TFM Syria and Iraq

Conflict Resolution in Iraq and Syria: Remembering Yugoslavia
Peter Gomez

i
AAH Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq
AQI Al Queda in Iraq
bb/d barrels per day
CPA Coalition Provisional Authority
DDR Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration
EUFOR European Union Force
FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia1
FSA Free Syrian Army
HDZ Croatian Democratic Union
ICC International Criminal Court
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
IGO Intergovernmental Organization
IRGC-QF Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Quds Force
ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
JN Jabhat al-Nusrah
JNA Yugoslav National Army
KFOR Kosovo Force
KH Kata’ib Hezbollah
KLA Kosovo Liberation Army
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDF National Defense Force
NGO Non-governmental Organization
OIC Organization of Islamic Cooperation
OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
PMU Popular Mobilization Unit
PSC Protracted Social Conflict
RCC Revolutionary Command Council
SIIC Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council
SRF Syrian Revolutionary Front
UAE United Arab Emirates
UAR United Arab Republic
UN United Nations
UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force
USCENTCOM US Central Command
VRS Bosnian Serb Army
WWI World War I
WWII World War II
1
Established in 1992 during the dissolution process of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and composed of
modern day Serbia and Montenegro. For simplicity’s sake, the author uses “Yugoslavia” to refer to the state
created after World War II and prior Croatia and Slovenia’s declaration of independence in1991 and “the first
Yugoslavia” or “Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” to refer to state that existed from 1918-1943.

ii
Note
In order to simplify various transliterations of names and locations from several languages, the
author has attempted to select the most commonly used form found in scholarly works and to
maintain its usage throughout his analysis for continuity. He has carefully tried to distinguish
between nationalities without state boundaries and citizens of a particular state by distinct usage
of terms. For example, he uses “Serbs” to describe the ethnic group found throughout the
Balkans versus “Serbians” to describe citizens of the Republic of Serbia. Further, in assuming
the reader is quite aware that Yugoslavia no longer exists as a state, he has dropped the popular
usage of the term “the former Yugoslavia” for the simpler “Yugoslavia.”

iii
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Justification
3. Theory of Protracted Social Conflict
4. Collapse of the Ottoman Empire
5. Autocratic Control and Temporary Stabilization
a. Yugoslavia
b. Iraq and Syria
6. Rise of Sectarianism and Balkanization
a. Communal Content
b. Government and States Role
c. Deprivation of Human Needs
d. Propaganda and Foreign Influence
7. Lessons from Yugoslavia
8. Possible Roles for the International Community in Resolving
the Conflicts in Iraq and Syria
9. Conclusion
10. Bibliography
11. Annexes
1-2
2-4
4-6
6-9
9-10
10-12
12-15
15-21
21-24
24-28
28-32
32-37
37-49
49-50
51-63
64-75

1
1. Introduction
The end of the Cold War and its associated bipolar orthodoxy brought about a wave of
changes throughout the world. Most were overwhelmingly positive and held the promise of a
brighter future particularly for the so called non-aligned states, but ironically the collapse of a
system that threatened a third world war removed a perversely stabilizing pillar, which unleashed
a backlash of revolutionary movements, opposition groups, and interethnic strife. Organized and
prepared for conventional conflicts based upon traditional state-to-state international relations
theories, the world, particularly the West, was ill prepared to understand or much less respond to
a sudden flurry of non-state actors, militia-styled movements, and complex transnational terrorist
networks that sought to take advantage of underlying ethnic tensions and provoke sectarian
divisions. While by no means a new phenomenon, interethnic conflict within a state has gained
more attention due to its rapid increase in both frequency and intensity over the past few decades.
More worrisome is that in the face of wholesale genocide, ethnic cleansing, human rights
violations, abusive regimes, and failed states, the West appears hesitant to become involved.
Instead we prefer to cite a respect for state sovereignty in order to avoid entangling ourselves in
the internal affairs of other countries and seek to remain neutral, often to our own detriment.2
The destruction and chaos unfolding in Iraq and Syria is only the most recent example of
Western paralysis in the face of an interethnic conflict that targets specific communal groups
based upon ethnicity or religion. Part of this hesitation stems from a mistaken temptation to lay
sole blame of today’s violence with the Iraq War and subsequent occupation. Indeed, many poor
choices were made, which certainly contributed to the current crisis, but ignoring deeper, distal
causes in order to preclude future interventions is to compound poor decisions by drawing from
them equally poor conclusions. In an attempt to better understand the dynamics propelling
violence over political accommodation in the region, I use Edward Azar’s theory of Protracted
Social Conflict in order to identify the key characteristics that motivated this choice within a
framework of the relevant historical context. This should help demonstrate that the issue at hand
is a deep mutual mistrust between the various communal groups in the region, which was
carefully nurtured by various rulers. The Ottoman system of governance segregated society,
reinforcing tribal and ethno-religious communal identities. Then European colonialism and
succeeding authoritarian regimes deprived these groups of their basic needs and forced them to
develop and rely upon their own social networks, until a sudden power vacuum unleashed these
forces in a grand political competition without a history or culture of interethnic cooperation.
The conflict now sustains itself through the support of various international associations: Gulf
state money, Russian arms and political cover, Iranian military support and training, and many
more. By using the UN and NATO’s experience of intervention in the Balkan wars during the
1990s, I hope to offer approaches and thematic considerations that should be weighed in an
attempt to resolve the conflict. To do so requires that both the underlying failings of the current
state political structures and processes specifically with respect to Sunni Arabs as well as the
regional influences that promote sectarianism and exacerbate the ethnic fractures must be
2
Boot, 2000

2
addressed. But ultimately, the most pertinent question to be answered is whether or not a
cooperative spirit between the various communal groups can be realistically fostered.
While this conflict is much more complex than a proxy battle for influence between Sunni
Gulf states and Iran, their impact to the continuing chaos in terms of funding armed factions and
perpetuating sectarian identities cannot be overstated and must be moderated, if not resolved, for
Iraq and Syria to ever enjoy peace and prosperity. Salafi jihadism, sponsored largely by Saudi
Arabia, grew exponentially as a response to counter the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which gave rise
to Ayatollah Khomeini’s experimental walayt al-faqih or direct clerical rule. Now Salafist
madrasas and mosques inundate the region and pronounce Shias as apostates deserving of
extermination. Sunni tribesmen embraced them in an effort to augment their security interests,
but the presence of foreign Salafi-jihadists in Iraq and Syria has resulted in entrenching
communal identities and divisions.3
Whether or not political Islam, moderate or otherwise, is
compatible with democratic ideals is an important question, but one that is beyond the scope of
this treatise. Instead, I will limit myself to analyzing the actions of governments, secular or
otherwise, and how they are perceived by their specific communities with regard to their needs.
The desired end state is to move towards not just a conflict resolution, but identify possible paths
that may facilitate an enduring peace and reduction of sectarian tensions.
2. Justification
It is difficult, if not impossible, to examine Iraq, Syria, or truly any country in the region
of the greater Middle East in isolation. Just as oil reservoirs flout national territory, often
straddling borders of countries irrespective of the nature of their relationships, so too do the
tribes, ethnic and religious groups, and their historic alliances and enmities ignore Westphalian
sovereignty. The ancient geostrategic significance of the region can’t be overemphasized. Long
before the discovery of oil, the Middle East lured empires and superpowers for centuries to try
and conquer, colonize, or otherwise control the region’s monopoly over international trade.
Within it run the land bridges and seaways that connect the European, Asian, and African
continents. The narrow passages of the Suez Canal, the Dardanelles, the Bosporus, Bab el-
Mandeb, and the Strait of Hormuz have long offered rulers control over regional trade, passage of
armies, and financial wealth. The discovery of oil in Iran in 1908 and Saudi Arabia in 1938
served to greatly amplify the region’s importance.4
One might say Iraq was born from oil. Prior to World War I (WWI), the country’s value
was primarily to buffer the Ottoman Empire against Persian expansionism. However, the
Europeans set their eyes upon exploiting Iraq’s vast oil reserves. With the Sykes-Picot agreement
the British were able to administer the country by emplacing a regime favorable to their interests,
which lasted until 1958. The concessions granted to them came at a great cost to the newly
formed and disjointed Iraqi people, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. It was this bitterness
3
Moniquet, 2013
4
Khalidi, 2005, pg. 74-84

3
over foreign exploitation that led to the popular rise of the Baath party in 1968.5
Today Iraq has
the fifth largest proven crude oil reserves in the world –144 billion barrels - and is the second
largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The country
also possesses the 12th
largest proven natural gas reserves. It is increasingly attractive to foreign
businesses because of its relative low extraction cost due to uncomplicated geography and their
proximity to coastal ports. The most current estimates place potential crude oil output in Iraq to
reach 9 million barrels per day by 2020. However, the geographical distribution of these
resources is a cause of much political discord owing to the fact that 60% lie in giant fields located
in the Shia controlled south; while 17% can be found in the ethnically Kurdish controlled north of
the country, leaving few known resources in control of the Sunni minority in central and western
Iraq.6
Most recently the US played a critical role in opening Pandora’s Box with their 2003
invasion and regime change. They have a significant interest in ensuring the government they’ve
left in place doesn’t fall.
While Syria produced 400,000 bbl/d as recently as 2010, today its production of oil is
essentially nonexistent due to hostilities and international sanctions;7
rather Syria’s true
significance lies in its geographic location. During the Cold War, Syria antagonized the West by
granting the Soviet Union use of Tartus – a strategic deep sea port that gave the Communists
access to a naval staging point in the Mediterranean Sea in 1971 for their nuclear submarine fleet.
However Tartus has since fallen into disrepair and become strategically less relevant for the
Russians, now that they have access to several other ports in the Mediterranean. Instead, Tartus
provides Russia legitimate access to the Arab world and fits with President Putin’s desire to
transform his country into a resurgent superpower.8
Regionally, Syria is involved, at one level or
another, in many Middle Eastern conflicts, which makes it an attractive ally for Iran. Just as
Russia has, Iran also wishes to maintain its Arab foothold and has a vested interest in supporting
Syria’s Alawite ruler who helps funnel money and weapons to Lebanon’s Shia militia Hezbollah
in the fight against their shared enemy Israel. Now that Iran is also enjoying a friendlier
relationship with Iraq, a potential Axis of Resistance9
is within their grasp. This growing Shia
Crescent has motivated Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states to intervene
in various countries in order to back their Sunni proxies, promising to spread the sectarian
conflict into neighboring countries. The fallout of which is strongly felt by Jordan, Lebanon, and
Turkey, which already bear the brunt of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence.10
The conflict in Iraq and Syria represents a significant, though not unprecedented
challenge to the world. The violence and instability of these countries that possess critical
resources and are located in the most geostrategically important area of the world command
5
Khalidi, 2005, pg. 92-102
6
Eia.gov, Iraq, 2015
7
Eia.gov, Syria, 2015
8
Harmer, 2012
9
The term was originally coined by the Libyan newspaper Al-Zahf Al-Akhdar in response to President Bush’s Axis of
Evil comment concerning Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, but has since been adopted in the Middle East to refer to a
Shia alliance against western influence.
10
McDonnell, 2012

