Just war aims at peace. As Augustine argued, “Every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace.” We do not fight war for its own sake, or for revenge, profit, or prestige. The only conceivable rationale for waging war is to create a world of better, deeper, more lasting peace than the one that led to war in the first place.

Ian Bremmer’s Superpower provides a different perspective to Obama’s description of his incoherent foreign policy in his final State of the Union Address.

Alarmingly, today there are militant Islamists who are using “Strategic jihad” to threaten our fundamental freedoms and rights.

With American planes bombing Islamic State targets and Russian planes bombing the non-Islamic State targets, we are now supporting Putin’s aggression in Syria by eliminating all Sunni Arab opponents of the Assad regime.

“With history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.” -John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961

For Christian citizens, prayer should be the first reflex whenever tragedies occur, whether they occur in a country that is seen as a friend – like France- or in a country that is seen as an antagonist – like Russia.

Perhaps like no other Republican presidential candidate, Senator Ted Cruz exemplifies the nation’s conflicted conscience over the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the age of terror. Should the United States promote democracy in the Middle East, or should we learn to live with Arab dictatorships, even as we seek to defeat and destroy the Islamic State?

Christians have been targeted for death, sexual slavery, displacement, cultural eradication and forced conversion by ISIS. The U.S. government’s response has been woefully inadequate — neither helping them defend themselves and stay, nor providing them asylum to leave. And now, to add insult to injury, they are casualties of the agencies contracted to resettle refugees in America.

According to the Obama Administration, this is not genocide.