Yasir Qadhi interviewed alongside Graeme Wood

I was interviewed alongside Graeme Wood, the author of The Atlantic article, 'What ISIS Really Wants'. The interview will be broadcast on NPR stations tomorrow, but it's already online here:

http://interfaithradio.org/Story_Details/ISIS__Driven_by_Revenge_or_Theology_ 

Overall I was satisfied with the interview and felt that I got my main points across. The thrust of the interview (for those who can't listen to it) was that Graeme's article almost completely sidelines the main cause of the rise of ISIS, and that is the utterly destructive American foreign policy in the region. For over 35 years, America has been directly meddling in that region, by supporting and deposing dictators, going to war twice, imposing sanctions that killed millions, installing puppet regimes that allowed for sectarian massacres, dropping hundred of thousands of tons of bombs over the last decade and a half, and the list goes on and on. 

But rather than concentrate on those issues, Mr. Wood's article concentrates on 'Islamic laws' and how ISIS is so 'Islamic'. 

Had it not been for the barbarity of the American invasions and sanctions, regular, ordinary Muslims would not have resorted to or believed in the barbarity of ISIS. This is not a justification of ISIS - it is a call of accountability for the role that America itself played in the direction creation of the causes that allowed ISIS to come forth.

Link: http://interfaithradio.org/Story_Details/ISIS__Driven_by_Revenge_or_Theology_