Rick Perry: ‘ISIS Represents Worst Threat to Freedom Since Communism’

(CNSNews.com) -- Former Governor of Texas Rick Perry, a Republican, said that “ISIS represents the worst threat to freedom since Communism,” at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland on Friday. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, recently changed its name to the Islamic State (IS).

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). (AP File Photo)

“[Obama] says that ISIS is [not] a religious movement -- again he's simply wrong,” said the former governor. “To deny the fundamental religious nature of the threat and to downplay the seriousness of it is naive, it is dangerous, and it is misguided. ISIS represents the worst threat to freedom since communism.”

“I come here today to speak plainly about the times that we live in,” said Perry. “At no time, at no time in the last 25 years has the future been more uncertain and the world more dangerous than it is today. Our country has entered a time of testing and our political leadership is failing the test.”

“The American people see a president who bows to political correctness in denial of the threats that we face, making grave miscalculations that make the world less safe,” Perry said. “This administration’s incompetence in Iraq and Syria have allowed the emergence of ISIS. They’re in American tanks, they’re using American weapons, and ISIS began taking cities that just a few years ago were secured by American blood.”

President Barack Hussein Obama speaks at the White House summit on 'violent extremism' on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

“Now let’s be very, very clear about who ISIS is, what they represent.  They are a religious movement that seeks to take the world back to the 7th century,” said Perry. “Their aims are apocalyptic, they mean to cleanse the world, not just of Christians and Jews, but of Muslims who disagree with their extreme ideology. And it is their stated vow to kill as many Americans as possible.”

“It’s time, it is time for the American people to hear the truth,” said Perry. “The president declared in the State of the Union that the advance of ISIS has been stopped, and that is simply not true.”

“If Egypt and Jordan recognized that they are at war with radical Islam, isn’t it about time our president proclaimed the same?” Perry asked.

American journalist James Foley, a Christian, just before he was beheaded by an ISIS jihadist in August 2014. His execution was videotaped and posted on the Internet. (Photo: YouTube.)

“We didn't start this war, nor did we choose it, but we will have the will to finish it,” said the former Texas governor.

“Here's the simple truth about our foreign policy,” he continued. “Our allies doubt us, our adversaries are all too willing to test us. No one should be surprised that dictators like Assad would cross the president’s red line because he knows the president won't even defend the line that separates our nation from Mexico.”