Collapse

Foreword
Dr. Roby Barrett’s The Collapse of Iraq and Syria: The End of the Colonial
Construct in the Greater Levant is a timely, scholarly work that
helps explain the chaos in the news from the region. A day does not go by
without Iraq and Syria as well as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
being in the news. Most of the news coverage deals with atrocities, factionalism,
civil war, and cultural/ethnic strife. The value of Dr. Barrett’s
monograph is his thorough delve into history to help explain this complicated
story. It is a story of creating states with artificial borders that have
been ruled with iron fists to keep a lid on fractured societies. As Dr. Barrett
posits, “The so-called nation-states were administrative mirages imposed on
the myriad of smaller entities, political groupings, and conflicting sectarian
and ethnic splinter groups held together by force.” What we are witnessing
and what Barrett explains is the dissolution of borders and the collapse of
central governments in Iraq and Syria. In fact, the author contends that Iraq
and Syria no longer exist as nation-states. Their ultimate fate is yet to be seen.
Regardless, this monograph provides the reader with a historical review of
the Greater Levant (Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon) that helps explain the reality
on the ground today.
Barrett begins his analysis in the pre-1914 Greater Levant and the role
that it played in the political structure of the broader Middle East region. He
also focuses on the First World War, the collapse of the Ottoman system in
the Greater Levant, and the interwar years of the League of Nations’ mandates.
Barrett contends that the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 still serves
as the basis for current policies. The secret agreement between France and
the United Kingdom was designed as a deal to divide the Arab territories
of the former Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence. The arbitrarily
drawn boundaries accommodated the Western powers and disregarded
political, economic, social, cultural, religious, and sectarian realities on the
ground. These artificial borders and colonially-created states have been kept
in check by authoritarianism. The post-World War II years saw the rise of
Arab Nationalism and the Ba’th Party as well as the rise of dictators Saddam
Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Assad in Syria. Barrett’s walk through history
ends with Iraq and Syria’s current predicament. Both are beset by collapsing
vii