Barry Rubin: Flash: President Obama Says The Biggest Domestic Terrorist Threat Is Not Islamism But Right-Wing Americans

Flash: President Obama Says The Biggest Domestic Terrorist Threat Is Not Islamism But Right-Wing Americans

by Barry Rubin

This is huge. President Barack Obama informs us, as the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, that his biggest fear is not radical Islamist terrorism but right-wing, Islamophobic terrorism. On Wolf Blitzer’s CNN show, the president explains:

“The biggest concern we have right now is notT the launching of a major terrorist operation, although that risk is always there. The risk that we’re especially concerned over right now is the lone wolf terrorist, somebody with a single weapon being able to carry out wide- scale massacres of the sort that we saw in Norway recently.”


In other words, the main threat to America isn’t al-Qaida or various other groups—which have tried and failed on a number of occasions recently (“underpants” bomber; “Times Square” bomber) but some right-wing anti-administration nut.

Continue reading Flash: President Obama Says The Biggest Domestic Terrorist Threat Is Not Islamism But Right-Wing Americans

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media


Technorati Tag: Obama and Terrorism.