TFM Syria and Iraq

Conflict Resolution in Iraq and Syria: Remembering Yugoslavia

Peter Gomez

i

AAH Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq

AQI Al Queda in Iraq

bb/d barrels per day

CPA Coalition Provisional Authority

DDR Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration

EUFOR European Union Force

FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia1

FSA Free Syrian Army

HDZ Croatian Democratic Union

ICC International Criminal Court

ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

IGO Intergovernmental Organization

IRGC-QF Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Quds Force

ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

JN Jabhat al-Nusrah

JNA Yugoslav National Army

KFOR Kosovo Force

KH Kata’ib Hezbollah

KLA Kosovo Liberation Army

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NDF National Defense Force

NGO Non-governmental Organization

OIC Organization of Islamic Cooperation

OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

PMU Popular Mobilization Unit

PSC Protracted Social Conflict

RCC Revolutionary Command Council

SIIC Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council

SRF Syrian Revolutionary Front

UAE United Arab Emirates

UAR United Arab Republic

UN United Nations

UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force

USCENTCOM US Central Command

VRS Bosnian Serb Army

WWI World War I

WWII World War II

1 Established in 1992 during the dissolution process of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and composed of modern day Serbia and Montenegro. For simplicity’s sake, the author uses “Yugoslavia” to refer to the state created after World War II and prior Croatia and Slovenia’s declaration of independence in1991 and “the first Yugoslavia” or “Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” to refer to state that existed from 1918-1943.

ii

Note

In order to simplify various transliterations of names and locations from several languages, the

author has attempted to select the most commonly used form found in scholarly works and to

maintain its usage throughout his analysis for continuity. He has carefully tried to distinguish

between nationalities without state boundaries and citizens of a particular state by distinct usage

of terms. For example, he uses “Serbs” to describe the ethnic group found throughout the

Balkans versus “Serbians” to describe citizens of the Republic of Serbia. Further, in assuming

the reader is quite aware that Yugoslavia no longer exists as a state, he has dropped the popular

usage of the term “the former Yugoslavia” for the simpler “Yugoslavia.”

iii

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Justification

3. Theory of Protracted Social Conflict

4. Collapse of the Ottoman Empire

5. Autocratic Control and Temporary Stabilization

a. Yugoslavia

b. Iraq and Syria

6. Rise of Sectarianism and Balkanization

a. Communal Content

b. Government and States Role

c. Deprivation of Human Needs

d. Propaganda and Foreign Influence

7. Lessons from Yugoslavia

8. Possible Roles for the International Community in Resolving

the Conflicts in Iraq and Syria

9. Conclusion

10. Bibliography

11. Annexes

1-2

2-4

4-6

6-9

9-10

10-12

12-15

15-21

21-24

24-28

28-32

32-37

37-49

49-50

51-63

64-75

1

1. Introduction

The end of the Cold War and its associated bipolar orthodoxy brought about a wave of

changes throughout the world. Most were overwhelmingly positive and held the promise of a

brighter future particularly for the so called non-aligned states, but ironically the collapse of a

system that threatened a third world war removed a perversely stabilizing pillar, which unleashed

a backlash of revolutionary movements, opposition groups, and interethnic strife. Organized and

prepared for conventional conflicts based upon traditional state-to-state international relations

theories, the world, particularly the West, was ill prepared to understand or much less respond to

a sudden flurry of non-state actors, militia-styled movements, and complex transnational terrorist

networks that sought to take advantage of underlying ethnic tensions and provoke sectarian

divisions. While by no means a new phenomenon, interethnic conflict within a state has gained

more attention due to its rapid increase in both frequency and intensity over the past few decades.

More worrisome is that in the face of wholesale genocide, ethnic cleansing, human rights

violations, abusive regimes, and failed states, the West appears hesitant to become involved.

Instead we prefer to cite a respect for state sovereignty in order to avoid entangling ourselves in

the internal affairs of other countries and seek to remain neutral, often to our own detriment.2

The destruction and chaos unfolding in Iraq and Syria is only the most recent example of

Western paralysis in the face of an interethnic conflict that targets specific communal groups

based upon ethnicity or religion. Part of this hesitation stems from a mistaken temptation to lay

sole blame of today’s violence with the Iraq War and subsequent occupation. Indeed, many poor

choices were made, which certainly contributed to the current crisis, but ignoring deeper, distal

causes in order to preclude future interventions is to compound poor decisions by drawing from

them equally poor conclusions. In an attempt to better understand the dynamics propelling

violence over political accommodation in the region, I use Edward Azar’s theory of Protracted

Social Conflict in order to identify the key characteristics that motivated this choice within a

framework of the relevant historical context. This should help demonstrate that the issue at hand

is a deep mutual mistrust between the various communal groups in the region, which was

carefully nurtured by various rulers. The Ottoman system of governance segregated society,

reinforcing tribal and ethno-religious communal identities. Then European colonialism and

succeeding authoritarian regimes deprived these groups of their basic needs and forced them to

develop and rely upon their own social networks, until a sudden power vacuum unleashed these

forces in a grand political competition without a history or culture of interethnic cooperation.

The conflict now sustains itself through the support of various international associations: Gulf

state money, Russian arms and political cover, Iranian military support and training, and many

more. By using the UN and NATO’s experience of intervention in the Balkan wars during the

1990s, I hope to offer approaches and thematic considerations that should be weighed in an

attempt to resolve the conflict. To do so requires that both the underlying failings of the current

state political structures and processes specifically with respect to Sunni Arabs as well as the

regional influences that promote sectarianism and exacerbate the ethnic fractures must be

2 Boot, 2000

2

addressed. But ultimately, the most pertinent question to be answered is whether or not a

cooperative spirit between the various communal groups can be realistically fostered.

While this conflict is much more complex than a proxy battle for influence between Sunni

Gulf states and Iran, their impact to the continuing chaos in terms of funding armed factions and

perpetuating sectarian identities cannot be overstated and must be moderated, if not resolved, for

Iraq and Syria to ever enjoy peace and prosperity. Salafi jihadism, sponsored largely by Saudi

Arabia, grew exponentially as a response to counter the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which gave rise

to Ayatollah Khomeini’s experimental walayt al-faqih or direct clerical rule. Now Salafist

madrasas and mosques inundate the region and pronounce Shias as apostates deserving of

extermination. Sunni tribesmen embraced them in an effort to augment their security interests,

but the presence of foreign Salafi-jihadists in Iraq and Syria has resulted in entrenching

communal identities and divisions.3 Whether or not political Islam, moderate or otherwise, is

compatible with democratic ideals is an important question, but one that is beyond the scope of

this treatise. Instead, I will limit myself to analyzing the actions of governments, secular or

otherwise, and how they are perceived by their specific communities with regard to their needs.

The desired end state is to move towards not just a conflict resolution, but identify possible paths

that may facilitate an enduring peace and reduction of sectarian tensions.

2. Justification

It is difficult, if not impossible, to examine Iraq, Syria, or truly any country in the region

of the greater Middle East in isolation. Just as oil reservoirs flout national territory, often

straddling borders of countries irrespective of the nature of their relationships, so too do the

tribes, ethnic and religious groups, and their historic alliances and enmities ignore Westphalian

sovereignty. The ancient geostrategic significance of the region can’t be overemphasized. Long

before the discovery of oil, the Middle East lured empires and superpowers for centuries to try

and conquer, colonize, or otherwise control the region’s monopoly over international trade.

Within it run the land bridges and seaways that connect the European, Asian, and African

continents. The narrow passages of the Suez Canal, the Dardanelles, the Bosporus, Bab el-

Mandeb, and the Strait of Hormuz have long offered rulers control over regional trade, passage of

armies, and financial wealth. The discovery of oil in Iran in 1908 and Saudi Arabia in 1938

served to greatly amplify the region’s importance.4

One might say Iraq was born from oil. Prior to World War I (WWI), the country’s value

was primarily to buffer the Ottoman Empire against Persian expansionism. However, the

Europeans set their eyes upon exploiting Iraq’s vast oil reserves. With the Sykes-Picot agreement

the British were able to administer the country by emplacing a regime favorable to their interests,

which lasted until 1958. The concessions granted to them came at a great cost to the newly

formed and disjointed Iraqi people, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. It was this bitterness

3 Moniquet, 2013 4 Khalidi, 2005, pg. 74-84

3

over foreign exploitation that led to the popular rise of the Baath party in 1968.5 Today Iraq has

the fifth largest proven crude oil reserves in the world –144 billion barrels - and is the second

largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The country

also possesses the 12th

largest proven natural gas reserves. It is increasingly attractive to foreign

businesses because of its relative low extraction cost due to uncomplicated geography and their

proximity to coastal ports. The most current estimates place potential crude oil output in Iraq to

reach 9 million barrels per day by 2020. However, the geographical distribution of these

resources is a cause of much political discord owing to the fact that 60% lie in giant fields located

in the Shia controlled south; while 17% can be found in the ethnically Kurdish controlled north of

the country, leaving few known resources in control of the Sunni minority in central and western

Iraq.6 Most recently the US played a critical role in opening Pandora’s Box with their 2003

invasion and regime change. They have a significant interest in ensuring the government they’ve

left in place doesn’t fall.

While Syria produced 400,000 bbl/d as recently as 2010, today its production of oil is

essentially nonexistent due to hostilities and international sanctions;7 rather Syria’s true

significance lies in its geographic location. During the Cold War, Syria antagonized the West by

granting the Soviet Union use of Tartus – a strategic deep sea port that gave the Communists

access to a naval staging point in the Mediterranean Sea in 1971 for their nuclear submarine fleet.

However Tartus has since fallen into disrepair and become strategically less relevant for the

Russians, now that they have access to several other ports in the Mediterranean. Instead, Tartus

provides Russia legitimate access to the Arab world and fits with President Putin’s desire to

transform his country into a resurgent superpower.8 Regionally, Syria is involved, at one level or

another, in many Middle Eastern conflicts, which makes it an attractive ally for Iran. Just as

Russia has, Iran also wishes to maintain its Arab foothold and has a vested interest in supporting

Syria’s Alawite ruler who helps funnel money and weapons to Lebanon’s Shia militia Hezbollah

in the fight against their shared enemy Israel. Now that Iran is also enjoying a friendlier

relationship with Iraq, a potential Axis of Resistance9 is within their grasp. This growing Shia

Crescent has motivated Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states to intervene

in various countries in order to back their Sunni proxies, promising to spread the sectarian

conflict into neighboring countries. The fallout of which is strongly felt by Jordan, Lebanon, and

Turkey, which already bear the brunt of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence.10

The conflict in Iraq and Syria represents a significant, though not unprecedented

challenge to the world. The violence and instability of these countries that possess critical

resources and are located in the most geostrategically important area of the world command

5 Khalidi, 2005, pg. 92-102 6 Eia.gov, Iraq, 2015 7 Eia.gov, Syria, 2015 8 Harmer, 2012 9 The term was originally coined by the Libyan newspaper Al-Zahf Al-Akhdar in response to President Bush’s Axis of Evil comment concerning Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, but has since been adopted in the Middle East to refer to a Shia alliance against western influence. 10 McDonnell, 2012

4

international attention and invite debate on the potential for external intervention. They threaten

to spread into neighboring countries and ignite the greater region in sectarian conflict. Aside

from the aforementioned Machiavellian concerns, the scale of human suffering, refugees, and

atrocities being committed, including possible genocide, demand a response from an international

community that often pontificates on their core values of democracy and human rights. The

liberal Western world, in tolerating autocratic regimes, strongmen, and oppressive policies in

exchange for energy security, ultimately helped provoke the same nationalism that they were

attempting to suppress. While the ultimate fate of Iraq and Syria should be for them to

determine, there is still a role to be played by the West in controlling the influences being exerted

by regional powers and facilitating a path toward conflict resolution.

3. Theory of Protracted Social Conflict

Similar to civilization, conflict has evolved and adapted throughout the ages. Napoleon

Bonaparte and his use of the levée en masse for total war allowed the world to witness the first

mass mobilization of citizen soldiers and the beginning of an era in which states dominated

warfare and conflict. This ultimately culminated with industrial warfare’s peak during World

War II (WWII), after which the advent of nuclear weapons made direct interstate conflict

existentially dangerous. The subsequent Cold War brought forth proxy conflicts waged in

support of the two blocs’ interests, who in turn held their client states’ internal conflicts in check.

However once the Soviet Union collapsed, these latent conflicts began to emerge – the most

famous of which being that of the Balkans. Warfare drifted from isolated battlefields towards

urban areas of non-combatants becoming typified as “war amongst the people.”11

Edward E.

Azar was one of the first to recognize this shift and the critical role that ethnic and other forms of

communal conflict would play in the future.

Azar’s theory of protracted social conflict (PSC) is a model to identify the primary

sources of contemporary conflict and postulates that these conflicts emerge when persons are

deprived of their basic societal needs such as security, recognition and acceptance, fair access to

political institutions, and economic participation due to their communal identity. This failure of

the state to provide for a subgroup or groups of its society can result in persistent and violent

confrontation if four primary conditions are met. Azar identifies communal content as the most

important; which is to say, along what lines groups identify and insulate themselves – racial,

ethnic, religious, etc. The second condition is the deprivation of human needs, which constitutes

the underlying grievance that motivates a PSC. Third, even though the state itself is not the

primary unit of analysis in the theory, governance and the state’s role are fundamental to the

satisfaction or frustration of an individual or a group’s needs, and as such its failures and

successes must be considered. Lastly, Azar accounts for external influences by analyzing

international linkages that affect the communal groups.12

11 Smith, 2007 12 Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 84-88

5

Rather than analyzing the traditional state or individual actors, Azar notes that it is the

communal identity groups and their relationship with the state that is the structural foundation

upon which the PSC is developed. The failure of the state to satisfy the societal demands based

upon the exclusion of certain segments of the population leads individuals to instead seek

satisfaction through membership of social groups. He traces this schism between society and the

state, which tends toward exclusionary practices, back to a colonial legacy in many parts of the

world. European colonial powers would “divide and rule” a region by sponsoring a specific

communal group or coalition of groups to administer the state and provide the foreign power with

monopolistic access to resources. Since the power to rule is derived from an external source, the

state would often become unresponsive to other groups within their society. Over time the ruling

communal group would come to dominate the state machinery and their failure to tend equally to

all citizens would strain the country’s social fabric ultimately leading to a PSC.13

While various psychological and social factors can propel a conflict into a protracted and

recurring state, ultimately it is the original deprivation of human needs that is the source of a

communal group’s grievances, which must be redressed. Azar specifically cites security,

development, political access, and identity needs as being the most critical and non-negotiable.

These needs include the most elemental for physical survival and well-being as well as more

intangible principles such as rights of cultural and religious expression. Therefore a PSC may be

just as much a conflict over control or access to limited physical resources as it is a fight for

autonomy, self-esteem, and equitable justice.14

The important distinction for Azar is that the

state’s persecution, oppression, or systemic neglect in satisfying said needs becomes collectively

expressed through a communal identity.15

Azar organizes the actors of a conflict into units of analysis; he next identifies its source,

and then introduces the role of the state and its capacity for governance in order to express the

internal dynamics that provoke the conflict. This is best illustrated by contrasting an idealized

state, which is defined as an impartial arbiter of conflicts between its constituents who are all

treated as legally equal citizens, with the more realistic governance found in newer and less stable

states where political authority is monopolized by a dominant identity group that uses political

and economic levers to maximize their interests at the expense of others. These ruling elites

create a “crisis of legitimacy”16

by excluding distinct segments of society. They are able to

perpetuate this system through manipulation of weak participatory institutions, a hierarchal

tradition of bureaucratic rule from consolidated city centers, and an inherited set of instruments of

political oppression from their colonial roots.17

Azar describes most states that experience PSC

as being “characterized by incompetent, parochial, fragile, and authoritarian governments that fail

to satisfy basic human needs.”18

External dynamics may also influence the viability of a PSC,

13 Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 85-86 14 Beaudoin, 2013, pg. 38-44 15 Beaudoin, 2013, pg. 86 16 Azar, 1990, pg. 11 17 Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 86-87 18 Azar, 1990, pg. 10

6

albeit to a lesser extent than the relationships of disenfranchised communal groups with the state.

A weak state’s policies can be affected and distorted by the interests of a patron state that

guarantees their client’s security through military and political support. Similarly, an economic

dependency reduces a state’s autonomy and potentially creates a conflict of interests. This

misalignment can aggravate policy inequities that in turn incite further PSC.19

These contextual and structural preconditions by themselves do not necessarily lead to the

outbreak of widespread communal violence, instead that spark originates with interactions at the

individual level of elites and leaders; what Azar calls process dynamics. As a Human Rights

Watch report notes, involved stakeholders sometimes prefer to appear powerless to intervene in

conflicts and cite their causes as “deep-seated hatreds” and “ancient animosities” framed in ethnic

or religious terms when they are actually, most commonly, the product of government policies

seeking to exploit communal differences.20

Azar’s theory goes further than simply analyzing the

actions and strategies of the state, and includes the reciprocating actions and strategies of the

communal group as well as the self-reinforcing mechanisms of conflict that perpetuate hostilities

by demonizing and dehumanizing the opposition through fear, propaganda, and myth. This

vicious cycle serves to justify atrocities and legitimize discriminatory policies by both the

government and communal groups. As the violence spirals into insurgency and war, new

interests emerge vested in the security economy making political solutions very difficult.21

Due to the variety of dynamics that drive PSCs, any solution must be multi-faceted. Azar

understood that long-term development was critical to correct the underlying political, economic,

and security distortions that caused the PSC. As Azar himself argued, “peace is development in

the broadest sense of the term.”22

Additionally, a comprehensive response must involve

contextual change among external regional powers within the international community, structural

change at the state level with regard to political, economic, and security institutions, relational

change at the individual and communal group level through reconciliation work, and cultural

change at all levels.23

The difficulty of implementing such a solution is found in the peculiar

nature of PSCs. Whereas in most international relations theory traditional conflict is thought of

to be a fleeting anomaly interrupting the normal state of peace, in PSCs conflict is the status quo

while peace is the exception.24

It is without surprise that the international community tends to

shy away from intervening in conflicts of this nature that assume a great deal of diplomatic

complexity, peace-building risk, institutional state-building, mediation, and overall investment.

