U.S. troop withdrawal lead to ISIS seizure of Iraq says U.S. General

(IraqiNews.com) On Thursday, the Commander of the United States Marine Corps, General James Amos, said that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s seizure of large areas of Iraq is due to the American administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. combat troops completely from Iraq.

Amos said, in an interview with the Brookings Institution for Studies and Research, that “the U.S. withdrawal encouraged the Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to acquire power and work to the exclusion of Sunni Arabs and push them into the arms of the organization of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which in turn gained control of large areas of Iraq.”

Amos added that “concerning the control of the militants over these areas in Iraq, it was possible to avoid it if the U.S. combat troops did not withdraw completely from this country in 2011.”

Amos described the strategy of “isolation”, implemented by United States, as the strategy of “naive” because the United States, like it or not, have a role in this dangerous world.”