STRUGGLES

the struggle against daesh
these statements, not least by many ofthe
supporters ofthese two entities. Supporters
ofthe Rojava administration would disagree
that they are a state, and supporters ofthe
Islamic State would disagree that they are
revolutionary. But nevertheless the two
organisations have both captured and
successfully held on to the monopoly of
power within large, 'country-sized'
territories, along with cities, industries and
military installations. And there is no doubt
that society has been transformed within
those boundaries.
The two organisations are almost
diametrically opposed: Rojava, the
democratic, feminist, egalitarian,
ecological experiment in diversity
and localism, versus the Islamic
State, the caliphate ruled directly
by the supposed descendant ofthe
Prophet’s family in strict
accordance with the literal word of
God: it is reactionary, totalitarian,
patriarchal, and intolerant of
others to the point ofjustifying the
genocide and enslavement of
minorities.
But yet, at the same time their origins and
the manner in which they exploded into the
Syrian conflict bear uncanny similarities.
And neither organisation is, strictly
speaking, native to Syria.
Before the organisation branded itselfas
the Islamic State, even before it branched
out from Iraq and called itselfthe Islamic
State ofIraq and Syria, it was known as the
Islamic State ofIraq. Iraq is the birthplace
190
ofthe Islamic State, and Iraq is the Islamic
State’s power base. The Islamic State ofIraq
(and thus ISIS) was the result ofIraq’s many
years ofUS inflicted catastrophe. Prior to
the US-UK invasion and occupation, the
Iraqi Ba’ath Party and the radical Salafi
Islamist movement had been mortal
enemies. But politics make strange
bedfellows, and the necessity ofhaving to
unite to fight the United States and its Shialed
puppet government pushed the two
movements together. At the beginning of
the insurgency the majority ofattacks were
carried out by former Iraqi security
personnel who were still loyal to Saddam
Hussein’s regime, yet the United States
propaganda organs insisted on placing
much ofthe blame on (the at the time
virtually non-existent) Al Qaeda in Iraq. Al
Qaeda’s uncompromising ideology had little
appeal to secular-leaning Iraqis, until it
appeared that Al Qaeda was leading the
resistance. During the long, bloody years of
war and insurgency Iraq became the
crucible in which the remnants ofthe
Ba’athist police-state fused with the
jihadists’ ultra conservative millenarian
ideology to create a movement that was
both ruthless in its pursuit ofpower and
utterly certain in its religious zeal. As a
result ofyears fighting the most powerful
army in the world, this organisation
boasted some ofthe best guerilla fighters
and strategists in the world.
The Islamic State ofIraq was presumed to
have been defeated during the ‘Sunni
Awakening’ of2007-8, when a combination
ofnon-Al Qaeda insurgents and the US
military briefly allied against Al Qaeda in
Iraq, in response to the declaration ofthe
Islamic State ofIraq and the associated
brutality oftheir briefbut bloody reign over