4. Collapse of the Ottoman Empire

Although the history that shaped Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Syria’s societies stretches back

centuries, it was the Ottoman Empire – the last of the arguably great Islamic caliphates that

19 Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 87 20 Brown and Karim, 1995, pg. 1-2 21 Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 87-88 22 Azar, 1990, pg. 91 23 Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 103-105 24 Beaudoin, 2013, pg. 23-24

7

encompassed a multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural citizen base – that linked the three

with a unique system of government and administration, which worked to segregate society along

confessional lines. At the height of their power in the 16th

and 17th

centuries, the empire

controlled all of southeastern Europe, a significant portion of the Middle East, and almost all of

the north African Mediterranean coast (see Annex 1), which provided them geostrategic control

of the sea. Initially Ottoman expansion began as a series of conquests pressing into Christian

lands to check the power of their neighboring Byzantine Empire. These conquests were

consolidated with practical policies that allowed the defeated Christian princes to continue ruling

their states as vassals. In return they provided tribute and soldiers to strengthen the Ottoman

army and allow the sultan to continue expanding his territory. The Ottomans were finally halted

in the west by the Hapsburg Monarchy who used rebellious Serbs and Croats as a strategic buffer

against the southern Slavic tribes that had converted and aided the Ottomans’ advance of Islam.

In the east, they were checked by the Persian Empire at Baghdad, a city that was conquered and

reconquered as it changed hands over the centuries. The Ottoman sultans didn’t adopt the title of

Caliph until after conquering Egypt and its protectorate Hejaz (the region that contains Mecca

and Medina) in1517. The term “caliph” referred to the successor or steward of the prophet

Muhammad as the political-military ruler of the Muslim community and was primarily

responsible for the enforcement of law, defense and expansion of the realm of Islam, taxation and

financial disbursements, and general government services. While it was never specifically a

spiritual office, the position held great political and religious symbolism helping unite an

otherwise disparate and quarrelsome mixture of tribes and clans.25

In announcing themselves the

guardians of the hajj and holy Muslim sites, the Ottomans claimed primacy throughout the

Islamic world in a cunning attempt to legitimize themselves among all Arab Muslims in order to

deter future rebellion.26

Ultimately, the Islamic mantle it assumed was most likely a political

ploy to help rule its sprawling empire, which constituted of a diverse array of tribes – none of

which were individually strong enough to break away, but remained rebellious enough to cause

continuous challenges for their Ottoman overlords.

In a desire to restrain nationalistic sentiments and insurrection amongst their subjects, the

sultans decentralized their rule as much as possible and instead employed a complex system that

offered them both autonomy and the opportunity to ascend the ranks of political, economic, and

military power by embracing Ottoman culture. It based itself upon a caste system which created

a small ruling class called the askeri and a large subject class called the raya. The ruling class

was available to anyone who swore loyalty to the sultan; accepted Islam as their religion; who

knew and practiced the Ottoman Way – a complex system of court behavior and the use of the

Ottoman language; and served a specific function. The requirements to join the askeri ensured

that the future elites of a conquered land who wished to advance themselves and win a fortune

under their new rulers would adopt Ottoman culture and integrate themselves. However, the raya

had no such requirements. The askeri organized the empire into autonomous communities called

25 Esposito, 2004 26 Shaw and Çetinsaya, 2009

8

millets according to religion. The millet system offered a political organization and voice to each

segment of society. The largest millets were Orthodox Sunni, Greek Orthodox, Armenian

Gregorian, and Jewish, all of which were organized into hierarchies of locally elected officials

with vested authority. Small towns were generally composed of individual millets, while larger

cities set aside separate quarters for each religious group. The Ottomans created vilayets and

sanjaks (see Annex 2), or states and provinces, sensitive to corresponding millet divisions. The

askeri were officially charged with general law enforcement, tax collection, and expanding the

empire. Therefore, the bishops, imams, and rabbis were granted the freedom to administer all

other secular functions according to their own customs and traditions. The different millets only

came together to cooperate with each other in the celebration of large festivals or to battle fires,

plagues, or attacks, but otherwise lived completely independent of each other.27

From the initial religious divide at the imperial level, the millets were further segmented

at the local levels into ethno-linguistic, national groups, and esnafs or guilds and economic

subdivisions. This insular sense of community permitted the Ottomans to prevent civil unrest in

acquired lands while they focused their energies outward on further expansion by providing non-

Muslim and non-Turkish subjects the ability to nurture their communal identity and continue

practicing their social traditions, culture, language, religion, and even laws while living under the

decentralized rule and authority of the sultan. This worked adequately until the late 18th

century

when European technological and economic dominance and the emergence of a powerful Russian

Empire simultaneously stressed the Ottoman economic, tax, and land entitlement systems, and

embroiled them in a series of wars that greatly reduced the empire’s strength and position. The

Ottoman response was slow, but eventually resulted in a greater centralization of power that

recognized all people as equal citizens and allowed for the introduction of new tax levies and a

universal military conscription, which dismayed not only the askeri elite and military officers, but

undermined the millets as well. The millet system had served as an incubator of nationalism that

was slowly awakening to two perceived threats: the empire’s new reforms and a growing desire

among a powerful group of statesmen to create a single Ottoman national identity or

“Ottomanism.” This clash of wills unleashed separatist movements and nationalist uprisings

inspired by the ideals and philosophies of the French Revolution;28

the Ottoman Islamic

Caliphate gave way to a Turkish Empire in a pursuit to Europeanize itself.29

Despite the Arab nationalism fanning across Iraq and Syria during much of the 19th

century in opposition to increasing pressure to homogenize under Turkish culture and an

encroaching Zionism – the growing arrival of Jewish settlers to Palestine with the intent of

eventually forming a separate state – the majority of Arabs did not doubt the legitimacy of the

Ottoman government even as the Sultan reluctantly joined the Germans in WWI. While the Arab

revolt against the Ottoman presence in the Arabian Peninsula desired by the British and French

was aided by fanning the flames of dissent, it was only secured by tapping into the political

27 Shaw and Çetinsaya, 2009 28 Shaw and Çetinsaya, 2009 29 Murphy, 2008, pg. 6

9

ambition of Sharif Hussein ibn Ali - head of the Hashemite clan - with the promise of securing a

future state to rule. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Hussein declared himself the

king of Hejaz hoping to adopt the mantle of Caliph to unite the Arab world under his rule.30

Hussein’s sons Faysal and Abdallah laid claim to Syria and Iraq respectively. However Britain

and France had already secretly divided up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves in the

Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 (see Annex 3) and carved out a Jewish state in Palestine with the

Balfour Declaration. Hussein was driven from Hejaz by Abdulaziz ibn Saud who would go on to

unify Hejaz and Najd into Saudi Arabia. Faysal was quickly routed in the Battle of Maysalun

and driven from Syria by the French who were given a mandate to govern Aleppo, Damascus,

and Lebanon by the League of Nations. He was instead given the former Ottoman territory of

Mesopotamia under British control, which was renamed Iraq, to rule. A foreigner, his dynasty

endured less than three generations when his grandson was overthrown and executed in the 14

July Revolution that led to the Baathist rise to power. His brother Abdallah established the only

enduring Hashemite Kingdom in Transjordan. Martin Kramer and many western contemporary

news outlets argue that the enduring legacy of these secret agreements amongst the European

imperial powers was the creation of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine, new states

whose borders were imagined along the lines of European maneuvers for geostrategic power,

access to oil, and did not correspond to distinct political or national communities.31

However, a

new school of thought is arising that rejects the artificiality of these states. Reidar Visser argues

that modern day Iraq and Syria were clearly built upon the antecedent structuring of the Ottomans

that demonstrated Iraqi administrative unity of the Basra, Mosul, and Baghdad vilayets with the

city of Baghdad acting as a capital and the Syrian province consolidated by the city of Damascus.

According to his view, the sin of Sykes-Picot had nothing to do with the creation of artificial

borders that incited sectarian passions, but rather revolved around the power grab of British and

French interests in the strategic Mediterranean coasts of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria and the

known oilfields of Iraq.32

The truth probably lies somewhere between these two views. While

the states are not inventions, the borders do not respect tribal identities and their associated

confederations and enmities; arguably this was the original purpose of European powers in order

to advantage themselves of strategic resources or geography of each state.

5. Autocratic Control and Temporary Stabilization

The attempt to impose a nation-state construct based upon the Westphalian system

throughout the former Ottoman Empire without accounting for the history of independence that

its underlying tribal society had cultivated meant that it could only be held together by firm,

authoritarian regimes. The Ottomans were first to attempt political and military reforms that

sought to secularize and unify their subjects in European fashion. The millet system, which had

recognized each denomination as a separate legal entity with its own particular rights and

30 Danforth, 2014 31 Kramer, 1993, pg. 176-179 32 Visser, 2009

10

privileges regardless of the territorial location of its constituents, had succeeded because it was

suited to family-based communities that fit neatly in the underlying societal models of the South

Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and North African peoples that the Ottomans conquered, of

which families formed clans that then joined together to form larger tribes and possibly nations.

While these tribes and nations were numerous and diverse, they segmented themselves within

self-contained communities, often living side by side with little actual interaction, which the

millets reinforced. By contrast, the homogeneous nation-state construct that Western Europe

eventually imposed was a natural product of their own specific communal evolution; for centuries

various nations had identified and organized themselves along linguistic, cultural, and religious

lines that eventually emphasized the individual as the primary social component and rights

holder. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Europeans redrew the Middle East in their

image. Upon their departure, power vacuums helped ignite nationalistic movements that were

generally quelled by military leaders and dictators.33

In the Balkans, the “Eastern Question,”

which considered the peninsula’s uncertain future, was left largely unanswered as France, Russia,

Austria, and the Ottoman Empire used the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims as pawns in their political

game. During this time, various ethnic groups rose and fell from power until a Communist

regime pacified the region by force and attempted to unify the tribes into a single country. In

each case nationalistic forces lingered and simmered below the surface, waiting to be released.34

a. Yugoslavia

Centuries of feudal rule in the Balkans produced deep divides between the cosmopolitan

urban centers - where Ottoman reach was more visible and local elites reaped political and

economic rewards for obedience - and the trodden peasant classes throughout the rural areas that

relied on their own social organizations within tight-knit communities for support and protection,

and embraced an insular and stubborn nationalism. The Ottomans inadvertently reinforced this

communal identity through tax rules that strengthened the Serb zadruga or joint family. This

system of clans enjoyed lower taxes, labor power, and the ability to form katuns or pastoral

communities that “promoted social exclusiveness, minimum social interaction, and the

perpetuation of old social forms.”35

The haphazard creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,

and Slovenes, established in 1918 upon the ruins of the Habsburg monarchy, was wildly

optimistic in its intent to create a unified country among disparate groups accustomed to self-

reliance. The kingdom was founded under the assumption that these tribes were different in

name only since they shared the same language, food, lifestyle, culture, and even a common

ancestry.36

Following his ascension to the throne, King Aleksander attempted to implement a

democracy and form a functioning government among various political factions, but rising ethnic

33 Barbieri, 2013 34 Meriage, 1978 35 Vucinich, 1962 36 Hodson, Sekulic, and Massey, 1994, pg. 1541

11

violence and growing nationalistic discourse prompted him to suspend the constitution and

institute an authoritarian dictatorship in 1929 that lasted until his assassination in 1934.37

During this period, Yugoslavia arguably became a “Greater Serbia” in which other ethnic

groups failed to attain even minimal rights in the eyes of the state. The idea of a unified

Yugoslavia was quickly discredited especially among Croats who went underground and formed

the ultra-nationalist Ustasha, which dreamed of their own “Greater Croatia.” Subsequent Serbian

regimes that followed King Aleksander were equally severe, inspired by the example of German

and Italian fascism of the time. In 1941 Yugoslavia was attacked and occupied by Axis powers

who installed the Ustasha movement into power to act as their proxy. This unlikely alliance was

made possible by the overwhelming hatred that the Croatians felt toward their own Serbian-

dominated state, who they considered had humiliated them by stripping them of rights and any

sense of equality, which dwarfed any loathing the Ustasha felt toward their foreign occupiers.38

The pro-Nazi Ustasha army fought viciously against the resistance of the Serbian nationalist

Chetniks and Partisans throughout Bosnia while simultaneously implementing an ethnic

cleansing program that killed 250,000 Serb men, women, and children. Following the war,

Serbian Partisans executed 100,000 captive Croatian soldiers in retribution.39

The resurrection of the idea of a unified Yugoslavia following WWII required a delicate

balance to mitigate interethnic tensions and violence. With concrete evidence that trying to force

a Yugoslav identity upon the various nations would fail, the state was deliberately organized into

a federation of six republics and two autonomous provinces (see Annex 4). This loosely

connected structure offered a great deal of autonomy to local governments, and tantalized non-

Serb minorities with the possibility of a quick and easy secession into ready-made sub-states.

However, the instability of Yugoslavia’s organizational structure was shored up by the absolute

domination of the Communist party and Josip Broz Tito’s charismatic and cultish leadership, as

well as through traditional military force and the use of the secret police – favorites among

authoritarian regimes. The central political feature of this system was an annual competition

among the republics and provinces over how the federal purse would be partitioned and shared.

The process became a bitter struggle to wrest tax funds from the central government and

gradually corrupted the Communist party that sought to remain impartial and hold the country

together. Despite Tito’s best efforts, the communists themselves began to become nationalized

according to the ethnic groups they represented.40

Tito recognized the power of mythologizing history and worked tirelessly to suppress any

symbolic reminder or image of the atrocities, which were responsible for over a million deaths,

committed during WWII by Croats and Bosniaks41

against the Serbs to preserve interethnic peace

during his 40 year rule. His regime utilized the vast array of instruments within the Communist

37 Banac, 1992 38 Lendvai and Parcell, 1991 39 Wilson, 2005, pg. 929 40 Lendvai and Parcell, 1991 41 The term Bosniaks is used to specify Sunni Muslim Bosnians, whereas a Bosnian is the more inclusive term to describe a Serb, Croat, or Muslim living in Bosnia.

12

party’s arsenal to obscure the ethnic identities of victims and perpetrators, to contain the

traditional cultural outlets of art and theatre, to whitewash the history taught in schools, to control

the media, and to restrict the exhumation of mass graves or erection of memorials in an effort to

reconstruct the country into a federation of republics bound together in a spirit of “brotherhood

and unity.” Any talk of nationalism, economic inequality between ethnic groups, or discussion of

secession resulted in the purge of local leadership and their imprisonment. However, survivors of

the massacres who were scattered throughout the villages across Yugoslavia would never forget.

Subsequent Serbian and Croatian leaders simply had to employ the opposite methodology to

quickly inflame nationalistic passions taking advantage of economic woes and the absence of a

competing ideology following the collapse of Communism. By the mid-1980s, Serbian

nationalists found their champion – Slobodan Milosevic.42

b. Iraq and Syria

After Faysal was driven from Syria, France had only to contend with a nascent, but

growing pan-Arab nationalism in order to pursue its geopolitical interests that lay in the country’s

advantageous position in the eastern Mediterranean. Through Syria, France could guarantee both

a continuous supply of cheap cotton and silk as well as stem the flow of Arab nationalism that

threatened to infect the rest of her North African empire. The European imperial power used its

centuries old relationship with the Maronite Christians in modern day Lebanon and Syria to

achieve this. It quietly undermined Ottoman rule to assert French interests prior to WWI.

Through the use of its mandate from the League of Nations, France wielded control over Syria by

issuing a currency based on the franc, militarily occupying the railway connecting Syria’s largest

cities, and most importantly weakening Arab nationalism by segmenting the region with new

states. The French gave the Maronites not only their traditional mountainous region as a state,

but the predominately Muslim coastal cities of Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Beirut, and Beqaa Valley as

well. This left France’s minority clients – the Maronites – advantaged over the Sunnis, Druze,

and minority Shias. The Maronites viewed Lebanon as their Christian homeland even though

they constituted only 30% of the French invention. The Sunnis instead looked to the wider Arab

world for their source of identity. France deftly manipulated Syria in a similar manner; they

courted potential Francophile minorities in order to counter the threat of Arab nationalism. The

French created two states - Aleppo and Damascus – and two special administrative regimes

selected according to religion for the Druze and Alawite populations. While nationalist sentiment

forced the French to finally unify Aleppo and Damascus into a single state, they insulated and

isolated the Druze and Alawites as much as they could, hoping to retain a foothold in the region.

