Is it fair to say ISIS came about because of failed Arab Nationalism/Baath-ism?

It's been a few years since I really discussed this topic with anyone and have since lost my most interesting tidbits. So I'll tell out the things I do remember.

From about 2006-2008 a lot of the COIN was 'contracted' to local groups in Iraq, the largest of which was the Free Iraqi Army, mostly made up of citizens who had grown tired of the indescriminate bombings. They recieved a lot of training from the marines stationed there, in conjunction with conventional Iraqi forces.
Keep in mind that around this point the current regime had made it so anyone coukd serve, not just ba'athists. A majority of the army and republican gaurd still had baathist ties.

By the end of 2008, early 2009 the situation is nearly handled, al queda was pretty much non existant in Iraq, and the Iraqis becames pretty competent dealing with insurgents, the recently re-elected President of Iraq asked to be given official control of the situation. This was granted and American troops began their withdrawal. Around the same time Iraqi gov began to crackdown on Sunni muslims and baathists alike, both of which were banned from public office and military service, hundreds of thousands people suddenly out of a job. They also cut the funding to local militias who handled the brunt of the situation including the largest and most effective one. They also couldnt hold public office or serve in the military.

That purge meant that suddenly Iraqs most experienced fighting aged men where now free game for all sides so the former FIA and the IRG joined and became ISIL first and foremost to protect themselves and carve out a peice of Iraq for themselves.

That's how it started, and as for how it's become, well the rest is history.

>Isis literally revolves around their plans to trigger Armageddon
>I wouldn't try to make too much sense of what their motives are.

You might want to investigate what the US motives are in their Middle Eastern policy, especially regarding Israel.
Just read up on restorationism.

The Jews want an ethnostate and they lobby americans to support to it, some of who are very eager to because of evangelism. The rest of it is realpolitik and the US wanting a puppet in the region.

I think it's safe to say ISIS at the upper levels is much more motivated by religious insanity than the us or Israel is.

Why did he pay bounties to the families of suicide bombers and why did he provide asylum to:
-Abu Abbas (Achille Lauro hijacking)
-Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (murder of Laurence Foley in 2002)
-Abdul Rahman Yasin (bomber from the 1993 WTC who got away)
-Mohammad Atta (met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague)

Was it just plain pragmatism? Using Islamic fundamentalism to achieve his anti-Western goals, knowing he'd turn on the fundamentalists later on?

How do I join?

Islamism in general came about because of failed Arab Nationalism, and led to the formation of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots. The history of suppression and conflict between Nationalists and Islamists led to the formation of Jihadist groups like Al Qaeda. Finally, the spread of Salafism merged with Jihadism which created ISIS.

It was a factor. When all of the Arabs bitch about incorrect borders being drawn they aren't exactly wrong but it's not for the reason they say it is. In the Baathist, nationalist dictatorship it really wasn't a big issue. The dictators killed dissent mostly based on who dusagreed with them not based on culture, religion, etc. (with a few exceptions). There was some oppression based on being a minority but it really wasnt that much. The real reason why the borders are fucked up comes into play when these countries become democracies. All of theses people forced to live under the same government hate each other and because they hate each other, Democracy breeds a true "tyranny of the masses". In Iraq it can be seen most clear, the Shia Arabs are more populous and therefore the elect Shia Arab leaders who agree with their hatred of Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, etc. and made rules to give themselves privileges over these groups. The Kurds basically just saud "Fuck off and ruled themselves with their provincial gov in Kurdistan, despite what the national government says and there was really nothing Iraq could do about it. The Christians were used to it and didn't give a fuck. Thr Sunnis on the other hand all have this superiority complex and got extremely assmad about it, also the ones who worked with Saddam and alongside American troops during the invasion all kept their guns. When Syria blew into chaos (due to Assad being a complete cunt) they took advantage of this and invaded a vulnerable area, set up a base of operations, and used their early success to draw more troops to their cause and eventually invade Iraq.

