Urban 1

The Evergreen State College

The Master’s Tools

the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as a Weapon/ Repercussion of United States Neoliberal Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Mariana Urban

A NEW MIDDLE EAST

APRIL 2nd, 2016

THESIS - PART 1 Urban 2

The history of colonialism lives deep within the veins of the United States. Founded on stolen land, the United States has continued to grow into a country that idealizes individualistic greed. Now, a select few US corporations and individuals, occupy the global economy, often by force. This individualistic greed that inspires most foreign policy actions abroad, in the interest of US assets, has spread across the globe. Extreme measures are taken to protect these assets.

This is where Neoliberalism comes in and merges with US Military industrial complex. One of these extreme measures is found in the framework laid for, and financing of the worlds biggest terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. What was a creation of neoliberalism, then a weapon for foreign policy, is now US imperialisms worst nightmare. Through tracing the history of US imperialism in the Middle East, we will witness the birth and metamorphosis of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

This document’s aim is to tackle the complex and ever morphing landscape of United

States Neoliberalism in the Middle East, and its subsequent creation of one of the greatest evils known today, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It will deconstruct US Neoliberalism’s birth and intention in Part I, and go on to analyze US involvement and promotion of Political Islam in the

Middle East beginning from the Cold War, in Part II. Part III will explore the violence of

Neoliberalism in the Iraq War and the beginnings of ISI. Part IV will explain ISIS formation and intentions, leading up to the crisis in Syria. It will unpack the complexities of the Syrian crisis, its proxy wars, and US involvement in Part V. Finally, it will synthesize the realities of cycles of violence and greed that have lead to ISIS and its now devastating repercussions.

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PART 1 - Neoliberalism

WHAT IS NEOLIBERALISM

To begin, we must understand the roots of Neoliberalism. It was birthed by Milton

Friedman in Chicago’s notorious School of Economics and founded on John Locke’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of property”. As Klein explains, “This Liberation from all constraints, in essence

Chicago school economics… is capitalism stripped of its Keysian appendages, capitalism in its monopoly phase, a system that has let itself go – that no longer has to work to keep us as customers, that can be antisocial, antidemocratic and boorish as it wants” (Klein, 319). In this arena the citizens, the voters, have no power and this is the precise intention. Noam Chomsky on the fate of democracy explains, “Neoliberal initiatives of the past thirty years have been designed to restrict it, leaving basic decision-making within largely unaccountable private tyrannies, linked closely to one another and to a few powerful states.” (Chomsky, 6) This is the latest phase of Capitalism, shifting the balance of power away from democracy and towards corporate free market dreams. Neoliberalism is an economic ideology that utilizes the full influence of violence to “eliminate the public sphere, total liberation of corporations and skeletal social spending” to “free the market from the state” and create a “powerful ruling alliance between very few large corporations and a class of the wealthiest politicians” or individuals. In a word, enslaving the economies and bodies of the Third World to fuel the powerful luxuries of international oligarchies. (Klein, 18) Or, as Chomsky positions, “It is necessary to safeguard a system of elite decision-making and public ratification – ‘polyarchy,’ in the terminology of political science – not democracy.” (Chomsky, 5) Neoliberalism is taken to Urban 4 the Third World to occupy labor, resources and flood the international markets with these procured and privatized resources, leaving countries economically devastated, barren and with not a bargaining chip to play. Ironically then the IMF (International Monetary Fund, whom has many ties to the Chicago School) steps in to sink these countries into irreconcilable debt, both monetary and political. This ideal of pursuing self interest to lead to the wealth and democracy of a nation is the veil that hides the reality of neoliberalism. It is not national prosperity that is the goal, it is First World wealth of a select few and Third World weakness.

NEOLIBERALISM MILITARIZED

Two of the richest industries in the West are Wall Street and the Military Industrial

Complex, occupying the majority of the wealth in the United States and abroad, they maintain unwieldy power. Military spending alone takes up 55% of the nations annual fiscal spending. In the the globalization of Neoliberal ideologies they work symbiotically. The West’s imperialism must first gain access into said nation, usually without invitation. Militarized occupation (and/or coup) is a surefire way to gain access to these economies and governments. Primarily nations targeted by Neoliberal agendas are Socialist-leaning Third World countries, particularly ones with large resource or strategic assets that have nationalized said assets. These nations usually have more thriving economies because of nationalization and likely have no intention of allowing those assets to be privatized by transnational corporations. Hence, the need for militarized entry, accordingly occupation (and/or coup) is necessary to forcibly acquire access to resources and government control. Often the shear destruction involved in occupation hinders Urban 5 the nation enough for a quick government overthrow and the assertion of a proxy occupational government. In this way, Western free market interests view these actions as “nation creating”, a way to “empower” nations “democratically” by enforcing predestined terms. This is a form of discipline by dispossession.

“ The so-called characteristic of U.S. ideology of the “consensus” (meaning submission to the requirements of the power of the generalized monopoly capitalism); the adoption of “presidential” political regimes that destroy the effectiveness of the anti- establishment potential of democracy; the indiscriminate eulogy of a false, manipulated individualism, together with inequality (seen as a virtue); the rallying of the subaltern NATO countries to the strategies implemented by the Washington establishment—all these are making rapid headway in the European Union which cannot be, in these conditions, anything other than what it is, a constitutive bloc of imperialist globalization.”(Amin)

It reaffirms the primacy of capitalist values and the dominance of the West. The United States in particular, practices these tactics widely. In fact, many resource rich Third World nations have fallen prey to this military backed privatization movement. However, the Middle East, has contended for decades, partially due to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan alliance with the former

Soviet Union. Middle East countries are considered the final frontier for Imperialist free market globalization.

NEOLIBERALIST PURSUITS IN PINOCHET’S CHILE

The effects of Neoliberalism on national economies can been seen drastically in Chile.

After the coup and murder of Salvadore Allende, one of the first initiatives that now dictator

Pinochet implemented, (after encouragement from Milton Friedman himself) was to cut public Urban 6 spending by 27 percent. The intention was to encourage a depression to shock the economy to a point where the majority of the public would be in poverty, and would be at the financial mercy of the state. “Causing a recession or a depression is a brutal idea, since it necessarily creates mass poverty, which is why no political leader had until this point, has been willing to test the theory… Dr. Strangelove world of deliberately induced depression.” (Klein) In an attempt to achieve international economic success and appease the Northern oligarchs,

Pinochet denationalized nearly all industries. “De Castro privatized almost five hundred state- owned companies and banks, practically giving many of them away, since the point was to get them as quickly as possible into their rightful place in the economic order” (Klein, 100). This relinquishing of resources was perhaps the biggest mistake, as it meant that Chile had no bargaining power in the global arena and was completely at the will of transnational corporations. Debt accumulated drastically and options narrowed.

Another aspect of this initiative was to cut jobs, and reduce access to labor, the intention being that if workers fear for the lively hood of their families and themselves, they will be more likely to succumb to the low wages and inhumane work of privatized corporations.

“Friedman predicted that the hundreds of thousands of people who would be fired from the public sector would quickly get new jobs in the private sector soon to be booming thanks to

Pinochet’s removal of ‘as many obstacles as possible that now hinder the private market’”. (99)

However, Freidman’s assumptions were incorrect and unemployment sky rocketed,

“unemployment – only 3 percent under Allende – reached 20 percent, a rate unheard of in

Chile at the time” (Klien 101). Poverty became the norm, malnutrition was an epidemic,

“Roughly 74 percent of its income went simply to buying bread, forcing the family to cut out Urban 7 such ‘luxury items’ as milk and bus fare to get to work” (Klien 102). Neoliberalism took a country on its way to financial independence and social liberation, and disappeared the dream

(like it did its people), throwing the majority of the country that survived the coup, into dangerously deep poverty, taking away their access to resources and jobs and sovereignty in the international markets. Chile was no longer a country, now it was yet another cog in the transnational neoliberal machine. Supplying land, resources and bodies for it to gobble up.

