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Myriam Benraad
never identified with the rigid and quasi-totalitarian view of Sunni Islam that the group
advocates and have therefore bore the brunt of its violence. Many accounts show that
Sunni Arabs do not all consent to the jihadist project and have opposed the centralisation
of religious and political authority within a single entity; their submission to Daesh is,
in most instances, purely circumstantial and intended to escape death. Similarly, the
security and development strategy enforced by jihadists has come across certain obstacles.
In addition to their exactions and regime of terror (which, in practice, very few cope with
in the regions they control), jihadists did not keep most of their promises. All in all, Sunni
Arabs are much divided, both about the notion of a caliphate and what a “post-Islamic
State” would actually mean. This reality is not alien to the essence and traditions of Sunni
Islam itself, in which the concept of authority has always been fragmented, unlike Shiism
which is more centralised.
On the one hand, a significant proportion of Sunni Arabs continues to support Islamic
State for reasons that oscillate from ideological and political membership to the lack
of credible alternatives; Sunni Arab politicians have, for the most part, lost all legitimacy
because of their past alignment with the government, notably during the 2012-2013 protests,
or conversely their failure to protect their fellow citizens from the jihadist shockwave.
Accordingly, to suggest greater “inclusion” of Sunni Arabs in the existing political process is
delusionary in many respects, all the more as only a fraction of Sunni Arabs consider a return
to national politics. On the other hand, a growing number of Sunni Arabs reject the Islamic
State and call for arming men and tribes willing to expel their members. Many feel that the
Iraqi Army, which collapsed in Mosul and Ramadi, as well as the security forces are not only
unable to defeat Daesh, but that their redeployment in the regions held by the jihadists is not
desirable in view of their past record. The counterpart of counter-mobilisation is, however,
regional autonomy for these players, inspired by the Kurdish model, which Baghdad has so
far always opposed.
Narrowing strategic options
In an ideal but unfortunately fictional scenario, the defeat of Islamic State would mean
the total reversal of the conditions that initially fuelled its emergence and explain why, in
2015, there is still so little resistance to its advance. At this point, mention must be made
of the devastating dismantlement of the Iraqi Army in 2003, never since reconstituted
and marred by scandals and affairs, de-Baathification and anti-terrorism laws that have
targeted Sunni Arabs first and foremost, with thousands of arrests that provided a fertile
breeding ground for the “Salafisation” of inmates on US bases and in Iraqi and Syrian
prisons. A horizon of national reconciliation in Iraq and Syria is nevertheless unlikely in
view of the
dramatic sectarianisation
of their societies. Since its offensive, Daesh has also
turned toward the destruction of all the symbols still attached to these fragile nations:
museums, such as in Mosul, ransacked by the jihadists, archaeological sites and ancient
cities (Nimrud, Hatra and Palmyra).
Since the beginning of the crisis, three key forces have manoeuvred on the ground
and remain in relative positions of strength: the Kurds, the first to have mobilised against