Was ISIS created by the USA?

Question

I hear many folks talking about the founders of ISIS and they say that USA created it to make chaos in the Arabic countries.

Mark Danner in an episode of Talking Heads by Vice News

"In effect the United States created ISIS, nothing like it existed before the American occupation. We created it, it's ours, and now we are trying to deal with the consequences."
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a speech

These criminal organizations – including al-Qaeda, DAESH and the like – were created with the purpose of pitting us against one another and making nations confront each other.
Donald Trump claimed in a rally that Hillary Clinton and Obama created ISIS:

“They’ve created Isis. Hillary Clinton created Isis with Obama,” Trump said.

Is it true ?

@AndrewGrimm Noam chomsky, Donal Trump (current US presidential candidate) and many others working at various Govt positions — Alex Jones, Jan 25 '16 at 10:44
You really need to add a reference to the claim or this will fail the notability test and be deleted. — matt_black, Jan 25 '16 at 11:20
Danner's use of the word "create" really means "created a situation in which ISIS could arise", or to put it another way, "inadvertently helped to create". Khamenei doesn't say anything about the USA creating those groups, at least in your quote. — Max Williams, Jan 25 '16 at 13:51
To say more clearly what others have said before me, these two comments are not equivalent. The second implies that the US deliberately created ISIS to pit Muslim countries against each other. The first implies that ISIS sprang up accidentally as an unintended consequence of American actions in the Middle East. — Daniel, Jan 25 '16 at 19:08
Statement 1 is framed a "in a way..." not as a literal fact. It's used as a point of discussion. Statement 2 is simply bloviating by the Ayatollah for purely political reasons. Neither statement has literal truth to it. — DA01, Jan 25 '16 at 19:28
Can you provide a source for the first quote? I was unable to find a source by googling it. Meanwhile, the second quote was indeed from Khamenei, and was also in context, so I withdrew close and +1. — March Ho, Jan 25 '16 at 23:43
@MarchHo : the sour for the first quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU2avVIHde8 — MedK, Jan 26 '16 at 01:20
Trump's ISIS claim seems to be another "allowed to happen" rather than "took actions to create", though his statement is far too short to tell. Reading Khamenei, the "they" in that sentence is rather vague - he's probably referring to "Zionists". The subsequent paragraph is potentially relevant though. — Golden Cuy, Jan 26 '16 at 02:57
This question's title is the definition of clickbait, no wonder it has 7k views in two days. — cat, Jan 26 '16 at 04:43
This is actually 2 questions. "Did the US create ISIS" and "Was it deliberate". You may get some increased clarity by specifying which of these questions you want people to focus on. — Scott, Jan 27 '16 at 01:39
you dont go on to create most dangerous terrorist with convincing people that you didnt — Alex Jones, Jan 27 '16 at 12:04
@AndrewGrimm Great Depression didnt fund Hitler but USA did fund ME terrorist — Alex Jones, Jan 27 '16 at 12:05
@Scott: and a third question, "was the purpose to make chaos in Arabic countries?" Of the quotes in the question, (1) and (3) assert "yes" to your first question, (2) asserts "yes" to your second question and to my question. We could look for more context as to whether the creators referred to by Khamenei are "the US" and hence whether he also asserts "yes" to your first question. — Steve Jessop, Jan 27 '16 at 13:51
Adam Curry claims it frequently on the No Agenda show. His rationale is that the State Dept is behind the rebels and CIA is behind ISIS and they're fighting some sort of interior proxy war. — Peter Turner, Jan 27 '16 at 15:52
There is little information that they created ISIS. But they, without doubt, indirectly support ISIS. Both the Saudi and Turkish government are openly funding ISIS, and they are U.S allies. U.S makes no attempt to punish these allies for it, hence they are indirectly complicit in funding these terrorists. — dan-klasson, May 22 '16 at 14:04
Great info source https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3tlfn2/did_the_mujahideen_really_turn_into_the_taliban/ — Suriya, Sep 28 '16 at 15:55
#1 and #3 are very different than #2. The first and last statements talk about, through negligence, ineptitude, etc. the circumstances being created that made it possible or easier for an organization like ISIS to arise, #2 speaks of creation of the group by conscious intent and action. — PoloHoleSet, Oct 26 '16 at 20:11
VTC because the claims are unclear in that they could mean Western powers intentionally and deliberately created ISIS or they could mean that the creation of ISIS was an inadvertent side-effect of Western policies. — A E, Jul 08 '18 at 15:32

score 177 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:46

177

Some interpretations of this question are highly opinion-based and can't be answered on this website (try Quora), but others can be factually answered.

