Blame Saddam Hussein for ISIS?

Nothing like pinning your troubles on a dead man. *
One we allegedly slew at great cost too.

WIRRAL, England — WHOM should we blame for the Islamic State? In the debate about its origins, many have concluded that it arose from the American-led coalition’s errors after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In fact, the groundwork for the emergence of the militant jihadist group was laid many years earlier by the government of Saddam Hussein.

...

“On the eve of the American invasion in 2003, Iraq was a new country,” writes Amatzia Baram in his book “Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968-2003.” It was “no longer a moderately religious society with a large number of secular individuals and a modernizing secular ruling elite, but a country on the way to deep religiosity.”

Mr. Hussein did not hold down religious militancy and sectarianism, but incubated them and prepared the ground for an armed Salafist movement. The tribes, criminal networks, militias and distributed weapons stores that the regime used to secure support and head off a new revolt laid the material basis for a decentralized insurgency.

The Islamic State was not created by removing Saddam Hussein’s regime; it is the afterlife of that regime.

~Kyle W. Orton, a Middle East analyst, is an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based foreign policy think tank.

(Say is this Kyle Orton the former backup QB for the Bears?  He should consider adding a middle initial, to distinguish himself.)
---------------------------------

* Saddam Hussein, one could argue, helped create ISIS.
But he didn't give those troubles to us.**  We went in there and embraced the situation, falsely thinking ourselves as prophets who would liberate the people and change their culture and religious practices overnight.  We failed, in our arrogance.  A lot of people paid, with their lives.  The wars helped tank our economy.  Until the country can maturely reflect and admit this, we will continue embracing chaos by thinking we can fix the world, on the cheap.  We're not Gods, why is that so hard to accept?  What's so horrible about being merely human, anyway?

How Saddam Hussein Gave Us ISIS

** We really need to put the geography back in geopolitics when considering America's national security interests in protecting ourselves (and the unrealistic demands of our regional allies)... look at your maps, American people!