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military withdrawal, a period that conversely coincided with the ascendance of ISIS: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s paranoia that Sunnis were out to destroy his tenuous regime and his ruthless attempt to quash their opposition to Shia domination the war-weary United States’ disregard of how Syria’s civil war presented an irresistible opportunity for the splintered and mostly impotent al Qaeda in Iraq to rise again on both sides of the Syrian border the Obama administration’s reluctance to apply diplomatic force even as the Maliki government flouted U.S. “The Rise of ISIS” begins by recapping the domino-crash in Iraq after the U.S. Moreover, the documentary leads the viewer to draw the ineluctable conclusion that ISIS could have been stopped. As the program details in interviews with government officials, journalists, and think-tank experts, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has become a veritable country within two countries, one based in terror and extremism to be sure, but a self-sustaining one with a fearsome army and the means to take by force great swaths of land once considered sovereign. That is what makes “The Rise of ISIS,” the latest from PBS’ “Frontline” documentary series, an especially potent moment of truth at this juncture. Truth, though cleansing, can also be disturbing, especially when it confirms fear. Layers of nuance and obfuscation have to be scrubbed away before the truth emerges, and the result is often unpalatable.

But as any government official (or journalist) will acknowledge, confirmation is not an easy task. Sometimes a good documentary merely confirms what is generally feared to be true.