ABSTRACT
The meteoric rise in prominence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS), also known pejoratively by the Arabic term Daesh, since late 2013 provides a unique opportunity to analyze the evolution of a distinctive brand of extremism that draws on distorted interpretations of Islam in the heart of the region where that religion was born. The deceptively rapid advance of IS in Iraq surprised many around the globe, including Americans, but the current situation was predictable and in fact should have been expected. The US intelligence community (IC), for example, warned that a full troop pullout from Iraq in December 2011 would cause unrest in the country and require the United States (US) to commit military forces in the future.1
