Giving Hope To Evil

As President Barack Obama was expressing his gratitude for Cuban criticism of the United States, terrorists were killing innocents at the Brussels airport and at subway stations, including one very close to the headquarters of the European Union.

It is still a bit early to confidently identify the killers, but we can safely assume they were members of a radical Islamist organization (ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks). The attacks come just as British security forces were warning about imminent terror actions in London, perhaps as many as ten at a time, and they are of a piece with terror murders from California to Turkey.

Western counterterrorism officials expect more such attacks, and so should we. We need to engage in the global war aimed against the West by an alliance that includes both radical Muslims and extremist secularists, from Communist Cuba (a base for Hezbollah forces) and North Korea, and of course the world’s leading supporter of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One cannot help but be struck by the fact that the Obama Administration is trying to “normalize” relations with both Islamist and radical leftist regimes at the very moment they are supporting our killers.

The administration claims it is acting in the cause of peace, but it is actually catalyzing a war that we are currently losing. President Obama believes enemies can become friends if they are treated with respect and understanding. But that does not work with convinced and determined enemies of the sort now bombing our cities and shooting our people. It works best, as in the cases of Germany and Japan, with defeated enemies. Right now, they have every reason to believe that history and the Almighty are on their side, guaranteeing our ultimate defeat.

It seems self-evident that, when you’re in a war, you want strong and loyal allies, and weak and divided enemies. Yet this administration has killed common sense. President Obama spent hours with Cuban enemies but could only spare 52 seconds to an expression of sympathy for our European allies. When our leaders cannot tell the difference between real friends and determined enemies, they end by accepting our enemies’ view of the world, as Obama’s behavior abundantly demonstrates.

There is a similar confusion in our own body politic. Those who have been whipped into a frenzy by fear of a Donald Trump nomination have rarely, if ever, taken to the streets to protest Obama’s fecklessness in the defense of our country. An imagined or anticipated Trump presidency frightens such people more than a real, live Obama Administration that has given great hope to America’s would-be killers.

Havana and Brussels are part of the same policy. Both convey American and broader Western weakness. Both fuel anti-American fury. And both cost American lives.

Michael Ledeen is the Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @michaelledeen.