Could the Mideast Use Some ‘Trumpification’?

Germany’s foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, recently spoke out against what he called the “Trumpification” of the Middle East.

“The recent massive arms deals President Trump made with the Gulf monarchies exacerbate the risk of a new arms race … I am very concerned by the dramatic escalation of the situation and the consequences for the whole region,” Minister Gabriel said.

He was referring to the White House siding with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Qatar for its evident support of Iran and jihadist terror via the Muslim Brotherhood. This has built into quite the standoff and the resulting blockade has had ripples throughout the region. The Qatari riyal has taken a beating and they are seeing compensation for the blockade. In addition to the Saudis and UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Maldives and Yemen have all cut ties with Qatar.

It's a mess all right, but with due respect to the Germans and other critics, Trumpification may not be such a bad thing. In taking a hard line against Doha, the President is continuing the Bush doctrine, that the U.S. "should make no distinction between terrorists and the nations that harbor them--and hold both to account." Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is within his purview to try to negotiate a solution to this standoff, after the proper lesson has been learned, but despite his evident misgivings and indignation about the key role played by Trump son-in-law and key advisor Jared Kushner, he should support his boss on this.

Trump reportedly doubled down on his position in a call with Gulf region leaders. According to the White House, as reported by Reuters, “"He reiterated the importance of stopping terrorist financing and discrediting extremist ideology. The president also underscored that unity in the region is critical to accomplishing the Riyadh Summit's goals of defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability," the White House said.

"President Trump, nevertheless, believes that the overriding objective of his initiative is the cessation of funding for terrorism," it said.

In addition to its links with the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar has also nurtured ties with Israel’s most fierce enemy, Hamas, under the claim that it is trying to promote more engagement and moderation. (That claim was bolstered by a recent Hamas statement that seems to accept a two-state solution, albeit one that does not formally recognize Israel.)

Yes, it was disappointing that the president has shelved his campaign promise to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

But he certainly made a solid statement about Jerusalem as the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall. And there’s much else to like about the emerging Trump Middle East policy. Unlike his predecessor, he acted quickly when Syria crossed the imaginary 'red line' by gassing civilians, launching a quick and punishing airstrike.

He also seems to take the more realistic view of the region and what our goals there should be.

Writing in Politico, Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations noted that Trump’s policy “reflects a sound understanding of what the United States can achieve in the region and, importantly, what it cannot.”

Noting that Western efforts to promote democracy that led to the Arab Spring produced more fractured societies but no real change agents, Cook adds “The Trump administration seems to understand this and has pragmatically shifted American policy to achievable goals like rolling back the Islamic State and challenging Iran’s efforts to extend its influence around the region.”

Those who believe Trump, a businessman and political amateur is not a serious president with real policy goals may dismiss his Mideast stance.

But it suggests a practical view of the fight against ISIS recognizing that, other than democratic Israel, there are no other perfect allies in the Middle East.

The 9-11 hijackers were Saudi and the country has a troubling history of terror support. However, Iran is worse in that their leaders continue to make threatening statements against Israel and the US while almost surely planning to resume their nuclear arms quest as soon as they can get away with it. While he’s keeping the John Kerry-brokered nuclear deal in place for now, President Trump is avowedly pessimistic about it.

The Saudis on the other hand have growing, low-key ties with Israel based on strategic interests and common enemies.

Given the disastrous Middle East policy of Barack Obama, which entailed alienating Israel while cozying up to and placing misguided trust in Iran, and chasing pipe dreams about the spread of democracy if we just talk nicely to people and avoid saying “Islamic terror,” 

Trumpification seems to me to be potentially one of the best processes to come along in years.

Originally Published: IsraelNationalNews.com 

Brooklyn College Must Stand Firm Against Terror Supporters

By: Eli Verschleiser

What is it about Brooklyn College that makes it such a hotbed of anti-Zionism and flashpoint in the political war against Israel?

This “middle-class Ivy League” school in Midwood, where my parents and wife Dr. Shani Verschleiser attended, is part of the City University of New York system and has high populations of Jews and Muslims, but so do other schools. We don’t seem to hear nearly as much about the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine and other groups devoted to the destruction of Israel as we know it at big city public or private colleges as much as we do at Brooklyn. In the New York area, it particularly stands out.

