Obama's Withdrawal from the War with the Jihadists, Is Dangerous

Dr. Walid Phares
August 14, 2009

This commentary is in response and conjunction to a report by Anthony Kimery titled, "Rejection of ‘Jihadist,’ ‘War on Terrorism’ Terms Draws Fire, Debate," as published in HSToday, Homeland Security Insight & Analysis.

Commenting on the Administration's report on dropping the use of words such as War on Terror and Jihad, the director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the author of, Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West, and The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, told HS Today: “as we read [Brennan’s speech], we realize that the administration is going backward in understanding the threat and explaining it to the public.

Going Backward

“They say the doctrine is ‘to safeguard the American people from the transnational challenge that poses one of the greatest threats to our national security -- the scourge of violent extremists who would use terrorism to slaughter Americans abroad and at home.’ What does that mean?

Nothing. It is as if they speak in abstract. Which ‘transnational challenge is posing the greatest threat to US national security?’ It is the global jihadist threat, with its two networks, the Salafists and the Khomeinists, not the Nazis, the Soviet Communists or militaristic regimes. Why is the Obama administration regressing into a level way below what most educated Americans understand?”

Wishful Thinking Can't Change Ideologies

Phares said “the administration criticizes the narrative of its predecessor and we do as well, but instead they propose something weaker and in some aspects dangerous to US national security. After eight years of confrontation with a world web of jihadists, both Salafists and Khomeinists, on two major battlefields in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and in various regions of the world such as Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia, the Levant, the Maghreb, and as the threat penetrates the West with homegrown cells, the administration's doctrine on the threat understanding is entirely disconnected from reality.

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Source: New Media Journal