No doubt, the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) has taken Sunni sectarianism and extremism to a new level, but that doesn’t make Hezbollah, a group which prior to 9/11 was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist organization, either moderate or a partner. And, yet, that’s exactly what President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry effectively believe. And the farther left on the American political spectrum one goes, the worse the love affair with Hezbollah becomes. Zaid Jilani, a blogger and campaigner for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an organization affiliated with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, tweeted that “Hezbollah is socially progressive and always has been.” This, of course, is nonsense.

It’s useful to remember just what Hezbollah is about. Hezbollah is not, by any means, progressive. Its loyalty, both politically and religiously, is to the philosophy and theology espoused by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s revolutionary leader. Visit Mleeta, Hezbollah’s answer to Disneyland, tour Hezbollah cave networks and above their bedrolls are posters of their Khomeini, their source of emulation. Nor is Hezbollah a Lebanese nationalist organization, as some journalists and diplomats claim. A Lebanese nationalist organization would not have turned its guns on fellow Lebanese in Beirut in 2008, nor would it have sent hundreds if not thousands of young Lebanese to fight on behalf of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Then, of course, there’s Hezbollah’s genocidal ideology. On October 23, 2002, the Daily Star, Lebanon’s premier newspaper, quoted Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as declaring, “If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Such anti-Semitism was the rule rather than the exception. Whereas many anti-Semites couch their hatred of Jews in anti-Zionism, Nasrallah had no patience for such word-smithing. “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli,” he reportedly declared. Even, if as some suggest, that quote actually came from another member of the Hezbollah hierarchy, the point remains the same. Then, of course, on Hezbollah’s television channel Al-Manar, he declared that the Jews are the “grandsons of apes and pigs.”

In 2000, Israel withdrew from territory it had occupied in 1982, a withdrawal the United Nations certified as complete. Nevertheless, Hezbollah has refused to recognize the border, claiming not only Har Dov (in Arabic, the Shebaa Farms), territory which Israel technically occupied from Syria and which was reflected as Syrian on a map on Lebanese currency, but also seven villages in Israel’s Galilee, towns which have been Israeli since the Jewish state’s independence. If Israel withdrew from these villages, expect Hezbollah to claim Haifa has always been Lebanese as well. After all, when diplomats prefer a lie and quiet to truth and conflict, why not keep pushing for more concessions?

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah went to war after Hezbollah attempted to kidnap Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Such actions were done at the behest not of Lebanon’s elected leaders or its people, but rather to please Hezbollah’s paymasters in Tehran. That war ended with an international pledge to ensure Hezbollah’s disarmament. Well, Hezbollah has once again illustrated that United Nations and European Union guarantees aren’t worth the paper on which they are printed. On January 14, al-Manar broadcast Nasrallah’s claim that Hezbollah has “every conceivable type of weapon” and that Hezbollah’s new weapons will “break the Israeli national morale and immunity during an upcoming war.” And here is Nasrallah, going further, and talking about his organization’s preparedness to enter Galilee. So how is it that internationally-certified withdrawal from territory will bring peace?

Back to Obama and Kerry. Sure, the Islamic State is an adversary (one that deserves a real strategy to counter and not simply symbolic and ineffective opposition). But to think that Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah are somehow moderate and responsible partners is not naïveté; it is gross incompetence, a mistake that betrays Israel, America’s Arab allies, and U.S. security itself, and will have long-term implications throughout the region. Having allowed Syria to fester and metastasize, it will be impossible to bring peace to that country anytime soon. But, make no mistake: the enemy is not simply Sunni extremists, but extremists of any sect whatsoever. Forget the adage, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In this battle, the enemies are not limited to a single side.