National Geographic says nine in 10 of us can’t locate Iraq on a map.
That means the thousands of hours we, the 18 to 24 set, spend consuming media each year has resulted in little more than wasted time and a few “Likes.”
If that’s you, scanning an Atlas with a frantic index finger (hint: Iraq is in Asia), you’ve come to the right place.
Foreign policy afficionado Ben Duong will decipher media-babble, ignore the talking heads and give you the information and facts about all the latest geopolitical hoopla dominating the news cycle this week, bringing you one step further to
being the informed adult you oughta be.
Welcome to Ben Meets World.
U.S. media focus on ISIS has eclipsed just about every other international topic. We’ve all seen headlines of the militant group’s inhumanity: massacres, beheadings, crucifixions, slavery, rape… They are monsters.
But the media does little to explain the geopolitical and sectarian mess that rages across the Middle East.
This is a breakdown of ISIS, the major actors of Middle Eastern conflicts, and what drives the regional war.
Via: World Atlas
The Actors
ISIS
ISIS is a rebel group that grew from the remains of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, this Sunni extremist group rebuilt itself after severe losses in the Iraq War and expanded in Iraq and into Syria. Since the Syrian Civil War, ISIS has swelled in power in size.
In 2014, they seized large swaths of Iraqi territory, which included oil fields and banks, as well as Iraqi armories, and declared a caliphate (a territory-based Islamic empire led by a “caliph,” a political or religious leader believed to be a successor to the prophet Muhammad) called the Islamic State.
This declaration is what sets them apart from other extremist Islamic militant groups, and is also what puts them at odds with the rest of the world. Even the most extreme terrorist groups, like Al-Qaeda, have turned against them.
Since then, they’ve waged a war on all sides of their conquered territory, conducting wide-scale acts of brutality and kidnappings.
The two regional powers piling fuel onto religious conflicts between Sunni and Shiite factions are Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is dominated by the Sunni sect of Islam, therefore it favors other Sunni states, like the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
As one of the global oil powers (they are responsible for that ridiculous drop in gas prices a few months ago), they have continually made power plays in the region to ensure their supremacy. They actively fund and arm Sunni militants to maintain their dominance of the region. There are even reports of wealthy Saudi donors providing funding to branches of Al Qaeda and to ISIS in its early days. This puts them at odds with their religious opposite, Iran.
Iran
Iran is dominated by the Shiite sect of Islam, favoring other Shiite countries such as Syria under the Assad regime, and Iraq, as well Shiite militant groups like Hezbollah (Lebanon) and Hamas (Palestine).
More recently they have been funding Shiite militias in the fight against ISIS, and the Houthis (Yemen), who have seized control of the Yemeni capital. Iran would also be a global oil powerhouse, but U.S.-led economic sanctions have long crippled their oil sales. Although Iran’s loudest feud is with Israel, they have long funded Shiite armies in proxy wars with their Sunni neighbors.
Via: The Star
Iraq
We were all pretty happy to get the hell out of Iraq at the end of 2011. But when ISIS went on a rampage in 2014, we found ourselves right back there.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the mistake of marginalizing the Sunni populations by favoring the Shia (Shiites), which led ISIS to sweep the predominantly Sunni portions of Iraq, and with little resistance at that. The Iraq PM’s military, a corrupt and inept force, crumbled under ISIS, who couldn’t be contained until they reached Baghdad, Iraq’s Shia-dominated capital.
At that point, a U.S.-led coalition began airstrikes; a Kurdish ground force worked to retake the north of Iraq; and, recently, an Iraq-led force has pushed north and west from Baghdad.
This force, however, is mostly Shia militias, so there is a great possibility that they will abuse Sunnis once lands are recaptured.
Via: Wikipedia
Syria
Despite the Syrian rebels’ efforts, the Syrian state remains firmly in President Bashar al-Assad’s hands, who is working to oppress what is left of the broken Syrian state. Propped up by Iran and Russia, al-Assad has only recently started to engage ISIS, and is poised to become a major actor as he inches further into ISIS-held Syrian lands.
The Levant Front
The Levant Front refers to a coalition of Sunni rebel factions who are precisely the kind of people the U.S. does not want seizing power in Syria if Syria’s al-Assad falls from power. It recently joined forces with Syria. While that’s bad news for U.S. foreign policy in Syria, this does create a more concentrated force against ISIS.
Via: Wikipedia
The Kurds
The Kurds, a semi-autonomous, state-less ethnic group based in Northern Syria and Iraq, and parts of Turkey and Iran, have two goals: retake lands seized by ISIS, and capitalize on all the current chaos to push for more lands or even their own state.
