As the war draws ever closer…

The most recent Republican presidential debate was a breath of fresh air on the terrorism challenge that is front and center in American politics right now.

To begin with, it was heartening to see Jeb Bush, whose quest to secure the nomination is all but over, remind Americans that he can be a clear and insightful thinker and leader. As he lambasted Donald Trump for the latter’s stupid and bigoted proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, Bush pointed out a few indubitable truths, most importantly concerning the Kurds. 

“We need to arm directly the Kurds,” Bush said. “The Kurds are the greatest fighting force and our strongest allies.” 

Then came a fairly obvious point of information, but you can legitimately wonder whether Trump was in fact of aware of it. 

“They’re Muslim,” Bush added helpfully regarding the Kurds, as he advanced the broader argument that defeating Islamist terrorism means we need to cement existing allies in the Muslim world, and make new ones. The Kurdish struggle for self-determination and against Islamist extremism hasn’t exactly been appreciated by the Obama administration, and it was good to hear a Republican underscore why that needs to change (and why it won’t if the catastrophe that would be a Trump nomination comes to pass).

Then there was the small matter of Iran and its ally, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. To listen to the Obama administration’s rhetoric in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino massacres, you would never know that the mullahs running Iran have played a central role in the rise of Islamic State. Not so with the Republican frontrunners.