Did Obama Create ISIS?
President Donald Trump said he believes that former President Barack Obama created ISIS—with Hillary Clinton as co-founder, no less. The suggestion might seem ludicrous, but many of his supporters have paid more than lip service to Trump’s accusation.
So, did Obama create ISIS? The straight answer is no. The former commander in chief may have conducted a terrible policy in Syria vis-à-vis ISIS, but was Obama responsible for ISIS? No.
The Internet is filled with videos and articles dedicated to statements such as “Obama created ISIS.” The web site Infowars is but one of the most vocal ones, but it’s hardly unique. It’s not uncommon for rumors, even malicious ones, to offer clues that “something is rotten in the State of Denmark.” William Shakespeare wrote that famous line from Hamlet over 400 years ago, but it’s even more valid today than it was in the great bard’s time.
Obama may not have deliberately created ISIS, but his Syria policy was greatly responsible for allowing the infamous terrorist army to flourish. French General Vincent Desportes addressed the accusations that Trump leveled against Obama head-on. He said that Obama didn’t create ISIS, but that the United States as a whole has responsibility. Desportes especially placed the blame on George W. Bush. (Source: “Général Desportes: Obama n’a pas créé Daech, mais les Etats-Unis sont responsables,” Le Figaro, August 18, 2016.)
Trump’s accusations were typical of his bombast, but they also represented a mutation on a Republican theme. ISIS emerged from a radicalized fringe within the Iraqi Sunni opposition to the U.S. presence in the country after the 2003 invasion. Republican Senators who blamed the rise of ISIS in Iraq on Obama were referring to his allegedly faulty strategy.
How Was ISIS Founded?
Republicans have suggested that Obama withdrew U.S. troops too hastily from Iraq, starting in 2010. In turn, that caused opposition forces to radicalize further as they penetrated into northern Iraq, rapidly expanding to form the Islamic State (ISIS). The group surprised everyone when, in the spring of 2014, it made a lightning-speed break into Fallujah and Mosul. That was just a few months after the departure of U.S. troops.
Clearly, some Republicans (not all—Pat Buchanan was, and remains, highly critical) refuse to even entertain the possibility that George W. Bush might have just a tad of responsibility for the chaos in the Middle East that produced ISIS. (Source: “Was Iraq Worth It?,” Patrick J. Buchanan – Official Website, March 19, 2013.)
Barack Obama came after Bush and inherited the responsibility. But Obama was not even a Senator yet in 2002, when the Senate held a vote on the Iraq War resolution. Obama did, however, oppose the war before and during his term as senator. On October 2, 2002, addressing a rally in Chicago, Obama famously said: “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.” (Source: “Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq,” Obama News and Speeches, October 2, 2002.)
Who Created ISIS and Why?
It turns out that the idea that Obama made ISIS is false. Who created ISIS and why? Well, the “who” is easy. It is the overall calamitous American intervention in 2003 that George W. Bush ordered. Worse still was the even more calamitous management of the Middle Eastern mess that resulted from Iraq.
As to the why? That’s a bigger question. The true reasons for invading Iraq remain a mystery. The world was told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It did not. Others said Bush led the war for the oil. But, would it not then have been easier for oil companies to make deals with the Iraqi government? After all, Saddam Hussein would have been very happy to allow companies to come in and extract Iraqi oil, yielding his government a handsome rent.
Thus, the better question, given the extent of the mysteries surrounding the Iraq war and ISIS, is to ask “how?” How was ISIS created? ISIS is to Bush as Frankenstein’s Monster is to Dr. Frankenstein. Both Bush and the fictional Dr. Frankenstein wanted to do “good,” as it were. The fictional character wanted to play with the possibility of recreating life and advancing science. The real character, and president of the most powerful country in the world, wanted to—ostensibly—bring democracy to an area of the world where it was in as short supply as water.
The rest was done by the dangerous mix of resurgent Islamism as the only political opposition with any chance of scoring political victories in the Middle East. Over the decades of the Cold War, the West and the Soviet Union backed dictatorships in the periphery (such as the Middle East and Africa) in order to promote capitalism or communism, respectively.
It’s no surprise that the first major international war in the Middle East occurred in 1990–1991 in the context of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. There was no coincidence in the fact that the war started just a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As the struggle between the Soviets and Americans in the Middle East dwindled (the Soviets retreated), political struggles were reduced to the status quo in places like Iraq or Algeria.
The secular dictatorships, therefore, had to face the largely Islamist oppositions operating in the shadows. The Islamists could exploit the mosques to rally their followers and radicalize a hidden army. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein started to recruit these radicals in the armed forces, when he understood the direction in which the wind from America was blowing. The radical officers and intelligence officials later formed the backbone of ISIS. (Source: “How Saddam Hussein’s former military officers and spies are controlling Isis,” The Independent, April 5, 2015.)
This also explains how ISIS managed to score such surprising victories in battle. For all of the recruits of questionable military ability, there was a core of well-trained military officers in the background.
In that sense, Paul Bremer, Bush’s first presidential envoy to Iraq, has more direct responsibility for ISIS than anyone. It was Bremer who decide to dissolve the Iraqi army instead of using it to help manage a chaotic situation. It was also Bremer who ended up dividing—and ruling—Iraq, fomenting sectarian rivalries between Shi’ites and Sunnis. The Sunnis felt ostracized and retreated north, setting off Saddam’s trap, fueling the rise of the Islamist movement known as ISIS. (Source: “Where did ISIS come from? The story starts here,” The Boston Globe, March 10, 2016.)
Clearly, this is the subject for books and studies. The battle for ISIS is not yet over. The Russians and Syrians have delivered deadly blows to the group in Syria. Yet, given the extent of the group’s appeal and military prowess, there are still pockets of resistance. Similarly, the NATO-led anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq has scored some big wins (Mosul, for example), but nobody can yet declare “mission accomplished.”
Conclusion: Was Obama One of the Founders of ISIS?
Given its sordid history and the number of players involved, it can be asked: Was Obama one of the founders of ISIS?
No. ISIS has roots that go as far back as at least 2003. Obama had just entered the Senate then. But Obama does not get a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. The Obama administration failed to recognize that the real enemy in Syria was not Bashar al-Assad. Rather, the enemy—or enemies—was a variety of Islamist groups, of which ISIS was simply the best armed, best led, and most ambitious.
In so doing, Obama helped arm the Islamist opposition in Syria. Some weapons inevitably percolated through big gaps to ISIS as well. Obama made the mistake of practicing overly moralizing politics. He wanted to enforce western values and concepts on a region that has still not come to terms with many aspects of its historical roots in the Ottoman Empire, let alone the 21st century. (Source: “Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Debacle: Arming Jihadists in Libya . . . and Syria,” National Review, August 2, 2016.)
Obama confused enemies in Syria. The enemy was not not Assad; the main enemies were ISIS and a handful of other Islamist groups, such as the al-Nusra Front. Assad never threatened either the United States nor anyone else in the West, (or the East, for that matter). Obama’s mistake was to uphold a moralizing vision of international relations. Thus, Obama ended up feeding the monster—ISIS—that others created.