In the end the Druze and Alawites were not viable as national entities without French support and

protection and eventually had to be reincorporated into a larger Syrian state by the end of its

mandate in 1946. The lasting legacy of these political divisions based upon region and religion

was to reinforce minority consciousness, communal segregation, and tribal differences.43

42 Deniche, 1994 43 Fildis, 2011

13

Meanwhile, Britain – who administered Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Transjordan, Iran, and

parts of the Arabian Peninsula – became the focus of discontented Arab nationalists who felt

betrayed and exploited. Believing Faysal had learned his lesson at the hands of the French and

could now be trusted to act judiciously, the British positioned him as the King of Iraq. A series

of rebellions led by the Iraqi peasant class were suppressed until finally, following the revolt of

1920, the British conspired with King Faysal and the Iraqi army to distribute communal lands to

the tribal sheikhs44

for their private estates. Tribal leaders were suddenly elevated into positions

of economic power and given control over the agricultural market. Thus the peasant class was

reduced to serfs and the British could focus on procuring oil through lucrative deals delivered by

their client states. This fragile stability and balance of interests was marked by a series of

military coups from 1938 through the ‘50s that rotated power brokers but left the fundamental

dynamics unchanged. Each successive usurper maintained the status quo by protecting the

underlying ruling class as well as Western oil and business contracts. During this time a young

middle class began to emerge; educated and frustrated by political and economic exclusion, they

gave rise to nationalist parties across the political spectrum. On the left, communists attempted to

court the peasants with nationalistic overtures and on the right the Baath party rode the wave of

the discontented urban middle class and their dream of a pan-Arab unification that could reunite

an artificially separated people by rupturing the borders of Sykes-Picot.45

The Baath party, in its inception, had represented a pan-Arabist movement in Syria and

Iraq that sought to achieve freedom from foreign control as well as the unity of all Arabs in a

single state. Its founders, Michel ‘Aflaq an Orthodox Christian and Salah al-Din Bitar a Sunni

Muslim, joined with Zaki Arsuzi and Dr. Wahib al-Ghanim, both Alawite Shia Muslims, who

helped recruit large numbers of students to their cause;46

this diverse array of leadership from

different religious denominations is indicative of the lack of sectarian divide that existed in Iraq

and Syria until the 1970s. Instead its members primarily identified themselves along social class

divisions. However, it should be noted that by its very pan-Arabist nature, Baath ideology

always contained within it a racist coloring against Kurds and other non-Arabs.47

It was in Egypt

that Gamal Abdel Nasser finally achieved the Baathist dream in 1954 by upending the country’s

political elites and rose to power along a wave of Arab nationalism sending ripples of excitement

through the Arab world, which inspired new opposition groups in other countries to mobilize.

The charismatic leader represented all their aspirations and had achieved success in a modern and

populous country with a strong and enviable economy. His triumph motivated the Syrian

44 Sheikh is a term used to describe an elder, leader, Islamic scholar, or revered person of an Arab tribe. Within the context of this work, it will be used exclusively to denote a secular, non-state leader of a defined communal group. Any referenced sheikhs may also have religious positions, but if such a role is critical to the analysis it will be mentioned separately. 45 Galvani, 1972 46 Devlin, 1991 47 Ramadani, 2014

14

regional command of the Baath party to suggest a union of their country with Egypt, which

would be known as the United Arab Republic (UAR).48

In this sea of turbulent change, Iraqi army officers executed a coup d’état in 1958, known

as the 14 July Revolution, that quickly overthrew the monarchy and replaced it with a republic;

Iraq now faced an identity crisis. The Party leadership wanted to follow Syria’s example and join

with Egypt under the recognized leadership of President Nasser and thus fully break from the

control that the West retained over the region, but Iraq’s new leader, General Qassem, allied

himself with the Communists and Kurds - both of whom feared what the implications of a

totalitarian regime like Nasser’s would mean for their own democratic aspirations. The

unfortunate truth of the 14 July Revolution was that it left an existential question unanswered:

Should Iraq join Egypt and Syria to break free of a Western designed state complete with the

political infrastructure designed to exploit them? Or accept the confines of the current situation

and instead focus on economic development and industrialization? These internal disputes and

power struggles gradually returned and culminated in yet another coup in 1963 bringing a new

and different Baath party to power.49

The dream of Arab nationalism eventually broke as its greatest experiment fell apart, and

with it, the Baath party – its greatest advocate – changed irrevocably. The Syrian Baathists were

not politically prepared for the changes that Nasser demanded and lost nearly every election in

their own country. In effect, Nasser outmaneuvered his more pedestrian Syrian counterparts and

was able to supplant their ruling class with his underlings to effectively run the country from

Cairo. This humiliating defeat was narrowly prevented by the Syrian army, who reclaimed

Syrian independence. The naïve idealism of pan-Arabism faded away as the original Baath

leadership left the party to form weak pro-Nasserist groups. A new generation of authoritarian

military officers began to occupy leadership posts within the Baath party replacing the social

idealists and, having grudgingly accepted the borders imposed upon them by Britain and France,

limited their ideology to the confines of their own country. Following the Syrian secession from

the UAR – the first true experiment in Arab unity – the party rapidly morphed into an inward

facing authoritarian organization that focused on consolidating power for its own survival.50

Gradually the Syrian Baath regional branch broke with its overarching national command

and, after an internal power struggle that lasted years, Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad seized

power in a bloodless coup in 1970. Al-Assad was a member of the Alawite Shias, which was and

continues to be a small minority within Syria. At the time, they were an impoverished rural hill

tribe excluded from opportunity and power, not because of their religion, but because of their

socio-economic status. One of the few promising routes of self-advancement open to bright

Alawite boys was through the military academy, which allowed the Alawites to occupy a

disproportionate amount of the country’s military and security posts. It was, in fact, the same

path al-Assad traveled to eventually become the Defense Minister. Once in power, Assad

48 Devlin, 1991 49 Galvani, 1972 50 Devlin, 1991

15

immediately placed “trusted men – brothers, cousins, clansmen in the first instance – for sensitive

posts”51

and began to redistribute resources to the neglected hill country of his birth.52

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Baath regional command, annoyed by Gen. Qassem’s cooperation

with the communist movement, first attempted to assassinate him in 1959, then, failing that, took

power by force in a bloody coup in 1963 and initiated a purge of leftist elements. Aflaq and his

followers, in exile from the regionalists in Syria, supported Ahmad Hasan Bakr and Saddam

Hussein’s claims to rule Iraq, offering them immediate legitimacy in the eyes of the Arab world,

in return for haven and their continued nominal leadership of the Baathist party. But true power

resided with the two men from Tikrit, who quickly populated positions of power with their Tikriti

kinsmen. Hussein quietly continued this process and emplaced ruthless cronies loyal to him in all

key positions of the security services, promoted his supporters, and eliminated his rivals. When

he was prepared, he placed Bakr under house arrest and assumed leadership of the country. He

quickly and conveniently discovered a “plot” against him and executed dozens of his colleagues

that still held positions of power.53

The leadership of both countries used their respective Baath parties, which were ironically

at political and ideological odds with each other, to assert control over their people. Through the

1980s and 90s, millions were forced to join the party to gain access to jobs, university education,

or to prove their loyalty and avoid persecution by security forces. Both leaders shared state

resources and power with their support bases, but ruthlessly cracked down on dissent by previous

elite groups they had supplanted. In Syria, the Alawites battled Islamist Sunni Muslims that

possessed a base of support much larger than their own, which culminated in a vicious massacre

in Hama in 1982. In Iraq, Hussein went even further and institutionalized violence and torture to

separate Iraqis from their traditional societal groups and force them to into complete reliance

upon the state. The Baath party was used in both countries to indoctrinate the population and

produce state propaganda.54

The creation of police states in Syria and Iraq allowed their leaders

to temporarily control and seemingly dilute nationalistic fervor and expressions of dissent, while

simultaneously making tribal leaders dependent upon the state – a system that ultimately helped

cement sectarian identities through competition.

6. Rise of Sectarianism and Balkanization

a. Communal Content

Yugoslavia became the poster child of violent, interethnic sectarianism during the 1990s,

even going to so far as to lend the verb “to balkanize” or “to break up (as a region or group) into

smaller and often hostile units”55

to the English language. The Yugoslav experiment sought the

creation of “one country, with two scripts, three languages, four religions, five nationalities, and

51 Devlin, 1991, pg. 1404 52 Devlin, 1991 53 Devlin, 1991 54 Devlin, 1991 55 To Balkanize, 2015

16

six republics;”56

to say such a goal was ambitious was an understatement. However, contrary to

the popularized explanation, longstanding ethnic hatreds or cultural differences did not suddenly

boil over into genocidal war. The various nations of Yugoslavia had a long history of relatively

peaceful coexistence with a few periods of intermittent violence or ethnic and religious strife.

Pan-Slavism, also known as the Illyrian Movement, even enjoyed a brief period of popularity

during the 18th

and 19th

centuries and inspired the name Yugoslavia (literally land of the southern

Slavs), but was ultimately unable to overcome tribal ties and the draw of sectarian communities

with parochial interests to create an integrated state with a singular Yugoslav identity.57

Genetically and linguistically there is little significant difference between the three largest

nations of the former Yugoslavia: the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. While there exist minor

dialectical differences between them, each is intelligible to the other; and all are Slavic people.

The ethnic distinction among Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks is primarily one of religion. Serbs are

predominately Eastern Orthodox Christians with ties to Russia; Croats are mostly Roman

Catholic and claim closer affinity with Europe; whereas Bosniaks and Albanians are primarily

Sunni Muslims and are generally viewed as a product of the Ottoman era.58

It is important to

note that religious doctrinal differences by themselves did not engender interethnic violence, but

rather served as the distinctive communal boundaries that created discrete political and social-

national entities. Each national group created historical ethnic narratives critical to their self-

identity that were shaped and interpreted over the centuries through wars, occupations,

liberations, as well as more normalized competition for resources that formed the lens through

which they viewed their role throughout history.

The communal identity of each of these nations, particularly in relation to how they

viewed others, developed during imperialistic adventures that offered various pacts to one group

or another in their pursuit to pacify the region. Bosniaks and Albanians saw their fortunes rise

with the Ottoman Empire, Croats took power with the aid of Nazi Germany, and the Serbs

dominated the region during the formation of the first Yugoslavia and advanced again to control

the Communist apparatus of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Each reversal of power came at the expense of

other groups and helped create national memories that interpreted history differently to form an

antagonistic culture between the nations, which Tito inadvertently reinforced and Milosevic

inflamed. These communal memories formed an ethnic pride that affected not only the ethnic

majorities of each republic, but their brethren that made up a minority in other republics as well.59

As the relative majority within Yugoslavia, the Serbs were more likely to readily accept

and defend the state from perceived threats. Their nationalism can be partly viewed as a reaction

to the secessionist movements of other national groups, which they condemned as selfish and

ungrateful.60

Serbs historically saw themselves as liberators, who too often paid a

disproportionate price in blood only to be then betrayed by the Croats, Bosniaks, or some other

56 Somerville, 1965 57 Frankel, 1955 58 Vujacic, 1996 59 Vujacic, 1996 60 Vujacic, 1996

17

minority. Their zadruga clan system supported this perceived need to protect the Serb nation and

state from destabilizing threats by instilling values of masculinity, discipline, obedience, and duty

in their youth, which created a fertile ground for nationalistic pride to propagate. Serbian

nationalists were a volatile threat due to their widespread diaspora constituting significant

minorities throughout Yugoslavia’s republics and provinces. Tito recognized this inherent

danger and sought to limit its influence by separating the Eastern Orthodox Church from

education, expanding women’s rights and their entrance into the workplace, increasing literacy,

and encouraging urbanization.61

He hoped to disintegrate ethnic divisions by removing the

dynamics that encouraged them.

Despite Tito’s best efforts and hopes, Yugoslavia failed to properly integrate its diverse

ethnic groups under a “common identity as citizens of the state” and instead the Communist

parties of the various republics found themselves becoming nationalized and representing the

interests of their particular nations.62

Official censuses demonstrated the failure of state

integration throughout the decades of Communist rule. By 1981, only 1.2 million people out of a

total population of 22.4 million described themselves as Yugoslavs. Those who identified as

Yugoslavs were generally a product of mixed marriages between Croats and Serbs or Slovenes

and Macedonians. Only Vojvodina and Bosnia, which were the most heterogeneous regions of

Yugoslavia with regard to nationalities, had marginally higher than average proportions of people

that identified as Yugoslavs (see Annex 5).63

While urbanization and membership to the

Communist party were significant determinants of people identifying themselves as Yugoslavs

early on, as politics became nationalized politicians began to mirror these divisions. The local

Communist republican branches – the bulwark upon which Tito hoped would unify the various

nations into a common people – ultimately succumbed and became the principal vehicle in which

the national struggles were waged on the political front as individual politicians took up the

banner of their respective nations in order to rise in power and stature.64

In 1990, this divisive

trend rumbled louder following the collapse of Communism, when, in their first free elections,

each republic voted in nationalistic leaders pandering identical messages to their respective

constituents: Serbia for Serbs, Croatia for Croats, Slovenia for Slovenes, and Macedonia for

Macedonians.65

While Yugoslavia was constructed upon the belief of ethnic autonomy, the Baath parties

of Iraq and Syria purposely undermined a national integration and instead encouraged tribal

affiliation and differences. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s regime relied upon the support of Sunni

Arabs who constituted less than 25% of the overall population.66

While the ruling elite Alawites

in Syria made up approximately 12% of the population.67

Unlike Yugoslavia’s Serbs who

61 Somerville, 1965 62 Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994 63 Lendvai and Parcell, 1991 64 Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994, pg. 88 65 Hayden, 1996 66 Moaddel, Tessler, and Inglehart, 2009 67 Pipes, 1989

18

constituted a majority, both Iraq and Syria saw a minority ethnic group rise to power and

implement draconian measures to repress their respective majority populations. Although it

could feasibly be argued that the Communist party in Yugoslavia acted as a controlling minority

group, which the Serbs viewed as an oppressive regime. In the case of Iraq and Syria, interethnic

violence stemmed from violent Baathist oppression, which dramatically deepened ethnic

divisions as each regime used crony capitalism to reward allies while disenfranchising rivals.

This system perversely paralleled the one used by imperial European powers that the Baathists

had originally been founded to resist. Under all of this laid the remnants of the Ottoman millet

system in the form of segregated neighborhoods and cities, which helped perpetuate sectarian

divides that allowed collusion with certain ethnic groups at the expense of others.

Today, Sunni and Shia Arabs are portrayed in Western media as vicious enemies that

fought each other since time immemorial, making any peace in the Middle East an intractable

problem. This wasn’t always true. Sunnis and Shias lived together peacefully for centuries,

frequently intermarrying. Though they endured episodes of conflict throughout history, their

animosity only recently became engrained. Initially, Sunni Arabs enjoyed a monopoly of

powerful states following WWI and WWII: Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to

name a few. They controlled geostrategic territories and global energy reserves, constructed

powerful economies and respected militaries, and by caring for the Hejaz adopted a position of

religious and political leadership for the ummah or Muslim nation. During this time, Shias were

mostly ignored by Sunni rulers or persecuted by more orthodox clerics like the Wahhabis, who

have gone so far as to call for their extermination. Wahhabism, in particular, due to their

disproportionate power and funding from the Saudi royal family, has furthered sectarianism with

their vitriolic fatwas and moral, if not financial, support of Sunni terrorist groups like Al-Queda

and the Taliban. This Sunni monopoly was broken by the Iranian Revolution, which brought to

power a Shia theocracy that openly called for a coup in Saudi Arabia in hopes of exporting their

particular brand of Islamic jurisprudence and government.68

Iran championed the cause of Shias

everywhere, hoping to unite them and in doing so extend Persian power into the Arab world. As

a minority in the region, Shias viewed themselves as victims since their inception with the

assassination of Husayn, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson and arguable successor. Since then,

they have interpreted every calamity from colonialism and the creation of Israel to economic

sanctions and political isolation as a form of Shia persecution. In response to the revolution, the

Saudi royal family accelerated the spread of Wahhabism through the creation and funding of

international charities, madrasas, and mosques that propagate a puritanical Salafist Sunni strain

of Islam.69

The subsequent Saudi and Iranian regional tug of war and proxy conflicts have since

engendered a Sunni-Shia struggle that has entrenched sectarian divisions.