>Why do Sunnis get so assmad though?
This is due to those faggots who lead Saudi Arabia propagating Wahhabism which is basically Sunni Nationalism. They literally think you are less a person if you aren't Sunni and that you need to be a subject of the Sunni code of ethics written in the 4th century. This explains part of why ISIS is so fucked up

>In Iraq it can be seen most clear, the Shia Arabs are more populous and therefore the elect Shia Arab leaders who agree with their hatred of Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, etc. and made rules to give themselves privileges over these groups. The Kurds basically just saud "Fuck off and ruled themselves with their provincial gov in Kurdistan,
Well, India is a good example of how this can work, no? They elected a Sikh primeminister yet most of the country is hindu.

Cont. ISIS is also made even more fucked up due to their recruitmet of internationals who have actual mental issues that mess up their perception of morality.

>Why do the Saudis promote this when they also want to keep a strong relationship with the west?
Basically because it is useful to them in fending off Iran's influence in the Middle East. They fear Shia Iran and Iran does similar shit with their buddy Assad (and the Syrian Alouites who are a branch of Shia), the Yemeni rebels, random groups in Lebanon, Jordan, etc. The Wahabbi mindset has grown beyond their control.

Fortunately it looks like there is no real chance of success for ISIS but the only real chance of success in the region would be a breakdown of barriers that would be more friendly to a democracy. Syria will never be run in peace again by Assad, probably never by any one leader and will most likely get sectioned off based on proximity to Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. Iraq will also most likely be broken into Western and Eastern sections (with a small possibility that Kurdistan also separates). If they are adamant about making Syria and Iraq work as is and break ups don't happen then the nations will have to outlive wahabbism and Iranian intervention for a real chance. Elsewise they will be eternally at war.

>. Iraq will also most likely be broken into Western and Eastern sections (with a small possibility that Kurdistan also separates)
Everything I've read of Iraqi troops and iraqi government policy, and most iraqis is once ISIS is gone they want one country. It's only really the kurds who are trying to separate completely, and even the PKK isn't all for an independent Kurdistan.

Under Saddam Iraq was a serious country and a strong regional power. I think all these groups want to be a regional power but without the oppression of Baathist regime

What about the Shiafags getting backed by Iran? Iran's Armed Forces literally has two branches- the regular Army and one literally dedicated to spreading Islam. Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism and riled up the Shias in Iraq by arming them with IEDs and whatnot.

Yes but Indians aren't nationalistic about their religion like Muslims in the ME. Hindus in general aren't opposed to other religions and even the Muslims in India aren't opposed to other religions in the same way Muslims in Iraq are due to a lack of Saudi influence. The only real example of multireligion peace in the Middle East is Lebanon which has large Sunni, Shia, and Christian populations. It took them a while to learn how to live together though. They had their own religious civil war, in which ironically both the Muslim sides agreed to let the Christians dictate the rules for a bit to get a neutral party to start the process and since then they've been pretty stable. I don't see this working in Iraq or Syria though to be honest. It worked in Lebanon because they were small enough to evade outside influence and solve it themselves the "hard" way. It's already too late for Iraq or Syria to do this.

They all want one country because one country=more power. Both sides also want to continue the behavior that separated them in the first place too. Shia want revenge and Sunnis want absolution and neither is really willing to budge, it won't work without serious compromise on both sides.

This.

I'd also say that Arab nationalism failed because of their socialist policies, which ruined the economy of most Arab countries that adopted it an created resentment in the important small-business classes of the Arab world. Organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria had one of their most important basis on these small-merchants. The same happens in other Muslim countries like Turkey, where the AKP is the party of both Islamism and free-market capitalism, and Iran where the bazaaris were a huge influence in the Iranian Revolution.

Oh yeah I didn't mean to imply Iran was any less guilty than the Saudis of starting shit. I just spoke more about Saudi shit stirring because I wanted to keep it focused on Sunni extremism due to ISIS being Sunni.

wow, an informative thread in a topic about Islam. I was expecting nothing but alt-right shitposting

>it won't work without serious compromise on both sides.
Why can't arabs be civil like Canadians, or Spaniards, or Swiss, or even fucking Belgians?
Sure in the past there was mild violence but these are examples of multiple ethnic, religious, or linguitic groups living in one country as a common people.

Why are arabs so backwards?

Saudi/Iranian proxy wars. Their anguish is useful to their neighbors at the moment.

