News Analysis: Critics blast Obama for lack of leadership amid rising terror threats worldwide

Critics are lambasting U.S. President Barack Obama for what they have billed as a lack of leadership in fighting terrorism at a time when the threat is on the rise worldwide.

This comes after last week's bloody terror attacks in Paris, when two Islamist gunmen stormed French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, killing a dozen journalists and cartoonists. Another attacker later killed a policewomen and took hostages inside a Jewish grocery store in Paris, setting off a standoff with French police that ended with the killings of the assailant and four hostages.

U.S. authorities and experts fear that militants, emboldened by those slayings, are now eyeing the U.S. as a possible target. But at the same time, critics accuse Obama of showing little leadership on the issue, which they say was spotlighted by the U.S. president's no-show at an anti-terrorism rally in Paris on Sunday that drew 40 world leaders including the heads of Germany, Britain and Israel.

"The White House fashioned a countering violent extremism strategy and then largely abandoned implementation. It has done very little on the information warfare front or the 'battle of ideas,'" Heritage Foundation analyst James Carafano told Xinhua in an interview.

"There is certainly lots of criticism of the administration's leadership...there is plenty of analytical data showing an uptick in transnational terrorist activity...It is not surprising that many argue White House policies have not been as effective as many would have hoped," Carafano said.

Members of the president's own party have also chimed in.

Former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton told the New York Times this week that he was "puzzled that the United States did not have a high-level representative participating in the march," referring to Sunday's massive anti-terror demonstration in Paris that the U.S. ambassador to France attended.

White House Spokesman Josh Earnest later admitted the administration made a mistake, telling reporters the administration should have sent a higher official.

These criticisms are not new, and Republicans and some Democrats have blasted the president for putting the threat of terrorism on the back burner until it boiled over, with the terror group Islamic State (IS) overtaking vast swaths of territory in Syria and northern Iraq.

Some experts contend that after the U.S. killed al-Qaida's terror mastermind Osama bin Laden in 2011, the White House simply declared victory and moved on to other issues the administration deemed more important.

In September, Democratic Senator Al Franken wrote a scathing letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, saying that he was "troubled" by what he indicated a lack of White House strategy on Syria.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner has also asked the administration to clearly spell out a strategy on IS, and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen has also blasted Obama's IS strategy.

Critics have also accused the White House of putting political correctness over security following the Paris attacks, pointing out that the administration has refused to link the terror threat with Islamic extremism, preferring instead to chalk up the threat to extremism in general.

For his part, Obama has said he is focused on the threat, and has condemned the Paris attacks. At a joint press conference Friday with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama pledged unity in an effort to fight the threat of terrorism and reiterated vows to tackle the IS threat.

The perceived lack of leadership comes as radical Islamists have become emboldened after the Paris attacks, and some experts say one terror group's successful attack can embolden other extremist Islamist groups or individuals, sparking additional attacks.

While authorities are pointing at al-Qaida in Yemen (AQAP) as having orchestrated the bloody attacks in Paris, some U.S. experts said other groups could feel a need to compete to gain the spotlight.

IS has posted a new video on the social media site Twitter that instructs followers to attack targets including the U.S., New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence John Miller told CBS' "Face the Nation" talk show on Sunday.

Washington's worst nightmare is another 9/11 style attack, whereby al-Qaida operatives struck New York and Washington and killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001, and the U.S. wants to prevent a situation whereby extremists plot an attack on the U.S. from a secure base.

The U.S. is engaged in an ongoing bombing campaign against IS positions in Iraq in a bid to deny the terrorists a safe haven.

RAND Corporation associate political scientist Colin P. Clarke told Xinhua that it is unclear whether the U.S. is the next target, although it is certainly possible. Endi