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We can't stay out

U.S. counterterrorism policy revolves around efforts to prevent the creation of terrorist safe havens, such as the one al-Qaida enjoyed in Afghanistan, that enable terrorists to attack the West.

That's why U.S. officials worry about "failed states" in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, and why U.S. forces launch drone strikes on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in Yemen and elsewhere.

Thus, the United States must do whatever is necessary to ensure that ISIL cannot rest easy in the broad territory that it now controls from Aleppo in Syria to areas west of Baghdad in Iraq--a territory that measures the size of Jordan.

President Barack Obama, who clearly has no interest in returning a robust U.S. military presence to Iraq, nevertheless has dispatched 300 military advisers there in response to the ISIL threat to Nouri al-Maliki's government. He told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that the United States also will launch strikes, deploy special operations forces and improve its intelligence operations to address the problem.

ISIL represents a particularly dangerous threat to the United States, one that grows as the radical group conquers more territory and--with such success--more easily recruits members and acquires more weapons and money. Citing multiple U.S. intelligence sources, NBC News labeled the ISIL threat against U.S. targets "extremely high."

Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has declared an Islamic caliphate in the territory he controls, warned America earlier this year, "Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day. So watch, for we are with you, watching."

The United States learned the hard way not to take warnings from terrorist leaders lightly, for Osama bin Laden had issued similar threats against the United States before al-Qaida carried them out on September 11, 2001.

ISIL is an especially radical group--in fact, it's been dismissed by al-Qaida's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as too radical for its tastes. As it conquers territory and captures U.S. military hardware, ISIL has been executing its prisoners, including Iraqi military personnel, in especially brutal fashion.

That ISIL has its eyes set on the West is already evident. Law enforcement authorities have traced the group's ties to terrorist attacks and to attempts that were prevented in recent years in Europe, including the May attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels that left three people dead.

As many as 100 Americans have teamed up with ISIL in Syria, raising the real possibility that hardened jihadists with U.S. passports may return to the United States with the goal of attacking the homeland. Consequently, the United States is working with other nations to beef up security at overseas airports.

"Any of these people can come back to the United States and they can carry out the type of attack that they're being trained in in Syria," Rep. Peter T. King (R-New York), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said recently. "All we have to do is risk one or two of them and we could have a very, very lethal attack here in the U.S."

That's a risk that the United States, with the memory of September 11 still lingering, simply cannot take.

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Lawrence J. Haas is a former communications director for Vice President Al Gore and is senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

Editorial on 07/18/2014

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