“The spark has been lit … and its heat will continue to intensify”

That’s from the table of contents of the monthly Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) online magazine DABIQ, published for the purpose of recruiting jihadists from the West.  On page 58 of Issue 11 are the following three paragraphs:

In the face of IS’s substantial geographical and manpower expansion, U.S. leaders in both parties have maintained a basically law-and-order approach to the mujahedin and have downplayed — when not ignoring — IS capabilities, its motivation and intentions, and the religious war it is waging. They also have spent the last year wasting time on whining about IS beheadings, the nuclear weapon Iran cannot be prevented from attaining, and stoking war in Europe by aiding a Ukrainian government that cannot defend itself and uselessly sanctioning a Russian regime that will not return Crimea and knows that the term “paper tiger” has never been more applicable than when applied to the United States and NATO.

When the time comes — and it will — for U.S. leaders to look in the cupboard and find a tool with which to end the IS threat, they will find it bare. With two deliberately lost wars, a broken military, a governing elite and president unattached to reality, a bankrupt treasury, a political system corrupted by the U.S.-citizen agents of foreign powers, next-to-useless European allies, a Western world that prefers its own death to slaughtering its enemy, and an Islamist enemy far smarter and more talented than it is given credit for, the U.S. governing elite will have only one option.

Turning from the bare cupboard, these poor souls will know what commonsensical Americans untainted by Ivy League educations have known all along. Namely, that it is time to put America first and to return to General Washington’s foreign-policy legacy by immediately proclaiming the end of U.S. interventionism, the termination of support for all states and groups in the Middle East, the U.S. withdrawal from NATO, and the resumption of America’s most effective national security policy — strict neutrality.

If you find that unnerving, at least find it not surprising, given the U.S. approach to attacking the Islamic State with leaflets:

According to Bridget Johnson of PJ Media, actions taken by U.S. forces in the wake of the Paris massacre include an effort to interdict ISIS oil tanker traffic. U.S. aerial assets carried this out by bombarding the trucks with leaflets warning drivers that an air strike would follow within forty-five minutes. What followed was, evidently, not air strikes at all but low-level buzzing by U.S. Navy fighter-bombers. (Consider for a minute what the pilots must have thought.)

It’s difficult to know what’s more astonishing about this – the fact that it’s taken over a year for the Central Command to move against ISIS’s major source of revenue, or the delight that military spokesmen have taken in this ineffectual, empty operation.

-- J.R. Dunn “The Obamization of the Military, Pt. 243” American Thinker Nov. 19, 2015

That’s not a one-off, either, as was recently reported by the Washington Free Beacon:

“U.S. Pilots Confirm: Obama Admin Blocks 75 Percent of Islamic State Strikes”

U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a strike, according to a leading member of Congress.

Strikes against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

* * *

Jack Keane, a retired four-star U.S. general, agreed with Royce’s assessment of the administration’s policy and blamed President Barack Obama for issuing orders that severely constrain the U.S. military from combatting terror forces.

“This has been an absurdity from the beginning,” Keane said in response to questions from Royce. “The president personally made a statement that has driven air power from the inception.”

“When we agreed we were going to do airpower and the military said, this is how it would work, he [Obama] said, ‘No, I do not want any civilian casualties,’” Keane explained. “And the response was, ‘But there’s always some civilian casualties. We have the best capability in the world to protect from civilians casualties.’”

However, Obama’s response was, “No, you don’t understand. I want no civilian casualties. Zero,’” Keane continued. “So that has driven our so-called rules of engagement to a degree we have never had in any previous air campaign from desert storm to the present.”

* * *

“Believe me,” Keane added, “the French are in there not using the restrictions we have imposed on our pilots.”

And the same goes for Russians, he said, adding, “They don’t care at all about civilians.”

Perhaps Jonah Goldberg should apologize to the French for calling them “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” after the 9/11 attacks?  And no one has ever expected otherwise from the Russians.

Apparently the American electorate isn’t on the same page as the administration when it comes to overly restrictive rules of engagement:

Meanwhile, a poll released Thursday found that at least 70 percent of Americans support an expanded fight against the Islamic State, including sending U.S. troops to the region.

But I don’t believe that sending 50 U.S. Special Forces operatives to not aid Iraqis fighting ISIS in Ramadi and bombing the Islamic State with leaflets will do the trick, will it?

The Islamic State would seem to have a pretty good understanding of the West in general and the U.S. in particular.  However, not all their thought may spring forth from the Koran:

The ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu taught his men to "know your enemy" before going into battle. For if "you know your enemy and know yourself," he wrote, "you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." But, Sun Tzu warned, "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

In my 22 years as an officer of Marines - from Annapolis to The Basic School to the Naval War College - similar advice was drilled into us: to know your enemy. It's sound guidance, pretty basic stuff, really. Yet there are apparently those in our government - people with many years of experience - supposedly learned statesmen, according to their bios and press reports - who somehow don't get it.

-- Oliver North “Know Your Enemy” Military.com Jun. 4, 2004

Oh, well...