The latest McClatchy report indicates that the rise of ISIS was the direct result of the administration’s refusal to address the escalating situation in Syria. Rather than embracing and arming moderate anti-Assad rebel forces, it fell to regional powers – Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – to support the insurgents of their choosing. The result was the rise of the nightmarish, medieval fundamentalist army which is currently carrying out an ethno-religious purge in the Iraqi territories they control.
Even as ISIS began its rapid advance across Iraq, the administration refused to acknowledge it. According testimony from Brett McGurk, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Iraq and Iran, the White House knew Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, would fall to advancing ISIS fighters three days before it did. They did nothing about it. Today, unspeakable crimes against human dignity and the common heritage of mankind are committed in that ancient city on a near daily basis.