ISIS: Non-State

Actors and Conflict

Resolution
Authors: Weston Wood, Emmi Nguyen

Part I:
History
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, more commonly known is ISIS, formally, has a
rather short history. What lead to its creation can arguably be traced back centuries, however for
our purposes we will focus on the direct influences and the rise of ISIS.
ISIS claims to rule over all Muslims in the world and is attempting to establish a Caliphate,
taking control of all historically Muslim regions. The groups is founded with very hardline Sunni
jihadist ideology that had a large influence tracing back to the Muslim Brotherhood. The group
rejects any new Islamic ideology, talking only their pure Islam from the very roots of the
religion. They ignore any interpretations of the Quran other than their own, which they draw
from only the book itself. According to ISIS rhetoric anyone who does not agree to their ideas
are infidels (one without belief) and are subject to brutality, torture, or even murder. ISIS rose to
prominence, catching the attention of a global audience, in and after the recent Syrian civil war
starting in 2012. Since that time they have directly threatened international superpowers directly
as well as killing thousands. The group, now lead by Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi, has controlled
more land, has the largest militia, and is the most wealthy terror organization in history.
ISIS is estimated to have pulled in over two billion US dollars in 2015. They maintain a
diverse portfolio that includes a multitude of revenue streams, ensuring funds for their cause. The
group is very strategic, and financially savvy, they are far evolved from their predecessors in this
aspect, and even release yearly financial statements. Their sources of income include taxation of
citizens, ransoms, looting and black market sells, security services, as well as their main source
which is from oil.

The original group ISI, or Islamic state of Iraq, was founded by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi,
a Jordanian Sunni Islamic extremist, in 1999. The ISI started in Iraq and began to spread into
Syria to recruit and fight against Assad and his forces during the Syrian civil war. Their original
forces had close ties to Al-Qaeda and used their extensive network to spread ISI quickly. After
several months of fighting, the ISI group that arose in Syria announced that they were merging
with their Iraqi counterparts, formally making what we now know as ISIS. By spring 2013 the
group had taken control of a sizable piece of territory in North Syria. At this point they were the
strongest regime in the region and went on to capture several Iraqi prisons freeing their 500 plus
ISIS members, as well as capturing multiple cities in Syria. From there, the group spread and
came to control a contiguity of land between Iraq and Syria declaring the region a Caliphate,
naming Al-Baghdadi the Caliph Ibrahim. This declaration is meant to justify and validate their
religious righteousness, jihad, and to separate the believers from the non-believers.
In early 2015 ISIS spread was continuing; facing potential genocide, thousands of
Yezidis to flee to Erbil. To protect their lives, as well as to break ISISs spread into the area
President Obama officially authorized US intervention in the conflict by means of airstrikes. The
terror organization retaliated with first the beheading of several US journalist and a British Aid
worker. This was followed by a series of many more executions, by fire or beheading, of noncombatants and combatants alike. All the while propaganda from ISIS began to encourage
homegrown terrorism. This propaganda has spurred a series of attacks and suicide bombings that
affected counties around the world, and has killed thousands. Since this time, outside forces such
as Egypt, Russia, France, among others, have joined into the conflict though the use of airstrikes.
With this airpower and local ground forces, ISIS has slowly lost momentum as well as territory
during 2016.

Part 2.
Factors of Conflict
Trying to find solutions to this conflict isnt an easy thing to do. It was not obvious where
to focus our attentions given the complexity of the situation. First of all, there is a wide spread of
historical events and interrelated socio-political factors affecting each other which need to be
addressed more carefully. Generally speaking, there is: the ongoing power struggle between the
different religious sects in the Middle East (Sunni, Shia); the extremists making use of the
situation/deep instability; and the U.S. involvement first as a third sider, and then becoming one
of the parties, which has created a complex set of emotions, behaviors and violence. The
geostrategic dynamics of this conflict is not only regional anymore, but has reached a global level
involving more and more actors. That is a significant issue with solving the problem, because at
the moment it is unclear who are the parties involved and what their relationships to each other
are. The United States has conducted more than 150 airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS and according
to the Secretary of State, nearly 40 nations have agreed to contribute to the fight against the
militants. But it remains unclear which countries are on that list and the precise role they'll play.1
What we do know for certain, is that the other party in this case is ISIS and we also have our
perceptions of what their ideals, beliefs and goals are.
No country will publicly admit to supporting ISIS, but there are some rumors of who might
be funding their work or supporting them in some other ways. Also, in the main conflict areas in

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/14/world/meast/isis-coalition-nations/
(Last viewed on 15th June, 2016 )
1