Aside from religious communities, Iraq, Syria, and most Arab countries possess a pre-

Islamic tribal society that can sometimes support or challenge state legal, education, and social

systems, often creating a somewhat pluralistic authority structure. Tribal ties can transcend

68 Jones, 2005 69 McMahon et al., 2014

19

religion and ethnicity, and include combinations of Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish members in some

cases. They play an important role in the social life of approximately 75% of Iraqis70

and 30% of

Syrians71

and historically maintained a dynamic relationship with state authorities as particular

tribal leaders or sheikhs vied for power or sought to safeguard the interests of their people. Often

these tribes formed the basis of political parties in the provinces that they dominated when they

were permitted to participate. Tribal institutions surged to replace weakened state institutions

within Iraq and Syria that became decimated by war in order to maintain order. In places and

times of weak central authority, tribal sheikhs managed conflicts and resources for their

communities, becoming a mini-state without territorial boundaries. However, tribes are not

always internally unified and frequently suffer power struggles between emerging elites. Rapidly

changing external alliances that vary between governments, foreign occupiers, other tribes, and

jihadist groups can also be disruptive and unpredictable. This fluidity is primarily a defense

mechanism that emerged after enduring decades of Baathist and jihadist attacks that sought to

loosen tribal holds over the population.72

Internationally, since most tribal bloodlines can trace

their heritage to the initial seventh century conquests of Muslim expansion, certain Sunni tribes in

Iraq and Syria still maintain ties with kinsmen in powerful Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, Qatar,

and Kuwait, who they can appeal to for financial, military, and political aid.73

Despite its proximity with Iran and its own substantial Shia population, Iraq enjoyed a

relatively pluralistic civil society for the better part of the 20th

century; ethnic and religious

differences only recently became divisive. At one time hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Jews

constituted the country’s burgeoning middle class. The Jewish people, in numbers

disproportionate to their population size, occupied government offices and controlled a variety of

businesses and financial institutions until the creation of Israel in 1948, which resulted in their

persecution and forced migration. General Qassem recognized the damage done to Iraq by the

flight of its Jewish citizens. In fact, his uneasy alliance with communists was in part a

consequence of his distrust of nationalism and a desire to unify Sunnis, Shias, Jews, and Kurds in

a common secular ideology. However, the 1968 Baath coup and subsequent violence and

repression ultimately destroyed what little civil society remained. The Shia Arabs, who had

occupied the vacated Jewish posts to constitute a new middle class, were later accused by

Saddam Hussein as being Iranian loyalists during the Iran-Iraq War and were expelled. In a

matter of decades, Iraq lost its middle class twice and saw its civil society decimated. The

situation continued to deteriorate further as the Baath party compensated for its lack of popular

support throughout Iraq by relying on a narrow base of loyal Sunni clans in order to control the

larger Shia population. These sectarian divides, encouraged by the Hussein regime, increased

due to destabilizing external factors like the Iran-Iraq War, two wars with the US, and 13 years of

UN sanctions that further strained living conditions.74

70 Hassan, 2007 71 Al-Aved, 2015 72 Al-Aved, 2015 73 Hassan, 2012 74 Zubaida, 2005

20

Despite modern Iraqi divisions having formed along ethnic and religious lines, each

group’s decisions and actions revolve primarily around political, economic, and survival

considerations. Sunnis were disproportionately rewarded under Saddam Hussein’s

patrimonialistic regime and enjoyed a great number of benefits that included wealth, business and

education opportunities, as well as access to state resources. Following the American invasion of

2003, they began to see their communal survival and interests threatened by a Shia dominated

government and rising Kurdish political influence, which had previously been violently

suppressed by the Sunni state. Sunnis responded by falling back into their communal support

structures, refusing to participate in a political process that they viewed as disadvantageous, and

supporting a violent insurgency against American armed forces and the new Iraqi Shia

government.75

A common Sunni sense of impending doom also explained why certain tribes

offered the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a vicious Salafi jihadist organization that as of

2015 claimed control of a geographical area encompassing several million people between the

states of Iraq and Syria, support as the only political option available to them that might

counterbalance Shia domination and Kurdish expansionism when they first emerged. Although

Salafists derive from a fringe Sunni school of Islam, the tentative alliance between them was

made with political considerations in mind as most Iraqi Sunnis view Salafi jihadism as a radical

deviation from the teachings of the Koran.76

Religious differences have also been often wrongly cited by the media as motives for

Syria’s current civil war. While often depicted as a sect of Shia Islam and as such an Iranian

proxy, the Alawites of Syria are largely considered heretics by Sunnis and 1,000 year old

estranged cousins by Shias.77

For the most part, Alawites are secular, having historically

dissimulated themselves in order to hide their identities and adopting the practices of those in

power in order to avoid persecution. During the Ottoman era they practiced Sunnism; when Pan-

Arabism and Nasser were popular, they were fervent Arabs; and when France ruled, they adopted

Christian customs and shaped themselves as Francophiles. During the 19th

and early 20th

centuries they suffered discrimination, abuse, poverty, and oppression at the hands of richer,

urban Sunnis who had enjoyed the benefits of cooperating with the Ottomans. The Alawites

instead embraced the French following WWI and vehemently rebelled against Prince Faysal with

French arms in 1919 for fear of further subjugation under Sunni domination. Once granted

autonomy in their Latakia governorate homeland, the Alawites supported their French sponsors

by participating in elections and quietly infiltrated police, military, and intelligence posts as their

Sunni counterparts demonstrated against and boycotted French-sponsored elections. Following

France’s departure from the region, the irritated Sunni majority ousted the Alawites from political

offices and reincorporated the Latakia governorate into the greater state of Syria. A large number

of Alawites remained and continued entering the military following Syrian independence because

it was an institution that the Sunni nationalists looked upon with disdain as an imperialist tool for

75 Moaddel, Tessler, and Inglehart, 2009 76 Weiss and Hassan, 2015 77 Heneghan, 2011

21

dull and lazy minorities. Instead they controlled the military by occupying a small number of the

top level positions, which the Sunnis then used to try and initiate a series of coups between 1949

and 1963. As Sunni Generals and regimes fought amongst themselves and suffered a number of

purges, the Alawites quietly stepped up to fill empty positions and helped fellow tribesmen up the

ranks until they outnumbered all other ethnic groups in the military 5-to-1.78

Though excluded from state political institutions and power, Alawites flocked to the

nascent Baath party, which became a secular vehicle for ethnic minorities to work together. Like

minorities of any ethnically conflicted state, the Baath party’s tenets of secularism and socialism

appealed to many. Zaki Arsuzi, a Baathist founder, filled the party ranks with many of his

Alawite kinsmen, who in turn brought their own families into the fold. Hafez al-Assad ultimately

emerged as the leader of Syria by virtue of his position as Defense Minister and rode three

successive waves: the Baath coup of March 1963, which removed the Sunnis from government;

the Alawite coup of February 1966, which replaced the socialists of the Baath party with Alawite

military officers, and the Assad Coup of November 1970, in which al-Assad finally emerged as

the victor against another Alawite rival. The Baath coup was triggered once Sunni purges began

targeting the rising minorities. As a community, the Alawites decided to overthrow the

government. They quickly purged rival officers from the other religious groups: the Sunnis,

Druze, and Ismailis.79

A history of persecution had forced the smaller Alawite community to rely

upon each other to survive. This tight knit culture allowed Hafez al-Assad and his family to

come to power over a much larger but disjointed Sunni majority, which preferred to compete

among themselves for power rather than cooperate. The tiny Alawite minority that became the

state elites needed support to remain in power and struck a bargain with powerful Syrian Sunni

businessmen to privatize state firms and liberalize the economy so as to further enrich them in

return for their political support.80

b. Government and States Roles

For the majority of the 20th

century, the various leaders of Yugoslavia recognized that the

creation of a unified multicultural Yugoslavia was not immediately feasible due to strong

nationalist sentiments and instead settled on a concept of federalism. Purportedly learning from

the mistakes of the first Yugoslavia in which oppressive Serbian rule sought to create a unified

state until it was shattered in the face of German aggression during WWII, the new federation

was built upon the principle of nationality and the right of self-determination. This allayed

minority fears that Serbs or Croats would hijack the state and create a Great Serbia or Croatia.

The Communist party thus sought to present itself as a balance and guarantor of national and

minority rights. This necessarily meant that resources, important institutions to include the

Yugoslav National Army (JNA), and decision-making powers had to be concentrated at the

federal level to enforce a system of equality upon the periphery republics. This, in turn, meant

78 Pipes, 1989 79 Pipes, 1989 80 King, 2007

22

that the republics had little incentive to coordinate, cooperate, or integrate and instead began to

compete among themselves for state resources.81

Tito believed that the principal conflict between attempting to merge Croats and Serbs

into a unified state prior to WWII could be avoided by offering an egalitarian federal system for

all nations regardless of geographic size or population.82

In an attempt to weaken the hold of

nationalistic energies, the Communists were careful to recognize the rights of each group, balance

each’s relative power and influence, and remain above the fray of nationalist concerns as an

example of a greater Yugoslav citizenry. This led to Macedonians and Bosniaks receiving

nationhood recognition for the first time ever in a political maneuver to undercut and limit

Serbian dominance, which in turn fed Serbian paranoia. All recognized nationalist movements

were granted partial autonomy in the formation of eight localized Communist parties that held a

monopoly of power over their individual territories. Tito became the linchpin that held

everything together. Half Croat and half Slovene, he purged the republican Communist parties

and reined in each group whenever nationalist sentiment became too strong.83

While Communist rule by itself did not create or necessarily inflame nationalistic fervor

among the different ethnicities and religions of Yugoslavia, it did serve to create the political

infrastructure and economic incentives that spawned a fierce competition for resources and

power. Initially, Yugoslavia was a federation in name only. The Communist party created the

structural foundation of federalism, but failed to complement it with true federal processes based

upon a mutual partnership between the republics that allowed for cooperation, accommodation,

and bargaining on issues and programs. Instead they centralized all decision-making powers at

the federal level making each republic dependent upon the party. Power was only decentralized

following the reforms of 1974, which led to a new constitution that caused grave worry among

the Serbs, who believed Tito was acquiescing to the demands of the 1971 Croatian Spring

political movement. However, without a system of federal process, Yugoslavia was never able to

attain a democratic institution or forum capable of conflict management between the various

nations.84

Instead it constantly had to be imposed upon them from above.

The system quickly fell apart when its strong authoritarian center gave way and divisive

republics with no history of federal processes were suddenly faced with crumbling economic

conditions. The distinctive communal identities, traditions, and histories of these disparate

national groups became the fuel with which nationalistic leaders could pervert and twist historical

narratives of victimization to further mobilize the component citizenry in order to pursue

individual national interests. Tito originally believed that he could free the republics from their

dependency on these national affiliations with time. He reasoned that as industrialization moved

Yugoslavia from an agricultural economy and encouraged urbanization, the people would benefit

from modernization and improved education and literacy. The citizens of Yugoslavia could then

be guided by the Communist party to greater political participation and economic prosperity. He

81 Frankel, 1955 82 Hodson, Sekulic, and Massey, 1994 83 Sekulic, Massey, Hodson, 1994 84 Dorff, 1994

23

essentially gambled that a short term increase in nationalism would dissipate over the long term

on a wave of social advancement that could lead to national integration. However, this was never

to be, the stability of the entire system depended upon his judgment to purge republican

leadership whenever one nation began to dominate another and otherwise quell nationalist

sentiments when they grew too militant. Ultimately his death coincided with a severe economic

crisis during the 1970s and 80s that collapsed standards of living by a quarter, drove inflation to

more than 2,500% in 1989,85

erased countless jobs, and served as a catalyst for the disintegration

of the state when ambitious politicians linked local economic hardships with national differences

and skewed historical narratives. The collapse of Communism and the inability to replace Tito

with a similarly charismatic and powerful leader removed the only support underpinning the

young state from pulling itself apart.86

These particular conditions: a peculiar dependency upon

authoritarianism for stability, a notable absence of governmental structures or processes for

resolving conflicts, a competitive spirit that was cultivated between ethnic groups, which

prevented a culture of political accommodation, and the sudden removal of the system’s strong

center would be seen again in the Middle East with similar disastrous results.

The animosities and interethnic conflict that grew between Sunnis, Shias, Kurds,

Alawites, and other minorities in Iraq and Syria over the latter half of the 20th

century were a

direct consequence of the Baath party and their manipulation of the state apparatus, which

allowed small ruling elites to maintain power over much larger populations. Saddam Hussein

and his officers, aware of their tenuous hold on power, wielded the state’s institutions to solidify

their position over Iraq’s Shia majority and stubborn Kurdish separatist movement, which,

inspired by the Iranian Revolution, threatened insurrection.87

The Baath party in particular

learned to compensate for their smaller numbers with the use of chemical weapons during the

Iran-Iraq War. Hussein turned these weapons on his own rebellious Shia and Kurdish

populations in short order.8889

He also eviscerated any pretension that the Baath Party retained of

pluralism and hijacked it as a personal vehicle for which the population could demonstrate their

loyalty to him. Baath membership became a reward system that prioritized Hussein’s family,

clan, and Tikrit tribal kinsmen. All decisions, no matter how small, were made directly by him;

thereby eliminating any need for political participation.90

Ultimately Hussein’s policies and

heavy handed suppression sowed the seeds for future sectarian conflict. By the time America

invaded in 2003, Iraq was entirely dependent upon one dictator and possessed no institutional

memory of impartial conflict resolution or a functional civil society.

Following the invasion of 2003, whether intentionally or not, the US reversed the Iraqi

power dynamic to favor the Iraqi Shia majority who proceeded to exclude Sunnis from any power

85 Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994 86 Hodson, Sekulic, Massey, 1994 87 From the Editor, 2007 88 The most infamous being the 1988 Al-Anfal Campaign in which 50,000 – 100,000 men, women, and children were massacred in a genocidal operation using mustard and sarin gas munitions, according Human Rights Watch. 89 Hiltermann, 2010 90 Moon, 2009

24

sharing agreements. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) led by Paul Bremer disbanded

the primarily Sunni Iraqi Army and fired all Baath party members from the public sector, which

further isolated a significant portion of Sunni society who had been forced to become members to

find jobs in the first place. Feeling wronged, many Sunnis refused to participate in the new

government and instead fell back upon their tribal organizations for support.91

The subsequent

free elections held in the name of democracy all but assured that the Shia Dawa party would fill

the vacuum left by the Baath Party. Iraqi Sunnis suddenly found that not only had the reins of

power been passed to their Shia countrymen, but their country’s traditional enemy, Iran, could

now influence political, military, and economic decisions with their Dawa proxies in various state

institutions.92

A sentiment of political exclusion, fears of retribution, and a perception of Iranian

influence in the government as well as a growing number of Shia militias led various Sunni tribes

to support extreme Salafi jihadist movements in the region.

Hafez al-Assad, upon assuming power in Syria, worked to weaken the power of tribal

sheikhs by creating state institutions to provide security, employment, and conflict resolution. At

the same time he co-opted them as appendages of the state to control the wide Syrian steppes.

Since the Alawites constituted an even smaller minority in Syria than the Sunnis did in Iraq, al-

Assad made strategic alliances with rural sheikhs to suppress Sunni Islamist uprisings throughout

the country, restrict Kurdish expansion in the north, and maintain order in their districts in return

for financial aid and political appointments. Al-Assad supplied weapons, vehicles, and

communication equipment for their tribal fighters, which gradually became government militias.

He was able to use the traditional Syrian tribal system to coax the support necessary to stabilize

the country and his rule. Hafez’s son, Bashar al-Assad, expanded his father’s policies of

patronage to secure the country, but in doing so isolated the regime from its urban and industrial

society, which became marginalized and impoverished. However, the support of strategically

important tribes for the regime has helped keep it in place despite a vicious civil war.93

c. Deprivation of Human Needs

The basis of Yugoslavia’s federal system – federal structures without federal processes –

prevented interethnic conflict, not by addressing the roots of ethnic grievances, but instead by

making each republic dependent upon the central government. The one party system directly and

indirectly controlled the ability of ethnic groups to politically mobilize through republican

Communist party selection, resource control, and altering the balance of power between republics

when it suited them. In addition to being deprived of political mobilization, Tito, even as he

guaranteed national recognition and rights, spent his entire time in power suppressing ethnic

identities by editing history books, restricting public discourse concerning anything deemed

ethnically divisive, censoring multiple art forms, and restricting any political criticism or open

debate, much less any form of political demonstration. The repression of individual rights and

91 Davis, 2010 92 Hiltermann, 2010 93 Dukhan, 2014

25

freedoms of expression, speech, and assembly were especially harsh prior to the reforms of 1974.

Even when Yugoslavia began decentralizing power in response to political agitation for greater

autonomy – particularly in more homogeneous republics like Croatia – he still believed that he

could contain nationalist energies by empowering the republican Communist parties to represent

the interests of their particular nations while simultaneously controlling any further sources of

agitation.94

The changes that the reforms brought only whetted the appetites of nationalists for more

autonomy and access to the republics’ economies. The new Constitution expanded individual

rights and normalized criminal court procedures. It represented the first time that power was

truly delegated from the state presidency down to the republican level. Further, Kosovo and

Vojvodina, previously represented by Serbia at the federal level, were granted voting rights equal

to republics as well as veto power with respect to the Serbian parliament to counter growing

Serbian influence. Ironically, the execution of these liberal reforms required a purge of Serbian

leadership to ensure their promulgation. Without any history of federal processes or dynamic

institutions not controlled by a strong central figure, politics quickly degenerated into a zero sum

game where each republic competed against not only the central government for power, but each

other as well. In politicizing ethnicity by empowering republics that were fundamentally created

upon national divisions but not providing them a federal institution with which to arbitrate issues,

they paved the way for future nationalist politics and an inevitable PSC.95

Serbia, following Tito’s death, was aggravated by the central government’s continuous

plots to contain it and immediately sought to recentralize the country under its leadership. Once

in power, Milosevic manipulated Serbian nationalism and replaced independent leaders in

Vojvodina and Montenegro with subservient ones. Kosovo was placed under heel by repressing

its Albanian population. In controlling four of the eight regions of Yugoslavia, Milosevic had the

power to thwart the presidency and block any executive act. He exploited the federal structure to

advance his agenda because he knew the federal processes that might otherwise keep him in

check did not exist.96

The precipitating factor leading to future conflict came in 1989 when

Serbian delegates to the fourteenth Congress of the League of Communists overreached and

attempted to alter the voting mechanism in favor of the Serbian majority, leading to a walkout by

delegates from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.97

Serbia’s disproportionate political

influence delegitimized the state and accelerated its breakup. Communism crumbled as fears of

Serbian domination triggered multiparty elections in which nationalists representing each

republic took power with promises of secession after decades of marginalization. Any hope for a

negotiated settlement vanished in the absence of Tito, who had acted as a critical substitute for

the lack of federal processes in any state institution and had been the lone actor in the past to

assist, guide, and enforce conflict management between the republics.98

94 Hodson, Sekulic, Massey, 1994 95 Hodson, Sekulic, Massey, 1994 96 Dorff, 1994 97 Wilson, 2005 98 Wilson, 2005

26

Hardly surprising, plebiscites for independence won overwhelming support in Slovenia in

1990 and Croatia in 1991. In an effort to hold the state together, Serbian nationalists declared

autonomous regions in Croatia and Bosnia, also known as Republika Srpska, and began to

oppress other ethnic groups living there in the name of protecting their Serb brethren.

