Failure of democracy and the rise of ISIS

The emergence and success of Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq has been portrayed as arising from a vacuum stooped in Islamic ideology. An ideology purported to be the anti-thesis of everything liberal, pluralist and inclusive. Thus the killing of minorities, the beheading of journalist James Foley and the sexual slavery of women evokes Orientalist perceptions of Islam – the barbarians against the civilised West.

The carnage committed by ISIS is nothing short of atrocious, and focusing attention on their violent excesses in respect to minorities without any reference to their equally aggressive attitudes towards the majority Sunnis is a failure to understand the very core of the ISIS phenomena. Such shallow scrutiny further provides a narrative to the right wing extremists who indict Islam due to the actions of ISIS. The group has further provided a golden opportunity for scavengers like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk who now attempt to equate ISIS with Hamas.

To better place ISIS, let us begin by examining the Yazidis who have lived for generations within the heart of the Islamic world. Yazidi ideology emerged in the 20th Century and, despite the initial hostilities, their very presence in 2014 after 700 years in formation, of course not without event, is a testimony to the pluralist and inclusive nature of their Muslim rulers. So, what actually happened in 2014 to prompt a group of Muslims under the guise of ISIS to commit themselves to the ethnic cleansing of not just this group, but also the Shia, Christians and even fellow Sunnis?

Understanding ISIS

The story begins not in this century but the beginning of the last. The British and European colonialist powers planned to carve the Ottoman Empire according to a vision masterminded by a Mr Sykes and a Mr Picot in 1916. The colonialist desire was later imposed on the region by propping up pliable leadership within the carved up nation-states that were insensitive to sectarian division, cultural heritage and historical allegiances. These autocrats, dictators and Emirs were fully armed to ruthlessly suppress any dissent.

Saddam Hussein was thus no different to Mubarak, Assad (senior), Hussein of Jordan and the plethora of gulf kings who violated – some still continue to do so – human rights on a broad scale, which we in the west conveniently choose to ignore.

This is above the engineering of coups by the US and Britain against the democratically elected governments of Mohammad Mosaddeq of Iran in 1953, or their silence in the face of Al-Sisi’s coup in Egypt, the imposition of sanctions on the occupied people of Palestine for electing Hamas and undermining the democratic process in Algeria, thwarting any chances of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) using the ballot box.

After Saddam fell out of favour with the West and the subsequent Gulf War of 1990, the US imposed severe sanctions on Iraq which cost the lives of around half a million children. When in 1996 Madeleine Albright, the then US secretary of state, was asked if this was a price worth paying she replied yes – a clear case of colonialist interest above human lives.

While all Iraqis suffered the impact of the sanctions, this was more severally felt by the non-Baathist members and the non-Sunni population who Saddam considered with suspicion. The US sanctions further destabilised the already precarious balance of harmony between various sectarian groups in what the colonialist power had carved a nation called Iraq – Shia, Sunni, Yazidis, Kurds and Christians.

By the time the second Gulf War or War on Terror in 2003 had begun, Iraqi society was disenfranchised, with the majority either neutralised or primed to help an external force topple Saddam. Hence, this in part reflected the ease with which the US-led coalition force entered Baghdad. Despite the toppling of Saddam the US continued to employ its lethal firepower to a maximum destroying major roads, bridges, electricity power plants and other valuable infrastructure. More crucially, it created a political vacuum. They wanted to start afresh by literally burning the previous social, political and economic structure to the ground.

What followed was a nightmare. The US was deluded into believing that the barrel of a gun would be sufficient to subdue the natives and usher in its socio-economic-political order. However, the natives refused to lie down and surrender. This was mainly for three reasons: first, the rapid “de-Baathification” led to the disbanding of nearly 400,000 Iraqi troops of which 40,000 were from Saddam’s elite Republican Guard. This led to the former soldiers, a well nourished middle class under Saddam, becoming jobless and melting into the greater aggrieved community but crucially taking arms and ammunitions with them.

Second, the expelling of Sunni Muslims from governmental, bureaucratic and security services and replacing them with Shia personnel, thus destroying the status quo overnight led to a further swelling the swamp of resentment. Having overcome the oppression of Saddam, the Shias were now prepared to guard their new found freedom at any cost thus cementing Shia-Sunni animosity. But this was not only against the dispossessed Baath party and Sunnis in general, but also against the coalition’s attempts to water their authority down. In this sectarian conflict a further division was created with the offering of a virtual autonomous region for the Kurds. These were the people in Halabja who suffered the immeasurable agony of Saddam’s chemical weapons in 1988, procured from western governments; a fact that we remained silent about until 1991 when it suited us to proclaim its horrors.

