This is interesting, Guardian’s take:
“Principally, Isis is the product of a genocide that continued unabated as the world stood back and watched. It is the illegitimate child born of pure hate and pure fear – the result of 200,000 murdered Syrians and of millions more displaced and divorced from their hopes and dreams. Isis’s rise is also a reminder of how Bashar al-Assad’s Machiavellian embrace of al-Qaida would come back to haunt him.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/22/syria-iraq-incubators-isis-jihad
So Ali Khedery says differently.
Hard to judge altogether but if Assad had not been blowing up scores of his own people, ISIS might not be so potent as well.
The fact that the leadership of ISIS is Iraqi Baathist—vs. Syrian Baathist in Syria, is amazing. It means far from a conflict of religious Muslims vs. (more) secular Arab nationalists...in Syria this is really just a raw power game between birds of a feather.
That Mr. Obama dithered and allowed ISIS to form—or really the Baathists to re-form (and surely our gov knows ISIS is Saddam’s old regime)...is even more inditing of his utter incompetence.
ISIS is a rebranded Al Quaeda in Iraq. We had them defeated in 2009 when somebody said we were pulling out because 500+ somebodies cut OIF’s funding beginning in 2007.
AIQ/ISIS discovered greener pastures in Syria and in 2011-ish moved most of their operations there due in part to the lower security capabilities of Syria.
The author is correct. ISIS is an Iraqi entity with foreign sponsorship from Turkey and to a lesser extent Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
bump