Left-leaning author Noam Chomsky placed the blame for the rise of the Islamic State squarely at the feet of the United States, saying if U.S. troops never entered Iraq, the terror group would never have reached such heights of influence and power.
” ’Inevitable’ is a strong word, but the appearance of ISIS and the general spread of radical jihadism is a fairly natural outgrowth of Washington wielding its sledgehammer at the fragile society of Iraq,” Mr. Chomsky said in an interview with Truthout.
He said former CIA officer Graham Fuller hit the nail on the head when he called the United States one of the “key creators” of the Islamic State, because of the U.S. aggression with Iraq in 2003, Raw Story reported.
And he went on: “The situation is a disaster for the U.S., but is a natural result of its invasion. One of the grim consequences of the U.S.-U.K. aggression was to inflame sectarian conflicts that are now tearing Iraq to shreds, and have spread over the whole region with awful consequences.”
Mr. Chomsky then blamed the spread of religious fanaticism on the Republican Party.
“There are not many countries in the world where the large majority of the population believes that God’s hand guides evolution, and almost half of these think that the world was created a few thousand years ago,” he said, Raw Story reported. “And as the Republican party has become so extreme in serving wealth and corporate power that it cannot appeal to the public on its actual policies, it has been compelled to rely on these sectors as a voting base, giving them substantial influence on policy.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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