Obama Missteps Have Led To Resurgence Of Al-Qaida
Posted 07/24/2013 06:45 PM ET
War On Terror:
A number of violent events in recent weeks show that al-Qaida, far from
being vanquished, has come back with a vengeance. Maybe our president
can "focus like a laser" on that, too.
In the pretend world that liberals inhabit, the terrorist threat from al-Qaida has been reduced to ruin by a mix of crafty Obama Middle East policies, domestic anti-terror initiatives and drone strikes on al-Qaida leadership.
Obama himself has encouraged such thinking. Last Sept. 12, just one day after his ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were murdered by al-Qaida-linked terrorists, the president said, "Al-Qaida is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead."
Again, a day after that, Obama told Americans that al-Qaida had been "decimated," by which he meant destroyed as an effective force.
Sorry, but after five years of Obama's "smart" foreign policy, al-Qaida is not "decimated." It's making a comeback. To wit:
• This week al-Qaida carried out bomb attacks at two Iraqi prisons, freeing hundreds of hardened al-Qaida operatives. A member of Iraq's parliament said "the number of escaped inmates has reached 500. Most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qaida and had received death sentences." Bad news for the "al-Qaida is dead" crowd.
• A new study by the respected Rand Corp. think tank, authored by analyst Seth Jones, argues: "There has been a net expansion in the number and geographic scope of al-Qaida affiliates and allies over the past decade, indicating that al-Qaida and its brand are far from defeated."
• Al-Qaida shows signs of metastasizing in recent years across the Middle East and North Africa to places where it previously had little presence, such as northern Syria, Mali and Algeria.
Unfortunately, despite all this, President Obama has abandoned the war on terror — a phrase he doesn't allow spoken in the White House.
Yet recent policy actions have made al-Qaida's revival possible, by increasing instability and uncertainty in the Middle East and making those in the region who seek a decent, civil society fear for their lives.
By warmly welcoming Islamic fundamentalists' hijacking of the so-called Arab Spring and looking the other way as NATO ally Turkey edges closer to the fundamentalist camp, Obama has emboldened al-Qaida and its fundamentalist allies.
And by abandoning Iraq and what he once called the "necessary" war in Afghanistan after the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops, the president has shown our enemies that America doesn't have the will or stomach to fight the fundamentalist tide.
As Obama walks away from the mess he's created in the Middle East, the threat from al-Qaida and other fundamentalist Islamic groups that seek to destroy the West can only grow.
In the pretend world that liberals inhabit, the terrorist threat from al-Qaida has been reduced to ruin by a mix of crafty Obama Middle East policies, domestic anti-terror initiatives and drone strikes on al-Qaida leadership.
Obama himself has encouraged such thinking. Last Sept. 12, just one day after his ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were murdered by al-Qaida-linked terrorists, the president said, "Al-Qaida is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead."
Again, a day after that, Obama told Americans that al-Qaida had been "decimated," by which he meant destroyed as an effective force.
Sorry, but after five years of Obama's "smart" foreign policy, al-Qaida is not "decimated." It's making a comeback. To wit:
• This week al-Qaida carried out bomb attacks at two Iraqi prisons, freeing hundreds of hardened al-Qaida operatives. A member of Iraq's parliament said "the number of escaped inmates has reached 500. Most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qaida and had received death sentences." Bad news for the "al-Qaida is dead" crowd.
• A new study by the respected Rand Corp. think tank, authored by analyst Seth Jones, argues: "There has been a net expansion in the number and geographic scope of al-Qaida affiliates and allies over the past decade, indicating that al-Qaida and its brand are far from defeated."
• Al-Qaida shows signs of metastasizing in recent years across the Middle East and North Africa to places where it previously had little presence, such as northern Syria, Mali and Algeria.
Unfortunately, despite all this, President Obama has abandoned the war on terror — a phrase he doesn't allow spoken in the White House.
Yet recent policy actions have made al-Qaida's revival possible, by increasing instability and uncertainty in the Middle East and making those in the region who seek a decent, civil society fear for their lives.
By warmly welcoming Islamic fundamentalists' hijacking of the so-called Arab Spring and looking the other way as NATO ally Turkey edges closer to the fundamentalist camp, Obama has emboldened al-Qaida and its fundamentalist allies.
And by abandoning Iraq and what he once called the "necessary" war in Afghanistan after the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops, the president has shown our enemies that America doesn't have the will or stomach to fight the fundamentalist tide.
As Obama walks away from the mess he's created in the Middle East, the threat from al-Qaida and other fundamentalist Islamic groups that seek to destroy the West can only grow.
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