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Sure, the prez and veep continue to chant the mantra that “Osama bin Laden is dead” — and, without a doubt, that’s a good thing. Problem is: al-Qaeda is very much alive.
Indeed, the U.S. intelligence community told us that the “demonstrators” who murdered four Americans last month in Libya are a pro-al-Qaeda group, likely associated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
But the al-Qaeda threat is increasing elsewhere in Africa, too, in places like Mali and Nigeria. And in the Middle East, it’s making a comeback in Iraq and running rampant next door in Syria, which is becoming “Islamist Central.”
Al-Qaeda is just part of the problem in Syria: After nearly 20 months of U.S. passivity in that nation’s civil war, the death toll now tops 30,000. And “Basher” Assad, no friend of ours, is still running the place.
Meanwhile, there’s Syria’s ally, the Islamic Republic of Isotopes, er, Iran. After four years of Obama-plomacy, the ayatollahs are closer to their atomic aspirations than ever — despite the “hope” they’d “change” their course on nukes.
Today, they have thousands of centrifuges spinning, putting Tehran on the path to being able to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. They’re working on a nuclear warhead — and an intercontinental ballistic missile to put it on, too.
Let’s not even get into the Middle East peace process.
And the Arab Spring now looks more like the Islamist Spring. Where are all those pro-U.S., secular democracies that were going to spring up? President Obama talks about “bumps in the road,” but this street seems to be all bumps — like losing Egypt as an ally.
Yemen, the home of perhaps al-Qaeda’s most dangerous wing, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has gone from having a lousy government to having basically none at all. The Al-Qaeda wing actually holds territory in the southern part of the country — and has us dead-center in its cross hairs.
And Afghanistan is worrisome, too. With Team Obama leading the charge for the exit in 2014, expect the Taliban and al-Qaeda to seize territory, and the next Afghan civil war to break out.
The record elsewhere ain’t much, either.
On Russia, Team Obama’s policy has gone from “reset” to “regret.”
In Asia, China is throwing around its weight, especially in the South China Sea.
When he took office almost four years ago, President Obama promised us that he’d improve America’s position in the world, starting with his Global Apology Tour.
Sadly, he’s delivered pretty much the exact opposite — and hasn’t given us a hint of what he’d do to reverse the decline.
Peter Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. This column first ran in the New York Post.
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