Original Spanish Version Posted: Nov 07, 2014

Historically, the Middle East has been a region with complex political, economic and social tensions. However, the establishment of a de facto government in parts of Iraq and Syria by a terrorist organization that threatens to spread to the rest of the Muslim world, has raised alarm and concern in the international community; especially after the raw and violent repressive strategies that the Islamic state used to achieve their goals and what the expansion of their doctrines would mean in relation to the small gains that had been achieved on human rights and in Arab countries.

Background.

The origins of the Islamic State back to the beginning of the war in Iraq. It emerged as a terrorist organization largely composed by Sunni fighters, contrary to the chii governments and to the participation of the US and other foreign troops in Iraq. In 2004, the Islamic State joined forces with Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, carrying out terrorist attacks and increasing its role in the war, with the aim of consolidating its presence in Iraq to eventually create an Islamic state in the Middle East.

In the course of the civil war in Syria, the jihadists have taken advantage of the instability and the division of the country to conquer several Syrian cities; using acts of terrorism, massacres and armed combats against troops from both the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, as well as from the various Syrian opposition groups. Although in this period Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State grew apart, the latter adopted an expansionist strategy aimed at extending the Caliphate and its «world view» to the rest of the Muslim civilization.

It is important to remember that the Islamic State, is not just an armed guerrilla or a paramilitary mercenary group driven by an elementary idea of state or solely by economic interest. The Islamic State is a more complex entity; it is a terrorist organization whose leaders have developed a distorted religious and political vision that uses radicalization and indoctrination as enforcement mechanisms to fulfill an alleged «divine mission”.

In its quest to establish a Caliphate based on the enforcement of radical Sharia law, the Islamic State has resorted to a policy of zero religious tolerance characterized by abuse and genocide of religious groups that have not agreed to convert to the particular strand of Islam professed by the Islamic State; the violent occupation of towns and adjacent territories; the forced indoctrination of populations under its power; the establishment of a doctrine that suppresses women’s rights and marginalize their participation in society; and the realization of violent acts such as massacres, genocides, beheadings, kidnappings, rape and human trafficking.

Situation in Iraq and Syria.

A complex combination of social factors in Iraq and Syria aggravated the expansion of the Caliphate: war; the presence of unstable and weak political systems lacking necessary social support; coexistence and conflict between different ethnic and religious groups; deep social inequalities among the population; absence of a solid Rule of Law State with effective human rights protection mechanisms; deterioration of economic conditions; and the strong role of religion in all spheres of social life.

Moreover, the development of this conflict has been particularly influenced by strong regional and historical tensions with other neighboring countries; and by the slow reaction of the international community, who tried to protect its geopolitical interests, while reducing at the same, the potential impact on their territories.

Financial resources.

A key factor for the survival of the Islamic State has been its economic capacity to finance its operations. The organization has managed to control the oil production in key regions of Iraq and Syria, and used it to sell thousands of oil barrels with gains of up to one million dollars a day, while at the same time, it has damaged the oil production capacity of both nations. ISIS has also resorted to kidnapping, extortion and human trafficking as alternative financing channels.

Besides, the Islamic State has achieved global media coverage through an aggressive campaign on the internet and on social networks to spread its messages and videos (including beheadings) and to recruit thousands of supporters and activists from many parts of the world, particularly from developed countries.

Foreign actors’ responsiveness.

For months, National security agencies studied jihadists’ behavior; however, they were not regarded as a significant threat. This is precisely one of the most critical elements in addressing a crisis: identifying a possible source of conflict and not being able to contain it before it expands. The ability or inability of the Western world to react to these conflicts has been decisive.

In a globalized world such as ours, to underestimate certain local actors like ISIS creates the possibility that, in the medium to long term and with the necessary tools and incentives, they might become actors with substantial international projection.

In fact, the Islamic State has become an international player with significant economic power, and with an impressive local and international network formed by thousands activists on every continent; this is mainly due to the delayed reaction of the democratic nations, who were not able to contain this phenomenon at its early stages and who failed to establish immediate and solid limits to ISIS’s expansionism.

Perhaps, a more direct involvement by western democracies since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War could have considerably reduced or contained the escalation of deaths and violence in Syria and Iraq. More effort should have been invested on building inclusive democratic governments in both countries. Moreover, stronger support should have been given to the Syrian moderate opposition and to the implementation of effective policies focused on preventing the strengthening of radical groups in the area. Had these strategies been properly implemented, it is possible that the Islamic State would not have reached its current strength and international projection.

International community reaction.

With the current crisis, the actions of the international community have been based on a model of collective security and multilateral cooperation, which proposed the formation of an international coalition that would involve regional actors directly affected by the conflict and leading countries with strategic geopolitical interests in the area.

Even though the initial Western reaction was not as prompt or as powerful as this serious crisis demanded, democratic states have shown that they do not wish to remain oblivious to the serious human rights violations made by the Islamic State.

 In fact, the international community has the authority to exercise the principle of «responsibility to protect», which according to the UN, is that, in cases where it is evident that a State fails to protect its population, the international community may take collective measures to use diplomatic, humanitarian and others appropriate means to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

It is for this reason, that although troops’ deployment has been avoided, serious efforts have been made trying to empower local actors through logistical support, the presence of special operations units and the provision of equipment and weapons. For their part, Arab countries have been very cautious in dealing with the crisis, in order to prevent the situation to expand into their territories. For example, Turkey’s role in the coalition has focused on humanitarian aid and in the reception of thousands of refugees, while it avoid involvement in military support operations, not only by fear of direct retaliation by the Islamic State against its territories and populations, but also because of the delicate political problem that it posed to Turkey’s Kurdish community.

The Kurdistan is a region that has played an important role in containing the Islamic states. It is a major oil-producing area in Iraq that is considered a quasi-state within the Iraqi nation, which in the future could become a state itself. Kurds residents in different parts of the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Turkey, etc) have enlisted to fight the militants of the Islamic State in order to prevent their populations from being submitted by the jihadists; and being one of the few active regional forces in the combat areas, they have begun to receive international support from countries like Germany and the United States.

On the other hand, Western countries are also concerned about the participation of their own citizens in the forces of the Islamic State, as well as the potential impact that this citizen could have on national security issues on their territories, such as containment of radical Islam and the dangers of the proliferation of » lonely wolves » engaged in terrorist acts on behalf of the Islamic State.  Furthermore, to the international community, the Middle East constitutes a strategic sphere of influence with important oil reserves that should be prevented from falling into the hands of terrorist groups such as the emerging Caliphate of the Islamic State.

In conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq, as well as those in Ukraine, the Western countries have realized that local events occurring in a particular region cannot be ignored or underestimated, because nowadays, especially with globalization, they could become global issues with direct repercussions on geopolitical interests or on the national security agenda of any country in the world.