Nationalism replaced the communist state structure in every republic except Bosnia, which had

no single ethnic majority. The greatest victims became the minorities living in other republics.

Serbs living in Croatia suddenly found themselves not only without autonomy or recognition as a

constituent nation, but without constitutional rights following reforms made by the nationalist

Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) when they rose to power. Serbs were soon fired from public

institutions, schools, universities, and hospitals. They became subjected to special taxes and a

loyalty oath.99

In response the JNA, previously multiethnic, became nationalized as vicious

Serbian nationalism and violence caused the other ethnic groups to flee, allowing the army to fall

under Serbia’s control. Bosnian Serbs were shrewdly allowed to return to Bosnia - armed by the

JNA – and formed the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) to extend Serbian reach into Bosnia under the

guise of compliance with international intervention. The JNA engaged the new armies of the

other republics, but ultimately wasn’t strong enough to prevent the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

Upon failing to hold the state together, Serbian strategy adopted a new goal of securing a larger

state with an eye toward the mixed autonomous, but weak regions of Bosnia and Kosovo.100

While Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians suffered restrictions on many freedoms, a

suppression of identity, and perhaps an unjust and overbearing government, Iraqis and Syrians

who suffered under their authoritarian regimes clearly faced persecution and state violence that

broached into the realm of physical security. The atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein,

Hafez al-Assad, and his son Bashar were flagrant and systematic violations of multiple human

rights, which some would plainly call genocide. Unlike Communist Yugoslavia’s attempts to

justify repression for an integrated and unified society, Iraq and Syria were security states that

targeted populations based upon tribal and religious affiliations with the intent to repress political

movements that might threaten their respective power structures. Each regime established

detention centers in which dissidents were tortured and killed by the thousands. When threats to

the regime were too numerous to detain, as was the case in al-Anfal and Hama, the military was

deployed and permitted to use indiscriminate force. While both states specifically targeted

political enemies and threats, Hussein went one step further; often killing indiscriminately and

deriving pleasure from personally participating in executions.101

Saddam Hussein’s regime institutionalized torture, repeatedly flouted UN resolutions, and

ignored international condemnation. As the executive head of state, commander in chief of the

armed forces, leader of the Baath party, and head of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC)

– a legislating body that could override all other state institutions, Hussein endowed security

forces with not only the authority to suppress any perceived dissent, but guaranteed them judicial

99 Schiemann, 2007 100 Wilson, 2005 101 Gollom, 2014

27

immunity. A tool of Hussein’s, the RCC codified as law cruel punishments such as amputation,

mutilation, and branding for crimes of slander or political dissent. Political demonstrations were

met with deadly force and, in extreme circumstances, with chemical weapons. In order to control

rebellious Kurdish, Shia, and certain Sunni Arab tribes, Iraqi security forces would detain, rape,

and execute thousands of civilians at a time, sometimes razing entire villages.102

The most

current estimates place Shia casualties during Saddam Hussein’s rule between 400,000 to

700,000 people, which does not include those who died as a result of the Iran-Iraq War.103

While the scale of human suffering under Saddam Hussein was atrocious in its systematic

discrimination, it remained equally upsetting in the more chaotically violent form it assumed

following his capture and execution. Once sectarian pressures were unleashed and a strong

central authority figure was removed, Iraq became a lawless warzone pulled apart by foreign

Salafi jihadist organizations, a Shia dominated government and their militias, and armed Sunni

tribes. ISIS took control of wide swaths of territory and dispensed a brutal form of Sharia justice

that allowed for the torture, rape, forced marriage, slavery, and mass executions of religious and

ethnic minorities, while simultaneously attacking government forces and expanding its holdings.

The Iraqi government, even with the support of American airstrikes, could only marginally

dislodge ISIS from one area, before seeing them gain control of another. The Iraqi government

did little better with the parts of the country it did control. Largely sectarian security forces and

government sanctioned Shia militias repressed Iraqi citizens and stood accused of kidnapping and

killing numerous Sunni tribesmen, which sparked fears among them of impending reprisal attacks

for Baathist crimes. In response to their political alienation and fears of Shia persecution, a

number of Sunni armed groups emerged to challenge the government and defend their

communities. The large number of armed factions competing for power in Iraq is complicated by

its porous border with Syria, across which ISIS operates freely.104

Syria was historically a bastion of Arab nationalism and as such often prioritized its

regional leadership at the expense of domestic affairs. In many ways, the Assad regime’s

vociferous support of Arab resistance movements, regardless of religious affiliation, in Palestine

and Lebanon helped legitimize it in the eyes of some of its Syrian citizens. However, having lost

the support of Hamas and a good number of Palestinians who sided with the Arab Spring

movements against their authoritarian regimes, the Assad government reaped the costs of

concentrating exclusively on regime security at the expense of domestic development. They

traditionally curried favor with the middle and lower classes by guaranteeing low paid but secure

jobs, while subsidizing living expenses like food and fuel. However, the cash strapped regime

was forced to implement market reforms and loosen state control over various sectors in 2005 in

order to raise much needed funds. In doing so, the regime broke what many perceived to be a

social contract as food costs outstripped wages and unemployment rose to 20-25% with an influx

of Iraqi refugees adding to an already strained system.105

The average Syrian also suffered from

102 Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 2002 103 Di Giovanni, 2014 104 Human Rights Watch, 2015 105 The Economist, January 2011

28

public sector incompetence and inefficiency. Droughts along with poor planning and

mismanagement of water resources forced thousands of families to migrate from the countryside

to cities and affected the living conditions of 2 to 3 million people. Water shortages only added

to the misery of the average Syrian living under the oppressive security apparatus of the state.106

While Hafez al-Assad was no stranger to ignoring judicial order to detain, torture, or

execute agitators or political dissidents, he preferred to employ violence and repression on a

smaller and more judicious scale than Saddam Hussein. Similarly, his son, Bashar, sought to

create a separation between himself and the more bloody business of maintaining power by

converting the shabiha or ghosts – a state-sponsored Alawite mafia – into a militia that could

punish anti-regime protestors at the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. The shabiha were

accused of firing upon unarmed demonstrations; raping, torturing, and slitting the throats of

citizens suspected of disloyalty; assassinating tribal or religious leaders who spoke out against the

Assad government; and even destroying entire villages. While the shabiha began as a criminal

organization, and may have remained so in its upper echelons of leadership, there is mounting

evidence that its soldiers, who were mostly poor and uneducated, were motivated by fears of

encroaching Wahhabi-funded extremist groups that aimed to enslave and kill them and their

families.107108

d. Propaganda and Foreign Influence

While the absence of federal conflict management institutions and processes allowed

nationalist groups to rise to power in the various republics of Yugoslavia and begin to politically

oppress minorities, interethnic violence only became a reality after vitriolic rhetoric from the

political leadership of all sides mobilized the local constituents. As V.P. Gagnon argues, ethnic

and religious sentiment alone do not produce interethnic violence, but rather the emergence of

challengers, who threaten the power dynamics of the status quo, prompt ruling elites as well as

their aspiring rivals to mobilize the population against their respective adversaries. In the case of

Serbia following Tito’s death, preparations were made to reform Yugoslavia’s economy and

adopt various free market principles. Serbian conservatives, Marxists, nationalists, and parts of

the JNA worked together to provoke ethnic conflict and protect the structure of their power and

wealth through the creation of a narrative that concentrated individual interests toward communal

survival against external threats. These elites played upon and inflated national myths, history,

and traditions to reinforce the communal identity of the Serb people: from the Battle of Kosovo

in 1389 and subsequent Serb resistance against the Ottoman Empire to their role as communist

partisans fighting against the genocidal alliance of Nazi Germany and the Ustasha Croats during

WWII.109

This nationalistic rhetoric alone may not have been enough to accomplish the

entrenched elites’ goals, but abysmal economic conditions and newly elected nationalist

106 Haddad, 2011 107 Amor and Sherlock, 2014 108 Macleod and Flamand, 2012 109 Gagnon, Jr., 1995

29

Croatians who instituted oppressive policies against their minority Serb population played

directly into their hands by arguably validating rising Serb fears.110

Serb anxieties of resurgent enemies bent on their domination weren’t completely

unwarranted; they had some basis in fact, but were exaggerated to great political effect. On one

side Bosnia laid claim to the mountainous Serbian Sandzak region (see Annex 6) in 1990 and

1992, which possessed a formidable number of Muslims. The region itself was pressing for

secession. However, this would have split the newly founded Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

(FRY) in two.111

In the north, minority Serbs living in Croatia watched as new nationalist

policies fired and disarmed Serb police, formed an exclusively Croat national guard, and made

reconciliation gestures toward Ustasha veterans, even adopting derivatives of their fascist

insignia. During this time, Franjo Tudjman, a revisionist historian who downplayed the atrocities

committed by the Ustasha, rose to power on a platform of dehumanizing anti-Serb rhetoric. His

HDZ party stripped Serbs of their rights, who in turn petitioned Serbia for aid. In the south,

Kosovo Serbs protested against discrimination, killings, rampant theft, and destruction of

property at the hands of majority Kosovo Albanians throughout the early 1980s, long before

Milosevic’s rise to power. The Communist party, still in power at the time, ignored their

complaints in an effort to balance ethnic parity. Milosevic simply gave them a voice.112

While the basis for ethnic tension existed and was escalated by moderate political abuses

and provocative talk, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) later

found that it was Serbian propaganda that incited ethnic violence in the Balkans and Serbian

nationalists that were the aggressors. There remains much debate on this subject as to the degree

of culpability between the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks as well as the relevant historical factors

that played a role in producing the violence during the 1990s.113

However, Serbians dominated

the media outlets throughout Yugoslavia. The government used their monopoly to broadcast a

relentless wave of fear mongering in the form of fictitious news reports, which announced that

Serbs in various regions were on the verge of defeat, and faced imminent genocide at the hands

of crazed Croatian Ustasha who were sterilizing Serb women and castrating Serb boys.

Meanwhile, fundamentalist Muslims encroached upon Serbia’s western flank and “were coming

to make wreaths from the fingers of Serb children.” Having thoroughly shocked their people,

Milosevic appealed to the zadruga sense of masculine honor and announced that the only chance

they had for survival was by joining the JNA in defense of their nation.114

Historical narratives abound of heroic Serb victimization and provided fertile ground for

Milosevic to creatively interpret the rapidly developing events of the time to suit his needs. The

collective Serb conscience identified themselves as heroes who struggled courageously for

national survival against overwhelming odds, from their martyrdom at the Battle of Kosovo in

1389 to the genocidal Nazis and Ustasha during WWII; all of which fit perfectly with Milosevic’s

110 Schiemann, 2007 111 Ron, 2000 112 Vladisavljevic, 2002 113 Wilson, 2005, pg. 929 114 Wilson, 2005

30

policies of the 1990s. He took the Communist narrative of the working class’s struggle and

recast it as the struggle of the Serb people defending themselves from the attacks of Yugoslavia’s

treasonous nations and their anti-Serb allies in the West in order to advance his Serbian interests.

According to Milosevic, the collapse of the Yugoslav state was placed squarely on the shoulders

of selfish separatists in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, which the East Orthodox Church and

Serbian political and cultural elites dutifully accepted and repeated, offering the story the

appearance of further legitimacy. Even the war in Kosovo was painted and sold to Serbians as a

preventive war to protect victimized Serbs living there in fear of a pending massacre at the hands

of murderous Albanians. To the despair of all Serbians, NATO’s 1999 military intervention

against Serbia – the apparent victims and heroes of this tale – appeared to verify this account of

abuse and betrayal. Milosevic’s narrative was so successful that many Serbs, even years after the

war, were unable to accept that human rights abuses were perpetrated by Serbians, the JNA,

VRS, or other Serb forces, but rather held to the notion that the conflicts initiated by Milosevic

were in defense of human rights, namely Serb rights.115

As mentioned previously, the modern day Sunni-Shia divide is neither religiously based

nor historically entrenched; the animosity arose due to political and social conditions in various

Arab countries, which were then inflamed by traditional state media, social media, and

propaganda. Regional hegemons like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran bore the brunt of

responsibility when each, possessing powerful Salafist or Shia institutions, attempted to utilize

them and their constituents as vehicles to foment interethnic conflict in a competition to extend

their power and influence. Each state and non-state actor produced material based upon the

target audience they wished to influence. The most insidious of which was state-funded and

state-operated media that institutionalized sectarianism. Domestic Saudi and Qatari news

networks like Al Jazeera Arabic (the English version altered its reporting to address democratic

and human rights concerns that their Western audiences preferred to hear), Al-Arabiya, MBC,

and Dubai TV streamed news to the entire Arab world depicting regional events in terms of a

growing Shia encirclement while reporting favorably on Sunni rebel groups. They reported on

the conflict in Syria, for example, as a Sunni revolution against an oppressive Assad regime that

received aid from terrorist Shia networks based in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Sunni audiences were

inundated with images of violence and atrocities caused by al-Assad’s security forces and the

shabiha. In contrast, the Iranian IRIB network and its affiliated Press TV described the same

conflict as the violent rise of foreign-backed Sunni terrorists against the legitimate government of

President Bashar al-Assad. They replayed ghastly images produced by ISIS’ slick propaganda

machine of innocent civilians and prisoners being gruesomely executed in order to counter what

they viewed as Western and Sunni biased media coverage.116117

By producing news reports,

documentaries, and series that twisted the narratives of historical events, highlighted religious

and ethnic divisions, and linked forgotten vendettas with current events, these states knowingly

115 Subotic, 2013 116 Mamouri, 2013 117 Reese, 2013

31

fueled violent conflicts throughout the region. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran were no less guilty

of inciting violence with historical revisionism than Serbia was in the 1990s.

Often the actions and reactions of each actor fed into their rival’s narrative, which

snowballed under its own self-reinforcing momentum. The Shia dominated Iraqi government,

especially under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, focused more on consolidating power than

reaching out to and incorporating Sunnis into the political process; security force raids on Sunnis

further exacerbated ethnic tensions. In response, Sunni armed groups and tribal leaders offered

support to Al Queda in Iraq (AQI) and its off-shoot ISIS, which explicitly targeted Shia civilians.

When Iraqi security forces showed themselves ill-prepared to defeat ISIS and defend its citizens,

the Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani stepped forward and issued a fatwa calling upon all Iraqi

“citizens to defend the country, its people, the honor of its citizens, and its sacred places

[author’s emphasis].”118

Iraqi Shias flocked to the call and formed militias to protect Baghdad;

responding to ISIS propaganda depicting the torture and executions of Shia Muslims and other

minorities, the militias made reprisal attacks, torturing and executing innocent Sunnis. Religious

imagery became a recruitment tool, specifically the al-Askari shrine – one of Shiism’s holiest

sites, which AQI had attacked twice in 2006 and 2007, destroying its golden dome and

minarets.119

Much to the dismay of the Gulf monarchies, Iran openly intervened by sending

weapons, air support, funding, and advisors to support the Iraqi military and militias. As of the

writing of this report, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - Quds Force (IRGC-QF)

commander General Qasem Soleimani is in the country helping to organize and oversee strategy

development and operations.120

This has undoubtedly raised concerns among Sunni tribes about

the level of influence their neighbor has within their country.

