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Paul Street: ISIL Is A Frankenstein Created Largely by US Imperialism
Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:57
TEHRAN (FNA)- Paul Street, American journalist, believes that the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is in fact a Frankenstein
created largely by US imperialism, and that the menace posed by the
ISIL and the resurgence of Takfiri-Salafi militancy is not limited to
Syria and Iraq.
"The peril ISIL poses to what has always been Washington's primary
concern in the region - the great "strategic prize" of Middle Eastern
oil - raises the specter of the US having to re-send large military
deployments to the world's energy heartland. And that is something US
policymakers do not relish since they know by now that it has strong
potential to make the situation worse. Smart US planners have learned
that direct US military intervention fuels "anti-Americanism" and
strengthens the jihadist movement in the long run. The US prefers to
dominate the region through proxies (including Saudi Arabia, the Arab
Emirates, and Israel) and divide-and-rule," said Street in an
exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.
He believes that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan pretty much
manufactured the global Jihadist network in order to bloody the nose
of the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and 1980s. The ISIL is of course
an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, itself largely a product of that US Cold War
policy.
Fars News Agency has conducted an interview with Paul Street, an
independent researcher, journalist, historian, author and speaker
based in Illinois, in an attempt to study the claim by the US
authorities that they are combating ISIL and terrorism in the Middle
East.
Paul Street is the author of numerous books including "Empire and
Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11", "Segregated Schools:
Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era", and "Racial
Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History".
Street's essays, articles, reviews, interviews, and commentaries have
appeared in numerous outlets, including CounterPunch, Truthout, the
Chicago Tribune, Capital City Times, In These Times, and Chicago
History.
Street's writings, research findings, and commentary have been
featured in a large number and wide variety of media venues, including
The New York Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, the Chicago Tribune, WGN
(Chicago/national), WLS (ABC-Chicago), Fox News, and the Chicago Sun
Times.
What follows is the text of FNA's interview with Paul Street:
Q: Would you Kindly explain the role of the US in forming and bringing
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into existence. Is
this a plot orchestrated by the US and its allies? If so, why?
A: The ISIL is in fact a Frankenstein created largely by the US
imperialism. Still, it's too much and far too simple to say that it is
plot or a conspiracy orchestrated by the US and its allies. To say
that it is to exaggerate the US power and to unduly deny agency to
Sunni Islamists. It is also to misconstrue US-imperial aims in the
Middle East. The menace posed by the ISIL and the resurgence of
Jihadism is not limited to Syria and Iraq. It also threatens, in the
words of the incisive US Left commentator Glen Ford, to "consume the
kings, Emirs and Sultans the US depends on to keep the Empire's oil
safe." With the rise of the new Caliphate, Ford notes, "The pace of
(US) imperial decline just got quicker." And, of course, many ISIL
supporters and fighters see the US as a great Satanic enemy.
The peril the ISIL poses to what has always been Washington's primary
concern in the region - the great "strategic prize" of Middle Eastern
oil - raises the specter of the US having to re-send large military
deployments to the world's energy heartland. And that is something the
US policymakers do not relish since they know by now that it has
strong potential to make the situation worse. Smart US planners have
learned that direct US military intervention fuels "anti-Americanism"
and strengthens the jihadist movement in the long run. The US prefers
to dominate the region through proxies (including Saudi Arabia, the
Arab Emirates, and Israel) and divide-and-rule. "The problem is," Ford
notes, "the Pentagon's proxies are evaporating, in flight, or - in the
case of Arab Iraq - growing ever more dependent on Iran and (who would
have predicted it?) Russia, which is assisting in reconstituting the
Iraqi air force."
Now, to say that the ISIL is not simply a US conspiracy or plot is not
to deny that it is very much a creation of the US policy. The US,
Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan pretty much manufactured the global
Jihadist network in order to bloody the nose of the Soviet Union in
the late 1970s and 1980s. The ISIL is of course an offshoot of
Al-Qaeda, itself largely a product of that the US Cold War policy.