4
international attention and invite debate on the potential for external intervention. They threaten
to spread into neighboring countries and ignite the greater region in sectarian conflict. Aside
from the aforementioned Machiavellian concerns, the scale of human suffering, refugees, and
atrocities being committed, including possible genocide, demand a response from an international
community that often pontificates on their core values of democracy and human rights. The
liberal Western world, in tolerating autocratic regimes, strongmen, and oppressive policies in
exchange for energy security, ultimately helped provoke the same nationalism that they were
attempting to suppress. While the ultimate fate of Iraq and Syria should be for them to
determine, there is still a role to be played by the West in controlling the influences being exerted
by regional powers and facilitating a path toward conflict resolution.
3. Theory of Protracted Social Conflict
Similar to civilization, conflict has evolved and adapted throughout the ages. Napoleon
Bonaparte and his use of the levée en masse for total war allowed the world to witness the first
mass mobilization of citizen soldiers and the beginning of an era in which states dominated
warfare and conflict. This ultimately culminated with industrial warfare’s peak during World
War II (WWII), after which the advent of nuclear weapons made direct interstate conflict
existentially dangerous. The subsequent Cold War brought forth proxy conflicts waged in
support of the two blocs’ interests, who in turn held their client states’ internal conflicts in check.
However once the Soviet Union collapsed, these latent conflicts began to emerge – the most
famous of which being that of the Balkans. Warfare drifted from isolated battlefields towards
urban areas of non-combatants becoming typified as “war amongst the people.”11
Edward E.
Azar was one of the first to recognize this shift and the critical role that ethnic and other forms of
communal conflict would play in the future.
Azar’s theory of protracted social conflict (PSC) is a model to identify the primary
sources of contemporary conflict and postulates that these conflicts emerge when persons are
deprived of their basic societal needs such as security, recognition and acceptance, fair access to
political institutions, and economic participation due to their communal identity. This failure of
the state to provide for a subgroup or groups of its society can result in persistent and violent
confrontation if four primary conditions are met. Azar identifies communal content as the most
important; which is to say, along what lines groups identify and insulate themselves – racial,
ethnic, religious, etc. The second condition is the deprivation of human needs, which constitutes
the underlying grievance that motivates a PSC. Third, even though the state itself is not the
primary unit of analysis in the theory, governance and the state’s role are fundamental to the
satisfaction or frustration of an individual or a group’s needs, and as such its failures and
successes must be considered. Lastly, Azar accounts for external influences by analyzing
international linkages that affect the communal groups.12
11
Smith, 2007
12
Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 84-88

5
Rather than analyzing the traditional state or individual actors, Azar notes that it is the
communal identity groups and their relationship with the state that is the structural foundation
upon which the PSC is developed. The failure of the state to satisfy the societal demands based
upon the exclusion of certain segments of the population leads individuals to instead seek
satisfaction through membership of social groups. He traces this schism between society and the
state, which tends toward exclusionary practices, back to a colonial legacy in many parts of the
world. European colonial powers would “divide and rule” a region by sponsoring a specific
communal group or coalition of groups to administer the state and provide the foreign power with
monopolistic access to resources. Since the power to rule is derived from an external source, the
state would often become unresponsive to other groups within their society. Over time the ruling
communal group would come to dominate the state machinery and their failure to tend equally to
all citizens would strain the country’s social fabric ultimately leading to a PSC.13
While various psychological and social factors can propel a conflict into a protracted and
recurring state, ultimately it is the original deprivation of human needs that is the source of a
communal group’s grievances, which must be redressed. Azar specifically cites security,
development, political access, and identity needs as being the most critical and non-negotiable.
These needs include the most elemental for physical survival and well-being as well as more
intangible principles such as rights of cultural and religious expression. Therefore a PSC may be
just as much a conflict over control or access to limited physical resources as it is a fight for
autonomy, self-esteem, and equitable justice.14
The important distinction for Azar is that the
state’s persecution, oppression, or systemic neglect in satisfying said needs becomes collectively
expressed through a communal identity.15
Azar organizes the actors of a conflict into units of analysis; he next identifies its source,
and then introduces the role of the state and its capacity for governance in order to express the
internal dynamics that provoke the conflict. This is best illustrated by contrasting an idealized
state, which is defined as an impartial arbiter of conflicts between its constituents who are all
treated as legally equal citizens, with the more realistic governance found in newer and less stable
states where political authority is monopolized by a dominant identity group that uses political
and economic levers to maximize their interests at the expense of others. These ruling elites
create a “crisis of legitimacy”16
by excluding distinct segments of society. They are able to
perpetuate this system through manipulation of weak participatory institutions, a hierarchal
tradition of bureaucratic rule from consolidated city centers, and an inherited set of instruments of
political oppression from their colonial roots.17
Azar describes most states that experience PSC
as being “characterized by incompetent, parochial, fragile, and authoritarian governments that fail
to satisfy basic human needs.”18
External dynamics may also influence the viability of a PSC,
13
14
Beaudoin, 2013, pg. 38-44
15
Beaudoin, 2013, pg. 86
16
Azar, 1990, pg. 11
17
18
Azar, 1990, pg. 10

6
albeit to a lesser extent than the relationships of disenfranchised communal groups with the state.
A weak state’s policies can be affected and distorted by the interests of a patron state that
guarantees their client’s security through military and political support. Similarly, an economic
dependency reduces a state’s autonomy and potentially creates a conflict of interests. This
misalignment can aggravate policy inequities that in turn incite further PSC.19
These contextual and structural preconditions by themselves do not necessarily lead to the
outbreak of widespread communal violence, instead that spark originates with interactions at the
individual level of elites and leaders; what Azar calls process dynamics. As a Human Rights
Watch report notes, involved stakeholders sometimes prefer to appear powerless to intervene in
conflicts and cite their causes as “deep-seated hatreds” and “ancient animosities” framed in ethnic
or religious terms when they are actually, most commonly, the product of government policies
seeking to exploit communal differences.20
Azar’s theory goes further than simply analyzing the
actions and strategies of the state, and includes the reciprocating actions and strategies of the
communal group as well as the self-reinforcing mechanisms of conflict that perpetuate hostilities
by demonizing and dehumanizing the opposition through fear, propaganda, and myth. This
vicious cycle serves to justify atrocities and legitimize discriminatory policies by both the
government and communal groups. As the violence spirals into insurgency and war, new
interests emerge vested in the security economy making political solutions very difficult.21
Due to the variety of dynamics that drive PSCs, any solution must be multi-faceted. Azar
understood that long-term development was critical to correct the underlying political, economic,
and security distortions that caused the PSC. As Azar himself argued, “peace is development in
the broadest sense of the term.”22
Additionally, a comprehensive response must involve
contextual change among external regional powers within the international community, structural
change at the state level with regard to political, economic, and security institutions, relational
change at the individual and communal group level through reconciliation work, and cultural
change at all levels.23
The difficulty of implementing such a solution is found in the peculiar
nature of PSCs. Whereas in most international relations theory traditional conflict is thought of
to be a fleeting anomaly interrupting the normal state of peace, in PSCs conflict is the status quo
while peace is the exception.24
It is without surprise that the international community tends to
shy away from intervening in conflicts of this nature that assume a great deal of diplomatic
complexity, peace-building risk, institutional state-building, mediation, and overall investment.
4. Collapse of the Ottoman Empire
Although the history that shaped Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Syria’s societies stretches back
centuries, it was the Ottoman Empire – the last of the arguably great Islamic caliphates that
19
Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall, 2011, pg. 87
20
Brown and Karim, 1995, pg. 1-2
21
22
Azar, 1990, pg. 91
23
24
Beaudoin, 2013, pg. 23-24

