Four years ago, President Obama and Democrats were boasting about ending the war in Iraq and having al Qaeda on the run. Four years later, another international terrorist group known as the Islamic State has taken over large swaths of Syria and Iraq, established operations in Libya, and has carried out attacks in France, Brussels, and the United States, among other countries. How did we go from having al Qaeda on the run and ending the war in Iraq to another global war on "terror."
Before ISIS rose to national prominence, Obama and Democrats were underestimating the terrorist group’s capability and effectiveness. Back in January 2014, Obama compared ISIS to a junior varsity basketball team.
"The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant," Obama said in an interview with The New Yorker.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even admitted to underestimating ISIS.
"I could not have predicted, however, the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq and erase boundaries to create an Islamic state," Clinton said during a Council on Foreign Relations event.
The Obama administration continued to downplay the threat of ISIS. The day before the deadly Paris terrorist attack that killed 120 people in November, Obama declared that "ISIS was contained."
The latest from Democrats and the Obama administration is that the U.S. is really in a global war of narratives with ISIS.