Moving into the current century and millennium, it is highly unlikely
that the ISIL would have emerged in Iraq if the US had not:
-Invaded Iraq and broken state power there while directly and
indirectly killing more than a million Iraqis and displacing millions
more.
-Disbanded the Iraqi army.
-Stood by while Baghdad was looted.
-Built military bases all over Iraq.
-Fueled and exploited sectarian and related ethno-religious divisions in Iraq.
-Created and left behind in Baghdad the world's largest embassy, which
harbors an army of US military contractors and CIA and other
"intelligence agents.
-Continued to function as the dominant military power in Iraq through
provision of arms, training, and other "support" to Iraq's forces.
-Insisted on US troops' immunity from prosecution for criminal acts by
Iraqi authorities.
At the same time, the US has given significant high-tech weapons and
training to the ISIL and allied groups fighting the Assad regime in
Syria. As the incisive US commentator Arun Gupta notes on the Web site
of teleSur English, the situation is somewhat analogous to US policy
in Afghanistan during the 1980s:
"US and Israeli policy toward Syria is a cynical balance of wanting to
weaken Assad by aiding the armed opposition to his rule but not trying
to strike a decisive blow as that would bring unknown forces to power
or resolve the conflict through diplomatic or political means as that
would leave Assad in power, representing a victory for Hezbollah and
Iran. Rebel sources in Syria claimed in September 2013 they were
receiving arms such as anti-tank weapons from the United States that
were financed by the Saudis. The armed opposition in Syria consists of
a staggering 1,500 groups, however, and most fighters are with
Islamist or Jihadi forces such as the ISIL or the recognized Al-Qaeda
affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. The ISIL claimed last year that it was
buying anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons from rebels that Washington
is allegedly arming."
"The situation is similar to the Afghanistan War. There have been
rumors for decades that the CIA backed Al-Qaeda in the 1980s. There is
not definitive proof that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset, but the
United States did turn the region into a petri dish for violent
religious fanatics known as the Mujahedeen (Jihadists). Some 12,500
foreign fighters 'were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban
guerrilla warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up.' The
United States paid little concern to its monstrous creation as long as
it was tangling with the Soviet Union. It's nearly as blasé about
fundamentalists at war with Assad's Syria. The United States and its
allies, especially the Saudis, flooded both conflicts with guns and
cash, guaranteeing Syria would also become a lightning rod for
Islamist forces....The Saudis want to pummel Assad's regime as a way to
inflict a blow on Iran, which sees itself as the leader of oppressed
Shi'a brethren."
There are, of course, two differences with the Afghan situation near
the end of the end of the Cold War. First, the Soviet Union is gone,
leaving the US as the only non-Muslim superpower for jihadists to
hate, fight, and dream of bringing down. Second, as Gupta notes,
"unlike Al-Qaeda, which needed a patron in the form of the Taliban,
the ISIL is building its own state in (an oil-rich) region of utmost
importance to Empire, not a backwater like Afghanistan."
This is what Ford rightly calls "the Empire reap(ing) the Jihadist
whirlwind. It's Frankenstein Returns, Bigger and Badder than Before.
Of course, here in the US, the "mainstream" (corporate) media just
blames "sectarianism," paying no attention whatsoever to the critical
US role in the creation of the monster. The US is portrayed as
portrayed as a well-intentioned but innocent bystander, a frustrated
umpire --- at worst bumbling and befuddled.
Q: The ISIL is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art weaponry.
This is so extraordinary. The terrorist group emerged out of nowhere
and now is using modern ammunition without US and NATO satellites
detecting this. How is this possible?
A:There's no mystery here. The ISIL has the US weaponry given directly
to it in Syria and taken from the Iraq government. The region is
flooded with weapons from the US, the world's leading arms exporter
and manufacturer of high-tech weaponry. As I hope my first answer
shows, I don't really think the ISIL "emerged out of nowhere." For
another example of the same basic thing, look at the basket case that
US has made out of Libya - another quagmire where a horrific US attack
broke state power, fueled rampant sectarianism, and left US weapons in
the hands of both sides, including Jihadists.
