Säkulare Kirche Heute: Wie die USA die Terrormiliz ISIS zu einer Bedrohung machen

George W. Bushs ‘War Of Terror’ im Dienste seiner religiösen Überzeugungen:
Wie die USA die Terrormiliz ISIS zu einer Bedrohung für die Welt machen

The U.S. not only helped create ISIS, but also turned it into a threat to the United States.
How the US Made ISIS a Threat | The Diplomat. By Zachary Keck

Over at The Debate, Ben Reynolds demolishes American pundits who, fearing the U.S. and Iran will cooperate on a shared interest, have tried to blame Iran and its allies for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). I have no doubt that Bashar al-Assad welcomed ISIS’s rise in the insurgency. An Alawite family does get to rule over Syria for decades by failing to recognize opportunities that land on its doorstep.

And while I disagree with aspects of Reynold’s piece, his argument that the U.S. did far more to facilitate ISIS’s rise than Iran is virtually undeniable. To briefly recap: In 2001 the U.S. was attacked by al-Qaeda, a Sunni Jihadist group, which claimed that America’s support for corrupt and insufficiently Islamic governments in the Middle East was preventing it from recreating the Islamic Caliphate. The U.S. responded by launching a global war on terrorism. After forcing the Taliban and al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, the U.S. turned its sights on Iraq, a country without a terrorist problem that was led by Saddam Hussein, a secular Sunni Baathist leader that al-Qaeda was bent on overthrowing.

After toppling Saddam, the U.S. dismantled the entire Sunni-dominated Baathist state, including dismissing the military and security services and firing even low level civil servants. It then put the long oppressed Shiites in power, the leadership of whom had dedicated their lives to opposing Saddam and the Baathist. While only get mixed results most of the time, the U.S. devoted most of its military resources during the Iraq War to combating the Sunni insurgency that inevitably followed these decisions.

A Wall Street Journal profile of ISIS’s leadership this week erases any linger doubt over whether or not these decisions were instrumental to the group’s rise. The article notes that many of ISIS’s top leaders– including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi– spent time in an American military prison during the occupation. Like countless terrorist and militant leaders in other countries, this only served to further radicalize them and strengthen their resolve. Furthermore, the article notes that at least two of its top operational leaders are former generals in Saddam’s army. In other words, they were among the professional soldiers who found themselves without work when the U.S. disbanded Saddam’s military. Neither of them are known to be particularly radical or knowledgeable about Islam, suggesting they weren’t motivated to join the group because of their religious beliefs. ……

Regardless of what Obama ultimately chooses, the main point is that U.S. “counterterrorism” policy was not only essential in creating ISIS, but it has also transformed it into a direct threat to the United States. It bears noting that the U.S. policies that led to these outcomes– namely invading Iraq in 2003 and initiating air strikes last month– both had strong, bipartisan support in Washington, just as bombing ISIS in Syria currently does.

read more via How the US Made ISIS a Threat | The Diplomat.