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The Iraqi government is hamstrung by the very causes that are driving Iraqis to the streets

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by Gareth Jonas and Tom Webster

Tahrir Square (Liberation Square) with the Freedom Monument in the background – Baghdad, Iraq.
Source: Next Century Foundation

On October 25, thousands of Iraqi protesters mobilised throughout the country to commemorate the October 2019 “Tishreen Revolution,” with huge demonstrations in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the protest movement. Their latest demands? Much the same as the original grievances that first drew Iraqis to the streets last year: economic reform, and tackling corruption and constitutional change—albeit now with the additional call for justice for the 600 protesters killed by pro-Iran militia groups and security forces since the initial protests. Despite these waves of mass protest, progress continues to be extremely limited with the Iraqi state remaining constrained by pro-Iranian parties, economic crises, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The perpetuation of demonstrations since October 2019 highlights the limited progress made by the Iraqi state to address protester demands. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that further progress will be made anytime soon.

While the original grievances in October 2019 centred around corruption and a lack of economic opportunities, the extensive use of violence against protesters has since made security sector reform the core demand of protests. Yet, justice for the deaths of protesters continues to be absent, magnifying the glaring lack of accountability within the Iraqi security sector. The July raid in which 14 Kataib Hezbollah members were arrested, only to be released days later after threats from the group, underscores the difficulty Prime Minister Mustafa  Al-Kadhimi has in enforcing that accountability. Therefore, though Kadhimi has repeatedly emphasised his support for the protesters and dedication to serving justice for the ‘martyrs’ of the protests, his actions (or lack thereof) suggest that these are empty promises. Protesters’ concerns will be little allayed by the reinstatement of Abdel-Wahab al-Saadi to the head of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service. That was a victory for protesters, but a pyrrhic victory when one considers the death toll of the protests and the much more far-ranging demands to improve public safety. Today, protesters continue to place improved security and justice for the 600 or so killed protesters at the top of their agenda. That this remains the case six months after taking office, combined with the continued assassinations of high-profile activists and intellectuals across the summer, shows the evident lack of progress Kadhimi has been able to make in this area.

On the economy—the original core issue of protesters demands—the picture looks even bleaker. Mass rallies began in October 2019 in Tahrir Square calling for more job opportunities and improved services. One year on, it is hard to point at anything resembling progress as Iraq’s struggle with COVID-19 has only exacerbated its pre-existing economic woes and deprived the government of the resources to combat them. This, combined with the overinflated public sector, has led to a new strain of protests, in which medical workers and employees of the Ministry of Electricity across the country are demanding the disbursement of unpaid wages. It is thus apparent that Kadhimi has even more to contend with economically now than when he entered office.

The government’s greatest success in this area could be said to be the white paper published in October 2020 containing a historical diagnosis of Iraq’s financial woes and a prescription for a way out of it—by diversifying Iraq’s economy away from its dependence on oil whilst providing economic opportunities for Iraqis. It aims to achieve this by following International Monetary Fund guidelines which require spending cuts on basic needs such as health and education, alongside the devaluation of the currency to increase exports. However, the estimated 450 articles of legislation needed to be approved for the implementation of these recommendations are highly unlikely to pass due to opposition from various political parties who were not consulted, and little political will exists to pass them anyhow. As the country continues to teeter on the edge of an economic implosion, most protesters now seem resigned to simply wait out the pandemic until Iraq sees an increase in oil revenues.

There has also been very little progress towards domestic political reform. Calls for early elections and electoral reform to tackle corruption have increased throughout 2020 as protesters seek to do away with sectarian politics. Yet, the Iraqi Parliament is beset with factional infighting along sectarian lines as members of parliament continue to advance their individual and party interests at the cost of political reform. Whilst the recently passed electoral law goes some way towards weakening the dominance of traditional parliamentary blocs by dissolving provincial constituencies into electoral districts, protesters have accused it of dividing constituencies along ethnic and sectarian lines. This has effectively worked to buttress the reviled Muhasasa system; that is, the ethno-sectarian quotas by which cabinet positions are awarded amongst Iraq’s demographics. In addition, whilst early parliamentary elections have been scheduled for June 2021, the continued understaffing of the Independent High Electoral Commission and Federal Supreme Court—necessary to manage the elections and ratify the results—calls into question the current timeline for next year’s elections.

