Neither McCain nor Paul get it right
Senators Rand Paul (left) and John McCain.
It is a Ronald Reagan moment. Now, all we need is a Ronald Reagan. For now, we have only pretenders, split into two camps.
There is the progressive McCain wing, heirs to the Bush “Islamic democracy” quest. It lurches incoherently from crisis to crisis, such that the local al-Qaeda jihadist in Baghdad, who went there to wage a terror war against American troops, need only cross the Syrian border — and, voila, he is America’s ally. How’s that? Well, we’re told, we must hold our nose and support — indeed, arm — this “rebel” because he now fights the Assad regime, which is the cat’s-paw of Iran . . . the same Iran that — details, details — has been colluding with al-Qaeda for 20 years.
Got that?
Even McCainiacs sense that this nonsense world is straight out of the Looking-Glass. So, while empowering al-Qaeda, they maintain that they actually seek only to strengthen al-Qaeda’s rivals, the “moderates” . . . hoping you won’t notice that these moderates prominently include the Muslim Brotherhood. You won’t hear a Republican mention the Brotherhood, of course. But the anti-Assad “rebels” themselves have no such compunction about the Brotherhood’s key role.
In fact, the Syrian National Council — the rebel leadership bureau the McCain wing initially demanded that we back — was a Brotherhood creation. When that proved embarrassing, the Syrian National Council changed the sign on the door to “Syrian National Coalition” and expanded its membership, ostensibly to dilute the Brotherhood’s influence. But even the non-Brotherhood rebels concede that the Brothers are still a highly influential force, and the faction they share power with represents . . . wait for it . . . the Saudis — the Wahhabist sharia kingdom. Feel better now? Probably not, but understand that when McCain and the Obama administration talk about supporting the “moderates,” this is who they mean. Understand, too, that the Brothers have always done business with Iran — a longtime backer of Hamas, the Brothers’ Palestinian terrorist branch — and that the Saudis’ governing ideology (to say nothing of their money) spawned al-Qaeda.
What could be more “moderate” than that?
The other pretender is Rand Paul and his nihilistic brand of libertarianism. On the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities, in which Islamic-supremacist jihadists murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, the senator refused to distance himself from the repulsive assessment of his father, Ron Paul, that the United States had brought the attack on herself. “America’s chickens, comin’ home to roost,” as Jeremiah Wright memorably put it.
The senator is trying to be the silk glove over dad’s ham-handed fist — to make Ron Paul’s noxious substitution of “Blame America First” for “Know Thine Enemy” respectable. Asked about his father’s assertion, Paul the Younger tried to change the subject, opining that why someone attacks the U.S. is irrelevant — that sometimes the cause could be “our presence overseas,” and sometimes not. What really matters, he said, is “that we defend ourselves from attack.”
It is thin camouflage. While McCain would insert the United States into every controversy, no matter how contrary to our interests, Paul sees our government as incapable of acting beneficially in the world. One can easily understand why Paul has a surface appeal for young Americans. In their lifetimes, an era of progressive dominance in foreign affairs, to act in America’s interests has become disreputable. The McCain approach — champion Qaddafi, oust Qaddafi; condemn the Muslim Brotherhood, support the Muslim Brotherhood; surge against al-Qaeda, arm al-Qaeda — has brought dizzying discredit to American action on the world stage. The Pauls exploit this to a fare-thee-well.
Nevertheless, the Pauls’ indictment is against government when the real culprit is wayward government policy in the execution of an essential government function. The Paul fantasy, like the Left’s, is that we can refrain from being judgmental about other countries: Just trade with everyone while pretending to be Switzerland, and then those nations disposed against us will like us better, and if they don’t we can always respond forcefully — after they’ve killed a few thousand of us.
Conservatives do not want Teddy Roosevelt’s pro-American progressivism. If, as is usually the case, you don’t have an extraordinary TR-type at the helm, what you’re left with is progressivism run amok and anything but pro-American.
Neither, however, are conservatives anti-government. In a 1997 essay diagnosing “What Ails the Right,” Bill Kristol and David Brooks famously called for government that is “limited but energetic.” I respectfully disagree: “Energetic” proves too promiscuous a license, eviscerating the Constitution’s limits. As TR is said to have remarked — perhaps apocryphally, historian Paul Johnson cautions — “What’s the Constitution between friends?” What conservatives want is a central government that does very few things — only the ones it is expressly assigned, the ones only a national government can do — but does them exceedingly well.
