Laying the Groundwork for ISIS

Laying the Groundwork for ISIS: The U.S. Invasion of Iraq

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 in order to “Defeat … a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuses, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world” (U.S. Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs 2003).  Directly following this engagement new terrorist organizations, most notably the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), rose to prominence. The development of ISIS cannot be attributed to a single reason, but abuses within the American military prison system and the failure of Arab Spring have both enabled a foundation of extremist loyalty to form as the war in Iraq was underway.

After the invasion of Iraq, American military forces promptly refurbished the detention center known as Abu Ghraib to imprison and interrogate people suspected of collaborating with insurgency movements.  However, the site became notorious for its use of torture and other human rights abuses against prisoners being held. Sabrina Harman, an American soldier convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, frequently wrote letters describing her thoughts and actions while working as a guard in the compound.  She once detailed, “At first it was funny but these people [American soldiers] are going too far … I can’t get it out of my head … These people [Iraqi prisoners] will be our future terrorists” (Gourevitch and Morris 2008). Most of the detainees held at Abu Ghraib were innocent of the crimes they were accused of and thus subjected to needless torture and mockery.  While the majority of these people were not members of a terrorist movement at the time, this shared traumatic experience created a recruiting field for ISIS members after the war in Iraq ended. Fawaz Gerges wrote a book about the history of ISIS, and in this piece he explains that “Such experiences had radicalizing and transformative effects on detainees, who were not members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and did not believe in its Salafi-jihadist ideology.  By the time they left prison many had become hardliners and subsequently joined AQI and other militant factions” (Gerges 2016). Despite the short period of American management at Abu Ghraib, a distinct basis was created where future members of ISIS could be recruited to expand the extremist organization.

Beginning in December 2010 a series of uprisings broke out across the Middle East and Northern Africa, collectively known as Arab Spring. The rebellions broke out with the main intention of overthrowing problematic authoritarian regimes within multiple Middle Eastern and North African states, many of which that had been backed by western democracies.  These revolutionary movements lasted until approximately 2012, yet the cumulative effect is continuously felt in the region. In Syria, Arab Spring destabilized the Assad regime and encouraged the spread of armed rebellion, as “The Assad regime responded to peaceful protests with severe repression. As the opposition took up arms, the regime escalated to artillery, airpower and chemical weapons” (Pearlman 2016).  A multi-faceted civil war broke out as a response to the harsh retribution, and internal political turmoil ensued. ISIS had been steadily growing and recruiting disgruntled individuals, many of which had been directly impacted by Abu Ghraib or oppressive regimes. The escalating conflict in Syria allowed ISIS to gain territory easily, as “The outbreak of the civil war in Syria also provided ISIS with a golden opportunity to expand its influence to a neighboring Arab country and gain strategic depth there” (Gerges 2016).  ISIS was thus able to vastly increase the scope of their movement that had previously been limited within Iraq. After these rebellions were suppressed, loyal revolutionaries turned to groups such as ISIS, who exploited the disgruntled population with promises of an end to tumultuous western influence within the region. United States involvement in Iraq gave the Arab Spring movement more traction and ultimately allowed for ISIS to recruit more civilians than what was previously possible before the rebellions.

As previously stated, the rise of ISIS cannot be attributed to a single cause, but it can certainly be tied to the inception of American military prisons and subsequent Arab Spring revolts.  The severe human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib created a breeding ground for future terrorists targeting the United States. Additionally, the Arab Spring revolts against unpopular government structures were a direct result of foreign intervention in the region, and when the protests failed the general public turned to militant groups such as ISIS for support in achieving their goals.  Individuals throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East had suffered at the hands of military prisons and harsh dictatorships, and ISIS leadership used these shared instances to recruit those who were especially disillusioned. These two aspects helped lay the groundwork for the emergence of ISIS and have influenced the reasoning behind both terrorist recruitment and motives for terrorist attacks.

Works Cited

Bureau of Public Affairs: U.S. Department of State. "Winning the War on Terror." September 11, 2003. https://2001-2009.state.gov/documents/organization/24172.pdf.

Gerges, Fawaz A. ISIS: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Gourevitch, Philip, and Errol Morris. "Exposure." The New Yorker. March 24, 2008. https:// www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/24/exposure-5.

Pearlman, Wendy. "The surprising ways fear has shaped Syria’s war." Refections Five Years After the Uprisings. March 28, 2016. http://pomeps.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/POMEPS_Studies_18_Reflections_Web.pdf.