'The next generation of "al-Qaedism"'

"... The Bush surge in 2007 did not destroy Zarqawi's empire. A residual US ground force would not have eliminated it, either. Decapitating the group and buying the Sunni tribes only forced it deeper into the angry Sunni underground. Only sustained good and smart governance could kill it, and that was something post-Saddam Hussein Iraq could not produce, with or without the United States.The Syrian civil war was a gift to ISIS. At first, ISIS created Jabhat al-Nusra as its agent in Iraq that could be portrayed as an independent party under one of Zarqawi's former deputies, Mohammad al-Golani. Then, ISIS demanded al-Nusra accept its loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and not bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahri. The protege had turned on his leader's heir. Ironically, Zawahri had long warned bin Laden of this eventuality. In his last days, bin Laden told Zawahri he had always been right about the upstart Jordanian. Too late...."