President Obama may or may not be right when he claims, as he often does, that “the core of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is on the way to defeat.” But it is clear that the broader movement of violent Islamism, which has been identified with al-Qaeda but which is actually much broader, is far from defeated.
Consider just the terrible news of the past weekend.
We can drone strike the leadership when we find them, but Islamism’s “little guys” — the gunmen, the suicide bombers — are much more inspired by what bin Laden called “the strong horse.”
Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom began his foreign policy with an apologetic speech in Cairo. From there, things got worse. Drone strikes are, to a terrorist, the actions of a weak horse, afraid to get his hands bloody. The other side has no such compunctions, as they’ve shown again and again.
Go read the whole thing.
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