Chapter Four: Future Prospects
Part 1. Unending Struggle? Religion and Conflict in the Modern Middle East
ISIS (or Daesh) was founded in Iraq to empower Sunni Muslims in the name of an Islamic government. In June 2014, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself to be the caliph, or rightful leaders over the Muslim world. Most Muslims around the world did not recognize his claim as legitimate.The brutal civil war in Syria, arising from the Arab Spring, created a power vacuum in much of that country, providing ISIS with the chance to move into Syria as well. In summer 2014, ISIS troops captured Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq and used its assets to fund their operations. In the territory that it controlled (with some eight million residents) ISIS set up a quasi-state.
ISIS has specialized in using the Internet to attract disaffected young Muslims in Western countries, inspiring them to carry out terrorist attacks in the name of Islam. It was famous for its public beheadings of “infidels” which were filmed and posted on the web. Many of these “infidels” were Middle Eastern Christians, such as Coptic Christians, or other religious minorities, such as the Yazidis.
In January 2015, ISIS was pushed out of Iraq by an international coalition led by the United States called Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR). In March 2019, ISIS lost its last territorial holdings in Syria, but increasingly it is seeking to influence conflicts in other parts of the world, becoming more like al-Qaeda as a transnational movement, although the two groups have often sparred with each other. There is also some concern that ISIS or a similar group may experience a resurgence of popularity in Iraq and Syria if the socio-political issues that led to its initial emergence in those countries.
Just as troubling is the renewed interfaith tensions stirred up by the activities of groups like ISIS. Sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as ISIS led violence against Christian groups and other religious minorities has renewed sectarian animosities also displayed in events such as the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), the Syrian civil war (2011-present) and the Yemeni civil war 2014-present). Since the mid-1970s religious minorities have fled the region in large numbers.
For more on the future of religious diversity in the Middle East, see the following interview conducted in 2019 by the Century Foundation with Cambridge University researcher Elizabeth Monier on the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.
