Obama: The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force

Obama to Arabs:

‘The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.”

So spoke President Obama on Wednesday from the UN podium here in New York. In candor and purpose, it may be the strongest speech of his presidency.

The president started well by calling the Islamic State what it is: a “network of death.”

Ditto for his public call for Muslim communities — whose people and nations endure the worst horrors from those who bomb and behead in the name of Islam — to “explicitly, forcefully and consistently reject the ideology of” terror groups such as ISIS.

And notwithstanding the frosty relations between Washington and Jerusalem, the president further cleared the air by declaring that “the situation in Iraq, Syria and Libya should cure anyone of the illusion that [the Israeli-Palestinian] conflict is the main source of problems in the region.”

Good, too, for the president for not limiting his tough language to the Middle East. Vladimir Putin’s Russia was also not spared.

The president spoke against a backdrop of dramatic events. These include airstrikes the United States is carrying out with the help of Arab allies.

They also include the many ISIS barbarities visited on the innocent, from the beheading of Western hostages to the slaughter of men, women and children whose misfortune was to be in their path.

Just a few years ago, the headlines were full of the Arab Spring. Since then, we’ve seen the resurgence of the Middle East’s long civil war.

That, of course, was one reason we fought for a free Iraq, to help give the Arabs space where the two main branches of Islam could work together to carve out a more hopeful future.

So kudos to our president. We end with what he said before he went on to chair a meeting of the UN Security Council: “The words spoken here today must be matched and translated into action, into deeds.”

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