In Syria, Bashar al-Assad used the shabiha militia to crush dissent, which invited Iraqi

and Syrian Sunnis to view their struggle as a united one. The Assad regime reinforced its

tenuous position by courting the Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Ismaili minority populations and

depicting the struggle as an ideological one of secularism versus radical Islam, the implication

being that their defeat would lead to everyone’s massacre. Iran played a similarly important role

in Syria as well. Indirectly, the Lebanese Hezbollah transitioned from advising and training the

shabiha to direct combat operations in 2013. In the same year, Iranian military presence in the

country was confirmed when a senior IRGC-QF commander, Hassan Shateri, was killed near

Damascus.121

Iran was able to justify this overt support by seizing the narrative and broadcasting

a campaign based upon sectarian rhetoric, religious ideology, and nationalist themes. The

Islamic regime used religious symbols and images to rally support on social media and even

produced nationalistic music videos that called for the defense of the Sayyeda Zainab shrine in

Damascus. Other Shia militias and actors expanded the justification for jihad as the defense of

118 Di Giovanni, 2014 119 Smyth, 2015 120 Sullivan, 2014 121 Sullivan, 2014

32

all Shia holy sites. Iran finally found a successful formula to mobilize Shias in support of the

revolutionary philosophy espoused earlier by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.122

In these conflicts of escalating atrocities, the media of choice for foreign fighters, militias,

and terrorist organizations were YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. The internet ensured that the

communal threat was felt not just in Iraq and Syria or even the wider Middle East, but throughout

the entire world. Iraqi Shia militias like the Badr Brigades (military wing of the Iranian backed

Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council [SIIC party]), Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), and Kata’ib Hezbollah

(KH)123

relied heavily upon combat footage videos set to inspirational Shia music in order to

reach new recruits through their organizations’ Facebook pages. Jabhat al-Nusrah (JN), Al

Queda’s affiliate in Syria, focused its propaganda toward inciting Sunni rage in Syria and

Lebanon by showcasing Shias, specifically Alawites, Iranians, and Hezbollah, as the aggressors

of the conflict. JN justified the viciousness of their kidnapping, ransoming, and execution of

Shias as a counterweight to the threat that this bloc presented to Syrian refugees in Lebanon,

whose government they claimed arbitrarily arrested and tortured Sunnis, thereby portraying

themselves as protectors.124

No state or organization involved in these conflicts had a more

sophisticated online presence than ISIS. The Salafi jihadist organization employed an impressive

online propaganda campaign utilizing various social media platforms and apps to publicize its

achievements and growing power. The organization learned as it developed, polishing its

products to reach and lure potential jihadists living in foreign countries to their cause.125

Their

elaborate executions of minorities were filmed in graphic detail as to present the maximum shock

value possible. This strategy, originally intended as recruitment propaganda, was also used by

their opposition to showcase the organization’s brutality and rally support against them. The

most notable example of this was the execution of the Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh,

which sparked outrage throughout the West and seemed to solidify Jordan’s political will to

intervene and pacify its neighbors to the north and east. It is interesting to note that ISIS

regularly spun Western media coverage of the conflict to create its own videos and enhance its

message, indicating that modern technology’s effect upon propaganda increases its volatility

making it both an aid and potential vulnerability.126

7. Lessons from Yugoslavia

While the actors, underlying causes, and idiosyncrasies of the Yugoslav wars differ

greatly from the current interethnic violence being witnessed in Iraq and Syria, there are a

number of observations that can be made from the successes and mistakes seen in the former,

which may impart some practical guidance for the mediation of the violence ravaging the latter.

Over a decade after its resolution, interethnic violence and tension continue to plague the

122 Smyth, 2015 123 Both the AAH and KH are Iranian backed paramilitary groups that have received training and advisement from the IRGC-QF and Hezbollah. 124 Joscelyn, 2014 125 Smith and Page, 2015 126 Fox News, 2015

33

Balkans, showing it to be particularly intractable in Bosnia and Herzegovina127

and Kosovo.128

It

is important to note that social conflicts such as these, which have escalated to levels of violence

that can be classified as ethnic cleansing can only be unwound incrementally. The violence

committed by each group becomes an investment in their respective perceptions of reality and

history, which oftentimes are mutually exclusive from group to group. Yugoslavia offers three

general observations, which might be applied to today’s PSCs. The first is that interethnic

violence becomes entrenched when political processes fail to impartially mediate disputes

between groups who identify and mythologize themselves as recurring victims throughout

history. Second, the UN, NATO, and other international cooperative partnerships and

organizations are legally and politically limited in the potential scope of coercive interventions

within a sovereign state or against a non-state actor. Lastly, should the international community

decide to intervene, its actions must coalesce under a comprehensive strategy that presents a clear

end state for each actor involved or affected by the conflict. Introducing piecemeal actions not

associated with a unified plan may produce unintended consequences, unrealistic expectations, or

prompt adverse reactions that thwart the international community’s original goals.

The communal groups and their support networks that Azar describes in his PSC theory

aren’t merely social substitutions to fall back upon when their countrymen or government

threatens their fundamental human needs; a cohesive ethnic group that draws closer for its own

survival will stubbornly defend their particular historical perspective or interpretation that

justifies their view of itself as the protagonist. This historical narrative can lend itself to two

powerful dynamics: one is structural and reaffirms the delineation between members of the group

and outsiders, which can create the perception of “ancient hatreds” between peoples when placed

in a competitive environment of limited resources; the other is opportunistic and facilitates

combative politics that result in elites from all sides pursuing uncompromising positions with

regard to national interests. They may ultimately result in the mobilization of the social base in a

violent attempt to achieve their agenda.129

In Yugoslavia’s case, the ICTY spent considerable

trial time analyzing the historical context of the various Slavic tribes dating back to the 4th

century in an attempt to link individual acts of murder, terror, and other abuses during the

disintegration of Yugoslavia to a wider systematic ethnic cleansing campaign that Serb elites

implemented to unify a homogeneous Greater Serbia. This analysis provided the structural

context in which to view and judge the actions of indicted war criminals.130

While the ICTY’s findings over the course more than 100 individual trials

overwhelmingly judged Serbian members of the Yugoslav government as guilty of abetting or

committing systematic genocide,131

the vast majority of Serbs to this day still remain convinced

of the same justifications that allowed the Serb crimes committed in Bosnia and Kosovo to occur.

As an ethnic nation, they continue to view themselves as the conflict’s victims despite

127 Civil Rights Defenders, 2015 128 Amnesty.org, 2015 129 Vorrath and Krebs, 2009 130 Wilson, 2005 131 Wilson, 2005

34

overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In many ways, the atrocities committed against them

during the Ottoman expansion by Muslims and WWII by the Ustasha never ended. The

Yugoslav wars merely became a subsequent chapter of Serb suffering. The danger of a

communal group that mythologizes its identity in this sort of victimhood lies in its liberation from

moral constraints. Within this archetype, any action against a clearly defined threat or enemy

may be justified as existential self-defense. Even in aggression, Serbs could see the attacks and

invasions of the JNA and VRS against Bosniaks and Albanians as the actions of protectors not

perpetrators. The Serb nation had so thoroughly mythologized and digested the narrative of 14th

century atrocities committed by Muslims that they easily accepted Milosevic’s rhetoric that

unleashed a rising tide of Islamophobia. Middle Eastern Shias share this victimization narrative

as a national minority, which has often been oppressed and discriminated against at the hands of a

Sunni majority and their Western allies. To complement this, there is now an Iraqi Sunni

minority assuming the mantle of victimization; their power and prestige was reduced during the

1991 Gulf War and ultimately stripped from them by America in the 2003 Iraq War when their

country was betrayed to Iraqi Shias and Iran.132

While it’s critical to snuff the fires of interethnic

violence and silence the politicians, religious leaders, or other elites who espouse incendiary

rhetoric, it is also crucial to address the longer term structural problems by building institutions

that encourage cooperative conflict resolution and nurturing peaceful societal interaction between

different groups to dispel strongly held irrational prejudices.

A second observation highlights the limits of coercive intervention by the international

community, namely UN peacekeepers and NATO, when confronted with irregular non-state

forces. The Bosnian War was widely considered a successful, if belated, integration of NATO

military power operating outside of the alliance’s area under the authority of the UN. It even

included non-NATO forces from Eastern Europe and Russia that lent great weight to the

international political legitimacy of its operations.133

However, the West’s military strategy was

ultimately successful only because it supported a political resolution that would have otherwise

been impossible. During this time, Serbia’s strategy sought to capitalize upon confusion and

European hesitancy, while offering the appearance of remaining open to a negotiated settlement.

Milosevic and the JNA, which at the time became a Serbian conventional military arm, ensured

they technically respected the demands and red lines set by the international community.

Following the creation of the UN Security Council Resolution 752, which called for an end to

outside forces influencing Bosnia, Milosevic withdrew the JNA back to FRY territory. However,

he was able to continue his offensive by transferring personnel and weapons from the JNA to the

VRS, which was a Bosnian Serb entity thereby complying with the letter of the resolution, if not

the spirit.134

This offensive attempted to realize a blitzkrieg campaign of ethnic cleansing once

the Bosnian Serbs tested the resolve of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) to

defend the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats within their safe areas. The diversity of the international

132 Mertus, 1999, pg. 1-15. 133 Wentz, 1997 134 Wilson, 2005

35

community, which previously offered an advantage of political legitimacy, showed itself as a

liability when European leaders demurred at losing their perceived neutrality and allowed the

VRS to implement their strategy of mass murder, rape, and expulsion at Srebrenica. This atrocity

prompted an American-led NATO military strategy, which was successful only for two reasons: a

NATO air campaign was paired with a combined Croatian and Bosniak large-scale ground

offensive that threatened to cross over into Serbia – something even Milosevic could not risk –

and it was focused on the immediate goal of bringing the Bosnian Serb political leadership in

Pale, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the negotiating table.135

In fact, NATO air strikes in both Bosnia and Kosovo were of limited use unless directed

at bringing a state actor to earnest negotiations. They were almost entirely ineffectual against the

Serbian military apparatus, which learned quickly to disperse, camouflage, and “hug” their

important weapons systems to civilian population centers that American and European leaders

would be hesitant to strike during the Kosovo War. These tactics greatly increased the chances of

diplomatic nightmares like the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during

one strike and the mistaken killing of Kosovo Albanian civilians on another occasion that created

a political furor and strained the very resolve of the alliance. Milosevic only capitulated when he

realized his Russian support was dissolving as a combined ground and air offensive between the

Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and NATO, which had expanded its authorized

bombing targets to systematically destroy his country’s economic and industrial base, increased

the price of resistance. This pressure worked, because Serbia, a conventional state, was

internationally isolated and couldn’t afford to rebuild itself from such devastation alone.136

While both wars have long since been won militarily, politically much has been left

unresolved. The NATO mission in Bosnia was transferred to the European Union Force

(EUFOR), which maintains a presence of 600 personnel organized into Liaison and Observer

Teams.137

In Kosovo, the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) still requires upwards of 4,500

soldiers in order to maintain a safe and secure environment, as well as general freedom of

movement for all citizens.138

This indicates the need for a long-term commitment by the

international community when intervening in interethnic conflicts, which suggests that viable

solutions in this arena require strategies addressing all aspects of the conflict along multiple

dimensions from political and economic inclusion to social interactions. In the shorter term,

military intervention can provide useful coercive force on state actors to enable diplomacy as

well as create and secure humanitarian safe areas for persecuted populations and refugees fleeing

violence. Whether NATO allies or the UN can be used effectively for the latter is arguable

considering the historical failures of both organizations, which are beyond the scope of this work

but should be carefully weighed.

The final observation concerns the need for all elements of an intervention to be aligned

with clear political objectives based upon a coherent and unified strategy that moves the violent

135 Daalder, 1998 136 Posen, 2000 137 Aco.nato.int, 2015 138 NATO, 2015

36

social confrontation toward a sustainable political model, which allows for the active

participation, interaction, and peaceful conflict resolution of all communal groups. This is to say,

all national power exercised in an intervention must be directed at the root cause of an interethnic

conflict rather than simply its symptoms. One might assume that this would be self-evident, but

alliances and international partners are generally hesitant to commit national treasure, particularly

military service member lives, to combat operations in support of that greater strategy and risk

potential political fall-out on the domestic front should losses be incurred when belligerents

decide to test the resolve of the intervening states. Instead, there is a strong political preference

in both America and Europe for interventions to be limited to humanitarian, logistical, and

support roles, which conversely tend to address symptoms and avoid larger structural problems

like poor governance. The price of such piece-meal and reluctant action in Bosnia and Kosovo

was paid in the form of ethnic cleansing and an apologetic international community that once

more had to promise, “Never again.”139

With regard to Iraq and Syria, the temptation that the international community must avoid

is in viewing sovereign borders as immutable and sacrosanct in the face of a new wave of ethnic

cleansing by non-state actors. The two countries’ social conflicts must be jointly addressed

because the Sunni tribal dynamic that enables them moves freely across state borders and is

motivated by a similar political disenfranchisement from governments that have not only denied

them their right to self-determination, but have themselves become existential threats. An

example of this mistake can be seen at the end of the war in Bosnia; the international community

unwittingly laid the seeds for a future conflict in Kosovo when the Dayton Accords were signed.

In order to understandably not complicate the peace negotiations by involving the contested

territory of Kosovo, the international community escalated ethnic tensions throughout the region.

Kosovo Albanians and Serbians watched as the UN suspended economic sanctions and member

states normalized relations with Serbia in return for peace in Bosnia. In the eyes of both groups,

this was a subtle nod to Serbia that they could pursue their interests in Kosovo, which led to an

immediate rise in Albanian militancy in preparation for what they perceived to be an impending

Serbian onslaught. In response, the Serbians deployed Special Forces to begin a brutal

crackdown on the dissidents, and once again all parties viewed themselves as a righteous

victim.140

This is not to say that the Dayton Accords were the direct or even proximate cause of

the Kosovo War, but the international community missed a singular opportunity to resolve the

larger interethnic violence and prevent further bloodshed. It is entirely possible that the parties

involved with the Bosnian peace agreement didn’t believe attempting to answer the Kosovo

question was feasible at the moment, particularly since Russia was still strongly advocating

Serbian interests and threatened to abandon the talks. However at the time, Serbia held an

untenable position, faced crippling sanctions, and knew Croatian and Bosniak soldiers were

advancing toward their border, it is hard to believe that the international community couldn’t

have at least addressed potential consequences of Serbian violence in Kosovo.

139 Boot, 2000 140 Carson, 2013

37

Ultimately Slobodan Milosevic was brought to heel through a combination of political

tools: economic sanctions, diplomacy, and an escalation of military force as well as growing

indications that Russian support for Serbia on the world stage had limits. Any one tool by itself

could not have convinced Milosevic to abandon his agenda. As Robert A. Pape argues, economic

sanctions – while a favorite tool of politicians due to their non-committal nature – since WWI

have only worked in about 5% of the cases. This is because modern states, particularly those that

are pervasively nationalistic, are remarkably resilient in resisting external pressures and

creatively adaptive in finding ways to bypass the restrictions.141

Diplomacy without the threat of

military intervention struggled in the face of non-state actors, like the VRS in Bosnia, which

offered FRY deniability or the KLA in Kosovo, which provided them an excuse for conventional

security operations. It was only when Russia acquiesced to NATO demands to expand their air

campaign to systematically destroy FRY’s economic and industrial base that Milosevic agreed to

negotiate peace. By linking these tools together, the West was able to restart the peace process

based upon the terms of the original Rambouillet Conference. Without a specific end goal to

work towards and without a state actor to direct that strategy against, NATO’s air campaign

Operation ALLIED FORCE142

would have been largely irrelevant.143

This begs obvious

questions with respect to the violence in Iraq and Syria. Is the Assad regime a legitimate partner

to negotiate with? Can Russia, Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia be convinced to halt their support

of belligerent parties? Is there a Sunni tribe or alliance that might legitimately represent the

interests of their group? And lastly, what might a final political solution look like for the region?

8. Possible Roles for the International Community in Resolving the Conflicts in Iraq and

Syria

Hard won experience can be a valuable commodity that saves lives, a nation’s

infrastructure, and the opportunity for its next generation to prosper when intervening in a

region’s interethnic conflict, but the case of the Balkans is not a perfect parallel to Iraq and Syria

(or to the wider Middle East for that matter). There are a myriad of peculiarities specific to each

province and tribe within each country. For brevity’s sake, I will limit myself to only those

overarching trends and dynamics that present considerable obstacles to any conflict resolution

process and the creation of stable and balanced political and judicial institutions in Iraq and Syria.

I will continue by highlighting the actions taken unilaterally and jointly to date by members of

the international community to solve both the rampant violence ravaging the countries as well as

the underlying problems that have given rise to it in the first place. Finally I will conclude by

offering specific suggestions that may advance a unified strategy over the short and long-term

time frames, as well as highlighting their strengths and risks.

First it is necessary to identify the key actors that both effect and are affected by the

violence in Iraq and Syria. There is a temptation to reduce the issue to a proxy conflict between

141 Pape, 1997 142 Afhso.af.mil, 2015 143 Posen, 2000

38

the region’s Sunni and Shia heavyweights - Saudi Arabia and Iran. In truth this is a much larger

contest than Iraq and Syria and encompasses the interference of a good deal of countries. As

external actors jockey for position, their agendas influence and effect the decisions and actions of

the warring factions with surprising results. Whereas FRY heavily influenced Serbs throughout

the Balkans with propaganda, air support, weapons, and other wartime aid as Croatia and Albania

buffered their ethnic resistance movements, the external actors influencing Iraq and Syria are

much more dynamic and complex. Between the regional powers’ interference and the collective

lack of interest on the part of the international community as of the writing of this paper, the

violence ravaging Iraq and Syria is well on its way to cementing itself as a PSC. The longer it

persists, the harder it will be to reach a resolution that leaves either country’s borders intact.

Following 1979 Iran sought to expand its revolutionary ideology, but found an

unreceptive audience among Arab Muslim countries and saw its expansion checked by a US-

backed Iraq. In 2003, this obstacle was removed. Iranian backed Shia militias were able to

secure Iraq and push back against ISIS’ advance under the guidance of General Soleimani, the

IRGC-QF commander. Using an innocuous moniker, the Iraqi state-sponsored Popular

Mobilization Units (PMUs) were actually an umbrella organization composed of numerous

militias, many with strong Iranian ties.144

The most dominant force among them, the Badr

Brigades, was established as the military wing of the SIIC party – a Shia Islamist political party

for Iraq that was founded and protected in Iran during the heightened tensions of the Iran-Iraq

War. Following the deposition of Saddam Hussein, it returned to Iraq and became an official

political party. Many still accuse it of receiving funding and orders from Iran.145

AAH and KH,

other dominant militias, cycled their fighters in and out of Iran to be retrained and equipped.

