Islamic Jihad Is a World War

By Christopher Holton

With the emergence over the past 18 months of the Islamic State, the West, led by the United States, now finds itself in a world war, whether we want to believe it or not.

The Islamic State is not simply an Iraqi problem or a Syrian problem; it has metastasized into a global organization with 31,000 recruits from around the world.

Meanwhile, other Islamic jihadi organizations — such as Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, HAMAS, Lashkar e Taiba, Hezbollah, and Abu Sayyef — are operating in more countries with more fighters than ever before.

This global Islamic jihad amounts to a world war. Nevertheless, policymakers in the United States continue to ignore or deny this reality.

Over the course of a generation, the West has allowed itself to be thoroughly infiltrated. This is evidenced by the global base of recruitment that the Islamic State has been able to take advantage of and the numerous public displays of Islamic State support in the West, in addition to recent acts of jihad in Oklahoma City, Queens, Ottawa, Sydney, and Paris.

Think about the implications of this for a moment: jihadis are actively promoting and recruiting for jihadi terrorist organizations that are sworn to conquer the West on the very streets of western republics.

Imagine for a moment that your church was being used to recruit for violence and that your pastor was encouraging young men to join violent groups. Seems impossible, doesn’t it? That is exactly what’s happening in mosques in India, Indonesia, Australia, across the Middle East, and parts of Europe. And past experience tells us that it is likely happening here in mosques in the United States as well.

Can there still be any doubt that Islamic jihad poses a serious threat to the safety of every American and to our national security?