Per the conservative Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, which tracks campus anti-Israel activity, Brooklyn College is one of the top 10 schools in the nation for anti-Israel activity, alongside such peers as San Diego State, University of California at Irvine, Vassar College and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

According to the center’s website, stopthejewhatredoncampus.org, Brooklyn College “is home to one of the most active and extreme SJP chapters in the nation. Brooklyn College SJP has posted articles and videos online defending terrorism including an advertisement titled “The Third Intifada” on its Facebook page.” Antics have included a “die-in” to dramatize Palestinian victims, trampling on Israeli flags and mock-up military checkpoints to illustrated West Bank life for Arabs.

The campus is a battleground for the insidious Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. According to Amcha Initiative, another group that rose from outrage over the demonization of Israel on our college campuses, last year, more than 300 incidents of anti-Semitism occurred at 109 schools in 28 states.

SJP and other anti-Zionist student groups are a major source of anti-Semitic rhetoric and behavior at many schools.” The Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) counted 649 anti-Israel events at colleges in the U.S.

This shows how we are losing the battle of social media which allows today's youth to be educated with lies and deception. Israel and Jewish organizations are doing a lot to provide Jewish students with balanced information, including free Birthright Israel trips. They must continue their efforts and do more to show Israel’s hard work to make peace, its contributions to the world and the stubbornness of the Palestinians in resisting productive talks.

Several high-profile Israel-bashing events, some coordinated with faculty, have been held at the campus. And four Jewish students recently fought a long battle for justice after they were inexplicably thrown out of a SJP event in February 2013, simply for holding pro-Israel fact sheets they had yet to distribute. It took just over a year and the assistance of the The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law before President Karen Gould apologized to the students, acknowledging that a college official violated the students’ civil rights by ejecting them. The college then added insult to injury by incorrectly telling the press the students had been disruptive to defend his actions.

But things haven’t improved much in the interim. In February of this year, a group of rowdy protestors stormed into a Faculty Council meeting and started chanting anti-Zionist nonsense at the professors. The meeting had to be adjourned, and The Jewish Week reported that some felt threatened by the incident.

This is not to say that students shouldn’t be free to voice criticism of Israel under their First Amendment rights. No country is perfect, and people are entitled to opinions even if they are misinformed or biased.

But increasingly anti-Zionist protestors all over North America have tried to silence and intimidate the other side, disrupting events, shouting down speakers, targeting students in their dorms with “eviction notices” and striving to make it difficult to express pride in the Jewish state (which, last time I checked, was also protected by the Constitution.)

A recent survey by the Cohen Center at Brandeis University found one quarter of North American Jewish students "describe hostility toward Israel on campus by their peers as a 'fairly' or 'very big' problem".

The Zionist Organization of America and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights have been advising Jewish students about their rights and how to protect them from infringement, whether it’s from peers or misguided or overzealous college administrators, faculty or security guards.

This atmosphere of bias and intimidation is especially poignant at a time when colleges are increasingly going on about trigger warnings, safe spaces and open bathrooms to ensure that no one’s feelings are hurt, and that counseling is available if they are.

Aren’t Israel supporters entitled to the same protection and concern?

There may be no easy answer as to why Brooklyn College has become such a battleground. Maybe the situation just builds on itself.

Fortunately, the college has a top-notch Hillel organization with ample facilities just off campus for pro-Israel students to safely and comfortably hold their events. There is no shortage of pro-Israel organizations and activities run by proud and tough Jews, including a sizable share of Israelis, who aren’t going anywhere and aren’t about to hide their blue and white flags for anyone.

The Hillel director, Nadya Drucker, her staff and board work closely with the administration to share concerns. Hopefully the new president, Michelle J. Anderson, understands the need for open dialogue and exchange of ideas, without intimidation, between students.

But bad decisions like the one in 2013, taking sides against the Israel supporters at an event, can have a lasting negative impact, suggesting to SJP and others that they have free reign and friends in high places.

In keeping with its role as an academic haven for thousands of Jewish students and other Israel supporters, the administration must disabuse them of this notion. Just as it’s crucial to stand firm against terrorists, so must we do the same with their supporters.

A tragic war with no end in sight

Fighting ISIS means difficult, unsatisfying choices.

By: Eli Verschleiser

Our revulsion at the Paris attacks and subsequent Isis violence was palpable, and our reaction almost universal. We want action.