Are there any theological differences in spreading Islam between the Iranian Shia terrorists and the Saudi Sunni terrorists? I'm not too familiar with the entire Sunni-Shia divide, but do they have differing views on spreading Islam?

>but do they have differing views on spreading Islam?
Basically the divide between Shia and Sunni are they each follow a different successor of Mohammad. It's really not that different, they don't have many different beliefs but I don't the the Hadith are as influencial in Shia Islam.
it's not like Protestantism/Christianity where one rejects the overarching institutions of the religion (the pope). There is no pope in Islam, closest thing in Iran would be the Ayatollah

Shia and Sunni is a difference on who they believe is the leader of the religion. It started with Mohammed's son Ali (Shia) and his uncle/general (or something I don't even remember, Sunni). But it's kind of a big deal in this context because the Saudi kingdom is itself supposed to be THE Islamic State that all Muslims are subject to particularly because they have the ancestral ground of Mohammed and the Ayatollah in Iran has been proclaimed the leader of the Shia (I think they have some sort of election due to Ali's line being completely wiped out). So the king of Saudi Arabia is to many Shia like their pope and the Ayatollah is the Shia pope.

No, Arab is a broad identity, it came up specifically due to Iraqi/Syrian Sunni grievances, convenient timing, initial AQ support and broad appeal

Sorry meant to say the Saudi king sort of acts like he's the leader of the Sunni religion

Sunni believe that Muhammad was followed by Abu Bakr (the first non-relative of Muhammad muslim) Umar, Uthman, THEN Ali. Shi'a believe the first 3 don't count

There really isn't a Sunni version of the Ayatollah though. Like, King Salman doesn't have religious authority that the Ayatollah has. The Ayatollah can basically say like "cats are haram" and then for all Shia cats would be bad.

The King of Saudi Arabia doesn't have the same religious legitimacy.

The Ayatollah is also selected sort of like the pope. The body of experts elects him, kind of like how Cardinals elect the pope.

The King of KSA is just hereditary and his only legitimacy is an unproven connection to Muhammad

Ok, interesting.

what's a good book on isis?

The Quran

Sunni is fake Islam desu

My question was more asking is there a difference in how the Sunnis and Shias view Jihad but this is very informative, thanks

Yeah, Saddam slowly veered away from secular Arab nationalism towards Iraqi nationalism mixed with islamic nationalism (not the religious theocratic/extremist kind, but more the cultural aspects).

I may have gotten a few details wrong, i haven't seen my notes since '12. But i try my best.

oh, like comparing to Christian missionaries of different faiths?

>ISIS fighters and officers were in Saddam's republican guard
It went from Saddam loyalist at the start of the Iraq war to various factions fighting each other during the period of sectarian violence. When the opportunity came Al-Qaeda moved in according to Department of State plan and set up operations in the area as well and some surviving Ba'athists might have happened to join them after becoming the Islamic State of Iraq.

>Department of State plan
no

I dunno, the whole point of invading that shithole was to unleash chaos across the region for many years to come as you're seeing right now and to expand Citizens United.
>Inb4 recent conservatard revisionism attempting to confine the blame to the Obama administration.

Well, i don't think it was some sort of conspiracy, contrary to popular belief, evidence points to iraq simply being a mishandling. The state department handled this fairly well in most regard, their biggest failing, i think, was not blocking the prime ministry of Al- Maliki. It was Al-Maliki who brought about the causes of my previous post, noted
here.

Why does ISIS perform brutal executions on foreign nationals and their enemies?

Do they legitimately ascribe a religious reason to it, or is it mostly to stay relevant in media through scare tactics?

>Do they legitimately ascribe a religious reason to it, or is it mostly to stay relevant in media through scare tactics?

Both.

>Mishandling
Is that a thinly veiled attempt to minimize culpability?
As if the Department of State hasn't had a relationship with militant jihadist organizations since the Cold War and this wasn't planned in order to destabilize a state that was growing more autonomous in the region along with all the other repercussions you're seeing across the world with migrant crises influencing politics in years to come along with the increase of invasive legislation.

No, Iraq's current situation is in fact a legitamate mishandling of affairs during the restoration phase.