PART II – US INVOLVEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

ARAB NATIONALISM

Arab Nationalism rose out of the post-World War II landscape, as North African and

Arab Nations were gaining liberation form their European colonizers. Third World nations rose up against the colonial powers, a need for unity within was felt globally. “Third World platform: political independence, nonviolent international relations, and the cultivation of the United

Nations as the principle institution for planetary justice.” (Prashad, 11) Conventions were held as part of the Nonaligned Movement in pursuit of Third World collaboration and unity to support one another against super power nation control. “They took the path to industrialization, hitherto forbidden by the domination of the (old) ‘classic’ imperialism, forcing the latter to ‘adjust’ to this first wave of independent initiatives of the peoples, nations, and states of the peripheries.” (Amin) Arab Nationalism was birthed in one of these conferences, initially to empower the heritage, language, arts and culture of newly sovereign Arab Nations.

However, this concept soon morphed in the face of foreign interventionist campaigns. It Urban 8 evolved into a concept of total independence of political, economic and regional control, later becoming the inspiration for many resource nationalization campaigns. This came in response to continuous pressure from Western countries to gain valuable resource access, like oil and mineral deposits, from which national wealth relied upon. Becoming, a movement for further unity within the Third World this time economically. Some of the many casualties of the nationalization movement outside of the Middle East, are Salvador Allende and Chile’s socialist pursuits, Vietnam, Venezuela and Cuba. But few of these countries possessed resources as precious as oil. With the Red Scare looming and many of these newly liberated Third World countries considering alternatives to the global capitalist markets, the West soon developed modes of globalization that took the “white mans burden” to a new economic level. Focusing on nations with leadership with a skew of the communist threat, capitalist super powers incorporated political “liberation” into their economic expansion strategies. “This first wave of the awakening of the peoples of the periphery wore out for many reasons, including its own internal limitations and contradictions, and imperialism’s success in finding new ways of dominating the world system (through the control of technological invention, access to resources, the globalized financial system, communication and information technology, weapons of mass destruction).” (Amin)

Now free market dreams could be paralleled with saving the darker nations from the clutches of communist dictatorship. Thus, Neoliberalism was born. All the while, Arab

Nationalism rallied against the debt ridden future of privatized resources and International

Monetary Fund control. For as we know too well corporate control is as good as governmental Urban 9 control at the hands of capitalist overseers. Neocolonialism responded to the Third World within decades of liberation from the original colonizers.

EGYPT

The Egyptian Revolution of 1952 epitomized Arab Nationalism, as Gamal Abdel Nasser rose to power on the foundation of Arab solidarity, in contrast to the power of the West and

Israel. Nasser’s ideologies produced a Nonaligned Movement titled Nasserism, and Nasser himself became an Arab icon for alternative structures of government and economy. He was widely respected amongst his neighboring nations and represented them in the Bandung

Conference (one of the many Third World solidarity conventions that were held n this period), to facilitate solutions, to achieve the “Final Communique”, a neutralist, anti-colonialist, document for global peace. “Nasserism, with it’s emphasis on Pan-Arab unity, sought to unite the technologically advanced urban countries and their large, highly skilled working class with the vast wealth of the oil-producing countries.” (Kumar, 66) Though Nasser’s presidency was a welcomed shift, his idealism and political ideology wasn’t appreciated by all, particularly the

Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood, at the time of the coup leading to Nasser’s power, was elated to have him represent their country. They at the time were a largely apolitical movement that sought to focus on education and civic work, and was a prominent supporter of Arab Nationalist ideology. However, in 1954 the Brotherhood attempted to assassinate Nasser, with the help of foreign interests. “In addition to hatching coup plots against Nasser and carrying out various assassination attempts on him (such as poisoning his chocolates), the CIA began to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood” (Kumar, 66). 1954 was also Urban 10 the year that Nasser nationalized Egypt’s resources, cutting off transnational corporation’s access to their territory.

“During the 1950’s, the Muslim Brotherhood was used against Nasser in Egypt and a group of clergy against Mosadegh in Iran. If Mosadegh’s nationalization policy represented the potential for what secular nationalists power might do to Western oil interests, Nasser represented Washington’s worst nightmare scenario in the region.” (Kumar, 66)

Nasser responded to potentially legitimate intelligence that suggesting that the CIA and

Brittan’s MI6 were influencing the Muslim Brotherhoods actions, by outlawing the Brotherhood and imprisoning many of their members. The fear and paranoia of falling once more under the dominion of colonialist powers still haunted newly liberated nations. In 1955 Nasser accepted aid from the Soviet Union and shortly after announced the Nationalization of the Suez Canal

Company (where the founding members of the Muslim Brotherhood were originally employed).

The Suez Canal, much like the Panama Canal is an extraordinary asset to World Trade organizations, and the potential for Egypt to manage and profit from its functioning gave them great power and great threat to the West. What followed was a more than a decade of complex weave of many international characters including the US, France, Brittan, Jordan, Syria and of course Israel, whom was the sole neighbor nation that Nasser did not have cordial relations with. Nasser was an ardent supporter of the Palestinian Right to Return. These most notably consisted of the Suez Crisis and the Six Day War. All the while, President Eisenhower was enacting what he called the “Islam Strategy”, to undermine counter capitalist governments through the radicalization and support of Political Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

If the “Islam Strategy” did not achieve its aims, then Israel would. After Israel destroyed Egypt’s

Air Force in the Six Day War, and Nasser resigned, and Arab Nationalism faced a devastating Urban 11 defeat. “Arab Nationalism was thrown into crisis, and in the political vacuum this created,

Islamism was able to grow and develop. Thus began a period of contradiction in which the

United States pushed back some Islamists while promoting others.” (Kumar, 67) Not long after the rhetoric of Islamaphobic “Terrorism” were utilized as the defining tool of Neoliberalism.

AFGHANISTAN

On April 27th, 1978 a bloody coup rocked Afghanistan. The PDPA (or the People’s

Democratic Party of Afghanistan) overthrew the government, assassinating Mohammad Daoud and his entire family. This day is known as the Saur Revolution. Soon there after, they began instating secular and Marxist-Leninist reforms, that were highly critical of religion. This event brought Afghanistan closer to the Soviets and farther from the practicing Muslims of their country. The PDPA regime became vicious, as it imprisoned tens of thousands and brashly alienated foreign dignitaries in the country. Its behavior concerned Soviet Allies leading to intervention. What followed was a brutal arms struggle between US counter communism and free market interests and Soviet territorial control. “In the context of the Cold War, the United

States had two objectives in the Middle East: to control the flow of oil and to keep the Soviet

Union out.” (Kumar, 64) With the religious tensions brewing under the PDPA regime, the United

States had a useful entry point of weakness in aligning with Political Islamist groups. “This meant cultivating all forces that could counter radical secular nationalism and communism. At the top of the list were Islamists.” (Kumar, 64) The United States and the Saudi’s pooled their resources, as much as forty billion dollars, and began organizing, training and arming Political Urban 12

Islamist groups to fight the Soviets on their behalf. Also known as the mujahideen, now radicalized political islamist (the predecessors of al-Qaeda) became the proxy war fader of the two super powers. This was also known as the “Eisenhower Doctrine” or the “Islam strategy”,

“This strategy consists of bolstering Islamist organizations against secular nationalists and trying to create an Islamic pole of attraction in King Saud of Saudi Arabia.” (Kumar, 65) The trifecta of

US, Saudi and Israeli power and neoliberal visions, continued to utilize the “Islam strategy throughout the region.

