The U.S. Helped Create Al Qaeda and ISIS

Iranians are as obsessed as Americans these days with the black-clad gangs roaming Iraq and Syria and killing Shiites and other “infidels” in the name of Sunni Islam. At the supermarket, in a shared taxi or at a family gathering, conversations often turn to the mysterious group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and how it came to be. And for most Iranians, the answer is obvious: the United States. ISIS, Iranian leaders have been saying for a long time, is made-in-the-U.S.A., a tool of terror intended by the world’s superpower to divide and conquer the energy-rich Middle East and to counter the growing influence of Iran in the region. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has often said that he believes ISIS was created by the United States as a way to regain a foothold in Iraq and to fight President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, an ally of Iran. “We have evidence, we know,” he told an audience of clerics last week, without elaborating. Ayatollah Khamenei reminded them that Al Qaeda — a creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, Iran has said — and the Taliban were, in the eyes of Iranian intelligence, devised by the West as a counterweight to Iran. “There is no doubt that these movements are created by Western powers and their regional agents,” Mr. Khamenei has insisted. [The New York Times, For Many Iranians, the ‘Evidence’ Is Clear: ISIS Is an American Invention, September 10, 2014]

Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region. The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history. The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era. The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism.” America’s relationship with Al Qaeda has always been a love-hate affair. Depending on whether a particular Al Qaeda terrorist group in a given region furthers American interests or not, the U.S. State Department either funds or aggressively targets that terrorist group. Even as American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, they knowingly foment it as a weapon of foreign policy. The Islamic State is its latest weapon that, much like Al Qaeda, is certainly backfiring. ISIS recently rose to international prominence after its thugs began beheading American journalists. Now the terrorist group controls an area the size of the United Kingdom. In order to understand why the Islamic State has grown and flourished so quickly, one has to take a look at the organization’s American-backed roots. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used to have a different name: Al Qaeda in Iraq. After 2010 the group rebranded and refocused its efforts on Syria. ISIS is not merely an instrument of terror used by America to topple the Syrian government, it is also used to put pressure on Iran. [Global Research, America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group, September 19, 2014]

From the first sudden and quite dramatic appearance of the fanatical Islamic group known as ISIS — which on the world's stage was largely unheard of until a year ago and which promptly replaced the worn out and tired al Qaeda as the world's terrorist bogeyman — we suggested that the purpose behind the Saudi Arabia-funded Islamic State "straight to beheading YouTube clip" was a simple one: use the Jihadists as the vehicle of choice to achieve the political goal of deposing Syria's president Assad. CIA-funded al Qaeda had been used as a facade by the US to achieve its own geopolitical and national interests over the past two decades and ISIS was nothing more than al Qaeda 2.0, but there was no actual evidence of just this. That may all have changed now. A declassified secret US government document obtained by the public-interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. The leaked document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, despite anticipating that doing so could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). [Zero Hedge, Secret Pentagon Report Reveals US "Created" ISIS As A "Tool" To Overthrow Syria's President Assad, May 24, 2015]

Noam Chomsky, “The United States created ISIS,” October 6, 2014



Over the years I have grown increasingly convinced that western military interventions and wars to “fix” the Middle East have not only failed, but have vastly exacerbated nearly all regional situations. Washington has at the end of the day, in effect, “lost” every one of its recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere. The West has been as much the problem as the solution. We must remember that there would be no ISIS today if the US had not invaded and destroyed Iraq’s leadership, government, ruling institutions, elites, army, infrastructure and social order. We must remember that history in the Middle East did not begin with 9/11. Rather 9/11 was already the culmination of years of previous western policies of interventions and political manipulations. We cannot proceed to take more vigorous “action” now without having these two propositions engraved on our foreheads. But some action must now be taken—even though nothing in our past actions offers much ground for reassurance. But by now ISIS is the single deepest source of immediate Middle East strategic disorder, with global implications. Not Iraq, not Iran, not Syria, not Libya, not Yemen, not Lebanon, not Somalia —or any of those other “optional wars” launched by Washington and its allies—ever presented the same deeply destabilizing global potential as does ISIS today. [Graham E. Fuller, ISIS- The Hour Has Struck, November 15, 2015]

I think the United States is one of the key creators of ISIS. The United States did not plan the formation of ISIS, but its destructive interventions in the Middle East and the war in Iraq were the basic causes of the birth of ISIS. You will remember that that the starting point of this organization was to protest the US invasion of Iraq. In those days it was supported by many non-Islamist Sunnis as well because of their opposition to the Iraq occupation. I think even today ISIS [now the Islamic State] is supported by many Sunnis who feel isolated by the Shiite government in Baghdad. [Graham E. Fuller, September 4, 2014] 

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Funneling Money, Arms and Equipment to Mexico Under the Pretext of Combating the War on Drugs

The U.S. military is carrying out its own aid program separately from the Merida Initiative under Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act passed in 2006, allowing it to funnel money, training and equipment to foreign militaries under the pretext of combating terrorism. The program—which provided the Mexican armed forces with nearly $13 million in arms and training this year—is one of the means by which Washington has increasingly delegated foreign policy to the Pentagon. The rhetoric, employing the pseudo-democratic phrasemongering of the "war on terrorism," ignores the obvious. The "kingpins" aren't concerned with "corroding" the values extolled by Clinton. Their principal motivation is no different than that of the bankers and financiers on Wall Street: profit. The "war on drugs," like the "war on terrorism," is a façade behind which are concealed strategic aims of U.S. imperialism, which seeks to exert its hegemony over resource-rich regions of the globe by military means.

The following are articles on the website of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:

• America's Allies Are Funding ISIS
• Anti-Terrorist Hacker Group Reveals 40 ISIS Websites Protected by US Tech Firm
• Night of blood and horror in Paris
• Universities should play their part in shaping the new Islamic civilization
• The dog and the doglike
• 115 years of nonstop crimes against Iran 
• Don’t allow the arrogance to introduce their terrorists as representatives of Islam (video)