Q: High-ranking US officials have repeatedly claimed that they are
fighting against the ISIL and that they will uproot them soon. We are
seeing double-standards again. Now they say "it's not an easy task".
Is this a bogus claim? What do you think?
A: They will not really fight the ISIL in Syria, where the US policy
is to weaken (officially, to topple) the Assad regime, which is if
course allied with the US enemy Iran. Now overthrowing Assad happens
to be the declared objective of the ISIL and other Jihadis in Syria.
As the leading Middle East war reporter Patrick Cockburn notes, "There
is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a
'moderate' Syrian opposition being helped by the US, Qatar, Turkey,
and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day.
Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the
Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from
happening is the Syrian army."
The US and its key ally Saudi Arabia are determined to pound the
Syrian government as a way to inflict pain on Iran, which stands up
for oppressed Saudi Shiites who live in dire poverty above spectacular
oil wealth in the Eastern Province of the Arabian Peninsula.
The US planners are seriously concerned about the ISIL in oil-rich
Iraq, however. "The reality of the US policy," Cockburn notes, "is to
support the government of Iraq, but not Syria, against ISIL." The
irony, of course, is that one of the reasons that the ISIL has been
"able to grow so strong in Iraq is that it can draw on its resources
and fighters in Syria" (Cockburn) - fighters who get material and
money directly from the US.
I don't really think this is a "double-standard." It is a
contradiction in the US imperial policy - one that reflects the single
standard of imperial divide and rule.
It will not be at all easy for the US to uproot what Obama calls "the
cancer" of the ISIL. There's no guarantee of the US success. There's
much to suggest the likelihood of the US failure in trying to control
the monster it created. As the late US historian and foreign policy
critic Gabriel Kolko used to say, "Washington planners' arrogant
belief that they can neatly manage the world's affairs in the US and
world interests from the banks of the Potomac has always been a great
and dangerous illusion, with disastrous consequences at home and
abroad."
Interview by Javad Arab Shirazi
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930609001300
From: A. Papazian
Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:57
TEHRAN (FNA)- Paul Street, American journalist, believes that the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is in fact a Frankenstein
created largely by US imperialism, and that the menace posed by the
ISIL and the resurgence of Takfiri-Salafi militancy is not limited to
Syria and Iraq.
"The peril ISIL poses to what has always been Washington's primary
concern in the region - the great "strategic prize" of Middle Eastern
oil - raises the specter of the US having to re-send large military
deployments to the world's energy heartland. And that is something US
policymakers do not relish since they know by now that it has strong
potential to make the situation worse. Smart US planners have learned
that direct US military intervention fuels "anti-Americanism" and
strengthens the jihadist movement in the long run. The US prefers to
dominate the region through proxies (including Saudi Arabia, the Arab
Emirates, and Israel) and divide-and-rule," said Street in an
exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.
He believes that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan pretty much
manufactured the global Jihadist network in order to bloody the nose
of the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and 1980s. The ISIL is of course
an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, itself largely a product of that US Cold War
policy.
Fars News Agency has conducted an interview with Paul Street, an
independent researcher, journalist, historian, author and speaker
based in Illinois, in an attempt to study the claim by the US
authorities that they are combating ISIL and terrorism in the Middle
East.
Paul Street is the author of numerous books including "Empire and
Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11", "Segregated Schools:
Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era", and "Racial
Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History".
Street's essays, articles, reviews, interviews, and commentaries have
appeared in numerous outlets, including CounterPunch, Truthout, the
Chicago Tribune, Capital City Times, In These Times, and Chicago
History.
Street's writings, research findings, and commentary have been
featured in a large number and wide variety of media venues, including
The New York Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, the Chicago Tribune, WGN
(Chicago/national), WLS (ABC-Chicago), Fox News, and the Chicago Sun
Times.
What follows is the text of FNA's interview with Paul Street:
Q: Would you Kindly explain the role of the US in forming and bringing
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into existence. Is
this a plot orchestrated by the US and its allies? If so, why?