COLD WAR

In post World War II, the divide between the United States and the Soviet Union deepened. These two groups posed a threat to the others survival. While the United States was pursuing the spread of globalizing “democracy” and capitalism, the Soviet Union was encouraging radical anti capitalist options, particularly in the Third World. A series of proxy wars escalated these tensions, with the additional threat of nuclear weapons. In President

Eisenhower’s farewell address, he warned of a growing Military Industrial Complex. This expansion of the Military Industrial Complex was complimented by Eisenhower’s creation of the

CIA. The CIA was used to intervene in many of the ongoing proxy wars, and the overthrow of

Third World governments that were sympathetic to the Soviet Union anticapitalist intentions, the Suez Canal Crisis, for example. In addition, the “Reagan Doctrine” or use of proxy militias to serve the United State’s interests abounded and has become a staple of US foreign policy since.

“A few failed military interventions (particularly in Lebanon) resulted in the creation of the Urban 13

Regan Doctrine, which encouraged the use of proxy armies in the field against left wing regimes.” (Prashad, 210) Examples of these are the Muslim Brotherhood, Afghan mujahideen and the Khmer Rouge, to name a few.

In the midst of the Cold War, Political Islam became militarized. Prior, Political Islam was simply a moral code of conduct that informed policy and voting matters. “The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era… During the 1970s the CIA used the Muslim

Brotherhood in Egypt as a barrier, both to thwart Soviet expansion and prevent the spread of

Marxist ideology among the Arab masses.” (Garikai Chengu) Chengu’s commentary is accurate despite the fact the CIA-militarized political Islamist groups; “extremism” followed this militarization, it did not exist before CIA encouragement. In addition to Egypt and the Arab

Spring, Pakistani and Afghan mujahideen warriors were trained and armed by the CIA to fight in

Afghanistan and Iran against Soviet troops. “But today’s movement known as Political Islam, with its military mobilizations holding the pride of place ahead of its political formations, emerged in its first coherent identity with the US-armed, US-paid, Pakistani-trained mujahedeen warriors who fought the Soviet troops in Afghanistan starting in 1979.” (16, Phyllis

Bennis) Islamist “extremism” was initially bred out of “Operation Cyclone”, the US preservation of capitalist globalization, in the fight against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Arab Spring and its adjacent proxy wars.

THE BIRTH OF “TERRORISM”

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US law defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetuated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.” This definition though vague and obscure has come, particularly in the wake of post 9/11 era Islamiphobia to mean any individual connected to the religion of Islam enacting violence, double points if they present high melatonin levels. “Until Bush’s war on terror, states had dismissed terrorism as a form of crime, i.e., a threat to law and order, and used their judiciaries to deal with it.

“(Napoleoni, xxi) As Noam Chomsky says, “A convenient definition was adopted: terrorism is what our leaders declare it to be. Period.” (Chomsky,110)

After the fall of the Soviet Union the need to utilize proxy militias to maintain Western capital control in the Middle East in particular, diminished. Now a new strategy was available to the politicization of the global economy. Though, “the United States, despite its pious lip service to freedom and democracy, was more than happy to forge a relationship with the Taliban in order to establish a pipeline to oil and natural gas resources in the Caspian Sea. In short, the

American government was willing to work with Islamists when it was convenient, even well into the 1990s,” the times were changing. With the absence of the Soviet communist threat, the need for a new one arose. “Neoliberation” strategies could not exist on racism alone. As such

Islam was the next likely candidate. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Israeli leaders – with the assistance of their neoconservative allies in the United States – sought to convince the

US political leadership that it faced a larger-than-life enemy: Islamic fundamentalism.” (Kumar,

76) There is some truth to this, al-Qaeda in its incarnation, like the mujahideen, embodied the anti-imperialist, anti-occupation, anti-western interference ideologies, and as US presence Urban 15 continued in the Middle East, this became exacerbated, of course. However, the rhetoric of terrorism became much more than the original term suggests.

After the Bush Sr. Gulf War, the United States government needed new ways to legitimize it privatization of foreign oil and capitalist imperialism. Their excuse came just in time for Bush Jr. to act upon. The “Bush Doctrine”, or the unilateral right to wage “preventative war”. The mere potential of threat was indeed means to wage asymmetrical warfare under the

“Bush Doctrine”. This would be comparable to the Congo attacking the United States because white supremacists bombed a church and killed children, thus threatening children of African descent. However, with the heinous acts upon the World Trade Towers and the American people on September 11th, this potentiality was legitimized.

“In September 2000, the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century released a document outlining its foreign policy vision. It called for the United States to use overwhelming military force to take control of the Persian Gulf region and for ‘maintaining US preeminence…and shaping the international security order in line with America principles and interests.’ This goal, the report went on to add, was going to take some time to be realized ‘absent some catastrophic event – like a new Pearl Harbor.’” (Kumar, 113)

Unfortunately, that catastrophe happened not a year later, and now the prerogative was to

“keep America safe” from the terrorists, the Muslim threat. Now the rhetoric of Islamophobia and terrorism were synonymous and interchangeable. Terrorism was Neoliberalism’s new excuse, capitalizing on the “weapon of empathy”. “Yet capitalizing on this opportunity to realize the neocon vision also meant orchestrating an elaborate public relations campaign designed to elicit public support and stifle criticism.” (Kumar, 129) Bush Jr.’s “War on Terror” was born, and with approval ratings as high as they had ever been, it seemed to be a booming success. Now not only was there a threat to the American people, but we could single out dangerous Urban 16 individuals, who were likely also a threat to the helpless whom they imposed their extremist ideologies upon, further validity to the US cause.

“After 9/11, liberal voices in the US began to recognize that imperial racism was necessary; but, being liberals, they called it “reluctant” or “light” imperialism. No matter what it is called, imperialism implies colonialism in some form, as it is difficult to imagine any empire without colonies, even if colonies take different shapes at different points in history.” (Chomsky)

The War on Terror now could be synonymous to the pursuit of freedom and democracy, a neoliberation struggle, shielding the guise of neocolonialism.

PART III – IRAQ WAR

INTENTION

Far before September 11th, Iraq posed a substantial threat to the United States. They were considered part of the Soviet leaning “axis of evil” along with Iran and North Korea, and maintained relative autonomy from US control. Saddam, though a violent dictator, had held his economy strong despite ruthless US sanctions for the past twelve years. In addition, Iraqi literacy was higher than 87%, the highest in the region and higher than the United States. “The majority of Iraqis lived middle class lives, including government-provided free health care and education, with some of the best medical and scientific institutions in the Arab World.” (Bennis,

16) Iraq showed all of the signs of an economically healthy nation, with socialist interests and an unstable dictator; the perfect candidate for neoliberal “shock doctrine”. Then of course, Urban 17 there was the added bonus of its nationalized oil reserves, ranking third largest in the globe.

“Bush’s administrations war drive, particularly the heavily represented neo-conservative ideologues staffing the Vice President’s office and the Pentagon, had Iraq in their sights from the moment the planes hit the Twin Towers.” (Klein, 10)

Thus, with the violence and trauma of the Twin Tower attacks, the fact that the attackers were Arab, and the aforementioned status of Iraq, placing blame was profitable in more ways than one. Though, there was much evidence to suggest that the attackers were in fact Saudi. “Pretexts for going to war against Iraq abounded: phony assertions regarding self- defense, made-up allegations that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaeda, forged documents about Iraq purchasing yellow-cake uranium for Niger, fictitious reports of aluminum tubes from China that could ‘only’ be used to build nuclear weapons, sham warnings of Iraq’s supposed stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction.” (Klein, 10) And so, the “War on Terror” venture commenced.

RESISTANCE

Initially, the world, still reeling from the blowback of 9/11, was in support of the Bush administrations assault for justice, including the UK, Italy, Spain, France and Denmark.

