Posted on 08/08/2014 8:01:47 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
It’s the first hint of an escalated American presence in Iraq since President Obama dispatched 300 U.S. military advisers there in June, after ISIS, (also known as the Islamic State), captured large portions of northern Iraq in a shock offensive coordinated with other Sunni militant groups.
The Islamic State’s rise may have seemed sudden, but the group – which grew out of Al Qaeda in Iraq – has been rebuilding for years. Even before U.S. forces left Iraq in 2011, ISIS was forging a professional military force, stirring up Sunni unrest, mounting nationwide bombing campaigns, and killing Iraqi officials.
To find out more about the rise of the Islamic State and what it means, FRONTLINE spoke to Charles Lister, an analyst at the Brookings Doha Center.
The prevailing narrative seems to be that the Islamic State used the Syrian civil war to rebuild its power in Iraq. Is that true?
I think in some ways that narrative has been a little confused. The conflict in Syria, and the widespread perception that it is fundamentally sectarian, has undoubtedly accelerated the recovery and expansion of the Islamic State. But it definitely wasn’t the spark, the initial facilitating factor, that allowed the the Islamic State to begin recovering.
That process, as far as I’m concerned, actually began as early as mid-to-late 2009. It was at that point that the Islamic State was in some ways forced to devolve into a typical terrorist organization. At that point it relocated much of its central leadership to Mosul [Iraq], which was a relative safe zone, and it was at that point that it essentially began its period of recovery.
Within 12 months, it had very dramatically increased the frequency of its bombings across the country, particularly in urban areas. It had begun to recover the professionalism, or the professional level of its senior military leadership, and it was regaining sources of intelligence on local security forces, local government officials – most of which it has since used extraordinarily well and to its benefit in the last year or so, and which were almost certainly fundamentally important to facilitating the group’s capture of Mosul, for example, in June.
You’re referring to the “Soldier’s Harvest” campaign. Can you walk me through that operation?
The “Soldier’s Harvest” campaign has been the second of two 12-month campaigns. The first one was the campaign known as “Breaking the Walls.”
One of the primary objectives of that operation was to re-establish sources of leverage against security forces. A lot of that was done through a very significant campaign of intimidation — including collecting local intelligence on the addresses and family details of local security forces across the country.
A secondary objective of that initial campaign was the breaking out of prison of not only ordinary Islamic State foot soldiers, but most importantly, senior leading commanders, who’d been in prison for the final year or so of the U.S.-led surge in Iraq.
That campaign was absolutely crucial in allowing the Islamic State to start its second 12-month campaign, which was “Soldier’s Harvest.” That has essentially seen the Islamic State launch a really concerted, high-level and brutal campaign of multiple bombings, large and small, and a concerted campaign of assassinations. Essentially, it sought to spark the perceptions of sectarian conflict within Iraqi dynamics and to transfer what were existing sectarian tensions within the political system, for example, back into the tribal thinking, back into societal thinking. That, in effect, created a vacuum which the Islamic State felt it would be able to step into, and in many respects that is what it has managed to do just in the last couple of months.
0bama released the ISIS leader in 2009. From Gitmo.
The question for the historians:
Would ISIS exist if Saddam Hussein was still in power? Did Bush facilitate or delay the emergence of ISIS?
That is the question(s).
I thought Obama release him from an Iraqi prison?
Would ISIS exist if Barack Obama hadn't released it's commander in 2009? Would ISIS exist if Barack Obama had agreed to a reasonable level of troops agreement with the Iraq government instead of petulantly refusing to and removing our forces (surrendering Iraq)? Did Obama facilitate or delay the emergence of ISIS?
That is the question(s).
True. Those are questions for the historians as well. But, unlike my Bush oriented questions, they are easily answered. Of course the answer to all is NO, NO, FACILITATE but the "historians" will struggle and most likely ignore that obvious conclusion.
The basic facts:
Obama refused to leave any troops in Iraq.
Obama released the leader of ISIS.
Military equipment was left behind.
ISIS has been allowed to dominate and control Iraq.
Obama has refused requests for help for Iraq.
So who really is Obama supporting? Too many coincidences for me.
Yes. You’re right. From an Iraqi prison.
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