It's clear Hillary thinks the U.S. should have intervened a long time ago in Syria. Maybe I missed it in the Atlantic interview, but I don't see where she criticizes his decision to withdraw troops from Iraq. The Times writes:

As more moderate Syrian rebel groups were beaten down by the Syrian security forces and their allies, ISIS increasingly took control of the fight, in part on the strength of weapons and funding from its operations in Iraq and from jihadist supporters in the Arab world.

That fact has led American lawmakers and political figures, including former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to accuse President Obama of aiding ISIS’ rise in two ways: first by completely withdrawing American troops from Iraq in 2011, then by hesitating to arm more moderate Syrian opposition groups early in that conflict.

In 2011, Hillary defended the decision to withdraw troops from Iraq.

On a related note, the Times article casts doubt on the Pentagon's claim that ISIS leader al Baghdadi was only detained at Camp Bucca for a period of months in 2004 and then released. Its source is the work of an Iraqi scholar/researcher.

The Pentagon says that Mr. Baghdadi, after being arrested in Falluja in early 2004, was released that December with a large group of other prisoners deemed low level. But Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi scholar who has researched Mr. Baghdadi’s life, sometimes on behalf of Iraqi intelligence, said that Mr. Baghdadi had spent five years in an American detention facility where, like many ISIS fighters now on the battlefield, he became more radicalized.

The Times does not say which version is accurate, but it also doesn't note that the Pentagon has reportedly responded to a media request for clarification with this response:

"Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry, also known as ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ was held as a ‘civilian internee’ by U.S. Forces-Iraq from early February 2004 until early December 2004, when he was released," the Pentagon said in a statement. "He was held at Camp Bucca. A Combined Review and Release Board recommended ‘unconditional release’ of this detainee and he was released from U.S. custody shortly thereafter. We have no record of him being held at any other time."

Why does the Times seemingly promote the position of the researcher over the Pentagon? Maybe the Iraqis detained him in a detention facility after his release by the U.S. from Camp Bucca in 2004 and held him until 2009, if he was in fact detained that period. Is it because the researcher's version fits the premise of its article, that U.S. actions in Iraq gave rise to Baghdadi?

In my non-expert opinion, I think there's a more relevant topic the media should address when trying to explain the rise of al Baghdadi, ISIS and similar groups, which is why do they have the ability to attract so many followers, at home and abroad? What is the allure? Why do so many people want to join a group where their lives will be dictated by rigid rules that existed so many centuries ago? I came across this frequently cited report on Syrian extremist groups by Syrian expert Aaron Lund the other day and was struck by this (on page 10.):

Roel Meijer has written [here, p. 13] that the basic attraction of salafism is its capacity to transform “the humiliated, the downtrodden, disgruntled young people, the discriminated migrant, or the politically repressed into a chosen sect (al firqa al-najiya) that immediately gains privileged access to the Truth.”

It is a common pattern across the globe, now clearly manifested in Syria. By growing their beards and observing salafism’s religious and social code, Syrian fighters can transform themselves from the victims and perpetrators of a chaotic sectarian war, into heroes straight out of the Quran – the mujahedin, Islam’s holy warriors. They no longer need to fear death, since they can be certain of their place in heaven. They no longer need to grapple with self-doubt and moral qualms, since salafism tells them that they are acting on God’s command. They are no longer embroiled in a confused and dirty war for their family, village, or sect, or for the warlord that pays them – they are fighting a righteous jihad to defend the Muslim Umma. There’s no overestimating the power of such an ideology in a conflict like Syria’s.

This is a common pattern across the globe and throughout history. It reminds me of what the Zapatistas in Mexico wrote when describing Subcomandante Marcos , after its uprising in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state.

So Marcos is a human being, any human being, in this world. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, "Enough."

If the U.S. and other governments had responded to ISIS and its predecessor groups when they first came on the scene by asking what are their grievances, are they valid, and how do we fix them, instead of with military force, arrests, prolonged detention and torture, perhaps they could have been stopped or contained. It's too late now with respect to ISIS, but there will be more such extremist groups in the future, in countries besides Iraq and Syria.

When debate over how to respond to the threat posed by these groups is cast only in terms of how to crush them, whether by air strikes, boots on the ground, or massive surveillance, it's like putting a band-aid over a nail hole in a flat tire. Until the root cause is addressed, the problem will return. Just as addressing the root causes of crime is a more productive response to a crime epidemic than building more prisons, war is not the solution to reducing the threat of extremist groups like ISIS and those in Syria.