(This is a old essay I wrote btw)

In my extended essay, I will be examining the research question: To what extent is the rise of ISIS fueled by political or sectarian factors? There are no clear answers as to why ISIS arose, however, political scientists have begun to a***yse the various events that took place in the Middle East in recent years, to reach an answer. In global politics, experts will always utilise theories to help understand the various political events of the modern day. While there are a multitude of competing theories, for this essay, I will be focusing on how the rise of ISIS can be understood through both liberalist and realist perspectives. Realists believe in a continuity between the politics of history and the present day, and that most political decisions are motivated by a desire for power, while Liberalists generally disregard history in their a***ysis as they believe that the modern political world is fundamentally different from how it was historically. To support the realist perspective I examine how the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the political mismanagement of Syria, and Syria’s regional political strategy in the 2000s led to the rise of ISIS, while in examining points that support the liberalist perspective, I will examine how Nouri al-Maliki’s and Bashar al-Assad’s sectarian policies lead to the rise of ISIS, while relying on the writings of journalists Weiss, Warrick, Zakaria, religious experts like Armstrong, as well as studies on the situation provided by the EU and Gleick. Understanding the reasons for the rise of ISIS is particularly important as the rise of ISIS was a rather sudden and unexpected phenomenon, which has had long-lasting effects on global politics as a field, and in the literal sense. Understanding the reasons for the rise of such a group can help in future conflict prevention and peacemaking efforts to help maintain a peaceful world.
A***ysis:
Firstly, to support the realist perspective, that the rise of ISIS is due to international, regional, and national-level political factors, one could mention how Saudi Arabia’s aggressive propagation of Wahhabism, starting in the 1960s and continuing until the present day, led to the rise of ISIS. To understand Wahhabism’s role in the rise of ISIS, as well as other extremist groups like Al Qaeda or Jabhat al-Nusra, one must understand the history of the ideology of Wahhabism. Wahhabism began in the 1700s and was pioneered by the cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who, through his alliance with the founder of the First Saudi State and progenitor of the House of Saud, Muhammad bin Saud, spread his ideology from the most remote parts of the Arabian Peninsula to the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina (Zakaria). Wahhabism advocated a return to the purity of the Salaf, or the first three generations of Muslims, thus disregarding all Islamic scholarship after the Salaf, considered Wahhabism as the one true form of Islam, rejecting all other forms of Islam, and believed in a strict interpretation of Sharia law (Armstrong). In the following years, Wahhabism became far more violent as it was used as a political tool of the First Saudi State to justify the conquest of the Arabian peninsula, specifically through the practice of takfir, or declaring non-Wahhabi Muslims as heretics deserving of death (Armstrong). This violence reached a tipping point in 1801, when the First Saudi State sacked the sacred Shia city of Karbala, desecrated the tomb of Imam Hussein, and slaughtered thousands of Shia civilians, prompting the Ottoman authorities to intervene against the First Saudi State and crushing it a few years later (Armstrong). Wahhabism re-emerged in the early 20th century, during the conquests of Abdelaziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was during his reign that the Saudis discovered oil and began to amass a great fortune (Zakaria). In the 1960s, the Saudi state ideology of Wahhabism came in contact with another puritanical form of Islam called Salafism, after giving sanctuary to members of the Salafist Muslim Brotherhood (Armstrong). Salafism developed across the Muslim world in the 20th century, largely in reaction to Western imperialism, and, like Wahhabism, advocated a return to the lifestyle of the Salaf (Stanford). Salafism, like Wahhabism in its early stages, was largely apolitical and non-violent, as it was seen as a way of life rather than a political force (Stanford). There were exceptions like the Muslim Brotherhood, which sought to promote Salafism within a democratic politcal framework, but it was still a farcry from the militancy of the First Saudi State, or of modern groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda (Stanford). Beginning in the 1960s, the Saudis, using their oil fortune, began to propagate their previously obscure, state ideology, primarily as a strategy of furthering their international political influence across the muslim world (Zakaria). During this period, the Saudis, seeing Salafism as more marketable, began to appropriate the “symbolism and language of Salafism” (El Fadel), making Salafism and Wahhabism “practically indistinguishable” (El