News Analysis: Critics blast Obama for bizarre silence on Islamist terror amid spreading threat

Critics continue to blast U.S. President Barack Obama for what they call a bizarre refusal to link radical Islam with terrorism, even as multiple terror groups are on the march in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Despite this month's bloody terror attacks in Paris that killed more than a dozen of French journalists and hostages, Obama's focus appears to be more on domestic affairs, to which he devoted the bulk of Tuesday's State of the Union address.

In a televised speech lasting around an hour, Obama devoted only a few minutes to the worldwide terror threat, even at a time when a recent Pew poll finds that countering terror is now Americans' first priority for 2015.

Critics describe the administration's stance as political correctness on steroids, as the White House continues to refer simply to "extremism", dropping any reference to radical Islam.

That prompted New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has often backed Obama's policies, to express deep concern in a column earlier this week.

"When you don't call things by their real name, you always get in trouble," he wrote. "And this administration, so fearful of being accused of Islamophobia, is refusing to make any link to radical Islam from the recent explosions of violence against civilians...by Boko Haram in Nigeria, by the Taliban in Pakistan, by Al Qaida in Paris and by jihadists in Yemen and Iraq. We've entered the theater of the absurd."

It is true that the vast majority of the world's Muslims reject radicalism and violence, but experts say it is unwise for the administration to mince words, as no solutions can be found without accurately identifying the issue.

"I don't think it's inappropriate to speak of an Islamist global insurgency. That's not to say every radical Islamist group shares common cause or even a common agenda or that some Islamist groups don't battle one another," Heritage Foundation's national security expert James Carafano told Xinhua in an interview.

Obama has emphasized symbolic gestures in a bid to reach out to Muslims worldwide, such as vowing to shutter the U.S. military-run detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, which houses a number of al-Qaida operatives, as the facility has been widely criticized in the Muslim world.

In 2009, Obama made a speech in Cairo, Egypt, entitled "A New Beginning," that was widely viewed as a bid to mend U.S. relations with Muslims worldwide, which was severely damaged under the previous administration.

But Carafano said those moves have had zero impact. "France is a case in point, it didn't participate in the invasion of Iraq and lobbied for the closing of (Guantanamo Bay). It is prime terrorist target anyway," he said, referring to the grizzly Paris attacks earlier this month.

Earlier this month, two radical Islamist gunmen stormed French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo's headquarters, killing a dozen of journalists and cartoonists. Another Islamist gunman later killed a policewoman and then four Jewish hostages in a Paris Jewish grocery store.

While al-Qaida in Yemen was blamed for having orchestrated the bloody attacks in Paris, some U.S. experts said other groups could feel a need to compete to grab the spotlight.

Meanwhile, experts say there is a worldwide resurgence of radical Islam. On Tuesday, radical Islamist forces toppled Yemen's U.S.-backed president. Radical Islamist group Boko Haram is growing in strength and has overrun several towns in Nigeria. The group grabbed the spotlight worldwide after abducting 200 school girls last year to be used as sex slaves.

At the same time, Islamic State (IS) has overtaken vast swaths of Iraq and Syria in a bid to create an official state under its twisted version of Islam. The group has beheaded several foreign aid workers and journalists caught by them.

The U.S. and coalition forces continue its air bombardment campaign against the IS militants, but critics say the operation lacks intensity and some experts contend that a significant ground force is needed to drive the radicals back.

For his part, Obama came out strong against terrorism in an interview published in India Today magazine ahead of his three-day trip to India. "As president, I have made sure that the U.S. has been unrelenting in its fight against terrorist groups," he said. Endi