the enemy’s legitimacy.
When will we accept the fact that we are squarely in the middle of an almost worldwide civil war for the soul of Islam that will play out over many years much like the Reformation in Europe? The view that the U. S. should allow this civil war to be regarded as an avoidable involvement or one in which we can “lead from behind” with sporadic and surgical air strikes is naive at best. It will require the active involvement of NATO as well as virtually every element of our vast intelligence, military, and diplomatic resources.
The leader of the free world needs to wake up and realize that the top priority for world leadership from the U. S. is not closing Gitmo, climate change, or transgender rights in the military forces, it is to lead the defeat of radical Islam in all of its manifestations. President Bush made his share of mistakes in the Middle East, but he was right about a lot of things, primarily that our choice is to defeat the enemy there or be forced to defeat them here. And I should add that the two presumptive nominees to succeed Obama must get much more serious about what they will do to accomplish this mission come January. Right now, neither one of them is close to rising to the threat. The American people deserve much better.
I agree completely agree.