There’s an excellent companion piece titled “The Only Strategy to Defeat Jihad” by Jonathan David Carson, Feb. 11, American Thinker. The author posits that the enemy is no longer afraid of us due largely to the end of colonialism.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/the_only_strategy_to_defeat_jihad.html#ixzz3SYJwC1MK
IMHO, the other big reason this particular enemy isn't afraid of us is the ridiculous win-on-the-ground, surrender-by-the-Congress mess John Kerry and Teddy Kennedy made of the Vietnam war. If not for the bleeding hearts in DC hamstringing our military, we could have been in and out of there with a clear victory. But no.
Surely the islamists made careful note of that, followed by Jummah Cahtah's mess with the Ayatollah and not being able to summon the strength to get our men out of captivity.
It reminds me again with yearning for the simplicity and profundity of Reagan's foreign policy: "We win; they lose."