Neither Rand Paul nor John McCain gets conservative foreign policy right

Like Communism, Islamic supremacism threatens America and the West comprehensively — it attacks both forcibly and culturally; it pressures without and infiltrates within. A conservative national-security policy would respond in kind. Instead of promoting the charade of Islamic democracy, it would let nature take its course overseas: Allow the Islamic system’s hopeless backwardness to collapse of its own weight while promoting champions of real Western democracy — not just popular elections but individual liberty and minority rights. You can’t empower democrats, including truly moderate Muslims, without making it attractive to be one, and unattractive to be the other guys.

Domestic policy should align with this approach. We must be done once and for all with the folly of “outreach” to “moderate Islamists” — to say nothing of the insanity of consulting with “moderate Islamists” in the formulation of national-security policy. What makes a Muslim an Islamist is his Islamic supremacism — his preference for the Islamic system. That is the antithesis of moderation, particularly in a country built on individual liberty. That an Islamist eschews violence, or at least says he does, is welcome; it does not, however, make him moderate — ACORN is not moderate even if it resists the methods of the like-minded Weather Underground. Besides, “moderate Islamist” is the euphemism du jour for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslims who love America will never rise until our political class ends its infatuation with the Muslims who envision conquering America.

A conservative foreign policy would set itself firmly against Iran and Assad, as well as against al-Qaeda, the Brotherhood, and their state sponsors. It would not choose sides between them in their Syrian free-for-all. It would make the defeat of all of them — of Islamic supremacism — its strategic objective. It would tactically use the opportunities afforded by our diplomatic, economic, intelligence, military, and leadership capabilities to make it happen.