Finally, the third reason was the US’ callous approach to general Iraqi population that brought into the fray the coalition of Sunni resistance which saw both the coalition forces and all those it favoured – the Shia, Kurds, Yazidis and Christians – as its enemy. With the continued draconian approach to the occupation it did not take long for militancy in the form of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi being accepted in 2004 and the formation of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The nationalist and ordinary Sunnis who now found themselves politically marginalised, economically undermined and socially intimidated, considered the US an occupying power that needed to be checked and they began to put their differences asides.

The US and the coalition wanted to impose their vision over Iraq and the only means exercised to achieve this was force. What followed was an attempt to crush any group deemed to challenge the US; for the most part this was justified by labelling them Al-Qaeda.

The ensuing violence

Bombing campaigns, not seen since the Vietnam War, began to unfold and we are all too familiar with the horrors of Fallujah. The use of chemical weapons and depleted uranium became the norm and the UK indicated it used approximately 1.9 tonnes of depleted uranium in 2003. However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates the US’ combined depleted uranium munitions use was anywhere between 170 to 1,700 metric tonnes.

Over the years, the use of chemical weapons, phosphorous and depleted plutonium have taken their toll on the masses. Within Fallujah, 10 years after occupation, birth defects were reported to be 14 times higher than they were in Hiroshima after the Second World War. Cancer incidences rose sharply throughout the country. The Independent newspaper reported that “Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have stated that since 2005 they are being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs.”

The military attacks affecting millions were supported by relentless and savage attacks on the population which led HRW describing the US legacy in Iraq as “abuses committed with impunity”. These abuses included arbitrary arrests, torture and the breakdown of judiciary and order.

The Abu Ghraib Prison conjures up the imagery of hooded prisoners, water boarding and electric wires connected to extremities of the human body. This was not an exception but became routine. This was compounded by the US soldiers’ glorification of their humiliation of Iraqi detainees and sharing it through social media.

By 2006, the sectarian divide was firmly crystallised and even the brutal use by the US of its superpower could not hold the Sykes-Picot order. The old British and the new US colonialist vision of the region was unfurling in the most vicious of circumstances. The Sunnis, aggrieved with loss of political power, were further humiliated, marginalised by the new Shia government and exacted a high price which, according to Iraq Body Count, led to 195,000 violent deaths.

Divisions in society

The disastrous situation in Iraq is reflected in the highest level of displacement since the Palestinian Nakba of 1948. There are an estimated two million internally displaced Iraqis and a further two million refugees. Baghdad, a city with a 50:50 Shia-Sunni population in 2003, has become majority Shia with 90 per cent of its Sunni inhabitants fleeing.

The Sunnis, demoted from power, became victimised and marginalised, their appeal for reform fell on deaf ears and any attempt to protest was met with nothing less than bullets. It is in this environment that Al-Zarqawi, Abu Ayyub Al-Misri, both killed by joint US-Iraqi operations, and now Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi found fertile minds to exploit.

In a bizarre tryst with fate, each subsequent leader was more brutal than the last and hence for Al-Baghdadi the answer was not in a revolution for democratic representation – which failed in Egypt – but in returning fire in the same brutal way that he saw his people endure. Burn the present system to start a new – a mimesis of US policy.

To anyone who knows European history, this should come as no surprise and they will see the ghost of this apocalyptic phase in the Thirty Years’ War (1618 – 1648) when an estimated 40 per cent of the European population was wiped out in warfare. While Europe was emerging from the shackles of papacy, the Middle East began to shake off the colonialist Sykes-Picot and US imprint.

The challenge at hand is not Islam, as ISIS faces an impossible task of justifying their violence and aggression from within Islamic traditions. Rather, they represent a challenge to the “Western” colonialist appetite which believes the West has a right to fashion the global political order and reserve the fruits of democracy for a select few.

The overriding objective of retaining power and control over these regions has clearly led to the copyrighting of the ballot box. Consequently, groups like ISIS attract recruits for their earth scorching policies with greater ease, especially when they can readily point a finger at the dire fate of those who embraced the “Western” democratic process – Hamas in Palestine, FIS in Algeria and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

One can only hope and faithfully pray for a less blood-drenched transition to a brighter Middle East than that which Europe had to undergo.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.