The Islamic State was, in part, an outgrowth of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq at the end of 2011. When the U.S. military departed the country, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the predecessor organization to the Islamic State, was largely — although not completely — defeated, the work of both the Bush and Obama administrations, along with the support of the Iraqi government. When we left, there were only a few thousand AQI members remaining, most of them in hiding.
Without U.S. military support, AQI began to bounce back almost immediately. It grew because the Iraqi military was much less effective without U.S. support; because the Iraqi prime minister at the time, Nouri al-Maliki, was reluctant to accept U.S. intelligence support; and because al-Maliki, freed of U.S. oversight, became more sectarian and authoritarian, alienating Iraqi Sunnis and driving them toward AQI. By the time of the Syrian civil war and AQI’s journey across the border to join the fight, the group, now calling itself the Islamic State, was so capable that it dominated the Syrian battlefield, where it gained even more strength.
What does this key lesson mean for today? It means the United States and its coalition must keep the pressure on the tens of thousands of Islamic State members who remain in Iraq and Syria. It means we need to do the same in Afghanistan, where the remnants of al-Qaeda work closely with the resurgent Taliban. And it means we must keep the pressure on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member