There is certainly something fishy in the timing of the payment, but that is no different than all the fishy things that have gone on via the State Department for many decades. We can insist on transparency in all our international dealings, but we must also be willing to suffer the costs and consequences.

The Obama/Clinton contribution to the enablement of ISIS is but the latest chapter in America’s long history of destabilizing the West Asia region. The U.S. policies have, for well over a century, continued to compound the misery of the people of the region. Obama’s wrongheaded blunders in the region are merely the continuation of the policies established under the Wilson administration. (Though with frighteningly brutal impact and shocking disregard for International Law.) ISIS is not new. It was not “founded” by Obama or Bush. It is minimally the latest (and most virulent) iteration of the counteroffensive to the imposition of dominion by foreign powers. But it is also much more.