In The Arena The People Who REALLY Founded ISIS Guess what: It wasn’t Clinton, Obama—or even George W. Bush.

Michael Morell was the acting director and deputy director of the CIA from 2011 to 2013. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Great War of Our Time, now out in paperback with a new introduction. Samantha Vinograd served on the National Security Council staff from 2009-2013, including as senior advisor to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon from 2011-2013.

Donald Trump’s continuing charge that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the “founders” of ISIS is as absurd as it is distasteful. It is consistent with Trump’s penchant for making points that play to the crowd rather than articulating realistic ideas on how he would deal with the critical national security issues facing our country.

It also shows that Trump needs a history lesson. If his advisers won’t provide it, we would be happy to do so. So, who is most responsible for the rise of the Islamic State?


There are the obvious answers: Osama bin Laden, whose ideology spread to Iraq in the form of Ansar al-Islam two years before we removed Saddam from power; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the predecessor of ISIS, in the security vacuum created by the de-Baathification decision of the Coalition Provisional Authority (which was not fully coordinated within the Bush administration and was a surprise to the White House); and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the current leader of ISIS.

Outside the terrorists themselves, which is always a good place to start when parsing out blame for terrorism, those who contributed the most to the rise of the Islamic State were former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Syrian President Bashir Assad, and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are not on the list.

In 2011, AQI was at its weakest point because of persistent and effective U.S. military operations ordered by both Bush and Obama. But the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and the U.S. reluctantly agreed to by the Bush administration under pressure from Maliki, was concluding at the end of 2011, and Maliki would not provide another SOFA without obtaining the approval of his parliament.

We have no doubt that Maliki wanted U.S. forces to leave at the end of 2011. He knew that the parliament was highly unlikely to provide approval for a SOFA. Maliki’s interest was political—both demonstrating Iraq’s sovereignty to the Iraqi people and removing a significant constraint on his political actions at home. His interest was not the security of his country.

It would have been irresponsible for Obama and his advisers, including Secretary of State Clinton, to keep our troops in Iraq without a SOFA agreement, something that U.S. troops enjoy everywhere they are stationed in the world. Our soldiers would have been at risk of legal action, even frivolous action, by the Iraqi government. There are some who say the president should have pushed harder for a SOFA, but we believe Maliki by this time was unmovable on the issue.

Our departure from Iraq had two effects. First, the military pressure on AQI declined substantially, and the group began to bounce back. AQI bombings in Baghdad, which had been rare in 2010 and 2011, started again to be routine again by the middle of 2012. Second, Maliki, without a significant U.S. presence in country to constrain his actions, moved aggressively in an authoritarian direction, alienating and disenfranchising Sunnis at every turn. Some moderate Sunnis began supporting AQI. Its ranks swelled.

Enter Syrian President Assad. The Syrian civil war, the result of Assad’s failure to abide his own people’s call for a larger say in how they were governed, attracted AQI to Syria. AQI, which at this point changed its name to ISIS, wanted to be in the fight of the day. ISIS, in turn, benefited significantly from its involvement in Syria. It added Syrians and foreign fighters to its ranks, it built its supply of arms and money, and it gained significant battlefield experience fighting the Assad regime.

Together with the security vacuum in Iraq and Maliki’s alienation of the Sunnis, the strength ISIS gained from its involvement in Syria culminated in its successful blitzkrieg across northwestern Iraq in the spring and summer of 2014, seizing large amounts of territory and allowing the group to claim a caliphate that created its brand and led to the radicalization of many around the world. The bottom line: The ISIS phenomenon would not have been possible without the Syrian civil war and Assad’s role in it.

So, how is Iran’s supreme leader responsible? In mid- to late 2012, just a year into the Syrian civil war and before ISIS had gained significant strength, Assad was in trouble. It looked to many, including the people closest to him, that his time was running out. Senior Syrians were defecting to the opposition or leaving the country. Why didn’t Assad fall at this point? Because Iran came to the rescue, under the orders of the supreme leader.

Iran, which provided financial support to Assad from the beginning of the civil war, significantly increased its military support. Iran provided advisers to the Syrian military, put its own special forces on the ground, and trained Shia militias that became a major force on the battlefield. And, Iran’s most important regional proxy, Hezbollah, one of the most capable terrorist organizations in the world, entered the civil war and fought alongside the Syrian military. Assad was saved, and ISIS was the big winner by winning more adherents against him.

Would a significant boost in U.S. assistance to the moderate opposition have made a difference at that time? Perhaps. But, it is also possible, even more likely, that the Iranians would have simply upped the ante to match anything that the U.S. was willing to do.

History is important. If you don’t know where you’ve been, it is hard to chart a course into the future. Donald Trump would do well to remember that.