But are we prepared to accept the difficult truth? The only answer to brute force by evil and depraved fanatics is brute force by the good guys -- working with some of the not-so-good guys.

The French wasted no time launching counterstrikes against ISIS targets in retaliation for the brutal slaughter of over 130 citizens at multiple Paris locations. At the same time, the Russians, once confirming their airliner was brought down by a terrorist bomb (Isis took responsibility) have unleashed some heavy ordnance on targets in Isis’ growing territory. There will be no shortage of payback for these outrages, and the ones sadly to come, and the U.S., under increasing pressure to take leadership, will keep up or increase its own strikes.

The burning question: Will it matter?

This is not a war over territory that can be easily won by controlling airspace, ports and resources and by depleting the other side’s troops. It’s a war against an ideology that almost effortlessly gains new recruits and sympathizers, not just people in bunkers in Iraq and Syria, but well-educated people in Europe, in peaceful Mideast states and even in the U.S., willing to give their lives in a conflict that we can barely understand, let alone contain.

There are those who believe we are playing right into Isis’s hands with our response. More bombings create more civilian casualties, and more angry orphans to join Isis. Our suspicion of and, on the part of some, hostility toward Muslim refugees in Europe and those trying to enter the U.S. also creates radicals. The Russians, always with an agenda of their own, stand to benefit from this too: The refugee problem boosts the fortunes of right-wing political parties in Europe more inclined to align themselves with Vladimir Putin, and less concerned about his subjugation of Ukraine.

If chaos is what Isis craves, it is meeting its own objectives handily. Despite the above concerns, we have no choice but to drop bombs, and no choice but to carefully scrutinize the refugees to weed out potential terrorists, despite the notion on the left that it is un-American not to quickly open our doors.

Leaving us with so few choices, Isis is outmaneuvering us.

ISIS

But there’s one aspect of this no-choice conundrum that, as perplexing as it may be, could lead to the eventual defeat of Isis. They are gripped by a powerful delusional vision of what some call “volcanic jihad” that can establish a beachhead in the Middle East that spreads radicalized Islam around the world, and that vision affects everyone around them, creating the unlikeliest bedfellows.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Kurds, even Hezbollah in Beirut, Sunni tribes in Iraq and of course the Russians all have the same interest in excising this cancer, as do the U.S. and its NATO allies. Can they all join together in a workable coalition? Do we dare even work with Bashar Assad’s forces? Or is keeping him in power too bitter a bill to swallow?

It may be precisely because of the odds mounting against them that Isis operatives have struck or so many times in recent weeks – the Russian airline, Paris, Beirut -- and may be planning new attacks in Brussels or the U.S.

According to a New York Times analysis, nearly 1,000 deaths have caused by Isis outside Iraq and Syria so far in 2015. A former CIA official told the paper the group is moving beyond inspiring “lone wolf” attacks by sympathizers, and now seems to have the ability to coordinate its own operatives.

It remains to be seen if this power could withstand the disruption of focused attacks by a coordinated coalition of enemies, which could break off communication from the stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, to its operatives abroad. Perhaps in the best case scenario, such force reverts Isis to inspiring the lone wolves again through brutal videotapes and fundamentalist rantings, and there will be fewer recruits if they see the cause losing steam rather than ascendant.

But if inciting a global, apocalyptic war is a key goal of Isis, uniting some of the most disparate powers can achieve exactly the opposite effect.

To achieve this coalition, western powers must step up their efforts to convince Arab powers to take an active role, not just cheer-lead, meaning, troops and logistical support, including use of airspace and bases. It should not be the job of French or American troops to clean up their neighborhood for them. A key strategy for Isis is to rely heavily on fence-sitters to be scared into silence and inaction.

A 2004 manifesto written by the precursor group to Isis, entitled “The Management of Savagery,” as reported in a recent essay by Scott Atran and Nefess Hamid in the New York Review of Books, calls for followers to “diversify and widen the vexation strikes against the Crusader-Zionist enemy in every place in the Islamic world, and even outside if possible, so as to disperse the efforts of the alliance of the enemy …”

“diversify and widen the vexation strikes against the Crusader-Zionist enemy in every place in the Islamic world, and even outside if possible, so as to disperse the efforts of the alliance of the enemy …”

Divide and conquer is a time-proven strategy, and it has made Isis more powerful, but as the conflict grinds on, it may backfire as disparate enemies have no choice but to work together.

