A NEW ALERT – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:   The prime minister of Singapore warns us that ISIS is spreading throughout southern Asia.  From Bloomberg: 

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has ramped up its activities in Southeast Asia so effectively that there is now an entire military unit of terrorists recruited from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, according to Singapore's prime minister.

“Southeast Asia is a key recruitment center for ISIS,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the Shangri-La Dialogue here in Singapore Friday. He noted that this included more than 500 Indonesians and dozens of Malaysians. “ISIS has so many Indonesian and Malaysia fighters that they form a unit by themselves -- the Katibah Nusantara -- Malay Archipelago Combat Unit,” he added.

Even in the small and tightly controlled city-state of Singapore, “a few” young men have gone to Syria to join the Islamic State ranks, and even more were intercepted trying to leave, Lee disclosed. He said the Singaporean authorities had recently arrested two students, one 17 and one 19, the latter of whom had planned to assassinate Singaporean government officials if he was unable to reach the Middle East.

“This is why Singapore takes terrorism, and in particular ISIS, very seriously,” Lee said. “The threat is no longer over there, it is over here.”

COMMENT:  Please note that ISIS recently boasted of having plans for South America as well.  Remember the old Marxist principle – "two steps forward, one step back."  ISIS seems to understand that idea.  It will suffer some defeats, but come back and win several victories elsewhere. 

We have no real strategy to defeat ISIS, except to blame its rise on George W. Bush, which is absurd.  Obama's heart is not in the fight.  A former, very senior, intelligence official told a meeting I attended several days ago that Obama is basically a Jeffersonian when it comes to foreign policy – he prefers to avoid foreign actions, and looks inward to domestic affairs.  That tendency may well grow if we have a violent summer in our big cities, violence his own administration has helped stir.  Obama may have to concentrate on that, allowing ISIS to continue to grow. 

And our children will pay the price.

May 31, 2015