The organization
abbreviated as ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is not a newfound expression of the crises afflicting Arab societies at a moment
of profound transformations, initiated by 2011 revolutions.
To the contrary,
ISIS is the offspring of more than one father, and the product of more than one
longstanding and widespread sickness. The organization’s explosive growth today
is in fact the result of previously existing, worsening conflicts that were
caused by the different fathers.
ISIS is first the
child of despotism in the most heinous form that has plagued the region.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that we see its base, its source of strength
concentrated in Iraq and Syria, where Saddam Hussein and Hafez and Bashar Al-Assad
reigned for decades, killing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying
political life, and deepening sectarianism by transforming it into a mechanism
of exclusion and polarization, to the point that injustices and crimes against
humanity became commonplace.
ISIS is second the progeny
of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, both the way in which it was
initially conducted and the catastrophic mismanagement that followed.
Specifically, it was the exclusion of a wide swath of Iraqis from post invasion
political processes and the formation of a new authority that discriminated
against them and held them collectively at fault for the guilt of Saddam and
his party, which together enabled groups (such as those first established by
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) whose activities have been resumed by ISIS to get in
touch with some parts of Iraqi society and to establish itself among them.
ISIS is third the
son of Iranian aggressive regional policies that have worsened in recent years
— taking Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria as its backyard, feeding (directly or
indirectly) confessional divisions and making these divides the backbone of
ideological mobilization and a policy of revenge and retaliation that has
constructed a destructive feedback loop.
ISIS is fourth the
child of some of the Salafist networks in the Gulf (in Saudi Arabia and other
states), which emerged and developed throughout the 1980s, following the oil
boom and the “Afghan jihad”. These networks have continued to operate and
expand throughout the last two decades under various names, all in the interest
of extremism and obscurantism.
ISIS is fifth the
offspring of a profound crisis, deeply rooted in the thinking of some Islamist
groups seeking to escape from their terrible failure to confront the challenges
of the present toward a delusional model, believing that they have found within its imaginary folds the answer
to all contemporary or future questions.
ISIS is sixth the
progeny of violence, or of an environment that has been subjected to striking
brutality, which has allowed the growth of nihilism and facilitated the
emergence of what could be called “ISISism”. Like Iraq previously, Syria today
has been abandoned beneath explosive barrels to become a laboratory, a testing
ground for violence, daily massacres and their outcomes.
ISIS, an abominable,
savage creature, is thus the product of at least these six fathers. Its
persistency depends on the continuation of these aforementioned elements,
particularly the element of violence embodied by the Assad regime in Syria.
Those who think that they should be impartial toward or even support tyrants
like Assad in the fight against ISISism fail to realize that his regime is in
fact at the root of the problem.
Until this fact is
recognized — that despotism is the disease and not the cure — we can only
expect more deadly repercussions, from the Middle East to the distant corners of
the globe…
Ziad Majed
Translated from Arabic (first published in June 2014) by Jeff Regger