A: The ISIL is in fact a Frankenstein created largely by the US
imperialism. Still, it's too much and far too simple to say that it is
plot or a conspiracy orchestrated by the US and its allies. To say
that it is to exaggerate the US power and to unduly deny agency to
Sunni Islamists. It is also to misconstrue US-imperial aims in the
Middle East. The menace posed by the ISIL and the resurgence of
Jihadism is not limited to Syria and Iraq. It also threatens, in the
words of the incisive US Left commentator Glen Ford, to "consume the
kings, Emirs and Sultans the US depends on to keep the Empire's oil
safe." With the rise of the new Caliphate, Ford notes, "The pace of
(US) imperial decline just got quicker." And, of course, many ISIL
supporters and fighters see the US as a great Satanic enemy.
The peril the ISIL poses to what has always been Washington's primary
concern in the region - the great "strategic prize" of Middle Eastern
oil - raises the specter of the US having to re-send large military
deployments to the world's energy heartland. And that is something the
US policymakers do not relish since they know by now that it has
strong potential to make the situation worse. Smart US planners have
learned that direct US military intervention fuels "anti-Americanism"
and strengthens the jihadist movement in the long run. The US prefers
to dominate the region through proxies (including Saudi Arabia, the
Arab Emirates, and Israel) and divide-and-rule. "The problem is," Ford
notes, "the Pentagon's proxies are evaporating, in flight, or - in the
case of Arab Iraq - growing ever more dependent on Iran and (who would
have predicted it?) Russia, which is assisting in reconstituting the
Iraqi air force."
Now, to say that the ISIL is not simply a US conspiracy or plot is not
to deny that it is very much a creation of the US policy. The US,
Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan pretty much manufactured the global
Jihadist network in order to bloody the nose of the Soviet Union in
the late 1970s and 1980s. The ISIL is of course an offshoot of
Al-Qaeda, itself largely a product of that the US Cold War policy.
Moving into the current century and millennium, it is highly unlikely
that the ISIL would have emerged in Iraq if the US had not:
-Invaded Iraq and broken state power there while directly and
indirectly killing more than a million Iraqis and displacing millions
more.
-Disbanded the Iraqi army.
-Stood by while Baghdad was looted.
-Built military bases all over Iraq.
-Fueled and exploited sectarian and related ethno-religious divisions in Iraq.
-Created and left behind in Baghdad the world's largest embassy, which
harbors an army of US military contractors and CIA and other
"intelligence agents.
-Continued to function as the dominant military power in Iraq through
provision of arms, training, and other "support" to Iraq's forces.
-Insisted on US troops' immunity from prosecution for criminal acts by
Iraqi authorities.
At the same time, the US has given significant high-tech weapons and
training to the ISIL and allied groups fighting the Assad regime in
Syria. As the incisive US commentator Arun Gupta notes on the Web site
of teleSur English, the situation is somewhat analogous to US policy
in Afghanistan during the 1980s:
"US and Israeli policy toward Syria is a cynical balance of wanting to
weaken Assad by aiding the armed opposition to his rule but not trying
to strike a decisive blow as that would bring unknown forces to power
or resolve the conflict through diplomatic or political means as that
would leave Assad in power, representing a victory for Hezbollah and
Iran. Rebel sources in Syria claimed in September 2013 they were
receiving arms such as anti-tank weapons from the United States that
were financed by the Saudis. The armed opposition in Syria consists of
a staggering 1,500 groups, however, and most fighters are with
Islamist or Jihadi forces such as the ISIL or the recognized Al-Qaeda
affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. The ISIL claimed last year that it was
buying anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons from rebels that Washington
is allegedly arming."
