How revolutionary are Jihadist insurgencies? The case of ISIL

Abstract

This paper examines the rise of ISIL in the context of wider debates in the first half twentieth century on the nature and political direction of the early Bolshevik state model of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. It argues that there are some parallels between the Trotskyite internationalist tendency in Soviet Russia and of ISIL given the latter’s calls for revolutionary jihad against both ‘apostate’ states in the Islamic world and, in the longer term, against the Western world as a whole. ISIL though is distinguished by its attempt to carve out a new state formation of its own in parts and Iraq and Syria, a project that may well end in failure. However, even if its so-called caliphate fails, it cannot be expected to vanish from the scene since it can either re-emerge elsewhere in a region of weak or failing states or merge with its current rival Al Qaeda.

Keywords:

• Osama bin Laden
• caliphate
• Iraq
• Comintern
• ISIL/DAESH
• jihadism
• sectarianism
• Westphalian world order
• Zarqawi

Notes

1. Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia, 3.

2. Rubinstein, Alchemists of Revolution, 223.

3. Phillips, ‘The Islamic State’s Challenge’.

4. See for example O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, 22.

5. Khalaf, ‘Beyond Arms’.

6. Michael P. Scharf, ‘How the War Against ISIS Changed International Law’, 9–10.

7. Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq, 213.

8. Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia, 7. Hegghammer’s analysis of classical jihadism is heavily influenced by the thinking of Abdallah Azzam, though as I shall seek to show in this paper there were far more important influences from the actual conflict in Iraq, especially via al Zarqawi.

9. See the discussion on counter-revolutionary and counter-Enlightenment thought in Mayer, The Furies, 59–63.

10. McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 23.

11. Ayoob, ‘The Myth of the Islamic State’.

12. Atwan, Islamic State, 132–3.

13. Walt, ‘ISIS as Revolutionary State’.

14. Cited in Armstrong, Revolution and World Order, 227.

15. Ibid., 303; Uldricks, Diplomacy and Ideology; Andrei Grachev, Gorbachev’s Gamble; Haslam, Russia’s Cold War.

16. Hirst, War and Power in the 21^st Century, 99.

17. Atwan, Islamic State, xi–xii.

18. Hill, Antichrist in Seventeenth Century England, 157–8; The World Turned Upside Down.

19. Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 25–9.

20. Ibid., 33.

21. Dodge, Inventing Iraq.

22. Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds, 228–9.

23. Dodge, ‘Seeking to Explain the Rise’, 5.

24. Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, 137–40.

25. Kepel, The Revenge of God, 29–33.

26. Nafi, ‘The Abolition of the Caliphate’.

27. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, 66.

28. See in particular Lakitsch, ‘Islamic State’, 12–13.

29. Kaminski, ‘Comparing Goals’, 44.

30. Brisard, Zarqawi, 74–5.

31. Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq, 127.

32. Zarqawi letter to bin Ladin, February 2004. http//2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm. Accessed 25 May 2015.

33. Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq, 158.

34. Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 212.

35. Dodge ‘Seeking to Explain the Rise’, 8

36. Dodge, Iraq, 61.

37. Mansfield, His Own Words, 220.

38. Shahzad, Inside Al Qaeda, 57.

39. Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia, 162.

40. Lewis, The Islamic State, 9.

41. Shahzad, Inside Al Qaeda, 193–4.

42. Dodge, Iraq, 87.

43. Ibid., 45.

44. Ibid., 127.

45. This is suggested in Adnan and Reese, Beyond the Islamic State, 10.

46. Ibid. 12.

47. Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 158.

48. Choksy, ‘Ending the Islamic State’s Siren Song’.

49. Barfi, ‘The Military Doctrine of the Islamic State’.

50. ‘The Caliphate Cracks’, The Economist, 21 March 2015

51. Knights, ‘ISIL’s Political-Military Power in Iraq’, 2.

52. Hassan, ‘The ISIS March Continues’.

53. Derek, ‘ISIS Is Not Losing’.

54. Hoffman, ‘The Coming ISIS-Al Qaeda Merger’.

55. Watts, ‘Why ISIS beats Al Qaeda in Europe’.

56. See for example Gorka, ‘Understanding Today’s Enemy’.

57. McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 210, ref. 78.

58. Naji, The Management of Savagery.

59. Ibid., 111–12.