President Obama speaks about the economy, Iraq, and Ukraine on Thursday, at the White House, before convening a meeting with his national security... View Enlarged Image

Islamic State: So President Obama says, "We don't have a strategy yet" against the Iraq-Syria caliphate. Hillary Clinton was wrong about that 3 a.m. phone call; the problem is the 3 p.m. White House phone calls.

'There's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing," Clinton's prescient 2008 anti-Obama ad said. Who answers it should be "someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world."

Then-candidate Barack Obama quickly made fun of it before adoring crowds, doing the thumb-pinky "call me" gesture, and arguing that Hillary failed her own "red-phone moment" on invading Iraq.

He looked decisive when he said that, as he usually has while campaigning. But the Islamic State crisis — of his own making, especially in removing U.S. forces from Iraq prematurely — proves that morning, noon or night, the president lets the phone ring and ring.

He mentioned "strategy" 14 times during Thursday's remarks. But it was merely for effect:

"I'll be meeting with my National Security Council again this evening as we continue to develop that strategy. ... As our strategy develops, we will continue to consult with Congress. ... The American people need to hear what that strategy is," and "We're going to cobble together the kind of coalition that we need for a long-term strategy as soon as we are able to fit together the military, political and economic components of that strategy."

What the president is waiting for is the impossible: "To make sure that Sunnis both in Syria and in Iraq feel as if they've got an investment in a government that actually functions. ... (R)ight now, those structures are not in place."

Imagine the Normandy invasion placed on hold because the French resistance didn't have "a government that actually functions." Worry about that afterward.

Moreover, once again national security seems hostage to politics. Some see us going "full scale on an elaborate strategy for defeating ISIL ... and somehow Congress — still out of town — is going to be left in the dark," Obama said. "That's not what's going to happen."

That "still out of town" crack sounds like a, ahem, strategy for ultimately blaming Congress for inaction against the Islamic State.

Why does the White House insist we are not at war with IS? Clearly, these barbaric fanatics are clearly at war with us. An IS hideout near the Syrian-Turkish border raided this year turned up a Dell laptop belonging to an IS terrorist who studied chemistry and physics. It contained 19 pages in Arabic on weaponizing bubonic plague and making other chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, with hundreds of Britons fighting for IS, Britain raised its threat level to "severe" Friday, declaring that "a terrorist attack is highly likely."

Yet Obama reportedly will attend movie star George Clooney's wedding at his home in Italy's Lake Como next month.

As a candidate in 2008, Obama said the question is "what kind of judgment will you make when you answer" that red phone. The answer is obvious: an absence of judgment, as the phone is never picked up.