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With little fanfare, another taboo in U.S.-Iran relations has shattered. Jim Slattery, a former six-term Democratic Congressman from Kansas, late last year became the first former or current American legislator to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Tehran to attend a conference on countering violent extremism, Slattery encountered a largely friendly reception from both officials and ordinary Iranians and came back equipped to present a more realistic and upbeat depiction of Iranians than is usually found on Capitol Hill. Speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Slattery conceded that there are elements in Iran that still oppose any...

The general feeling in Cairo and other Arab capitals is that the US and the Western world are not serious when it comes to confronting the threat of Iran, the Islamic State or other terrorist groups in the Middle East. Thanks to President Sisi's new and bold approach, there is a real chance that Arabs will lead the fight against extremists and terrorists. This is a development that should be welcomed and backed by the US and the rest of the international community. "The conference [on Countering Violent Extremism, in Washington] did not give birth to a global strategy on...

Mr. President, Your recent summit to “Counter Violent Extremism” was flawed from the start—beginning with its name. Extremism is indeed a threat (especially a threat to Christians), but that is not what we face when confronting ISIS. On that issue, I’m afraid you’re confused. First let’s look at the definition of extremists: namely, people who advocate or resort to measures beyond norms to enforce their views. To look at textbook examples of extremism, one doesn’t need to look abroad. Let’s enumerate some acts of extremism inflicted by the US government: Removing the Bible by force from schools after it had...

A clear trend emerges when President Obama discusses religion. When discussing Islam, it is within the sole context of a “peaceful religion.” When discussing other religions, it is within the context of their once having fostered hatred and violence, as he said at the National Prayer Breakfast and the Summit to Counter Violent Extremism (SCVE).

Some of the most prominent reformers have argued for years that the ideological and theological roots of Islamist extremism must be addressed, a topic administration officials carefully avoided during a three-day summit this week. Reformers also say the White House is hurting its own efforts by working with people who sympathize with the goals of violent extremist groups, if not their methods."We have to own the issue of extremist Islamic theology in order to defeat it and remove it from our world. We have to name it to tame it," Muslim journalists Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa wrote in an...

Obama tried to counter the Paris Unity March, which his administration boycotted, with a seminar on “Countering Violent Extremism”. CVE continues to mean pandering to the Muslim Brotherhood and refusing to deal with Islamic terrorism. Obama is claiming that the solution is to teach the true peaceful nature of Islam while continuing to push the lie that the Chapel Hill killings targeted Muslims. Biden is cheerleading all that Muslim immigration. “I’m proud of the American record on culture and economic integration of not only our Muslim communities but African communities, Asian communities, Hispanic communities,” Biden said. “And the wave still...

Violent extremists who are killing children and others in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and other parts of the world may cite Islam as a justification, but the West should be careful about calling them Islamic radicals, Secretary of State John Kerry told an audience of opinion leaders Friday at the World Economic Forum. In a speech calling for a global effort against violent extremism, Kerry said it would be a mistake to link Islam to criminal conduct rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill-seeking and other factors. …

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, the White House has scheduled an anti-extremism conference that was originally set for last October but was postponed without explanation. In a statement issued as many world leaders gathered in the French capital Sunday to express solidarity with France and to vow renewed efforts to fight violent Islamic radicalism, the White House announced that its summit on the issue of homegrown terrorism will take place next month. "On February 18, 2015, the White House will host a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism to highlight domestic and international efforts to...

WASHINGTON — The White House will kick off a three-day summit Tuesday on combating violent extremism on social media — but the administration won’t focus on Islamic extremism and won’t even mention the term. “You can call them what you want; we’re calling them terrorists,” a senior Obama administration official said Monday. The determination not mention to Islam or Muslims comes as ISIS continues its murderous spree in the name of Islam, most recently beheading 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya.

RANCHO MIRAGE, California (AP) — A White House summit this week on countering violent extremism will not focus exclusively on threats from the Islamic State group, senior administration officials said Monday. While the militant group, which has killed several Americans and others it had been holding hostage, poses a near-term threat to the United States, one of three officials previewing the summit for reporters on Monday said violent extremists "come in all shapes and sizes." The three-day conference will highlight both domestic and international efforts to prevent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting and inspiring others, particularly disaffected young...