Fadel). Furthermore, the Saudis have spent “tens of billions of dollars to promote Wahhabism throughout the Islamic world, through the construction, support and operation of mosques, madrasas and other religious institutions preaching the Wahhabist doctrine.” (El Fadel) (Antunez) In such mosques, the Saudis ensured that these mosques were led by Wahhabi preachers and in such madrasas, the Saudis “provided free education for the poor” with “a Wahhabi curriculum.” (Armstrong) In addition, the Saudi Ministry of Religion printed Wahhabi translations of the Quran, as well as Wahhabi ideological texts that they distributed internationally (Armstrong). As a result, Wahhabism began to sideline and/or substitute local, more lenient forms of Islam. (Dawood) Saudi Arabia’s prolonged propaganda campaign most certainly left its mark on the Muslim world, giving a generation of Muslims a “negative view of other faiths and an intolerantly sectarian understanding of their own,” (Armstrong) certainly providing conditions from which extremism can arise. Considering how many of the infamous extremist groups of today like ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Jabhat al Nusra are all Wahhabist in orientation, there is definitely a strong positive correlation between the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism and the rise of such groups, many of which operate from Syria today, a reality that seems odd considering that the Syrian Civil War began primarily as a secular uprising against the Assad regime. In the case of Syria, one of the birthplaces of ISIS, it is worth examining how the Syrian Civil War went from a secular revolution to one dominated by Wahhabist militant groups to truly grasp the role Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism has had on the rise of ISIS. In the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, while most of the rebel groups were secular in nature, there were always Wahhabist groups present, albeit a small number. These groups typically worked together in offensives against the regime regardless of ideology (Moniqeut). However, as the war dragged on, supplies began to dwindle for the mainstream, secular rebel groups, as the West refused to provide funding for them (Weiss). To relieve this problem, both the Saudis and Qataris began providing light arms to various rebel groups, however, “most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al Assad” went “to hard-line Islamic jihadists.” (Moniquet) (Sanger) As a result, Wahhabist groups were typically better equipped than secular ones (Moniquet). Because of this, many secular rebels began to join Wahhabist groups, simply because they were the best equipped to fight the regime. (Moniquet) In addition, groups that were initially secular “began to adopt the symbols, rhetoric associated with Salafism” (Moniquet) for the purpose of receiving funding. Many of these Wahhabist groups came to support or were absorbed by ISIS just a few years later. The Saudi international-level strategy of spreading Wahhabism to improve their influence among muslims, first, through the use of soft power, through information campaigns, and later, through the use of smart power, by funding Wahhabi militant groups in Syria, most certainly played a role in the rise of ISIS, but the reason for ISIS’s rise, specifically in Syria and Iraq, has yet to be explored fully.
Secondly, realists could support their point of view, that the rise of ISIS is due to political reasons, by mentioning how the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq, primarily as a show of hard power, and the US’s subsequent failure to govern or secure the country, primarily because of the lack of accountability of the Bush administration, for fear of political retribution back home, provided the conditions for the rise of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, later known as ISIS. Iraq was the birthplace of ISIS, and understanding the conditions in Iraq that lead to the birth of the group is vital to understanding its rise. In 2003, the US declared war on the secular, Iraqi Baathist government of Saddam Hussein, and within a few weeks, toppled the longstanding dictator of the country, beginning the US occupation of Iraq. The situation remained relatively peaceful in the months following the regime’s defeat, leading George Bush to give his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in May 2003, essentially declaring victory in Iraq (Warrick). The US had yet to understand how the toppling of Saddam Hussein had upset the regional balance of power and had opened a power vacuum, one in which was soon to be filled by various insurgencies. The US further exacerbated the problem as they both humiliated the Iraqi population, “looting everything from government offices to priceless museum artifacts” (Warrick) and failed to secure and manage the country following the invasion, as they were more focused on proving terrorist links to Saddam Hussein, or that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, to politically justify their invasion. (Warrick) The incompetence of the US allowed insurgents to operate freely. (Warrick) Various Wahhabist insurgents, like