Limited does not mean small, for these are not small tasks. The most significant function of government, national security, is what our foreign policy must serve. This is where Reagan got it right and today’s Republican leaders get it tragically wrong.
At a time when fellow travelers on the left and “realists” on the right wanted to come to some understanding with the Soviet Union, Reagan rightly saw Communism as an evil that could not be moderated or accommodated. It was an implacable enemy that had to be resisted and defeated. That did not mean military invasions on every front. It meant organizing American foreign policy around the conviction that Communism was the enemy of liberty, that it was aggressively revolutionary, and that it had to be opposed by whatever instruments of government made the most sense. There might be ambiguity about how the United States would respond in a given set of circumstances, but there was no ambiguity about who the enemy was or that our overarching goal was to defeat him.
Today, the enemy is Islamic supremacism, which inevitably reigns whenever Islam is imposed as a governing system. We must abandon the notion that this Islam is a religion.
In last weekend’s column, I noted that the Obama administration and the GOP’s McCain wing call al-Qaeda operatives “extremists” in order to “avoid the inconvenience that what they are ‘extreme’ about is Islam.” Well, it works the other way around, too. There are millions of “moderate” Muslims, but what makes them “moderate” is that they ignore (or reimagine) the political and supremacist tenets of Islam.
That’s fine. We want to ally with Muslims who, in the spirit of the Western Enlightenment, allow for a separation of religion from politics in their doctrine. But that separation is necessary precisely because whenever a political system proclaims itself as “Islamic” — whenever it establishes Islam as the state religion and makes sharia the foundation of its law — it is inevitably hostile to liberty and equality.
In Spring Fever, I recount the rueful observation of an authentic Muslim democrat who bristled at the West’s delusional celebration of Erdogan’s “Turkish Model” of “Islamic democracy”: “We are a democracy,” he asserted. “Islam has nothing to do with it.” When Islam defines the democracy, it’s not one.
The Islamic societal system is today’s totalitarianism — so much so that it finds a reliable ally in the hard Left. Much like Soviet-era Communists, moreover, Islamic supremacists unabashedly regard us as an “enemy” to be “conquered” while we romp about their camp desperately seeking “moderates.” The Islamic system is not nearly as fearsome as the Soviet superpower, but our blindness to its evil, and thus our abetting of it, compensate for this deficit.
Like Communism, Islamic supremacism threatens America and the West comprehensively — it attacks both forcibly and culturally; it pressures without and infiltrates within. A conservative national-security policy would respond in kind. Instead of promoting the charade of Islamic democracy, it would let nature take its course overseas: Allow the Islamic system’s hopeless backwardness to collapse of its own weight while promoting champions of real Western democracy — not just popular elections but individual liberty and minority rights. You can’t empower democrats, including truly moderate Muslims, without making it attractive to be one, and unattractive to be the other guys.
Domestic policy should align with this approach. We must be done once and for all with the folly of “outreach” to “moderate Islamists” — to say nothing of the insanity of consulting with “moderate Islamists” in the formulation of national-security policy. What makes a Muslim an Islamist is his Islamic supremacism — his preference for the Islamic system. That is the antithesis of moderation, particularly in a country built on individual liberty. That an Islamist eschews violence, or at least says he does, is welcome; it does not, however, make him moderate — ACORN is not moderate even if it resists the methods of the like-minded Weather Underground. Besides, “moderate Islamist” is the euphemism du jour for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslims who love America will never rise until our political class ends its infatuation with the Muslims who envision conquering America.
A conservative foreign policy would set itself firmly against Iran and Assad, as well as against al-Qaeda, the Brotherhood, and their state sponsors. It would not choose sides between them in their Syrian free-for-all. It would make the defeat of all of them — of Islamic supremacism — its strategic objective. It would tactically use the opportunities afforded by our diplomatic, economic, intelligence, military, and leadership capabilities to make it happen.
And it would work.
— Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. He is the author, most recently, of Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy.
yamit82 Said:
Another erstwhile hero or you: http://youtu.be/0JGL9uCqoj8 The real Cisco
@ yamit82:
`
Tex agrees with you assesment of mondern day football,in words I will not repeat here. He is very ” colorfull” in his manner of speech,especially when it comes to football.