However, when the United Nations ruled that going to war with Iraq was in violation of international law, a stance it maintained in the eight months leading up to invasion, every nation but the UK backed out. “The US invasion of Iraq began as what the Nuremberg principles identify as the worst war crime: a crime against peace in the form of a war of aggression. Then Urban 18

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that ‘from the [UN] Charter point of view, it was illegal.’” (Bennis 43) This also came on the wake of February 15th 2003, where all across the globe it is estimated that between 8 and 30 million protestors took to the streets against the

Iraq war. The media reported that, “There may still be two superpowers on the planet: the

United States and world public opinion.” There was a global understanding that this would be a severely asymmetrical war, one where there is a huge power and weaponry imbalance, and

Iraq would be crushed.

SHOCK TREATMENT (SUBMISSION)

On March 20th 2003, the US military launched what they called a “Shock and Awe” campaign on Iraq. “Shock and Awe” consisted of more than thirty thousand bombs and twenty thousand guided missiles. Power, water and sewer was cut as buildings crumbled, whole communities under their rubble. “The Pentagon’s “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign that opened the US invasion destroyed much of Iraq’s physical infrastructure, as well as the lives of over 7,000 Iraqi civilians.” (Bennis, 17) The initial invasion only took about seven months, however the invasion came after twelve years of severe UN sanctions, that left over half a million children dead. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright claims it was “worth the price”. Riverbend author of the acclaimed blog Baghdad Burning, addresses the hypocrisy in this sentiment, “Why is it ‘terrorism’ when foreigners set off bombs in London or Washington or New York, and it’s ‘liberation’ or ‘operation’ when foreigners bomb whole cities in Iraq? Are we that much less important?” (River bend). What really is terrorism? In actuality, under the Urban 19

Geneva Convention, “Shock and Awe” in itself is an act of terror. “Once the war began, the

March 2003 “shock and awe” campaign, designed specifically to terrorize Iraqi civilians, violated the Geneva Convention’s prohibitions against targeting civilians and attacking military targets with disproportionate harm to civilians” (Bennis, 44). This pretense of protection utilized by the

Bush administration to gain access to Iraqi resources and economy, is not only deeply erroneous, but it is illegal. “Shock and Awe” was the first of many US actions that are punishable as war crimes. “It is in the context of this wide-ranging set of deliberate war crimes

– enabled by policy decisions at the very highest levels of US political and military leaders – that the specific illegal acts by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib, in Haditha, Fallujah, and elsewhere across

Iraq, which have become common knowledge throughout the world, took place.” (44 Bennis)

NEOLIBERAL POLICY FUNDING MILITARIZATION

The first actions taken by the government occupation were dissolution of military, civil services and the Iraqi government. The US’s “de Ba’athification” orders caused vast unemployment, not just of Ba’ath party affiliates, and specific Sunni officials, but many Shi’a,

Kurds and Christians as well. In this classic Neoliberal mode of creating a political vacuum, in which the market can be “freed”. “The US occupation caused vast unemployment in Sunni areas, by rejecting socialism and closing down factories in the naïve hope that the magical hand of the free market would create jobs.” (Garikai Chengu). These jobs however did not return. At best doctors and lawyers were scuffling to labor in the Green Zone filling sandbags. This mirrors Urban 20

Pinochet’s Chilean Neoliberal forced depression. An entire history of Iraqi infrastructure was demolished in months.

The new occupant of the Presidential Palace, and interim President, was none other than Paul Bremmer, a Wallstreeter whom had never been to Iraq and knew nothing of their history, but a lot about Neoliberal economies. On September 19th 2003 Paul Bremmer enacted four orders that included, “the full privatization of public enterprises, full ownership rights by foreign firms of Iraqi businesses, full repatriation of foreign profits… the opening of Iraq’s banks to foreign control, national treatment for foreign companies… and the elimination of nearly all trade barriers” (Paul Bremmer). Only oil was exempt. As David Harvey expresses, “These orders were, some argued, in violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions, since occupying power is mandated to guard the assets of an occupied country and not sell them off.” (Harvey, 6)

These actions are contradictory to the recreation of Iraq’s economy after its demolition. They serve only the interests of foreign enterprises and private contractors. This we know was the intention. Hillary Clinton herself said in 2011 long after the initial trillions of tax payer dollars profited these private interests, “It is time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity,” and later in her state department emails, “[Iraq] is a market where your companies can make money.” The ‘time’ for the US to view Iraq as a business opportunity began in 2001.

The CPA threw open Iraqi borders for the first time in more then a decade, for trade of every variety. All nationalized resources were sold off for pennies. “The freedom for Western multinationals to feed off freshly privatized states – that was at the center of the model theory.” (416, Klein) One delegate of the “Rebuilding Iraq II” conference noted, “the best time Urban 21 to invest is when there is still blood on the ground.” (Klein, 412) More than twenty billion in contracts were sold off to transnational corporations Halliburton, Bechtel, ExxonMobil, Chevron and the RAND corporation, to name a few. Meanwhile in the United States, tax payers are paying 6.6 trillion dollars to the “War on Terror”, much of which was going to the aforementioned contracts and military elites.

The irony of the War on Iraq is most present in the US private sector. After the barrage of bombs that destroyed most of the industry of Iraq, the US came in with its nation building operations to reconstruct, from the ruble they made. When I say the United States what I really mean is private contractors, for they out numbered US military and government officials six to one. Trillions of tax payer money wen to fund these contractors and many of those employed went to work in Iraq because their jobs state side were insufficient for them to get out of debt.

A US military personnel who was a mechanic would be making fifteen hundred dollars a month, while a private contractor was making ten thousand a month. (This American Life) These contractors ranged from Black Water, an infamous mercenary organization known for its back door politics and coups, to Custer Battles, a security firm that has a reputation based off of rumors of a gun slinger fight at the Hyatt in Baghdad, where they realized they had been shooting at themselves the entire time. No formal investigation followed up. Custer Battles was later banned by the federal government from doing contracts in Iraq, because of 50 million dollars in billings went to work that was never accounted for. But this is just the private security firms, Halliburton is also under investigation for 1.8 billion dollars of tax payer money that was never used for any tangible or documented purpose in Iraq or elsewhere. Urban 22

Bremmer is quoted, “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands, is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery.” As Iraq was being bought and sold into foreign hands, Bremmer was eliminating subsidies to a population where, “unemployment was at 67 percent, malnutrition was rampant and the only thing holding off mass starvation was the fact that Iraqi households still received government-subsidized food and other essentials, just as they had under the UN-administration oil-for-food program during the sanctions period.”(Klein, 432) But

Iraqis no longer owned their own oil to trade, and Bremmer nullified those sanctions.

Acclaimed Medical Journal, Lancet Survey places Iraqi violent death toll during occupation at 654,965 and total deaths during occupation at 1.3 billion. This leaves 378,035 deaths to malnutrition, injury or illness, and lack of access to medical care. New York Times

Columnist Thomas Friedman states, “We are not doing nation-building in Iraq. We are doing nation-creating.” He is precisely right, if a nation’s infrastructure is destroyed, if their population is dwindling, their culture and history is demolished and all of their resources are sold off to corporations, then there isn’t much left. Which is the whole intention of neoliberal policy in Iraq, utter destruction so the US can have a clean slate to enact their imperialist free market dreams.