Ansar al Islam, and Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, the group that would later become ISIS, had a presence in Iraq before the invasion, albeit an insignificant local-level one in the north of the country (Weiss). Zarqawi’s Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, as well as other Sunni Wahhabist insurgents only gained national support in Iraq, following the US’s shortsighted post-invasion policies, generally known today as De-Baathification. De-Baathification, beginning in May 2003, involved the dissolution of both the Iraqi army and the Baath party, as well as the barring of members of either entity from being employed in the future (Warrick) (Weiss). In pre-invasion Iraq, anyone seeking management jobs in any field, as well as anyone applying to universities “was obliged to join the Baath party” (Warrick) and so overnight, tens of thousands of Iraqis “had to fend for themselves without salaries or pensions” (Warrick). The policy of de-Baathification led to the widespread disenfranchisement of Iraq’s Sunni heartland, depriving them of any opportunities to function in the new Iraqi state (Warrick). In the Sunni heartland, unemployment soared; for example, “unemployment in Mosul hovered at around 75 percent” (Weiss). In one move, the US “had stripped power from Iraq’s long-dominant Sunni tribes and handed it over to Shiites” (Warrick). The general disenfranchisement of Sunnis and Baathists, led to them being susceptible to recruitment by Zarqawi’s Jama’at al Tawhid wal-Jihad, in addition to other Baathist insurgency groups. Zarqawi, capitalizing on this, began hiring local disaffected Sunnis, “to carry out terrorist operations for as little as fifty dollars” (Weiss); some offered “safe houses, intelligence, cash, and weapons, including, investigators later concluded, the aerial munitions and artillery shells that provided the explosive force for Zarqawi’s biggest car bombs” (Warrick). As for the Baathists, many of the high ranking military and intelligence personnel “enlisted in Zarqawi’s army, and some rose to leadership positions” (Warrick). Zarqawi also maintained friendly relations with pre-existing Baathist insurgents, later absorbing many of them into his own movement (Weiss). Zarqawi’s movement was Wahhabist in outlook, and ruthlessly sectarian (Weiss). While Zarqawi had pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, he more readily utilized takfir and had a certain ire for the Shias of Iraq, mirroring the furious sectarianism peddled by ISIS some ten years later (Warrick). Zarqawi’s personal bloodthirst, was certainly reflected in the actions of his group as well, as Jama’at al Tawhid wal-Jihad was responsible for the targeting of Shia holy cites such as the 2003 bombing of Imam Ali Mosque in Kufa, as well as the 2004 Ashura bombings in Karbala, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Shia civilians (Warrick). Such sectarian atrocities infuriated and mobilized Shia militias like the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, who responded with sectarian atrocities of their own (Weiss). The US was late in responding to the rise of the insurgency as when officials in the Bush administration were alerted of the insurgency in its early stages, they generally ignored and covered up the reports, in an attempt to maintain public support back home (Warrick). When the US finally began to act, the situation had already spiralled out of control. By the mid-2000s, sectarian violence was at its peak and in 2005, Zarqawi’s group, now named Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as the various Baathist insurgencies, enforced a Sunni election boycott, essentially keeping the Sunnis from participating in the state-building process in post-Saddam Iraq (Weiss). The Sunni election boycott had many long-term effects on Iraq, as the lack of Sunni participation, empowered the Shias in the government, and only further entrenched the Sunnis in their current position of disenfranchisement, disenfranchisement that would fuel future insurgencies years later (Weiss). After a concerted effort, the US finally managed to kill Zarqawi in an airstrike in 2006 (Weiss). However, his movement survived, as he was succeeded by joint rule of Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Under their joint rule, Al-Qaeda in Iraq began to lose popular support, and slowly declined (Weiss) (Warrick). Towards the end of their tenure, they renamed Al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq, in an attempt to appeal to Iraqis (Weiss). In 2010, the joint leaders of ISI, were killed by a US airstrike, and were succeeded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who later went on to declare the founding of ISIS in 2013 (Warrick). Understanding the role the US policies and ineptitude played in fueling the insurgencies in Iraq, in an attempt to maintain their political legitimacy in the US, is highly important in understanding the rise of ISIS, at least in Iraq. However, the conditions that lead to the rise of ISIS in its other birthplace, Syria, have yet to be explored.