Both had an intimate relationship with the IRGC-QF that dated back to resisting the American

occupation during the 2000s.146

Just how beholden these militias truly were to Iran is difficult to

say. Ayatollah al-Sistani held considerable sway over Iraqi Shias and publically disagreed with

Iran’s walayt al-faqih theory of governance, preferring Shiism’s neo-quietest tradition that

restricts clerics to an advisory role within politics and maintains a subtle distinction between

mosque and state.147

Moreover, the gulf between Arabs and Persians is a difficult one to bridge,

even with a shared religion. Regardless, the Iraq government’s reliance on PMUs that were

trained, funded, equipped, and sometimes led by the IRGC-QF delegitimized its own security

forces and presented a significant challenge to winning the trust of its disillusioned Sunni tribes,

much less reincorporating them into the state’s political process.

In Syria, Iran formed and trained a 100,000 strong National Defense Force (NDF) militia

to augment al-Assad’s army and his shabiha militia in their fight against the various Sunni rebel

groups. Iranian commercial planes secretly flew weapons and ammunition to the regime through

Iraqi airspace, and Russia delivered larger missile systems, skirting international sanctions by

144 Lister, 2015 145 Mustafa, 2014 146 Knights, 2013 147 Al-Kifaee, 2010

39

insisting it was only fulfilling pre-existing contracts.148

However, Russia’s greatest support to

Bashar al-Assad was their veto on the UN Security Council, which they have used four times thus

far to protect their Alawite strongman from the ICC’s reach.149

Finally, Hezbollah, one assumes

with Iran’s blessing, secured Syria’s border to the south with Israel, trained pro-government

militias, and even acted as an elite force for the regime, utilizing its battle hardened experience to

execute critical offensives.150

Most importantly, Iran took a central role in coordinating the

operations of Shia militias in Iraq and Syria through joint command centers that transferred

foreign fighters from one militia or battlefield to another, depending on the situation.151

This test

of wills between Iran and primarily Saudi Arabia has since extended to Yemen152

and Bahrain,153

making King Abdullah’s warning of a growing Shia Crescent in 2004 seem that much more

prescient. However the West’s, particularly the US’, fear of Iran’s brand of radical Islam and

threat of a spreading theocracy is not supported in a rational analysis of the current evidence that

is available. While the country is a far cry from a responsible actor, instead choosing to suppress

its own citizens,154

issue vitriolic condemnations and incite violence against Israel, as well as use

terrorism as a form of statecraft,155

it has shown itself to be a potential partner and capable of

cooperating when its own interests are at stake.156

Additionally there is a growing chasm

between Iranian theocrats who wield religious fundamentalism to galvanize national support and

a growing upper-middle class who embrace Westernized lifestyles and liberal values. Iran may

not be at risk for a Persian version of an Arab Spring, but this secular modernizing trend must

certainly apply tacit political pressure to limit any overreach by Tehran.157

The relative unity of Iran’s influence in Iraq and Syria stands in stark contrast to the

divergent and conflicting efforts of the Sunni Gulf monarchies. Whereas Iranian and Hezbollah

support was steady, which allowed for long-term planning, support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and

Kuwait, particularly to Sunni rebel groups in Syria, came in disjointed spurts and showed little

consistency or consensus with regard to which group they backed.158

The Sunni states’

middlemen funneled weapons – the majority of which came from the former Yugoslavia,

specifically Croatia – and support to their chosen beneficiaries through Turkey and Jordan. The

Saudis chose to back the moderate (such a term is relative, but is meant to convey that the group

holds a somewhat secular ideology and supports a liberal Islamic democracy for Syria following

their defeat of al-Assad) rebel groups called the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF), which itself

fell under the larger umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The Saudis also quietly hedged

148 BBC, 2013 149 Yoon, 2014 150 Sullivan, 2014 151 The Economist, August 2015 152 Reardon, 2015 153 Mabon, 2012 154 Human Rights Watch, 2014 155 Byman, 2008 156 Beinart, 2015 157 Afshari, 2009 158 The Economist, 2013

40

their bets by supporting several Islamist groups that espouse the state sponsored Wahhabi strain

of Salafism.159

Qatar instead decided to pour between $1 and $3 billion dollars’ worth of

weapons and support to rebel groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood coalesced under the

Islamic Front.160

This vexed both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who share a mistrust of the

Brotherhood’s international political Islamist network and its intentions towards their respective

governments. Though, in 2015, the Saudis began to embrace the Brotherhood as a counter to

Iranian expansionism in Yemen, which they viewed as the greater threat, possibly indicating that

the two separate military structures the countries are creating in Syria might one day be united.161

Meanwhile Kuwaiti private donors, with the help of a blind eye from their government, smuggled

hundreds of millions of dollars through charitable organizations to Salafi jihadist groups like

Ahrar al-Sham and JN.162163

While certain Gulf countries envisioned replacing al-Assad with a

government friendly to their interests, others seemed to prefer ousting the dictator at all costs and

letting the chips fall where they may. The mixture of these halfway measures have certainly

extended the suffering of civilians and left the population disenchanted and suspicious.

This disjointed system of Gulf state support produced a frenzied scurrying among militias

to compete for limited funding that ultimately led to a polarizing competitiveness and the

Islamification of what began as a secular protest, which only benefited the more ideologically

extremists groups like JN and ISIS. Rather than fight to end the conflict, most ideologically

moderate militias held onto neighborhoods and villages that were composed of their families and

friends. Of the militias that marketed themselves for external funding, oftentimes battles were

staged or exaggerated and then posted to social media to impress financiers. Whether corrupt,

criminal, or simply ineffectual, these actions diminished the reputation of all moderates. Jamaal

Marrouf and his Martyrs of Syria Battalion provided a telling lesson. Adopted early in the

conflict as a favorite by Saudi Arabia, they received a large amount of financial backing only to

later show themselves to be a largely ineffective fighting force, a problem shared by many rebel

groups within the FSA. Aside from being routinely routed in battle by hardline Salafi jihadist

groups like JN or ISIS, people regularly accused them of setting up illegal checkpoints to extort

money and preferring to run lucrative smuggling businesses than press the fight against either the

Assad regime or JN and ISIS.164

Both secular and moderate Islamist rebel groups jumped from

alliance to alliance in search of funding, marketing themselves depending on who the potential

sponsor was. This led to much infighting among smaller rebel groups while ISIS and JN

expanded their territory and became financially independent with the seizure of oil fields. As a

matter of survival several groups that had originally formed to overthrow al-Assad found

themselves fighting alongside government forces against the more radical groups.165

159 Khalaf and Fielding-Smith, 2013 160 Blair and Spencer, 2014 161 Trofimov, 2 April 2015 162 DeYoung, 2014 163 Dickinson, 2013 164 Sly, January 2015 165 Abdulrahim, 2015

41

To date, the international community’s response has been tepid. The UN Security

Council has only been able to pass vague and non-committal resolutions like 2170, which

condemns ISIS and human rights violations and requests all member nations to restrict the flow

of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria,166

and 2043, which was a failed attempt in 2012 to monitor

a cessation in hostilities in the hopes of implementing a 6-point peace plan; it was predictably

interrupted during an escalation of violence by non-state actors. The resolutions were carefully

worded not to condemn the Syrian regime by name in order to avoid the wrath of a Russian veto.

Aid work and humanitarian assistance authorized by the Security Council was also an abysmal

failure. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Oxfam and Save the Children

complained that the UN failed to enforce its own resolutions in order to reach millions of

internally displaced persons.167

Likewise, NATO –without a UN mandate – could do little more

than wait and watch. The alliance offered its assistance to both Iraq168

and Turkey169

last year.

Turkey responded favorably and allowed the Americans to use their airbase to launch airstrikes,

but many feared that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan viewed the conflict as a welcome

opportunity to resume military operations against the Kurds along his border and distract the

country from its many domestic woes.170

In 2014, USCENTCOM initiated Operation

INHERENT RESOLVE – a mission to attrit ISIS through military operations in Iraq and Syria.

While the command has since briefed a laundry list of effects (see Annex 8), the majority of them

exclusively secured Kurdish and Shia communities, while completely ignoring Sunni enclaves.

Worse than a palliative, it exacerbated a Sunni sense of isolation and reinforced their reluctant

embrace of ISIS, JN, and other rebel groups.

The world has treated this conflict as two distinct problems: one a civil war against a

despotic regime and the other an insurgency against a legitimate government with each

movement supposedly being hijacked by radical forces. In reality both are failing states whose

traditionally independent Sunni tribesmen were excluded from their respective country’s social

contracts and turned to the only available alternatives with weapons, money, and a means to

provide a possible future. The worn delineation between Sunnis and Shias as the key actors in

this conflict implies an irrational importance of certain theological differences, similar to those

implied between the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Sunni Muslim sects of the various

communal groups of Yugoslavia. In fact the more significant issue was that of the groups’

complete cultural and communal segregation, which dated back to at least the era of Ottoman

conquest, resulting most notably in the lack of enduring conflict mediation forums or even a

history of social interaction that might act as a foundation of trust with which to build a spirit of

accommodation. Though fundamentally a political problem between various groups that

distrusted each other, the contextual environment was aggravated by sectarian overtones, which

inspired a flood of foreign fighters, billions of dollars donated by Gulf states that left the region

166 Un.org, 2015 167 Dyke, 2015 168 Jones, 2014 169 Peralta, 2015 170 Arango and Yeginsu, 2015

42

awash with weapons, and the tactical expertise and combat experience of the IRGC-QF,

Hezbollah, and former Baathist Army officers who reportedly advised and guided ISIS.171

All of

these factors intensified the violence and complicated any efforts to address the underlying issue.

Now both states’ conventional security forces have been so weakened that they wouldn’t be able

to guarantee the protection of their Sunni constituents even if they wanted to, making the

ubiquitous presence of militias both an inevitable and chaotic byproduct.

While it is true a political arrangement must ultimately be determined by Iraqis and

Syrians from all sides, bloodshed and human suffering can be limited with the aid and mediation

of various actors in the international community. To be effective though, any response must be

coordinated under a unified strategy that takes into account the conflict’s contributing factors and

the intervention’s effect upon the various communal groups and their elites. In the near term, any

intervention should focus on the most pressing symptoms of the problem, namely the prevention

of further human suffering and ethnic cleansing at the hands of both state and non-state actors. A

corollary aim of which should be the creation of opportunities for more robust dialogue and

negotiations between the stakeholders. The international community must be prepared to

capitalize on any cease fire or lull in fighting, which would mean working to build a consensus

beforehand amongst the external states influencing the conflict as well as a representation of the

desires of the various communal groups in Iraq and Syria as to what a future political solution

might look like. This political and diplomatic effort will require years, if not decades, to

negotiate, plan, implement, and monitor, but is essential to making any immediate humanitarian

intervention worthwhile by reinforcing Syrian and Iraqi physical security with future political and

economic opportunities. This endeavor will face innumerable obstacles, not the least of which

will be the eventual disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of countless militias

and rebels groups. Lastly, the sectarian trends and propaganda that have enflamed the Middle

East must be countered and controlled by the regional hegemons who currently generate them to

ensure a lasting peace. Each level of intervention will rely heavily on different key actors to

succeed and require different elements of traditional national and international power.

A humanitarian intervention to stem the violence in Iraq and Syria will face significant

obstacles, as has been the case with most interethnic conflicts since the 1990s, due to the

nebulous underlying power struggle being waged by various actors. Any aid or succor offered to

one group is easily interpreted as a threat to their ideological opposition. A humanitarian

intervention, even with military support, within such an environment will at best be a futile effort

or at worst it will aid programs of ethnic cleansing or genocide if it is not nested under a political

consensus with a tacit agreement between the relevant national and international stakeholder

elites.172

This is to say the urge to protect the sanctity of human life must be married with a

commitment to politically resolve the underlying malady, which is an isolated and vulnerable

Sunni population that either actively or passively supports resistance movements that are

increasingly radicalizing and being influenced by foreign money and fighters as their relatively

171 Sly, April 2015 172 Weiss, 2001

43

best form of security. Iraq and Syria’s neighbors, particularly Turkey and Jordan, might offer the

best entry points for aid and security operations if they can be convinced to seal their borders and

stem the flow of fighters, weapons, and money. In return, an intervention would help create

buffer zones along their borders with the intent to accomplish two things: protect Turks and

Jordanians from jihadist blowback and establish refugee camps and safe zones to shelter fleeing

Iraqis or Syrians, which are already straining state capacities of neighboring countries.173

This

would provide a more promising foothold from which to secure Sunni Arabs versus attempting

such an effort from the eastern Shia stronghold with Shia forces. Such a strategy would ideally

evolve into driving a wedge between Sunni Arab tribes and Salafi jihadist groups like ISIS and

JN by co-opting the tribesmen with the promise of a political alternative, whether renegotiated

power-sharing agreements or the partitioning of Iraq and Syria.

With a roadmap to pursue a political settlement that carries the support of as many

regional hegemons as possible, a humanitarian intervention could then proceed focusing on

creating safe zones to protect and distribute aid to Sunni and other afflicted populations while

working in concert with civil-military efforts to reestablish legitimate state control over national

territory. The question of who should lead such an effort is both a complicated and crucial one.

In the eyes of Iraqi Sunnis, their government and armed forces were converted into sectarian

institutions over the past decade and don’t inspire much trust. The Syrian regime would likewise

be ill received by most Syrian Sunnis. Waiting for either country to adopt new or inclusive

policies is naively hopeful and gambles with the lives of thousands. Instead, the situation

demands the military intervention of a third party. With a specific UN mandate, a Sunni Arab

coalition, possibly aided logistically by NATO, could physically expel ISIS, JN, and other

foreign jihadist militias from Sunni dominated areas. Jordan, with Sunni Arab tribes that extend

into both countries and with nearly a century’s experience of negotiating and subordinating

tribalism to the rule of law, might be an ideal candidate to spearhead the effort. Their military is

both professional and highly capable, and King Abdullah has expressed the will to stabilize two

potentially failing countries that border his own. More importantly he recognizes the importance

of countering the ideological narrative espoused by Salafi jihadists like ISIS and JN, which is

something Jordan, unlike NATO, can legitimately do.174175

The civil side of this push would aim

to co-opt as many secular and Islamist rebel groups as are willing to cooperate in a future

political process. The success of such a strategy depends heavily on the coalition advertising

their support for a tribal-based referendum following military operations to allow Syrian and Iraqi

Sunnis to decide their political future. This of course advocates possibly supporting a

secessionist movement, which would normally be an inconceivable violation of state sovereignty,

but in this case both Syrian and Iraqi governments have already lost complete control over

immense swathes territory, making this a moot point, and increasing violations of human rights

perpetrated by government forces and militias continually undermine their authority. The

173 The Economist, July 2015 174 RT, 2015 175 Countrystudies.us, 2015

44

underlying social contracts of each regime with their citizens have completely ignored Sunni

Arabs, which constitute legitimate grievances. In effect, they have already seceded. One would

hope a political settlement could be reached with their respective governments, but mutual

distrust has devolved the region into a competition of identity-based politics. Any future

coalition must be prepared for the more likely possibility of the creation of a new Sunni state, or

possibly two, that would encompass parts of modern day Syria and Iraq, which may initially be

governed by some form of authoritarian government based upon tribal identities and traditional

alliances or enmities. It may be that the forces of secure economic prosperity, modernization,

and wise governing as was the case in Jordan will eventually diminish tribalism, but given the

recent history of the authoritarian regimes of Bashar al-Assad and Saddam Hussein followed by

the current sectarian violence ravaging the two countries, it is sadly probable that for the next

several generations tribal identities will remain deeply entrenched, leaving a barren civil society

in which to try and grow democratic institutions. At this point security and stability, so long as

they do not violate basic human rights for a minority group, must be considered more important

than democratic ideals for which Syrian and Iraqi civil societies are not prepared.

While this strategy might appear foolhardily hopeful, it is underpinned by realpolitik

logic. America and Russia remain at loggerheads over the fate of Bashar al-Assad and his regime

in Syria, an argument that has stymied both Geneva Conferences176

and undoubtedly worries Iran

who wishes to maintain their Alawite alliance to supply their proxy Hezbollah. By reducing

Syria to its Latakia and Tartus provinces (similar to as it was under the Ottoman administration

[see Annex 2]), and possibly more depending upon how a referendum might go, the United States

could argue they’ve reduced a despot, while Russia and Iran would maintain an ally and access to

the Mediterranean Sea and Lebanon respectively. Ultimately it means al-Assad’s dominion

would be limited to his fellow Alawites, which would hopefully reduce incidents of state

suppression, torture, and executions. Conversely, by avoiding a regime change, the world can

better protect the Alawite population from a potential Sunni retribution upon their return to power

in an otherwise intact Syria. As a final point, the segregation of clearly defined and independent

Sunni and Shia states might become increasingly necessary if an agreement between the Gulf

states and Iran cannot be reached and all parties remain committed to continuing their hegemonic

jostling. No amount of NGOs or institutional development can compete with the billions of

dollars currently pouring in and funding the most vicious insurgents.

Further research would have to be conducted, but it would seem that the enduring

influence of the Ottoman millet system has maintained feasible territorial bases for each of the

distinct ethnic and religious groups, which allows for the possibility of secession. While it’s true

the state of Iraq was technically not a Western invention, but instead created from the Ottoman

vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad,177

and Basra (see Annex 12), in practice they were governed as three

176 The Guardian, 2015 177 Though the city of Baghdad was a startling mixture of all three races and religions, which dates back to the original conflicts between the Safavid Persians and Ottomans who each used their Shia or Sunni identity to mobilize a popular base in their pursuit to expand their territory or check the expansion of their rival. However, the larger vilayet of Baghdad was decidedly Sunni.

