Islamic State: Rewriting History
4/5
()
About this ebook
The world is watching IS's advance through the Middle East. The US risks being drawn into another war in the region despite its experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. IS are creating catastrophic waves across the region, but it is still unclear what lies behind its success.
Michael Griffin uncovers the nature of IS through investigating the myriad of regional players engaged in a seemingly endless power game: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iraq, which have all contributed to the success of IS by supplying arms and funds.
He foregrounds the story of the uprising against President Assad of Syria, the role played by the Free Syrian Army, Islamist groups, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, the chemical weapons attacks in 2013 and the House of Commons vote not to impose a no-fly zone over the country.
Michael Griffin
Michael Griffin is a writer, editor, political analyst and specialist on the Taliban and Al Qa'ida. He regularly comments on the war in Afghanistan for BBC World, Sky and Al Jazeera. As editor he has worked for Transparency International, International Alert, Small Arms Survey and ODI. He is the author of Reaping the Whirlwind (Pluto, 2003) and Islamic State (Pluto, 2015).
Read more from Michael Griffin
Armageddon House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPretty Aggressive Greeting Cards: We Don't Care So You Don't Have To Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Politics of Penance: Proposing an Ethic for Social Repair Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHieroglyphs of Blood and Bone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5OLYMPIANS or This Place Is Condemned (A Play) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Islamic State
Related ebooks
Blood Never Sleeps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spymaster of Baghdad: A True Story of Bravery, Family, and Patriotism in the Battle against ISIS Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho Are Islamic State Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Iran Fuels Syria War: Details of the IRGC Command HQ and Key Officers in Syria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSyria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Islamic State: Can it be Defeated? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoices from Iraq: A People's History, 2003–2009 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Defeating the Islamic State Group: The Battle for Kobani Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Terrorist Factory: ISIS, the Yazidi Genocide, and Exporting Terror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sanctions, Sex Jihad and Syria: The A to Z of NATO's War on Syria's Widows and Orphans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Islamic State and the Muslims of Trinidad and Tobago in the 21st Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Theory of ISIS: Political Violence and the Transformation of the Global Order Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Understanding Al Qaeda: Changing War and Global Politics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hunting the Caliphate: America's War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iran at War: 1500-1988 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jihadi Next Door: How ISIS Is Forcing, Defrauding, and Coercing Your Neighbor into Terrorism Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5ISIS: The Global Face of Terrorism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKandahar Assassins: Stories from the Afghan-Soviet War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSyria's Great Patriotic War: People, Players, Pawns & Paid Puppets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
Philosophy (Religion) For You
The Knowledge of God in the World and the Word: An Introduction to Classical Apologetics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hermeticism: How to Apply the Seven Hermetic Principles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mere Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to Be Free Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quotable Kierkegaard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peace Is Every Breath: A Practice for Our Busy Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyday Zen: Love and Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path to Recovering from Addiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God of All Things: Rediscovering the Sacred in an Everyday World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why I Am a Hindu Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saved by the Light: The True Story of a Man Who Died Twice and the Profound Revelations He Received Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learning to Walk in the Dark Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Islamic State
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Islamic State - Michael Griffin
Islamic State
Islamic State
Rewriting History
Michael Griffin
First published 2016 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Michael Griffin 2016
The right of Michael Griffin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Text design by Melanie Patrick Simultaneously printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
Contents
List of Acronyms/Abbreviations
Timeline
Preface
1. The Great Escape
2. Zarqawi’s War
3. The First Caliph
4. Clear, Hold and Build
5. The Successions
6. Springtime for Qatar
7. The Road to Damascus
8. Prince Bandar’s Last Adventure
9. Knights of the Silencers
10. Treasure of Babisqa
11. Chain of Custody
12. Game of Thrones
13. Paradise Square
14. Birth of a Nation
15. Twitter Caliphate
16. Call of Duty
17. Inside the Whale
18. Euphrates Volcano
Postscript: Saddam’s Ghost
Notes
Index
Map 1
Map 2
Map 3
List of Acronyms/Abbreviations
Timeline
Preface
Heroes are in tombs, real men are in prison, and traitors are in palaces.
Seifeddine Razgui¹
It seemed a good idea to track the development of the Islamic State (IS) from its origins in the US occupation of Iraq to the present, before it disappeared behind the smokescreen of its own vicious celebrity, leaving footnotes, like breadcrumbs, for those following other lines of enquiry in the labyrinth of disinformation and corrupted faith within which it operates.
Thus, in theory, a contour map might emerge of a movement that seems perfectly and hermetically sealed against the invasive curiosity of outsiders, tending to preserve the quintessential secrecy required of a group that derives a vast amount of its awe from the ability to inspire defeatism among its foes through gestures of raw cruelty and religious braggadocio.
There were points of comparison between IS and the rise of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan 20 years earlier, and at first glimpse IS seemed just as shrouded in calculated obscurity and religious obscurantism as the Pashtun militia had once been. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s empowerment of the Taliban – and Al Qaeda – found echoes in the struggles of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to harness the Syrian revolution to their own designs, a rivalry that might credibly have spawned a proxy force, like the IS, to devour popular resistance to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and dissipate its democratic aspirations in the futile pursuit of a totalitarian Islamic state.
But there the similarities end. Still newcomers to the play-book of international jihad, Qatar and Turkey had neither the will nor the funds to sustain the monster IS ultimately became, even by misadventure, while Saudi Arabia, with the benefits of hindsight after 9/11, had effectively ring-fenced donations by its more reckless donors to minimise just the type of blowback that now threatens the kingdom.
IS, moreover, eclipsed Al Qaeda as a threat to the West by re-casting its focus on the Shia and other non-Sunni communities, and sublimating the energies of the international recruitment pool towards building a visionary caliphate – rather than the overthrow of any state. More intriguingly, IS has never seriously menaced Israel, apart from beheading Steven Sotloff, a freelance journalist with Israeli citizenship, indicating a tacit understanding between the Islamic state and the Zionist state not to meddle in one another’s affairs.
This, and the broader complexity of a proxy war