It is thus apparent that the majority of protesters’ demands have yet to be fulfilled, and the opportunity for progress in the short-term appears bleak. However, in considering the evolution of the protest movement’s response to the changing security and economic conditions that Iraq faces, we must acknowledge the limitations which the government faces in trying to meet many of the protesters’ demands. As a caretaker prime minister predominantly intended to navigate Iraq to new elections next year, whilst facing staunch opposition from pro-Iran parties and blocs in Parliament, there is little hard progress which Kadhimi can achieve. Nevertheless, the frustrations behind the protests are deep-set and not going away anytime soon. The antipathy voiced against Kadhimi at Tahrir Square in October was a significant moment in a movement which had hitherto been hesitant to criticise a leader who wants to clamp down on the militias and make progress on security and economy. The patience of protesters is quickly running out, so it seems as though Kadhimi will have to make a better effort in co-opting the energy of the streets if he is to bolster Iraq’s security and drive meaningful change in the lives of millions of Iraqis.

Gareth Jonas is a Regional Security Analyst at Le Beck International. He can be found tweeting about identity, ethnic conflict, and international security at @jonas_gareth.  He is a Senior Editor at Strife.

Tom Webster is a Regional Security Analyst at Le Beck International who has conducted extensive research on the Popular Mobilization Units and their place in Iraqi state-building.

Should Female Foreign Fighters be Repatriated?

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While as devoted as their male counterparts, female Jihadis are an underexplored topic of analysis in understanding racidalisation (Image credit: AFP)

It is a woman who teaches you today a lesson in heroism, who teaches you the meaning of Jihad, and the way to die a martyr‘s death … It is a woman who has shocked the enemy, with her thin, meager, and weak body … It is a woman who blew herself up, and with her exploded all the myths about women‘s weakness, submissiveness, and enslavement.

-Al-Sha’ab editorial, February 2002

Since the decline of Islamic State (IS), national governments are faced with the dilemma of leaving the remaining Jihadi foreign fighters and their families in Syria or repatriating them for prosecution in their home countries. This article focuses on the choice of the British Government to leave these individuals in Syria. It does so by discussing the associated difficulties to reintegrate jihadi women within society and its impact on existing counterterrorism (CT) strategies and de-indoctrination processes in the United Kingdom. Specifically, the role of female foreign fighters within the culture of Salafi-Jihadism remains underestimated, particularly with regards to their devotion to the cause and survival of the terrorist network.

Historically, a large participation of women in terrorists networks can be seen. According to Jessica Davis, female suicide bombers counted between twenty-eight to thirty-one per cent in Chechnya, while these numbers stand at fifty-four per cent in Nigeria. Similarly, during the 1970s and 1980s in the German Red Army, women counted for one third of the overall number. In the meantime, between 1986 and 2005, of the seventeen terrorist organisations which used suicide-bomb as a tactic, women were active in half of them. The article concludes that due to the lack of access to terrorist networks and their affiliated organisations, experts generally focus on male foreign fighters, as they cover positions of relevance within the organisation. In this sense, opting for repatriation of these individuals could result in a unique opportunity to advance the knowledge on rehabilitation and de-indoctrination procedures.

In terms of numbers, in 2017, there were over 40,000 jihadi fighters who travelled to Syria to fight under the banner of IS. Of the total number, thirteen per cent (or 4,761) were women, with another twelve per cent (4,640) were minors, who joined the terrorist grouping between 2013 and 2018. Since its defeat, around four-hundred foreign fighters, among them about fifty to sixty women, could or have returned to the United Kingdom (UK). A number of these women have not been able to return as Downing Street exercised its power to strip such citizens of their British nationality. This power, granted by the Immigration Act 2014, states that the British Government reserves the authority to deprive a person of their citizenship should that individual have conducted himself or herself in a manner that could compromise the UK’s interests.

One example of a female foreign fighter stripped of her British citizenship is Shamima Begum, a case which British newspaper put in the spotlights. The problem, however, is larger than her. Causing devastation on multiple occasions, the UK confronts a long history of home-grown terrorists which keep CT agencies in constant pursuit. One of the most prominent and famous cases is Samantha Lewthwaite also named the White Widow, the wife of the London 7/7 attacker, Germaine Lindsey, and currently on Interpol’s most-wanted list. Lewthwaite fake her detachment from her husband’s actions and beliefs and convinced the prosecutors of her innocence. She escaped British and European authorities disappearing shortly after. Lewthwaite is also linked to a series of other terror plots including the 2012 bombing in Kenya and in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013.

At present, the British government decided that foreign fighters should remain in Syrian prison camps. However, the terrorist threat continues, with al-Qaeda’s increased activity in the region could potentially see remaining IS fighters join, detainees released, and both groups absorbed into the Base’s operations. According to the head of MI6: ‘They are likely to have acquired both the skills and connections that make them potentially very dangerous and also experienced extreme radicalisation.’ In this sense, IS’ weaker presence in the region does not reflect a decrease in the overall influence of terrorist organisations, which are likely to benefit from the situation. At the same time, repatriating these individuals would likely result in a higher investment of resources for monitoring and de-indoctrination purposes. Such a development would add further pressure on the criminal justice system and counterterrorism units.

