The IS should provoke profound introspection in the Sunni Arab world. Instead, various forms of Baghdadi Denial Syndrome are getting all the attention.

One of the most alarming features of Arab responses to the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq is a persistent pattern of neurotic denial in the form of conspiracy theories and other escapist fantasies. But running away from the truth will only complicate the ability of Arab states and societies to comprehend where the IS came from, how it has unexpectedly managed to surge into so much power so quickly, and how it can be effectively countered.

One of the most persistent and widespread delusions is that the IS did not, in fact, emerge from Sunni Muslim communities in Iraq and Syria over the course of the wars there in the past decade. Instead, it is increasingly asserted, the IS is a creature of, and was established by, intelligence services such as the CIA or the Israeli Mossad. An extraordinarily large number of Arabs, Muslims and others appear to have taken refuge in these conspiracy theories. Call it Baghdadi Denial Syndrome.

The most outlandish version circulating online holds that IS leader and "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is, in fact, a Jewish actor named Elliot Shimon, or some such plausibly-Jewish name. Shimon, it's laughably alleged, was trained for a year by the Mossad in various skills, including theology and rhetoric.

Even some who don't embrace this detailed self-parody are still clinging to the notion that Baghdadi and the IS are, somehow, foreign impositions on the Sunni Muslim social and political landscape of Syria and Iraq. An astounding number and range of Arabs, in my own experience in recent weeks, embrace some version of a conspiracy theory holding that the IS and Baghdadi are not what they seem and are, in fact, the creations of Western or Israeli intelligence services.

In a way, this thinking reflects a positive impulse. There is a desire to reject Baghdadi and the IS, and an unwillingness to accept the fact that such vicious malefactors could actually have been organically produced by elements of Syrian and Iraqi society under extreme pressures. Like Arab and Muslim 9/11 conspiracy theories, it begins with a disavowal – "that can't have had anything to do with any of us" – that, rather than producing serious introspection, gives way to denial through conspiracy theory and a terror of the truth.

Hussein Ibish: Baghdadi Denial Syndrome