7
encompassed a multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural citizen base – that linked the three
with a unique system of government and administration, which worked to segregate society along
confessional lines. At the height of their power in the 16th
and 17th
centuries, the empire
controlled all of southeastern Europe, a significant portion of the Middle East, and almost all of
the north African Mediterranean coast (see Annex 1), which provided them geostrategic control
of the sea. Initially Ottoman expansion began as a series of conquests pressing into Christian
lands to check the power of their neighboring Byzantine Empire. These conquests were
consolidated with practical policies that allowed the defeated Christian princes to continue ruling
their states as vassals. In return they provided tribute and soldiers to strengthen the Ottoman
army and allow the sultan to continue expanding his territory. The Ottomans were finally halted
in the west by the Hapsburg Monarchy who used rebellious Serbs and Croats as a strategic buffer
against the southern Slavic tribes that had converted and aided the Ottomans’ advance of Islam.
In the east, they were checked by the Persian Empire at Baghdad, a city that was conquered and
reconquered as it changed hands over the centuries. The Ottoman sultans didn’t adopt the title of
Caliph until after conquering Egypt and its protectorate Hejaz (the region that contains Mecca
and Medina) in1517. The term “caliph” referred to the successor or steward of the prophet
Muhammad as the political-military ruler of the Muslim community and was primarily
responsible for the enforcement of law, defense and expansion of the realm of Islam, taxation and
financial disbursements, and general government services. While it was never specifically a
spiritual office, the position held great political and religious symbolism helping unite an
otherwise disparate and quarrelsome mixture of tribes and clans.25
In announcing themselves the
guardians of the hajj and holy Muslim sites, the Ottomans claimed primacy throughout the
Islamic world in a cunning attempt to legitimize themselves among all Arab Muslims in order to
deter future rebellion.26
Ultimately, the Islamic mantle it assumed was most likely a political
ploy to help rule its sprawling empire, which constituted of a diverse array of tribes – none of
which were individually strong enough to break away, but remained rebellious enough to cause
continuous challenges for their Ottoman overlords.
In a desire to restrain nationalistic sentiments and insurrection amongst their subjects, the
sultans decentralized their rule as much as possible and instead employed a complex system that
offered them both autonomy and the opportunity to ascend the ranks of political, economic, and
military power by embracing Ottoman culture. It based itself upon a caste system which created
a small ruling class called the askeri and a large subject class called the raya. The ruling class
was available to anyone who swore loyalty to the sultan; accepted Islam as their religion; who
knew and practiced the Ottoman Way – a complex system of court behavior and the use of the
Ottoman language; and served a specific function. The requirements to join the askeri ensured
that the future elites of a conquered land who wished to advance themselves and win a fortune
under their new rulers would adopt Ottoman culture and integrate themselves. However, the raya
had no such requirements. The askeri organized the empire into autonomous communities called
25
Esposito, 2004
26
Shaw and Çetinsaya, 2009

8
millets according to religion. The millet system offered a political organization and voice to each
segment of society. The largest millets were Orthodox Sunni, Greek Orthodox, Armenian
Gregorian, and Jewish, all of which were organized into hierarchies of locally elected officials
with vested authority. Small towns were generally composed of individual millets, while larger
cities set aside separate quarters for each religious group. The Ottomans created vilayets and
sanjaks (see Annex 2), or states and provinces, sensitive to corresponding millet divisions. The
askeri were officially charged with general law enforcement, tax collection, and expanding the
empire. Therefore, the bishops, imams, and rabbis were granted the freedom to administer all
other secular functions according to their own customs and traditions. The different millets only
came together to cooperate with each other in the celebration of large festivals or to battle fires,
plagues, or attacks, but otherwise lived completely independent of each other.27
From the initial religious divide at the imperial level, the millets were further segmented
at the local levels into ethno-linguistic, national groups, and esnafs or guilds and economic
subdivisions. This insular sense of community permitted the Ottomans to prevent civil unrest in
acquired lands while they focused their energies outward on further expansion by providing non-
Muslim and non-Turkish subjects the ability to nurture their communal identity and continue
practicing their social traditions, culture, language, religion, and even laws while living under the
decentralized rule and authority of the sultan. This worked adequately until the late 18th
century
when European technological and economic dominance and the emergence of a powerful Russian
Empire simultaneously stressed the Ottoman economic, tax, and land entitlement systems, and
embroiled them in a series of wars that greatly reduced the empire’s strength and position. The
Ottoman response was slow, but eventually resulted in a greater centralization of power that
recognized all people as equal citizens and allowed for the introduction of new tax levies and a
universal military conscription, which dismayed not only the askeri elite and military officers, but
undermined the millets as well. The millet system had served as an incubator of nationalism that
was slowly awakening to two perceived threats: the empire’s new reforms and a growing desire
among a powerful group of statesmen to create a single Ottoman national identity or
“Ottomanism.” This clash of wills unleashed separatist movements and nationalist uprisings
inspired by the ideals and philosophies of the French Revolution;28
the Ottoman Islamic
Caliphate gave way to a Turkish Empire in a pursuit to Europeanize itself.29
Despite the Arab nationalism fanning across Iraq and Syria during much of the 19th
century in opposition to increasing pressure to homogenize under Turkish culture and an
encroaching Zionism – the growing arrival of Jewish settlers to Palestine with the intent of
eventually forming a separate state – the majority of Arabs did not doubt the legitimacy of the
Ottoman government even as the Sultan reluctantly joined the Germans in WWI. While the Arab
revolt against the Ottoman presence in the Arabian Peninsula desired by the British and French
was aided by fanning the flames of dissent, it was only secured by tapping into the political
27
28
29
Murphy, 2008, pg. 6

9
ambition of Sharif Hussein ibn Ali - head of the Hashemite clan - with the promise of securing a
future state to rule. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Hussein declared himself the
king of Hejaz hoping to adopt the mantle of Caliph to unite the Arab world under his rule.30
Hussein’s sons Faysal and Abdallah laid claim to Syria and Iraq respectively. However Britain
and France had already secretly divided up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves in the
Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 (see Annex 3) and carved out a Jewish state in Palestine with the
Balfour Declaration. Hussein was driven from Hejaz by Abdulaziz ibn Saud who would go on to
unify Hejaz and Najd into Saudi Arabia. Faysal was quickly routed in the Battle of Maysalun
and driven from Syria by the French who were given a mandate to govern Aleppo, Damascus,
and Lebanon by the League of Nations. He was instead given the former Ottoman territory of
Mesopotamia under British control, which was renamed Iraq, to rule. A foreigner, his dynasty
endured less than three generations when his grandson was overthrown and executed in the 14
July Revolution that led to the Baathist rise to power. His brother Abdallah established the only
enduring Hashemite Kingdom in Transjordan. Martin Kramer and many western contemporary
news outlets argue that the enduring legacy of these secret agreements amongst the European
imperial powers was the creation of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine, new states
whose borders were imagined along the lines of European maneuvers for geostrategic power,
access to oil, and did not correspond to distinct political or national communities.31
However, a
new school of thought is arising that rejects the artificiality of these states. Reidar Visser argues
that modern day Iraq and Syria were clearly built upon the antecedent structuring of the Ottomans
that demonstrated Iraqi administrative unity of the Basra, Mosul, and Baghdad vilayets with the
city of Baghdad acting as a capital and the Syrian province consolidated by the city of Damascus.
According to his view, the sin of Sykes-Picot had nothing to do with the creation of artificial
borders that incited sectarian passions, but rather revolved around the power grab of British and
French interests in the strategic Mediterranean coasts of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria and the
known oilfields of Iraq.32
The truth probably lies somewhere between these two views. While
the states are not inventions, the borders do not respect tribal identities and their associated
confederations and enmities; arguably this was the original purpose of European powers in order
to advantage themselves of strategic resources or geography of each state.
5. Autocratic Control and Temporary Stabilization
The attempt to impose a nation-state construct based upon the Westphalian system
throughout the former Ottoman Empire without accounting for the history of independence that
its underlying tribal society had cultivated meant that it could only be held together by firm,
authoritarian regimes. The Ottomans were first to attempt political and military reforms that
sought to secularize and unify their subjects in European fashion. The millet system, which had
recognized each denomination as a separate legal entity with its own particular rights and
30
Danforth, 2014
31
Kramer, 1993, pg. 176-179
32
Visser, 2009

10
privileges regardless of the territorial location of its constituents, had succeeded because it was
suited to family-based communities that fit neatly in the underlying societal models of the South
Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and North African peoples that the Ottomans conquered, of
which families formed clans that then joined together to form larger tribes and possibly nations.
While these tribes and nations were numerous and diverse, they segmented themselves within
self-contained communities, often living side by side with little actual interaction, which the
millets reinforced. By contrast, the homogeneous nation-state construct that Western Europe
eventually imposed was a natural product of their own specific communal evolution; for centuries
various nations had identified and organized themselves along linguistic, cultural, and religious
lines that eventually emphasized the individual as the primary social component and rights
holder. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Europeans redrew the Middle East in their
image. Upon their departure, power vacuums helped ignite nationalistic movements that were
generally quelled by military leaders and dictators.33
In the Balkans, the “Eastern Question,”
which considered the peninsula’s uncertain future, was left largely unanswered as France, Russia,
Austria, and the Ottoman Empire used the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims as pawns in their political
game. During this time, various ethnic groups rose and fell from power until a Communist
regime pacified the region by force and attempted to unify the tribes into a single country. In
each case nationalistic forces lingered and simmered below the surface, waiting to be released.34
a. Yugoslavia
Centuries of feudal rule in the Balkans produced deep divides between the cosmopolitan
urban centers - where Ottoman reach was more visible and local elites reaped political and
economic rewards for obedience - and the trodden peasant classes throughout the rural areas that
relied on their own social organizations within tight-knit communities for support and protection,
and embraced an insular and stubborn nationalism. The Ottomans inadvertently reinforced this
communal identity through tax rules that strengthened the Serb zadruga or joint family. This
system of clans enjoyed lower taxes, labor power, and the ability to form katuns or pastoral
communities that “promoted social exclusiveness, minimum social interaction, and the
perpetuation of old social forms.”35
The haphazard creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes, established in 1918 upon the ruins of the Habsburg monarchy, was wildly
optimistic in its intent to create a unified country among disparate groups accustomed to self-
reliance. The kingdom was founded under the assumption that these tribes were different in
name only since they shared the same language, food, lifestyle, culture, and even a common
ancestry.36
Following his ascension to the throne, King Aleksander attempted to implement a
democracy and form a functioning government among various political factions, but rising ethnic
33
Barbieri, 2013
34
Meriage, 1978
35
Vucinich, 1962
36
Hodson, Sekulic, and Massey, 1994, pg. 1541