It may be a long, sad and often terrifying conflict, with no immediate end in sight, and the ideology behind Isis will never be completely eliminated. But with the right amount of determination and unity a coalition could disrupt its leadership, disperse its elements, dissuade volunteers and, most importantly, save thousands of future innocent lives.

Originally Published by: The Hill

The Familiar Face of Terror, And Resolve

The blood shed from Nov. 18's massacre of 4 rabbis &
one Israeli  at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Photo: Twitter

By: Eli Verschleiser

Living in the Har Nof section of Jerusalem more than 20 years ago, I knew what terror was like. In those days, it was the Scud missiles of Saddam Hussein that brought fear, but also a lesson in faith, determination, and the simple resolve of people that want to live a peaceful life in their country at all costs.

Like other mostly American communities in the Jewish state, Har Nof has only grown tenfold, instead of families running back to the United States where a majority of these residents were born and raised. But as we saw last month, regardless of their desire to do nothing more than live, work, study and pray, there will still be those determined to deprive them of all of the above.

The horrific carnage that erupted inside a Har Nof synagogue on Nov. 19 reminded me of the old adage coined by Abba Eban that those who want to destroy Israel “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

After gaining widespread sympathy during the Gaza war provoked by Hamas rockets last summer, those who embraced or justified this attack, and the vehicular homicides in Jerusalem that shortly preceded it, have brought back a familiar narrative: senseless targeting not of military forces controlling Palestinian areas but the soft underbelly of Israeli society, its women and children and rabbis at prayer who do not serve in the army.

Some have attempted to link the attacks to a so-called “dispute” over the holy Temple Mount and recent moves by some Jews to gain the right to openly pray there (as if this might justify the horrific gun and ax attack).

Since the very idea of this “dispute” is fiction – Prime Minister Netanyahu has rejected any notion of change in religious control of the site – the linkage is even more preposterous.

What’s more likely happening is that Arabs from east Jerusalem, who have free access to the rest of the city, are being prodded by Palestinian jihad groups to pick up the slack in terror attacks caused by the highly successful security barrier. The object of international scorn, this 430 mile fence has nevertheless drastically reduced homicide bombing infiltrations.

Now, instead of bombs we see attacks with cars and construction equipment or, stabbings and shootings.

These attacks are celebrated by some Palestinians, and a Hamas spokesman reacted to the Har Nof attack by saying “The new operation is heroic and a natural reaction to Zionist criminality against our people and our holy places. We have the full right to revenge for the blood of our martyrs in all possible means."

While Fatah Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, he made a desperate attempt at linkage by decrying in the same statement “incursions and provocations by settlers against the Aksa Mosque.”

In a bitter rebuke to Abbas and Israel’s international critics, Ambassador Ron Dermer on Nov. 24 decried the “fog [that] descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity [when the Israel-Palestinian conflict is discussed. ] The result isn’t realpolitik, its surrealpolitik.”

Supporters will claim that the absence of peace talks and harsh rhetoric from Israeli extremists fuel Palestinian rage and invite attacks such as the Har Nof atrocity.

It is clear that Jewish right-wingers do seem to strike great fear in the hearts of Palestinians and their supporters: Meir Kahane of the Kach Party and Rahavam Zeevi of Moledet, who advocated expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, were assassinated by Arab gunmen in 1990 and 2001, and in October another tried unsuccessfully to kill Rabbi Yehudah Glick for his advocacy of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

But Palestinians know full well the Israeli mainstream is ready for peace and willing to make great sacrifices if they only had a partner that is willing, trustworthy and capable of delivering on promises of coexistence.

To see the likelihood of that, one need look to Gaza, handed over to 1.5 million Palestinians almost a decade ago in the best of hopes, with significant restrictions by Israel that would have surely been eased over time had trust been gained.

Like many people, I would love to one day have an opportunity to visit beach side resorts operated by the Palestinians in Gaza, on one of the most beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, in a state negotiated by the parties with the help of the US.

But the coastline that could have attracted throngs of tourists from Europe and international investment has instead become the object of intense Israeli blockades to keep out weapons shipments from Iran and other terror supporters.