@ honeybee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YllP22mVZQg
honeybee Said:
Maybe a little. 😉
@ yamit82:
Saved this for you: Does it fit: http://youtu.be/YDnn7yN4V18
honeybee Said:
Told you Manning stinks. Lousy and predictable play caller with little imagination besides his aversion of being hit.
Y.A Tittle was a quarterback. I liked football when the players played for the love of the game and not for the fat paychecks they get today.
Lou the toe Groza played defense and was the place kicker. George bland too. The days they played with fractures to arms and legs. Who can compare today with a Jim Brown or Alan Ameche to name a few. Johny Unitas. Days when the defense players were honored more than the offense when they deserved it. Who today is better than a Sam Huff?
yamit82 Said:
Not always: http://youtu.be/JxzJAF1BxP4
honeybee Said:
Unless he is shot in the back by the comrades he deserted.
Laura Said:
The terrorist on the planes were Egyptian and Saudi,so we go to was with Iraq????????????
yamit82 Said:
” He who fights and runs away,lives to fight another day.”
@ honeybee:
Actually I think it was Obama who made a mess of it when he came into office.
As to every president needing a war, we went to war because 9/11 happened. Bush wasn’t looking for war. You sound like a leftist.
yamit82 Said:
Both, Thank you for you input on the Iraq War. Much to consider.
yamit82 Said:
I don’t like standing armies,it separates the army from the control of the voters and put the army in the hands of the politicians. The state of the USA ,at this time, brings me to dispare. Its like watching a storm appoach and the there is still hay standing in a field.
Back to trivia, How about them Broncos.
Comment #37 in moderation
honeybee Said:
Is your opposition ideological or personal?
“Theirs is not to reason why but to do and die”
America has today a voluntary military. Not a lot of difference from paid mercenaries with a Nationalistic motivational tilt.
War is a convenient method used to change negative realities of economic and political situations when their are no quick fixes.
I always have asked the question who really benefited from the Iraqi war?
It wasn’t the Iraqi people or nation as it is constituted then and today
I still maintain it was all about oil and gas, corporate corruption like (ENRON) and control over territories that are needed for secure pipelines from the Cacus to the West and to the East.
There has NEVER been a fossil fuel shortage and when there were it was artificially created. No country has ever gone without gas and oil provided they can pay for it. Besides increasing output when needed by existing producers new finds of energy are occurring all the time.
I looked at the Global gas and oil industry for 2001 including 9/11 and afterward and found some interesting facts:
I was among the very few voices who said that one of the invasion’s goals was increasing, rather than decreasing oil prices. Saddam’s biggest crime was steadily increasing Iraqi oil production. As the increasing production sent the price of oil below $10 in 1998, Iraq’s fate was sealed.
In the years following Desert Storm, Iraq was denied the right to export its oil. When the West could no longer resist Iraq’s natural right and allowed the Oil for Food exports, the price of oil plummeted. The devaluation from $22 to $10 brought oil corporations close to bankruptcy because labor costs and mammoth overhead cannot readily be scaled down: both workers and bureaucrats had become used to higher wages.
OPEC hysterically cut production by a huge 4.3 million bpd, and oil prices temporary tripled, only to be halved a year later due to the 9/11 recession possibility. The price recovered because of the Middle East tumult in the wake of the American threat to Iraq, and has continued to rise unimpeded since then.
There is no rational reason for the almost tenfold price increase since 2002. Worldwide oil demand and supply are stable. For several years after the Gulf War, the world had no problem living without Iraqi oil, except for a trickle on the black market. The ban on Iraqi oil exports was a boon to Saudi Arabia during the time of low oil prices.
The US oil corporations cannot dictate policies, but they were influential enough to swing the political balance toward invading Iraq and staying there. It’s not that Bush took a bribe from the Saudis or US oil producers for launching a war in Iraq (though he did). US oil interests are even more influential with congressmen than with the president through political donations, employee voters, and paying taxes into the local budgets. About taxes, by the way: The American scheme of paying for oil concessions comes with a twist: when oil prices rise too much, the concession payments are stable, thus allowing for super profits. Oil money is extremely concentrated and always available for lobbying.
