Hillary Clinton’s dismissal that the threat from jihadist groups represents a clash of civilizations is troubling because it indicates that while she says ISIS is motivated by a radical ideology, she does not understand what this ideology is.
Has Hillary Clinton separated herself from President Obama by taking a tougher and more realistic position on the threat from ISIS? That’s what many in the news media are saying based on some of her recent foreign-policy statements, such as her remarks in a November 19 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations:
ISIS operates across three mutually reinforcing dimensions: a physical enclave in Iraq and Syria; an international terrorist network that includes affiliates across the region and beyond; and an ideological movement of radical jihadism. We have to target and defeat all three, and time is of the essence.
This portrayal of the ISIS threat sounds like an improvement over the awkward rhetoric used by President Obama to discuss what he insists on calling ISIL or Daesh, and his refusal to use words such as “jihad” and “jihadism.” But Hillary’s rhetorical improvements were offset by caveats indicating that she actually has not moved very far from the president and has a worldview that is just as incoherent.
For example, Clinton criticized “the obsession in some quarters [meaning Republicans] with a clash of civilizations.” Clinton also echoed Obama’s frequent claims that the United States is not at war with Islam when she said, “I don’t think we’re at war with all Muslims. I think we’re at war with jihadists.”
Clinton’s dismissal that the threat from jihadist groups represents a clash of civilizations is troubling because it indicates that while she says ISIS is motivated by a radical ideology, she does not understand what this ideology is.
Its adherents — including many authorities of Islam — believe in sharia, which amounts to a global operating system for jihad, a holy war with infidel societies explicitly seeking to impose, by violent or stealthy means, an Islamic caliphate worldwide.
Clinton also apparently does not realize that the clash-of-civilizations concept is not a Republican talking point but a well-known theory developed by two giants in the history of the Middle East and political science, Drs. Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington.
