Make Our Enemy - Kill Our Enemy: the Creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

• In Event: Issues in Terrorism

Abstract

While much attention has been given to the commission of state crimes abroad, there has been no criminological research examining the United States’ involvement in Syria or how their policies and interventions in Iraq and elsewhere have created power vacuums that allow for and facilitate the rise of ‘terrorist’ groups vying for power. This article hopes to contribute to this general void by examining how the United States’ foreign policy in Iraq and Syria, driven by geopolitical interests-realpolitik and neoliberalism, and carried out through biopolitical warfare has resulted in the rise of the violent extremist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. I conclude that if the United States were to remove the Assad regime and dismantle the Alawite ruling class, as it did with the Hussein regime and the Ba'ath party in Iraq, it would leave Syria with an immediate power vacuum that could easily be filled by Sunni backed extremist groups, including the Islamic State. 

Author

• Sarah Pedigo, Old Dominion University