The violence in Paris and the recent (likely) bombing of the Russian airliner have been directly linked to ISIS (with ISIS also claiming responsibility). What hasn't been discussed is the link of the ISIS militants, their sympathizers, the Salifist/Wahhabist theocracy that binds them, and the military equipment arming them. All of these supporting factors present a problem much larger than a rouge militant group claiming large swath of desert between Iraq and Syria.
It is well known that ISIS grew out of the instability and sectarian violence stemming from the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Their leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was a former prisoner of the US military there and a committed Wahhabist/Salifist from Jordan. Zarqawi, although starting life as a regular violent criminal and alcoholic, transformed into a Islamic militant after fighting with the US backed mujaheddin in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, he would go on to befriend and collaborate with an heir to the Bin Laden fortune - Osama Bin Laden. This connection would lead him to ally himself with Bin Laden's Al Qaeda when forming the core of one of his first militant organizations (Jund al-Sham) during the US assault of the Saudi backed Taliban and, later on, to establish a branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.
The weapons, training, and funding which flowed from the United States and Saudi Arabia into Afghanistan during the 1980s were key in not only radicalizing such criminal elements from throughout the Middle East, but also in ensuring ample supplies of equipment for more recent operations. However, these Afghan dedicated resources were not alone in their assistance to the spread of Islamic militancy. As recently as 2008, it was reported that Saudi Arabia's funding of Wahhabist madrasas throughout Central Asia and Pakistan was directly responsible for the radicalization of previously moderate populations. These schools, all the more appealing to populations living in abject poverty with no other opportunity for education, are funded directly by the monarchy (including both those in government and those not participating in governing). These schools, first starting in the 1970s, continue to be a pipeline for 8 to 15 year olds into militant organizations (including Lakshar-e-Tiba, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda).
[It should be noted that this puritanical and militant Wahhabi ideology was part of the initial Saudi uprisings against the Turks during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The Wahab/Saudi alliance was considered to be that of ultraconservative nomads and deemed a threat to the more moderate Hashemite dynasty of the Hejaz which was allied with the Ottomans. The Turks would put down a handful of the Saud/Wahab uprisings throughout their reign. However, during WWI, the British Foreign Office operating out of India decided that these Saudi/Wahab militants would be just the type of opposition needed to help defeat the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East theater. This is ironic, as the home office and the British office in Egypt had allied with the Hashemites for the very same ends. After the war, and the overthrow of the Hashemites in Syria and subjugation of them elsewhere, the Saudi/Wahab alliance found it quite easy to depose the monarchy in the Hejaz and unify the Arabian Peninsula under their own banner. With the discovery of oil within this domain, the West found this monarchy - like those in Libya, Iran, and elsewhere - to be perfectly fine in ensuring a continued supply of fuel (which was especially needed going into WWII).]
The funding source of these militant primary and secondary education systems throughout the impoverished Muslim world may be directly linked to the Saudi monarchy, but the funding of the Saudi monarchy is not conducted in a vacuum. Rather, it is easy to trace their income via the export which constitutes 90% of their outgoing assets - hydrocarbons. In 2014, oil exported to the US constituted ~8% of that income. In 1977, when the madrasas policy was getting established, the US represented 25% of that income. This guaranteed supply of oil, especially important after the domestic production falloff starting in the early 1980s, the fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979, and after the oil shock inflicted upon the US by OPEC during the Vietnam war, has ensured that the Saudi Monarchy had a guaranteed customer for its lone export and a guaranteed provider of military equipment needed in such a volatile part of the world (between 1990 and 2002, the US sold 40 billion dollars worth of military equipment to the kingdom).
The monarchy, clearly flush after decades of income, and terrified of an internal revolution in the mold of which overthrew the Shah, was eager to continue the ramp-up its training of radicals as a counter to foreign and domestic Shiite militancy and as leverage against the Soviets in Afghanistan (after all, the USSR was a major competitor to Saudi oil exports). Such militancy support would also help assuage and grow the hard-line Wahhabist base domestically (such as Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers). These militants would receive training in action through conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria - just as Bin Laden and Zarqawi did.
With dejected Muslim men seeking salivation in military conflicts (not unlike many men throughout the ages), an ample supply of willing followers to jihad flowing from the Saudi schools, and political support from the Gulf elite, an apparent never ending resource for asymmetrical warfare was borne. Although this resource was used to a degree in Pakistan, India, and the aforementioned conflicts above, it was seen as a tool to those who benefited from the destruction. This tool was not envisioned to grown into a threat against the hands that have fed it. This understanding is still believed to be true by many within the KSA, as they continue to see it as a lesser threat than that posed by potential domestic insurrection or external Shiite aggression. After all, the Saudi monarchy had no problem with Al-Qaeda controlling large swaths of Yemen, but immediately began large scale military operations against perceived Shiite aligned Houthi rebels once they began to gain ground.
This international militancy, yet to be recognized by its creators as the monster it is, may have still died on the vine had it not had wider spread military and political support from actors outside of the Gulf. Although it is clear that the USA's unquestioned support of the Saudi monarchy (via trade, military sales, and international political support) has given the Al Saud's a free hand in the development of these radicals, the USA could easily have steered clear of further involvement - potentially limiting the reach and capability of the Salifist/Wahhabist threat. Unfortunately, this was not the case. From directly supporting the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, to aligning with Salafist sympathizers in Libya, and the funneling of weapons to a whole swath of militants in Syria (with the goal of taking down the Assad and Khadafy regimes - which were considered a greater threat) - the USA has directly ensured that weapons found the hands of the Wahhabist faithful (the abdication of arms from the US supplied Iraqi military to ISIS adds further insult to injury).
This, of course, all leads back to ISIS and the recent attacks on French and Russian targets. The Great Powers and their allies (the Gulf monarchies) are still - to one degree or another - convinced that the real threat is the obstinate regimes in Damascus and Tehran. Thus, supporting the lesser enemy against the greater is common sense. This paradigm may be logical for the Saudi rulers, who have no credibility over their populace other than the support of their Wahhabi ulema partners, and fear their minority Shiite citizens. However, it should not be considered logical for the West (as well as Russia) who are bearing the brunt of the blowback of these years of radicalization and arming. Until the realization is made by the facilitators, ISIS will continue to allow the metastasization of this militancy with little to no resistance. ISIS, unlike its disparate predecessors (including its parent Al Qaeda), has the financial, human, and terrain resources to indefinitely send teams of radicals into Europe and the Caucuses to inflict terror on those peoples. If the remote Afghan militancy of the 1980s created a handful of radicalized leaders (Bin Laden, Zarqawi, Zwahiri, etc.), it can only be imagined the number of jihadists being produced by the ISIS situation today.
From this perspective, it can only be hoped that the West decides that (at least) the Assad regime in not their enemy and that Gulf support for militant Islam is the primary threat. Such a realization would allow for all parties to reassess their priorities and potentially for agreement that all weapons and funding being funneled to all rebels would end. A real fantasy would be to treat all funding for militant Islam from absolute monarchies as state supported terrorism, with associated sanctions attached. With the US now the largest hydrocarbon energy producer on Earth, the need for Saudi supplied oil has subsided (as demonstrated by the export numbers above). The military sales to KSA are still important economically, but can easily be absorbed via domestic purchases and recapitalization. Sadly, with the UK rapidly investing in military installation in the Gulf, such dreams are likely to ream only that.
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