Despite a spreading jihad culture, U.S. President Barack Obama has ended America's global "war on terror" as dramatically as his predecessor had initiated it. With the stroke of his pen, Obama has effectively terminated the war on terror that President George W. Bush had launched to defeat terrorists who, he said, wanted to "establish a radical Islamic empire that spans the Earth from Spain to Indonesia."
Effective defense against the asymmetric weapon of terrorism is difficult. Dealing with such unconventional warfare remains a central theme in international discourse, given the growing threat from jihadists and the spreading virus of Wahhabi Islam.
But the blunt truth is that the war on terror derailed long before Obama took office. The U.S. occupation of Iraq proved so divisive in international relations that it fractured the post-9/11 global consensus to fight terror. Guantanamo, the CIA's secret prisons overseas and the torture of detainees, including waterboarding, came to symbolize the excesses of the war on terror.