US Invasion of Iraq,2003: Indirect Link of ISIS Rising

Complex Causality of Derivative Products

As so many forces interact and influence foreign policy outcomes, an actor’s desire to achieve a particular goal can set it on a different path than expected. Usually, it produces derivative products. Linear applications are not the only mechanisms for characterizing international relations. For example, Moscow’s involvement in the Syrian war in 2015 had powerful derivative products as it had a significant impact on the status and security of Israel and Turkey (Israeli, 2015a, b).

Traditionally, political science has tended to focus on a single factor and rely on the assumption that other factors remain constant. The reality is quite the opposite. The impact of international relations is not the result of a single variable but of the interaction of multiple (sometimes countless) variables. The complexity of international relations also arises from the fact that actors consciously respond to the behavior of others and to their expectations of others. Time and time again, wars waged by great powers lead to long-term derivative products. For example, prior to the US invasion of Iraq, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argued against the argument for war (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2003a, b). Looking back at the disastrous derivative products of the US invasion of Iraq (2003), such as the rise of ISIS in Syria, which this article focuses on, and the subsequent “Arab Spring” in Iraq, it appears their predictions were spot on (Chulov, 2015; Danforth, 2014; Israeli, 2017; Walt, 2012).

When an action is taken, existing conditions can greatly affect the outcome, and often events will occur that differ from those intended by the initiator. The central attitude here is nonlinearity, which opposes the prevailing notion of causality in international relations. Foreign policy linearity prevails when mutual relations are nonexistent or weak, which is exceptional given the anarchy of international relations. As discussed in this study, international relations are not linear, and unpredictable outcomes are a choice. ⁹ A minor change can be magnified by positive feedback that produces side effects or derivative products. Within the complex system of international relations, “no important issue exists in isolation; rarely is it only bilateral” (Eisenhower, 1963, p. 409). One state’s action toward another often influences and affects other policies, activities, and conditions.

The Degree of Ripeness for Change

The degree of ripeness for change includes the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was followed by removing Saddam Hussein from power and the crushing of the Iraqi army, placing the country and the region in turmoil. These events created the atmosphere needed for the region’s significant change. The September 11, 2011, terrorist attacks, which are the most destructive terror attacks in history, targeted important components of America’s state power. ¹⁰ Following the attacks (Coll, 2004; Gunaratna, 2002; McDermott, 2005; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004; Riedel, 2008; Sageman, 2004, 2008; Wright, 2006), the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 (Ahmed, 2001/02, Akbarzadeh, 2004; Conetta, 2002), and invaded and conquered Iraq in 2003. ¹¹ The direct result was the production of a new and highly imbalanced the Middle East.

The Type of Feedback That the System Ultimately Adopted

The type of feedback that the system finally adopted was positive feedback that was automatically and manually involved, derived from past positive feedback, or the old idea of creating a Muslim Caliphate. In 1924, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ended the Ottoman Caliphate. Although most Western debates over ISIS refer to the time of the Ottomans, most Islamists are more focused on earlier Caliphates, such as the time of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs after Prophet Muhammad’s death or the Abbasid Caliphate that ruled from the 9th to the 13th centuries (Danforth, 2014, p. 215). In 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. Sultan Selim the Grim aimed to spread his influence over the Muslim world by claiming the title of Caliph for himself and his successors and taking control of the cities of Mecca and Medina. The Ottomans also reinforced their claim to Islamic leadership by serving as guardians of the hajj. However, not everyone accepted Sultan Selim’s claims to the Caliphate (Danforth, 2014, pp. 215–216).

The decline of the Ottoman Empire after World War I increased the credibility of a new non-Ottoman Arab Caliph. Many were seeking the title of Caliph. Husayn ibn Ali, Sherif of Mecca, who controlled Mecca and Medina then, was one of them. His son, Abdullah, the founder of the Jordanian monarchy also sought the position and ultimately declared himself Caliph. King Fuad of Egypt secretly pursued to succeed the Ottomans and become Caliph. King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia was one of the few Arabs leaders who never claimed the Caliphate (Danforth, 2014, pp. 217–218). Ultimately, Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi believed to have been born near Samara, Iraq, in 1971, announced himself as Caliph and the leader of ISIS on May 16, 2010.

Positive feedback included the need and the will of half a million Iraqi Sunnis with combat backgrounds to find a job after the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Those resisted to the US occupation included Ba’ath “Party loyalists hoping to return to power… former public sector employees and soldiers who had lost their jobs… families who felt disrespected by counterinsurgent activities… and Iraqi nationalists motivated to resist foreign occupation” (Patel, 2015, p. 2). These groups were motivated to reverse their marginalization and discrimination and regain political power (Griffin, 2016, p. 1).