After months of taking flak for his lack of a coherent strategy to combat ISIS, President Obama came up with an answer. Unfortunately, it’s “let’s pretend.” In a speech to a conference Wednesday as well as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, our president did set forth an agenda for countering what he insisted on calling “violent extremism.” But his approach puts the top priority on the West acknowledging the terrorists’ conomic and political grievances. That won’t convince anyone that Obama understands the nature of the threat. Nor will it do much to convince groups like ISIS that he’s...

Obama’s Summit of Jihad DenialPosted By Joseph Klein On February 19, 2015 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 4 Comments What is President Obama doing this week in the face of the unrelenting wave of jihadist-inspired terrorist attacks, the latest of which occurred in Copenhagen and on the bloodied Mediterranean shore of Libya while Obama played golf in California?  He is holding a politically correct summit conference on “countering violent extremism,” a three-day community circles talkfest beginning on February 17.Vice President Joe Biden kicked off the conference. National Security Advisor Susan Rice is delivering the closing address. In between these bookends are sessions discussing community-based...

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: We in the administration and the government should give voice to the plight of Muslims living in this country and the discrimination that they face.

The rise of violent extremism represents the pre-eminent challenge of the young 21st century. Military force is a rational and often necessary response to the wanton slaughters of children, mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, and beheading of innocents. But military force alone won’t achieve victory. In the long term, this war will be won only by deploying a broader, far more creative arsenal. A safer and more prosperous future requires us to recognize that violent extremism can’t be justified by resorting to religion. No legitimate religious interpretation teaches adherents to commit unspeakable atrocities, such as razing villages or turning children into...

They’re burning and beheading victims in the name of Islam, but President Obama delivered a major speech Wednesday on combating violent extremism — while refusing to use the words “Muslim terrorists.” “No religion is responsible for terrorism — people are responsible for violence and terrorism,” Obama told a crowd that included Muslim community leaders at the White House. Following months of unrelenting atrocities by ISIS killers who released videos of themselves beheading US journalists and, most recently, 21 Coptic Christians, and burning a man alive, the president kowtowed to the audience by proclaiming that “Islam has been woven into the...

What is President Obama doing this week in the face of the unrelenting wave of jihadist-inspired terrorist attacks, the latest of which occurred in Copenhagen and on the bloodied Mediterranean shore of Libya while Obama played golf in California? He is holding a politically correct summit conference on “countering violent extremism,” a three-day community circles talkfest beginning on February 17.

The most outrageous thing about President Barack Obama’s “extremism” summit Wednesday was not that it failed to identify Islamic terror as the primary threat. Nor was it that there were several Muslim representatives with extremist views present. Nor was it that the president still refuses to acknowledge ISIS (or ISIL) as “Islamic”—even while referring to it by an acronym whose first letter stands for “Islamic” (rather than the transliterated Arabic acronym, “Daesh”). Rather, the most offensive thing about Obama’s “extremism” summit was that the “dog and pony show” (as it was called by no less a liberal than MSNBC’s Andrea...

A U.S. Islamic advocacy group says that Vice- President Joe Biden, addressing a White House summit on “countering violent extremism (CVE)” on Tuesday, referred to right-wing extremists and supremacists committing violence “in the name of the Bible.” The comments did not feature in Biden’s 19 minute-long opening remarks, televised by C-SPAN, in which the vice-president focused on America as a nation of immigrants, the need for different communities to “see” each other, and for countries to engage with “marginalized” communities. “Biden just talked about the right wing militias & supremacist groups that are violent in the name of the Bible,”...

The White House’s “Countering Violent Extremism” summit is barely underway, yet the message is already clear: the conference is politically correct — and far worse — a charade. And that is a charitable interpretation. Its sponsors are engaging in intentional obfuscation (e.g., saying “violent extremism” is the enemy), as well as peddling ineffective and ill-considered policy proposals (more community “empowerment”). The conference will effectively aid and abet America’s increasingly ascendant jihadist foes. Reviewing the Obama administration’s summit preview, here are its 10 most disturbing aspects:

Following the deadly Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in Paris last week, the Obama administration finally set a date for its global summit on dealing with “extremism.” However, the conclave will not be focusing on Western and Arab governments’ support for extreme jihadists in Libya, Syria, and beyond; or on extreme gun-control schemes that left French citizens defenseless in the face of terrorism last week; or on extreme anti-free-speech policies purporting to ban criticism of Islam pushed by the United Nations, the European Union, and the Socialist French government. Instead, the White House “extremism” summit will focus primarily on expanding the...