Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is quoted by The Hill as blaming the U.S. for the rise of ISIS, and he is probably correct. A more accurate attribution would be to blame President Obama.
The Obama administration dickered with the Iraqi government about a continuation of the Status of Forces agreement that permitted U.S. troops to stay in country without falling under Iraqi law. Claiming the Iraqis wouldn't make the deal we needed, Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq.
Who believes the world's only superpower could not coerce the terms it needed from a client government we created? Very clearly, Obama got the outcome he wanted; a refusal that gave him an excuse to pull our troops out.
Had we coerced the needed agreement and left our troops there, we could have kept the Iraqi Shia government from beating up on the Sunnis, driving them into the arms of what became ISIS. If we can justify leaving 30,000 troops in Korea for 60+ years to prevent a resumption of the Korean War, we could have certainly left 10,000 in Iraq for a decade or two.
Obama violated his own rule not to do stupid stuff. Removing our troops from Iraq was Obama's dumb "mission accomplished" moment. He stupidly walked away from victory in order to win a highly temporary political advantage.
ISIS is the result. The fault is Obama's.
