From April 2015:
Looking back “The War on ISIS is a Farce”
Global
Research, April 27, 2015
The rise of ISIS has its origins in the illegal
occupation of Iraq by the U.S., the U.K., and other Western forces in 2003,
which caused the deaths of an estimated 5% of the Iraqi population. The Bush
and Blair administrations falsely accused the Iraqi regime of harboring weapons
of mass destructions, of supporting al-Qaeda, and of having some connection
with the 9/11 attacks. What the public wasn’t informed of was that the Bush
administration had plans to attack Iraq long before 9/11 [1]. What’s more, the
U.S. facilitated the rise of Saddam’s regime, supplied it with weapons of mass
destruction in its war against Iran, and unlike Saudi Arabia and other allies
of the U.S. in the region, Iraq was a secular state that was violently opposed
to the reactionary Islamist ideology of al-Qaeda. The war, if anything, was a
boon for al-Qaeda, which was never active in Iraq before the U.S.-led
occupation.
In 2011, the U.S., the U.K., France, Canada, and other
Western imperialist states, along with their allies in the region, including
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, allied themselves with militant Islamist
organizations in Libya and Syria to overthrow the secular governments of
Muammar al-Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad respectively.
Western imperialism invoked the ‘responsibility to
protect’ (R2P) doctrine to justify NATO airstrikes on Libya, killing thousands
of civilians [2]. Libya was the wealthiest and most stable country in Africa,
with the continent’s highest standard of living and with universal healthcare
and education for all its citizens, but in the aftermath of NATO’s humanitarian
intervention, the country fell into a state of collapse as rival tribes and
Islamist organizations battled to control the country’s wealth. Militant
Islamists captured, brutally tortured, and murdered Gaddafi.
The NATO intervention in Libya directly facilitated
the breakaway of the Azawad and the rise of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM) in Mali. Using the “war on terror” ruse the U.S., E.U., Canada, and
other imperialist states have been actively supporting the Malian regime in its
war against Tuareg autonomy and AQIM, which they earlier supported in Libya
along with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Libya was virtually handed to
al-Qaeda by NATO.
With their success in Libya, al-Qaeda and other Sunni
Islamic militants quickly mobilized to overthrow the secular government of
Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where the failure of Western imperialism is eerily
similar to Afghanistan from the late 1970s to the 1990s and, albeit on a much
larger scale, to Libya.
The U.S. policy of supporting hostile Sunni insurgent
groups laid the foundation for the rise of ISIS, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and
nearly every single Sunni extremist group that has appeared in the last 40-50
years. In Afghanistan, to undermine the country’s 1978 socialist revolution and
spread instability into Soviet Turkestan, U.S. imperialism with its allies in
the Persian Gulf and in Pakistan supported militant Islamist groups that would
later form the nucleus of al-Qaeda and the Taliban [3].
The policy of supporting Sunni insurgent groups was
given a further impetus following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, where an
anti-U.S., theocratic Shiite regime was established. Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in 2007:
“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 cooperated with Saudi
Arabia’s 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 Islamic State was formed in 2006 when al-Qaeda in
Iraq merged with other Sunni insurgent organizations. The name was changed to
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or Levant) (ISIS) in April 2013 after a
second merger, this time between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s affiliate in
Syria, the al-Nusra Front.
The U.S., the U.K., Canada, and other imperialist
states, through their allies Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, the
United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, have been supporting the “moderate” Free
Syrian Army (FSA) rebels with hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons as
well as setting up training camps and offering free medical treatment to
injured fighters. The question that begs to be asked is how ISIS has managed to
defeat the FSA despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the West and
its allies in the region?
You would have to be an absolute lunatic to believe
that Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States, all absolute monarchies run by a
small clique of corrupt Arab sheikhs that couldn’t be farther from an
acceptable version of democracy, would support a moderate, democratic, and free
Syrian organization. Even to the corporate media in the West it is no secret
that these allies of the West fund reactionary Islamist organizations whose
interests are antithetical to democracy. The Washington Post reported that
“Qatar’s cultivation of African Islamists, principally Somalia’s al-Shabab
insurgents, has…troubled the United States,” [4] which is drone bombing Somalia
in the name of the “war on terror.” Israel, the region’s “only democracy” we
are told, itself supported Hamas to counter the influence of the secular
Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1980s.