What makes female jihadi fighters so significant in light of such debates? Academics tend to focus primarily on the role of men in terrorist organisations as they cover positions of relevance. The lack of ample information regarding female fighters makes them equally dangerous, and all the more important to understand. Lacking the most up-to-date information on women’s ‘path to Jihad’ makes it difficult for Counterterrorism experts to produce appropriate de-indoctrination procedures fitting these profiles. However, from the available information on radicalisation and focusing on case studies in which women were the subjects, it is possible to understand this important element.

Women often cover ‘less visible,’ albeit critical roles within terrorist organisations. They are educators of the next generation, facilitators, and perpetrators of the jihadi cause through recruitment and management of finances displaying a deep devotion to the cause and a continuation of the religious struggle. The level of indoctrination they have been subjected to in their homes or in camps, but also due to the nature of the motivations for joining the organisations contests to this fact. Multiple psychologists including Yoram Schweitzer and Farhana Ali identified these causes as being much more personal for women. Indeed, they can be with the ‘Four Rs:’ Revenge (the loss of a dominant male in their lives such as husband, father or brother), Redemption (due to alleged or real sexual misconducts), Respect (inability to conceive children or being considered marriageable), and Relationship (being daughters, wives or sisters of well-known insurgents).

Based on their analysis, it is crucial to consider the individual’s unique path to radicalisation and indoctrination. Such a path is clearly based on personal experiences via the justification of events happening to them, their families, and their community. Specifically, each individual justifies the use of violence and the adoption of Islamic extremism based on how they interpret their familiar links to terrorists, often citing hatred against those who killed their family members, and even societal pressure. In a nutshell, ‘terrorist behavior is a response to the frustration of various political, economic, and personal needs or objectives.’ Therefore, this link between personal experiences and an individual’s personality transform women, who choose to follow the path of radicalisation, becoming strong believers in violent jihad and demonstrating extreme devotion to the cause.

To conclude, whether to support or criticise the British government on its decision to deny the return of these individuals depends on an in-depth and accurate analysis of the pros and cons of such decisions. The long history of home-grown terrorism in the United Kingdom constitutes an important element of analysis in the choice to repatriate or leaving these individuals in Syria. The example of Samantha Lewthwaite, for example, shows the difficulties associated with the processes of de-indoctrination. In this sense, women have demonstrated to cover essential roles in the fields of recruitment, finance, and perpetration of terrorism, showing a new way to interpret the figure of the ‘terrorist.’ Such a shift inspired scholars to coin an alternative version named the ‘female jihad,’ to understand female fighters’ unique path to radicalisation and, thus, creating a new window of analysis. In this context, repatriation ought to be seen as an opportunity to develop more rigorous de-indoctrination processes which are currently still in the pioneering stage, while using the protection of these individuals as examples to disillusion prospective foreign fighters.

Francesco Bruno is a full-time first-year PhD Candidate in Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, focusing on the organisational practices and choices of terrorist organizations with al-Qaeda as a primary case study. He received a BScEcon in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in 2016 before moving to the University of Manchester where he obtained a MA in Peace and Conflict Studies in 2017. During his studies, he took part in research trips in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda where he conducted fieldwork regarding the pacification and peace processes. Francesco’s main areas of interest span from Peace processes to state-building as well as counterterrorism and counterinsurgency with a focus on Afghanistan and Iraq

The Killing of Soleimani and its Implications for European Security

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by William Newland

Major General Qassem Soleimani was targeted and killing by a US drone strike on 3 January 2020 (Image credit: AP)

One will recall the airstrike launched by the United States military that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020. Initially, the response around the world was one of shock but this sentiment quickly shifted to fear as critics warned that the attack could trigger all-out war with Iran. In a press conference the next day, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the European response, stating that ‘what the American did, saved lives in Europe’ and Soleimani’s death ‘was a good thing for the entire world.’ While this assessment might prove to be correct for the immediate security of a small number of American and European troops, this piece argues that the security of European states has effectively decreased in the short- and long-term. Now, with a few months between us and the incident, it is time to take another look.

In the short-term, European security decreased for primarily two reasons. Firstly, Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes have already threatened the security of European and U.S. soldiers in military bases across the Middle East. It was sheer luck that only Iraqi soldiers were killed, preventing further escalation by the U.S. However, it is likely that Iran and its regional Shi’ite allies will continue to use their political influence to remove U.S. and allied presence from the region. In fact, only a few days after the attack, the Iraqi parliament chose to expel U.S. forces from Iraqi territory in a symbolic vote.