Iraq and Syria, it is ambiguous as to who is on whos side. There have been speculations that rich
individuals from wealthy Sunni Arab Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates or
Qatar have been donating to ISIS for years, mostly in an attempt to eliminate or weaken Syrian
and Iraqi Shia forces.
Due to the Syrian conflict which caused a huge amount of people fleeing from their country
all over the world, there is a possibility that ISIS is widening its territory, which is what they claim
to be doing. This leads to the confusion of how wide the organization is in reality, how many
people are part of the group, where they work, and if they all have the same values and goals. For
example, are the foreign fighters joining the group because of Islamic fundamentalists, or just as
individual adventures, who are seeking excitement, power and money. This aspect challenges the
search for a solution, because it complicates the fight against an enemy whose fighters may be
anywhere and whose propaganda is tough to trace or stamp out. One major dynamic of this conflict
is said to be the very rapid growth of the ISIS ideology outside of the Middle East. That is why we
need to concentrate on understanding the reasons why people are joining the group, so we can try
to make a change by fixing those reasons.
What it comes to the history of conflicts in the Middle East and how it is affecting today,
we need to realize that a large part of the territory which is controlled by ISIS in Iraq is disputed
by the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Autonomous Region and has experienced different
conflicts as a result of various state policies aiming to alter the local demographics in an ethnically
and religiously mixed area.2 The appearance of the ISIS nowadays in an already broken society is
causing even more damage and fueling inter-ethnic, sectarian and inter-religious tensions in the

http://www.gsdrc.org (Conflict dynamics and potential for peacebuilding in Iraq)

(Last viewed on 16th June, 2016 )
2

region. Not only people are fleeing away from their home countries, these conflicts has led to a
mass migration, which has put strain on social services, educational systems, healthcare, and
security services. The cost of displacement is incalculable to families, lives, education, health,
and mental well-being.3
When people have lost their homes, families and the feeling of safety in overall, they might
start feeling hopeless of who would be the one providing protection and better living conditions.
ISIS is taking advantage of the situation and has for example taken over the control of water in its
fights against the cities they have been attacking. By having the control of peoples lives and their
basic physiological needs, they can start offering them those needs simply by joining the group.

Part 3:
Resolution of the Conflict
ISIS as a conflict resolution dilemma requires two types of solutions: one direct, and one
structural.

Direct Action: Dealing With ISIS Head On

Because the Islamic State is not a traditional nation state and gains legitimacy as long as it
continues to exist as a functioning governing entity, direct military action is required to reduce
the legitimacy of that claim. Perhaps more important, they are completely, doctrinally opposed to
negotiating in a traditional sense, a fact that Princeton researcher Cole Bunzel described in terms
of the Jihadi-Salafi concept of Tawhid, or the oneness of god (Bunzel 8). Tawhid is significant
http://www.epic-usa.org/iraq-humanitarian-crisis-internally-displaced-persons-idps/
(Last viewed on 16th June, 2016 )
3

because believers in a Jihadi theology dont recognize any other form of government or culture,
except for the caliphate and that which is described in the Quran. This means, regrettably, that
resolution cant begin with peace keeping or an armistice, but must integrate elements of
militarized counter insurgency. Thankfully this part of the equation is being conducted deftly by
the assembled coalition. Unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, NATO military leaders have been
careful not to commit large numbers of troops on the ground which engender local animosity.
Additionally, a large presence of Western forces plays directly into the interpretation of Islam
which the Islamic State teaches. As Graeme Wood of the Atlantic outlined in his piece What
ISIS really Wants, the Islamic State teaches its adherents that according to scripture, the forces
of Islam will be beaten back by foreign non-believers (Jahilis) until a final battle on the plains
of Dabiq, Syria, where the imperial forces will be vanquished and the countdown to the
Apocalypse will initiate (Wood). This is why it has been so critical to use airstrikes, oil embargos
and local fighting forces like the Kurds to dismantle the Islamic State, and not Western troops.
Indeed, the battle at Dabiq is eagerly anticipated by Jihadists who can recruit disaffected local
and foreign Muslims with the promised reward of killing a Western soldier. For Muslims living
in the West who saw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as humiliations of the Muslim community,
the appeal of traveling to the caliphate and fighting Western soldiers is very real. To complicate
matters, for alienated Muslims in the West who are unable to travel to Syria or Iraq, the
continued high quality media output in the form of the slick ISIS Dabiq newsletter, Twitter
accounts and discreet Facebook groups make self radicalization much easier than it was
previously. The results of these self radicalization recourses are found in the disturbing mass
shootings of San Bernardino and Orlando. The San Bernardino shooting was positively linked to
Jihadi online networks in an FBI affidavit released last December for the court case United

States of America vs Enrique Marquez Jr., (a co-conspirator in the shooting.) Direct action in this
non-military dimension must take the form of Twitter account suspensions, NSA targeted (not
mass) surveillance of Jihadi Facebook networks, and the censorship of Dabiq in widely
accessible public forums (though it's important to still maintain some access for the purposes of
academic study on radicalization material).

