Whose Side Are You On, Obama?

There are two aspects to fighting terrorism. One is police enforcement, and the other is foreign policy. The Bush administration could, at least, handle the police enforcement aspect. They could not handle foreign policy because they chose to appease, rather than hold accountable, major state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran. The Obama administration, it appears, cannot even handle the police enforcement aspect of fighting terrorism. Increasingly, we are in visibly greater danger because of it. But it’s more than that. For the last year, the American government has not merely been evading the threat from our greatest enemies, as the Bush administration did; it actually sides with them. In Iran, for example, we have a golden opportunity to openly side with the dissidents who want to topple this dangerous dictatorship that sponsors so much terrorism. Instead, the American government validates the “legitimacy” of the dictatorship by insisting on talks and negotiations — talks that the dictatorship does not even care to have. As terrorist threats against America continue to escalate, voters will be right to blame the Obama administration for its technical incompetence. But the deeper incompetence is ideological, not tactical. In other words: If you show more sympathy to the enemy than to your friends, you make yourself more vulnerable to attack, not less.