"The situation is similar to the Afghanistan War. There have been
rumors for decades that the CIA backed Al-Qaeda in the 1980s. There is
not definitive proof that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset, but the
United States did turn the region into a petri dish for violent
religious fanatics known as the Mujahedeen (Jihadists). Some 12,500
foreign fighters 'were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban
guerrilla warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up.' The
United States paid little concern to its monstrous creation as long as
it was tangling with the Soviet Union. It's nearly as blasé about
fundamentalists at war with Assad's Syria. The United States and its
allies, especially the Saudis, flooded both conflicts with guns and
cash, guaranteeing Syria would also become a lightning rod for
Islamist forces....The Saudis want to pummel Assad's regime as a way to
inflict a blow on Iran, which sees itself as the leader of oppressed
Shi'a brethren."
There are, of course, two differences with the Afghan situation near
the end of the end of the Cold War. First, the Soviet Union is gone,
leaving the US as the only non-Muslim superpower for jihadists to
hate, fight, and dream of bringing down. Second, as Gupta notes,
"unlike Al-Qaeda, which needed a patron in the form of the Taliban,
the ISIL is building its own state in (an oil-rich) region of utmost
importance to Empire, not a backwater like Afghanistan."
This is what Ford rightly calls "the Empire reap(ing) the Jihadist
whirlwind. It's Frankenstein Returns, Bigger and Badder than Before.
Of course, here in the US, the "mainstream" (corporate) media just
blames "sectarianism," paying no attention whatsoever to the critical
US role in the creation of the monster. The US is portrayed as
portrayed as a well-intentioned but innocent bystander, a frustrated
umpire --- at worst bumbling and befuddled.
Q: The ISIL is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art weaponry.
This is so extraordinary. The terrorist group emerged out of nowhere
and now is using modern ammunition without US and NATO satellites
detecting this. How is this possible?
A:There's no mystery here. The ISIL has the US weaponry given directly
to it in Syria and taken from the Iraq government. The region is
flooded with weapons from the US, the world's leading arms exporter
and manufacturer of high-tech weaponry. As I hope my first answer
shows, I don't really think the ISIL "emerged out of nowhere." For
another example of the same basic thing, look at the basket case that
US has made out of Libya - another quagmire where a horrific US attack
broke state power, fueled rampant sectarianism, and left US weapons in
the hands of both sides, including Jihadists.
Q: High-ranking US officials have repeatedly claimed that they are
fighting against the ISIL and that they will uproot them soon. We are
seeing double-standards again. Now they say "it's not an easy task".
Is this a bogus claim? What do you think?
A: They will not really fight the ISIL in Syria, where the US policy
is to weaken (officially, to topple) the Assad regime, which is if
course allied with the US enemy Iran. Now overthrowing Assad happens
to be the declared objective of the ISIL and other Jihadis in Syria.
As the leading Middle East war reporter Patrick Cockburn notes, "There
is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a
'moderate' Syrian opposition being helped by the US, Qatar, Turkey,
and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day.
Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the
Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from
happening is the Syrian army."
The US and its key ally Saudi Arabia are determined to pound the
Syrian government as a way to inflict pain on Iran, which stands up
for oppressed Saudi Shiites who live in dire poverty above spectacular
oil wealth in the Eastern Province of the Arabian Peninsula.
The US planners are seriously concerned about the ISIL in oil-rich
Iraq, however. "The reality of the US policy," Cockburn notes, "is to
support the government of Iraq, but not Syria, against ISIL." The
irony, of course, is that one of the reasons that the ISIL has been
"able to grow so strong in Iraq is that it can draw on its resources
and fighters in Syria" (Cockburn) - fighters who get material and
money directly from the US.
I don't really think this is a "double-standard." It is a
contradiction in the US imperial policy - one that reflects the single
standard of imperial divide and rule.
It will not be at all easy for the US to uproot what Obama calls "the
cancer" of the ISIL. There's no guarantee of the US success. There's
much to suggest the likelihood of the US failure in trying to control
the monster it created. As the late US historian and foreign policy
critic Gabriel Kolko used to say, "Washington planners' arrogant
belief that they can neatly manage the world's affairs in the US and
world interests from the banks of the Potomac has always been a great
and dangerous illusion, with disastrous consequences at home and
abroad."
Interview by Javad Arab Shirazi
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930609001300
From: A. Papazian