If There Was No Iraq Invasion Would The Islamic State Have Risen?

From top left clockwise: Fadel al-Hiyali, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), Adnan al-Bilawi, Samir al-Khlifawi (Haji Bakr), Adnan as-Suwaydawi (Abu Ayman al-Iraqi), Hamid az-Zawi (Abu Omar al-Baghdadi), Abu Hajr as-Sufi

Kyle Orton, The Syria Intifada: The Islamic State Was Coming Without the Invasion of Iraq

Yesterday, Reuters had an article by Isabel Coles and Ned Parker entitled, “How Saddam’s men help Islamic State rule“. The article had a number of interesting points, but in its presentation of the movement of former (Saddam) regime elements (FREs) into the leadership structure of the Islamic State (IS) as a phenomenon of the last few years, it was a step backward: the press had seemed to be recognizing that the Salafization of the FREs within IS dates back to the Islamization of Saddam Hussein’s regime in its last fifteen years, notably in the 1990s after the onset of the Faith Campaign.

The authors do note that when IS swept across Iraq in June 2014 and “absorbed thousands of [Ba’athist] followers,” these “new recruits joined Saddam-era officers who already held key posts in Islamic State” (italics added). But the Reuters piece then adds:

WNU Editor: Islamic militancy and waging Jihad have been occurring for centuries. Russia has been involved in wars and conflicts against radical Islamists for years .... with the recent wars in places like Chechnya during the 1990s (before the U.S. invasion of Iraq). I do not know if someone like Saddam Hussein would have been successful in suppressing the rise of radical Islam in Iraq .... the Assad family in Syria have a long history of being just as brutal .... and if it was not for the intervention of Russia/Iran/Hezbolah .... they would probably be on the last legs right now (if not gone). But it comes down to the same argument that I have been making for years in this blog .... the Sunni - Shiite war is very real in the Muslim world .... it has been percolating for 1300 years .... and many of these Islamist leaders want to drag the rest of the world into their conflict. Families like the Assads and Husseins come and go .... but religion lasts much longer, and Islam is now in a phase where many elements of it are now waging all-out war against each other.;