Are the leaders of ISIS Americans?
No, it's run principally by Iraqis and Syrians, and has Muslim supporters from around the world. Wikipedia on sources of support
Did American politicians meet with ISIS?
No, such images were mislabeled; see this question.
Did Obama claim to be training ISIS?
No, this was a misstatement.
Are there leaked documents, namely from Edward Snowden, that say that U.S. and Israel conspired to create ISIS?
No, this is an online hoax.
Did a 2012 United States government document claim that a Salafist state in Syria would be "exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime" and that the creation of such a state is a "possibility"?
Yes.
Did the CIA route funds and weapons through the Salafist Saudi Arabian government in 2013 to unspecified "rebels" in Syria?
Yes.
Were the "rebels" that the CIA was funding through Saudi back channels Salafist themselves, or was Saudi Arabia helping to bring moderate democracy to the Middle East? Was the US creating/funding ISIS?
We have no knowledge of who the US was supporting at the time. We do know that the US government has been continuously bombing ISIS since 2014. (source)
[updated, October 2016] A leaked memo from Hillary Clinton's email has shown that Saudi Arabia was funding ISIS in 2014, and that the State Department wanted to pressure the Saudi government to stop this. (source)
Has the US government intended to "make chaos in the Arabic countries"?
It was their open position in 2011-2015 that Assad needed to step down, which included the covert and open training of anti-Assad rebels, (source) but whether this constitutes a desire for "chaos," or if there are more sinister secret motives, is a matter of individual opinion.
An additional point, suggested in the comments: most people would hold the US responsible for the 2003 Iraq War and the mismanagement of the country that followed, in which Islamist groups came to power. Whether this constitutes "creating ISIS" is again a matter of personal opinion.
Also suggested in the comments: ISIS has picked up a lot of weapons and technology left behind by American-backed groups such as the Iraqi army. Amnesty International claims that most of ISIS' weapons were acquired this way (source). Again, it's arguable whether this amounts to "creation", but it can add to a possible case.

In short, we have no damning evidence that the US created ISIS; we have solid information that the US was involved in Syria from an early period, but connecting this to ISIS requires conjecture and opinion-based statements.

This question was edited to include al-Qaeda. The US has been in a relationship with al-Qaeda since its very beginning during the Soviet–Afghan War, and the CIA is currently arming al-Qaeda's allies, but in the long run the relationship has been more antagonistic. We lack evidence that the US had influence over al-Qaeda at the time that ISIS formed and broke off from it.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:46

Community

1

answered Jan 25 '16 at 04:24

Avery

45,872
19
189
185

9

+1 Regarding point 8, I believe there were plenty of statements and (I believe) leaked cables that made it pretty explicit that the chaos and power vacuum that would be left behind was the reason the US and others didn't intervene in Syria like they did in Libya (kinda ironic considering how both turned out...). I don't have sources to hand but I think there's enough for a strong "No" there. Finally, might be worth adding a point 9 addressing the often-made point that ISIS have quite a lot of US-made military equipment (which was of course taken from the retreating Iraqi army in 2014) – user56reinstatemonica8 Jan 25 '16 at 09:22
I clarified and added the sources requested by Oddthinking. On the subject of US-made military equipment being swiped by ISIS, I was going to mention it but I realized that that kind of point would be more suitable for politics.SE than skeptics.SE where we are just trying to judge the truth value of dubious claims. – Avery Jan 25 '16 at 16:22
44
Did interventionist military policy in the area over decades foster anti-Western sentiment and shift the prevailing view of many citizens to form an unprecedented anti-colonial uprising, albeit led by madmen in the form of extremism and under the guise of religious duty? Also a matter of opinion. And almost certainly yes.

