Terror attacks have nearly tripled under Obama, and the number of people dead from terror attacks has nearly quadrupled.
(By the way, under Bush attacks tripled as well, which leads to the "ninefold" increase since 2000.)
The majority of these increases have come from four primary sources:
- the complete destablization of Syria due to the civil war and the rise of ISIS in the East
- the spilling over of ISIS violence into Iraq that has led to massive casualties
- the resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan due to their defeat in Afghanistan
- the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria
Withdrawing from Iraq was a mistake. Letting Bashar al Assad cross the red line with no consequences was a mistake. Not doing anything to help Nigeria combat Boko Haram is a mistake.
The world has seen extensive successes in counterterrorism under Obama. Rebuilding our international relationships has enhanced our information gathering abilities and strengthed our counterterrorism ops in other countries. We eliminated Osama bin Laden and have completely destabilized and degraded al Qaeda to the point of being an afterthought in conversations about global terrorism. There has not been a coordinated terror attack on US soil at all under this president's administration.
But the world is quantifiably more dangerous. The West has seen the most serious and most damaging terror attacks since 9/11 under this administration. At the start of this presidency, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and even Iraq were functioning countries, but by the end, Libya has seen extreme increases in violence and terrorism, Syria and Yemen are embroiled in civil war (with Syria being among the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st Century), Iraq losing its western countryside and third largest city to ISIS, and only Egypt having any semblance of order due to a military dictatorship supplanting the previous dictatorship.
This is Obama's fault by deviating substantially from what he calls the Washington Playbook, which is more aptly known as the broad consensus of security analysts working in DC.
You may argue fatalistically that the Middle East is doomed, or that we should turn our attention elsewhere, or that the goal of this administration is mostly just to keep us safe and abstain from sticky engagements in the region unnecessarily. But if the goal was ever to make the world safer, then the president has failed.
The jury is still out on whether it is worth the human and financial cost to succeed.
