The Powers Behind the Islamic State

The Real News has conducted an interview with investigative journalist, Nafeez Ahmed, who explains the powers behind the Islamic state and what the world can do now to stop them. 

Nafeez Ahmed:

Well the first thing, I think, that is very important to grasp; the role that our governments have played in fermenting the crisis that we see. The rise of ISIS was kind of predictable, and it’s something that some analysts have warned about civil war in Iraq for years. I guess how the accelerated nature of what we’re seeing, you know, most people haven’t anticipated that, but it was predictable, and when we look at the way in which we’ve been funding some of these groups, it’s kind of ironic that we have the very same people now calling for boots on the ground, calling for a response—they’re the same people that have been very loud in their support for arming some of the most virulent elements of these rebel groups.

…The Obama administration has actively coordinated the financing that has come from the Gulf States to the very types of groups that they, historically, have always favored which is the most virulent Jihadist-Al Qaeda affiliated organizations. So there is a contradiction here in what we’re being told now, and the way in which policy-makers have kind of created this crisis, and now not taking responsibility for this crisis.

(The Pontiac Tribune) – Originally, ISIS was known as ‘Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād’, it changed to ‘Tanẓīm Qāʻidat al-Jihād fī Bilād al-Rāfidayn’ in 2004 after the group swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden.
During this period, the group was popularly known as ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’.

In 2006 it became the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’, but changed again in 2013 after expanding into Syria.
At that point it became ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) or ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS).
Its latest title of ‘Islamic State’, came about after the declaration of a new caliphate on June 29, 2014.