Biden Makes It Seem As If You Can Only Be an Enemy of U.S. Interests If You Attack the World Trade Center

By Barry Rubin

Vice President Joe Biden has given a very revealing interview with Newsweek. In it, he confirms my consistent analysis that the administration defines the U.S. problem with revolutionary Islamism as only involving al-Qaida. It cannot be stressed enough why this policy is so extraordinarily dangerous.

Why? The irony is that while the Obama Administration refuses to use the expression “War on Terrorism” this is precisely how they have defined the entire U.S. strategy, although one might also call it the War on the Perpetrators of September 11.” What is missing here is any dealing with major strategic issues.

It is true that September 11 and other massive terrorist attacks are of huge significance. But there’s a whole world out there. Revolutionary Islamists are taking over the Middle East, moving toward the rule of tens of millions of people, getting nuclear weapons, carrying out subversion and terrorism against U.S. allies, and inciting hatred of the United States and a passionate desire to hurt it.

Among the countries where anti-American Islamists—however they conceal their views and goals—are in power are the following: Egypt, Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Tunisia, and Turkey. Syria is their ally and so, to a certain extent, is Qatar.  Pakistan often covertly supports such forces as well. The list of those supporting this stance is far longer than those on the other side.

The Obama Administration has consistently underestimated the growth and spread of Islamism.  No, let me go further: It basically claims that the phenomenon doesn’t exist at all.  Worse still, like someone faced with fire who pours gasoline on everything in its path, the Obama Administration is doing things that worsen the situation by backing radical Islamists and systematically failing to support their intended victims.

To be fair to Biden, however, it is understandable that he must downplay the Taliban threat in this case because he is justifying the coming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet what he says is far more revealing in a damaging way than the superficial criticism—Biden says Taliban is not our enemy—misses.

Regarding al-Qaeda, Obama said that the American goal in Afghanistan is “to fundamentally alter their capacity to do damage to American allies and vital U.S. interests….” Yet what about the other, far larger, more powerful and more dangerous groups that are doing that?

The interviewer, the very capable Leslie Gelb, (a liberal Democrat foreign policy establishment guy who nonetheless sounds very unconvinced by Biden) asks.

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