When Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s candidate in the United States of America’s presidential race, alleged
that President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party candidate, Hillary
Clinton were the founders of ISIS, he drew much consternation from the
public. It seemed like another of his trademark rants but the reality
is, though it might not be Obama and Clinton as individuals who are to
blame, the United States is culpable and should take responsibility for
the monster ISIS is. ISIS is the creation of a reckless and
unapologetically selfish US foreign policy. It is a global problem born
of imperialist agendas. It is a United States foreign policy project
gone wrong.
The ISIS Problem
In 1999, Abu
Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, a Sunni extremist founded The Organisation of
Monotheism and Jihad which became the Al Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) in 2004
after he pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. According to the
National Counterterrorism Center
of the USA, “The group targeted Coalition and Iraqi forces and
civilians to pressure foreigners to leave Iraq, reduce popular support
for the US and Iraqi Government, and attract recruits.”
Zarqawi
was killed in a 2006 airstrike and the group later became the Islamic
State of Iraq, becoming the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and then
simply Islamic State in 2014. To put the effects of IS (as it is now
known) into context,
START
conducted a study and revealed, “Between 2002 and 2015, more than 4,900
terrorist attacks were carried out by groups or organisations
affiliated with the organisation now known as the Islamic State. These
attacks caused more than 33,000 deaths and 41,000 injuries, and involved
more than 11,000 individuals held hostage or kidnapped.” The attacks by
ISIS are further said to have represented 13% of all terrorist attacks,
26% of all deaths, 28% of all injuries and 24% of all kidnap victims or
hostages due to terrorism in the same period. With its social media
savvy leadership, the group has managed to recruit more and more people
resulting in more attacks in the most unlikely of places. No one is safe
anymore.
The USA Connection
ISIS is one terrorist group which could
have been history by now if the USA and her allies really intended to do
away with it. In fact, it might have barely seen the light of day not
for the confused policies of the US. A
seven page leaked
US intelligence report written in August 2012 put online by Judicial
Watch proves the US knew of the harm its presence in the Middle East was
making. Not only that, but the US was also aware of the potential of
the then skirmishes between the Syrian Assad regime and rebels taking a
“clear sectarian direction”. The United States was also aware that, “The
Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (Al Qaeda In Iraq) are the
major forces driving insurgency in Syria.” By now it is clear that AQI
morphed into ISIS. However, the final revelation is even more telling.
The
document says, “The West, Gulf Countries and Turkey support the
opposition, while Russia, China and Iran support the regime.” The
opposition has already been established to be the AQI, and the Salafist
and Muslim Brotherhood so in 2012, America and her friends were in
support of AQI. To further prove the culpability of America, the report
states in page 5, “If the situation unravels there is a possibility of
establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern
Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition
want in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered a
strategic depth of the Shia expansion.”
With a judgment clouded
by the lingering possibility of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, the USA
and her allies chose to side with one of the deadliest terror groups to
ever operate in the world. President Vladimir Putin in answering a
question regarding ISIS from a US journalist at the
Valdai International Discussion Club in 2014
asked important questions (rhetorical) that called for much United
States introspection. He said, “Another threat President Obama mentioned
was ISIS. Well, who on earth armed them? Who armed the Syrians that
were fighting with Assad? Who created the necessary political and
informational climate that facilitated this situation? Who pushed for
the delivery of arms to the area?”
There are no prizes for
guessing the answer to President Putin’s questions. He further probed on
the financing of IS arguing that most of the fighters in Syria were
mercenaries funded by the US who defected for money to the IS. Where
does IS get this money from? From the oil fields it has occupied in the
region. The more important question is: Who is buying IS’s blood oil?
Are the buyers really anonymous? Is the United States of America’s
celebrated CIA unable to track who these buyers are? That is unlikely.
The buyers are known and yet they are not under sanctions, the same
sanctions which are a tool the United States is only too happy to use to
prop up its imperialist ambitions.
US Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter gave a
testimony
before the Senate Armed Services Committee in December where he tried
to hide the USA’s knowledge of IS fuel trucks moving in Syria but was
called out by Senator John McCain who said, “We all knew those trucks
were moving back and forth. We’ve seen them. We knew it. The decision
was not made by the White House to attack them.”
The oil being a
vital source of IS funding, why did the US sit on its hands and refrain
from cutting this very important linkage that would destroy the allure
of IS to mercenaries? It would seem the USA is deliberately sabotaging
the global campaign to end IS to further its divide and conquer
imperialist mind-set and to neutralise Russian power as if the Cold War
is still on.
President Barack Obama might not have the time to fix the many
wrongs of his country’s foreign policy but whoever comes next has some
real work to do. As far as the landscape of world politics is concerned,
the USA is operating disturbingly like a big legitimised terror group
and that is unacceptable. President Vladimir Putin gave good advice in
the Valdai International Discussion Club when he said to the USA, “You
must rise above the endless desire to dominate. You must stop acting out
of imperialistic ambitions. Do not poison the consciousness of millions
of people like there can be no other way but imperialistic politics.”