Realists, in further support of their theory that the rise of ISIS was fueled primarily due to political decisions, could mention how the national-level political mismanagement of Syria in the 2000s, laid the conditions for the rise of ISIS in Syria. From 2006-2010, Syria endured a drought, that has likely been “its worst in 900 years” (Kahn). The drought resulted in a brutal famine, causing “75 percent of Syria's farms to fail and 85 percent of livestock to die” (Stokes) having the immediately straining supplies throughout the country. In rural Syria, “an estimated 800,000 people lost their livelihoods and basic food supports” (Gleick) due to the drought, and many farmers began to move to “Syria’s major cities of Aleppo, Damascus, Dara’a, Deir ez-Zour, Hama, and Homs” (Gleick) in droves, causing Syria’s total urban population to increase from 8.9 million before the famine to 13.8 million in 2010 (University of Pittsburgh). These displaced people were largely unemployed, homeless, and a cause for tension in Syria’s big cities (Stokes). In addition, the Syrian regime was inept in alleviating these problems as expressed by Syrian Minister of Agriculture in a 2008 speech to the UN that the drought was “beyond our capacity as a country to deal with” (Gleick). While the drought may have been caused partly by climate, the shortsighted agricultural policies of the Assad regime were the primary reason for water scarcity in rural Syria in the 2000s. Syria’s water levels depended mostly on rainfall and groundwater reserves (University of Pittsburgh). Agricultural policies of the Assad regime resulted in an over usage of Syria’s groundwater reserves as they incentivized unsustainably high agricultural production levels, making the rural population especially vulnerable in case of a drought (University of Pittsburgh). The Syrian government also cancelled subsidies for fuel, a resource vital to rural communities as they relied on fuel to “power irrigation pumps and to take produce to market” (Eklund). The Assad government persisted with these policies, even despite the devastation the drought was causing (University of Pittsburgh). It was Syria’s shortsighted and ill-advised economic policies, paired with their ineptitude in dealing with the drought that led to the influx of disenfranchised migrants to the cities. The devastation wrought by the drought provided the conditions for political dissent in the coming years, as well as the overall destabilization and disenfranchisement that lead to the rise of ISIS in Syria. While the national-level mismanagement of Syria has already been outlined, the regional-level political failures of the Syrian regime in this period are also worth exploring.
Realists could continue to strengthen their viewpoint that the rise of ISIS is due to political reasons by mentioning how the Syrian government’s regional strategy, in the 2000s, of aiding Wahhabist insurgents in Iraq, as a way of ensuring the safety of Syria, as well as improving their own standing in the region, led to the eventual rise of ISIS in the region. The Syrian government embarked on this policy at the beginning of the US occupation of Iraq, of funneling foreign jihadists into Iraq in an attempt to destabilize the US occupation (Weiss). The regime even opened offices that helped foreign jihadists book bus trips to the Syrian-Iraqi border (Weiss). Most foreign jihadists in Iraq entered the country through the Syrian border town of Abu Kamal, due to its vicinity to al-Qa’im, one of Zarqawi’s headquarters during the Iraq War (Weiss). Assad also allowed insurgents to train soldiers in Syria and allowed AQI operatives to operate within Syria to facilitate the transportation of insurgents to Iraq (Weiss). Under the supervision of the Syrian regime, “houses were donated for volunteers to live in while local notables--both religious and tribal figures--organized transportation and accommodation for them” (Weiss). Under Assad’s policy, a jihadist network within Syria flourished, essentially establishing the infrastructure of an insurgency in Syria, an infrastructure that remained largely intact up until the advent of the Syrian Civil War. In addition, Syria’s policy resulted in the strengthening and invigorating of AQI, the group that went onto become ISIS. Syria’s regional policies of aiding AQI would most certainly backfire, as the group that they helped would later come to seize large swaths of land in Syria, threatening the very existence of the Syrian regime.
While realists are of the belief that the rise of ISIS is due to political reasons, liberalists, would disagree, believing that the rise of ISIS is primarily due to sectarian reasons of identity, rather than due to age-old political strategy. To support their perspective, liberalists could mention how the sectarian policies and actions of Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, from 2006-2014, which aimed to further disenfranchise Sunnis, as well as concentrate power in the hands of Shias, provided the conditions from which ISIS could arise among a disaffected Sunni population. While the birth of the insurgency arose from the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis following the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq, as well as the US’s subsequent policy of de-Baathification, by