The March 2003 US invasion of Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s overthrow caused a crack in the entire Middle East and the Arab world. Notably, it upset the sizeable Sunni minority of Iraq since they were rejected any rule in the new Iraq after being stripped of power and instantly discharged from their positions in the “armed forces, intelligence agencies, and broad sectors of the civilian administration.” As a result, approximately 500,000 Sunnis with fighting backgrounds were unexpectedly jobless and poor (Griffin, 2016, p. 1). The US Invasion of Iraq (2003) also encouraged many high-ranking Iraqi soldiers to join forces with terrorist groups. One of them became known as ISIS, ultimately playing an acute role in damaging the US interests in the Middle East. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq also caused a break in Iraqi society and many casualties. ¹² In addition, the demolition of Iraqi institutions, especially the Ba’ath Party and the military, created a vacuum that ultimately enabled al-Qaeda and other non-state actors to rise (Gerges, 2014).

Future positive feedback included the promised material and physical benefits for those joining the Muslim Caliphate. The Islamic State was well funded and able to pay its fighters and followers a high salary. The new arrivals were given shelter and food (Atwan, 2015, p. 442). Europeans were especially valued, earning US$800–1,200 per month, paid in dollars, with free housing in local homes (Khatib, 2015, p. 114, fn. 19; Trofimov, 2015). The ISIS has used local and “imported” women from Western countries to attract male terrorists to join the Caliphate. Local Yazidi women were captured and raped by ISIS fighters (Graham-Harrison, 2017). Many women of Muslim origin living in Western countries joined ISIS and moved to the areas it controlled (Perešin, 2015). The Western women who joined ISIS envisaged non-combat roles (Perešin, 2005). Instead, some were “jihadi brides,” traveling to Syria to marry ISIS fighters, and seen as little more than “baby factories” (Brown, 2014), and others provided sexual services to the members of ISIS. The potential women were mainly recruited in mosques, where they were presented with a bright future included in which was a “ticket to heaven” for them: “when they marry a Muslim warrior who was killed during jihad, not only does he go to heaven, but she also gets a license to go to heaven.” However, on arrival in Syria, it often turned out that it was only about sex (NOS News, 2013).

Virtual positive feedback included the promised religious benefits of being a genuinely Muslim believer for those who join ISIS or assist it. US President Bush’s rhetoric of the “Christian Crusaders” invading Muslim lands influenced many Muslims globe wide, not necessarily only extremists, to imagine what was happening in religious terms (Fiala, 2007). This enthused many Muslim believers to join a jihad against the Christian infidels, ultimately economically and spiritually helping ISIS and even causing some of them to join its militias. Aware of this temptation spreading among Muslim followers, Islamic State personnel and propaganda materials emphasized the “religious duty” of hijra to join the Caliphate, and many young people, Muslims, and non-Muslims alike, took this call seriously and decided to convert to Islam.

In theory, the Islamic State was not a nation-state but a state for the global Islamic ummah. As such, it was a center of attraction for a variety of people from different backgrounds. According to some sources, when the Caliphate was proclaimed in July 2014, the workforce included 6,300 people, 1,000 of whom were foreigners (Briggs Obe & Silverman, 2014). Many jihadist imams called on Muslims to join the jihad in Syria. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a well-known Egyptian television cleric, had repeatedly urged the mujahideen to move to Syria after the revolution began, as did Saudi Imam Muhammad al-Arifi and Imam Anjem Choudary, who lives in the United Kingdom. Lebanese Imam Sheikh Mazen al-Mohammad, Mauritanian Abu Mundhir al-Shinqiti, and even Mohamed Morsi, then president of Egypt, supported the Syrian jihad. This encouragement from recognized religious figures prompted many to immigrate to the land of ISIS (Atwan, 2015, pp. 427–428).

Those who traveled to the land of ISIS had different motivations. Canadian convert Andrew Poulin, for example, valued life in the Islamic State, where there is a role for everyone. Some newcomers to ISIS reported a “great sense of pride and emotion” when they saw the Islamic State flag (Atwan, 2015, pp. 433, 436). Many of the foreign women who joined ISIS were young Western women who wanted to marry jihadists to produce the next generation for the Islamic State (The Guardian, 2014), and who viewed their new lives as freedom.

