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When will our
leaders understand that it's Morning in America for jihadists?
BY PETE HOEKSTRA
Shillman Senior Fellow, Investigative
Project on Terrorism
November 2, 2015
Note: This article
originally was published by FoxNews.com
Jihadists
awoke to a new dawn on the day that the Obama administration began
implementing a new and uncharted foreign policy seven years ago.
In
his 2009 inaugural speech the new president declared that America
"will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist"
when discussing "those who cling to power through corruption and
deceit and the silencing of dissent."
The
result? Today Egypt is rebuilding its government following the disastrous
Islamist Muslim Brotherhood regime. Libya is a malignant tumor in north
Africa that spreads the cancer of weapons, training and ideology throughout
the broader region. Syria and Iraq are nearly ungovernable with ISIS on its
murderous rampage. Israel is under siege by Palestinian terrorists.
This
is not to say that Obama and his advisors caused the chaos by themselves,
yet the common thread starts from when it fundamentally reversed
longstanding bipartisan U.S. foreign policy. For the first time in decades,
the government embraced such bad actors as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda
and Hamas – jihadist groups with American blood on their hands – without
prejudice.
U.S. leadership
needs to recognize that jihadists hate us, they want to destroy our way of
life, and that they have developed dozens of front groups in the United
States such as the Council for American-Islamic Relations to provide cover
for their activities.
Previous
Republican and Democratic administrations did not overtly engage with
radical Islamists because their philosophy is inconsistent with Western
values. Their goal is not to reach an accommodation with the West, but to
destroy it.
Obama's
rhetoric became policy, and the full nature of the dramatic shift revealed
itself. He threw President Hosni Mubarak – our ally in Egypt – under the
bus as the U.S. subtly signaled that it was comfortable working with the
Muslim Brotherhood.
Director
of National Intelligence General James R. Clapper reinforced the change in
direction with his unfounded prediction to a congressional committee in
2012 that al Qaida would "find it difficult to compete for local
support with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that participate in the
political process, provide social services and advocate religious
values."
In
Libya, Muammar Qaddafi's son, Seif, begged for peace negotiations, but the
administration allied with the salafi-jihadist Libyan Islamic Fighting
Group to overthrow and kill his father.
The
resulting failed state in Libya allowed significant weapons caches –
Gaddafi's leftover stockpiles, NATO-supplied arms and those shipped in from
the UAE and Qatar — to make their way into the hands of those who murdered
four Americans in Benghazi, as well as to the 'rebels' in Syria that would
metastasize into ISIS.
Jihadi
organizations around the world saw a new America with the Obama
administration that they had repeatedly fooled into believing that they
could now be trusted and managed.
In
the same manner the Obama administration provided unprecedented access by
individuals and groups with radical Islamist ties to the highest levels of
the executive branch. Such access offers unique opportunities to influence
public policy and to gain credibility, which they in turn exploit to
discredit other organizations and add authority to their messages.
Such
a sweeping policy change by Obama resulted in much of the world seeing U.S.
weakness and taking advantage of it. America has experienced the failure of
this engagement policy through aggression by the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt; radical Islamists operating unmolested in Libya; ISIS expanding its
reach and genocidal campaign in Syria and Iraq; as well as Hamas and
Palestinian mercenaries attacking Israel, which current Secretary of State
John Kerry dismisses as "random acts of violence."
Despite
the turmoil, former Secretary of State and presidential frontrunner Hillary
Clinton recently claimed that the U.S. is safer and that this is the best
example of an exercise in American smart power.
It's
not.
U.S.
leadership needs to recognize that jihadists hate us, they want to destroy
our way of life, and that they have developed dozens of front groups in the
United States such as the Council for American-Islamic Relations to provide
cover for their activities.
We
are at war and the sooner we recognize, confront and defeat the enemy, the
safer we will become.
Pete Hoekstra is the former Chairman of the U.S. House
Intelligence Committee and currently the Shillman Senior Fellow with the
Investigative Project on Terrorism. This piece has been excerpted from his
new book, Architects of Disaster: The Destruction
of Libya, published by Calamo Press. (c) Pete Hoekstra 2015. All rights
reserved.
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