"The War on Terror is Over" Says Those in the Administration

Weekly Standard ^ | April 23, 2012 | Daniel halper

[lbryce]

In the wake of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration is grappling with how to handle Islamists, radical adherents to Islam. Particularly, the issue has come to the fore in regards to Egypt, which, as Reuel Marc Gerecht notes, "is now certain" to elect "an Islamist" as its leaders the next time the Egyptian people go to the polls.

But some in the Obama administration are now seeing things differently.

"The war on terror is over," a senior official in the State Department official tells the National Journal. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."

This new outlook has, in the words of the National Journal, come from a belief among administration officials that "It is no longer the case, in other words, that every Islamist is seen as a potential accessory to terrorists."

The National Journal explains:

The new approach is made possible by the double impact of the Arab Spring, which supplies a new means of empowerment to young Arabs other than violent jihad, and Obama's savagely successful military drone campaign against the worst of the violent jihadists, al Qaida.

For the president himself, this new thinking comes from a "realiz[ation that] he has no choice but to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood and other relatively 'moderate' Islamist groups emerging as lead political players out of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere."

This new outlook is radically different than what was expressed under President George W. Bush immediately after September 11, 2001.

[Karliner]

Did we buy surrender flags from France( made in China)?
Does this mean there’s no more war in Libya, I mean Afghanistan or the new wanna be one in Uganda while Christians burn?

[piasa]

I must have been in the john when Obama captured the Egyptian terrorist leader Zawahiri, OBL's more thoughtful second-in-command and al Qaeda's subsequent top dog, also known as the superior of 9/11 hijacking ringleader Mohammed Atta, who also was Egyptian.

Oh, wait... Obama didn't capture him, islamists are in position to take over Egypt, CAIR pretty much owns the White House and Hamas owns a third of the US congress, but the war on human-caused disasters is over?

[satan]

I sometimes wonder if the Secretary of State is deliberatly sabotaging Obama and he’s too dumb to figure it out.

[Vermont Lt]

Yahoo! We can bring big bottles of shampoo on the plane?

[Grampa3711]

Ahh, thank you! I grew up with Rube Goldberg devices in the newspaper, but hadn’t heard the term for decades.