Direct Action Summary: Arriving at a Climate for Conflict Resolution

As we mentioned above, the implications of a Salafi, or more accurately a Qutbian (After the
father of modern Jihadi theology, Sayyid Qutb), interpretation of Quranic precepts like
Tawhid, is that the Islamic State and its devoted adherents cant be treated like normal
negotiating partners in a conflict. They do not wish to negotiate and would, quite literally, rather
die than sit down and discuss shared interests.

In the classical conflict parabola, the current state of the ISIS dilemma resides in the warfare
state (apogee of the parabola), but unlike the traditional schema above, there will be no ceasefire,
and their will be no agreement. Direct action through the military and media prevention will be
the only way to reach a point where more systemic, or structural forms of conflict resolution can
be pursued. Simply, if the war cant be settled in order to transform the conflict, the war has to
be won to finally begin settling the structural problems. Poverty, terror recruitment, lack of basic
needs, and religious differences wont be solved when tens of thousands of kilometers of
regional territory are still controlled by a powerful, apocalyptic terror state.

Structural Solutions: Moving Towards A Sustainable Conflict Resolution

After the Dust Settles - The very first step after degrading ISIS is to bring the
constellation of lesser Sunni Islamic factions, the Sunni patron states (Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Turkey etc.), the Kurds, the Syrian Government, the Syrian/Shia patron states (Iran and Russia),
Iraq, and the coalition partners to Geneva for post conflict settlements. This has already seen

limited success during certain portions of the Syrian civil war where anti-government rebel
factions, the Kurds and Pro-Syrian Government factions met in Geneva for a temporary armistice
in order to bring humanitarian aid to embattled parts Aleppo, Zabadani, and Damascus. What
makes these earlier initiatives important is that they prove that other extremists rebel factions and
their clients, unlike ISIS, have been capable of engaging in real negotiations in spite of their
incredible ideological differences. Its still a very tough challenge, but at least interest based
negotiation tactics can be used with these actors. The final political settlement between these
dozens of actors will likely take many years after full scale conflict has subsided, yet the shared
interests between the parties can be pursued immediately to reduce the chance of a complete
relapse into civil war. The first of these shared interests will be meeting basic needs.

Basic Needs as Shared Interests - Once the Islamic State has been territorially
dismantled and other parties in the conflict have reached an armistice, the structural parts of
conflict can be addressed more vigorously. The first part of this structural approach can be
conceived in terms of Third Sider theory (see. Provider), or in terms of Maslow's Hierarchy of
needs. Basic needs such as water, heating, and food have to be met if higher order improvements
to the quality of life can be made. In Anthony Shadids book on the Iraqi occupation, Night
Draws Near, he found during his time in the country that many Iraqis felt the US never lived up
to its promises of nation building. One Iraqi policeman Shadid interviewed echoed a common
sentiment that conditions under US occupation were actually worse than they were under the
Saddam regime during the Iran Iraq war, adding confusion for a local population that couldnt
understand how hundreds of billions of dollars in aid could still result in diminished basic

necessities (Shadid 251). With this in mind, we

consider one of the biggest parts of any
solution to ISIS and Jihadism is to efficiently
and intelligently allocate resources so as to
clearly improve people's quality of life. There
have been rumors that blackouts happen less
frequently in ISIS controlled Mosul than they
did under Iraqi/American tutelage. Clean water
needs to be provided more cheaply and more
effectively than Jihadists can; electricity needs
to be provided more effectively and cheaply than Jihadists can; and food needs to be provided
more cheaply and effectively than Jihadists can. This requires a reduced emphasis on seeing the
conflict though a totally militaristic perspective, and reinterpreting it as humanitarian problem
where groups like ISIS are simply doing the job of basic governance more effectively than the
Iraqi/Syrian states. The hidden benefit to seeing basic needs in terms of shared interests is that if
each faction improves the quality of life, they will, even if they dont know it, reduce one of the
most important factors for radicalization: abject poverty.
Proper Education and Opportunity- Next, once basic needs have been met by all
factions, three equally important but more challenging solutions must be implemented. The first
is to put serious international pressure on Saudi Arabia to stop building its fundamentalist
madrassa (Islamic school) network. Researchers Carol and Jamsheed Choksy wrote in the World
Affairs Journal that the Saudis have been the most persistent source of support for global jihad
by spreading Wahhabism abroad to radicalize foreign Muslims and then giving financial support

