(Jim Watson/AFP/Getty)

It is entirely fitting and symbolic that the Obama administration chose the day after one of the deadliest domestic terror attacks since 9/11 to announce that the president was going to degrade American combat power. The decision to open all combat jobs to women is entirely consistent with a series of administration decisions that place social justice and politically correct posturing over core national-security interests.


There is overwhelming evidence that mixed-gender combat units are less effective than the traditional all-male infantry platoon. Comprehensive studies show they’re less accurate with their weapons, more injury prone, and less capable of evacuating the wounded. On measure after measure, mixed-gender units underperform — and that’s just in training. What happens in real combat when the enemy ruthlessly exploits not just perceived weakness but also the extreme (and understandable) male reaction when they find their female comrades in particular danger?

RELATED: The Obama Pentagon’s Disastrous Decision on Women in Combat

The decision to open all combat jobs to women is just the latest development in the Obama administration’s quest to frog-march the military to the extreme edges of the sexual revolution. Opening the military to transgender soldiers — while impacting on the smallest numbers of service-members — is not designed to enhance national security but rather to put the strongest possible government imprint on the gender-bending strangeness of queer theory.

It’s not enough to have a politically correct military — the military has to fight with PC tactics.

But it’s not enough to have a politically correct military — the military has to fight with PC tactics. As I discuss in some depth in this week’s National Review cover story, our draconian rules of engagement don’t simply impair combat effectiveness, they also kill our own men and women in uniform. The Obama administration’s restrictions in the air war against ISIS render our bombing campaign so ineffective that many Iraqis — who’ve seen and experienced the might of American arms — actively believe we’re on the other side.


When these PC tactics fail — as they inevitably will — then the administration uses the resulting humanitarian crisis as an opportunity for virtue-signaling, hectoring Americans into taking in one-third of one percent of the millions of forlorn Syrian refugees even as ISIS is actively seeking to infiltrate and recruit the displaced masses. American vetting has never been foolproof — as the citizens of San Bernardino learned to their immense regret — yet the administration responds to legitimate concerns with its now-trademark haughty displays of moral superiority.


#share#At every turn, one sees an administration putting into practice the theories of far-left academics. The Iran nuclear deal represents almost the perfect expression of the view that America’s national-security problems are America’s fault, and that the answer to conflict is to affirmatively reward our enemies — to bring them within the “community of nations.” Forget the American blood on their hands. Forget Iran’s active support for jihadist terror. Forget American hostages.


Our president is impervious to facts. He backed jihadists in Libya, and now ISIS is establishing a second base of operations on the Mediterranean coast. He backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and then found himself on the wrong side of the largest popular demonstrations in recorded history. Again and again his policies have allowed jihadist militias to thrive, and now they control nation-sized territories, collect taxes, raise armies, and recruit even American citizens to join their unholy crusade.

At every turn, one sees an administration putting into practice the theories of far-left academics.

The recent past has proven that when terrorists are given time, resources, and sanctuary, they can plot and execute devastating attacks. Al-Qaeda launched its worst terror offensive — destroying American embassies, nearly sinking the USS Cole, and then destroying the World Trade Center and damaging the Pentagon — from long-held safe sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Similarly, ISIS has launched its most horrific attacks — in Beirut, Paris, and in the skies over the Sinai — after it was allowed to maintain its own safe havens. As those safe havens expand, look for San Bernardino to represent the beginning — not the end — of jihadist carnage here at home.

Our commander-in-chief has become instead the social-justice-warrior-in-chief, much to the delight of his progressive base. He will soon retire to their accolades, and his successor will inherit a dangerous and unstable world, a shrunken and constrained military, and an activist bureaucratic Left that will do all it can to preserve the Obama administration’s liberal “reforms.” Hillary Clinton would likely make things worse, but which Republican possesses the iron will necessary to repair the military, restore its striking power, and defeat our enemies? It’s a task that will take courage — in a time when courage is in short supply.