(RCP) Rewarding vicious conduct is a sure-fire method of generating more of it. And wrongly blaming an ally for provoking young men and women to join your brutal adversary is an excellent recipe for harming friends and strengthening enemies. Yet in the struggle against Islamic extremism, the Obama administration has adopted both of these profoundly counterproductive tactics.
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Kerry went on to tell those gathered to celebrate the Muslim holiday: "As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL coalition, the truth is we -- there wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation."
Kerry then promptly endorsed the hoary excuse trotted out by Arab rulers to distract attention from the unrest created by their own authoritarian regimes -- that Israeli "humiliation" of Palestinians and denial of their dignity is a principal cause of jihadism in the region.
The real cause of the rise of ISIL is the determination by Sunni Muslim extremists to defeat and destroy Shiite Muslim extremists and their allies in Syria and Iraq. About this Secretary of State Kerry said not a word.
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The monsters of the Middle East can quickly sniff out a weak man, and Kerry comes in with the mindset that the savagery of these inferior people is merely a recation to the sins of the West. These "leaders" must have a good time mocking Kerry in their strategy meetings.
