PolitiFact:

Trump wrong to blame Clinton for IS,

Before the Republican National Convention, the party’s soon-to-be presidential nominee told CBS’ Lesley Stahl that the U.S. will need to declare war to wipe out ISIS.

Donald Trump also criticized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, saying: “Hillary Clinton invented I SIS with her stupid policies. She is responsible for ISIS.”

Trump was referring to Clinton’s actions related to Iraq, Libya and Syria, a Trump spokesman told us.

To our inquiries, experts on internati on al affairs deemed Trump’s claim a factually weak stretch.

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, called the causes of ISIS complex and interconnected. Clinton, he said, may “share some of the blame, but there is more than enough share to go around.”

The terrorist group’s roots pre-date Barack Obama’s presidency and Clinton’s sidekick role as secretary of state.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, longtime Sunni extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004 established al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), which had several name changes, most recently going by just the Islamic State.

Democrats blame President George W. Bush for the creation of ISIS in that al-Qaida flourished after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.

Yet Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a centrist-to-liberal group, told us Obama’s move to leave Iraq after 2011 contributed to a security vacuum, giving ISIS an opportunity to put down roots there. A note: O’Hanlon ranks among many voluntary advisers to Clinton.

Republicans blame Obama for not keepi ng 10,000 troops in Iraq, which they say could have headed off ISIS. Then again, Obama inherited a timeline to exit Iraq from Bush, who did not reach an agreement to leave a large American force behind.

So you might say the blame touches Bush and Obama.

For its part, Trump’s camp cites Clinton’s 2002 vote as a senator to authorize force in Iraq — a vote in which she joined many colleagues from both parties yet later said she regretted — as well as subsequent Clinton positions on Syria and Libya.

In August 2011, then-Secretary of State Clinton echoed Obama’s support for regime change in Syria.

Regime change in Libya also gave ISIS an opening, advised Christopher Preble of the libertarian Cato Institute. “Clinton’s enthusiasm for regime change in Libya in 2011, which Obama endorsed, resulted in the collapse of order there, which ISIS and others have exploited,” he said.

Austin Long, a Columbia University expert, said it’s possible to argue that these factors — withdrawing from Iraq, the administration’s lack of support to anti-Assad rebels in Syria and the decision to intervene in Libya — fed the rise of ISIS.

Yet Clinton favored supporting Syrian rebels; she was overruled by Obama. Also, Clinton favored keeping a moderate troop presence in Iraq after 2011.

Long elaborated: “So on both of those points, I don’t think it was Clinton leading Obama.”

“On Libya, while this clearly appears to have been a mistake, in hindsight it was a fairly minor contribution to the emergence of ISIS, which grew out of the Iraq and Syrian” conflicts, Long said. Our ruling ISIS’ roots trace to 2004, before Clinton was secretary of state, and the group gained ground for various reasons.

As a senator, Clinton did vote like many to authorize force in Iraq. She also later supported intervention in Libya that gave ISIS an opening.

Yet it’s incorrect that she alone was responsible for ISIS.

We rate this claim False.