Somewhat long but excellent article tracing the genealogy of the current ISIS experience.
Looked upon from a distance, the phenomenon of Islamist extremism in the Middle East appears to be more of the same. Americans are encouraged to mentally file the news coverage of ISIS under "those people" and/or "that part of the world."
However, if we are to better understand why these groups emerge, it is crucial to bear in mind the context in which they came about. In the case of ISIS, it was a destabilized Iraqi system: foreign invasion and occupation, de-Baathification, and Sunni oppression by the Shiite-dominated leadership in Baghdad. The list, of course, begins with foreign invasion.
In other words, among the byproducts of US operations in Iraq, we can include the present nightmare that is ISIS. Compartmentalizing the news into "those people" and "that part of the world" only works when US contributions to the problem—which in this case are immense—are removed from consideration.
In my "review" of the film American Sniper (see Jan. 26 blog post), I used the phrase "history by subtraction" to describe how the Vietnam War has been processed in its cinematic treatment. The same applies to our very recent involvement in Iraq. The narrow American sense of ISIS is an indicator that the war in Iraq and its consequences have already been revised.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-hidden-hand-behind-the-islamic-state-militants-saddam-husseins/2015/04/04/aa97676c-cc32-11e4-8730-4f473416e759_story.html
[See also 2014 blog posts: Jun. 13, Aug. 29, and Oct. 27]
