They were hardly here, and they’re already disappearing. For the six and a half years of the Syrian civil war, there was only a limited presence of US military forces on the soil of the divided country – and even that was for a relatively limited time. The Americans sent weapons to the rebel organizations it defined as moderate, which fought against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad; organized training camps for them in neighboring countries; operated a war room in Jordan to coordinate military activity; and sent small teams from elite special forces to assist the rebel forces.

All that was done sparingly, in a manner that did not greatly affect the course of the war. But starting in the summer of 2014, the United States changed its priorities. The surprising series of conquests by the Islamic State group – but mainly the widespread airing of several horrific videos in which executions of Western citizens were documented – convinced the administration of then-U.S. President Barack Obama to focus efforts on the war against the jihadi extremists.

The Assad regime didn’t invent ISIS. In effect, the roots of the organization can be found in the chain of events that began with the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, the outlawing of the ruling Ba’ath party following the downfall of the regime of President Saddam Hussein, and the dismantling of his army, which left thousands of Sunni officers without a livelihood.

Read the full article in Haaretz.