the time Nouri al-Maliki entered office, insurgency of AQI, had weakened significantly. In addition, Sunnis had begun to participate in the political process, as Sunnis widely participated in the December 2005 Parliamentary elections (Weiss), improving Sunni representation within the new political system. After the death of Zarqawi in 2006, AQI was weakened significantly (Warrick). In addition, the Anbar Awakening, which began in 2005, saw local Sunnis tribes form volunteer militias who, in cooperation with US forces, expelled AQI from their strongholds (Weiss). At the beginning of his tenure, Iraq seemed to be heading in the right direction, however, Nouri al-Malili, through his ruthless sectarian policies targeted at the Sunnis, would reverse much of the progress made before the beginning of his term. In 2006, al-Maliki largely tolerated the “rampant killings and abductions” (Weiss) committed by Shia militias at the time. It was said that al-Maliki also began “a campaign to consolidate Shiite power in Baghdad” (Weiss). Al-Maliki embarked on this campaign primarily by depriving the Sunnis of political power. In 2007, he arrested prominent Sunni politicians and fired Sunni officers in the Iraqi military, prompting an “open revolt” (Warrick). Al-Maliki continued by cracking down on members of the Anbar Awakening throughout the late 2000s, as members were “harassed and bullied by the government they had served,” stopped receiving salaries from the government, and were commonly arrested on charges of “terrorism” (Weiss). Former Awakening members, left with no other options, typically chose to fight for ISI. It was estimated that in 2010, “a full 40 percent of AQI was composed of deserters or defectors” (Weiss) from the Awakening. During the 2010 Parliamentary elections, al-Maliki’s Dawa party severely underperformed to the opposing Iraqiya party (Weiss). In response, al-Maliki claimed the election results were fake and demanded a recount, despite it being considered fair by UN monitors (Weiss). Al-Maliki needed an Iranian intervention in the sovereign Iraqi political process for him to be able to maintain his government’s power (Weiss). Following al-Maliki’s election “win”, he continued his crackdown on Sunni politicians and consolidation of Shia political power by arresting various high-level Sunni politicians (Weiss). A combination of these factors, brought upon by the ruthless sectarian crackdown of al-Maliki, prompted widespread protests from Iraq’s Sunni population in 2013, many of which, turned violent (Weiss). ISI exploited this disorder, launching multiple local offensives against Iraqi government positions (Weiss). In January 2014, after ISIS captured Fallujah, they stated that they were “committed to defending Sunnis from al-Maliki” (Weiss 98), essentially showing how the national-level sectarian crackdown on Sunni political power aided ISIS in their resurgence from 2013 to 2014 as Sunnis were again marginalized and left with no options, security, power, or representation in the new Iraqi state. The resulting local protests in the Sunni heartland not only created the disorder necessary for ISIS to re-emerge, but also provided them with a local-level base of support of marginalized Sunnis. The resulting fallout from al-Maliki’s national-level crackdown on Sunni power practically guaranteed the resurgence of ISIS in Iraq from 2013 to 2014.
Liberalists could further support their perspective that the rise of ISIS is due to reasons of identity, by examining how the sectarian policies and actions of the Alawite Syrian government both before and in the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, pushed Sunnis towards the extremism of ISIS. Sectarianism in Syria long predated the Civil War; a small, Alawite minority presiding over a majority Sunni population was always a potential cause of conflict (Weiss). In the advent of the Syrian uprising in 2011, the Assad regime used “verbal, psychological, and corporal abuse” (Weiss) on the protesters, many of them Sunni. Many of the regime forces tasked with suppressing the opposition were Alawite, further adding to the already present, sectarian tensions (Weiss). It was through the use of this predominantly Alawite mercenary force, commonly referred to as the shabiha, that the Assad regime terrorized its Sunni population (Weiss). In May 2012, for example, the Alawite shabiha went door to door in the Sunni town of Taldou, “slitting the throats of more than one hundred people. Most of them were women and children” (Weiss). In May 2013, the shabiha made headlines for massacring the local Sunni population in the towns of al-Bayda and Baniyas (Weiss). Local witnesses testified that the shabiha had “only killed Sunnis and burned Sunni homes” (Weiss). Through the use of the primarily Alawite shabiha, in targeting and massacring Sunni civilians, the Assad regime played a significant role in transforming what began as a secular, non sectarian uprising against the government, into a ruthlessly sectarian conflict, as these sectarian atrocities, further radicalized the Sunni population of Syria (Weiss), thus laying the conditions for another ruthlessly sectarian actor, ISIS to arise in Syria.

