Nibras Kazimi

Saudi Arabia’s announcement of the formation of an ‘Islamic Alliance’ to combat terrorism in mid-December 2015 incurred the concern of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ‘caliph’ of the Islamic State. His propagandists were unprepared to address the ideological ramifications of such a paradigm shift in Saudi behavior. The anti-Saudi ideological formulations and narratives that the jihadists had developed over a number of years did not factor-in the possibility that Saudi state would undertake aggressive military operations beyond its borders, operations directed primarily against themselves. Saudi thinking may be premised on the idea that the Islamic State—seeking local support in Iraq and Syria by claiming to act in defense of Sunnis against tyranny and sectarianism—would crumble easily and quickly if faced with an ‘Islamic Alliance’ that aims to liberate Sunnis from both the Islamic State and Iranian hegemony alike. The announcement has raised popular expectations of an impending ‘new order’ in the Middle East among those heartened by what they consider ‘long-overdue’ Saudi activism. However, the new Saudi initiative is a dangerous gamble that may backfire on rhetorical and ideological grounds if the campaign fails or takes too long.

It has been the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that al-Zarqawi (who was killed in June 2006) and his successors not only determined to turn Iraq into a battleground on their own initiative, but that they subsequently chose Iraq as the incubator for their grand vision of a unified Islamic empire under the aegis of a ruling caliph. They did so without instructions from or consultations with the traditional leaders of al-Qaeda hiding out in the Hindu Kush Mountains. Rather, they presented the jihadist world with a fait accompli: the Islamic State of Iraq. They thereby captured the imagination of a new generation of jihadists who were already enthralled by the alleged victories of the Zarqawists in Iraq.

Zarqawi’s most enduring legacy, therefore, may be the transformation of anti-Shi’ism into a central tenet of the jihadist worldview. He has argued that Islam’s victory is tied to the physical eradication of the Shi’a, and there is evidence that adherence to this policy is going to expand further among jihadists.

This paper aims to give a cursory overview of Maqdisi’s prolific writings and ideological path that apparently began with a strong influence from Juhaiman Al-’Uteibi’s organization. It is a trajectory that is very different from neo-Salafist trend influenced by Sayyid Qutb’s later writings, and Saudi Arabia’s neo-Wahhabism of the late 1980s and early 90s. Understanding the current concepts driving Zarqawi must be inferred from his former tutor; Maqdisi’s life and ideas deserve further study.

With field notes accumulated in a Syrian environment not generally hospitable to research and inquiry, Nibras Kazimi provides a unique view of the Syrian regime and its base at home, filling a void in our understanding of the intelligence barons and soldiers who run that country. He offers a look at the tactical, propagandists and strategic ingredients required, in jihadist eyes, for a successful jihad—and whether those ingredients are available in Syria.

Reviewed Work: Nader Uskowi's Temperature Rising: Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Wars in the Middle East

Uskowi's framing of the Quds Force as independent of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) offered an opportunity to ask profound questions about the agency of ideas, or the agency of men with ideas, especially as the Quds Force commander Major General Qasem Soleimani loomed so large in the trajectory of this organization. Uskowi could have asked basic questions such as what was the Quds Force before Soleimani's tenure, and what did he turn it into? Uskowi, however, in neatly folding the present unto the past, failed to use this writing exercise, done over a year's time, to transition from the role of a briefer to that of the historian.

Reviewed Works: The Master Plan by Brian H. Fishman; ISIS: A History by Fawaz A. Gerges; The Way of the Strangers by Graeme Wood

Each of these three books takes a different approach to explaining the rise of the Islamic State. Fishman is trained in the nascent field of jihadist studies and focuses on jihadist media and intellectual output as well as on the accounts presented by captured documents, detainees, and defectors; Gerges is a scholar who provides an overview that encapsulates the historical, political, and cultural context of the events described; and Wood is a journalist exploring the unfiltered motivations and thoughts of the jihadis themselves. The three books complement one another and in many ways do not overlap. However, it is this reviewer's sense that there is still enough missing from these accounts, as a result of shortcomings in method, that ultimately detracts from the ability to comprehend the problem set presented by the Zarqawist “style” of jihadism.