US ex-intelligence chief on ISIS rise: It was ‘a willful Washington decision’

Create ISIS, send them weapons through Benghazi to help them expand, then bomb them — but only a few.

 

The US didn’t interfere with the rise of anti-government jihadist groups in Syria that finally degenerated into Islamic State, claims the former head of America’s Defense Intelligence Agency, backing a secret 2012 memo predicting their rise.

An interview with retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), given to Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, confirms earlier suspicions that Washington was monitoring jihadist groups emerging as opposition in Syria.

General Flynn dismissed Al Jazeera’s supposition that the US administration “turned a blind eye” to the DIA’s analysis.

Flynn believes the US government didn’t listen to his agency on purpose.

“I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision,” the former DIA chief said.

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The document recently declassified through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), analyses the situation in Syria in the summer of 2012 and predicts: “If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria… and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

The report warns of “dire consequences” of this scenario, because it would allow Al-Qaeda to regain its positions in Iraq and unify the jihadist Sunni forces in Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against all other Muslim minorities they consider dissenters.

“ISI (the Islamic State of Iraq) could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards of unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory,” the DIA report correctly predicted at the time.

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Washington’s approach to Syria only helps to further destabilize the situation by exclusively presenting the Syrian president as a leader who has ‘lost’ legitimacy, Washington Bureau Chief for Al-Quds, Said Arikat, told RT.

“It is very difficult to contain the situation in Syria or Iraq. It is very difficult to put that genie back in the bottle. If the United States was really intent on defeating ISIS, it has to create or facilitate conditions by which or through which you can have a political resolution,” Arikat said.

“And you begin by saying we want all Syrian representatives, including those who look at Assad as a representative. That is the only way. To continue to adhere to the stubborn line that Assad has lost his legitimacy is basically agitating for more of these groups to emerge. Today we have ISIS, tomorrow we might have something else,” he added.

Full article: US ex-intelligence chief on ISIS rise: It was ‘a willful Washington decision’ (Russia Today)