Quora Answer: Is Saudi Arabia Funding ISIS?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Is Saudi Arabia funding ISIS?” 

Saudi Arabia, like the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, the US, and Israel, among others, funded groups that were useful in opposing the government of Bashar Hafez al-Assad, the President of Syria.  They coalesced into the various groups known as the Syrian Opposition, during the Syrian Civil War.  Some of those groups were offshoots of Al-Qaeda, and formed what eventually became known as the Islamic State, ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh.  They were useful pawns in fighting the Syrian Army, Iranian-backed militias, and other groups.  That they belonged to the same Wahhabi sect as the Saudis made them palatable.  When the atrocities of ISIS became documented and well-known, they became a political liability and an embarrassment.  This swayed international opinion against ISIS, affiliated groups within the Syrian Opposition such as Al-Nusra Front, and their known backers. 

In summary, Saudi Arabia did fund ISIS, and continued to fund them discreetly even after their atrocities became known, although funding slowed.  Saudi allies in the region such as the US only actively fought with ISIS after Russia intervened in the name of stopping terrorism, and were forced to do so for the sake of optics.  What ISIS is now is exactly how the 3^rd Saudi state began almost a century ago.