The Iraq Legacies and the Roots of the ‘Islamic State’ (original) (raw)
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The Legacy of Iraq: From the 2003 War to the 'Islamic State'
Edinburgh University Press, 2016
The Legacy of Iraq critically reflects on the abject failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. It argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq war and denying their connection to contemporary events could means that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.
ISIS: The Origins of the Islamic State
ISIS represents a new level of radicalization in Islamism, and introduces the dimension of sectarianism in Islamist movements. This organization has its roots in the Iraqi insurgency and the sectarian strategy of Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its violence is strategically calculated to produce failed states in the region where violent extremists and irreconcilable Ba'athists can survive, grow, and thrive. ISIS is enabled by Iraqi and Syrian insurgents, foreign fighters, transnational extremist networks, and regional powers interested in competing with their adversaries through proxy wars. This book sheds light on the origins of the strategy and ideology of the Islamic State, its sectarian warfare, and extremist narratives rooted in its jihadi-Salafi worldview.
ISPI, Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2017
Three years after the proclamation of the "Islamic State" (IS), the militants of al-Baghdadi have been driven back from most of the territories they conquered in Iraq. Tikrit, Sinjar, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul, once strongholds of the “caliphate”, have been liberated and the group appears unable to keep faith with its motto: baqiya wa tatamaddad (remaining and expanding). Mosul has become the symbol of the rise of the "Islamic state" and its fall could represent a real turning point for the land of the two rivers. But several crucial questions remain unanswered: once the auto-proclaimed Islamic State is defeated, what will be the fate of the liberated territories? And the destiny of the so-called disputed areas? Is it possible to fully eradicate IS from the country or is Iraq destined to fight an insurgency for years to come? If Iraq has to remain a “single, independent federal state with full sovereignty”, as indicated in art. 1 of the Iraqi Constitution, how it will be possible to reassemble the pieces of its complex mosaic and to counter the heightening polarization that is threatening the very foundations of its diverse community? What visions of the future have been exhibited by Iraq’s main socio-political actors? What are the interests and agendas of the main regional and international players and how can they influence the future of the country? The volume intends to respond to these questions through a multi-pronged approach presenting the complexity of the Iraqi scenario and the influence exerted over it by a broad array of actors operating at the local, regional and international levels. The first chapter written by Ibrahim al-Marashi set the stage of the debate. The author delineates the main challenges affecting the Iraqi State, focusing on the complexity and fluidity of its inter and intra ethno-sectarian dynamics, as well as on the problems the government has to face at the socio-political, financial, administrative, security and international levels. Giovanni Parigi focuses its analysis on the multiple souls of the Iraqi Shi‘a community, presenting its main socio-political actors, their different agendas, the relations they established with key regional and international players and the the fragility of Shi’a political block much more fragmented than generally assumed. The future of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (KRI) is the subject of the chapter written by Ofra Bengio. The author presents the factors that allowed Erbil to strengthen enormously its autonomy vis a vis Baghdad at the same time underlining the fractures affecting the “other” Iraq. The author examines also the elements supporting the KRI potential bid for independence, presenting also the factors playing against it and the strategies adopted by the main Kurdish socio-political players. Myriam Benraad takes in exam the crisis that invested the Iraqi Sunni community as well as its fractured socio-political spectrum, presenting challenges and opportunities of a community whose marginalization contributed dramatically to IS successes. Marina Calculli focuses instead on the competing Iranian, Turkish and Saudi agendas in Iraq, as well on the potential and the limits of US influence on Baghdad. The chapter presents the strategies adopted by these different players and the patron-client networks they established in the land of the two rivers, underlining the risk stemming from an escalation of the current competition. The last section of the volume deals with the fate of the “Islamic State” in Iraq. After delineating the evolution of the movement and the reasons that allowed it to re-emerge from its ashes in 2010, Andrea Plebani examines IS unique selling points and the strategy it adopted in the region. The last part of the chapter focuses on the possible options IS has at it disposal in Iraq, delineating the status of its remaining strongholds, the important operational capabilities it still retains and the challenges related to its eradication.
The 2003 US invasion of Iraq: the day that changed jihad(ism)
Middle East Bulletin, 2023
2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. The invasion had important repercussions for Iraq and the region as a whole. It had a profound impact on the salafi-jihadist movement as well, arguably more perennial than that of the 9/11 attacks. The article focuses on two specific aspects of this impact. First, the sectarianisation of politics and conflicts in the region, which engulfed equally the salafi-jihadist movement. Second, the 'reinvention' of terrorist spectacle and its introduction into the Internet era via decapitation and attack videos by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In sum, the US invasion provided the space for the introduction of jihadist innovations that were further developed by AQI's successor group, ISIS, and left a lasting impact on the jihadist conflict paradigm.
The Rise of the Islamic State and How to Reverse It
The US and the Islamic State (IS) use coercive force to project authority. This might be valid in classical political philosophy as well as in Muslim political practices; but it is not customary in democratic governance. Acclaimed evidence has characterized democracies as sensitive to violence and coercive measures. And the US is a democracy, while IS is not. This is the fundamental difference between the two camps. This difference diminishes when both engage in the propaganda of war: waging war is a parcel identity of states. States are often created from the disorder of war. The US is an example, and IS is not. States are defined by sovereignty over a territory; this territorial jurisdiction justifies their legitimate monopoly on violence. Religion is neither about territory nor about legitimate monopoly on violence. IS understands this benefit of statehood, and that the secret of its ongoing name change in search of territorial jurisdiction for its violent Jihad. From the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to the 'borderless' Islamic State (IS), there appears to be an obsession with the state: haltering its apparatus and replacing it with a perpetually expanding caliphate. Why is IS so obsessed with the state? What is the new scheme behind this strategy? And how is the US conduct in the war feeding into the same scheme? The article seeks to answer these questions.
Thinking the Unthinkable: Coming to Grips with the Survival of the Islamic State
A year after a US-led coalition launched air strikes and increased support of Iraqi and Kurdish military forces in a bid to degrade and destroy the Islamic State (IS), the jihadist group that has built a pariah state in a swath of Syria and Iraq has demonstrated resilience despite a mix of significant victories and defeats. The limited impact of the airstrikes and Iraqi ground operations raises the spectre of a longer term existence of a disruptive entity in the heartland of the Middle East and the question of how the international community will deal with it in the absence of the political will to employ the kind of force that could potentially destroy it. It also raises questions about whether all members of the coalition are towing the same line as evidence mounts that IS is as much a product of a successful Saudi-led counterrevolution in the Middle East and North Africa that was intended to roll back the gains of popular revolts that swept the region in 2011 as it was a tool in the kingdom’s 36-year old war against revolutionary Iran that gathered pace as the contours of a resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis became clear.
The Challenge of the Islamic State
Abstract: The Islamic State, proclaimed on 29 June 2014, has tremendously shaken up the Middle East and the whole world forcing hostile and friendly states alike to close ranks and create a collective military platform to fight and contain this new danger before it spirals out of control. This analysis probes the threats and the challenges the Islamic State, which has conquered and currently controls vast swathes across the Iraq – Syria borders, poses to the West and its Middle Eastern allies and examines why the challenges warranted a military response spearheaded by the US. It argues that the Islamic State poses formidable ideational challenges to the West, beyond its military threats to the Middle Eastern states, that question the very base and organizing principles of Western political order and the West’s dominance over the Middle East, what is better dubbed ‘Eurocentrism’ –a concept that articulates and sustains Western claim to universalism. Unless coerced into submission or at least militarily weakened, the IS holds the potential to successfully challenge eurocentric ideas with its own version of Islamic universalism.