ISIS—The Untold Story

The world is absolutely absurd. Take a look at current events that are being sensationalized in the news. From ISIS and the Ukrainian crisis to economic failures and catastrophic foreign policy decisions, the world is in turmoil. FoxNews, CNN, and MSNBC will only tell you a fraction of the story. They fail to indicate failures of the United State’s policies as well as our allies. Never do they point out the deep background of every issue in the global community. Whether it be blotching the facts through futile assertions or leaving out major factors when speaking of complicated conflicts, never does the truth arise within the discussion. As a result we live in a misinformed, dumbed down, unreasonably patriotic, and complacent society.

For starters, the ISIS crisis must be identified. The story begins in 2000, when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein began trading oil in Euros rather than in U.S. dollars. This caused a severe issue to the United States. Why? Simply, because the world’s oil runs on the American dollar. Since the 1970s, all oil has been exchanged using the American currency. Through supporting dictators such as King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, the Shah in Iran, and even Saddam Hussein for multiple decades, the United States was able to gain nearly all control over the oil trade.

Then suddenly in 1979, the interventionist policy in the Middle East backfired. The dictator of Iran was overthrown and replaced by a theocratic regime with strong anti-U.S. policies. The hostage situation in the American embassy in Iran ensued. Things only continued to get worse as the 1980s approached. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Iran went to war with Iraq, and the terrorist organization Hamas was created. Essentially, this led to irresponsible and reactionary foreign policy activities. The U.S. funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. Only a few years after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, the extremist Mujahideen under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden became Al Qaeda. Then the U.S. funded both Iran and Iraq at the same time to fight each other. The result: bloodshed and the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Then again, I digress. Back to 2000. Now, when Saddam wanted to stop using U.S. dollars in the oil trade, many realized that this would blatantly hurt the economy. Is this a crazy theory? Absolutely not. In 1994 after the Gulf War, Dick Cheney even stated that if the U.S. were to topple the Hussein regime, that the “U.S. would have been all alone. There would not have been anyone else.It would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. ..Then once you topple Saddam Hussein, what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile place of the world and if you take the central government of Iraq you will wind up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off… It is a Quagmire.” This is directly from the mouth of Dick Cheney while he was being interviewed. Just six years before Saddam switched to the Euro, Cheney was against toppling the Hussein regime. Then just a year after the transition was made, Cheney wanted to take down the Iraqi government. Inconsistent policy? Certainly.

After 8 years of war, the U.S. finally left Iraq. Just three years following this, ISIS emerged as a major threat. The extremist group was once a branch off of Al Qaeda, and its prevalence in the Syrian Civil War is serious. Just last year, The U.S. wanted to topple the Assad regime in Syria. After being denied access to airstrikes, the government decided to just send the “moderate opposition” in Syria money and arms. Sound familiar? As of now, it has become evident that ISIS has a good amount of U.S. manufactured weapons in their possession. How is this so? Maybe because that “moderate opposition” was not so moderate after all.
Now it seems like war is on the brink once again, and all I can ask is that you look through recent American history and ask yourselves “has our interventionist foreign policy worked”? It is a fact that terrorism has dramatically increased after 9/11. Most likely due to the fact that the haphazard U.S. air raids and drone attacks kill way more civilians than terrorists. Perhaps because America has funded extremist and oppressive groups. Also, maybe because of a failure to push progressivism in tyrannical governments in the Middle East such as the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan. After all, majority of followers of Wahabi Islam (one of the only forms of Islam that condones terrorism) come directly from the oppressive countries of the Arab Peninsula. It is time to let the Middle East decide its own fate. By no means will it be pretty; there will be major conflicts, oppressive regimes, and struggles, but our presence in the Middle East has done nothing but direct anger towards the Western world. What the West should focus on is eliminating Sharia courts in European countries, focusing more on the intelligence communities for anti-terrorism operations, building a coalition of Middle Eastern countries to fight terrorism, and containing terrorism via air strikes specifically on ISIS bases. Intervention is inevitable and even necessary, but the United State’s past and current policy has been a failure, and ground troops are not a viable option as well. Isolationism is an idealistic policy doomed to fail, but President Bush’s and President Obama’s careless conduct in the Middle East are one of the factors for the crisis the world is facing.