In the NYT, Roger Cohen thinks the War on Terror has ended with President Obama’s interview with Al Arabiya news:
In his first White House televised interview, with the Al Arabiya news network based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, President Obama buried the lead: The war on terror is over.Yes, the with-us-or-against-us global struggle — the so-called Long War — in which a freedom-loving West confronts the undifferentiated forces of darkness comprising everything from Al Qaeda to elements of the Palestinian national struggle under the banner of “Islamofascism” has been terminated.
What’s left is what matters: defeating terrorist organizations. That’s not a war. It’s a strategic challenge.
Is it a “strategic challenge” to hunt down the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent people in NYC? That is a disturbing categorization. Most people already agree that the War on Terror isn’t a conventional war, but to call it a strategic challenge would be to absurd.
