public relations’—and even more insidiously ‘Politics has to be murky, relying on because MPs, like most people, instinctively compromise and deals, because different and strike up a rapport with outsiders from simi- rival interests, truths and traditions exist lar backgrounds to themselves. It is a point under a common rule,’ she writes. ‘To which merits wider discussion and analysis. renounce politics is to destroy the very thing These anthropologist’s observations are that orders pluralism in non-violent ways enjoyable and insightful: Crewe has a great and keeps despotism at bay.’ eye for humanity and humour, and writes (very) engagingly. But alone they Juliette Jowit writes for would not sustain a book, let alone an academic one. As she writes of her experiences, though, Three different takes on ISIS the tone shifts, progressively, from observa- tion to something more heartfelt: a defence Gilbert Achcar of the House of Commons, and of demo- cratic politics itself. Not only does Crewe The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New believe that most MPs belie their (un)popu- Sunni Revolution, by Patrick Cockburn. lar image by being hard-working, sacrificing Verso. 172 pp. £9.99. privacy, family time, respect and (often) Isis: Inside the Army of Terror, by Michael income, to genuinely want to ‘do good’; she Weiss and Hassan Hassan. Regan Arts. 270 also argues that public expectations are pp. £12.99. unreasonable—even dangerous. Politics is by ISIS: The State of Terror, by Jessica Stern and nature about compromise, she observes: J. M. Berger. William Collins. 385 pp. £14.99. indeed, the contradictions necessary to do this are inherent in most if not all of our Most people prefer to keep referring to the lives. So politicians have to at once be con- self-proclaimed Islamic State by the acronym sidering individual constituents, their con- of its previous name: ISIS, the Islamic State stituency as a whole and good, in and (or, more accurately ‘al- as well as special interests and their own Sham’—Greater Syria—approximately translated consciences; they must also be aware of his- by some as ‘the Levant’, with the acronym tory, act in the present and be mindful of the hence turned into ISIL). On this thus-named future consequences of their actions. To ISIS, close to forty books and counting have expect them to follow one path unswerv- been hitherto published in English, of which ingly would be to ask them to betray many the three reviewed here are the best-selling others whom they are elected to serve. A in the UK. good example is individuals and groups lob- Of these, Patrick Cockburn’s was one of bying MPs both ways on voting to legalise the very first books written on ISIS. It came gay marriage, while some also had strong out in 2014 under the title The Jihadis Return. personal views, often informed by their reli- The one reviewed here is an updated edition gion and/or views on individual liberty. with a new title. It recapitulates the views Sometimes Crewe’s defence stretches the that the author developed in his coverage of credulity of even someone like myself, events in Iraq and Syria for The Independent. whose experience has made them so much It is written in a most readable journalistic more respectful of MPs: she quotes a Labour style by an author who is well acquainted backbencher saying that they can ‘say “I with this part of the world, having covered fully support my Leader” to the media and it for many years (especially Iraq). However, then [go] to the tearoom and discuss how to the book contains hardly any references to get rid of him. This is politics.’ To which substantiate its numerous assertions other Crewe adds: ‘This is not just politics: that is than Cockburn’s personal testimony, often how people are.’ Others might argue that quite anecdotal. not all people are hypocritical or deceitful, Yet, what is most questionable about this and at the very least we can expect better of book is its author’s heavy political bias, people we elect to power. But this does not which transpires at the end of the preface detract from her more important concern: when Cockburn quotes Vice-President Joe

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© The Authors 2016. The Political Quarterly © The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2016 The Political Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1 Biden’s statement about the lack of civilians homogeneous category ‘the Sunni’, facing a of the ‘moderate middle’ in the ranks of a no less homogeneous ‘the Shia’. Thus, he Syrian opposition which, so says Biden, is tells us that ‘the Sunni’ are ‘unlikely to be exclusively composed of ‘soldiers’. Biden satisfied’ with regional autonomy and a lar- was trying to justify the Obama administra- ger share of jobs and oil revenues, and tion’s refusal to provide the Syrian opposi- would not be content with less than a ‘full tion with the defensive weapons it requested counterrevolution that aims to take back —primarily anti-aircraft weapons. Patrick power over all of Iraq’. One is left wonder- Cockburn’s immoderate comment on Biden’s ing how an informed author like Cockburn statement is much telling: ‘Seldom have the could attribute the fantasy of an excited real forces at work in creating ISIS and the fringe of Iraqi Arab Sunnis to a whole com- present crisis in Iraq and Syria been so accu- munity. The fact is, however, that he seems rately described.’ to have taken that fantasy for a fait accompli Any reader familiar with the region would since he asserts that, after ISIS’s offensive in know what to expect from the book hencefor- Iraq, the Shia leaders have ‘not grasped that ward. Indeed, a few pages later Cockburn their domination over the Iraqi state... was cites an anonymous ‘intelligence officer from finished’ and that ‘only a Shia rump was a neighbouring country’ (obviously Iraq, left’—an astonishing overstatement indeed. whose Iran-dominated government backs Patrick Cockburn’s pro-Assad bias is also Syria’s Assad) to the effect that ISIS is pleased blatant in the double standard with which when sophisticated weapons are sent to anti- he judges ‘conspiracy theories’ depending on Assad groups, because it can always get them which side they emanate from. Thus, says by force or cash. In the same spirit, Cockburn he, ‘a conspiracy theory much favoured by explains that he couldn’t fly directly to Bagh- the rest of the Syrian opposition and by dad in the summer of 2014 because, he was Western diplomats, that ISIS and Assad are told, ISIS had obtained shoulder-held anti-air- in league, was shown to be false as ISIS won craft missiles ‘originally supplied to anti- victories on the battlefield’. But Cockburn Assad forces in Syria’—a statement that is does not tell the reader by which logic ISIS’s doubly untrue as, first, no such weapons victories on the Syrian battlefield were in were supplied to anti-Assad forces in Syria and by themselves a refutation of the claim and, second, the most sophisticated weapons by the Syrian opposition and Western diplo- on which ISIS managed to lay its hands are mats that the Assad regime had favoured actually those supplied by the US to the Iraqi ISIS’s establishment and expansion in Syria army, which abandoned them ignominiously in order to weaken and discredit the Syrian in its debacle during the summer of 2014. insurgency. This erroneous account is matched soon This claim was made in light of the wide- after by a highly disputable assertion: ‘It is spread conviction that Assad’s intelligence the government and media consensus in the services have been manipulating Iraq’s jiha- West that the civil war in Iraq was reignited dists from the time the US occupied that by the sectarian policies of Iraqi Prime Min- country in 2003. In any event, the above- ister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad. In reality it quoted categorical dismissal of that ‘conspir- was the war in Syria that destabilized acy theory’ stands in striking contrast with Iraq...’ This assertion flies in the face of the Cockburn’s indulgence towards another that well-known fact that the vast mass protests is favoured by the opposite side. On the alle- that started in Iraq’s Arab Sunni regions in gation that the resurgence of ISIS was aided 2012 and laid the ground for ISIS’s subse- by Turkish military intelligence, which he quent expansion in those same regions were attributes again to ‘one senior Iraqi source’, not about Syria in the least, but about Al- Cockburn has this to say: ‘This might be dis- Maliki’s sectarian drive, which had swung missed as one more Middle East conspiracy into high gear as soon as the last American theory, but a feature of jihadist movements combat troops left Iraq. is the ease with which they can be manipu- The truth is that Cockburn can barely lated by foreign intelligence services.’ In conceal his contempt for Iraq’s Arab Sunnis, sum, the ease with which ISIS can be manip- whom he often lumps together in a ulated by intelligence services only applies

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The Political Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1 © The Authors 2016. The Political Quarterly © The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2016 to Turkish services in Cockburn’s view, not the knee-jerk ‘anti-imperialist’ circles who to the Syrian ones. reject any form of intervention by Western Cockburn’s contempt for Iraq’s Arab Sun- powers in any situation as a matter of reli- nis is matched by his dislike of the other gious taboo, and who abundantly quote component of what he calls ‘the new Sunni Cockburn on Syria, the Independent’s reporter revolution’, namely the Syrian opposition. himself thinks that Washington ought to His summary of the Syrian tragedy is una- support the Assad regime. ‘If the US had shamedly biased against the latter: ‘Syrians been serious about combating the extremist have to choose between a violent dictator- jihadists, then it would have realized it had ship, in which power is monopolized by the little alternative’,heaffirms. Of all stances presidency and brutish security services, or on Syria, the idea that supporting the Assad an opposition that shoots children in the face regime is the best way to fight ISIS—an for minor blasphemy and sends pictures of organisation that thrives on Sunni resent- decapitated soldiers to the parents of their ment against the two Iran-backed govern- victims.’ With such a Hobbesian description ments of and Baghdad as well as of the options, the barbaric atrocities and against the United States—is the most pre- crimes against humanity committed by the posterous indeed. Syrian Leviathan, composed of the whole For a good and serious work on this range of Assad regime’s armed forces and whole topic with none of the flaws of Cock- their allies, are conveniently forgotten while burn’s, one should read the book by Michael the opposition is reduced to killers of chil- Weiss and Hassan Hassan—by far the best dren—even though the Syrian regime has on ISIS to this date. Both authors are journal- killed far more children than the opposition. ists like Cockburn, and write for a variety of The author makes no secret of his personal publications. Yet their book is a serious piece choice. of research, based on interviews with vari- Cockburn’s leniency towards the Assad ous actors across the range of parties regime even leads him to find ‘some truth’ involved in the tragedy or concerned with it in one of the latter’s most blatant lies about —from US military to Iraqi and Syrian offi- the early peaceful protests in 2011: ‘The gov- cials or former officials, and to ISIS members ernment insists that protests were not as —as well as various experts. It is backed by peaceful as they looked and that from an numerous references, including a host of early stage their forces came under armed reports from sources ranging from govern- attack. There is some truth to this, but if the mental agencies to human rights organisa- opposition’s aim was to trap the government tions. The authors’ experience and familiarity into a counterproductive punitive response, with Syria are qualitatively different from it has succeeded beyond its dreams.’ Like- Cockburn’s. In their own words, ‘one of the wise, Patrick Cockburn goes so far as to give authors is a native Syrian from the border credit to a common argument of all authori- town of Albu Kamal, which has long been a tarian regimes confronted with popular portal for jihadists moving into, and now mobilisations, an argument that is itself out of, Iraq. The other author has reported steeped in ‘conspiracy theory’. He asserts from the Aleppo suburb of al-Bab, once a that ‘the revolutionaries of 2011 had many cradle of Syria’s independent and pro-demo- failings but they were highly skilled in influ- cratic civil society; today, it is a dismal ISIS encing and manipulating press coverage. fief ruled by Sharia law.’ Tahrir Square in Cairo and later the Maidan In the first chapters, Weiss and Hassan in Kiev became the arenas where a melo- describe the rise of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during drama pitting the forces of good against evil the disastrous American occupation, its radi- was played out in front of the television calisation into the ‘’, its cameras.’ subsequent marginalisation when US strat- In conclusion, Patrick Cockburn blames egy shifted towards co-opting Arab Sunni the United States for ‘balking at giving mili- tribes and how this was jeopardised by Al- tary assistance to those who were fighting Maliki’s sectarian policy once freed from the ISIS, such as the Syrian army’—meaning the constraints of US occupation. They then Assad regime’s army, of course. Thus, unlike explore the duplicity of the Assad regime in

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© The Authors 2016. The Political Quarterly © The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2016 The Political Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1 dealing with US-occupied Iraq and how this glossary that includes definitions of basic preceded ISIS’s emergence in war-torn Syria. terms along with more uncommon ones, and They describe the Assad regime’s direct role an appendix written by a doctoral student in fostering the ‘jihadisation’ of the Syrian who offers a historical survey covering the insurgency as well as the way it provoked fourteen centuries between the founding of sectarianism by unleashing a criminal sectar- Islam and that of ISIS—all in twenty-four ian militia; they then assess the role of Iran pages. and its regional proxies in propping up Stern and Berger’s book contains much Damascus, how the Arab Gulf monarchies padding: for example, several pages sum- played a key role in promoting that same ‘ji- marising articles or videos produced by ISIS. hadisation’ and how the corruption of the It says little on the Syrian and Iraqi context Syrian opposition by Gulf money facilitated and the role of the US occupation in the the spread of an ISIS that projected the emergence of ISIS, with only an occasional image of a law-and-order enforcing ‘state’. hint at the 2003 ‘blunder’ of the invasion Finally, they describe the contours of this so- and occupation of Iraq. A few interesting called Islamic State and provide a profile of insights, such as a comparison between ISIS their fighters and how they are recruited. and other brands of apocalyptic terrorism, This last aspect is central to the book by are frustratingly short. The book ends with Jessica Stern, who lectures on terrorism at the authors’ policy advice on how to counter Harvard, and J. M. Berger, a journalist who ISIS propaganda, not without some plati- has written on American jihadists. Although tudes such as the following statement on its it is quite substantial, their book reads as if last page: ‘King Abdullah of Jordan, who it were written for the For Dummies series, has shown himself to be extraordinarily sounding like a briefing for the kind of US courageous, argues that fighting ISIS will security personnel and politicians who require the Muslim world to work together.’ would have some difficulty spotting the Sigh! Middle East on a world map. The inevitable supplements of the genre are there: a School of Oriental and African Studies

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The Political Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1 © The Authors 2016. The Political Quarterly © The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2016