OBAMA DOES HAVE A STRATEGY -- THE WRONG ONE! By Jiri and Leni Valenta

The difficulty of creating a strategy is that to do so you first have to do three things:  1.  Admit to the public that the threat exists, 2. Correctly define its nature, and 3. Assess its scope.  Mr. Obama, having known of ISIS for four years, appears to have kept the secret to himself.  It´s consistent with other efforts on his part to conceal or minimize the Islamist threat, but he isn´t doing us any favors.  Meanwhile, Influenced by his own biases, but also those of brilliant, but this time, misguided Zbigniew Brzezinski, he still is characterizing ISIS as a “terrorist group,” not an Islamic state.  Moreover, he persists in defining it as a regional threat, rather than a global one, requiring far more than limited intervention.

 Sadly, Brzezinski, the brilliant strategist, whom we admire so much, is wrong this time, and his analysis has had an unfortunate impact on POTUS´s own views.  Denying the Islamic, ideological roots of ISIS terrorism is like denying the racist roots of NAZI-ism or ideological roots of anti-Western  Leninism.  Nor can you fight the new mortal threat to our civilization if you cannot either define it correctly, or admit it´s scope.   Mushrooming caliphates are being conceptualized not only in Syria and Iraq, but also Libya, Somalia, Nigeria, Chechnya and on the Afghanistan-Pakistan borders. 

Counter to Brzezinski, we also assert that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are also Islamist terrorist groups with potential to become caliphates.  Israel´s struggle against them, no matter how Obama and Zbig try to get around it, is one for survival.  Just as ISIS´s barbarism was demonstrated in the beheadings of U.S. martyrs, Jim Foley and Steve Sotloff, the barbarism of Hamas was unveiled by the assassination of a dozen alleged Israeli agents before a mosque -- without a trial and after a cease fire.  

The threat of Islamic terrorism is global and must be fought as such.  As the fateful September 11 date approaches, we must be fully alert and concerned about the planes stolen in Libya and how they may be used.   No longer must the selling of teenage girls into slavery in Nigeria by Boko Haram, or the bombings in Kenya and Somalia by Al Shabbat, be ignored by America as happening someplace else.   All the indications are that we are engaged in a new global war where a black threat has replaced the Brown one and the Red one, both formerly aimed at destruction of the West.  Are we going to wait until the Islamic terrorists obtain nuclear weapons in almost civil-war driven Pakistan before Mr. Obama owns the global threat?  Must we wait for the return of British, West European, but also (800) Russian Jihadists to their homelands?

Speaking of Russia, there is the second threat to world peace, the post-communist conflict between pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine´s Southeast, and the democratic government in Kiev.   In the face of ISIS, our strategy with the Ukraine must be linked.  Determining that Putin´s support for the former corrupt regime in Kiev, and his annexation of Crimea sparked the present conflict, we were among the first to propose arms for Kiev.  We also proposed a negotiated solution to the crisis with the chief aim that a democratic, independent, neutral Ukraine survives. 

However, as objective analysts, we cannot be insensitive to one of the long-underlying causes of the crisis.  As Former Secretary  of Defense Robert Gates, pointed out  the  mad rush to enlarge NATO to Russia´s borders, inspired by Brzezinski’s thoughts, produced new fears of “encirclement” in the Kremlin that persist today. 

Of course Zbig is right that Putin has lately displayed unguarded comments, lies and actions, suggesting his unpredictable nature.  Nevertheless, the Christian autocrat in the Kremlin also is much aware there are 800 Russian citizens among the ISIS Jihadists, some of them eager to return to their homeland.   If unimpeded, new, Islamic, fascist Caliphates may rise in the Caucasus as well as  regions of Russia´s southern underbelly.   

Can we shape a comprehensive strategy?  Yes.  But it must be linked to the crisis in the Ukraine and the Russian factor.  First U.S. statescraft must reject Obama´s misleading regional strategy, devoid of the words “radical Islam.,”  He must also lead in shaping this strategy as we did in WWII, into a global, anti-totalitarian struggle in defense of Western c ivilization against a new Dark Age.