I think there are a number of reasons for the left to behave in a manner seemingly contrary to its own interests when it courts this risk. How an individual leftist will behave depends on how far along a spectrum of leftism he is placed. If one is a truly committed leftist Revolutionary he welcomes the chaos which comes from terrorism as opportunity to shake off the hated slavery of the American system. He is sure that he is smart enough to defeat Islam once America is out of the way. Indeed, he cannot understand why Islam, a product of superstition and Islamic terrorism, a result of frustration because of what America has done to it, would want to even exist when those causes are removed and he offers secular and temporal salvation.
A leftist who is not nearly as committed as our hypothetical revolutionary might just be reflexively against America without thinking through the implications of a victory by the Islamic fascists. Most probably just travel along. Many liberals fall somewhere in between on the leftist spectrum. Where would you put Obama?
I've written a long piece on this and I speculate that how Obama reacts to Muslim terrorism, indeed to the Muslim world, depends on his view of this own power. Does he already have it or does he need Muslim terrorism to wage war against in order to get it?
Which takes me back to my original point in my original reply which is that Obama might be quite aggressive militarily if he thinks the threat is to his own power rather than a way of enhancing it.