11
violence and growing nationalistic discourse prompted him to suspend the constitution and
institute an authoritarian dictatorship in 1929 that lasted until his assassination in 1934.37
During this period, Yugoslavia arguably became a “Greater Serbia” in which other ethnic
groups failed to attain even minimal rights in the eyes of the state. The idea of a unified
Yugoslavia was quickly discredited especially among Croats who went underground and formed
the ultra-nationalist Ustasha, which dreamed of their own “Greater Croatia.” Subsequent Serbian
regimes that followed King Aleksander were equally severe, inspired by the example of German
and Italian fascism of the time. In 1941 Yugoslavia was attacked and occupied by Axis powers
who installed the Ustasha movement into power to act as their proxy. This unlikely alliance was
made possible by the overwhelming hatred that the Croatians felt toward their own Serbian-
dominated state, who they considered had humiliated them by stripping them of rights and any
sense of equality, which dwarfed any loathing the Ustasha felt toward their foreign occupiers.38
The pro-Nazi Ustasha army fought viciously against the resistance of the Serbian nationalist
Chetniks and Partisans throughout Bosnia while simultaneously implementing an ethnic
cleansing program that killed 250,000 Serb men, women, and children. Following the war,
Serbian Partisans executed 100,000 captive Croatian soldiers in retribution.39
The resurrection of the idea of a unified Yugoslavia following WWII required a delicate
balance to mitigate interethnic tensions and violence. With concrete evidence that trying to force
a Yugoslav identity upon the various nations would fail, the state was deliberately organized into
a federation of six republics and two autonomous provinces (see Annex 4). This loosely
connected structure offered a great deal of autonomy to local governments, and tantalized non-
Serb minorities with the possibility of a quick and easy secession into ready-made sub-states.
However, the instability of Yugoslavia’s organizational structure was shored up by the absolute
domination of the Communist party and Josip Broz Tito’s charismatic and cultish leadership, as
well as through traditional military force and the use of the secret police – favorites among
authoritarian regimes. The central political feature of this system was an annual competition
among the republics and provinces over how the federal purse would be partitioned and shared.
The process became a bitter struggle to wrest tax funds from the central government and
gradually corrupted the Communist party that sought to remain impartial and hold the country
together. Despite Tito’s best efforts, the communists themselves began to become nationalized
according to the ethnic groups they represented.40
Tito recognized the power of mythologizing history and worked tirelessly to suppress any
symbolic reminder or image of the atrocities, which were responsible for over a million deaths,
committed during WWII by Croats and Bosniaks41
against the Serbs to preserve interethnic peace
during his 40 year rule. His regime utilized the vast array of instruments within the Communist
37
Banac, 1992
38
Lendvai and Parcell, 1991
39
Wilson, 2005, pg. 929
40
41
The term Bosniaks is used to specify Sunni Muslim Bosnians, whereas a Bosnian is the more inclusive term to
describe a Serb, Croat, or Muslim living in Bosnia.

12
party’s arsenal to obscure the ethnic identities of victims and perpetrators, to contain the
traditional cultural outlets of art and theatre, to whitewash the history taught in schools, to control
the media, and to restrict the exhumation of mass graves or erection of memorials in an effort to
reconstruct the country into a federation of republics bound together in a spirit of “brotherhood
and unity.” Any talk of nationalism, economic inequality between ethnic groups, or discussion of
secession resulted in the purge of local leadership and their imprisonment. However, survivors of
the massacres who were scattered throughout the villages across Yugoslavia would never forget.
Subsequent Serbian and Croatian leaders simply had to employ the opposite methodology to
quickly inflame nationalistic passions taking advantage of economic woes and the absence of a
competing ideology following the collapse of Communism. By the mid-1980s, Serbian
nationalists found their champion – Slobodan Milosevic.42
b. Iraq and Syria
After Faysal was driven from Syria, France had only to contend with a nascent, but
growing pan-Arab nationalism in order to pursue its geopolitical interests that lay in the country’s
advantageous position in the eastern Mediterranean. Through Syria, France could guarantee both
a continuous supply of cheap cotton and silk as well as stem the flow of Arab nationalism that
threatened to infect the rest of her North African empire. The European imperial power used its
centuries old relationship with the Maronite Christians in modern day Lebanon and Syria to
achieve this. It quietly undermined Ottoman rule to assert French interests prior to WWI.
Through the use of its mandate from the League of Nations, France wielded control over Syria by
issuing a currency based on the franc, militarily occupying the railway connecting Syria’s largest
cities, and most importantly weakening Arab nationalism by segmenting the region with new
states. The French gave the Maronites not only their traditional mountainous region as a state,
but the predominately Muslim coastal cities of Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Beirut, and Beqaa Valley as
well. This left France’s minority clients – the Maronites – advantaged over the Sunnis, Druze,
and minority Shias. The Maronites viewed Lebanon as their Christian homeland even though
they constituted only 30% of the French invention. The Sunnis instead looked to the wider Arab
world for their source of identity. France deftly manipulated Syria in a similar manner; they
courted potential Francophile minorities in order to counter the threat of Arab nationalism. The
French created two states - Aleppo and Damascus – and two special administrative regimes
selected according to religion for the Druze and Alawite populations. While nationalist sentiment
forced the French to finally unify Aleppo and Damascus into a single state, they insulated and
isolated the Druze and Alawites as much as they could, hoping to retain a foothold in the region.
In the end the Druze and Alawites were not viable as national entities without French support and
protection and eventually had to be reincorporated into a larger Syrian state by the end of its
mandate in 1946. The lasting legacy of these political divisions based upon region and religion
was to reinforce minority consciousness, communal segregation, and tribal differences.43
42
Deniche, 1994
43
Fildis, 2011

13
Meanwhile, Britain – who administered Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Transjordan, Iran, and
parts of the Arabian Peninsula – became the focus of discontented Arab nationalists who felt
betrayed and exploited. Believing Faysal had learned his lesson at the hands of the French and
could now be trusted to act judiciously, the British positioned him as the King of Iraq. A series
of rebellions led by the Iraqi peasant class were suppressed until finally, following the revolt of
1920, the British conspired with King Faysal and the Iraqi army to distribute communal lands to
the tribal sheikhs44
for their private estates. Tribal leaders were suddenly elevated into positions
of economic power and given control over the agricultural market. Thus the peasant class was
reduced to serfs and the British could focus on procuring oil through lucrative deals delivered by
their client states. This fragile stability and balance of interests was marked by a series of
military coups from 1938 through the ‘50s that rotated power brokers but left the fundamental
dynamics unchanged. Each successive usurper maintained the status quo by protecting the
underlying ruling class as well as Western oil and business contracts. During this time a young
middle class began to emerge; educated and frustrated by political and economic exclusion, they
gave rise to nationalist parties across the political spectrum. On the left, communists attempted to
court the peasants with nationalistic overtures and on the right the Baath party rode the wave of
the discontented urban middle class and their dream of a pan-Arab unification that could reunite
an artificially separated people by rupturing the borders of Sykes-Picot.45
The Baath party, in its inception, had represented a pan-Arabist movement in Syria and
Iraq that sought to achieve freedom from foreign control as well as the unity of all Arabs in a
single state. Its founders, Michel ‘Aflaq an Orthodox Christian and Salah al-Din Bitar a Sunni
Muslim, joined with Zaki Arsuzi and Dr. Wahib al-Ghanim, both Alawite Shia Muslims, who
helped recruit large numbers of students to their cause;46
this diverse array of leadership from
different religious denominations is indicative of the lack of sectarian divide that existed in Iraq
and Syria until the 1970s. Instead its members primarily identified themselves along social class
divisions. However, it should be noted that by its very pan-Arabist nature, Baath ideology
always contained within it a racist coloring against Kurds and other non-Arabs.47
It was in Egypt
that Gamal Abdel Nasser finally achieved the Baathist dream in 1954 by upending the country’s
political elites and rose to power along a wave of Arab nationalism sending ripples of excitement
through the Arab world, which inspired new opposition groups in other countries to mobilize.
The charismatic leader represented all their aspirations and had achieved success in a modern and
populous country with a strong and enviable economy. His triumph motivated the Syrian
44
Sheikh is a term used to describe an elder, leader, Islamic scholar, or revered person of an Arab tribe. Within the
context of this work, it will be used exclusively to denote a secular, non-state leader of a defined communal group.
Any referenced sheikhs may also have religious positions, but if such a role is critical to the analysis it will be
mentioned separately.
45
Galvani, 1972
46
Devlin, 1991
47
Ramadani, 2014

14
regional command of the Baath party to suggest a union of their country with Egypt, which
would be known as the United Arab Republic (UAR).48
In this sea of turbulent change, Iraqi army officers executed a coup d’état in 1958, known
as the 14 July Revolution, that quickly overthrew the monarchy and replaced it with a republic;
Iraq now faced an identity crisis. The Party leadership wanted to follow Syria’s example and join
with Egypt under the recognized leadership of President Nasser and thus fully break from the
control that the West retained over the region, but Iraq’s new leader, General Qassem, allied
himself with the Communists and Kurds - both of whom feared what the implications of a
totalitarian regime like Nasser’s would mean for their own democratic aspirations. The
unfortunate truth of the 14 July Revolution was that it left an existential question unanswered:
Should Iraq join Egypt and Syria to break free of a Western designed state complete with the
political infrastructure designed to exploit them? Or accept the confines of the current situation
and instead focus on economic development and industrialization? These internal disputes and
power struggles gradually returned and culminated in yet another coup in 1963 bringing a new
and different Baath party to power.49
The dream of Arab nationalism eventually broke as its greatest experiment fell apart, and
with it, the Baath party – its greatest advocate – changed irrevocably. The Syrian Baathists were
not politically prepared for the changes that Nasser demanded and lost nearly every election in
their own country. In effect, Nasser outmaneuvered his more pedestrian Syrian counterparts and
was able to supplant their ruling class with his underlings to effectively run the country from
Cairo. This humiliating defeat was narrowly prevented by the Syrian army, who reclaimed
Syrian independence. The naïve idealism of pan-Arabism faded away as the original Baath
leadership left the party to form weak pro-Nasserist groups. A new generation of authoritarian
military officers began to occupy leadership posts within the Baath party replacing the social
idealists and, having grudgingly accepted the borders imposed upon them by Britain and France,
limited their ideology to the confines of their own country. Following the Syrian secession from
the UAR – the first true experiment in Arab unity – the party rapidly morphed into an inward
facing authoritarian organization that focused on consolidating power for its own survival.50
Gradually the Syrian Baath regional branch broke with its overarching national command
and, after an internal power struggle that lasted years, Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad seized
power in a bloodless coup in 1970. Al-Assad was a member of the Alawite Shias, which was and
continues to be a small minority within Syria. At the time, they were an impoverished rural hill
tribe excluded from opportunity and power, not because of their religion, but because of their
socio-economic status. One of the few promising routes of self-advancement open to bright
Alawite boys was through the military academy, which allowed the Alawites to occupy a
disproportionate amount of the country’s military and security posts. It was, in fact, the same
path al-Assad traveled to eventually become the Defense Minister. Once in power, Assad
48
Devlin, 1991
49
Galvani, 1972
50
Devlin, 1991

