National Review Online
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
It is neither a surprise nor a mistake that the latest
major Islamic terrorist attack to befall Europe targeted Brussels, the heart of
European multiculturalism. Decades of willful blindness to the problem of
ideological fanaticism left the capital of the European Union neglectful of
serious threats to its security, and, on Tuesday, terrorists exploited that:
Following the detonation of explosives at Brussels’s Zaventem Airport and a
major Metro station during the morning rush hour, at least 31 people are dead
and another 180 injured. The Islamic State has claimed credit for the attack.
Like Paris, where the Islamic State murdered 130 people
in November, Brussels is a city in deep distress. In one part of the city
reside EU bureaucrats who continue to promulgate their fanciful transnational
ideals, increasingly against the evidence; in another part are roiling ghettos
populated largely by Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East, many of
whom have a very different vision for the future of Europe — for example, Salah
Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French citizen of Moroccan descent and an accomplice
in November’s Paris attack, who was captured last week in Brussels’s heavily
Muslim neighborhood of Molenbeek, just a few hundred yards from his childhood
home. A half century of effectively open borders, a refusal to require
assimilation of immigrants into a robust notion of European culture, and an
unyielding fidelity to multicultural pieties have resulted in cities fractured
along ethnic lines and, as Brussels officials have admitted in the hours since
Tuesday morning’s attack, overwhelmed by potential terror threats. As one
official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Buzzfeed: “It’s literally an impossible situation, and, honestly,
it’s very grave.”
It would be dangerously naïve to think that the Islamic
State is not planning to export its brand of terror to the United States. To
that end, America cannot repeat the mistakes of Europe, beginning with
irresponsible immigration and refugee-resettlement policies. (The Somali
community in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, which has seen an alarming number of young
men and women depart to join al-Shabaab and the Islamic State, offers an
example of what can happen if large Muslim populations fail to assimilate.)
Securing our borders is a crucial step in preventing the infiltration of
terrorists into the country, and preventing them from radicalizing and
recruiting young Muslims here. Additionally, our reliance on European
intelligence to vet foreigners arriving in the United States must be
reconsidered. France, Belgium, and others lack the surveillance capacities to
defend their own citizens, let alone ours.
Other measures are necessary. In a press conference
shortly after the Brussels attack, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz
stated, “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods
before they become radicalized,” a proposal that, predictably, has the usual
suspects rending their garments. But directing limited law-enforcement
resources toward likely sources of radicalization — certain mosques and
community centers, for example — should be common sense; responsible people
know the difference between a targeted approach to thwart a real and dangerous
phenomenon and an unconstitutional dragnet. Furthermore, this strategy should
entail allying, wherever possible, with the many Muslims who have no interest
in seeing their communities co-opted for jihadist recruitment. Under Michael
Bloomberg, New York City was engaged in exactly this sort of muscular
surveillance program, until Bill de Blasio shut it down earlier this year. City
officials maintain that the program was vital to New York’s security. This
program should be restarted, and others like it begun.
These defensive measures are crucial. But defeating the
Islamic State once and for all will, of course, require eradicating the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria. Despite its rhetoric, the Obama administration has yet
to carry out a robust air campaign, preferring to outsource this responsibility
to Russia, which has focused not on crippling the Islamic State but on propping
up Bashar al-Assad. A decisive air campaign, ultimately backed up by American
forces on the ground, is the only way to rip up the Islamic State at its roots.
The current administration, Hillary Clinton, and their
allies on the left are determined to maintain that the Islamic State and the
other off-brand varieties of Islamic terrorism will wither away if we only
close Guantanamo or provide better employment opportunities in Raqqa. But this
is war, and sooner or later, that will require a serious strategy, carried out
by leaders serious about keeping America safe. Ideally, they will opt to
formulate and execute that strategy before the Islamic State crops up at JFK
and Grand Central Terminal.
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