Donald Trump presumes to understand how ISIS came to be, but one need barely scratch the surface to expose his woeful ignorance of world affairs, U.S. policy and historical context.

With a few hours of study, or by receiving counsel from informed advisors, Trump could easily determine the genesis of ISIS. The role of a president should be to inform, educate, and elevate. Trump seems incapable, or unwilling, to do any of these things, and without getting inside his head, we can’t tell if he’s Machiavellian or just dumb. To paraphrase Maslow, he seems to be an unthinking hammer who sees every complex issue as a nail.

To his claim about the founding of ISIS, in truth, its seeds began 1,500 years ago when a blood rift formed between the two sects of Islam: the Sunni and the Shia over which sect should be the rightful rulers. The perpetual hatred between the sects continues to modern day, but fertile ground for ISIS came with the U.S. and NATO invasion of Iraq, an event that allowed ISIS to grow and gain footholds relatively unchecked in the vacuum of chaos.

Thus, if Trump seriously wanted to identify the “founders” of ISIS, he needed look no further than the people who perpetuated the ruse of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. The threat of WMDs caused near panic among Western nations that Saddam Hussein was capable of killing millions. Those fictional weapons were the tinder that let the war machine light the match.

ISIS is comprised of people belonging to the Sunni sect of Islam. ISIS grew initially in Iraq in response to militias of Shia slaughtering Sunnis after the U.S. and its NATO allies seized control. ISIS began to fight against Shia in Syria and Iraq to seek retribution for persecuted Sunnis.

What has happened since then, and what is ISIS trying to achieve?

ISIS has three objectives.

Establish a caliphate in the Middle East region
Expand Islam and Sharia law worldwide, and
Recreate the power and glory of Sunni Islam.

The success of objectives #2 and #3 are largely dependent on achieving #1, specifically, ISIS set about to establish the caliphate.

Within the lands ISIS seized, it sees itself as battling heretical presences (including people/states of the West). Of course, ISIS also encourages terrorist attacks outside of the region in pursuit of the other two goals. All of this explains the war and terrorist attacks against the U.S. and allies that have been militarily active in the region. Note that ISIS is not focused on attacking countries that have not engaged in attacks against Muslim nations.

Initially, ISIS followers came mostly from disenfranchised Sunni youths in Iraq and Syria. Subsequently the group attracted foreign fighters from other Arab countries and the West. Over time, it has become a significant military force, with an army estimated at upwards of 50,000 members spread throughout the Middle East and with branches throughout the world.

Insofar as the U.S. strategy to fight, and eventually eliminate ISIS, the Obama administration has moved to strike at the primary objective of the terrorist group, to establish a regional caliphate. This campaign by the U.S. and its allies has been underway for some time, and significant gains have been made to reclaim areas where ISIS had gained control. If successful, the denial of land in which to establish a caliphate, will also negatively impact ISIS’s ability to achieve its other two objectives.

When the military actions of the U.S. and its allies are viewed in context with the objectives of ISIS, a clear plan is easily discernible. It is unclear why Mr. Trump can’t see this plan, and it’s also unclear how he proposes to improve upon if he does understand it.

While many in the West seem to believe that ISIS is singularly waging war on the U.S. and its allying nations and peoples, the truth is that ISIS has killed far more Muslims, mostly Shia, as it pursues its campaign of ethno-sectarian cleansing in areas that it controls.

Within the territories controlled by ISIS, the choice of the citizenry is to convert to their strict version of Islam or to die. Thousands have been killed, many more Muslims than Christians.

So, there in just a few paragraphs, one can explain how ISIS came to be.

By ignoring facts in order to pursue inflammatory ethnocentric jingoism, Trump seeks to excite a similarly uninformed, emotional base. In so doing, he achieves nothing in the way of proposing or advancing solutions.

Primary information source:http://teamcore.usc.edu/projects/security/Muri_publications/ISIL%20Paper%20Revision%20-%20Main%20Body%208-22-15.pdf