US must tell truth about jihadist Islamic State threat

President Barack Obama gave vent this week to an uncha-racteristic show of emotion over the barbaric beheading of American journalist James Foley by the militant jihadist group the Islamic State (IS). He denounced the group as a “cancer” in the region and accused it of rampaging “across cities and villages, killing unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence” as it seized a third of Syria and Iraq.

Yet for months, as this cancer metastasized, the White House refused to recognize the growing Islamic State danger—despite warnings from the State Department and the intelligence community. In January, Obama famously dismissed the group as a local “JV team” trying to imitate al-Qaeda, but with no capacity to threaten us.