SECTARIAN DIVISION

One of the first political agendas put in place by CPA was the creation of sectarian political parties. After the “de Ba’athification” and its attempt at reverse Shi’a discrimination, all future political candidates must run as specific religious groups. Sectarianism is antidemocratic Urban 23 at its root, because of the national divide that emerges, however, this was the precise intention of the CPA. Riverbend describes, “So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator, to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say ‘theocracy in sheep’s clothing’?” (Riverbend, 31) Divide and conquer, the standard imperialist mission, was proacted in many ways, but the first was physical segregation of religious groups in an action called “Mixed downs”. Occupational forces

“Mixed down” by building cement walls and check points dividing religious groups, and families alike. “By 2008 most mixed villages were ethnically cleansed to become virtually entirely Sunni or Shi’a… Whether Sunni, Shi’a, Christian or other, neighborhoods were largely separated by giant cement blast walls.” (Bennis, 20) Divisions were worsened by resistance protests, attacks and looting that took place, where disheartened Iraqis were quick to place blame. As the occupation continued, various resistance groups arose from all sides, often employing violent methods directed at US forces, it wasn’t long until attacks were targeted at opposing sectarian civilians. “US backed, parties based on religion recruited their own militia forces, and the war took on an increasing sectarian cast. The US occupation forces created and perpetuated the new system, although Shi’a led militias were among a range of forces fighting against the US.”

(Bennis, 13) There is however evidence that suggests, US militias may have amplified the divide by sanctioning sectarian groups, supplying IEDs or even placing themselves. Riverbend,

“People from the area claim that the man was not taken away because he shot anyone, but because he knew too much about the bomb. Rumor has it that he saw an American patrol passing through the area and pausing at the bomb site minutes before the explosion. Soon after they drove away, the bomb went off and chaos ensued. He ran out of his house screaming to the neighbors and bystanders that the Americans had either planted the bomb or seen the bomb and done nothing about it. He was promptly taken away.” (Riverbend, 85)

Urban 24

There are many reports like this from Baghdad and Fallujah.

WAR CRIMES

US occupational violence takes many forms. The most obvious is the overt violence of continuous bombardment, and its subsequent destruction of all semblance of safety. Though, beyond bombs and missiles, the US occupation forces used far more extreme weaponry.

Thousands of tons of Depleted Uranium, which is toxic radioactive nuclear waste, was dumped in Iraq, specifically around Fallujah. More than half the babies born between 2007 and 2010 were born with birth defects. Fallujah also endured an onslaught of one of the most heinous chemical weapons known to man, White Phosphorous. White Phosphorous burns through skin down to the bone on contact. It is outlawed internationally. US attacks in Fallujah are now considered genocide. For more information, see “Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre”, by Italian

Documentarians Sigfrido Ranucci and Maurizio Torrealta. It is important to note that,

“On October 23, [2002], the UN Disarmament Committee adopted two crucial resolutions. The first called for stronger measures to prevent the militarization of space… The second reaffirmed the 1025 Geneva Protocol ‘prohibiting the use of poisonous gases and bacteriological methods of warfare.’ Both passed unanimously, wit two abstentions: the US and Israel. US abstention amounts to a veto: typically, a double veto, banning the events from reporting and history.” (Chomsky, 121)

Though in direct violation of the Geneva Convention and International Law, no one has been charged for the war crimes.

There are also subtler forms of occupational violence that can have just as severe effect.

Restriction of access to survival necessities like food, water, electricity and shelter, was one Urban 25 form practiced. It has since been proven that the above was in direct violation of the Geneva

Convention, and also a war crime. Another is nightly raids, forces busting into homes, searching for “insurgents” or “contraband”, often repeatedly on the same homes, and neighborhoods.

Rather than searching for “insurgents” to maintain the “safety” of Iraqis, this was a domination tactic, proving to civilians that they no longer had the right to the sanctity of their own homes.

Most notable is the practice of imprisonment and subsequent torture. It is estimated that more than 61,500 Iraqis were imprisoned in three and half years, the majority of whom were considered civilians. “So far, boys and men between the ages of 16 and 60 aren’t being counted as “civilians” in Fallujah. They are being rounded up and taken away.” (Riverbend, 22)

US soldiers often had arrest quotas to fill each day on patrol. Hooded Iraqis were then shipped off to prisons where the inhumanities worsened.

In US and Iraqi (US supported) prisons, interrogation is synonymous with torture.

Intelligence Officer Captain William Ponce stated in an email to fellow officers, “The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees… [a Colonel] has made it clear that we want these individuals broken.” Torture practices consisted of “deliberate humiliation (called ‘pride and ego down’), ‘exploit[ing] Arab fear of dogs,’ sensory deprivation (called ‘light control’), sensory overload (yelling, loud music) and ‘stress positions.’” (Klien, 466), but also included desecration of the Koran, electro shock treatment until “the detainee ‘danced’ as he was shocked”, physical violence including sexual assault and many more inhumane and disturbing tactics. The New York Times tells Faraj Mahmoud’s story of being “stripped and hanged from the ceiling. An electric prod applied to his genitals made his body bounce off the walls, he said.”

Klein states “In January 2005, Human Rights Watch found that torture within Iraqi-run (and US- Urban 26 supervised) jails and detention facilities was ‘systematic,’ including the use of electroshock. An internal report from the 1st Cavalry Division states that ‘electrical shock and choking’ are

‘consistently used to achieve confessions’.” (Klein, 469) In Iraqi prisons torture often ended in death. At the Baghdad morgue, “dozens of bodies arrive at the same time on a weekly basis, including scores of corpses with wrists bound by police handcuffs.” More than 61,500 Iraqis were detained in the first three and half years, this number does not include the following three years of occupation. “The Red Cross has said that US military officers have admitted that somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of detentions in Iraq were ‘mistakes’” (Klein, 467). This means of those 61,500 (documented) Iraqis between 43,050 and 55,350 Iraqis were detained and tortured beyond the conceivable, for no reason, illegally. Ali who had been released from

Abu Ghraib said, “Abu Ghraib is a breeding ground for insurgents …. All the insults and torture make them ready to do just about anything. Who can blame them?” (Klein, 468) Under international law unnecessary violence towards civilians is considered terrorism. General

William Odom, Director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, acknowledges,

“By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.” (Odom) Odom is referencing the exact period of time the United States was involved in the Afghan War. An inability to pass a terrorist law in which the US themselves were not in violation came long before, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and White Phosphorous.

It is estimated that every single family in Iraq has lost at least one family member to the occupation. Iraqis have endured endless destruction, violence, repression and crimes against humanity. Phyllis Bennis asserts “It is in the context of this wide-ranging set of deliberate war Urban 27 crimes – enabled by policy decisions at the very highest levels of US political and military leaders – that the specific illegal acts by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib, in Haditha, Fallujah, and elsewhere across Iraq, which have become common knowledge throughout the world, took place.” (Bennis, 44) The United states destroyed Iraq and its people in the name of the War on

Terror, protection of the homeland from Weapons of Mass Destruction and “terrorists”.

“Armed opposition to illegal invasion and occupation clearly doesn’t constitute terrorism or murder on most definitions including the Geneva Convention. But terrorism is now squarely in the eye of the beholder.” (Seumas Milne) Amidst the scorched rubble of Iraq is also a scorched psyche. “The weapons never existed… We were never a threat to America… Congratulations

Bush – we are a threat now.” (Riverbend, 45)

SUPPORT OF SUNNI GROUPS

As frustration with the occupation magnified by the atrocities committed, and the deepening of sectarian divisions continued, in 2006 civil war broke out. In the firing of 500,000 state workers as part of “de-Baathification”, “Dozens of senior US military and intelligence officers have acknowledged that many of the 400,000 soldiers Bremer laid off went straight to the emerging resistance.” (Klein, 445) Many of these highly trained officials went on to participate in the “Sunni Awakening” that resulted out of the sectarian civil war. Marine Colonel

Thomas Hammes states, “Now you have a couple hundred thousand people who are armed – because they took their weapons home with them – who know how to use the weapons, who have no future, who have every reason to be angry at you.” Contrary to what is widely Urban 28 reported, the Sunni Awakening was closely related, and supported by the newly emerged Al

Qaeda in Iraq, though Al Qaeda never was swayed in their anti-imperialist antioccupation stance. As the Sunni militias strengthened, US forces waned. So instead of fighting the Sunni’s as well, US forces slyly coopted the movement by supporting them, paying large sums of money to Sunni tribal leaders to prevent further conflict as the US made their sheepish exit. “The essence of the Sunni Awakening plan was that the US would bankroll Sunni Tribal leaders, those who had earlier led the anti-US resistance, paying them off to fight with the occupation and the

US-backed government instead of against them.” (Bennis, 18) In fact the US was funding Sunni tribal leaders more than their newly instated Shi’a government.

