Virtually absent in the media circus around ISIS is an honest discussion of how the US War on Terror, rather than ending the use of violence by Islamist groups, actually fosters fundamentalism. To be clear, the US did not create ISIS. That is, it did not fund and train ISIS in Syria in the way that it funded and trained the Mujahideen (from which al Qaeda emerged) to fight its proxy war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Rather it is US actions in the Middle East that have created the conditions for the rise of a group like ISIS. Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq until after the US invasion. Al Qaeda in Iraq was formed in 2004, and was the precursor organization to the current ISIS. It is the US’s reliance on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates to push back against the so called Shia Crescent (Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and for a time the Sunni Hamas) that prompted rich donors in the Gulf States to channel funds to ISIS in Syria. It is US and various dictatorships’ support of counter-revolutionary forces opposed to the Arab Spring of 2011 that allowed reactionary groups to grow while thwarting progressive ones.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 15:45:54 +0000
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