Secondly, Soleimani, in his role as commander of the Quds Force – subsidiary of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – was seen as an adversary by the West because of his role in training Hezbollah in Lebanon and using Shi’ite forces to attack U.S. soldiers during the Iraq War. Soleimani’s position also meant that he had a close relationship with Shi’ite militia groups such as the Popular Mobilisation Force, so much so that he became known to them as a ‘living martyr.’ Iran’s proxy forces have been among the loudest in calling for strong retaliation against the U.S. and its allies. Despite Iran’s close ties with these groups, the state’s lack of complete control over their actions creates the potential for a more dangerous, disproportionate, and prolonged response against allied forces in countries like Iraq.

European leaders have taken both these threats very seriously. Germany ordered the removal of thirty-five service members from Iraq, whilst other NATO member states have moved 500 of their personnel to safer areas in and around Iraq. Although these moves are certainly important for the immediate safety of European troops, they could enable the resurgence of the Islamic State which, in turn, would likely re-spark concerns of significant plans for terror attacks in Europe. If such fears bear fruit, then the consequences of the Trump Administration’s actions would have significantly contributed to European insecurity.

In the longer term, however, two other factors could further decrease the security of European states. The first is that of international law and norms which the US has prided itself on creating and upholding for over seventy years. Yet, for the international order to be effective and adhered to by others, it needs to be ‘visibly observed’ by its ‘principle and most powerful’ advocate. Here, the Trump administration has struggled to prove that the killing of Soleimani was a response to an “imminent” threat to US personnel, raising serious concerns as to whether it complied with international law. The fact that this killing was carried out by the US and that its legality is ambiguous casts doubts over the legitimacy of those laws and norms that undergird the liberal international order. Furthermore, the airstrike endangers European security because by targeting a high-ranking military official, the US has potentially set a new precedent that allows enemy states to engage in similar activity free from normative constraints. Simply put, adversaries now have an argument for targeting Western officials. We need only look at Russia’s justification for its invasion of Georgia in 2008 to show that states will point to US precedents to support their own actions. If the rules protecting states officials have changed, then the security of European officials has diminished.

The second point is that the Iranians have, in all but name, abandoned their compliance with the nuclear restrictions imposed by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran has stated that it will no longer adhere to the limits on the number of centrifuges it can install to enrich uranium or the level to which it enriches that heavy metal. This essentially brings Europe and the rest of the world back to the same place that they were ten years ago. Iran can now produce weapons-grade nuclear material and rather than the one-year warning period guaranteed by the JCPOA, the US, Europe, and the rest of the world could have as little as a few months warning of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

The very fact that Iran can once again produce its own nuclear weapons means that European guarantees of security have decreased, but that in itself is not the biggest worry. The greatest source of European insecurity would be caused by a US-Iran war. Despite the fact that both states have indicated a desire for de-escalation, tensions preceding the Soleimani’s death remain high and will only be compounded by the US becoming warier of Iranian nuclear proliferation going forward. Increased tension can increase the chance of the potential flashpoints in Syria, the Golan Heights, Iraq, or Yemen. Each of these separate boiling points can potentially trigger a larger military conflict that could see European citizens fighting alongside the US.

In conclusion, Secretary Pompeo may have been correct in his assertation that a small number of European lives were saved by the killing of Major General Soleimani. However, in the short term, there is an increased threat to NATO troops from proxy forces and an increased chance of a resurgent ISIS that could target European citizens. In the long-term, the US’s actions negatively impact the legitimacy of the international norms and set a dangerous precedent for states such as Russia whilst also increasing the chances of Iranian nuclear proliferation and the potential for a US-Iranian conflict in the future.

William Newland is a Master’s student in National Security Studies at King’s College London. His research focuses on grand strategy, national security, and great power competition, particularly on China’s rise, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and the potential security implications for the United States, Europe, and NATO.