Lightness Races in Orbit

Jan 25 '16 at 18:01

-1 All you've done is look for reasons to say No. You didn't even try to answer the question. You completely ignored the examples in the question. – Shane Jan 25 '16 at 19:19

23

The examples in the question were added more than 12 hours after I answered it. I'm not a time traveler. – Avery Jan 26 '16 at 02:40

1

Also, Asad was fueling civil war in a way to damage moderate rebels and radicalize the opposition, to create an enemy of USA even worse than him. After few rounds of atrocities and equally bad responses, moderate center was hollowed out (lacking the heavy weaponry) and only radicals remained. – Peter M. - stands for Monica Jan 26 '16 at 22:39

Possibly one more Yes: a lot of of ISIS weaponary was sized from fleeing Iraq army units, and they got their weapons from the US.... so inadvertently the US helped arm ISIS. – David says Reinstate Monica Jan 27 '16 at 11:49

Fact of the matter is that U.S cares more about regime change in Syria, so Russia will lose a strategic partner for Russian naval bases in the Mediterranean. Than they are with fighting terrorism. U.S could care less about Syrian people, and they let us Europeans foot the bill for the refugee crisis. – dan-klasson May 22 '16 at 14:09

1

@dan-klasson - Not sure in what reality you live, but USA has no direct interest in war in Syria. It is just a FUBAR result of operation OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberty). Problem is, USA was reluctant to give rebels enough weapons to win over Assad, until was too late. Country which DOES have interest in war in Syria is Russia - to support the faction which will provide them the naval base. – Peter M. - stands for Monica May 23 '16 at 14:54

@PeterMasiar: U.S has an interest to see to it that Russia loses strategic bases in Syria and Ukraine. That's why we now have civil wars in these countries. Obviously it back-fired when Russia annexed Crimea and started the bombing campaign in Syria. U.S started this mess, and hundred of thousands innocent people are dead due to it. That is THE problem, and that's the reality we all live in. – dan-klasson May 23 '16 at 15:29

Crimea was NEVER part of Ukraine, read up on history. It was randomly added to Ukraine by Chrushchev (Ukraininan, BTW). And I guess Assad killing his citizens before Iraq war was never a problem for you. then it makes sense. I am not US apologist but USA is not the only guilty party. Plenty of blame to go around. Was it american idea to invite 1M refugees to Europe, so not 20M people in Middle East and Africa has cousin in Europe who is honor bound by the tribal laws to help all his cousins in need? – Peter M. - stands for Monica May 23 '16 at 17:14

2

@PeterMasiar While Khrushchev governed Ukraine for decade and helped rebuild it after WWII, he and his parents were ethnically Russian. I also take issue with your words "randomly added". Whether or not you believe it was justified, it was transferred to the authority of the Ukrainian SSR with a purpose and for a reason, as outlined in the 1954 announcement "Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet decrees…" – ghoppe Aug 19 '16 at 18:53

@ghoppe: What about previous 1000 years? Khrushchev was exactly kind of party official who would see no difference between Russian and Ukrainian. Crimea was won over from Ottomans by Russian Empire, not by Ukraine. It was NEVER part of Ukraine in past 1000 years. BTW I have nothing against Ukraine and support them against Putin. But I also understand the history and geography. – Peter M. - stands for Monica Aug 19 '16 at 19:49

4

@ghoppe Where do you draw the line? Should Latvia be annexed by Russia too? It was part of Russia from 1710–1917. Do we give parts of Poland back? What makes what happened in 1954 so special that the transfer of governance to Ukraine should be retroactively annulled? You need more than the justification of history, or the stability of a lot of European territory is in peril. – ghoppe Aug 19 '16 at 20:36

ad. 3: Pentagon did admit to training and arming al-Nusra (local branch of al-Quaeda), which initially was part of FSA, but then turned sides and joined forces with ISIS. – vartec Sep 27 '16 at 23:35

Are there USA based oil rigs and bases in Arabic countries? Have USA based troops hurt Arabic civilians? – zeddex Oct 17 '16 at 14:06

Shane · Answer 2 · 2016-08-09T14:35:18.673

76

It depends on what aspect of the question you are focusing on. Did the USA create ISIS? Largely, yes, they did. Did the USA create ISIS for the purpose of creating chaos? No, not at all. They created ISIS out of sheer incompetence and lack of foresight.