Beautiful, innovative, productive greenhouses built by Jews were destroyed, as labor and creativity was put instead to the smuggling and firing of rockets. Concrete that could have built schools and hospitals above ground instead went to terror tunnels below.

There may well be a large segment of Palestinians who want peace, but they are continuously eclipsed by the more visible and deadly elements for whom the conflict is a nihilistic zero-sum game. In the absence of more attainable goals, killing Israelis is no longer a means to and end for them, but the end unto itself.

Life went on in Har Nof and the rest of Israel after the Scuds fell, and will go on after November’s massacre, and after every other vile murderous outrage that, God forbid, may come after it.

Each time, a lesson in faith and determination from a people who embrace life over death.

Originally Published: The Allgemeiner

Isolate and Contain

By: Eli Verschleiser

Which virus is a bigger threat to the lives of Americans? Ebola, or Islamic fanaticism?

Judging from recent news, both appear to be equally malicious. Almost simultaneously, officials here have been forced to react to a doctor who inadvertently imported Ebola to New York City from Africa, and an outbreak of so-called “lone wolf” terrorism by a jihadi sympathizer who took an ax to two police officers in Queens.

Fortunately in both cases, the threat was quickly contained. The doctor was brought to Belleview Hospital as soon as he became symptomatic and contagious, and the “lone wolf” was quickly put down by police bullets. He is not believed to have any known connections to organized terror groups.

But neither were any of those who engaged in terror attacks in the 13 years since 9/11: The would-be Newburgh bombers who plotted to attack Bronx synagogues, the attempted Times Square bomber and the Boston marathon bomb brothers are all believed to be sympathizers with Islamic terror rather than part of organized sleeper cells coordinating with al Qaeda or ISIS.

That means that like Ebola or other diseases, jihadi ideology can spread across the United States and infect deranged or socially disaffected people here, thus providing an effective way for ISIS and others to terrorize America without lifting a finger. And just as the administration’s reaction to Ebola, with its reluctance to consider travel bans, has been lacking, it has turned its back for too long on the danger posed from ISIS.

Authorities believe ISIS is actively encouraging lone wolf attacks. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by Fox News warned that ISIS uses social media to encourage sympathizers to find members of the armed forces and attack them (although a Homeland Security spokesman said there was no credible, specific threat.) A man in Oklahoma City charged with beheading a coworker reportedly had pictures of ISIS beheadings on his Facebook page.

“The Internet as well as certain specific Muslim extremists are really firing up this lone wolf phenomenon,” California Sen. Diane Feinstein recently said on CNN. “The multiplicity of [worldwide] attacks in 2014 shows that their propaganda is having some effect.”

Several Americans have been apprehended in the process of trying to join forces with ISIS, including three teenage Denver girls of Somali descent who were stopped in Frankfurt and a Chicago man who was arrested in O’Hare airport. Although the girls were not charged, authorities are probing their online contacts to see who might have been encouraging them. The 19-year-old man told authorizes he met a man online who directed him to fly to Istanbul and wait for further instructions, CNN reported. It also said he had pro-ISIS writings and illustrations in his Bolingbrook home.

Just as we are developing protocols to contain and control Ebola, so to we must take measures to monitor both the spread of jihad sympathy and any inroads ISIS may be making to extend its reach into America’s cities. As we head toward Midterm elections, Americans seem less concerned about being struck by a terror attack here than they are about exposure to Ebola, which by all medical accounts is extremely rare. Analytics from Google show Ebola is the more-searched term than ISIS, and a Pew Poll found that 36% of Americans are following the spread of Ebola, while 31% are following America’s strikes against ISIS.

The answer to both problems is the same: education. As doctors, public officials and the general public learn how Ebola spreads and how it can be contained, we must also look at “lone wolf” terrorism as an epidemic.

Speaking on “Meet The Press” Sunday, Michael Leiter, former director of the United States National Counter terrorism Center, said the only way to contain the spread of lone-wolf terror is to “ramp up our surveillance” to detect people who may “have a crisis in their life, are mentally ill and attach themselves to that ideology.” As in the Ebola crisis, he said, the risk is small, not an existential threat, but one we dare not underestimate.

We always hear about “increased chatter” from extremist groups before and after an event. We should be listening more often and more carefully, and we must continue to work with the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court to find ways to be diligent while respecting the privacy of innocent Americans.

