When Congress returns in January, there will be a robust debate over the authorization of use of military force (AUMF) in Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS. But while we debate a bunch of lousy options and the potential cost of lives and billions of dollars arming our enemies in endless Islamic civil wars, the politicians in both parties will never discuss the enemy within the United States. This is where the presidential candidates must lead by example.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have already drawn attention to the first half of the homeland security threat – the endless migration from the Middle East as manifest through our suicidal immigration policies. Unfortunately, Republicans didn’t listen, and despite the universally-accepted threat of the Syrian and Somali refugees, they gave Obama the full $1.67 billion for refugee resettlement in the Omnibus bill.

However, it is the second half of the equation – the most foundational threat to our homeland and society – that has garnered almost no attention from anyone in politics. That is the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in America that have so much influence both on the Obama administration and the Muslim communities in our country.

Three questions should automatically come to mind in light of the San Bernardino attack and the nearly daily incidents of Muslims being arrested for plotting terror attacks or attempting to join ISIS.

Why is our government expunging any mention of Islamic terror from their official documents and hampering investigations into connections to local radical Muslim Brotherhood groups?

Why are so few moderate Muslims speaking out against the growing trend of radicalization?

Why are so many Muslims in America, even those who were born here, being drawn into groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda?

The answer to all these questions, point to the Muslim Brotherhood and the influence of their three North American affiliates that were implicated in the Holy Land Foundation terror trial: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the North American Islamic Trust.

Last Wednesday, I had the privilege of guest hosting the Sean Hannity show along with my colleague, Deneen Borelli, and we discussed why the Muslim Brotherhood represents a more foundational threat to our homeland than ISIS or Al Qaeda. They are the enemy within that radicalizes American Muslims (the ones that weren’t already radicalized), marginalizes and intimidates moderates, and influences the government to eschew any policy that even mentions Islamic terror much less policies that actually combat Islamic terror.

This is why we need the GOP candidates to step up to the plate. But until now they have largely been silent. Ted Cruz has introduced an important piece of legislation, which would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror group, but he needs to make this issue more front and center in his campaign.

Just last week, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron took the unprecedented step to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terror group after his government launched an exhaustive study into their activities. They will now ban visas to Muslim Brotherhood officials and increase surveillance of their offices. If the liberal Europeans are willing to protect themselves and root out their enemy within, cannot our “conservative” leaders muster the same courage?

Not surprisingly, Obama condemned Cameron’s move as a needless de-legitimizing of a non-violent group. But their use of “non-violent” means of subversion in western countries to marginalize moderates and quietly radicalize the Muslim communities and mosques is exactly what will destroy both America and Europe from the inside.

It was recently reported that the U.K. is experiencing a sharp drop off in cooperation from local Muslims in rooting out terrorists from their communities. Undoubtedly, the Muslim Brotherhood intimidation is a big part of this deterrent against cooperating with the authorities.

Earlier this month, Phil Haney, a former DHS counterterrorism official, wrote an expose on how he was stifled from connecting the dots between some of the very same foreign terror groups Tafsheen Malik was affiliated with and local Muslim groups in America:

“But after more than six months of research and tracking; over 1,200 law enforcement actions and more than 300 terrorists identified; and a commendation for our efforts; DHS shut down the investigation at the request of the Department of State and DHS’ own Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division. They claimed that since the Islamist groups in question were not Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations (SDTOs) tracking individuals related to these groups was a violation of the travelers’ civil liberties. These were almost exclusively foreign nationals: When were they granted the civil rights and liberties of American citizens?

Worse still, the administration then went back and erased the dots we were diligently connecting. Even as DHS closed my investigation, I knew that data I was looking at could prove significant to future counterterror efforts and tried to prevent the information from being lost to law enforcement.”

It’s not surprising that DHS’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division (CRCL) was responsible for shutting down the investigation. CRCL is the nexus for the Muslim Brotherhood influence in our government. In 2008, under the Bush administration, then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff drafted a memo for CRCL that called on government officials to strip all references of Islamic supremacism from their training. This memo was drafted, in the words of Chertoff, based on “its discussions with a broad range of Muslim American community leaders and scholars.” In 2011, based on the same recommendations of these Muslim Brotherhood “scholars,” DHS published its training and guidance manual on the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) agenda. The manual instructs the bureaucrats to use examples to “demonstrate that terrorists and violent extremists vary in ethnicity, race, gender, and religion.”

If ISIS is the new quarterback for Islamic terror, the Muslim Brotherhood is their all-star offensive linemen. In theory the United States should have a great defensive line capable of overwhelming ISIS’ strategy. But with our very own Department of Homeland Security playing ball for the Muslim Brotherhood, the fox appears to be guarding the henhouse. (For more from the author of “It’s Time for Candidates to Discuss the Enemy Within” please click HERE)

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