With the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as ISIL, IS, and Daesh), many people seem to believe that the U.S. is indirectly culpable for its formation when it invaded Iraq in 2003. However, associating ISIS' creation as a result the American invasion of Iraq drastically oversimplifies the origin of this widely feared terrorist group.
Few people know that ISIS has been around since 1999, albeit under a different name and leadership. It is imperative to understand that ISIS is not a static force, but rather a dynamic one that has changed alongside its environment over the years. ISIS first started as a seed called Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (The Organization of Monotheism and Jihad, also known by the acronym JTJ). This seed was planted by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a hardline jihadist. Zarqawi had initially traveled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, yet by the time he arrived, Soviet troops had already withdrawn. Zarqawi then returned to Jordan, and later travelled once again to Afghanistan to oversee a militant training camp in Herat. This group was started with the intention to crush the current Jordanian government which was perceived as un-Islamic. JTJ is also connected with the 2002 assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley as well as the millennium celebration bomb plots in the U.S. and Jordan. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, JTJ became an active participant in resisting the U.S. occupation and provisional government of Iraq. This group was responsible for dozens of attacks, including bombings and beheadings and was comprised primarily of foreign fighters.
In 2004, Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, promptly renaming the group Tanzim Quaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, which became commonly known as Al-Quaeda in Iraq (AQI). When 2006 rolled around, AQI merged with several other jihadist groups to form the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC). That same year, Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike and was succeeded by the Egyptian jihadist Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
Shortly following the death of Zarqawi, MSC renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), with Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its emir. The 2007 American troop surge in Iraq saw ISI's position greatly weaken, and was eventually pushed out of the al-Anbar province as well as several others. ISI's battered forces retreated into Mosul, with many of its top leadership having been killed by the U.S. ISI was transformed from a primarily foreign fighter based force into an organization that was populated mostly with Iraqis. Al-Baghdadi took this opportunity to regroup, and replaced many of the high ranking leaders that had been killed earlier with men who had once served under Saddamn's regime.
In 2012, al-Baghdadi announced that ISI would be creeping back into the territories that the U.S. forces had initially driven it from. With the Syrian War starting in 2011, al-Baghdadi seized upon the opportunity that the turmoil provided and began sending experienced guerrilla fighters into Syria to establish a power base. This power base eventually grew into the organization known as Jabhat al-Nusra. In April of 2013, al-Baghdadi announced a merger between the two groups, forming the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The leader of al-Quaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri as well as al-Nusra’s leader contested this merger. After an eight-month long power struggle, al-Quaeda dissolved all relations between itself ISIS. Thus, through ISI’s merger with Jabhat al-Nusra, the ISIS of today formed in its entirety.
In conclusion, it was not the U.S. occupation that created ISIS, although the American occupation certainly influenced ISIS’ development and evolution as a terrorist organization to a certain degree. We can plainly see that the seeds of ISIS were planted long before the U.S. cast Saddam out of Iraq, and that to say that the U.S. is the sole reason for the inception of ISIS is pure fallacy. The current problems in the Middle East are incredibly complex in nature, and as such have complex origins and will require complex solutions.
