There is much speculation out and about on how Donald Trump will govern and fulfill his promises. But President Trump’s success or failure is not guaranteed, writes Andrew McCarthy in NRO. Mr. McCarthy reminds readers that the Trump’s presidency will most likely be judged on events that have not happened yet and how President Trump reacts to the unexpected— “the Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the 9/11.”
In his ambitious inaugural address, President Trump vowed that the United States would “eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth.” That is ambitious, to say the least. What we call “radical Islam” is not so radical on much of the earth. What makes it “radical” here in the West is the subject of dispute. According to Washington, it is the practice of violent jihadism. For those with eyes willing to see, though, it is the ideology that animates the jihad: the belief in a divine mission to implement sharia — Allah’s law and blueprint for how life is to be lived, as classically understood for more than a millennium.
A bedrock of that ancient law is “oneness.” From a theological standpoint, the oneness and indivisibility of God. From a philosophical standpoint, the oneness of and indivisibility of life — the rejection of the Western principle of separate political and spiritual spheres. And from a strategic standpoint, the oneness and indivisibility of the mission: jihadists, jurisprudents, imams, and activists all working toward the single aim of governance by sharia norms.
The mission does not accept such Westphalian impediments as national boundaries. It seeks a global caliphate. It grasps that tactics must vary from place to place — in Islamic societies, an iron fist works best; in the West, stealth attacks and exploitation of civil liberties to advance sharia’s anti-liberty agenda, each reinforcing the other. But the objective never changes.
Mr. McCarthy further warns that foreign jihadist operations are used to inspire domestic attacks and then intimidate by demanding “concessions in foreign negotiations, international tribunals, and the councils of our government. It is a unitary, global threat. It has to be seen as such and confronted as such.”
Read more from Mr. McCarthy here.