By removing Saddam, the USA created a power vacuum and eliminated a regional power that was working against Islamic Terrorism.[1] To make matters far, far, far worse, they disbanded the Iraqi army. This created a lot of trained fighters who had nowhere to use their skills to earn a living -- outside of joining ISIS. The disbanded army has provided ISIS with some of its best commanders and fighters. [2]

As others have pointed out, as ISIS started to rise, the USA and her allies provided the fledgling terrorist group varying levels of material support. [3]

They ignored warnings, including from top army general Eric Shinseki, that their strategy was inadequate for preventing post-war chaos [4] claiming that, contrary to such warnings based on experience in Bosnia, securing post-war Iraq would require fewer resources than toppling Saddam, which proved to be untrue [5]

tldr They went out of their way create a situation where they knew this could be the result, ignored warnings and experience that indicated it would be the result, helped the situation along, then realized that this 'solution' was worse than the problem.

I don't think anyone can reasonably say that the USA isn't largely responsible for the existence of ISIS. They made a bunch of bad choices, and things snowballed out of control. But to reiterate, the fact that they are bombing ISIS now, shows that this wasn't the planned end goal. It got out of hand.

I'd recommend people actually watch and/or read the argument being made by Mark Danner (and that the OP is asking about). He isn't talking about some 'grand conspiracy' that way people here seem to be assuming and writing answers about.

edited Aug 09 '16 at 14:35

answered Jan 25 '16 at 20:08

Shane

882
5
8

7

This is totally believable, but unfortunately human nature (and/or the media) is such that someone saying "Yes, we inadvertently caused a series of events that led to " will get summarized and repeated as "We caused ", which will then, in turn, get interpreted as "We deliberately caused ". So while Mark may not have intended it in the way that people are interpreting it, that doesn't make them start interpreting it differently. – Bobson Jan 26 '16 at 04:10
6

As another answer has pointed out - the rabbit hole goes even deeper than the Iraq war. Instability and intra-faith rivalry in the region was compounded by the CIA-backed revolution in Iran. The US-backed Mujahideen were a major feed into the Taliban and Al-Qaida and (from there) into IS. None of this was deliberate triangulation toward any kind of caliphate, of course, but it's sad that so few lessons are learned from history. – Bob Tway Jan 26 '16 at 10:08
1

@MattThrower Well, if we learned from history, we would have discredited the very idea of a nation state long ago. Obviously, that's not something the guys controlling those nation states want - and they control most of the education, and have a rather high influence in other things as well, the more socialist the bigger the influence :P Then again, the real lesson from history might as well be "no matter how badly we botched things up in the past, we're still here!" :D – Luaan Jan 26 '16 at 23:15
3

"where they knew this would be the result" <- Please make it clear how you know this to be true. – Oddthinking Jan 27 '16 at 05:26
So it is speculation? Removing. – Oddthinking Jan 27 '16 at 13:37
2

@Shane please moderate your tone, both in the answer and in the comments. When someone asks for citations they are not attacking you, just pointing out where your answer seems unsupported by evidence. Don't shout them down, add a simple citation that supports your point. I am leaving your tl:dr; for now, but I'd like you to tone it down and add citations so it doesn't look like your opinion. The tone should be neutral. – Sklivvz Jan 27 '16 at 23:21
Well before the Russians started bombing ISIS, the U.S bombing were largely inefficient. U.S would rather see the Assad regime fall (due to geo-political reasons) than to wipe out ISIS. This is especially true when U.S failed to not only take out the ISIS oil trade with Turkey, but they, to this day, refuse to blame Turkey for it. – dan-klasson May 22 '16 at 14:24
An even larger factor than U.S. Intervention is the doctrine of Islam and its interpretation by its adherents. The formation of an ISIS like group would be unthinkable regardless of intervention and power vacuum to a population of Jains, Sikhs, or pacifists, for example. – Ehryk Oct 16 '16 at 19:38
1

