An Iraqi terrorist group so radical that it was actually expelled from Al Qaeda's global network is in the midst of a major offensive. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has taken over Iraq's second-largest city, and is now pushing into the Baghdad area.
In the past decade, the has U.S. lost thousands of soldiers in Iraq in an attempt to make sure that something like this couldn't happen.
But America's rocky relationship with Iraq — and its failure to achieve its objectives in the country — didn't start 11 years ago, with the beginning of the war that would eventually oust Saddam Hussein.
It didn't even start in 1990, following Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.
In fact, the two countries began their present-day entanglement over 30 years ago, thanks to Washington's push to rein in an intransigent Iran that was fresh off of its Islamic Revolution.
Policy planners thought the key to maintaining control over the resource-rich Middle East started with shaking Saddam's hand.
With jihadists running rampant and Iraq descending into chaos, things haven't exactly worked out as planned.
The year was 1980. America had just lost a key Middle Eastern ally because of the Iranian Revolution, with overthrew the country's pro-western monarchy.
U.S. officials and media began publicly considering Iraq as a new top ally in the Persian Gulf.
Source: Teicher, Howard. Twin Pillars To Desert Storm, William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York, 1993
Meanwhile, Iranian calls for a Shia-led coup in Iraq only increased tensions in the region, and caused a series of border skirmishes.
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