15
immediately placed “trusted men – brothers, cousins, clansmen in the first instance – for sensitive
posts”51
and began to redistribute resources to the neglected hill country of his birth.52
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Baath regional command, annoyed by Gen. Qassem’s cooperation
with the communist movement, first attempted to assassinate him in 1959, then, failing that, took
power by force in a bloody coup in 1963 and initiated a purge of leftist elements. Aflaq and his
followers, in exile from the regionalists in Syria, supported Ahmad Hasan Bakr and Saddam
Hussein’s claims to rule Iraq, offering them immediate legitimacy in the eyes of the Arab world,
in return for haven and their continued nominal leadership of the Baathist party. But true power
resided with the two men from Tikrit, who quickly populated positions of power with their Tikriti
kinsmen. Hussein quietly continued this process and emplaced ruthless cronies loyal to him in all
key positions of the security services, promoted his supporters, and eliminated his rivals. When
he was prepared, he placed Bakr under house arrest and assumed leadership of the country. He
quickly and conveniently discovered a “plot” against him and executed dozens of his colleagues
that still held positions of power.53
The leadership of both countries used their respective Baath parties, which were ironically
at political and ideological odds with each other, to assert control over their people. Through the
1980s and 90s, millions were forced to join the party to gain access to jobs, university education,
or to prove their loyalty and avoid persecution by security forces. Both leaders shared state
resources and power with their support bases, but ruthlessly cracked down on dissent by previous
elite groups they had supplanted. In Syria, the Alawites battled Islamist Sunni Muslims that
possessed a base of support much larger than their own, which culminated in a vicious massacre
in Hama in 1982. In Iraq, Hussein went even further and institutionalized violence and torture to
separate Iraqis from their traditional societal groups and force them to into complete reliance
upon the state. The Baath party was used in both countries to indoctrinate the population and
produce state propaganda.54
The creation of police states in Syria and Iraq allowed their leaders
to temporarily control and seemingly dilute nationalistic fervor and expressions of dissent, while
simultaneously making tribal leaders dependent upon the state – a system that ultimately helped
cement sectarian identities through competition.
6. Rise of Sectarianism and Balkanization
a. Communal Content
Yugoslavia became the poster child of violent, interethnic sectarianism during the 1990s,
even going to so far as to lend the verb “to balkanize” or “to break up (as a region or group) into
smaller and often hostile units”55
to the English language. The Yugoslav experiment sought the
creation of “one country, with two scripts, three languages, four religions, five nationalities, and
51
Devlin, 1991, pg. 1404
52
Devlin, 1991
53
Devlin, 1991
54
Devlin, 1991
55
To Balkanize, 2015

16
six republics;”56
to say such a goal was ambitious was an understatement. However, contrary to
the popularized explanation, longstanding ethnic hatreds or cultural differences did not suddenly
boil over into genocidal war. The various nations of Yugoslavia had a long history of relatively
peaceful coexistence with a few periods of intermittent violence or ethnic and religious strife.
Pan-Slavism, also known as the Illyrian Movement, even enjoyed a brief period of popularity
during the 18th
and 19th
centuries and inspired the name Yugoslavia (literally land of the southern
Slavs), but was ultimately unable to overcome tribal ties and the draw of sectarian communities
with parochial interests to create an integrated state with a singular Yugoslav identity.57
Genetically and linguistically there is little significant difference between the three largest
nations of the former Yugoslavia: the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. While there exist minor
dialectical differences between them, each is intelligible to the other; and all are Slavic people.
The ethnic distinction among Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks is primarily one of religion. Serbs are
predominately Eastern Orthodox Christians with ties to Russia; Croats are mostly Roman
Catholic and claim closer affinity with Europe; whereas Bosniaks and Albanians are primarily
Sunni Muslims and are generally viewed as a product of the Ottoman era.58
It is important to
note that religious doctrinal differences by themselves did not engender interethnic violence, but
rather served as the distinctive communal boundaries that created discrete political and social-
national entities. Each national group created historical ethnic narratives critical to their self-
identity that were shaped and interpreted over the centuries through wars, occupations,
liberations, as well as more normalized competition for resources that formed the lens through
which they viewed their role throughout history.
The communal identity of each of these nations, particularly in relation to how they
viewed others, developed during imperialistic adventures that offered various pacts to one group
or another in their pursuit to pacify the region. Bosniaks and Albanians saw their fortunes rise
with the Ottoman Empire, Croats took power with the aid of Nazi Germany, and the Serbs
dominated the region during the formation of the first Yugoslavia and advanced again to control
the Communist apparatus of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Each reversal of power came at the expense of
other groups and helped create national memories that interpreted history differently to form an
antagonistic culture between the nations, which Tito inadvertently reinforced and Milosevic
inflamed. These communal memories formed an ethnic pride that affected not only the ethnic
majorities of each republic, but their brethren that made up a minority in other republics as well.59
As the relative majority within Yugoslavia, the Serbs were more likely to readily accept
and defend the state from perceived threats. Their nationalism can be partly viewed as a reaction
to the secessionist movements of other national groups, which they condemned as selfish and
ungrateful.60
Serbs historically saw themselves as liberators, who too often paid a
disproportionate price in blood only to be then betrayed by the Croats, Bosniaks, or some other
56
Somerville, 1965
57
Frankel, 1955
58
Vujacic, 1996
59
Vujacic, 1996
60
Vujacic, 1996

17
minority. Their zadruga clan system supported this perceived need to protect the Serb nation and
state from destabilizing threats by instilling values of masculinity, discipline, obedience, and duty
in their youth, which created a fertile ground for nationalistic pride to propagate. Serbian
nationalists were a volatile threat due to their widespread diaspora constituting significant
minorities throughout Yugoslavia’s republics and provinces. Tito recognized this inherent
danger and sought to limit its influence by separating the Eastern Orthodox Church from
education, expanding women’s rights and their entrance into the workplace, increasing literacy,
and encouraging urbanization.61
He hoped to disintegrate ethnic divisions by removing the
dynamics that encouraged them.
Despite Tito’s best efforts and hopes, Yugoslavia failed to properly integrate its diverse
ethnic groups under a “common identity as citizens of the state” and instead the Communist
parties of the various republics found themselves becoming nationalized and representing the
interests of their particular nations.62
Official censuses demonstrated the failure of state
integration throughout the decades of Communist rule. By 1981, only 1.2 million people out of a
total population of 22.4 million described themselves as Yugoslavs. Those who identified as
Yugoslavs were generally a product of mixed marriages between Croats and Serbs or Slovenes
and Macedonians. Only Vojvodina and Bosnia, which were the most heterogeneous regions of
Yugoslavia with regard to nationalities, had marginally higher than average proportions of people
that identified as Yugoslavs (see Annex 5).63
While urbanization and membership to the
Communist party were significant determinants of people identifying themselves as Yugoslavs
early on, as politics became nationalized politicians began to mirror these divisions. The local
Communist republican branches – the bulwark upon which Tito hoped would unify the various
nations into a common people – ultimately succumbed and became the principal vehicle in which
the national struggles were waged on the political front as individual politicians took up the
banner of their respective nations in order to rise in power and stature.64
In 1990, this divisive
trend rumbled louder following the collapse of Communism, when, in their first free elections,
each republic voted in nationalistic leaders pandering identical messages to their respective
constituents: Serbia for Serbs, Croatia for Croats, Slovenia for Slovenes, and Macedonia for
Macedonians.65
While Yugoslavia was constructed upon the belief of ethnic autonomy, the Baath parties
of Iraq and Syria purposely undermined a national integration and instead encouraged tribal
affiliation and differences. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s regime relied upon the support of Sunni
Arabs who constituted less than 25% of the overall population.66
While the ruling elite Alawites
in Syria made up approximately 12% of the population.67
Unlike Yugoslavia’s Serbs who
61
Somerville, 1965
62
Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994
63
64
Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994, pg. 88
65
Hayden, 1996
66
Moaddel, Tessler, and Inglehart, 2009
67
Pipes, 1989

