Orlando Shows That ISIS Is Today’s Cold War Moscow

The National Review’s headlines might lead one to believe that we are at war. In the common struggle against the single enemy of ISIS they say, we have been attacked by individuals tangentially tied to ISIS in Orlando, San Bernardino, Chattanooga, and Garland, leaving 69 Americans dead since 2015. That’s 69 too many, but our endeavor to fight the very concept of Islamic terrorism as though it will be a finite war with a definitive victory is a quixotic one, reminiscent of the vague Cold War on Communism against Moscow.

According to law enforcement officials, the perpetrator of the Orlando Attack had no direct relationship with the Islamic State, despite pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. Similarly, the closest relationship that attackers had with ISIS in San Bernardino, Chattanooga, and Garland were various pledges, though the Chattanooga attacker had in fact called ISIS a “stupid group.”