45

separate entities: Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia respectively. However, the border separating Iraq and

Syria is arbitrary in that the Baggara, Dulaim, Jabbour, N’eim, Qugaidat, Shammar, and Tai’e

Sunni tribal confederations extend into both states. While not all of the tribes are allies, the

Dulaim and Shammar in particular are historical enemies; they do have a tradition of political

accommodation and negotiation that might allow for a functioning state, especially if a perceived

threat of Shia militancy is present to unify them.178

Hypothetically, a viable Sunni state or two

could be financed with the oilfields of eastern Syria and Western Iraq (see Annexes 9 and 10) that

currently help fund the ISIS caliphate. A possible economic partnership between Sunni oil and

al-Assad’s refineries and export terminals along the Mediterreanan coast or Iraq’s infrastructure

along the al-Faw peninsula in the Persian Gulf might be negotiated sometime in the future; but

more importantly this would create a virtuous cycle to counter the recruiting success that

extremist groups have been enjoying. By removing sources of funding for groups like ISIS and

JN and designating them for a future Sunni state, the coalition could create a rift between them

and critical Sunni tribes that the jihadists rely upon in order to control the territory they hold.

Such a strategy would be targeting a critical center of gravity to which ISIS and JN are

particularly vulnerable. The unspoken challenge of course is a possible state for the Kurds,

which a recent survey showed 99% of them desire.179

To say that Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and what is

left of Syria would strongly oppose this would be an understatement. However the autonomous

Kurdish communities have largely shown themselves to be among the most liberal and stable in

the region with a functioning economy, independent political institutions, and disciplined security

services despite being landlocked and surrounded by unsupportive neighbors. A Kurdish state

would need little assistance other than protection from traditionally external state threats, like the

current Turkish bombing campaign being waged against them; something for which the UN and

NATO are more aptly suited.

An arguable alternative to the creation of a new Sunni state is the implementation of some

form of ethnically or tribally-defined federation,180

similar to that of the former Yugoslavia, or a

renewed attempt at a consociational democracy like the much celebrated and historically peaceful

examples of Belgium, Switzerland, or the Netherlands so as to maintain the region’s current

borders and enforce a power-sharing settlement amongst the various pluralities. It is important to

reiterate here that a necessary precondition for Iraq or Syria to realistically attempt this

alternative would be a commitment from the Arab Gulf states and Iran to reduce their

interference in the region and settle their concerns without the use of proxies. This paper has

already discussed the inherent challenges that a territorially defined federal model faces when

thrust upon various communal groups whose relevant history has been biased by a strong central

authoritarian government, weak political institutions that lack a tradition of independence, and

aggressive security forces that flout any semblance of the rule of law. Most importantly, a

federalist structure is wholly dependent upon mature institutional forums in which differences

178 Tabler, 2014 179 Anderson and Stansfield, 2005, pg. 366 180 Anderson and Stansfield, 2005

46

can be discussed between central and local governments peacefully; something that is entirely

lacking in the collective conscience of Iraqis and Syrians, regardless of sect. Alternatively, a

consociation seeks to address the political challenges found in heterogeneous societies, lending

less weight to democratic ideals in order to reduce potential conflicts by fostering an environment

of accommodation between each bloc’s political elites. Its central goal is stability. Such a

political arrangement ideally depends upon the various elites of each group to rise above

sectarian differences, realizing such forces might tear apart the state, and to instead settle their

respective community’s concerns in an organized fashion. In common parlance, it seeks

consensus in ruling through coalitions. However, the success of various European nations with

consociationalism relied upon several preconditions that simply do not exist in Iraq or Syria: a

history of cooperation between elites, limited sectarian interaction, and some degree of control by

the elites over their social bases. Additionally, a poorly executed consociational arrangement,

such as Lebanon’s and arguably Iraq’s, may actually entrench ethnic divisions and reinforce

sectarian tensions by undermining government accountability and reducing the country to a

“political feudal state.” In Iraq’s case, a successful consociation was undermined by an emphasis

on majoritarian rule, which favored the larger Shia nation, without an accompanying minority

veto to protect Sunnis.181182183

Should it be pursued, consociation’s best chance lies with

Ayatollah al-Sistani – one of the few authorities with true influence over Iraqi Shias who appears

to honestly seek reconciliation with Iraqi Sunnis – becoming active in politics and pressuring the

Iraqi government to reform. This would face the significant obstacle of reversing decades of his

commitment to a neo-quietest approach and potentially set a dangerous precedent for the

powerful Hawza in Najaf when al-Sistani, already an old man, is eventually replaced by someone

perhaps less peaceful and tolerant, possibly a candidate selected by and deferential to the interests

of the Iranian government.184

Ultimately, any intervening power must prepare itself for the

eventuality that a final solution may encompass either a new state for Sunnis who are unwilling

to submit themselves to the sovereignty of an Assad regime and Shia dominated Iraqi

government, or an ethnically defined federation or confessional consociation for those who refuse

to relinquish their Iraqi or Syrian identity. The longer this issue is left unresolved, the harder it

will become to maintain the region’s current borders and reintegrate independent and

autonomous Sunni tribes into heterogeneous states.

Over the long term, whatever future political structure is chosen by Iraqis and Syrians, the

region will need a substantial investment by an assortment of intergovernmental organizations

(IGOs), NGOs, and individual states in order to create a functioning economy, mature political

institutions, and develop a robust and resilient civil society that rejects sectarian influences.

Western IGOs may spearhead the initial humanitarian intervention, logistical and intelligence

support, and security operations, but regional bodies like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation

(OIC) and the Arab League, which were both present during the failed negotiations of the Geneva

181 Salamey, 2009 182 Bakvis, 1985 183 Rees, 2007 184 Arango, 2012

47

I and II conferences on Syria, must take the lead in the area’s long term reconstruction and

development. The OIC is especially suited to the task as it is not only composed of the relevant

actors of the conflict (see Annex 11), but has also already developed working partnerships with

the World Food Program, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the UN Office for the

Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs and shown promising work in its response to Somalia’s

famine in 2011. It was one of the few organizations capable of negotiating access to areas

controlled by al-Shabaab and generally received praise for its ability to coordinate relief, making

it an ideal candidate to organize the efforts of both western and Islamic NGOs that will be needed

to develop the region. To mitigate potential sectarian discord, since Saudi Arabia and Turkey

wield significant control over the OIC’s decision-making processes due to their outsized financial

contributions, it may prove wise to offer Iran a temporary veto or some other form of power to

place it on par with their Sunni counterparts. The goal of course would be to limit the ability for

national and political interests to corrupt reconstruction and development efforts.185

Considering the larger regional conflict, ultimate stability depends upon stemming the

flow of sectarian propaganda as well as its associated funding that is generated by certain states

and religious institutions. Part of this solution may be found in resolving the regional power

struggle that is currently being waged between Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both sides

blatantly use nationalism framed in a religious archetype with which to view themselves, their

perceived threat, and the importance of their struggle in order to mobilize support and further

their political agendas. A diplomatic resolution that adequately addresses the concerns of these

states might conceivably lower the state sponsored sectarian dogma currently emanating from

them, which continues to propel violent confrontation over political accommodation. However,

specific Islamic religious leaders of all sects – both funded by private donors as well as the state –

that justify violence as a form of collective self-defense, particularly the Salafists, must be reined

in and controlled. Their charities, some of which are used as vehicles to move money, weapons,

and supplies to rebel groups must be closely monitored and punished by their respective

governments when it can be proven that they are violating UN sanctions or aiding recognized

terrorist groups. To this end, a high profile prosecution case against one of these foundations,

broadcasted internationally, would send a loud message throughout the region.

Finally, though it may be a long time off, the UN must begin considering how to

implement both a DDR program of the militias currently operating in both countries as well as

prepare a way forward for an eventual reconciliation, which may lead to the prosecution of war

crimes. The militias are both the most pressing as well as intimidating obstacle toward building

peaceful and functioning states. They lack any sort of accountability, complicate a future

political settlement, and could potentially adopt a spoiler platform to significantly lengthen any

peace process. Additionally, it is doubtful that the militias will voluntarily relinquish any

territorial gains they may have made. Any future government or governments must quickly vet

and incorporate as many suitable militias as possible into the states’ security forces, while at the

same time initiating economic reforms, infrastructure investment, and training for agricultural

185 Svoboda et al., 2015

48

and industrial employment of members of the regime not implicated in war crimes as well as

those militia fighters who don’t wish to officially join the armed forces. This makes the current

work of NGOs like the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre and the Commission for

International Justice and Accountability that seek to preserve and document evidence of

violations of human rights laws absolutely critical for a future national reconciliation.186

Unfortunately any future legal proceedings will face immense hurdles to overcome.

While there exists a precedent for charging non-state actors with crimes against humanity and

war crimes, groups like ISIS, JN, and other militias are beyond the court system’s jurisdiction

since Iraq and Syria are not members of the ICC and haven’t ratified the Rome Statute.187

Whether this can be overcome by the eventual creation of new states, the prosecution of foreign

fighters (of which ISIS and JN are predominately composed) who are citizens of countries that

are signatories, or some other procedural means is yet to be seen. Assuming it could, the ICC

would have to be judicious in the exercise of its authority. Having been designed to investigate

ongoing conflicts, it could play a significant role in moderating the violence of the local militias

if they were to know that facing international justice might be a possibility. While the court

could pursue foreign groups like ISIS and JN, it’s doubtful to deter either’s excessive behavior

since producing shocking violence is fundamental to the groups’ recruitment strategies.

Moreover warrants for the arrests of ISIS and JN leadership might be interpreted as a form of

international recognition and legitimization of their organizations. Finally, the ICC must

consider the effects of its investigations on any ongoing peace processes. In pursuing al-Assad’s

regime or members of the Iraqi government, they would risk alienating and discarding important

leverage to possibly prod the two actors into an agreement. At the same time they must avoid the

appearance of partisanship, which would further marginalize the Sunni population and also

frustrate a negotiated settlement. Unfortunately there is no simple or correct solution. Each

choice carries with it a significant tradeoff. While the ICC is an independent entity, there are

enormous risks in not incorporating it under a wider diplomatic campaign.188189190

This is by no means meant to be an all-encompassing list, but is rather meant to highlight

some of the greater challenges that will face the world in negotiating the complex political terrain

of traditional states’ interests as well as those of equally complex communal groups. Each year

that this conflict persists, more is lost in economic infrastructure, institutional memory, and trust

in political processes. NGOs, states, and actors like the World Bank and IMF will be integral in

future projects of reconstruction, rebuilding civil society, and alleviating poverty; an investment

that many recognize will be needed for decades. While an integrated, multiethnic society that

respects an individual’s rights regardless of race, religion, gender, or creed is the Western ideal,

one must question whether the combined elements of tribalism, recent atrocities and conflict, a

history of authoritarianism, the questionable stability of certain neighboring countries, and the

186 Trahan, 2014 187 Simons, 2015 188 Kersten, April 2014 189 Kersten, 2015 190 Kersten, November 2014

49

presence of volatile foreign elements that are ready to exploit underlying ethnic tensions give rise

to such obstacles as to make an effort in retaining Iraq and Syria’s current borders simply too

costly in blood and money to warrant the effort. Considering the problems that persist in places

like Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda,191192

South Sudan193

(a country born of a civil war and now

embroiled in its own interethnic conflict), Sri Lanka,194

and many others following the official

end of their hostilities, one might not discount the rupturing of borders in the pursuit of self-

determination too quickly – as many are reluctant to allow.

9. Conclusion

It is important to understand that the whirlwind of destruction engulfing Iraq and Syria is

not being caused by ideological and religious differences. Although they are dynamics being

used in the current power struggle and help frame the conflict, the underlying issue is one of

failed politics and a collective sense of broken faith in the structures and processes of

government. The problem is further compounded by a ubiquitous sense of victimization and

having been wronged that each communal group feels on a collective level. Iran, on a larger

international scale, has been shaped by this same cultural anxiety and isolation since its inception.

This mindset dramatically affects how security is perceived. A tug-of-war embrace of the victim

identity by all parties has left this conflict deeply entrenched in uncompromising identity politics

and sectarian interests. There are many who will undoubtedly argue for the need to keep Iraq and

Syria intact as countries and promote a multiethnic state. This would certainly be the best option

as it is almost always easier to reform or develop existing state institutions than it would be to

create them from nothing. However, a national reconciliation is only feasible if each communal

group’s elites opt for a power sharing arrangement and commit voluntarily to joint governing

without maintaining designs for a coup or other form of usurpation. This being said, an Iraq left

whole seems increasingly unlikely. Iraqi Shias already control most of the critical oilfields found

in the southeast of the country (the Kurds control those in the north), removing any realistic

incentive for them to share power; the state’s uniformed armed forces were fashioned into a Shia

national military and seized as a tool of the state (not unlike how Serbia appropriated the JNA);

and the national government has shown no interest in securing major Sunni towns from radicals

even when they had prior warning of ISIS’ movements. And for their part, Iraqi Sunnis show

little desire to accept anything less than regaining their former glory as Iraq’s anointed political

elites, embracing their own myth so much as to refuse to acknowledge they are actually a

demographic minority.195

In Syria’s case, the question becomes how dedicated Iran and Russia

are to supporting the Alawite regime, which has lost complete control of the country outside of a

few provinces. Very few Syrian Sunnis ever viewed it as a legitimate authority, and following

the use of its shabiha militia and conventional weapons against civilian centers, there is a general

191 The Economist, March 2015 192 The Economist, January 2015 193 International Crisis Group, 2015 194 Mittal, 2015 195 Trofimov, 9 April 2015

50

consensus that the regime must go. This is not to say ethnically homogenous states are a solution

of and by themselves. Any Sunni Arab state would still struggle to form a unified government

from the competing interests of its various tribes, but might stand a better chance of cooperating

if they freely chose such a path versus it being forced upon them.

If the complexity of the situation weren’t challenging enough, the diverging interests of

the US, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, the various Kurdish

communities, and Russia make a political settlement highly unlikely. Any hope of a conflict

resolution rests upon a realpolitik perspective that can account for the interests of the region’s

various states, but still addresses the underlying issues plaguing Iraq and Syria. It is far more

likely that the world will do nothing other than arm and train their favored proxies; offer

temporary aid to those on the fringes of the conflict; attempt to contain the violence; and continue

to condemn the horror. Syria for the foreseeable future is destined to remain a failed state. While

Iraq may eventually defeat ISIS with the aid of US and Iranian military support, if they don’t

address the discontented Sunni tribes, the world may see either a new hydra headed beast of rebel

groups replace the Islamic State or a ham-fisted attempt by the Iraqi government to squash

dissent. Ultimately the longer Syria is “somalized”196

and Iraq is unilaterally controlled by Shias,

the more entrenched sectarian divisions will become. Moreover in this environment, any

development assistance that is invested in the hopes of promoting peaceful growth and an

alternative livelihood for militiamen will be swallowed into oblivion.

Finally, the West must accept that their options are less than ideal. Iran can no longer be

isolated and ignored as it was in the past. The most recent nuclear deal and subsequent lifting of

economic sanctions promised to give the country access to over $100 billion, some of which will

undoubtedly go to fortifying its foreign policy initiatives, and grow its economy from 5% to 8% a

year.197

Despite his regime’s crimes, Bashar al-Assad may very well remain in power. If this is

the case, then the world’s best option in Syria might be to separate and protect Syrian Sunnis

from his security forces’ reach. Following the detention of several high level Iraqi Sunni

politicians and their purge from the armed forces, it is doubtful that Iraqi Shias plan on reversing

course and reaching out to their Sunni countrymen. Finally, one can’t help but to observe the

overwhelming failure of the Arab Spring and the region’s startling inability to nurture democracy

in any form, 198

and question whether perhaps a different political system is needed at this

particular time. The West should recognize that self-determination is not synonymous with

democracy, and that concept should not prevent us from attempting to intervene anyway to

alleviate the suffering of the millions that now make up refugees, internally displaced persons,

trapped subjects of a fanatical caliphate, or anyone generally suffering in a stalemated warzone.

196 Brahimi, 2012 197 Barrabi, 2015 198 The arguable exception possibly being Tunisia.

51

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11. Annexes

Annex 1: Ottoman Empire at its Peak

Source: Users.clas.ufl.edu, 2015

65

Annex 2: Ottoman Vilayet Administration

Source: Champion, 2014

66

Annex 3: Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 to Partition the Ottoman Empire

Source: Al Jazeera, 2014

67

Annex 4: Yugoslavia: The six republics and autonomous regions of Serbia in 1990

Source: Lendvai and Parcell, 1991, pg. 252

68

Annex 5: Percentages of Adult Population of Yugoslavia Identifying Themselves as Yugoslavs:

1961, 1971, and 1981

Source: Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994, pg. 85

69

Annex 6: The Sandzak Region within Serbia and Montenegro

Source: The Economist, August 2011

70

Annex 7: Ethnic Groups of Syria

Source: Carey, 2015

71

Annex 8: Effects of Operation Inherent Resolve

Source: Defense.gov, 2015

72

Annex 9: Syrian Oil Infrastructure

Source: Eia.gov, Syria, 2015

73

Annex 10: Iraqi Oil Infrastructure

Source: Eia.gov, Iraq, 2015

74

Annex 11: Map and List of OIC Member States

Source: Svoboda et al., 2015

75

Annex 12: Map of Ottoman Vilayets Overlaid Upon Modern Day Iraq

Source: Hopwood, 2003