Goodness, snakes alive! Appeasement failed!

Leave rattlesnakes alone. They don’t want to bother you anymore than you want to bother them. Pretty good libertarian rule.

But when rattlesnakes nest in your house, then it’s time to make an exception to the rule.

That’s my imperfect analogy for the status of the war on terror — Islamic extremists started it, President George W. Bush almost won it, and then, after five years of Pollyannaism, President Barack Obama’s vanity let the enemy regroup. We now face snakes in every room — in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Gaza, in Africa, in Indonesia and, to the eternal disgrace of this administration, in the United States.

The lesson in this case is simple: Appeasement doesn’t work. And the answer to the subliminal question posed by the eggheads who took over the White House in 2009 needs to be screamed out from the rooftops:

“No, Mr. President! Apparently we can’t all just get along!”

If there’s any good news, it is that it appears the president is waking up to some sense of reality. At least he now calls ISIS, the Islamic terrorist state taking over Syria and Iraq, “a cancer.” Heretofore he could barely use the “T” word and “Islam” in the same sentence.

Of course, after a year of watching ISIS atrocities, the president still doesn’t have a strategy to deal with the threat, but, hey, it’s a start — late, but a start.

Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, Bush recognized Islamic extremism as an enemy that must be stopped, not reasoned with. Obama unwisely sought to reconcile the threat. Because of that, we’re likely going to have to fight that threat on American soil.

Islamic radicals live among us. Douglas McCain, a 33-year-old Minnesota kid, fought and died in Syria, not for America … for ISIS.

Turns out there are an unknown number of homegrown kids like McCain out there. Some are declared haters of America. Others remain hidden, ready to strike if provided the proper backing. Who knows how many budding young terrorists sit in wait? Who knows how many foreign terrorists have already crossed our unsecured border?

What we do know is Obama’s malaise and boneheaded judgment has created this perfect storm for domestic terrorism. With ISIS and its unlimited access to cash via oil sales, terrorists already in the United States can be brought into play.

And it’s the devil we don’t know that’s most worrisome.

My hometown of Las Vegas, for example, remains on lists of terrorist targets — the ones compiled by our government and the ones compiled by terrorists. Just last month, an English-language magazine published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — yes, al-Qaida has a media operation — called on radicalized individuals to carry out car-bomb attacks on Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs. Other recommended targets include oil tankers and trains, New York’s Times Square and military colleges.

You don’t have to be Tom Clancy to understand the threat. And it’s not just Las Vegas. Think amusement parks, military bases or any given National Football League or college football game. It doesn’t take much imagination to scare the socks off you.

The sad thing is we had Islamic extremists on the defense in the Middle East. We took the fight to them and won. We maintained a significant military presence in Iraq that could have become an important stabilizing force for the region for decades.

But our part-time president gave up that position of strength and let the enemy live to fight another day. Now we’re facing an even more significant threat.

There are rattlesnakes in the house.

Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog at www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/sherman-frederick.