When US forces eventually backed out of Iraq, the Shi’a government refused to continue paying off Sunni tribal leaders, and Al Qaeda was strengthened by US funding, all out war broke out. Sunni groups attacked prisons freeing key military leaders, and began increasing their violent presence with more attacks, IEDs, kidnappings and beheadings. Reporter Gariakai

Chengu, at Foreign Policy Journal states, “Rather than promoting religious integration and unity,

American policy in Iraq exacerbated sectarian divisions and created a fertile breeding ground for Sunni discontent, from which Al Qaeda in Iraq took root.” (Chengu) Derived from Afghan

Cold War, Al Qaeda in this political vacuum took seed in Iraq. Riverbend expounds, “We did not

Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war. We did not know that sort of extremism.” (Riverbend, 102).

This is true, Al-Qaeda never existed in Iraq prior to the occupation. Now they were very present and growing in strength day by day, and would soon become the independent Islamic State of

Iraq. “The specific origins of ISIS… lie in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.” (Bennis, 16) The “War on Urban 29

Terror” gave birth to the strongest terrorist organization known to man. And so the cycles of violence continue. Terrorism survives wars, people don’t – terrorism thrives on wars.

PART IV- THE ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA

FORMATION

To understand how ISIS came to be we must understand how Al Qaeda came to Iraq.

One man is held responsible for Al Qaeda in Iraq, his name is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi is from Jordan and became a political Islamist in Afghanistan, where he ran a paramilitary training camp for the Mujahideen. This camp in particular was one of the CIA funded offshoots. This is where Zarqawi became militant. When US troops attempted an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, he was part of the resistance militias. By 2003 he was in Iraq and by 2004 he had helped found a Sunni militia. He later pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and created Al Qaeda in Iraq.

By 2006 he was killed by US forces, supposedly beaten to death. However, his Al Qaeda cell remained active.

Following Zarqawi is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom is now the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Before the Iraq war he was a religious scholar and cleric at a local mosque.

During occupation he was arrested outside of Fallujah and imprisoned at one of the notorious

US prisons, Bucca. This is where he allegedly became militant. He was held in Bucca for ten months. From within prison he began anti occupation education programs, organizing and resistance. Upon release, he joined Al Qaeda eventually becoming the leader in Iraq. What for Urban 30 him started as a liberation movement from occupiers, soon became a fight against Shi’as as US forces left. By the time he left Al Qaeda in 2010 to form the Islamic State of Iraq, he was a ruthless murderer and psychopath. “There is little doubt that al Baghdadi’s time in US custody was instrumental in his rise as a leader of what would become one of the most powerful extremist militias in the middle east.” (Bennis, 19). Though legally, all anti occupation movements are just under international law, if violence against civilians is committed, what was a liberation movement is now a terrorist group. “According to international law, a population subject to an ‘alien occupation’ has the right to resist ‘in exercise of their right to self determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations’” (Bennis,46). That is precisely what ISI began perpetuating, in attempt to dismantle the Shi’a Iraqi government.

ZARQAWI

Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made his first appearance on the international stage of the War on Terror in the now famous speech by Colin Powell before the UN Security Council.

Powell cited Zarqawi as proof that Islamist extremist terrorist networks existed in Iraq, thus framing further urgency to the War on Terror. The consequence some say, is the creation of ISIS itself. “With one speech, the White House had transformed Zarqawi from an unknown jihadist to an international celebrity and the toast of the Islamic movement.” (Warrick, 97) Before this pivotal moment, Zarqawi had been nothing but a low level criminal. Growing up in the rough neighborhoods of Zarqa, then, Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh, he was sacrilegious in everyway. He was a petty thief, a drug dealer, a drunk and a known street fighter. It wasn’t until his time with Urban 31 the Mujahideen in the Soviet Afghan war that his reformation began. He returned to Jordan with the esteem of a battle worn, at times reckless soldier and a sudden desire to pursue a pious life in Islam. He dutifully studied the Koran and shamefully covered his tattoos,

(eventually enlisting a friend to cut out the ones he could not remove himself). His hatred for the West and Israeli’s alike soon inspired his collaboration with the severe scholar Abu

Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and together they staged petty, yet still destructive acts of jihad against locations such as liquor stores, and pornography cinemas. “One of the early attempts at a bombing had been a spectacular failure: A member of the group had volunteered to plant explosives inside a local adult cinema called Salwa. After a few minutes in the theater, the would be assailant had become so engrossed in the film that he forgot about his bomb. As he sat glued to the screen, the device detonated under his feet.” (Warrick, 19) These attacks landed he and his companions in prison where they studied the Koran and planned their future assaults.

In March of 1999 however King Abdullah, in historic tradition granted general amnesty to the nonviolent and political prisoners of Jordan, and who should be on such list, but Zarqawi.

With new found freedom and ever growing dedication to jihad, Zarqawi with his beloved mother smuggled themselves out of Jordan and into Afghanistan in pursuit of al Qaeda. Zarqawi desperately wanted the attention of Osama bin Laden and seemed to revere him as both a role model and an adversary through out his life. However, bin Laden did not feel the same. He sent

Zarqawi with a few modest supplies and some cash to the farthest province from al Qaeda head quarters, to “prove himself”. It wasn’t until a near fatal attack on al Qaeda that sent bin Laden into hiding, did Zarqawi turn up in Iraq. Zarqawi had positioned himself in Iraq with hopes of Urban 32 participating in the insurgency that was sure to respond to the impending US attacks and occupation. At the time of Powell’s address to the UN Security Council, Zarqawi was running a small cell testing chemical weapons on stray dogs and surviving off a dwindling al Qaeda budget. However, that speech changed everything. Abu Hanieh, an author form Amman is quoted,

“Before anyone knew who he was, here was the secretary of state of the world’s most powerful government saying Zarqawi was important. Now his fame would extend throughout the Arab world, from Iraq and Syria to Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsula. People were joining al-Qaeda because of him.” (Warrick, 98)

This was Zarqawi’s launch pad and ultimately the Islamic States coherent founding.

From this moment weakened al-Qaeda, indulged Zarqawi and allowed him to run al-

Qaeda of Iraq, which in retrospect did little to attack the US occupants and everything to torment the rest of the country. Zarqawi’s “shinning” moments are his attack on the Jordanian

Embassy (August 7th, 2003) killing seventeen Iraqis, UN offices in Baghdad’s Canal Hotel (August

19th, 2003) killing Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello and twenty-two others, Imam Ali

Mosque (August 29th, 2003, a Muslim Holiday) while the adored Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir al-

Hakim spoke, killing at least eighty-five and wounding more than five hundred. It was then after the attack on the Imam Ali Masque that counter terrorism elites finally connected the recent slaughters to Zarqawi.

“It was one of the great ironies of the age, Abu Hanieh said. In deciding to use the unsung Zarqawi as an excuse for launching a new front in the war against terrorism, the White House had managed to launch the career of one of the century’s great terrorists. And Zarqawi responded.. by turning all their warnings about terrorism into reality.” (Warrick, 98)

Urban 33

But Zarqawi’s “greatest” achievement was yet to come, passing the torch to al Baghdadi, who would unite under Koranic gospel and take the Islamic State to Syria.

