President Obama is not interested in winning any wars.  He is interested in ending them by withdrawing from them.  While many conservatives complain he never utters the word Islamist to describe our enemies, we might be equally concerned that he never says the word victory.

Victory was the one-word message that Winston Churchill spoke when he assumed office in 1940.  He was not interested in negotiating with the Nazis (Nozzies, as he contemptuously called them).  He intended to “beat the life” out of the Hun.  And he did.

President Obama prefers to negotiate with Iran and to use pinprick surgical strikes against ISIS.  President Obama and his mouthpieces are ever so respectful of ISIS.  Many of us regard ISIS as Islamist Savagery Inspired by Satan.  But this administration is careful to refer to them as IS, ISIL, or even Daesh – using their Arabic designator.

That’s not too surprising.  Mr. Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, holds the dubious distinction of being the first U.S. official in history to deliver a speech in which he referred to Jerusalem first by its Arabic name, al Quds.

By giving precedence to the Arabic designator, Brennan was bowing to Muslim demands for priority over the eternal capital of the Jewish people.  It was no accident.  It was an intentional surrender to our adversaries.  And it was a concession to those who want to destroy Israel.

The point was not lost on them: Americans are weakening and seeking a path of retreat.  Osama bin Laden may be dead (the best accomplishment of this administration), but his words live on: Arabs will always cleave to the Strong Horse.  That is not a horse Mr. Obama wants to ride.

He has openly and repeatedly rejected Churchill’s views on Jerusalem.  “Let the Jews have Jerusalem,” Churchill advised British leaders in the 1950s.  “It is they who made it famous.”

One of the hundreds of documentaries on Churchill’s leadership also provides the key to his strategy for victory.  Once the Germans had been defeated in North Africa, Churchill staged a victory parade.  Marching past the triumphant prime minister were kilted Scots and arm-swinging New Zealanders.  Moved, Churchill wept unashamedly.

A German general and his adjutant, looking neither right nor left, came by in their staff car.  As they came even with Winston, they saluted their conqueror with a simultaneous and smart “eyes right.”

But their staff car was being drawn by a mule.  Churchill nearly broke out laughing.  The German general nearly laughed, too.  That mule-drawn staff car was Churchill’s secret.  He had read U.S. Grant’s Memoirs and applied the lessons on cutting off his enemy’s supplies.  If British soldiers, man for man, could not overcome the determined warrior ethos of Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Korps, Churchill could starve the Germans out.  He decided to bring that Desert Fox’s panzer tanks to a clanking halt in the desert by cutting off his supplies of gasoline.

Why isn’t President Obama working day and night to cut off ISIS’s money, obtained through sales of captured oil?  It’s because he has imposed absurd Rules of Engagement on our air strikes.  He wants the credit for waging war, but he wants to make sure no gets hurt.  After all, the drivers of ISIS oil trucks might not be card-carrying ISIS members.  And the ACLU might not approve of hitting their trucks.  The results, even with the latest move to bomb them, are half-hearted.

Let’s not forget: Barack Obama is president today only because he successfully appealed to the Peace Caucus-goers in Iowa in 2008.  That is how he beat Hillary Clinton.  Without the support of the pacifist left, he could not have been elected.  Without their support now, he will not be able to promote his own chosen successor.

The first force he had to appease – before the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese, or ISIS – was those Peace Caucus-goers.  We cannot have victory until we have a new commander-in-chief. Victory has never been Barack Obama’s goal and that’s why it eludes us.