Editorial
One of the worst effects of the rise of the global village, free trade and open market economy is the reckless expansion of the media moguls who have gained control of major newspapers, radio networks and television channels.
Global media empires are not necessarily a bad thing, if they hold the so-called world powers in to account and question their incursions in to sovereign territories in the guise of quelling terrorism and rouge leaders. Entering other countries without invitation (for heaven’s sake, somebody – or at least the people themselves should do so) has not worked anywhere in the world, least of all in the Middle East, where religious fervour runs high.
We have seen such meddlesome adventures spell disaster in many parts of the region- first it was in Jerusalem, then it was Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Jordan and now Syria.
When the Arab Spring began to spread its wings in 2011, most people saw it as a failed democratic revolution. Jihadists viewed the various uprisings very differently. For them, the events in 2011-2012 and their turbulent aftermath heralded the advent of the Mahdi, the Muslim messiah, and the great battles that would accompany the End of Days, the Islamic equivalent of Armageddon. They sensed a double opportunity. Hastening the apocalypse was a sharp spur to action and recruitment; the Arab spring had helpfully created power vacuums that they could rush to fill.
William McCants has produced a number of works that throw light on many of the developments in the Middle East, linking to their authors elsewhere in the West. The two themes, namely Apocalypse and Jihad come together in his fascinating study of the ‘Islamic State,’ more commonly known now as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
More than ten books have remerged in recent years analysing the origins of the Islamic State, more importantly the reasons for their rise. These recount how the group emerged in Iraq in 2006, established itself in Syria in 2011 and swept back into Iraq last year.
Mr McCants is an Islamic specialist at Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, and co-editor of a respected website (jihadica.com). His contribution is to provide something close to an inside account by drawing on leaked or captured e-mails and other messages.
ISIS and the global movement from which it sprang emerge as a sprawling, quarrelsome, frequently dysfunctional extended family. In its first incarnation, the self-styled state was a disaster. Its figurehead Emir, an Iraqi, was a former small-town policeman with no religious qualifications. Its real leader, an Egyptian, was rash and incompetent.
By the time they were killed by American and Iraqi forces in 2010, IS was a spent force—and a cause of deep embarrassment to its anxious parent, the Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. He had vainly urged it to calibrate its violence and win local hearts and minds before rushing to declare a state.
He watched helplessly as it failed and, in doing so, besmirched his brand.
Mr McCants sets out to analyse exactly how ISIS revived to become the fearsome thing it is today. His explanation is essentially threefold. First, a more credible leadership emerged. The new Emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claimed descent from the Prophet, had a degree in Quranic studies, and was shrewd and well-connected. Helping him consolidate power was the sinister Hajji Bakr, a bald, white-bearded former colonel in Saddam Hussein’s army, whose first act was a Saddam-like purge of potential rivals.
Second, events in Syria between 2011 and 2014 played into IS’s hands, giving it a powerful new base and precipitating the final break with Al Qaeda. Their divorce, which Mr McCants says was “the biggest split ever in the global jihadist community,’ left ISIS pre-eminent and Al Qaeda gravely weakened.
Third, IS’s proclamation in 2014 of the restoration of the caliphate (in Islamic prophecy, one of the portents of the apocalypse) proved to be a masterstroke. Bin Laden had paid lip-service to the idea but had never taken it very seriously. When ISIS threw caution to the wind, many Muslims around the world rushed to fight under its black banner. The movement soon had an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters.
As the Economist said, Syria gets the lion’s share of the world’s attention, but in Iraq, after months of stalemate, the battle against Islamic State (IS) is at last hotting up. On October 7th the Iraqi army, local police and some tribal fighters, supported by both coalition and Iraqi air strikes, launched a big push to encircle and eventually retake Ramadi, the capital city of mainly Sunni Anbar province west of Baghdad which fell to ISIS in May.
The new push involves new tactics: big simultaneous attacks in places nearly 250km apart will stretch IS. And the deliberate division of labour between the Hashid Al Shabi militias and the government-controlled Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) may be even more significant.
