Iran’s news agency, apparently with the support of some Iraqis, has been pushing a story that ISIS is a UK / US creation. They started pushing it in 2014, but the following is from Feb 23 of this year:
Iraqi Army Downs 2 UK Planes Carrying Weapons for ISIL
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq’s army has shot down two British planes as they were carrying weapons for the ISIL terrorists in Al-Anbar province, a senior [Iraqi] lawmaker disclosed on Monday.
“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” Head of the committee Hakem al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
Obviously, I don’t want to quote the entire linked article; you can read it. It goes on for awhile, giving names of Iraqi lawmakers and their specific charges about the U.S.-led effort against ISIS being a mask for Western aid to ISIS, “as it does not want the ISIL crisis to come to an end.”
I do NOT automatically believe this story, because Iran’s news agency is hardly a reliable source. And because many Iraqi lawmakers are probably on Iran’s payroll; as fellow Shias, they would oppose ISIS – while preferring Iran to lead the effort.
Sad to say, I also can’t automatically disbelieve this story, for the following reasons:
- *If* the Sunni-Shia divide really matters (and I’m not 100% persuaded that it does), we must grant at least a little sincerity to Iran’s opposition to ISIS.
- We know that in Syria, the Obama administration supports Islamist, al Qaeda-type “rebels” who are much the same as ISIS. Even after we discard any notion that the US / UK created ISIS on purpose, we must still consider whether ISIS could be an *inadvertent* US / UK creation – as the well-supplied, Sunni Islamist “rebels” from one theater (Syria) simply drive a few hundred miles across the desert to their buddies in the other theater (northern Iraq).
- And it would be just like the Obama administration to stumble into such a foolish, contradictory policy. We do know that ISIS has a lot of U.S. weapons; it’s just that they are normally viewed as captured weapons.
If you can shed any light on this, please post in the comments. I’d be looking either for some proof of the story that doesn’t merely come from an anti-U.S. mouthpiece (like Iran or Alex Jones) – or/and, for some disproof of the story that doesn’t merely come from a pro-Obama mouthpiece.