American producers benefit enormously from O.P.E.C. price-fixing.(Whether the oil price is too high, or, as ecologists claim, too low, is unimportant. Absent price-fixing, oil price would be lower.) The United States government gets royalty-in-kind payments from domestic oil producers unrelated to profits, and price rises drive profitability up. The same accounting system that let corporations fake profits in the 1990s boom lets them hide profits from taxation. Since America imports about half its oil, its domestic output only needs to double instead of unnecessary conservation.
Oil-price increases translate almost entirely into profits, as the production cost changes very little. Therefore the price spike left oil corporations with profits in the range of 700 percent. Creative accounting allowed them to show only reasonably high figures instead.
American oil corporations have vested interests relying on O.P.E.C. for price benchmark and lucrative service contracts. American corporation collaborated with Nazi Germany; now they cooperate with Islamist governments.
America’s Muslim allies would love to see Iran bombed. Saudi Arabians fear nuclear Iran not because it would attack the Saudis—Iran has never attacked anyone in modern history—but because its growing stature would stir up the Saudi Shia population, which dwells in the oil field region. Saudi Sunni Wahhabites stole oil from Saudi Arabia’s Shia citizens, and might be forced to give back the hoard if Iran goes nuclear.3eeee
Is that good or bad news for international oil interests? Probably good, because Saudi oil production is state-owned and foreign corporations there receive moderate service contracts but not windfall concessions. If, under Iranian influence, Saudi Shia pockets become semi-independent, they would grant concessions to international oil corporations to make foreign governments accede to their autonomy. This is similar to Kurdistan. Instability in the Middle East generally, and particularly in Saudi Arabia, would send oil prices through the roof, contributing handsomely to corporate profits. Therefore US oil corporations prefer a nuclear Iran, even if it means war.
An Israeli-American operation against nuclear Iran would close it to Western oil corporations, and accordingly, secure oil concessions
Laura Said:
@ honeybee:
No, I resented your accusation that I thought of our military as mercenaries. That is why I called you that unkind name.
I agree war is not to be taken lightly. But I think WMD’s in the hands of murderous dictators who support terrorism or terrorists themselves, is extremely perilous to our national security. If it was a good enough reason to go to war against saddam, then why not now?
Laura Said:
War,like football, is not a game lightly taken up. “He laughs a wounds who never felt a blow”
yamit82 Said:
Big brother’s game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Sweetie
@ Laura:
Who is us. If Yamit 82 is any indication of the IDF, they are a extremely capable force, without the hinderance of USA demoralized forces under Obama’s command.
@ honeybee:
And they will use those chemical weapons against us and Israel. But apparently you don’t think that’s enough of a reason to act.
@ Laura:
Iran is a entirely different matter,but as you see Obama doesn’t have the stones for Iran. If the USA goes after Iran I don’t want any half a**,pin prick infitesaly small hit.
Laura Said:
Calling some an “unkind nane” becauce they disagree with you is hardly a serious discussion of issuses. Sorry, but I do not believe the death of the young in foolish,un-necessary,mis-handle wars is trvial. Right now,at this, the Syrians seem quiet capable of killing each other without the USA or Israel’s assistance.
@ honeybee:
Oh and furthermore, I guess this means you would oppose bombing Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons. The shortsighted anti-war crowd on the left and right hasn’t thought about the far greater danger of Iran with nuclear weapons.
@ yamit82:
Stop humoring her. Must we keep putting up with her trivial crap? She is a disruption while we talk about serious issues.
@ honeybee:
Once again, bitch, the muslims are ALREADY WAGING WAR AGAINST US. We did not CHOOSE to go to war. That decision was made for us on 9/11. I’ll repeat, just because we choose to retreat does not mean they will stop attacking and killing us.
@ yamit82:
Tex say his brain has bleached, washed with lye soap and hung out to dry on a prickly pear catus, you are welcome to join hism. He has beer, ESPN , and big sceen TV.
yamit82 Said:
But,of couse.
yamit82 Said:
How bout those Texans???????????// Broncos of course!!!!!!!!!! You watch Dallas for the game????????? I thought you liked scantely dressed Christian girls??????/
I did steal your brain!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baked 2 honey cakes. Do you use cardamon in yours?
