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When I began writing this, on Friday, there was no consensus. Should the Ottawa attacker Michael Zehaf-Bibeau be considered "a jihadist" or should last Wednesday's murderous incident be considered the action of an isolated, mentally ill drug addict?

At the same time, there was widespread acceptance that the Islamic State (or ISIL, or ISIS, as some call it) "may well" have influenced both Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Martin Couture-Rouleau, the man who ran down two soldiers in Quebec, killing one. By late Sunday the RCMP was saying Zehaf-Bibeau prepared a video and was "driven by a political and ideological motive."

Certainly, there is acceptance that we have joined a war against Islamic State: The group known to us for the beheading, maiming and crucifixion of those who break rules or fail to conform to its fundamentalist religious views. A force of violence straight from hell, one that exalts pre-Enlightenment beliefs and behaviour, and a force that must be stopped.

But where did it start? And if blame is to be laid for its rapid rise and influence, then who must be blamed?

Frontline: The Rise of ISIS (Tuesday, PBS, 10 p.m.) gives answers. It's a must-see background investigation and it lays blame. It doesn't outright condemn, but the conclusion is easily found – blame is laid at the feet of Nouri al-Maliki, who was prime minister of Iraq from 2006 until 2014, and the Obama administration, which dithered neurotically while al-Maliki created the condition for ISIS to flourish.

I've watched it twice and concluded that the issue of Islamic State is less about religious fundamentalism than it is about gangsters and testosterone-driven thuggery.

The writer, producer and correspondent is Martin Smith, whose key reports on Iraq – Gangs of Iraq, Private Warriors and Truth, War and Consequences – have been searing. Here he presents a short narrative arc and it is profoundly disturbing. It starts in late 2011, leads us to now and the ending is ominous.

It was in late 2011 that al-Maliki went to Washington to be feted by President Barack Obama. The last U.S. troops were leaving Iraq and the prime minister was in charge of a new era. As one expert in the program says, it was a "rosy picture" presented by Obama. But even while al-Maliki was in Washington, his operatives were busy in Baghdad, isolating and alienating enemies and those friends who might turn treacherous.

He declined to include powerful Sunni leaders in his government. Meanwhile, in Syria, a civil war was under way and that's where those that al-Maliki had alienated found succour and strength. The core of ISIS – the term used throughout the program – is in "a few and bitter tribesmen," we're told. Sunni hardliners – "the guys the U.S. didn't manage to kill."

One was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS leader, who emerged from a U.S. military prison and, being both hardened by the war against the American invaders and ambitious, sent a few men into Syria in the summer of 2011. He, we are told, was considered more gangster than pious man of religion. What his group found in Syria was space to expand and thrive with ease. Territory, arms and oil were there for the taking. While that unfolded, the al-Maliki government kept purging the Iraq establishment of Sunni leaders. Tribal leaders and clerics from Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland rebelled, were met with force and brutality and there, right there, was al-Baghdadi offering the protection and the vehicle for revenge that was timely and necessary. The speed of it all is breathtaking.

We are told that ISIS became self-sufficient as it took over areas of Syria, seizing industries and transportation, while robbing banks, using extortion rackets, controlling oil wells and selling oil on the black market. A picture is painted of a highly organized gangster organization that blithely changed its named to "Islamic State" and by the spring of 2013 was able to declare, "We will take Baghdad, we will burn it, or we will die trying."

Watching the narrative progress comes close to watching a gangland turf war unfold in a movie. Those who oppose ISIS in Iraq acquiesce because, "Otherwise, there's nothing. The Americans aren't here any more."

As for the Americans, Martin Smith is hard on the Obama administration, whose representatives argue, "Iraq is a highly complicated society." They say Obama scolded al-Maliki in private, but not in public, because in the U.S. there is no appetite for war against forces in Iraq. The Iraqi army, celebrated by the Obama administration, is described by one pundit here as "fatcats earning good money to sit at a desk, smoke cigarettes and drink liquour all day."

We are told here that a major event happened in July of this year, when al-Baghdadi gave a sermon at the pulpit of the Great Mosque in Mosul. After the sermon, it is said, jihadists flocked to ISIS. "Bin Laden could only dream of this," a former diplomat says. At the same time we are informed that "former Baathist officers from Saddam's army" are key to the military success of ISIS.

In the end, you may think, "sermon"? You may think, that's a ruthless gangster masquerading as a religious leader. You may think, this mess, this rage, isn't about religion or culture. At all.

All times ET. Check local listings.

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