Divorced from reality, the Obama administration insists “nobody can claim justifiably that the United States hasn’t had success against terrorist networks.” State Department spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby announced in a press briefing on July 1, 2015.  He went on to boast about the progress against these networks and their ability to maneuver, to finance, to train, to equip, and to conduct attacks.”

Kirby stated that Washington is not “turning a blind eye to the danger that ISIL still represents (emphasis added), particularly in the region, Iraq and Syria specifically.” This just after ISIS operatives have conducted terrorist attacks on three continents, even targeting an American-owned gas plant near Lyon, France.

As for al Qaeda, Kirby pointed out “there’s no comparison to al-Qaida then and al-Qaida now.” True enough. Today’s al Qaeda’s mutations present a much more virulent strain of the Salafi movement, including ISIS, Boko Haram and other affiliates, which the administration instead of identifying them as Islamist, describes vaguely as “these extremist groups.” Not surprisingly, the remedy the administration offers for these rabid Islamist is absurd. “The best antidote to the growth of this kind of extremism has to be good governance” that could only be achieved working with international “partners” adopting “an interagency approach.”

How will these counter the rapid spread and constant reinforcement through the Internet, social media outlets, and the preaching of radical preachers at mosques?

Who among the international partners that are allegedly fighting ISIS would stop it from creating dirty bombs from the 88 pounds of uranium compounds, which may have been somewhat enriched, that was left for them at the University of Mosul on July 2014?

Though not officially, yet, Iran would be the administration’s first choice to the task of fighting ISIS. Not only do Americans provide tactical support to Iranian led Iraqi militias, but Washington’s grovelling concessions will soon give the Shiite terrorist state the opportunity to develop its own nuclear weapons.

As soon as the U.S. and the West sign the Ayatollah-dictated agreement, Iran, with U.S. blessing, is likely to take the lead in fighting ISIS. There is little doubt it will succeed in killing thousands of ISIS and other Islamists fighting in Iraq and Syria. But but the more Sunnis they kill and the more Sunni territory they capture, the ISISs of this world will hold responsible the U.S. and its P5+1 and EU partners that are willingly and greedily acceding to Iran. This partnership, the brainchild of the Obama administration, is likely to see a tremendous rise in the number of recruits to ISIS and its ilk and a sharp increase in Islamist terrorist attacks on their lands.

While the U.S. is claiming successes in fighting ISIS, the Islamist Caliphate is thriving. The ITIC’s Spotlight on Global Jihad documented how on June 29, 2015, ISIS marked the first anniversary of the declaration of the Islamic Caliphate. In the year that has passed since the declaration, the Islamic State, led by ISIS, continued to establish its control in large areas of eastern Syria and northern Iraq, despite airstrikes by the U.S. and its coalition. In the areas under its control in Syria and Iraq, ISIS has continued to set up alternative systems of governance in place of the Syrian and Iraqi regimes and to provide essential services to the population (water, food, electricity and education). At the same time, ISIS developed policing and justice mechanisms, brutally imposing Islamic law (Sharia) on the population, while committing acts of cruelty toward its opponents and its enemies inside and outside the areas under its control.

Concurrently with its establishment in Syria and Iraq, ISIS managed to establish new provinces outside of Iraq and Syria:

In the Sinai Peninsula, a province was established through the jihadi organization Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in November 2014; 

In Libya, ISIS managed to set up three provinces: the Barqa province (in the east), the Tripoli province (in the west), and the Fezzan province (in the south); 

In Nigeria, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIS;

In the Caucasus, ISIS recently announced the establishment of four new provinces: Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and the United Vilayat of KBK (Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachay).

• Celebrating its one year anniversary on June 29, the Islamic Caliphate attacked holidaymakers on the beach of the Tunisian resort town of Sousse, killing 38 people, most of them Western tourists (mainly British).  In France, ISIS attacked an American owned gas plant near the city of Lyon; The two assailants beheaded a local businessman and caused a series of explosions of gas tanks;
• In Kuwait, a suicide car bombing attack of a Shiite mosque, was carried out by a terrorist from Saudi Arabia, killing 27 worshippers.
• On July 1st, extending its “celebrations” to the Sinai Peninsula, ISIS carried out simultaneous attacks on five Egyptian military checkpoints, killing 17 Egyptian soldiers and injuring 30 others.
• The These three attacks were intended to achieve different objectives: the terror attack in Tunisia was intended to harm Western tourism and destabilize the regime; the terror attack in Kuwait was intended to exacerbate the Sunni-Shiite schism and destabilize the regime; up to now, jihadi terrorist attacks in France have been directed mainly against government or Jewish targets. The latest attack may serve as a signal for local jihadists to add economic sites to their target list.

• On July 2, Boko Haram, an ISIS affiliate, killed more than 80 people killed in simultaneous  attacks on worshippers in several mosques in northeastern town of Kukawa.

But Admiral Kirby sees it differently. “I think it’s safe to say that, yes, there has been enormous progress made against that group.”

Statements like these do little to endear the U.S. to al Qaeda’s and ISIS’s victims. And some, or many will join Salafi groups in person or online to obtain training and instruction of how to kill and maim more Americans, destroy their business and install deep fear in their souls, a fear that will further weaken American resistance.

What would the Obama administration do? Call on the public to show more tolerance, understanding, respect and look for mutual values and interests with old and new partners.

Welcome to Obama’s terrorism creed.