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Empty political space will be filled by extremists unless the United States and its allies build strong local forces that can suppress terrorist groups and warlords both. When the U.S. creates such local forces, it must be persistent. If it withdraws from these efforts, as America did in Iraq in 2011, it invites mayhem.

Now we have a generational threat struggle called Islamist extremism.

Like most Americans, I hope and wish is that there is a peaceful resolution to the Middle East conflict. Unfortunately, there are extremists on both sides who oppose a peaceful resolution and instead choose violence.

The problem with our region is that there are areas with oil and too much money, and then there are places such as south Lebanon and the Palestinian territories where there is no work, and instead of developing industry, they become dependent on oil money - this results in extremism.

The most extreme individuals and factions in Islamic countries are now more motivated than ever to kill Americans, and the number of potential terrorists has greatly expanded.

To fight extremism, we will need to pursue a two-pronged strategy: both 'hard,' through stricter control of our borders and a more robust and technologically advanced security response, and 'soft,' based on better intelligence-gathering, working to return our mosques to their spiritual function and barring entry to foreign preachers.

The Iraqi war has transformed the Middle East.

We are tangled in a very significant Islamic insurgency in Iraq.

I have a lot of reason to believe, as we saw in the 2012 election, most Americans don't agree with the extremists on any side of an issue, but there needs to continue to be an effort to find common ground, or even take it to higher ground on behalf of the future.