All Islamists must be defeated

By Caroline Glick

[..] At the outset of his remarks, Obama insisted that Islamic State, or (ISIL has he calls it), “is not ‘Islamic.’” Obama may be right, and he may be wrong.

That’s for Muslims to determine. But whatever the truth is about Islam and jihad, the fact is that hundreds of millions of Muslims believe that Islamic State and other jihadist groups and regimes, of both the Shi’ite and Sunni variety, are accurate expressions of Islam. This is why thousands of Muslims from Europe and the US are flocking to Iraq and Syria to join Islamic State.

Obama’s policies for contending with Islamic jihadists are a natural extension of his refusal to speak hard truths to Muslims or speak truthfully about Islamic terrorism and jihadism. His whitewashing of jihadist Islam on Wednesday night similarly was reflected in the strategy he set out for fighting Islamic State.

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Obama’s strategy involves joining US air power with anti-Islamic State forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Yet aside from the Kurds, all the forces on the ground in both countries are deeply problematic.

Just hours before Obama’s speech, the leadership of Syria’s “moderate” rebel forces was decapitated in an explosion. And for all their moderation, the leaders were part of an anti-Assad coalition that included Islamic State.

Although he is an Alawite, Bashar Assad and his forces are members of the Shi’ite jihadist coalition led by Iran that includes Hezbollah.

These forces are more dangerous than Islamic State. Yet US air strikes against Islamic State will redound to their direct benefit.

Obama’s refusal to acknowledge the existence of jihad – of both the Sunni and Shi’ite variety – makes it impossible for him to devise a realistic strategy for defeating jihadists. He rightly defines Islamic State as an enemy of the US, but because he denies the existence of jihad, he is incapable of putting Islamic State in its proper strategic context. Among the many forces fighting on the ground in Iraq and Syria today, you have two jihadist forces – one Shi’ite and one Sunni – that are fighting each other. Both are enemies of America and its allies.

Defeating only one group empowers others, and so you keep ending up where you started.

Yet rather than understand that while jihadist forces may oppose one another, the threat they pose to the free world is indivisible, as Obama focuses on Islamic State, he is enabling Iran to expand its power in Iraq and Syria, and to complete its nuclear weapons program.

Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran continues to hide key information about its nuclear program from the UN nuclear watchdog, despite its agreement to provide the IAEA with full transparency last November.

The Iranians continue to bar IAEA inspectors from the suspected military nuclear installation at Parchin. Negotiations on a nuclear accord between the US and its partners and Iran are going nowhere. According to Western diplomatic sources, the failure to reach an accord owes entirely to Iran’s refusal to compromise on any substantive nuclear issues.

While Iran refuses to provide transparency to the IAEA, its guiding strategy is clear to the naked eye. It is prolonging negotiations to buy time to complete its nuclear program.

However, Obama, who insists that Islamic State “terrorists are unique in their brutality,” refuses to see the true picture.

The truth revealed on Wednesday night is that Obama cannot lead a successful war against the forces of Islamic jihad that threaten humanity. He cannot do so because he rejects the moral clarity required to confront the danger.

He cannot successfully lead the war because, as we saw once again on Wednesday night, he is not a leader. He is a politician.