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The United States, they have come to believe, has a soft spot for revolutionary societies over stable and traditional allies. And the other message they have gotten is that America does not really belong in the Middle East, where, prior to Obama, it supposedly played a neo-imperialist and counter-productive role. No administration official seems to grasp that destroying ISIS in the Middle East tarnishes the romantic appeal of radical Islam to Western wannabe Islamic terrorists.
There will be more ISIS-inspired attacks. The terrorists will likely conclude that the last six months of the Obama administration offer them opportunities not seen in the past and perhaps not likely to reoccur in either a Clinton or Trump administration. More disturbing, radical Islamists have studied the reactions of Westerners to particular strains of their terror. Targeting sports events, rock concerts or gay nightclubs, especially with firearms, might ensure that Western internecine blame-gaming, rather than a unified and unequivocal outrage against Islamic radicalism, is the most likely reaction. Meanwhile, conservative opponents of Obamas efforts to radically restrict the use of firearms or to airbrush away Islamism as the chief terrorist catalyst inspire more presidential furor than do the ISIS perpetratorsa fault line known to our enemies and likely to encourage further radical Islamic aggression.
We are seeing the second wind, not the decline, of ISIS terror.
Orlando reinforced the uncomfortable fact that “fighting them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here” is just another neocon fallacy.
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