ISIS: Made in USA
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) is a creation of the United
States and its Persian Gulf allies,
namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and
recently added to the list, Kuwait.
The Daily Beast in an article titled,
Americas Allies Are Funding
ISIS, states:
The Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS), now threatening
Baghdad, was funded for years
by wealthy donors in Kuwait,
Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three
U.S. allies that have dual agendas
in the war on terror.
Despite the candor of the
opening sentence, the article
would unravel into a myriad of
lies laid to obfuscate Americas
role in the creation of ISIS. The
article would claim:
The extremist group that is
threatening the existence of the
Iraqi state was built and grown
for years with the help of elite
donors from American supposed
allies in the Persian Gulf region.
There, the threat of Iran, Assad,
and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian
war trumps the U.S. goal of
stability and moderation in the
region.
However, the US goal in the
region was never stability and
surely not moderation. As early
as 2007, sources within the
Pentagon and across the US
intelligence community revealed
a conspiracy to drown the Middle
East in sectarian war, and to do
so by arming and funding
extremist groups including the
Muslim Brotherhood and Al
Qaeda itself. Published in 2007
a full 4 years before the 2011
Arab Spring would begin
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Seymour Hershs New Yorker
article titled, The Redirection: Is
the Administrations new policy
benefiting our enemies in the
war on terrorism? stated
specifically (emphasis added):
To undermine Iran, which is
predominantly Shiite, the Bush
Administration has decided, in
effect, to reconfigure its
priorities in the Middle East. In
Lebanon, the Administration has
coöperated with Saudi Arabias
government, which is Sunni, in
clandestine operations that are
intended to weaken Hezbollah,
the Shiite organization that is
backed by Iran. The U.S. has also
taken part in clandestine
operations aimed at Iran and
its ally Syria. A by-product of
these activities has been the
bolstering of Sunni extremist
groups that espouse a militant
vision of Islam and are hostile
to America and sympathetic to
Al Qaeda.
The 9 page, extensive report has
since been vindicated many
times over with revelations of US,
NATO, and Persian Gulf complicity
in raising armies of extremists
within Libya and along Syrias
borders. ISIS itself, which is
claimed to occupy a region
stretching from northeastern
Syria and across northern and
western Iraq, has operated all
along Turkeys border with Syria,
coincidentally where the US CIA
has conducted years of
monitoring and arming of
moderate groups.
In fact, the US admits it has
armed, funded, and equipped
moderates to the tune of
hundreds of millions of dollars. In
a March 2013 Telegraph article
titled, US and Europe in major
airlift of arms to Syrian rebels
through Zagreb, it was
reported that a single program
included 3,000 tons of weapons
sent in 75 planeloads paid for by
Saudi Arabia at the bidding of
the United States. The New York
Times in its article, Arms Airlift
to Syria Rebels Expands, With
C.I.A. Aid, admits that the CIA
assisted Arab governments and
Turkey with military aid to
terrorists fighting in Syria
constituting hundreds of airlifts
landing in both Jordan and
Turkey.
The vast scale of US, NATO, and
Arab aid to terrorists fighting in
Syria leaves no doubt that the
conspiracy described by Hersh in
2007 was carried out in earnest,
and that the reason Al Qaeda
groups such as Al Nusra and ISIS
displaced so-called moderates,
was because such moderates
never existed in any significant
manner to begin with. While
articles like the Daily Beasts
Americas Allies Are Funding
ISIS now try to portray a divide
between US and Persian Gulf
foreign policy, from Hershs 2007
article and all throughout the
past 3 years in Libya and Syria,
the goal of raising an army in the
name of Al Qaeda has been
clearly shared and demonstrably
pursued by both the US and its
regional partners.
The plan, from the beginning,
was to raise an extremist
expeditionary force to trigger a
regional sectarian bloodbath a
bloodbath now raging across
multiple borders and set to
expand further if decisive action
is not taken.
Iran Must Avoid Americas
Touch of Death and Sectarian
War at All Costs
Despite an open conspiracy to
drown the region in sectarian
strife, the US now poses as a
stakeholder in Iraqs stability.
Having armed, funded, and
assisted ISIS into existence and
into northern Iraq itself, the idea
of America intervening to stop
ISIS is comparable to an arsonist
extinguishing his fire with more
gasoline. Reviled across the
region, any government be it in
Baghdad, Tehran, or Damascus
that allies itself with the US will
be immediately tainted in the
minds of forces forming along
both sides of this artificially
created but growing sectarian
divide. Irans mere consideration
of joint-operations with the US
can strategically hobble any
meaningful attempts on the
ground to stop ISIS from
establishing itself in Iraq and
using Iraqi territory to launch
attacks against both Tehran and
Damascus.
Any Iranian assistance to Iraq
should be given only under the
condition that the US not
intervene in any manner. Irans
main concern should be
portraying the true foreign-
funded nature of ISIS, while
uniting genuine Sunni and Shiaa
groups together to purge what
is a foreign invasion of Iraqi
territory. Iran must also begin
allaying fears among Iraqs Sunni
population that Tehran may try
to use the current crisis to gain
further influence over Baghdad.
While the US downplays the
sectarian aspects of ISIS invasion
of Iraq before global audiences,
its propaganda machine across
the Middle East, assisted by Doha
and Riyadh, is stoking sectarian
tensions. The ISIS has committed
itself to a campaign of over-the-
top sectarian vitriol and atrocities
solely designed to trigger a
wider Sunni-Shiaa conflict. That
the US created ISIS and it is now
in Iraq attempting to stoke a
greater bloodbath with its
already abhorrent invasion, is
precisely why Tehran and
Baghdad should take a cue from
Damascus, and disassociate itself
from the West, dealing with ISIS
themselves.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based
geopolitical researcher and
writer, especially for the online
magazine New Eastern
Outlook