Strife Feature | Sunni-Shia Conflicts: From A Trick To A Reality

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By Guillaume Beaud

Shia and Sunni worshippers join for a common pray in Kuwait, following the deadly terrorist attack at the Shia mosque in 2015 (credit: Fayçal Yasser, AA, Koweït)

Most Western observers analyse a vast majority of Middle-Eastern upheavals as a Sunni-Shia conflict. Increasingly mobilized since the King of Jordan Abdullah II warned about a “Shia Crescent” in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Syria, Yemen and the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia quickly fell into the Sunni-Shia analytical grid.[1] Since 1979, and more increasingly since the Arab Spring, Middle-Eastern states and non-state actors have abundantly mobilized communitarian differences – through a top-down discourse – to pursue their rational political agenda. Therefore, despite the initial irrelevance of an essentialist Sunni-Shia divide, oppositions have progressively materialized on the ground and in the collective imaginary, morphing from a mean to an end into a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

Essentialist Sunni-Shia theses are flawed

The death of Muhammad in AD 632 and the issue of his succession marked the theological split between Sunnis and Shias. Nonetheless, the following centuries reflected a low level of conflict between the two communities. There was a substantive mixture between Sunnis and Shias – especially within Iraqi tribes – in the Gulf region, thanks also to movements like the Sufi Brotherhood that built trans-Islamic bridges. Their relations were defined by pragmatism rather than theological ideals, and tensions existed between different schools of Sunnism. These developments made Sunni-Shia confessional differences irrelevant to such an extent that Al-Azhar theologians wondered whether the distinction should be kept and thought about incorporating the

These developments made Sunni-Shia confessional differences irrelevant to such an extent that Al-Azhar theologians wondered whether the distinction should be kept and thought about incorporating the Jafarit school of Shiism as the 5th school of Islam. In the early 1970s, it is important to recall the universalist, left-wing and trans-Islamist vocation of Iranian revolutionary discourses, embodied by the prevailing “Khomeiny-Arafat” rhetoric.

From the 16th century onwards, Sunni-Shia differences started to become instruments mobilized by increasingly centralistic political entities. [2] The Safavid Empire converted Iran to Shiism to oppose the Sunni Ottoman Empire – a political decision without religious roots. Similarly, seeking legitimacy in faith, Saudis made their fundamental pact with Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, father of Wahhabism in 1744. However, Iranian defeats against Russia in the early 19th century induced the idea amongst Iranian intellectuals that Islam engendered Iran’s backwardness. Shiism therefore ceased to be a strong marker of identity until 1979 and was substituted by the Persian/Arab dichotomy. Additionally, the fall of the Ottoman Empire induced ever-growing nationalistic differences across the Near-East, marginalizing Sunni-Shia differences. Moreover, the post-1945 decolonisation era showed the influence of emerging transnational ideologies: an Arab nationalism rooted in anti-imperialism and Marxism. While Baathist regimes embodied this left-wing and secular dimension, Iran under the Shah also demonstrated a strong secularism.

1979 – increasing politicisation of the Sunni-Shia divide

The Ayatollah Khomeini speaks to followers at Behesht Zahra Cemetery after his arrival in Tehran, Iran, ending 14 years of exile, Feb. 1 , 1979. Khomeini prayed for the victims of the Islamic struggle against the Shah of Iran. (AP Photo/FY)

However, the Iranian Revolution in 1979 marked a turning point through two parallel and correlated dynamics. The first was a discourse vacuum that was created following the weakening of Marxism and anti-imperialism, as Arab authoritarianism drew closer relations with the West. Also, pan-Arab mobilisation around the Palestinian question was diluted, as Egypt, Algeria, and Syria – facing internal political problems – were no longer active. The second consisted in a shifting rhetoric enacted by Ayatollah Khomeini, who established Iran’s theological-political system that embodied an expansionist ideal, and supported groups having Shia agendas in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Bahrain. Here, the Sunni-Shia divide was politically mobilized as an Iranian nationalist tool, filling the contextual discourse vacuum described above. In response, Sunni states filled the same vacuum, using Sunnism as an instrument of propaganda and mobilization against Iran.

The 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war was the first conflict intensively mobilizing the Sunni-Shia divide as a state-led rhetorical tool, with Iran exploiting symbols such as Hussein’s martyrdom.[3] Yet, the Iran/Iraq war was predominantly a war of nationalism and not of religion. Indeed, (1) Saddam’s Baathist regime was a secular movement; (2) Iraqi Shias and Iranian Sunnis did not turn against their respective countries; and (3) during the war and the embargo, most Iranian networks went through Dubai to the Sunni-dominated United Arab Emirates. Rational and realpolitik assumptions dictated Iranian foreign policy and led Iran to build relations with Ghadafi’s Libya and the PLO against Israel. The Sunni-Shia rhetoric was an instrument mobilized by nation-states to legitimize their foreign policies. In fact, if Islam is pivotal since 1979, it is not through a Shia/Sunni conflict, but through two conflicting visions of Islam: political Islam –  then embodied by Iran – against the secular Islam of Baathist regimes.[4]

However, not only societies started to integrate this polarisation into their actions and identity affiliations, but also external actors did the same, either when (1) falling in the trap and analysing oppositions through a biased Sunni-Shia grid; or (2) consciously using this artificial dichotomy for specific political agendas. These dynamics ultimately induced Sunni and Shia doctrinal hardenings. it is the beginning of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The Sunni-Shia divide is not the starting point, it is the mean that tends to become the end.

