Francis A. Avila Jr.: ISIS made a mockery of Obama’s words, policy

With exquisite timing, President Obama told ABC news last Thursday that he did not think the Islamic State was “gaining strength” and that we “have contained them.” Less than 24 hours later, ISIS made a mockery of this assessment by launching the worst attack on Paris since World War II. In the last month ISIS has sent suicide bombers to Beirut, downed a Russian passenger jet, and now carried out a multi-pronged urban attack in the heart of one of Europe’s great cities. If this is “containment,” God save us from expansion.

On Obama’s watch, ISIS (whom Obama once dismissed as a “jayvee team”) has expanded into half dozen countries. His strategy of “containment” is not working and the reason is that Obama simply is incapable of comprehending the existential threat facing us. People who scream “Allahu Akbar” while killing innocents will not be placated by a jobs program, as Marie Harf once ludicrously implied.

The Bee was right to insist on a “reckoning” for this atrocity but mistaken to think it would issue from the paralytic moral apathy afflicting Obama’s foreign policy. One prays it will not take a similar body count in Washington D.C. before the scales drop from his eyes.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Francis A. Avila Jr.: ISIS made a mockery of Obama’s words, policy."