In an interview with Jacobin magazine, Chomsky suggested that the US, through its invasion of Iraq in 2003, helped the evolution of the group that has vowed to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East and has become notorious for videos of beheadings of foreigners in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

According to Chomsky, the US did not directly fund and push ISIS into existence, but rather, “created the background out of which ISIS grew and developed.”

The invasion was devastating to Iraq, says Chomsky, adding that besides the death and displacement of millions of Iraqis, it helped sow sectarian divisions between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq and the region, consequently setting the stage for extremism.

“The natural dynamics of a conflict like that is that the most extreme elements begin to take over,” he said in the interview.

He, however, says that extremism had its roots in Saudi Arabia, the US’s most prominent regional ally.

“It’s not only directed by an extremist version the Wahhabi Salafi version, but it’s also a missionary state. So it uses its huge oil resources to promulgate these doctrines throughout the region. It establishes schools, mosques, clerics, all over the place, from Pakistan to North Africa,” Chomsky argues.

“An extremist version of Saudi extremism is the doctrine that was picked up by ISIS. So it grew ideologically out of the most extremist form of Islam of Saudi version, and the conflicts that were engendered by the US sledgehammer that smashed up Iraq and has now spread everywhere.”

According to Chomsky, groups adopting the likes of ISIS’s ideology tend to grow in extremism the more conflicts heighten. “As conflicts develop, they will become more extremist. The most brutal, harshest groups will take over. That’s what happens when violence becomes the means of interaction.