Iraq since 2003: from American “debaathification” to ISIS

In Iraq, the self-fulfilling prophecy was tragically induced by the United States, falling into the trap of the Sunni-Shia divide. Indeed, American “debaathification” initiated in 2003 structured the Iraqi political system with communitarian affiliations. Shias were encouraged to take control of State institutions, progressively excluding Sunnis, seen as responsible for decades of authoritarian ostracism. Shia President Nouri al-Maliki used this confessional rhetoric to assert power.[5] Sunni frustrations led numerous former Baath officers to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and its strong anti-Shia agenda. Manipulated by propaganda, local and foreign actors, which now define themselves by their religious community, are victims of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Syria: how Alawis suddenly became Shias

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency on 29 May 2014 showing supporters of President Bashar al-Assad in Latakia (AFP/SANA)

In Syria, the Alawi minority in power is defined as Shia by four actors: (1) Iran and the Hezbollah, to justify their long-lasting involvement in Syria; (2) the Syrian regime; (3) Sunni terrorist movements to boost their recruitment effort amongst Sunni communities; and (4) the international community. In the case of the latter, Western media naively fell into the trap of the Sunni-Shia analysis, while Western states, guilty for having formerly destabilized the region, blamed the so-called Sunni-Shia confrontation. In fact, the Alawis’ affiliation with Shiism – and even with Islam – has always been contested by both Shias and Sunnis, who see Alawism as sectarian and heterodox, adopting flexible religious practices including drinking alcohol, not fasting during Ramadan nor making the pilgrimage. However, Iran nowadays artificially defines Alawis as Shias to legitimize its military presence in Syria and hide its genuine motivations: keeping Assad in power to maintain its strategic depth in the Near-East and its effective supply to the Hezbollah. What originally was an Arab Spring emancipation-fight progressively transformed into a genuine Sunni-Shia religious conflict. In fact, Osama Bin Laden expected religious uprisings to emerge across the Arab World earlier; while the nature of the Arab Spring made him wrong, the self-fulfilling prophecy and the “return of the Sacred” tend to make his observations a posteriori right.

Yemen: a proxy war without religious root

The Saudi-led operation “Decisive Storm”attempts to hide Saudi Arabia’s hegemonic pretentions, through building a proxy war in Yemen through a Sunni-Shia rhetoric (credit: Fayed Nureldin, AFP)

The same process applies in Yemen. The Sunni-Shia divide is mobilized by both internal actors – Houthi rebels religiously affiliated as Zaydi, and terrorist groups, Al-Qaeda (AQAP), and ISIS – and external actors – Saudi Arabia and Iran. To the same extent as Alawism, Zaydism is distant from duodecimal Shiism, in fact being particularly close to Sunnism; Zaydis even pray in the same mosques as the Sunnis. Moreover, Zaydis’ first revolts date from 2004 to 2010, when Yemen was ruled by Ali Abdullah Saleh, Zaydi himself, who later joined Houthis in their fight to conquer Sanaa. Moreover, Zaydis’ first revolts date from 2004 to 2010, when Yemen was ruled by Ali Abdullah Saleh, Zaydi himself, who later joined Houthis in their fight to conquer SanaaThis political about-face demonstrates the irrelevance of the confessional grid. Indeed, initial upheavals reflected a minority who saw its geographical isolation in North Yemen’s mountains transforming into political and economic isolation. Nonetheless, actors developed an interest in mobilising the Sunni-Shia divide, through associating Zaydis to Shias. First, Saudi Arabia’s initiative to build a Sunni military coalition to fight Houthi rebels and exacerbate the Sunni-Shia rhetoric should be understood through two factors. The first is realpolitik: the will to assert its regional hegemony in deciding who rules its main neighbour, to access vital Red Sea shipping routes, in the context of collapsing oil prices and declining American support. The second factor is domestic policy: counter domestic contestation movements through criminalizing its Shia minority, denounced as Iran’s “5th column”, to gather the Sunni majority around the monarchy. Secondly, Iran uses the Sunni-Shia polarisation to increase its regional counterweight against Saudi Arabia, especially in countries with Shia minorities. Thirdly, Houthis benefit from Iran’s so-called “Shia solidarity” to gain military support and political legitimacy. Finally, as in Syria, terrorists benefit from the situation for recruitment purposes. Therefore, Saudi Arabia and Iran transformed the Yemeni civil war into a proxy war, through exploiting the Sunni-Shia divide. While Iran uses Yemen as a Trojan Horse, Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic links with Iran after executing the anti-government Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr in 2016. Once again, the self-prophecy materializes