BAGHDADI

Ibrahim Awad al-Badri was a scholar with a doctorate degree and a professor of Islamic

Law, now he was known as Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph of ISIS. Born in 1971 Baghdadi came of age witnessing the Iran - Iraq War, the Gulf War, the savage Security Council sanctions, and now the Iraq war. Having grown up in a devout household, he was known to be quiet and consumed by his puritanical study. He was well o his way to becoming a professor, but US “Shock and

Awe” stifled that possibility, and lead him to enlist in a small resistance group. US raid on his home in Fallujah, landed him in Bucca prison, with nearly thirty thousand other Iraq men and women. In Bucca prison Baghdadi gained respect for his Koranic knowledge, leading prayer and

Koran study, inevitably gaining him the attention of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. Adnani a disciple of Zarqawi saw promise in this young scholar and brought him under his wing. Bucca, like many other US run prisons were the perfect recruitment facility. The combination of inhumane conditions and poor treatment, inspired further hatred of the occupation, thus the perfect space of networking and organizing.

“By corralling Islamist radicals and ordinary Iraqis in a lawless desert pen, U.S. officials inadvertently created a ‘jihadi university’ that helped inculcate Islamist ideas into a new generation of fighters… ‘This approach was not only naïve and myopic, it was also dangerous; predictably, it fueled the insurgency inside the wire.’ If Bucca was indeed a Urban 34

jihad university, Baghdadi would ultimately become its greatest alumnus.” (Warrick, 256)

Baghdadi was released after a ten month stay at Bucca, and returned to his studies for a time, until Zarqawi enlisted him to join his council on Sharia Law in 2006. Baghdadi was skilled at using his Koranic knowledge to justify and legitimize the Islamic State’s acts of violence, particularly against fellow Muslims, a skill that gained him praise from Zarqawi. By 2010

Baghdadi was the highest ranking Sharia official in the whole of the organization, a promotion that left him third in command of ISIS. On April 18th, 2010, a US and Iraqi counterterrorism operation killed Zarqawi and his second in command, leaving Baghdadi the inevitable leader.

Despite some hesitation within IS to follow this scrawny scholar, Baghdadi’s membership of

Iraq’s al-Bu Badri tribe, meant he could claim lineage that traced back to Muhammad, a requirement for a future Caliph. With Baghdadi as leader, the dream of the Caliphate was now tangible. His first strategic move in this pursuit, was to send emissaries to Syria in 2011, and begin the process of boarder erasure. Baghdadi said of his Syrian action, “We have crossed the boundaries that despicable hands demarcated between the Islamic states to thwart our movement. This is the state for which Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi paved the way. It will not retreat in any shape or manner from the territory to which t has been extended.” (Warrick,

260) Coinciding with Baghdadi’s bold move, is Syria’s Arab Spring, the most instability the region has seen in decades.

WHAT IS ISIS

Urban 35

ISIS was initially founded in jail cells and torture chambers, as a response to US occupation, and an ideology of a resistance militia. Lead by Sunni tribal leaders and former

Ba’athist officials many of whom were high ranking generals, it utilized the power of political

Islam and support of Al Qaeda, and became a network of military training and organization.

Ahmed al-Dulaimi, the governor of Anbar province, said, “We continue to live with the consequences of the decision to disband Saddam’s army… All of these guys got religious after

2003… Surely, ISIS benefits from their experience.” Soon, however, it distorted into a horrific draconian version of Islam, with beliefs in archaic Shari’a Law, and supreme destiny. The United

States left behind a landscape of increasingly relentless instability, injustice, and political vacuum. ISI quickly began its onslaught on the Shi’a government and military forces. As they gained power they gained more recruits, many of whom had been imprisoned, lost family members and suffered severe trauma from the occupation. As the government lost power and

Iraqi forces disbanded (some joining ISIS straight from their posts), the nightmare of an Islamic

State was indeed within grasp.

TIMELINE OF THE SPREAD OF ISIS

The rapid growth of ISIS began in earnest in 2013 when the group lead a series of successful campaigns in Iraq and Syria, with their newly established off shoot the Nusra Front, and changed their name from the Islamic State of Iraq to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

(ISIS). From 2012 to 2013 they had been expanding over the border to northern Syria and

Aleppo, beginning the erasure of borders. By August of 2014 they controlled Anbar province in Urban 36

Iraq and were beginning their governmental practices within that region. In February of 2014 the head of Al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri renounced ISIS, based on their practices and ideology, saying that their violence against Muslims is anti Islamic. As June comes, the Iraqi army is severely debilitated so ISIS launches attacks on their bases and absorbs all of their weaponry and supplies, also claiming Mosul and the surrounding oil fields. By July al-Baghdadi announces their

Caliphate and Raqqa, Iraq as their official capital and begin imposing Shari’a Law. As a result, many smaller organizations pledge support, and 3,000 US troops are deployed once again to

Iraq. All the while ISIS indeed provokes terror and chaos, as they murder, torture, rape, pillage and extort hundreds of thousands of civilians, leaving a horrifying trail of corpses in their wake.

Once a Caliphate (an Islamic State) is established, it is believed that the state will grow, until it sacks Istanbul (Turkey), where the final battle will commence and Jesus will return to kill the enemy, leaving the Islamic State to conquer the world. Before entering Syria Baghdadi planned his future statehood with the tact and strategy of a true head of state.

“He first commenced an organizational overhaul, appointing regional governors, Sharia advisors, and military commanders to oversee operations locally throughout Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State would function like a real government, with flow charts for acquiring approvals and special departments in charge of social media, logistics, finances, training, recruitment, and even the management of candidates for suicide missions, who were kept apart from the regular fighters to ensure proper indoctrination.“ (Warrick, 285)

The tormented devastation that ISIS imposes on those under their rule is beyond horrifying.

The organization of this tyranny exacerbated their strength, and multiply their ability to terrorize. Stories of their occupation of Raqqa evoke the most dystopian nightmares. Everything from their public executions, and severed head trophies, to their kidnapping of children to train for suicide bombing missions. The most inhumane unspeakable things are likely to be done by Urban 37

ISIS. And somehow they still have volunteers flocking from all over the globe. Questions of humanity and sanity are sure to deeply permeate when thinking of ISIS, there is seemingly no end to the nightmare.

PART V - SYRIA

As we come to the head of the ISIS problem, we must understand the climate in Syria and what led up to the conflict that now exists. In 2003, the United States deemed Syria part of the “Axis of Evil” due to claims that they were developing chemical weapons and began imposing sanctions upon them. Sound familiar? Between 2006 and 2011 Syria experienced the worst drought on record, leaving 85% of livestock dead and farm lands desecrated. Almost a million farmers lost their land and fled to the cities only to find poverty. Additionally, current dictator Bashar al-Assad, maintained and perpetuated economic divisions between the classes to maintain the powerful elites. “In Syria it was the Alawites, the long privileged minority group that included the Assad family, who held sway. The result was that non-Alawites, most of them majority Sunnis, were the least likely to find work, causing a rise in sectarian tensions.” (Bennis,

86) Water rights were preserved across political lines, so access for the people was limited if not futile. Frustrations mounted as people began to speak out, many of whom were disappeared by Assad’s regime. What began as nonviolent protests in Deraa, soon turned bloody when Syrian forces opened fire on the crowds. The people began to mobilize in violent unrest, it seemed Arab Spring had finally reached Syria. The Assad family 40-year reign was vicious in its response, disseminating tanks and heavy weaponry on civilian protesters. Syrians Urban 38 begin to organize, mobilizing anti Assad groups like the Free Syria Army, which is partially made up of defected Syrian troops. By 2011 Israel, Turkey and Lebanon are tensely involved, and other nations are beginning to weigh in, which began to reveal international intentions that went far beyond anti-Assad regime change.

