"Every US president since Jimmy Carter has had to deal with political Islam;"
Nope. Thomas Jefferson, the "Barbary Pirates". America's first war after the Brits.
And their political ideology, and strategy haven't changed since, oh say the early 7th century.
The one big thing that has changed is, we now have the ability to remove satans latrine, aka mecca from the face of the earth. This will effectively end his-slime.
The question is why haven't we yet???