Tex is partaking!!!!!!!!
Laura Said:
@ honeybee:
You will get a rude awakening from the Tea Party. The paulites are now in charge and their outlook is the majority view within the movement. And it is not good for the Jews or America’s national security.
@ honeybee:
More will be dying if we do nothing to stop the jihadists? Civilians and soldiers alike. Just because we retreat does not mean they will stop trying to kill us. Conservatives USED to understand that. Now I can’t tell the difference between the Tea Party and Code Pink.
I stand by my comments. The Tea Party is sounding frighteningly like the left did under Bush: the conspiracy theories, the anti-war rhetoric, and soon anti-Semitism will rear its ugly head in the Tea Party. MARK MY WORDS.
comment 17 to yamit in moderation
yamit82 Said:
I read your post and the link
http://ampedstatus.org/how-your-social-security-money-was-stolen-where-did-the-2-5-trillion-surplus-go/#gre
I did not know how this was done. I agree with you entirely and I add to it this small bit of info that since its reading has changed my views:
“Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.”
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
In this the time of greatest technological advancement they stole all the gains. Since then I stop having these stupid ideological discussions which I see as a ‘Punch and Judy puppet show” the libs and conservs, the repubs and demos are Punch and Judy. The audience watches them quarrel and fight with each other but the only reality is that the audience is watching a fantasy. While they steal whatever is not nailed down they have us all watching Punch and Judy and choosing sides(as if it mattered what side you were on).
I agreed with your conclusions also in your older post.
honeybee Said:
It’s all yours.
honeybee Said:
Dallas getting thumped 🙂
Manning VS Manning who’s your pick???
yamit82 Said:
Now your brain is al mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
To my Sugar with love, http://youtu.be/OQFwqGxTJ2o
@ Laura:
@ Eric R.:
I find it odd that the demands of the Tea Party are identical with those of all the Multi-billionaires in America. You know that infamous 1% who own over 60% of the wealth in America, and the other 20% who own another 30% of all the wealth in America. That means that almost 90% of all the wealth in America is owned and controlled by about 20% of the population with that 1% owning and controlling most of that wealth.
I get the impression that there is no small amt. of brainwashing involved in the Tea Party agenda and that I’ll bet much of their financing comes from those deep pocket corporate conservatives.
yamit82 Said:
Yamit,Darlin, I would say we have become battered and angry. We are become isolated from everything and everybody. Wandering in the desert.
Eric R. Said:
I don’t think it’s dumb I think yours are though.
Because criticism comes from the left it doesn’t mean none of their criticism is wrong.
Haven’t seen any polls lately but my impression is that America left right and middle are becoming very Isolationist. Bad for America but not sure yet if it’s bad for Israel.
Who increased the debt?
Reagan took office Jan 1981 Total debt was on that day: $848 billion dollars
Reagan left office Jan 1989, total debt was on that day $2689 billion dollars
increase of + 218%
George H Bush took office on Jan 1989 and on that day the total debt was $2689 billion dollars
George h Bush left office 20 Jan 993 and on that day the total debt was $ 4188 billion dollars
increase + 55 %
Bill Clinton took office on Jan 20 1993 and the total debt on that day was $4188 billion dollars’
Bill Clinton left office on Jan 20 2001 and the total debt was on that day $ 5728 billion dollars
+ 37 %
George W. Bush took office on Jan 2o 2001 and the total debt was $ 5728 billion dollars
George W. Bush left office on Jan 20 2009 and the total debt was $ 10625 billion dollars
+ 55%
Obama took office on Jan 20 2009 and the debt was $10625 billion dollars
As of today the debt is over 16100 billion dollars for about a 60% increase so far.
Reagan cut taxes most for the rich but did not increase revenues. Most of Americas dire fiscal problems where created mostly by RR and the Two Bush presidents. Obama seems to be placed around the middle of the pack by % of increase, but they were all responsible for the national debt. See: https://www.israpundit.org/archives/50489/comment-page-1#comment-224214
@ Laura:
I am weary of young men dying in war: http://youtu.be/Rx4XTZ2mUV0
http://youtu.be/m3MX2ha8QAQ
Eric R. Said:
A brother in arms!!!!!!!!!!Sugar
@ Eric R.:
Foreign affairs are not something that can be ignored. We have enemies determined to kill Americans.