PROXY WARS – NEO COLD WAR

It is doubtful that one can make total sense of the current situation in Syria as there are many moving parts still unravelling. However, it is clear that there are many different wars materializing at this point in time. “The Syrian civil war became a military conflict that morphed into at least seven separate wars, mainly proxy battles for outside players.” (Bennis, 92) I will be focusing on three of those wars (excluding some of the sectarian wars within the extremist and rebel groups). Firstly, there is the civil war between Assad and Syrian Liberation Front and other rebel groups. Next there is the Turkish and Kurdish war which complicate the above and below wars. Finally, yet again we have “Syria as the key Middle East arena of global competition between the US and Russia for regional military/ strategic power and influence.” (Bennis, 94) To complicate what could very well be considered a Neo Cold War, the sides have been bolstered by other nations further. On the US side is, of course, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Russia has long been allied with Assad and Iran as well, and in many ways this conflict reflects both

Afghanistan, Cold War policy and US Iraq war tactics. Russia is more overtly involved and has been for sometime. Where as the US has been primarily utilizing drone and air strikes, they have also very unsuccessfully attempted to train Syrian special forces, but many of them Urban 39 defected to other rebel groups, ISIS, died, or got kidnapped. The 500-million-dollar Pentagon program that General Lloyd Austin says “only four or five” trainees still remain. Iran has remained a largely quiet supporter, even considering teaming up with the US to “fight” ISIS.

Where things get really complicated is where the proxy war truly starts, with the amorphous

“rebel” groups, and who’s funding who, how and why.

US SUPPORT OF REBELS

Through a series of reports from the Pentagon and Washington, it has become clear that the US has been directly funding “rebel” groups in Syria for some time now. “Although the US has held the official line that only moderate rebels are being armed in Syria, figures such as

Presidential candidate Rand Paul stated that ‘war hawks’ in congress were responsible for the rise of ISIS, to Vice President Joe Biden stating that there were no “moderate rebels” say otherwise.” (Jay Syrmopoulos) The US government was providing arms to rebels directly, and also through Saudi supply lines that navigated through Turkey into the ISIS strong hold in northern Syria for “rebel” groups. Guardian journalist and associate editor, Seumas Milne states, “That didn’t include the ‘non-lethal assistance’ boasted of by the government (including body armor and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of ‘arms on a massive scale’. Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA ‘rat line’ of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of Gaddafi regime.”

(Milne) If say, these rebel groups were not directly related to ISIS, the threat of violence upon them by ISIS and the large paycheck and relative safety ISIS provides, had an alarming amount Urban 40 of those groups were moved to adopt the anit-imperialist ideologies of ISIS, and would either directly join or would align themselves with their cause. However, Pentagon documents released in August of 2012 by Judiciary Watch, prove that Pentagon and Washington officials alike, not only predicted that US influence and involvement had the potential of resulting in

ISIS. Due to the State departments, military and monetary backing of the Islamic State, Al

Qaeda and affiliate groups, but it also foresaw the sheer strength of ISIS’s potential threat.

Author and Journalist Nafeez Ahmed reported on the Pentagon documents in detail, citing US

Security analyst Charles Shoebridge,

“‘The documents show that not only did the US government at the latest by August 2012 know the true extremist nature and likely outcome of Syria’s rebellion’ — namely, the emergence of ISIS — ’but that this was considered an advantage for US foreign policy. This also suggests a decision to spend years in an effort to deliberately mislead the West’s public, via a compliant media, into believing that Syria’s rebellion was overwhelmingly ‘moderate.’” (Ahmed)

Initially, the US considered their covert support of “rebel” groups, whom would destabilize the

Assad regime, as advantageous to their neoliberal pursuits and geopolitical control of the region. However, the focus shifted with the rise of ISIS, intentionally or otherwise, back to the

“War on Terror”. Brad Hoff, former US marine and Iraq war veteran, states from his experience that, “US intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a US strategic asset.” (Ahmed) There are at least three ways in which the growth of ISIS benefits US foreign policy, they act as a proxy to attack and destabilize US enemies in the

Middle East. They form a manufactured domestic threat, which then offers pretext for US intervention. Finally, fear tactics justify advancement of invasive domestic surveillance. Chengu Urban 41 states, “Terrorism is a symptom; American imperialism in the Middle East is the cancer. “War on Terrorism is Terrorism. – only conducted on a much larger scale by people with jets and missiles” (Chengu). Now in Syria, the “Overseas Contingency Operation” is Barak Obama’s newest iteration of “War on Terror”.

PART VI - SYNTHESIS

This brings us to the age old conundrum of the “Masters Tools”. Audre Lorde penned the concept in 1984, that “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”.

Referring to the restructuring of systems of oppression upon people of color, this concept can also be applied to systems that lead to the Syrian crisis. Many parallels can be drawn from the current crisis in Syria and to those of the past, including but not limited to, the Iraq War,

Afghanistan, Arab Spring and Cold War proxies. The methods remain the same. Create a threat, utilize a threat as an entry point into the region, occupy the region, instate control over policy and economy via corporate interest and backing, privatize precious resources, and establish bases for further operations abroad in that region. All of these methods result in what today could be identified as neocolonies for the Western capitalist interests, and necessary expansion in pursuit of the ultimate goal, world domination. But first the threat must be created. In the case of Syria, the aforementioned methodologies and their resulting trauma have already created this threat, ISIS.

“The NIC [US National Intelligence Council] expects the official version of globalization to continue on course: ‘Its evolution will be rocky, marked by chronic volatility and widening economic divide.’ Financial volatility very likely means slower growth, extending the pattern of neoliberal globalization (for those who follow the rules) and Urban 42

harming mostly the poor. The NIC goes on to predict that as this form of globalization proceeds, ‘deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation [will] foster ethnic, ideological and religious extremism, along with the violence that often accompanies it,’ much of it directed against the United States. ‘Unsurprisingly,’ Kenneth Waltz observes, the weak and disaffected ‘lash out at the symbol of their suffering.’” (Chomsky, 209)

It can be argued that first Al Qaeda and now ISIS exemplify the symptoms of this

“lashing out”, though that would be a heinous understatement. Thus, the violence, the cycle continues. The US’s promotion of extremism, prior to the conception of ISIS, in its many forms lead, in part to the crisis in Syria. Furthermore, their support and promotion of groups directly or indirectly aligned with ISIS has promoted their current strength and wealth.

First US militaries were brought to the Middle East to prevent the spread of the Soviet

Union and their socialist practices and maintain the capitalist dreams of the West. In this the first seeds of ISIS were sown, as the CIA encouraged Political Islam into militant extremism by financially mobilizing and training militia groups, one in which the founder of ISIS participated.

Next Neoliberalism arrived in Iraq on the backs of bombs and missiles, to promote free market dreams and privatize Iraq’s fruitful resources. The corresponding occupational destruction of mind and body of the Iraqi people, and subsequent political vacuum warped Iraqis into the cycles of violence perpetuated by US bombardment, repression, and torture. The result: militancy empowered by draconian Islam, Islamic State of Iraq. Finally, we come to Syria, and the Neo Cold War, full circle. Once again, prevention of Soviet expansion, privatization of resources and a military stronghold are the guiding objectives of US involvement in Syria. Yet again, like in Afghanistan, political extremist Islam is a tool for foreign policy to achieve these neoliberal goals. Al Baghdadi is participating in the US foreign policy practices that inspired his Urban 43 extremism in the first place. Only this time he and ISIS are stronger than ever before, and will not be subdued, with out leaving incomprehensible, irreconcilable death and destruction. How many will die? How many will be disappeared? How many miles of scorched earth will it take for money, for power to mean less, than humanity? The master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house, but they may kill the master… and everyone else in between.

Urban 44

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