18
constituted a majority, both Iraq and Syria saw a minority ethnic group rise to power and
implement draconian measures to repress their respective majority populations. Although it
could feasibly be argued that the Communist party in Yugoslavia acted as a controlling minority
group, which the Serbs viewed as an oppressive regime. In the case of Iraq and Syria, interethnic
violence stemmed from violent Baathist oppression, which dramatically deepened ethnic
divisions as each regime used crony capitalism to reward allies while disenfranchising rivals.
This system perversely paralleled the one used by imperial European powers that the Baathists
had originally been founded to resist. Under all of this laid the remnants of the Ottoman millet
system in the form of segregated neighborhoods and cities, which helped perpetuate sectarian
divides that allowed collusion with certain ethnic groups at the expense of others.
Today, Sunni and Shia Arabs are portrayed in Western media as vicious enemies that
fought each other since time immemorial, making any peace in the Middle East an intractable
problem. This wasn’t always true. Sunnis and Shias lived together peacefully for centuries,
frequently intermarrying. Though they endured episodes of conflict throughout history, their
animosity only recently became engrained. Initially, Sunni Arabs enjoyed a monopoly of
powerful states following WWI and WWII: Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to
name a few. They controlled geostrategic territories and global energy reserves, constructed
powerful economies and respected militaries, and by caring for the Hejaz adopted a position of
religious and political leadership for the ummah or Muslim nation. During this time, Shias were
mostly ignored by Sunni rulers or persecuted by more orthodox clerics like the Wahhabis, who
have gone so far as to call for their extermination. Wahhabism, in particular, due to their
disproportionate power and funding from the Saudi royal family, has furthered sectarianism with
their vitriolic fatwas and moral, if not financial, support of Sunni terrorist groups like Al-Queda
and the Taliban. This Sunni monopoly was broken by the Iranian Revolution, which brought to
power a Shia theocracy that openly called for a coup in Saudi Arabia in hopes of exporting their
particular brand of Islamic jurisprudence and government.68
Iran championed the cause of Shias
everywhere, hoping to unite them and in doing so extend Persian power into the Arab world. As
a minority in the region, Shias viewed themselves as victims since their inception with the
assassination of Husayn, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson and arguable successor. Since then,
they have interpreted every calamity from colonialism and the creation of Israel to economic
sanctions and political isolation as a form of Shia persecution. In response to the revolution, the
Saudi royal family accelerated the spread of Wahhabism through the creation and funding of
international charities, madrasas, and mosques that propagate a puritanical Salafist Sunni strain
of Islam.69
The subsequent Saudi and Iranian regional tug of war and proxy conflicts have since
engendered a Sunni-Shia struggle that has entrenched sectarian divisions.
Aside from religious communities, Iraq, Syria, and most Arab countries possess a pre-
Islamic tribal society that can sometimes support or challenge state legal, education, and social
systems, often creating a somewhat pluralistic authority structure. Tribal ties can transcend
68
Jones, 2005
69
McMahon et al., 2014

19
religion and ethnicity, and include combinations of Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish members in some
cases. They play an important role in the social life of approximately 75% of Iraqis70
and 30% of
Syrians71
and historically maintained a dynamic relationship with state authorities as particular
tribal leaders or sheikhs vied for power or sought to safeguard the interests of their people. Often
these tribes formed the basis of political parties in the provinces that they dominated when they
were permitted to participate. Tribal institutions surged to replace weakened state institutions
within Iraq and Syria that became decimated by war in order to maintain order. In places and
times of weak central authority, tribal sheikhs managed conflicts and resources for their
communities, becoming a mini-state without territorial boundaries. However, tribes are not
always internally unified and frequently suffer power struggles between emerging elites. Rapidly
changing external alliances that vary between governments, foreign occupiers, other tribes, and
jihadist groups can also be disruptive and unpredictable. This fluidity is primarily a defense
mechanism that emerged after enduring decades of Baathist and jihadist attacks that sought to
loosen tribal holds over the population.72
Internationally, since most tribal bloodlines can trace
their heritage to the initial seventh century conquests of Muslim expansion, certain Sunni tribes in
Iraq and Syria still maintain ties with kinsmen in powerful Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
and Kuwait, who they can appeal to for financial, military, and political aid.73
Despite its proximity with Iran and its own substantial Shia population, Iraq enjoyed a
relatively pluralistic civil society for the better part of the 20th
century; ethnic and religious
differences only recently became divisive. At one time hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Jews
constituted the country’s burgeoning middle class. The Jewish people, in numbers
disproportionate to their population size, occupied government offices and controlled a variety of
businesses and financial institutions until the creation of Israel in 1948, which resulted in their
persecution and forced migration. General Qassem recognized the damage done to Iraq by the
flight of its Jewish citizens. In fact, his uneasy alliance with communists was in part a
consequence of his distrust of nationalism and a desire to unify Sunnis, Shias, Jews, and Kurds in
a common secular ideology. However, the 1968 Baath coup and subsequent violence and
repression ultimately destroyed what little civil society remained. The Shia Arabs, who had
occupied the vacated Jewish posts to constitute a new middle class, were later accused by
Saddam Hussein as being Iranian loyalists during the Iran-Iraq War and were expelled. In a
matter of decades, Iraq lost its middle class twice and saw its civil society decimated. The
situation continued to deteriorate further as the Baath party compensated for its lack of popular
support throughout Iraq by relying on a narrow base of loyal Sunni clans in order to control the
larger Shia population. These sectarian divides, encouraged by the Hussein regime, increased
due to destabilizing external factors like the Iran-Iraq War, two wars with the US, and 13 years of
UN sanctions that further strained living conditions.74
70
Hassan, 2007
71
Al-Aved, 2015
72
Al-Aved, 2015
73
Hassan, 2012
74
Zubaida, 2005

20
Despite modern Iraqi divisions having formed along ethnic and religious lines, each
group’s decisions and actions revolve primarily around political, economic, and survival
considerations. Sunnis were disproportionately rewarded under Saddam Hussein’s
patrimonialistic regime and enjoyed a great number of benefits that included wealth, business and
education opportunities, as well as access to state resources. Following the American invasion of
2003, they began to see their communal survival and interests threatened by a Shia dominated
government and rising Kurdish political influence, which had previously been violently
suppressed by the Sunni state. Sunnis responded by falling back into their communal support
structures, refusing to participate in a political process that they viewed as disadvantageous, and
supporting a violent insurgency against American armed forces and the new Iraqi Shia
government.75
A common Sunni sense of impending doom also explained why certain tribes
offered the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a vicious Salafi jihadist organization that as of
2015 claimed control of a geographical area encompassing several million people between the
states of Iraq and Syria, support as the only political option available to them that might
counterbalance Shia domination and Kurdish expansionism when they first emerged. Although
Salafists derive from a fringe Sunni school of Islam, the tentative alliance between them was
made with political considerations in mind as most Iraqi Sunnis view Salafi jihadism as a radical
deviation from the teachings of the Koran.76
Religious differences have also been often wrongly cited by the media as motives for
Syria’s current civil war. While often depicted as a sect of Shia Islam and as such an Iranian
proxy, the Alawites of Syria are largely considered heretics by Sunnis and 1,000 year old
estranged cousins by Shias.77
For the most part, Alawites are secular, having historically
dissimulated themselves in order to hide their identities and adopting the practices of those in
power in order to avoid persecution. During the Ottoman era they practiced Sunnism; when Pan-
Arabism and Nasser were popular, they were fervent Arabs; and when France ruled, they adopted
Christian customs and shaped themselves as Francophiles. During the 19th
and early 20th
centuries they suffered discrimination, abuse, poverty, and oppression at the hands of richer,
urban Sunnis who had enjoyed the benefits of cooperating with the Ottomans. The Alawites
instead embraced the French following WWI and vehemently rebelled against Prince Faysal with
French arms in 1919 for fear of further subjugation under Sunni domination. Once granted
autonomy in their Latakia governorate homeland, the Alawites supported their French sponsors
by participating in elections and quietly infiltrated police, military, and intelligence posts as their
Sunni counterparts demonstrated against and boycotted French-sponsored elections. Following
France’s departure from the region, the irritated Sunni majority ousted the Alawites from political
offices and reincorporated the Latakia governorate into the greater state of Syria. A large number
of Alawites remained and continued entering the military following Syrian independence because
it was an institution that the Sunni nationalists looked upon with disdain as an imperialist tool for
75
Moaddel, Tessler, and Inglehart, 2009
76
Weiss and Hassan, 2015
77
Heneghan, 2011

21
dull and lazy minorities. Instead they controlled the military by occupying a small number of the
top level positions, which the Sunnis then used to try and initiate a series of coups between 1949
and 1963. As Sunni Generals and regimes fought amongst themselves and suffered a number of
purges, the Alawites quietly stepped up to fill empty positions and helped fellow tribesmen up the
ranks until they outnumbered all other ethnic groups in the military 5-to-1.78
Though excluded from state political institutions and power, Alawites flocked to the
nascent Baath party, which became a secular vehicle for ethnic minorities to work together. Like
minorities of any ethnically conflicted state, the Baath party’s tenets of secularism and socialism
appealed to many. Zaki Arsuzi, a Baathist founder, filled the party ranks with many of his
Alawite kinsmen, who in turn brought their own families into the fold. Hafez al-Assad ultimately
emerged as the leader of Syria by virtue of his position as Defense Minister and rode three
successive waves: the Baath coup of March 1963, which removed the Sunnis from government;
the Alawite coup of February 1966, which replaced the socialists of the Baath party with Alawite
military officers, and the Assad Coup of November 1970, in which al-Assad finally emerged as
the victor against another Alawite rival. The Baath coup was triggered once Sunni purges began
targeting the rising minorities. As a community, the Alawites decided to overthrow the
government. They quickly purged rival officers from the other religious groups: the Sunnis,
Druze, and Ismailis.79
A history of persecution had forced the smaller Alawite community to rely
upon each other to survive. This tight knit culture allowed Hafez al-Assad and his family to
come to power over a much larger but disjointed Sunni majority, which preferred to compete
among themselves for power rather than cooperate. The tiny Alawite minority that became the
state elites needed support to remain in power and struck a bargain with powerful Syrian Sunni
businessmen to privatize state firms and liberalize the economy so as to further enrich them in
return for their political support.80
b. Government and States Roles
For the majority of the 20th
century, the various leaders of Yugoslavia recognized that the
creation of a unified multicultural Yugoslavia was not immediately feasible due to strong
nationalist sentiments and instead settled on a concept of federalism. Purportedly learning from
the mistakes of the first Yugoslavia in which oppressive Serbian rule sought to create a unified
state until it was shattered in the face of German aggression during WWII, the new federation
was built upon the principle of nationality and the right of self-determination. This allayed
minority fears that Serbs or Croats would hijack the state and create a Great Serbia or Croatia.
The Communist party thus sought to present itself as a balance and guarantor of national and
minority rights. This necessarily meant that resources, important institutions to include the
Yugoslav National Army (JNA), and decision-making powers had to be concentrated at the
federal level to enforce a system of equality upon the periphery republics. This, in turn, meant
78
Pipes, 1989
79
Pipes, 1989
80
King, 2007