I hope you are right.
I am not here to defend Obama, but it sickens me that so many conservatives are in fact defending and cheering on putin, forgetting he is an enemy of America and is arming Iran with nuclear weapons. Also putin has armed the Syrian regime which has slaughtered thousands, so why does putin get a free pass and even absurdly being described as a statesman and peacemaker while he arms dictators and terror regimes? Why is America always portrayed as the bad guy?
@ Eric R.:
No, I’m not listening to the leftist media. I pay no attention to them. I was an enthusiastic Tea Party supporter. But many members of the Tea Party themselves recently soured me on the movement. The opposition to drone strikes, the opposition to NSA spying and the hero-worship of traitor snowden. Now the praise of assad and putin. All these recent positions by the Tea Party have caused me to become disenchanted with it.
@ Laura:
I consider myself a Tea Partier, and while we usually strongly agree, here your statement is downright dumb. You are eating up the Tea-Party bashing propaganda from the leftist media that supposedly you hate as much as I do.
Foreign relations is not a Tea Party issue. People active in the movement may have their opinions on it, but the movement does not lobby on issue of foreign policy or social activism. It has some libertarian tendencies, so while the (leftist, Tea Party hating) media might claim it leads to isolationism, there are also a lot of patriotic American conservative exceptionalists who believe we have a right to use force, so they cancel out the isolationists to a large extent.
Frankly, Laura, a bankrupt America would also be a militarily weak and ineffective America. So if anything, pushing for fiscal responsibility will HELP us in the international arena over the long term, not hinder us.
As for Putin – yes, everyone knows he is a fascist semi-dictator. However, you and I don’t have to live under Putin. We have to live under Obamao, and we have a media that fellates him, and a feckless GOP who won’t stand up to him. Somebody had to do the world a favor by exposing Obama for the worthless, leftist jerk that he is. And it might as well be Putin, since he does not give a damn what the international leftist media thinks of him.
After all, Putin controls the media, and harasses media that doesn’t suck up to him. Wait a minute – Obama does that too, doesn’t he?
But Putin uses his national security apparatus to harrass and silence opponents! Wait a minute, Obama and the NSA do the same thing, don’t they?
But Putin the dictator uses his legal and tax collecting bureaucracy to harrass his opponents. Wait a minute, as I recall, Obama has been using the IRS and Holder’s DOJ for that very same thing.
But, yes, I know — Putin is still worse, because he backs the butcher Assad. Obama is not so bad — after all, he only tried his utmost to keep the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt.
So, tell me how Obama is so much better than Putin?
So great to read Andrew McCarthy’s sane analysis in light of the current conservative movement’s recent crackpot isolationist and anti-war stances. The Tea Party has gone so far around the bend, their new heroes are now putin and assad. They currently stand for nothing but being anti-Obama, even if that means finding common cause with America’s enemies (putin and assad).
bernard ross Said:
Curiouser and curiouser???
He was admitted to the NYS Bar in 1986 assumiming continuous education puts him at mid fifties plus minus.
Does anyone know when this andrew c. maccarthy III was born, I was unable to find it as I wanted to know how old he was during the reagan years.
Mr. McCarthy has it right but does not propose a method the US govt should use to defeat Islam. We should take a page out of the Gippers’ book. That is dry up the “rat hole”. Defeat them economically (sounds like what Zawahiri’s trying to do to us but it’s easier for us). To beat the USSR, Reagan spent money on Star Wars defense. The Russians tried to keep up and couldn’t b/o a poorer economy. Soon after the communist bloc fell.
It would be relatively easier to defeat Islam and help the US economy at the same time. They have only one product, oil/gas, which is bolstered by OPEC (an illegal form of competition, called a cartel). Make it a national priority to make energy from all sources (fracking of shale oil, developing [emergently, we have a huge supply in NW Colorodo] oil shale, geothermal, tidal, oil exploration etc.) Oil futures will begin to tumble when they see we’re (and maybe EU) are serious. Oil prices tumble. OPEC countries break their agreements left and right making oil prices drop precipitously. Islam can’t feed their people without high oil prices let alone try to make war on the world (you need a lot of money to pay and arm jihadists).
Congress must act first but we need leadership w/ vision and understanding that we are at war.