They have consistently presented themselves as moderate and are currently backed by the US. Regardless of their stance, they present a renewed geopolitical tension for Syria, Iraq, and, to an extent, Iran.
The U.S.
There are two reasons why the US intervenes in the Middle East: Israel and oil.
“Fighting terrorism” is often cited as a goal, but as long as intelligence agencies do their jobs right and domestic security is solid, terrorism is not much of a threat at home. This means that except for the post-9/11 retribution war against the Taliban, which was largely defeated in Afghanistan and unlikely to regain power, and Al-Qaeda, who are spread out but pose somewhat of a threat to the Middle East and Europe, we have been fighting in the Middle East for regional and oil security.
However, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is a mess; it lacks the long-term vision necessary to make lasting reform. More often than not, we’ve made things worse, inadvertently aggravating situations, and our disdain for state-building has led to hastily made short-term goals. Yemen’s recent overthrow by the Houthis and Libya’s renewed civil war are just two examples of U.S. intervention efforts gone wrong.
This brings us back to ISIS and Iraq. We’ve yet to re-deploy troops, but we’re doing other things to try to stop ISIS. Airstrikes, for one. Lots of them. In fact, the U.S. is leading a coalition of nations to conduct airstrikes against ISIS, helping to clear the way for Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces, who the U.S. is arming and training.
Additionally, the U.S. is, at the very least, tolerating Syria and Iran’s presence in the fight against ISIS.
It remains to be seen if the US will do anything more.
Summing Up
Via: Ben Duong
Everyone hates ISIS.
Whatever regional friction exists between the above actors, the fact is that ISIS is on everyone’s shit list. Even Saudi Arabia, whose private donors funded ISIS in its early days as a tool against Shiites, has largely turned its back on ISIS. (It helped that ISIS declared plans to invade Saudi Arabia.)
While ISIS managed to generate a back door into Libya and Nigeria (via Boko Haram, the group who kidnapped those girls from Nigeria in April of last year), they are 100 percent screwed in Syria and Iraq. Day by day, they are losing land and towns, and slowly they will be pushed back until they are cornered and defeated.
Why Should This Matter to Americans?
So long as the US has a vested interest in the Middle East (oil, “anti-terrorism,” alliance with Israel), it’s important to be aware of and understand the politics that drive so many of the conflicts in that region.
If our government isn’t careful, we risk destabilizing the region either by triggering the growth of a “new ISIS” or by causing more sectarian bloodshed. Either of those consequences would mean more American tax dollars spent trying to put out more fires we keep throwing fuel on, and possibly more American lives put in risk.
ISIS was born out of sectarian conflict. Rich Sunni donors funneled funding and arms to the organization that now has become ISIS. A proxy war project gone wrong, ISIS presents a unifying enemy for the time being. But once ISIS is gone the region will fully resume its bitter struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a fact that we must take care to remember.
My Opinions on All This
Saudi Arabia and Iran hate each other, and they’ll keep on arming militants and terrorists against each other in their sectarian power feud. There won’t be a solution to that. We can’t fix sectarian conflict. And if we can’t fix sectarian conflict there will always be regional war in the Middle East, and there will always be terrorists.
The U.S. isn’t equipped with the resources, cultural understanding, or patience to even attempt resolving this. But what can happen is reduction of the need for the U.S. to be involved in the Middle East.
The two major security concerns for us in the Middle East are protection of Israel and protection of oil supplies. Sure, terrorism against the U.S. is a concern, but that is easily dealt with by shoring up domestic security and taking care to not marginalize potential homegrown terrorists. Besides Israel, if oil wasn’t a concern, there wouldn’t be much concern for the Mid-East.
So what the U.S. needs is energy independence.
Reduce reliance on OPEC oil, then use both domestic oil and non-OPEC oil until we can move away from oil entirely. President Obama promised a shift to the Pacific and Asia. That never happened because we keep getting sucked back in to deal with the messes we, Saudi Arabia and Iran keep creating. Energy independence would go a long way toward stopping this, and we could finally step back.
ISIS may be monsters, but Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Monarchies we support for their oil are, too. They are some of the worst human rights violators and we turn a blind eye all in the name of oil.
A “War on Terrorism” is disingenuous when we are actively supporting countries that fund Islamist militants behind our backs. The power struggle in the regional war has no end in sight and perpetually produces new militants like ISIS.
Let us untangle ourselves from the geopolitical mess of the Middle East, and let them fight on their own.
Is there a certain geopolitical conflict or issue you think needs explaining? Let us know. Email scene@collegevox.com or weigh in below in the comments section.
Featured photo courtesy of NBC News
