Jordan’s King Abdullah, a key regional U.S. ally and former general, met with American lawmakers following the gruesome murder of Jordanian Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, and Abdullah promised to fight ISIL until his nation runs “out of fuel and bullets.” Jordan already executed two Islamic State jihadis in retaliation. All 26 members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican and Democrat, sent a letter to Barack Obama requesting he immediately back Jordan, but Obama continues to balk. For example, the U.S. flew 1,100 sorties daily against Iraq during OIF but is now flying a total of seven strike sorties against ISIL targets on an average day. Clearly, Arab coalition partners do not see U.S. leadership or commitment to eradicating ISIL, and some of them are quitting. Indeed, the United Arab Emirates pulled out of coalition airstrike support a month ago, though Obama failed to mention this. In fact, a DoD report dated Feb. 1, 2015, says, “U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq” – and it lists the UAE as one of the participants. Jordan, on the other hand, is leading the charge against ISIL. Obama stated this past weekend in regard to what we can do to defeat ISIL, “Anything we can do, we are doing.” But according to Devin Nunes (R-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, “Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, he’s not even admitting who the enemy is or where the enemy is even located.” Former DIA director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn likewise explained, “[O]ur failure … to understand this really menacing ideology has led us to a mismatch in how we are executing a strategy and how we are executing even some of our campaign plans on the military side.” In other words, Obama has failed to call our enemy what it is – Islamist – and in doing so we now have virtually no strategy for containing this very dangerous threat to U.S. national security.

Update, Friday, Feb. 6: King Abdullah said, “This is a war the world cannot afford to lose. But to win it, all of us must be in it, to stand as partners in the fight against today’s threats and to go beyond, to build the conditions for humanity to live together in peace.”