PRESIDENT PANDORA

The first big step President Barack Hussein Obama took to implement the new strategy he outlined in his much ballyhooed speech in Cairo in June of 2009 was the war of dubious legality he waged to oust Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

He wouldn’t fight Islamists, as George W. Bush had done, Mr. Obama said. He came to Cairo "to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect."

He reached out primarily to the Muslim Brotherhood (Iqwan Muslimeen), the oldest and largest Islamist group. Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Ikhwan have affiliates in 70 countries.

Gaddafi was a largely secular dictator who suppressed Islamists. When his regime fell in October, 2011, President Obama said: "After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise."

Islamists seized control of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, Aug. 25. The descent of Libya into a bloody civil war Islamists are winning is fraught with symbolic significance, because it was here President Barack Hussein Obama opened Pandora’s box.

In Greek mythology, the god Zeus gave Pandora, the first woman or Greek Eve, a box (a jar in Hesiod’s original story), and a warning never to open it. When Pandora cracked it open, out rushed all the evils that plague mankind.

In the modern version, Americans in an act of masochistic naïveté gave such a box to Obama in 2008, who promptly opened it – and then to compound the masochism, they insisted he keep it open in 2012.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is a worldwide "caliphate" ruled by Islamic law. A caliph is a successor to the Prophet Mohammed, a sort of pope and king combined.

Religious dictatorship is incompatible with the American ideals of liberty, democracy, separation of church and state. So are the means by which Islamists pursue their caliphate. Allies of Hitler during World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood fathered al Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State.

The common ground Mr. Obama saw with Islamists existed only in his imagination. His foreign policy is chiefly responsible for the explosion of violence from Afghanistan to Nigeria – violence which soon may find its way here. The biggest miscalculation any president has ever made has set the world aflame.

Even now, after the Islamic State has made its nature brutally clear, Mr. Obama won’t admit his colossal misjudgment.

He trusts Turkey and Qatar, Mr. Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a transcript an Israeli television station said it obtained from "a senior American official" of their telephone conversation July 27.

He’s become friends with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Mr. Obama said in a 2012 interview with Time Magazine. Qatar brokered the president’s swap of five Taliban leaders for, as Mad Magazine put it, "one weasely deserter."

The Islamic State gets most of its supplies from Turkey and Qatar, sells oil on the black market through them.

What brings Turkey, Qatar and IS together is the Muslim Brotherhood. The caliphate will be established in Turkey, said the Ikhwan’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi,an Egyptian who lives in Qatar.

Sheikh Qaradawi lives in Qatar because the Egyptian government considers him a terrorist. President Obama’s continued support for Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood member ousted in a coup so popular it brought together democracy advocates and the military, has poisoned relations with the most important Arab country.

His reluctance to make decisions compounds the consequences of Mr. Obama’s epic misjudgment. An attempt to rescue journalist James Foley failed because the president dawdled for nearly a month before authorizing it. By the time U.S. commandos hit where intelligence said the hostages were being held, they’d been moved.

The White House leaked the failed rescue attempt to deflect criticism of the president’s prompt return to the golf course after Mr. Foley was beheaded. This infuriated Special Operations Forces, who feared the leak revealed important information about their sources and methods.

Military leaders were "apoplectic" when Mr. Obama said Aug. 28 the U.S. has "no strategy" for dealing with IS in Syria, because they have a plan, believe the need to act on it is urgent, said Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News.

But this president acts – too little and too late – chiefly to make himself look good. The administration’s grand strategy is "Step Away, Do Nothing, Pat Self on Back," said Kori Schake of the Hoover Institution. 

All while President Pandora keeps his box of evils wide open.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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