The man shot dead by police after the Queens hatchet attack, Zale Thompson, had an online history that involved rants against America and visits to sites associated with terror groups.

Leiter noted that monitoring is not enough: Authorities and their operatives also need to be able to engage extremist forces through social media to mitigate their impact on others.

Based on what we learned in Dallas from the treatment of Ebola patient Eric Duncan, New York officials were able to learn a great deal that may have saved the lives of the first patient in New York, people with whom he came in contact, and the health care workers treating him.

We must take great care to take similar lessons of prevention and response whenever an outbreak of the pro-jihad virus occurs.

Originaly Published: The Huffington Post

Tough talk on ISIS is not enough

By: Eli Verschleiser

In late 1998, national security officials under President Bill Clinton mulled a strike deep into Afghanistan that may have taken out Osama bin Laden. In the end, Clinton decided the potential cost of hundreds of innocent lives was too high.

No one can be sure that such a strike would have eliminated the al Qaeda terror chief, let alone forestalled the 9/11 terror attack three years later that cost the lives of 2,977 people, most of them Americans.

But Clinton and his military chiefs at the time, some of whom warned that holding back was a mistake, will always have to wonder, as will we all.

Will we face the same kind of hindsight in the future if, God forbid, the savages of ISIS (or ISIL, as the US calls the radical terror group) are able to infiltrate our borders and carry out a large-scale attack here?

As we mark the 13th anniversary of the worst attack on America in history, Americans are worried about new carnage, with a recent NBC News poll finding that nearly half (47 percent) of respondents saying we are less safe now than before Sept. 11, 2001, up substantially from 28 percent last year and, amazingly, up from 20 percent just a year after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Another poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal founds 61 percent of Americans, nearly two out of three, support increased military action against the Isis militants. No doubt they have been affected by videos showing mass executions in Syria, including children and the be-headings of American captives, and news of missing Libyan passenger jets likely commandeered by militants.

President Obama has an opportunity, and an obligation to reassure Americans. In his speech from the White House on Sept. 10, the president seemed to deviate between trivializing ISIS and beating the war drums. First he de-legitimized its religious roots, noting that it has harmed mostly other Muslims and emphasizing that ‘Islamic state’ is recognized by no government.

Then, sounding more like the Republican predecessor that invaded Iraq and Afghanistan than the domestic-minded Democrat who vowed to wind down those wars, Obama vowed that “America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat” and warned that those who attempt to harm Americans “will find no safe haven.” This is an echo of the Bush doctrine that America will not distinguish between terrorists and the governments that harbor them.

Ultimately the speech showed the president at his most determined, promising to “degrade and destroy” the capability of the militants and recognizing that “small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm.”

But are 475 new soldiers in Iraq on a non-combat mission, increased air strikes in Syria and more aid to the rebels fighting ISIS enough to accomplish those goals?

The president’s ability to take executive action as commander in chief is limited, and he needs strong support from both houses of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, to fully prosecute the mission of neutralizing Isis and its allies.

It’s not at all clear that he’ll get it from a war-weary and deeply partisan Congress. Many members will have to be convinced that arming rebels and minority groups resisting Isis – which is so extreme that al Qaeda distances itself -- is in our interest; others will fixate on blaming the president for failing to leave a sufficient interim force in Iraq, which could have stemmed the Isis tide, or failing to back the rebels in Syria in toppling Bashir Assad.

Others will simply urge sitting on our hands. Voters will be influenced by commentators who note that as bad as doing nothing sounds, acting ineffectively, or counter-productively, is worse.

“Maybe it’s time for America to stop taking the bait,” says Fox News host and commentator John Stossel. “Islamic militants do monstrous things all over the world. We cannot stop it all. Why do we assume that government doing something is always an improvement over government doing nothing?”

Stossel noted that Clinton launched Tomahawk missiles at Osama Bin Laden, missed and was mocked as a paper tiger.

But the problem with inaction vs. action is that the result in the former case is almost guaranteed: Isis will rise in popularity, adherents from all over the world, including the U.S., will continue traveling to the Middle East to join the fight or form terror cells in the West. The more we shirk away from our role as the world’s leading policeman against terror, the likelier the possibility we will live to regret it.

Originally Published: The Hill