It's kind of sad when you think about it. Only thing the US wanted was the oil and to prevent Saddam from selling it in € instead of $. And the end result is ISIS and the entire middle east in chaos. – Mar 09 '17 at 18:53
Relevant: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middleeast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html?_r=0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4phB-_pXDM – Sakib Arifin Apr 25 '17 at 17:00
@Ehryk The doctrine of Islam is like 1400 years old. This ISIS interpretation of Islam is 50-100 years old. To say that its existence is a bigger factor in ISIS' rise immediately after the creation of a power vacuum then the creation of the power vacuum is a bit of a stretch. No power vacuum means it doesn't matter what doctrine they believe in, there won't be ISIS. Create a power vacuum without the doctrine of Islam involved and you get non-religious warlords, instead of religious ones. Not much of a difference, I'd say. – Shane Apr 25 '17 at 17:57
@Shane The violent, brutal, pedophillic and vile interpretations of Muhammad's example are as old as he is, 1400 years. Doctrine does matter, and ISIS is just a more recent incarnation of brutal violent caliphates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y – Ehryk Apr 25 '17 at 18:33
@Ehryk To say that something that has been around for 1400 years is a bigger factor in ISIS' rise than the events that immediately preceded their rise is absolute crazy talk.There's always people who are 'violent, brutal, pedophillic and vile'. Islam did not invent those concepts. I'm sorry to be the one to break that bit of bad news to you. These crazy people don't usually get the opportunity to create proto-nations. That's exceptional. It simply isn't explained with a non-changing constant. To suggest it is crazypants. – Shane Apr 26 '17 at 03:25

Suriya · Answer 3 · 2018-06-17T22:29:32.137

It is true that the US invasion of Iraq favored the creation of ISIL (great explanation) but to trace it's real origin we have to look back further in time, we have to take a look at the Afghanistan war.

United States financed terrorist groups, the Mujahideen, back in Afghanistan 1979 [1] [2] [3] in their "crusade" against USSR communists. Near the end of the Afghanistan war al-Qaeda from which ISIS and Al-Nusra derive, was created. Bin Laden (an Afghan war veteran) together with these Mujahideen fundamentalists joined to create a new organization that vowed to impose their radical sunni (wahhabi) ideology through fear and terror. Not all Mujahideen (synonym for jihadist) combatants engaged in al-Qaeda of course although many did. They contributed to the development of the terrorist organization as they had extensive combat experience, access to high-quality weapons provided by the US and what is worse, they were bigoted sadists who wanted to kill at all costs.

This is a highly recommendable article by Robert F. Kennedy on how the US installed their personal dictators through the CIA in middle east countries like Syria or Jordan to serve their interests. Here is a video of a US general talking about the US plans to take down 7 countries in 5 years (the majority Middle East countries). Here are a couple of great books on the history of the CIA and specially this one on the CIA, Afghanistan war and its consequences. Here is the report [4] made by the UK Parliament on western intervention in Lybia, as you can guess, based on lies.

NOTE: yes, I'm aware some of this references don't exactly relate to the formation of ISIS, but I want you to see the whole picture, it is not possible to understand the formation of this terrorists groups without understanding what has happened in the Middle east during this last 40 years. One has to understand the whole context. I'm also aware that I could develop the post much more, but I really want to encourage you guys to investigate on your own. You don't even have to trust what you just read. That's the reason behind so many and so varied references anyway :)

"FUN FACT": Bin Laden was a US ally back then

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. — Jamiec, Jan 26 '16 at 10:49
Once again, the comments are not for discussion - if you wish to debate whether X were Y's or Y's were X's then do so in chat. If you're looking to improve this answer, by all means comment. — Jamiec, Jan 26 '16 at 16:43
Once again, this answer has been generating comments that have devolved. Please see the chat room. Note: some of the comments that have been moved across do address improvements to the question. — Oddthinking, Oct 27 '16 at 07:32

Was ISIS created by the USA?

3 Answers3

Linked