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> Afghanistan was relatively open during US and USSR occupations

Coincidentally in both cases the administrations propped up by US/USSR were thoroughly corrupted, incompetent and abusive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi) so that even the Taliban became relatively appealing to most people.

> Iraq after occupation was relatively open, yet ISIS ideology took off

That was to a large degree just the extension of the whole Shia vs Sunni conflict/civil war which began immediately after the invasion.

Also I'm not sure what do you mean by "open" in all of the cases (besides post 2001 Afghanistan) the countries we ran by semi-secular authoritarian dictatorships which kept the Islamists in check. Most of the population would have (and eventually did) supported them if they were given a choice (like in Egypt).



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