A self-fulfilling prophecy

In the Middle East, most uprisings lie in economic and political contestation, and conflicts are based on national interests. Yet, the Iranian Revolution revived a tool hitherto set aside by common ideologies and secularism. To hide and pursue their political agenda, actors use the so-called Sunni-Shia divide as an instrument. This analytical grid is progressively accepted by (1) Middle-Eastern communities interiorizing pre-supposed “historical” religious identities; and (2) an international opinion victim of its own interests and of its tendency to analyse oppositions through simplistic confessional differences. The Arab Spring has amplified the states’ confessional rhetoric to counter the one of emancipation. Eventually, this Sunni-Shia polarisation has become a reality. Yet, mechanisms are purely political, in fact, closer to Cold War mechanisms than to those of an irreconcilable theological opposition.

Guillaume Beaud is a final-year French student reading for a BA in European Studies. His research areas include geopolitics of the Middle-East, Iran, radical Islam and European foreign policy.

Notes

[1] King Abdullah II, Interview at the Washington Post, 8th December 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43980-2004Dec7.html

[2] – Cvach, D. & Curmi, B. (2015) Sunnites et chiites: la fabrique d’un conflit, Esprit n°10.

[3] Third imam recognized by the Shias, Hussein’s death during the Karbala battle (680 AD) while fighting the Sunni Omayyad empire has a predominant Shia symbolic significance.

[4] This analytical grid will be largely addressed in the following article

[5] O’Driscoll, D. (2017) Authonomy impaired : Centralisation, Authoritarianism and the Failing Iraqi State, Ethnopolitics.

– The Sunni/Shia Divide, Council on Foreign Relations. Available on: http://www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176#!/?cid=otr-marketing_url-sunni_shia_infoguide

– Cvach, D. & Curmi, B. (2015) Sunnites et chiites: la fabrique d’un conflit, Esprit n°10.

– Minority Rights Group, Still Invisible, the stigmatisation of Shi’a and other religious minorities in Saudi Arabia, 3rd December 2015.

– O’Driscoll, D. (2017) Authonomy impaired : Centralisation, Authoritarianism and the Failing Iraqi State, Ethnopolitics.

Image sources

Image 2: Associated Press

Image 3: http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/syrias-alawites-not-deserting-assad-yet-despite-crackdown-526622504

 

Elite Loyalty: The Durability of Ideological Bonds in the Islamic State

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By: William McHenry

Iraqi armed forces retake the town of Fallujah from ISIS.
Iraqi armed forces retake the town of Fallujah from ISIS.

During the last decade, the United States (U.S.) has engaged in protracted military conflicts with Islamist extremist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS). In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. committed immense resources to counter-insurgency campaigns waged against such extremist groups. Throughout these military campaigns, policymakers have focused on improving the US and allied military capabilities, rather than expanding the institutional knowledge necessary to understand the potency of extremist ideology. The way in which the ISIS responds to threats reveals a significant amount of the durability of the ideological bonds of its leaders. More particularly, ISIS has an ideological core that has allowed it to retain a fighting capacity well beyond the point where it would appear rational for its members to defect and for the organisation to collapse. Observations from the ground seem to support this argument. In Anbar province, Iraq military leadership has attributed recent military victories against ISIS to the withdrawal of its leaders from the battlefield before coalition forces arrive. Therefore, coalition forces should re-examine military strategy with the Islamic State, because it has durable ideological bonds that subsume individual survival into the survival of the organisation.

The Rise of ISIS

The founding of the Islamic State has its roots in real or perceived exclusion of Sunnis from political and economic processes in post-Saddam Iraq and Syria. Hence, ISIS’ ideology is ‘couched in a sectarian existential crisis’.[1] Additionally, it blames external power, namely the United States and Iran, for economic hardships and military incursions. Consequently, the Islamic State draws its appeal by waging jihad against such powers. ‘ISIS ideology began with Sunni grievances and is underpinned by religious beliefs”.[2] Sunni victimhood and Islamist extremism is ISIS’ main rallying cry.[3]

