New Orleans attack shows US must put ISIS on defense

A New Year’s terror in New Orleans, 15 people dead and dozens wounded after a 42 year old man drove a rented pickup into a celebratory crowd on Bourbon Street. Police killed a terrorist in a shootout before he could cause further havoc. The truck bore an ISIS flag, banner of the global jihad. In a cruel irony, revelers had gathered to welcome a new beginning. The attack was a horrible reminder of ancient evils and enduring threats. At such moments, our attention turns inward. The media provides updates, profiles victims and explores how the assailant, a US, citizen and Army veteran, became a radical Islamist. It’s tempting to fixate on shamsud in Jabbar, crooked path to mass murder while neglecting the broader movement to which he belonged. Such temptations should be avoided. What happened in New Orleans was larger than one man’s pathology. It was the latest atrocity committed in the name of a sick ideology, the jihadist worldview exemplified by ISIS has not been vanquished. On the contrary, it is resurgent. There was a terrible attack in Moscow last April. In recent months, authorities have narrowly thwarted plots against New York City and Vienna. Radical Islamism is growing in and fuels violence throughout Africa. ISIS rages in Syria and Iraq as its Sunni compatriots and Hamas fight to the death in Gaza. Above all, ISIS has embedded in Afghanistan, where its leaders issue communiques to an international following plot against the West and attack both the Taliban government and neighboring Pakistan. Even a virtual caliphate such as ISIS has a physical infrastructure, fortresses, hide out, safe houses, networks and members, the strength of this material base has a direct relationship with the ideology’s global appeal. This is not idle speculation. It is historical fact. America’s global war on terror decimated ISIS precursor, al Qaeda. The surge defeated al Qaeda in Iraq. The anti ISIS campaign initiated reluctantly under President Obama and intensified righteously by President Trump, brought the group to its knees in Iraq and Syria. America forgot this lesson. Our leaders reduced commitments in Iraq and Syria. Federal law enforcement shifted his attention to other priorities, such as domestic extremism and white nationalism. Worst of all, President Biden beat a hasty retreat from Afghanistan that left 13 US servicemen killed us, citizens and visa holders, stranded, Afghan allies, abandoned and Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces in the hands of ISIS. At the time, Biden pledged continued surveillance of the enemy over the horizon, military capabilities and support for Afghan women and girls. None of this was true. Consider the contrast between Israel and the United States. Israel possesses the will to strike its enemies, establish facts on the ground favorable to its security and restore deterrence in a dangerous neighborhood. The United States, meanwhile, has been tossed about by a whirlwind of events that it believes are beyond its control, an open southern border disaster in Afghanistan, war between Russia and Ukraine that is lessening our weapons stockpiles at home, and long running operations against the Houthis that have led nowhere. This aimlessness and passivity create openings for terrorists. It gives them the sense of impending victory. I’m not arguing that we re invade Afghanistan tomorrow, nor am I saying that a more assertive US foreign policy would end every threat to the homeland. My argument is that the way to reduce the ISIS threat foreign and domestic, is to take the fight to the evildoers. Don’t pretend jihadists can be left to their own devices, put them on the defensive, thin out their ranks, dry up their finances, keep them on the run, then ISIS ability to inspire will wane, and justice will be done for the people of New Orleans in.