ISIL (or something like it; the name/identity couldn't be predicted) as a substantial force with territory, was a foreseeable consequences of the US invasion of Iraq, the inadequate allotment of troops for occupation compared to pre-invasion expert-identified requirements, and bungling of details of the occupation like de-Baathification, particularly the wholesale and disorderly dismissal of security services.
The US (and specific US policy makers) are directly responsible for that.
I want to believe that this result was foreseeable. I want to believe that some people at least are wise enough to see consequences of actions. Can you point to some piece of writing explaining this prior to or contemporaneous with the US invasion?
A key part to understanding this is remembering that blaming it on intelligence failures was the defense which the George W. Bush administration settled on to replace their earlier failed excuses. Before the invasion started, the intelligence claims used to justify it had fallen apart and the U.K. & U.S. Senate reports noted that significant pressure was placed by the White House on the intelligence agencies to justify what they were already planning to do.
> Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy
The pattern through all of this was the White House choosing to ignore, override, or replace professional civil servants with political appointees who would produce the desired results. When the CIA and other analysts would not support those claims, Donald Rumsfeld setup a sham intelligence unit which did produce the claims they later used (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans).
This happened with the planning for the invasion and occupation.
When the military sensibly pointed out that they needed to plan for the occupation:
> In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.
>
> Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq.
When the State Department accurately predicted that the invasion and occupation would not be a cake-walk, it was largely ignored. As one example, that was the conclusion in 2003 — well before the full scope of the botch had become clear:
Not sure I'll be able to find the detailed stuff I saw at the time, but here's a reference to General Shinseki's estimate of the needed troops and the (manifestly false; Iraq had a long history of ethnic and sectarian militia conflict) administration response.
I'm not defending the US, but that's a dangerous slippery slope you're on that ends with no one being responsible for anything because free will is an illusion.
Your attempt to short circuit any rebuttals with infinite regress aside, this didn't happen organically or spontaneously - humans caused this, and I can give you the names of many of them.
I asked a simple question and I’m already on a slippery slope? That way any counter-argument is a slippery slope.
The logic of my question lies in the fact that the US played the biggest role in recent Middle East history. Why would a country with the biggest economy/military complex in the world bother to involve itself? This is an open question I don’t have an answer for. I’m sure that anyone in power does not do anything in altruistic nature though. That certainly includes Feds/governments.
You’re right on point though, free will is an illusion.
You’re overdoing it a tad, but let’s just imagine you had a number of that “evil person”. Why would you call him/her and tell he/she did all that? Wouldn’t it be pointless?
Seriously though, I’m not saying I have all the answers but let me ask a simple question. Why would the country with the biggest military industrial complex in the world be involved in the regions all over the world, especially on the other half of the planet? You don’t see soldiers from Bashkiria hanging out in your yard.
so why are you blaming the US specifically and not any of the disparate partisan groups that directly built ISIS? the islamist militants from MENA, the saudis funding wahhabist madrassas abroad, the gulf monarchies giving arms and funding, the former iraqi ba'athists that make up its officer corps... and instead you choose an entity directly fighting ISIS? why is that? almost as if you have ideological blinders on...
Basically you can rewind things at a certain prison where many islamist insurgent were kept, including al baghdadi. This prison was managed by the Iraqi or I don't remember who.
To say that the invasion of Iraq did not fuel the escalation in Syria is a little naive.
There is an endless debate between keeping Saddam Hussein in power and letting Iraq slowly reconstruct itself, and removing him and letting all the bad stuff loose.