The rise of ISIS between 2010 and 2014 can be defined as the inculcation of this ideology among ISIS elites. During this period, the organisations’s leadership that consists of former Ba’athist party members and veterans of the Iraqi and Afghanistan insurgencies began to tie their fates to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the leader of the Islamic State). These elites achieved strategic goals through implementing theocratic repression and seizing significant amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria.[4] Moreover, they made progress toward their long-term goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate. Today many elites have doubts about its global apocalyptic goals, yet, feel obliged to maintain absolute loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISIS’ leaders recognised that a coherent ideology is necessary for recruitment and group cohesion. According a journal that describes the ISIS’ structure, ‘A criminal [ISIS] cartel is unlikely to generate enthusiasm among supporters around the world, who are willing to give up their lives to travel to the ‘Caliphate’ and potentially their deaths’.[5] Furthermore, many ISIS’ leaders are former members of Saddam’s secular Ba’ath regime who realised the significance of having a charismatic leader to give the organisation an appealing ideology. Indeed, the Islamic State has adopted a similar leadership structure to the Baathist party. [6] Most experts argue that ISIS’ strategic victories are related to this perverse combination of ideological fanaticism and former Baathist thuggery.[7] As the caliphate has grown, the illusory power of the ‘caliph’ has expanded as its leaders perceive themselves as re-ordering the region and re-imagining Islamic identity.

Policy Implications: The Durability of the Islamic State’s Ideology

How can the U.S. defeat a group that has cultivated such durable elite loyalty? Recent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East indicates that the current approach to fighting extremists focused solely on improving military capacity is flawed.[8] The emergence of the ISIS surprised most policymakers due to the group’s perceived lack of military capacity.[9] Yet, ISIS captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, by defeating a garrison of 30,000 Iraqi Armed Forces with only a small force between 800 and 1,500 fighters.[10] In response to its initial success in Mosul, it has experienced substantial military pressure from the U.S.-backed Operation Inherent Resolve anti-ISIS coalition. Despite this military pressure, the group has sustained only tactical (objective based) rather than strategic (enduring) defeats.[11] Walt therefore identifies one of the most difficult challenges facing the current anti-ISIS campaign: the lack of understanding of its social foundations.[12]

First, the US should link military support to the Iraqi Armed Forces with mandated Sunni participation in the Iraqi central government and re-structure the Iraqi government along the lines of the current Lebanese model. Ethnic inclusion and reconciliation within the Lebanese government helped resolve a similarly violent sectarian civil war in Lebanon. A similar political reconciliation with Sunni tribes will undermine its constitutive story of ethnic victimhood and absolutism. Third, requiring Sunni participation in Iraq’s political future could also create incentives for elite defections within the Islamic State. If elites perceive a political future for Sunnis in Iraq, there will be a greater probability they detach themselves from ISIS’s murderous ideology

We can already observe that the group has become more paranoid about leadership defections. These policies will damage ISIS’ military capacity more than the deployment of further conventional resources. If the U.S. does not adopt these strategies, it will continue to have its regional interests in the Middle East threatened by ISIS and similar organisations with potent and durable ideological bonds.

William McHenry is an independent research analyst focused on U.S. foreign policy, grand strategy, and national identity. He holds a Master’s Degree from the American University School of International Service and tweets at @wmchenry  

Notes:

[1] Arango, Tim. “A Tour of Falluja Reveals Grim Remnants of Life Under ISIS.” The New York Times. June 22, 2016.

[2] Chulov, Martin. “Why Isis Fights | Martin Chulov.” The Guardian. September 17, 2015

[3] Smith, Rogers “Citizenship and the politics of people-building,” Citizenship Studies 5, 1 (2001), 73-96.

[4] Chulov, Martin. “Why Isis Fights | Martin Chulov.” The Guardian. September 17, 2015

[5] Reuter, Christoph. “The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State – SPIEGEL ONLINE.” Spiegel Online. April 18, 2015.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Weiss, Michael, Martin Chulov, and Jade Parker. The Inner Workings of ISIS. Proceedings of The Inner    Workings of ISIS, Atlantic Council, Washington DC. Washington DC: Atlantic Council, 2016

[8] Youssef, Nancy, and Tim Mak. “Obama’s General Just Set an ISIS War Plan on Fire.” The Daily Beast. September 15, 2016

[9] “The Mystery of ISIS.” The New York Review of Books. N.p., 13 Mar. 2015. Web. 04 Mar. 2016.

[10] Knights, Michael. “Battle for Mosul: Critical Test Ahead for Iraq.” BBC News. June 11, 2014.

[11] Weiss, Michael, Martin Chulov, and Jade Parker. The Inner Workings of ISIS. Proceedings of The Inner Workings of ISIS, Atlantic Council, Washington DC. Washington DC: Atlantic Council, 2016

[12] Walt, Stephen M. “ISIS as Revolutionary State.” Foreign Affairs. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.

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