There Are Many Reasons For The Rise Of The Islamic State

Al Arabiya

Ian Fisher, NYT: In Rise of ISIS, No Single Missed Key but Many Strands of Blame

By the time the United States withdrew from its long bloody encounter with Iraq in 2010, it thought it had declawed a once fearsome enemy: the Islamic State, which had many names and incarnations but at the time was neither fearsome nor a state.

Beaten back by the American troop surge and Sunni tribal fighters, it was considered such a diminished threat that the bounty the United States put on one of its leaders had dropped from $5 million to $100,000. The group’s new chief was just 38 years old, a nearsighted cleric, not even a fighter, with little of the muscle of his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the godfather of Iraq’s insurgency, killed by the American military four years earlier after a relentless hunt.

“Where is the Islamic State of Iraq you are talking about?” the Yemeni wife of one leader demanded, according to Iraqi police testimony. “We’re living in the desert!”

WNU Editor: The New York Times is trying to put the blame on everyone for the rise of the Islamic State, but the rise of ISIS has been in the past 5 years .... and during the watch of President Obama. But while it is easy for me to blame President Obama for the Islamic State .... the truth is that he did win with a mandate from the American public to get out of the Middle East .... consequences be damned. And while the consequences of this policy are getting worse .... the American public is still determined to stay out of this conflict .... Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Sending Ground Troops To The Middle East. My prediction .... it is going to get worse, and this mess is going to be inherited by the next President. My hope is that instead of blaming President Obama for this chaos like President Obama always likes to blame President Bush .... this future President looks at this crisis with a fresh look, and do what is necessary to define and articulate a new strategy that is sorely needed right now.