Obama 'empowering the rise of jihadist forces'

Politicians and military leaders are scrambling to confront the multinational threat presented by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

But Erick Stakelbeck has a message for them: The West is in a "spiritual struggle," and "soulless liberalism" will not save it.

The host of CBN's "The Watchman" joined WND TV for an exclusive interview to discuss his newly released book, "ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam."

He also made some shocking conclusions about the failed response of the Obama administration to the rise of ISIS, which he calls the "challenge of our times."

Stakelbeck told WND: "The Obama administration is not just mishandling this threat. They are empowering the rise of jihadist forces around the world including in our backyard here in the United States."

Drawing on his long experience as a security expert, Stakelbeck predicted: "If this battle's going to be won, it's not going to be won in Washington, D.C., at the White House obviously. It's going to be won at the grassroots."

Stakelbeck believes the contemporary West, dominated by moral relativism and liberalism, is ignoring the long history of Islamic aggression against Judeo-Christian civilization.

Identifying the current wave of Muslim aggression as equivalent to what conquered Constantinople in 1453, Stakelbeck explained the West has confronted Islamic offensives like this before.

"There's been really three great waves of jihad. The first great wave [was] led by Muhammad, Islam's prophet, out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century [and] the second great wave was under the Ottoman Empire."

Want the background on what ISIS is? Is it, like Obama said, "the JV team?" Or do the daily reports of beheadings, crucifixions, torture of children and other atrocities make it more? It's all in the free "ISIS Rising: Prelude to a neo-Ottoman Caliphate" report.

The third, says Stakelbeck, is what confronts Western civilization today.

The Crusades, as Stakelbeck clarified, were "a defensive response by Western Europe after 400 years of Muslim aggression."

Addressing the recent controversy over President Obama's condemnation of the Crusades, Stakelbeck said: "President Obama, the Muslim hordes seized large parts of Europe! Conquered Spain, conquered Sicily."

See Obama's comments:

Today's threat, Stakelbeck judges, is just as serious.

"This is a Winston Churchill moment," he said. "Look, we're in 1939 right now. And the barbarians aren't just at the gates, they're inside the gates."

However, the bestselling author and television commentator said he is hopeful because "people are hungry for information" about the threat of Islamic terrorism and Iran's emerging nuclear capability.

To address that hunger, Stakelbeck wrote "ISIS Exposed," which has already become an Amazon.com bestseller. Currently, "ISIS Exposed" is the No. 1 title for "Radicalism" and "Security" in International & World Politics and the No. 2 bestseller in Middle Eastern politics. "ISIS Exposed" also enjoys unanimous five-star rankings from reviewers.

As Amazon.com "Hall of Fame" reviewer Craig Matteson put it, "If you believe that the problem with 'violent extremists' is that we don't make them feel as if their concerns are being heard or validated, as President Obama does, this book is not for you."

Matteson said Stakelbeck "shows us clearly that the problem with ISIS, ISIL, IS, or whatever you want to call them, is not a sense of powerlessness, but is a vision of violence, murder, and a hatred of all they consider to be apostate and fallen from what they consider the 'true' faith."

"They see themselves as implementing the vision revealed by Gabriel to Muhammad about 1,500 years ago. They have no intention of moderating, of being satisfied where they are. They have a global vision and will keep fighting for it until they are stopped. And by stopped, I believe the only thing that will stop them is death. Theirs or ours."

Stakelbeck says to confront such a threat, the West must reject the governing ideology of liberalism.

"We are in such a precarious place right now. … Evil exists. And the president can't acknowledge that because he's a moral relativist. Liberalism, leftism – at the end of the day, morally relativistic, it stands for nothing, it's soulless, [and] in many cases, they're defending the radical Islamists."

However, Stakelbeck sees signs of hope and resistance in the faith of ordinary Americans and the willingness of Christians to view foreign policy from a biblical point of view.

As Stakelbeck observed: "There is a discernment. People know the signs and the times, and they see ISIS as, in my view, a demonic signpost of what's coming, and they want to know more about it."

Stakelbeck's book is part of that effort, and the author says his own faith keeps him going even though he is writing and researching monstrous events.

"ISIS is a very tough subject to write about, but knowing that God still sits on the throne right now is so encouraging," he said.

"I'd hate to be an atheist right now; I really would. Because we know how this script ends, we know that we win. … God looks at ISIS, and He laughs."