New York, February 20 (RHC)-- The United States' policy of war and sanctions against Iraq destabilized its civil society and provoked the sectarian divisions which led to the creation of the ISIL terrorist group, according to American linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky, who is also a cognitive scientist and political commentator, made the comments in an interview with journalist David Barsamian published by the New York-based Jacobin magazine.

Chomsky said that he agrees with Graham Fuller, a former CIA officer, who said, "the U.S. created the background out of which ISIS (ISIL) grew and developed." The American scholar said the 2003 U.S. invasion was "devastating" to Iraq, which had "already been virtually destroyed, first of all by the decade-long war with Iran in which, incidentally, Iraq was backed by the U.S., and then the decade of sanctions."

Elsewhere in his remarks, Chomsky said the roots of the Takfiri ideology of ISIL "are in the major U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia. That's been the major U.S. ally in the region as long as the U.S. has been seriously involved there, in fact, since the foundation of the Saudi state."

He further said that Saudi Arabia has "kind of a family dictatorship" which "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."