Making Believe

With trumpets and drum rolls, the White House has released a new policy paper on methods to prevent terrorism, a study said to have been two years in the making. Signed personally by Pres. Barack Obama and vaunting “the strength of communities” and the need to “enhance our understanding of the threat posed by violent extremism,” the document looks anodyne.

But beneath the calm lies a counterproductive — and dangerous — approach to terrorism. The import of this document consists in its firm stand on the wrong side of three distinct counterterrorism questions currently being debated, with the responsible Right (and a few sensible liberals) on one side, and Islamists, leftists, and multiculturalists on the other.