The Outcome, or the Type of Reality That Emerged

The outcome, or the type of reality that emerged, was the rising of the Islamic State to power in Syria and Iraq. In December 2001, in retaliation for the 11 September attacks, the United States bombed the al-Qaeda mountain stronghold in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda men and Afghan Arabs who had fought with the Taliban then fled to Iraq, and some of them settled in the Sunni triangle between Baghdad and Mosul (Atwan, 2015). In the following 18 months, the migration continued, and thousands of jihadists from different countries arrived in Iraq. In 2002, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who later became known as the Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, arrived in the mini-emirates of Ansar al-Islam. Realizing that an American invasion was imminent, Zarqawi began building local support networks in Sunni territory, establishing contacts and a logistical infrastructure. The US-led invasion began on March 19 2003 with “Operation Shock and Awe.” Baghdad fell on April 9 and on May 1, President George W. Bush declared the “end of major hostilities” (Atwan, 2015, pp. 90–94).

The invasion’s direct outcome was the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, but it also created numerous side effects. Among them, one could distinguish regional turmoil and a rise in political Islam in Iraq that made the growth of ISIS possible. ISIS is the outcome of the war in Iraq after the US invasion of 2003, and afterward, the war in Syria in 2011, since the American invasion created the conditions for its rise (Cockburn, 2015, p. 44), because they enabled the aged idea of the Caliphate to catch fire and spread within the Muslim world and globally. In turn, it attracted hundreds of thousands of Muslims and newcomers to Islam to join the movement in Iraq and Syria or support it from their home countries.

Before the Gulf War II, it was alleged that Saddam Hussein instigated al-Qaeda to invade Iraq to help him fight the Americans. The truth was otherwise. There may have been some al-Qaeda militants in Iraq since 2001, but they were not supported by Saddam (Atwan, 2015, pp. 83–84). Political Islam has existed in Iraq since the 1940s. After the Ba’ath Party came to power in 1968, Saddam Hussein persecuted the Muslim Brotherhood. At the beginning of the 21st century, Saddam’s view changed, and he tolerated the presence of a small jihadist area near the border with Iran. Unbeknownst to Saddam, al-Qaeda had sent some of its operatives to this area. They were instructed to establish valuable networks with the newly Islamized Iraqi army commanders. After Saddam’s ouster, these Iraqi army personnel became critical to the success of the revolution and later the Islamic State (Atwan, 2015, pp. 75–77).

Located near the port of Umm Qasr, Camp Bucca was built to house 16,000 men and provides them with fair treatment. According to a May 2004 Red Cross report, many detainees were arrested in error (Griffin, 2016, pp. 2–3). Camp Bucca became a “jihadist university” for the 100,000 detainees forced to live there between 2004 and 2009, with courses on handling explosives and weapons, and training to become suicide bombers (Al Jazeera, 2009). Al-Baghdadi was one of those captured and remained in US custody for five years, giving him ample time to qualify as a trusted emir and build the Iraqi army and intelligence network (Griffin, 2016, p. 5). The rise of the Islamic State has been long in coming. ISIS surprised most of the world when it entered the northern Iraqi capital of Mosul after four days of fighting. By late September, as ISIS stormed through Iraq and Syria, the new state had already proclaimed plans to create a Caliphate that would reach deep into Iraq and Syria. The first hundred days of ISIS in 2014 marked the end of a complex period in Iraqi history that began with the US-led invasion in March 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein (Cockburn, 2015, pp. 17–18, 22).

The June 6, 2014, battle for Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and home to two million people, mostly Sunnis, was a turning point. This victory of a force of about 1,300 against a nominally 6,000-strong force lasted 4 days (Cockburn, 2015, pp. 47–48), and marked the rise of ISIS, formerly al-Qaeda in Iraq. On June 10, 2014, Mosul fell almost without a fight. Later, on 1 July, al-Baghdadi proclaimed a new caliphate in a 24-minute audio recording and announced he would be its Caliph (Atwan, 2015, p. 12). ISIS was born as a Muslim Caliphate with a territory the size of Britain straddling the Iraq–Syria border. In its heyday, ISIS controlled a vast territory in northern and western Iraq and eastern and northern Syria, several hundred times larger than any territory ever controlled by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (Cockburn, 2015, pp. 33–34). ISIS required territory to remain legitimate; its bureaucracy was divided into civilian and military divisions and its territory into provinces. Territory control is an essential prerequisite for the Islamic State’s authority in the eyes of its followers (Wood, 2015).