22
that the republics had little incentive to coordinate, cooperate, or integrate and instead began to
compete among themselves for state resources.81
Tito believed that the principal conflict between attempting to merge Croats and Serbs
into a unified state prior to WWII could be avoided by offering an egalitarian federal system for
all nations regardless of geographic size or population.82
In an attempt to weaken the hold of
nationalistic energies, the Communists were careful to recognize the rights of each group, balance
each’s relative power and influence, and remain above the fray of nationalist concerns as an
example of a greater Yugoslav citizenry. This led to Macedonians and Bosniaks receiving
nationhood recognition for the first time ever in a political maneuver to undercut and limit
Serbian dominance, which in turn fed Serbian paranoia. All recognized nationalist movements
were granted partial autonomy in the formation of eight localized Communist parties that held a
monopoly of power over their individual territories. Tito became the linchpin that held
everything together. Half Croat and half Slovene, he purged the republican Communist parties
and reined in each group whenever nationalist sentiment became too strong.83
While Communist rule by itself did not create or necessarily inflame nationalistic fervor
among the different ethnicities and religions of Yugoslavia, it did serve to create the political
infrastructure and economic incentives that spawned a fierce competition for resources and
power. Initially, Yugoslavia was a federation in name only. The Communist party created the
structural foundation of federalism, but failed to complement it with true federal processes based
upon a mutual partnership between the republics that allowed for cooperation, accommodation,
and bargaining on issues and programs. Instead they centralized all decision-making powers at
the federal level making each republic dependent upon the party. Power was only decentralized
following the reforms of 1974, which led to a new constitution that caused grave worry among
the Serbs, who believed Tito was acquiescing to the demands of the 1971 Croatian Spring
political movement. However, without a system of federal process, Yugoslavia was never able to
attain a democratic institution or forum capable of conflict management between the various
nations.84
Instead it constantly had to be imposed upon them from above.
The system quickly fell apart when its strong authoritarian center gave way and divisive
republics with no history of federal processes were suddenly faced with crumbling economic
conditions. The distinctive communal identities, traditions, and histories of these disparate
national groups became the fuel with which nationalistic leaders could pervert and twist historical
narratives of victimization to further mobilize the component citizenry in order to pursue
individual national interests. Tito originally believed that he could free the republics from their
dependency on these national affiliations with time. He reasoned that as industrialization moved
Yugoslavia from an agricultural economy and encouraged urbanization, the people would benefit
from modernization and improved education and literacy. The citizens of Yugoslavia could then
be guided by the Communist party to greater political participation and economic prosperity. He
81
Frankel, 1955
82
Hodson, Sekulic, and Massey, 1994
83
Sekulic, Massey, Hodson, 1994
84
Dorff, 1994

23
essentially gambled that a short term increase in nationalism would dissipate over the long term
on a wave of social advancement that could lead to national integration. However, this was never
to be, the stability of the entire system depended upon his judgment to purge republican
leadership whenever one nation began to dominate another and otherwise quell nationalist
sentiments when they grew too militant. Ultimately his death coincided with a severe economic
crisis during the 1970s and 80s that collapsed standards of living by a quarter, drove inflation to
more than 2,500% in 1989,85
erased countless jobs, and served as a catalyst for the disintegration
of the state when ambitious politicians linked local economic hardships with national differences
and skewed historical narratives. The collapse of Communism and the inability to replace Tito
with a similarly charismatic and powerful leader removed the only support underpinning the
young state from pulling itself apart.86
These particular conditions: a peculiar dependency upon
authoritarianism for stability, a notable absence of governmental structures or processes for
resolving conflicts, a competitive spirit that was cultivated between ethnic groups, which
prevented a culture of political accommodation, and the sudden removal of the system’s strong
center would be seen again in the Middle East with similar disastrous results.
The animosities and interethnic conflict that grew between Sunnis, Shias, Kurds,
Alawites, and other minorities in Iraq and Syria over the latter half of the 20th
century were a
direct consequence of the Baath party and their manipulation of the state apparatus, which
allowed small ruling elites to maintain power over much larger populations. Saddam Hussein
and his officers, aware of their tenuous hold on power, wielded the state’s institutions to solidify
their position over Iraq’s Shia majority and stubborn Kurdish separatist movement, which,
inspired by the Iranian Revolution, threatened insurrection.87
The Baath party in particular
learned to compensate for their smaller numbers with the use of chemical weapons during the
Iran-Iraq War. Hussein turned these weapons on his own rebellious Shia and Kurdish
populations in short order.8889
He also eviscerated any pretension that the Baath Party retained of
pluralism and hijacked it as a personal vehicle for which the population could demonstrate their
loyalty to him. Baath membership became a reward system that prioritized Hussein’s family,
clan, and Tikrit tribal kinsmen. All decisions, no matter how small, were made directly by him;
thereby eliminating any need for political participation.90
Ultimately Hussein’s policies and
heavy handed suppression sowed the seeds for future sectarian conflict. By the time America
invaded in 2003, Iraq was entirely dependent upon one dictator and possessed no institutional
memory of impartial conflict resolution or a functional civil society.
Following the invasion of 2003, whether intentionally or not, the US reversed the Iraqi
power dynamic to favor the Iraqi Shia majority who proceeded to exclude Sunnis from any power
85
Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994
86
Hodson, Sekulic, Massey, 1994
87
From the Editor, 2007
88
The most infamous being the 1988 Al-Anfal Campaign in which 50,000 – 100,000 men, women, and children were
massacred in a genocidal operation using mustard and sarin gas munitions, according Human Rights Watch.
89
Hiltermann, 2010
90
Moon, 2009

24
sharing agreements. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) led by Paul Bremer disbanded
the primarily Sunni Iraqi Army and fired all Baath party members from the public sector, which
further isolated a significant portion of Sunni society who had been forced to become members to
find jobs in the first place. Feeling wronged, many Sunnis refused to participate in the new
government and instead fell back upon their tribal organizations for support.91
The subsequent
free elections held in the name of democracy all but assured that the Shia Dawa party would fill
the vacuum left by the Baath Party. Iraqi Sunnis suddenly found that not only had the reins of
power been passed to their Shia countrymen, but their country’s traditional enemy, Iran, could
now influence political, military, and economic decisions with their Dawa proxies in various state
institutions.92
A sentiment of political exclusion, fears of retribution, and a perception of Iranian
influence in the government as well as a growing number of Shia militias led various Sunni tribes
to support extreme Salafi jihadist movements in the region.
Hafez al-Assad, upon assuming power in Syria, worked to weaken the power of tribal
sheikhs by creating state institutions to provide security, employment, and conflict resolution. At
the same time he co-opted them as appendages of the state to control the wide Syrian steppes.
Since the Alawites constituted an even smaller minority in Syria than the Sunnis did in Iraq, al-
Assad made strategic alliances with rural sheikhs to suppress Sunni Islamist uprisings throughout
the country, restrict Kurdish expansion in the north, and maintain order in their districts in return
for financial aid and political appointments. Al-Assad supplied weapons, vehicles, and
communication equipment for their tribal fighters, which gradually became government militias.
He was able to use the traditional Syrian tribal system to coax the support necessary to stabilize
the country and his rule. Hafez’s son, Bashar al-Assad, expanded his father’s policies of
patronage to secure the country, but in doing so isolated the regime from its urban and industrial
society, which became marginalized and impoverished. However, the support of strategically
important tribes for the regime has helped keep it in place despite a vicious civil war.93
c. Deprivation of Human Needs
The basis of Yugoslavia’s federal system – federal structures without federal processes –
prevented interethnic conflict, not by addressing the roots of ethnic grievances, but instead by
making each republic dependent upon the central government. The one party system directly and
indirectly controlled the ability of ethnic groups to politically mobilize through republican
Communist party selection, resource control, and altering the balance of power between republics
when it suited them. In addition to being deprived of political mobilization, Tito, even as he
guaranteed national recognition and rights, spent his entire time in power suppressing ethnic
identities by editing history books, restricting public discourse concerning anything deemed
ethnically divisive, censoring multiple art forms, and restricting any political criticism or open
debate, much less any form of political demonstration. The repression of individual rights and
91
Davis, 2010
92
Hiltermann, 2010
93
Dukhan, 2014

