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Anand Gopal: I have not become inured to the dangers, because the moment you do that, that’s when you’re the most vulnerable. Although I work in war zones, and I work in places that are considered dangerous, I actually take quite a bit of precautions when reporting. I make sure I know an area very well; I make sure I have a very trusted network of contacts. I tend not to take particular risks that some other types of journalists take—particularly photojournalists, I think, tend to take way more risks than print reporters do, because they need to be in the middle of the firefight to take the photos. I’m always more interested in the background to the fighting, the political underpinnings of the fighting, so I tend not to be the one to run to the scene of an explosion, whereas photojournalists tend to do that.
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To some extent it is accurate to say that ISIS, or the Islamic State, is quite different from the Taliban. Different from al Qaeda as well, but especially different from the Taliban, for a couple of reasons—one of which is that the Taliban’s goals have always been nationalistic, in the sense that they claim to be fighting on behalf of Afghans against a foreign occupier. They claim to have the extent of their political ambitions being the return of Afghanistan to the status quo before the 2001 American invasion. And so in that sense they’re very much sort of focused on Afghanistan, and also—something I’ve learned from talking to Talib fighters—is that the things that propel them to fight are very local, very parochial. It’s about some valley that you live in. There happens to be a warlord there who’s predatory or who causes human-rights violations, and you’re reacting against this warlord. And that’s really the extent of it, and you go and join the Taliban. So it’s a very locally oriented movement, whereas ISIS is not.
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Well, it’s possible that it was both simultaneously. I think there’s less sympathy for the killing of an American in parts of Iraq, given Iraq’s recent history with the United States, than there would be for the killing of Iraqis or Syrians, which is also happening on a daily basis via ISIS. So it’s very plausible that on the one hand it was something that was intended for a local audience in terms of recruitment, but at the same time I do think it’s hard to deny that in some way it was intended for the West as well.
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I don’t think there’s a constructive role that the US can play. It’s important to keep in mind that the US is indirectly responsible for the very existence of ISIS because of its invasion, because of the chaos that was sowed by the invasion and because of the civil war that was ultimately caused by the United States’ invasion. So number one, given that, and number two, given the fact that it was US partners that laid the groundwork for Sunni disillusionment that ISIS was able to take advantage of, I don’t think the US has a very good track record in Iraq, and so I would be very wary of US involvement.
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Certainly. I think for one thing, people have forgotten the history. The debate right now, sadly, is whether Obama pulling out in 2010–2011 is what caused ISIS to grow and become strong, or whether not arming the Syrian rebels is what allowed ISIS to grow and become strong. But these are very selective and simplistic views because we have to take the longer view, which is the fact that this is all taking place within the context of the radical upheaval that the US caused by its intervention and occupation of Iraq. And that has to be the starting point to begin to understand this.And secondly, people tend to think of ISIS as purely evil. I see that word a lot. And obviously they’re heinous and barbaric and I abhor them. But we don’t get very far by thinking of them as purely evil. We need to really think about what are the social origins, what are the political roots of ISIS. What are the conditions in Iraq, particularly after 2008 and 2009, that led to the feelings of disillusionment and disenfranchisement on behalf of Sunni populations and the anger toward the Maliki government that allowed a group like ISIS to become strong in the first place?Follow Leighton Woodhouse on Twitter.