Conclusion:
While the liberalist perspective would have one believe that the rise of ISIS is due to regional and national-level sectarian tensions, as demonstrated by the sectarian policies of Bashar al-Assad and of Nouri-al Maliki, the realist perspective supports the idea that ISIS arose due to international, regional, and national-level political reasons, as supported by the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism, the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq, Assad’s mismanagement of Syria in the 2000s, and Syria’s regional political strategy.

wikihow.com/Format-an-Essay?amp=1

omg man, trust me man. there are better things to read about.

this is not one of them.

I copy and pasted it from google docs so it came out weird. I apologize

Keep it real. You know that nobody is reading that.

I know

TLDR

While the liberalist perspective would have one believe that the rise of ISIS is due to regional and national-level sectarian tensions, as demonstrated by the sectarian policies of Bashar al-Assad and of Nouri-al Maliki, the realist perspective supports the idea that ISIS arose due to international, regional, and national-level political reasons, as supported by the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism, the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq, Assad’s mismanagement of Syria in the 2000s, and Syria’s regional political strategy.

As a Arab American Muslim who is very interested in this topic

I’m still not reading all that

Nah lol

Well do you have the answer ya sharmout

is @op from fargo

We can never really know but at the same time nobody really cares about ISIS anymore. In 2012-2014 America took ISIS so seriously we started slaughtering them like pigs. The US and our allies have basically wiped them off of the face of the Earth now. Now the few hundred actual fighters left are hiding in bunkers trying to hide from us.

The War in Iraq and Afghanistan is over and the US is basically taking our hands off of this whole fiasco and getting as far away as we can.

This is literally a Taco Bell dawg

This is not wrong.

I mean, you can really trace it back to WW1 when the Ottomans fell and borders started getting drawn by the Allies.

Removal of Saddam = less protection of Iraqs large Sunnis minority

Wahabbism + sectarian violence against Sunnis = radical movements like ISIS gain support in response