25
freedoms of expression, speech, and assembly were especially harsh prior to the reforms of 1974.
Even when Yugoslavia began decentralizing power in response to political agitation for greater
autonomy – particularly in more homogeneous republics like Croatia – he still believed that he
could contain nationalist energies by empowering the republican Communist parties to represent
the interests of their particular nations while simultaneously controlling any further sources of
agitation.94
The changes that the reforms brought only whetted the appetites of nationalists for more
autonomy and access to the republics’ economies. The new Constitution expanded individual
rights and normalized criminal court procedures. It represented the first time that power was
truly delegated from the state presidency down to the republican level. Further, Kosovo and
Vojvodina, previously represented by Serbia at the federal level, were granted voting rights equal
to republics as well as veto power with respect to the Serbian parliament to counter growing
Serbian influence. Ironically, the execution of these liberal reforms required a purge of Serbian
leadership to ensure their promulgation. Without any history of federal processes or dynamic
institutions not controlled by a strong central figure, politics quickly degenerated into a zero sum
game where each republic competed against not only the central government for power, but each
other as well. In politicizing ethnicity by empowering republics that were fundamentally created
upon national divisions but not providing them a federal institution with which to arbitrate issues,
they paved the way for future nationalist politics and an inevitable PSC.95
Serbia, following Tito’s death, was aggravated by the central government’s continuous
plots to contain it and immediately sought to recentralize the country under its leadership. Once
in power, Milosevic manipulated Serbian nationalism and replaced independent leaders in
Vojvodina and Montenegro with subservient ones. Kosovo was placed under heel by repressing
its Albanian population. In controlling four of the eight regions of Yugoslavia, Milosevic had the
power to thwart the presidency and block any executive act. He exploited the federal structure to
advance his agenda because he knew the federal processes that might otherwise keep him in
check did not exist.96
The precipitating factor leading to future conflict came in 1989 when
Serbian delegates to the fourteenth Congress of the League of Communists overreached and
attempted to alter the voting mechanism in favor of the Serbian majority, leading to a walkout by
delegates from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.97
Serbia’s disproportionate political
influence delegitimized the state and accelerated its breakup. Communism crumbled as fears of
Serbian domination triggered multiparty elections in which nationalists representing each
republic took power with promises of secession after decades of marginalization. Any hope for a
negotiated settlement vanished in the absence of Tito, who had acted as a critical substitute for
the lack of federal processes in any state institution and had been the lone actor in the past to
assist, guide, and enforce conflict management between the republics.98
94
95
96
Dorff, 1994
97
Wilson, 2005
98
Wilson, 2005

26
Hardly surprising, plebiscites for independence won overwhelming support in Slovenia in
1990 and Croatia in 1991. In an effort to hold the state together, Serbian nationalists declared
autonomous regions in Croatia and Bosnia, also known as Republika Srpska, and began to
oppress other ethnic groups living there in the name of protecting their Serb brethren.
Nationalism replaced the communist state structure in every republic except Bosnia, which had
no single ethnic majority. The greatest victims became the minorities living in other republics.
Serbs living in Croatia suddenly found themselves not only without autonomy or recognition as a
constituent nation, but without constitutional rights following reforms made by the nationalist
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) when they rose to power. Serbs were soon fired from public
institutions, schools, universities, and hospitals. They became subjected to special taxes and a
loyalty oath.99
In response the JNA, previously multiethnic, became nationalized as vicious
Serbian nationalism and violence caused the other ethnic groups to flee, allowing the army to fall
under Serbia’s control. Bosnian Serbs were shrewdly allowed to return to Bosnia - armed by the
JNA – and formed the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) to extend Serbian reach into Bosnia under the
guise of compliance with international intervention. The JNA engaged the new armies of the
other republics, but ultimately wasn’t strong enough to prevent the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
Upon failing to hold the state together, Serbian strategy adopted a new goal of securing a larger
state with an eye toward the mixed autonomous, but weak regions of Bosnia and Kosovo.100
While Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians suffered restrictions on many freedoms, a
suppression of identity, and perhaps an unjust and overbearing government, Iraqis and Syrians
who suffered under their authoritarian regimes clearly faced persecution and state violence that
broached into the realm of physical security. The atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein,
Hafez al-Assad, and his son Bashar were flagrant and systematic violations of multiple human
rights, which some would plainly call genocide. Unlike Communist Yugoslavia’s attempts to
justify repression for an integrated and unified society, Iraq and Syria were security states that
targeted populations based upon tribal and religious affiliations with the intent to repress political
movements that might threaten their respective power structures. Each regime established
detention centers in which dissidents were tortured and killed by the thousands. When threats to
the regime were too numerous to detain, as was the case in al-Anfal and Hama, the military was
deployed and permitted to use indiscriminate force. While both states specifically targeted
political enemies and threats, Hussein went one step further; often killing indiscriminately and
deriving pleasure from personally participating in executions.101
Saddam Hussein’s regime institutionalized torture, repeatedly flouted UN resolutions, and
ignored international condemnation. As the executive head of state, commander in chief of the
armed forces, leader of the Baath party, and head of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC)
– a legislating body that could override all other state institutions, Hussein endowed security
forces with not only the authority to suppress any perceived dissent, but guaranteed them judicial
99
Schiemann, 2007
100
Wilson, 2005
101
Gollom, 2014

27
immunity. A tool of Hussein’s, the RCC codified as law cruel punishments such as amputation,
mutilation, and branding for crimes of slander or political dissent. Political demonstrations were
met with deadly force and, in extreme circumstances, with chemical weapons. In order to control
rebellious Kurdish, Shia, and certain Sunni Arab tribes, Iraqi security forces would detain, rape,
and execute thousands of civilians at a time, sometimes razing entire villages.102
The most
current estimates place Shia casualties during Saddam Hussein’s rule between 400,000 to
700,000 people, which does not include those who died as a result of the Iran-Iraq War.103
While the scale of human suffering under Saddam Hussein was atrocious in its systematic
discrimination, it remained equally upsetting in the more chaotically violent form it assumed
following his capture and execution. Once sectarian pressures were unleashed and a strong
central authority figure was removed, Iraq became a lawless warzone pulled apart by foreign
Salafi jihadist organizations, a Shia dominated government and their militias, and armed Sunni
tribes. ISIS took control of wide swaths of territory and dispensed a brutal form of Sharia justice
that allowed for the torture, rape, forced marriage, slavery, and mass executions of religious and
ethnic minorities, while simultaneously attacking government forces and expanding its holdings.
The Iraqi government, even with the support of American airstrikes, could only marginally
dislodge ISIS from one area, before seeing them gain control of another. The Iraqi government
did little better with the parts of the country it did control. Largely sectarian security forces and
government sanctioned Shia militias repressed Iraqi citizens and stood accused of kidnapping and
killing numerous Sunni tribesmen, which sparked fears among them of impending reprisal attacks
for Baathist crimes. In response to their political alienation and fears of Shia persecution, a
number of Sunni armed groups emerged to challenge the government and defend their
communities. The large number of armed factions competing for power in Iraq is complicated by
its porous border with Syria, across which ISIS operates freely.104
Syria was historically a bastion of Arab nationalism and as such often prioritized its
regional leadership at the expense of domestic affairs. In many ways, the Assad regime’s
vociferous support of Arab resistance movements, regardless of religious affiliation, in Palestine
and Lebanon helped legitimize it in the eyes of some of its Syrian citizens. However, having lost
the support of Hamas and a good number of Palestinians who sided with the Arab Spring
movements against their authoritarian regimes, the Assad government reaped the costs of
concentrating exclusively on regime security at the expense of domestic development. They
traditionally curried favor with the middle and lower classes by guaranteeing low paid but secure
jobs, while subsidizing living expenses like food and fuel. However, the cash strapped regime
was forced to implement market reforms and loosen state control over various sectors in 2005 in
order to raise much needed funds. In doing so, the regime broke what many perceived to be a
social contract as food costs outstripped wages and unemployment rose to 20-25% with an influx
of Iraqi refugees adding to an already strained system.105
The average Syrian also suffered from
102
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 2002
103
Di Giovanni, 2014
104
Human Rights Watch, 2015
105
The Economist, January 2011

28
public sector incompetence and inefficiency. Droughts along with poor planning and
mismanagement of water resources forced thousands of families to migrate from the countryside
to cities and affected the living conditions of 2 to 3 million people. Water shortages only added
to the misery of the average Syrian living under the oppressive security apparatus of the state.106
While Hafez al-Assad was no stranger to ignoring judicial order to detain, torture, or
execute agitators or political dissidents, he preferred to employ violence and repression on a
smaller and more judicious scale than Saddam Hussein. Similarly, his son, Bashar, sought to
create a separation between himself and the more bloody business of maintaining power by
converting the shabiha or ghosts – a state-sponsored Alawite mafia – into a militia that could
punish anti-regime protestors at the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. The shabiha were
accused of firing upon unarmed demonstrations; raping, torturing, and slitting the throats of
citizens suspected of disloyalty; assassinating tribal or religious leaders who spoke out against the
Assad government; and even destroying entire villages. While the shabiha began as a criminal
organization, and may have remained so in its upper echelons of leadership, there is mounting
evidence that its soldiers, who were mostly poor and uneducated, were motivated by fears of
encroaching Wahhabi-funded extremist groups that aimed to enslave and kill them and their
families.107108
d. Propaganda and Foreign Influence
While the absence of federal conflict management institutions and processes allowed
nationalist groups to rise to power in the various republics of Yugoslavia and begin to politically
oppress minorities, interethnic violence only became a reality after vitriolic rhetoric from the
political leadership of all sides mobilized the local constituents. As V.P. Gagnon argues, ethnic
and religious sentiment alone do not produce interethnic violence, but rather the emergence of
challengers, who threaten the power dynamics of the status quo, prompt ruling elites as well as
their aspiring rivals to mobilize the population against their respective adversaries. In the case of
Serbia following Tito’s death, preparations were made to reform Yugoslavia’s economy and
adopt various free market principles. Serbian conservatives, Marxists, nationalists, and parts of
the JNA worked together to provoke ethnic conflict and protect the structure of their power and
wealth through the creation of a narrative that concentrated individual interests toward communal
survival against external threats. These elites played upon and inflated national myths, history,
and traditions to reinforce the communal identity of the Serb people: from the Battle of Kosovo
in 1389 and subsequent Serb resistance against the Ottoman Empire to their role as communist
partisans fighting against the genocidal alliance of Nazi Germany and the Ustasha Croats during
WWII.109
This nationalistic rhetoric alone may not have been enough to accomplish the
entrenched elites’ goals, but abysmal economic conditions and newly elected nationalist
106
Haddad, 2011
107
Amor and Sherlock, 2014
108
Macleod and Flamand, 2012
109
Gagnon, Jr., 1995

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