Paul Street: ISIL Is A Frankenstein Created Largely by US Imperialism

Source : http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930609001300

TEHRAN (FNA)- Paul Street, American journalist, believes that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is in fact a Frankenstein created largely by US imperialism, and that the menace posed by the ISIL and the resurgence of Takfiri-Salafi militancy is not limited to Syria and Iraq.

"The peril ISIL poses to what has always been Washington’s primary concern in the region – the great "strategic prize" of Middle Eastern oil – raises the specter of the US having to re-send large military deployments to the world’s energy heartland. And that is something US policymakers do not relish since they know by now that it has strong potential to make the situation worse. Smart US planners have learned that direct US military intervention fuels "anti-Americanism" and strengthens the jihadist movement in the long run. The US prefers to dominate the region through proxies (including Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates, and Israel) and divide-and-rule," said Street in an exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.

He believes that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan pretty much manufactured the global Jihadist network in order to bloody the nose of the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and 1980s. The ISIL is of course an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, itself largely a product of that US Cold War policy.

Fars News Agency has conducted an interview with Paul Street, an independent researcher, journalist, historian, author and speaker based in Illinois, in an attempt to study the claim by the US authorities that they are combating ISIL and terrorism in the Middle East.

Paul Street is the author of numerous books including "Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11", "Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era", and "Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History".

Street’s essays, articles, reviews, interviews, and commentaries have appeared in numerous outlets, including CounterPunch, Truthout, the Chicago Tribune, Capital City Times, In These Times, and Chicago History.

Street’s writings, research findings, and commentary have been featured in a large number and wide variety of media venues, including The New York Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, the Chicago Tribune, WGN (Chicago/national), WLS (ABC-Chicago), Fox News, and the Chicago Sun Times.

What follows is the text of FNA’s interview with Paul Street:

Q: Would you Kindly explain the role of the US in forming and bringing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into existence. Is this a plot orchestrated by the US and its allies? If so, why?

A: The ISIL is in fact a Frankenstein created largely by the US imperialism. Still, it’s too much and far too simple to say that it is plot or a conspiracy orchestrated by the US and its allies. To say that it is to exaggerate the US power and to unduly deny agency to Sunni Islamists. It is also to misconstrue US-imperial aims in the Middle East. The menace posed by the ISIL and the resurgence of Jihadism is not limited to Syria and Iraq. It also t