These “moderate” FSA fighters that the U.S. and its
allies support, if there really was an independent FSA, have en masse joined
the ranks of ISIS. Dozens of outlets have detailed this fact. A Lebanese
newspaper quoted an FSA commander as saying, “We are collaborating with the
Islamic State and al-Nusra,” [5] and Al-Jazeera reported in 2013 that “hundreds
of fighters under the command of the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) have
reportedly switched allegiance to al-Qaeda-aligned groups.” [6] The World Net Daily
quoted Jordanian officials as saying that the rebels trained by U.S.
instructors in Jordan have joined ISIS [7].
Furthermore there is overwhelming evidence that the
U.S. and its allies are both directly and indirectly supporting ISIS. According
to a source close to Iraqi intelligence, there is allegedly an ISIS training
camp in Turkey that is in the vicinity of Incirlik Air Base near Adana, where
American personnel and equipment are located [8]. NATO member Turkey is among
the most staunch supporters of the rebels, a fact that an ISIS fighter detailed
to the Jerusalem Post: “Turkey paved the way for us. Had Turkey not shown such
understanding for us, the Islamic State would not be in its current place.” [9]
Former Iraqi Prime Minister and current Vice-President
Nouri al-Maliki publicly accused U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar of
bankrolling ISIS [10]. Kuwait, in particular, due to its weak financial laws,
has become a financial and organizational hub for Syrian rebel groups. The
Brooking’s Institute in Washington, D.C. reported “evidence that Kuwaiti donors
have backed rebels who have committed atrocities and who are either directly
linked to al-Qa’ida or cooperate with its affiliated brigades on the ground.”
[11]
Evidence exists of direct Israeli support for ISIS
fighters. United Nations observers in the Golan Heights reported to the United
Nations Security Council of direct contact between ISIS and Israel, including
Israeli Defense Forces supplying ISIS with unmarked crates and offering medical
treatment to wounded fighters [12] [13]. An Israeli officer spoke out in
opposition to the U.S. war against ISIS, claiming that in fighting ISIS the
U.S. is strengthening what Israel perceives as the real threat, the Shiite
alliance of Hezbollah and Iran [14].
Finally nearly all of the aid provided to the
“moderate” rebels has been captured or sent to ISIS. It wasn’t long after the
Washington Post reported that aid from the CIA and the State Department, which
included dozens of Toyota pickup trucks, were being delivered to rebels on the
Turkish-Syria border that the iconic photo of ISIS militants in a convoy of
Toyota pickup trucks invading northern Iraq became public [15]. Less than four
months after Obama pledged $500 million in weapons and aid to the FSA rebels,
ISIS had acquired the same amount of weapons from the FSA; a Syrian fighter
told Al-Quds al-Arabi that much of the aid was sold to unknown parties in
Turkey and Iraq [16]. Don’t forget about the repeated “accidental” weapon drops
by the U.S. in ISIS-controlled territory! [17]
The war against ISIS in the Middle East by Western
imperialism is a farce. ISIS has and continues to dutifully serve Western and
Israeli imperialist interests in the Middle East, causing chaos in formerly
staunch anti-imperialist states that had the strength to oppose Israel, and
creating a force capable of countering Iranian influence.
The reason ISIS is now a “threat” is that Western
imperialism, in failing to topple the Syrian government, requires a new pretext
to continue its aggressive military interventions in the Middle East, in
particular to weaken Syria and the Shiite leadership of Iraq for an attack on
Iran. If defeating ISIS was the real objective, the Western powers would form
an alliance with Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, which have relentlessly battled
ISIS on the ground, not with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.
Working people need to realize that the real threat to
the world isn’t ISIS, Iran, or Syria, it is Western imperialism.
Notes:
T.J. Petrowski is a Central Committee
member of the Young Communist League of Canada. You can read more of his
articles on his website, tjpetrowski.com.
The original source of this article is tjpetrowski.com
Copyright © T. J. Petrowski, tjpetrowski.com, 2015
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