Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

But not even al-Qaeda was buying it. In July, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy had gently reprimanded Zarqawi for his gratuitous use of violence. Now arrived a much sharper rebuke from one of Bin Laden’s closest advisers. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a Libyan who had been a close ally of the al-Qaeda founder for two decades, ordered Zarqawi to stop defiling al-Qaeda’s image among Muslims. He scolded the Jordanian for acting without permission in the case of the “recent operation of the hotels in Amman.” From now on, he said, Zarqawi should seek approval for any major operation. “Let us not merely be people of killing, slaughter, blood, cursing, insult, and harshness,” Atiyah wrote. “Let us put everything in perspective. Let our mercy overcome our anger.”

Zarqawi's attack on wedding in Amman was condemned even by Al Qaeda as being counterproductive.

Before dawn on February 22, 2006, five armed men in military uniforms walked into the courtyard of the thousand-year-old al-Askari Mosque, a revered shrine in the heart of the ancient Iraqi city of Samarra. The morning was moderately cool, and a crescent moon, penetrating through thin clouds, reflected off the mosque’s iconic gold dome, one of the most celebrated structures in all of Shiite Islam. Moving quietly, the gunmen managed to subdue the mosque’s guards and proceeded to plant explosive charges along the mosque’s roofline. At 6:44 a.m., two huge blasts shook the city awake. Residents poured into the street to see a rubble pile where the dome had stood. An entire outer wall had collapsed, and the dome cratered inward, leaving a concrete stump and a tangle of twisted rebar.

Zarqawi followed up the wedding attack with destruction of famous Shiite mosque in Samarra, Iraq, triggering massive sectarian violence. His approach to derail American strategy in Iraq.

Ford would play a key role in the UN-brokered negotiations that summer, and for nearly two years after that. Of the myriad obstacles to a solution, one indeed remained constant throughout: Syria’s steadfast refusal to consider any settlement in which Assad would lose the presidency.

Why did administration think otherwise and antagonize Assad? And what did they think would succeed Assad if he was defeated or stepped down? Was Iraq not a good case study? Have to admit that I definitely did not foresee Assad fostering opposition jihadists to help his cause by then fighting them. Effective to create your own enemy that you know you'll have support fighting. Distract from everything else horrible you're doing.

What would happen, analysts wondered, if this new brand of “jihadist lite” truly caught hold? What if Syria—a neighbor to Israel, and a true linchpin of the Middle East—were to become the first of the Arab Spring dominoes to fall to a government that was al-Qaeda in all but name?

Exactly. Wasn't Afghanistan a decent case study for this possible outcome?

In the end, Obama, who had been elected on a promise to end America’s involvement in Middle East wars, rejected the CIA plan. The situation could change in the future, the president allowed, particularly if Assad crossed the administration’s “red line” of using or transferring his stocks of chemical weapons.

Obama might've directly involved us in Syria militarily if Assad had used chemical weapons. Assad probably knew and believed this so he held off?

“Some are boys younger than sixteen,” he said. “When the schools were closed there was nothing for them to do. They see these tough guys with their Kalashnikovs and it affects them. They want to be part of it.”

or likely forced into it

The Islamic State’s men would turn aggressive whenever there were punishments to mete out, but between executions and floggings, Abu Ibrahim would see them relaxing in restaurants, gawking at Western Web sites in Internet cafés, or buying knockoff Viagra from the drugstores.

interesting hypocrisy