October 20, 2015
US Enabled Radical Islam: How the CIA, George W. Bush and many others helped create ISIS
Abdel Bari Atwan
Sunday, Oct 18, 2015 11:59 AM EST
| COMMENT: This is a fairly long article written by Abdel Bari Atwan. He is a Palestinian writer and journalist. He was the editor in chief of the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi for 25 years and now edits the Rai al-Youm news web site. He is certainly not the only one to express this opinion. |
Since 1980, the United States has intervened in the affairs of fourteen Muslim countries, at worst invading or bombing them. They are (in chronological order) Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo, Yemen, Pakistan, and now Syria. Latterly these efforts have been in the name of the War on Terror and the attempt to curb Islamic extremism.
Yet for centuries Western countries have sought to harness the power of radical Islam to serve the interests of their own foreign policy. In the case of Britain, this dates back to the days of the Ottoman Empire; in more recent times, the US/UK alliance first courted, then turned against, Islamists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. In my view, the policies of the United States and Britain—which see them supporting and arming a variety of groups for short-term military, political, or diplomatic advantage—have directly contributed to the rise of ISIS.
The Turkish Ottoman Empire was, for centuries, the largest Muslim political entity the world has ever known, encompassing much of North Africa, southeastern Europe, and the Middle East. From the sixteenth century onwards, Britain not only championed the Ottoman Empire but also supported and endorsed the institution of the caliphate and the Sultan’s claim to be the caliph and leader of the ummah (the Muslim world).
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