If I were President, I’d declare a War on Peace. That way, the terrorists would get confused. They’d say to themselves, “Wait a second, the United States is against peace?” and, being terrorists, being by their nature sworn to hate everything we love and being honor bound to fundamentally love and pledge allegiance to everything we hate, they’d have no choice but to embrace peace. “If the United States hates peace,” they would write in their online manifestos, “then we’re going to give them all of the peace in the world!”

And the terrorists would hatch all of these crazy plots and sneak into government buildings around the world but, instead of blowing them up with suicide bombers, they might distract the guards and completely fix the places up, like install some new drywall, or slap on a couple of fresh coats of paint. Instead of kidnapping foreign journalists and overseas contractors, instead of bringing them back to their terrorist hideouts and holding them hostage for vast sums of ransom money, they’ll find expats and, well, they’ll still kidnap them, but when they bring them in to their hideouts they’ll reward them with the pampering of a lifetime. They’ll give out professional massages and complementary glasses of champagne. And afterwards they’ll blindfold them, but with really comfortable terrycloth blindfolds, and they’ll put them in the back of a nice limousine and drop them off at their houses, where the terrorists’ wives will have cooked a really nice dinner for the whole family. And after they execute all of their plans, the terrorists will run down the streets of their homelands, setting fire to American flags, but then immediately extinguishing the flames, and they’ll wave the flags in the air and chant, “Peace to America!”

As President, if I want the terrorists to keep up their Jihad on America’s War on Peace, I’ll have to pretend that I’m pissed. And I’ll have to rile up the public to make it look like they’re all pissed as well. I’ll take to the airwaves and declare that, “These attacks on America’s War on Peace are unacceptable! We will hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice!” And this will only encourage the terrorists to commit even grander acts of peace.

It’s simple. If the terrorists are against everything we hold to be true and sacred – I mean, that’s what we’re all told, right? – then all we have to do is make them think that we think the opposite of what it is that we actually hold to be true and sacred. Got it? After my War on Peace drags on indefinitely in unimaginable failure, which, remember, would secretly be a good thing, (but it’s America’s secret, so don’t tell the terrorists,) I’ll finally just admit defeat. I’ll make an elaborate surrender speech. I’ll say stuff like, “America has been outmatched. Peace has won.” And the terrorists will parade down their streets once again thinking that they’ve won, when in reality they’ll all have been ridiculously outsmarted, by me.

After that, I’ll be in a position to have the terrorists do whatever I want. I’ll declare a War on Literacy. I’ll give speeches where I tell everyone, “America will not rest until nobody knows how to read!” And the terrorists will stand around their tiny TVs in their dusty caves and they’ll get super pissed and say, “Oh yeah? That’s what he thinks!” And they’ll get out there and start teaching everyone how to read. Blinded by their fundamentalist ideals, completely devoted to their crusade against the West, the terrorists will put all of their effort into making their literacy programs the best and most respected in the world.

Their system of terrorist schools will grow and develop until finally they’re on par with the finest universities in America. Terrorist schools will be in such high demand that the rising cost of a terrorist education (which, remember, will actually be a regular education) will threaten the stability of the whole terror network. But as President, it’ll be as simple as declaring a War on Affordable Education. The terrorists will snap out of their lucrative terrorist education business models and commit themselves to providing a quality education, for free, for anybody that needs it, simply because America wants the opposite.

When finally comes the day where society completely runs out of problems, because I tricked all of the terrorists into fixing them, then I’ll be able to finally sit back and just make the terrorists perform various trivial tasks at my discretion. I’ll have a War on Getting The President a Cold Beer from the Fridge. The next thing I know, there’s going to be a terrorist sneaking into the White House to pour a fresh brew into a frosty mug that he’ll have secretly planted in the freezer.

Mission Not Accomplished. Foreign policy doesn’t sound so tough.