King: Obama Taking Terrorism More Seriously; Should Tread Lightly in Egypt

It’s bound to be an interesting conversation when Imus welcomes a guest by saying, “Congrats on sticking it to Janet Napolitano,” as he did Rep. Peter King today.
 
King, a Republican from New York and the newly-minted Chairman of the House’s Committee on Homeland Security, had observed yesterday Napolitano’s unwillingness to use the word “terrorism” when she first became Homeland Security Secretary in 2009, opting instead for “manmade disasters.”
 
“When the Obama people came in two years ago, I think they really thought once George Bush and Dick Cheney were gone, terrorism was going to go away,” King said. Now, Napolitano frequently includes the term in speeches, as she did 62 times while giving testimony to King’s committee yesterday, when she also claimed the threat to America is “as serious as it’s ever been since 9/11.”
 
“I think there has been a real change in awareness by the administration,” King said. As examples, he pointed to a still-open Guantanamo Bay; the change of heart over holding civilian trials in the U.S. for accused terrorists; and the launch of an aggressive undercover operation into different Muslim communities around the country.
 
“They realize how serious this issue is, and they realize that this is a worldwide threat,” he said. “It’s here in the U.S., it’s overseas, and they realize now, it’s on their watch.”
 
Turning to Egypt, a situation also unfolding under Obama’s watch, and one over which he seems to have far less influence, King highlighted the lack of intelligence afforded the U.S. prior to the outbreak of unrest there a few weeks ago.
 
“Either this was totally spontaneous, or our people missed the ball,” King, who will be briefed on this exact issue later today, said. He acknowledged that, perhaps, Mubarak has been in power too long, but that the U.S. needs to tread lightly and not “push him out the door.”
 
“This guy was a strong ally for 30 years, and it’s going to send a signal—if we pull the rug too fast on him, it could spread to Jordan, it could spread to Morocco even, it could go to Syria, without us knowing what the consequences there would be,” he said. 
 
Using the Egyptian army as a moderating force is, in King’s opinion, the way to go. “We can work with them to hopefully come up with a leader who will not be anti-Israel, who will not be anti-U.S.,” he said. “Because if they get someone in there who is hostile to Israel, who is going to rebuke the Israeli-Egyptian treaty, that’s a whole game-changer in the Middle East.”
 
Kind of like how sending a shirtless picture of himself to a woman was a career-changer for Rep. Chris Lee of New York, who resigned yesterday in the wake of the allegations. “We should have known it wasn’t you,” Imus told King. “Now, if we’d have heard a Congressman had taken his pants off…”
 
-Julie Kanfer