Speaking to a joint session of Congress a week after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the 9/11 atrocities, President George W. Bush outlined the only strategy that has ever had a chance of winning the “war on terror.” The plan, which became known as the Bush doctrine, had two simple steps: The United States would hunt down terrorist organizations — meaning, violent jihadists — wherever on earth they set up shop; and nations that abetted terrorists would be treated as terrorists — meaning that the United States would pressure rogue regimes until they reformed or were ousted.
Fourteen years later, the administration of President Barack Obama has inked a multilateral agreement that makes Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, a threshold nuclear power. Sanctions relief provides it with a $150 billion windfall that, the mullahs crow, will be used to continue underwriting Hezbollah, Hamas, and their other jihadist clients. The trillions spent and lives sacrificed in years of war against jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan have been squandered, with the former country now essentially surrendered to Tehran while the latter is gradually returning to the Taliban — which Obama gifted with a seat at the Afghanistan negotiation table and the release of its detained commanders even as the jihadists continued conducting offensive operations against our troops and the fledgling government we’d been propping up for over a decade.
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