The Syrian Army would still have been able to destroy the Jihadists if it wasn't for the US waging war against the Syrian Army, by the way of airstrikes and missile strikes.
I can definitively say that Iraq would not have collapsed into a failed state if Saddam had been deposed organically. Hell, if it wasn't for the occupation of Iraq by the US up to and including this very day its possible the Iraqi state would have been able to rebuild itself, one way or another.
That being said, a large amount of terrorist groups in the Middle East find the roots even earlier, in the US support of jihadis against the Soviets.
And wouldn't you know it! The founder of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, was financed and trained in order to go fight against the USSR in Afghanistan. Financed by who exactly? By Bin Laden, of course. Which himself got his money and material for who? Wouldn't you believe it, it's the old red white and blue again.
The mass defection of Syrian Army soldiers and officers to the Free Syrian Army guaranteed that the conflict was going to a bloody mess with arms falling into hands of all parties, long before the US started supplying arms. And no, you can't for certain say that Iraq would have fared better, as Iran would have fueled Shia sectarianism all the same in Iraq as it did post US invasion. Iran in fact was Sadam's greatest concern before his WMD bluff backfired.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_attacks_...
Yes, and that has contributed to make the ISIS mess even worse. In that way the US is responisble for that.
>The mass defection of Syrian Army soldiers and officers to the Free Syrian Army guaranteed that the conflict was going to a bloody mess with arms falling into hands of all parties, long before the US started supplying arms.
The Free Syrian Army, which was also incidentally funded and armed by the US.
>And no, you can't for certain say that Iraq would have fared better, as Iran would have fueled Shia sectarianism all the same in Iraq as it did post US invasion. Iran in fact was Sadam's greatest concern before his WMD bluff backfired.
In which case either he would have been overthrown or the country would have fragmented. In both cases, the state or states would have been able to crush ISIS.
The Western interventions tend to piss everybody off and flood the country with cash, guns, and training opportunities, and it's easy to hit up wealthy princes in UAE and Saudi for cash for your militant group when it's a matter of driving the US out.
Just one big snowball landing at the doorstep of one of the planet's poorest countries.