Still from a CBS rebroadcast of a BBC video on ISIS exodus from Raqqa Nov. 2017.
By all accounts, wherever the Islamic State has gained and held territory, its residents suffer terrible oppression and deprivation. Unless you are on their wavelength, you most likely agree that ISIS rule has been calamitous for its subjects. Both Obama and Trump have pointed out their badass nature on numerous occasions, not so much in sympathy for those they oppress but to raise fear levels of ISIS-inspired badassery here at home. And yet, both regimes have actively, secretly, and materially supported the advance of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, fully aware of who they were and what they were up to. Say what?
According to a RAND study based on satellite imagery in Syria and Iraq, urban infrastructure, agriculture, electricity suffered greatly under ISIS and some towns were depopulated virtually entirely: “It’s been almost three years since ISIS fighters swept into the city [Ramadi, Iraq] in the blur of a sandstorm, and two years since Iraqi forces swept them back out. RAND’s satellite data showed destruction in almost every neighborhood in the city; every bridge was demolished. The city was once home to nearly 300,000 people; RAND’s data suggest no more than 36,000 still lived there after ISIS.”
The RAND document didn’t mention that all this pain and suffering might not have transpired but for US policies conducive to and even aimed at helping ISIS expand its savage dominion. But…