to their violent struggles in countries as far-flung as Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya. Even with
basic needs met, if the huge youth population bulge in the Middle East continues to be
indoctrinated through the Saudi madrassas, we will never see an end to the radical generation.
This begs the next question: what should the education look like that replaces these
madrassas and other crumbling state institutions? Its no easy task to formulate a new education
alternative that could create a competent educated population in the central Middle East thats
ready to tackle the modern economy. Taking clues from the trajectory of the global economy,
there is at least some indication of what this education should and shouldn't look like. The age of
large scale industrialization in the Middle East, and most of the world, is over. The real promise
is in computer engineering, automation and entrepreneurship, where, -- assuming internet
infrastructure can be built -- local talent can produce products and companies that require little
fixed asset investments from the government. People need to be educated and empowered, but
cheaply. Iraq and Syria cant replicate Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Japan's success. Their challenge is
more like the one faced by sub-saharan African states. We should also add that these schools be
sites of multi-ethnic/religious intermingling, lest they become just another tool for Shias, Sunnis
or Kurds to gain an advantage over one another. Obviously that will require extreme pressure
from the United States in Iraqs case (to leverage the Shia government), and extreme pressure by
Russia in Syrias case (to leverage Assads Shia government and Irans Shia influence). Every
improvement to education will fail if it only advantages one group within the society.
The final part of the solution to the education and opportunity phase is to create a reliable
source of finance for the students/entrepreneurs coming out if this system. We felt that most state
run solutions to finance were both inefficient and vulnerable to political corruption. The answer
could be with organizations like Kiva that offer third party micro-finance solutions. An

international investment effort could be made with these micro finance firms in order to give
them enough capitalization so they could provide suitable resources for such a large population.
To keep the system efficient, microfinance firms could bid for regional contracts based on the
merit of their finance plan.

Political Representation- The last part of the structural problem after the fighting has
stopped, basic needs have been met, and neutral education/finance networks have been
established, is to tackle political representation. This is by far the most challenging piece. In
Syria there is essentially no Sunni representation in the military or government. In fact, the
political leadership is taken from a small Shia sect called the Alawis. In Iraq, after the departure
of the American forces in 2012, prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki did lasting damage to Sunni
hopes by completely dismantling their political networks. He had to resign because of mass
demonstrations in Baghdad in 2014. Rafi Al-Essawi, an Iraqi Sunni interviewed by PBS in 2014
said Maliki had to get rid of all Sunni politicians who were capable of saying no to him, his
policies or his behavior. So its the story of attacking, intimidating, marginalizing, whatever you
want, of Sunni politicians. The situation hasnt improved drastically since his resignation to the
chagrin of Iraqi Sunnis. Maliki was only replaced by a slightly less objectionable Shia prime
minister named Haider Al-Abadi at the request of Iran. However, Al-Abadi has opened up some
50,000 military positions for Sunnis, indicating that perhaps Iran sees a benefit in mending
sectarian divides in the fight against ISIS.
Our solution for Iraq and Syria are different. For Syria, Russia and Iran need to be pushed
to let the Assad family go, and as a part of the post-war settlement, allow for Sunni access to
decision making. Russia is thankfully considering a post-Assad future for Syria, but in order to
make that happen, it will need to threaten pulling military assistance to the Syrian military more

seriously. That discussion can take place between the US and Russian foreign policy teams after
the US elections in November. As for Iranian control in Iraq, we decided to take a strategy from
the Chinese foreign policy playbook. Instead of threatening renewed sanctions on the Iranian
economy, the EU and US can make Iraqi political accessibility a new condition of current
investment contracts promised by European and American companies after last years nuclear
deal. Sometimes less antagonistic forms of influence are better in negotiating situations.
Optimistically, that may not even be necessary if Irans foreign policy organs continue to see a
benefit in mending relations with Sunnis in Iraq. A Golden Bridge style strategy where the US
state department continues to persuasively demonstrate the merits of non-sectarianism for
regional order to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, would be the optimal solution for Iraqi
political inclusion. Instead of waving a stick, it offers a carrot.

Works Cited
Boghani, Pryianka. "In Their Own Words: Sunnis on Their Treatment in Malikis Iraq." Pbs.
N.p., Oct.-Nov. 2014. Web.
Bunzel, Cole. "From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State." The Brookings
Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World 19 (2015): n. pag. Web. 14 June 2016.
Choksy, Carol E.B., and Jamsheed K. Choksy. "The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global
Jihad." World Affairs Journal. N.p., June 2015. Web. 15 June 2016.
Shadid, Anthony. "Chapter 10." Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's
War. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

United States of America v. Enrique Marquez. 37. United States District Court for the Central
District of California. 17 July 2015. Print.
Wood, Graeme. "What ISIS Really Wants." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 15 Mar.
2015. Web. 15 June 2016.