Quit damage controlling and trying to sound smart. By your logic every middle eastern country that the State Department has been involved in e.g. Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, and Egypt could be deemed a mishandling. Truth is it's only done for the benefit of the 'Nation's' business clients who happen to be scummy oil tycoons and sheikhs.

>restoration phase
meaning set up a slipshod government and wait for everything to go to shit.

Personally I think any significant movement involving Arab nationalism would have erupted within Palestine due to Jewish colonization from the West being a prime uniter.

well, the arabs sucking at all the Israeli Arab wars kind of crushed arab nationalism in that regard

I'm not damage controlling, why would i need to do that? I gain nothing from this conversation at all. I'm just tired of the parroting that ISIS was a purposeful creation of the US. Thankfully there wasn't much of that until you.

Im not saying that the US isn't trying to destablize the region. Whether that is true or not i do not care. I do, however, beleive that there was a sincere effort to fix the mess in Iraq. I do not believe, nor can i find any credible evidence that ISIS or it's creation was a goal in any way, shape, or form of the US state department. On top of that, why would they go through nearly a decade of occupation and policing just to abandon Iraq and leave that power vacuum. They could have left at any point sooner and left a much larger mess.

Keep in mind I am talking solely about the situation in Iraq because that is what's relevant to the OP. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, etc is not really relevant to this topic nor should my logic here be applied there.
Close, the expectation was that the gov't they set up would be a succesful one. They were wrong.

Just don't respond to him. This discussion is exactly what I wanted to avoid when I made this thread.

[Citations needed]

>it had nothing to do with the "US invading and BTFO the entire country" phase

>Implying everyone and their grandma couldn't foresee it happening years before the troop withdrawal.

www.fbi.gov/

Bump

Quality thread

It probably wasn't a good idea to ban all Ba'athist party members from holding any government job, considering they were the only ones holding government jobs as it was impossible to do anything substantial in Saddam's Iraq without a party membership.

imo US policy in Iraq was like post war Germany. They tried "de-baathification". Except unlike Germans, Baathists turned to fundamental Islam. They also weren't completely disarmed

The only thing that I think you're missing is ignoring Iran's role in Iraq post-Saddam. Iran is Al-Maliki's biggest supporter, and having a Shia-led Iraq has been an Iranian goal for decades. In my opinion, not putting a foot down and forcing Iran to fuck off was what fucked post-war Iraq the hardest, although potentially letting Iraq go in exchange for a friendly Iran might have been a compromise.

Iraq really is more of a clusterfuck than people give it credit for.

I think Iran is a more reasonable country than Saudi 2bh

To be really fair, the Baathists never went around killing American Citizens on US soil.

Had we left Saddam in power, then he would have fucked with the Islamists.

I wonder how much global oil prices would be if the US let Iraq and Saudi go to war

We know the secular history of Iran and that potential to get back there but that won't be for a few generations while the Islamic Moral Enforcers/Police still holds general power in electing government officials but after the most recent elections we see their trend towards more moderate officials in the lower courts, plus the removal of many economic sanctions and the agreements we reached on nuclear accords make them a country to remain tied to for the future. Of course their human rights record leaves much to be desired but all in all they're easier to deal with than the clusterfuck that is the Saudi family but we have a string economic incentive there obviously

>Islamic State (Ottoman Empire).
What the fuck.

The Ottoman Empire was the Ottoman Empire. Period. It had loads of secular elements. Its only resemblance was it fucking claimed the Caliphate as it saw itself as the (self-appointed) defender of Sunni Muslims and Custodian of the two Holy Cities of Islam.

But that is one of the hats worn by the Ottoman ruler. He was, by descending importance.
>Padishah
>Sovereign of the House of Osman (Sultan of Sultans)
>Khagan.
>Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe and Commander of the Faithful (Caliph)
>Roman Emperor.

Meanwhile all ISIS wants to be is to LARP as the early Islamic Caliphates.

>The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

bump

not beyond 70 - 80 usd
shale oil is a big hit, also Putin's oil

Lebanon's electing a president this Monday after 2 years of being unable to come to an agreement.

>ISIS
>Mahdi

kek

>Roman Emperor.

To ISIS Larpers, the US is the modern representation of Rome

Bump