Daniel KayeThe Islamic State Of Syria Essay

Submitted By Daniel-Kaye
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Pages: 5

Daniel Kaye

The Islamic State Of Syria and Iraq is a group of Suni Muslims in the Middle East. Their stated goal is to establish a new caliphate in the Middle East, which is basically an Islamic Empire. They even go as far to say that their leader is an actual prophet of Mohammed. The premise of ISIS is very violent and uses mass killings of people they deem infidels to show their power. Recently, with the US invasion of Iraq and Iran, there has been an influx in support for ISIS to take down the Americans. To put into perspective on how awful the group has been in its existence, all that has to be mentioned is the fact that ISIS is financially supported by Al-Qaeda. While the Americans were stationed in Iraq, ISIS had to hide out in the more desolate places of Iraq, making them much weaker. The most recent ISIS activity has been to recruit members of Syria who are involved in the civil war going on against their president, and recruiting them to join what is sort of becoming its own nation in ISIS. Currently they control around two thirds of Syria and one third of Iraq. The way ISIS carries out its wars and other interactions with other countries is what makes them so destructive. They utilize human trafficking wherever they go, and rape and murder the people that they consider infidels. They are a huge problem to anyone that encounters them, and the scary part is they’re growing.

ISIS has a huge impact on the political systems of the countries that it is located in, and as long as they are active in a country, they serve as a threat to the main political system of any government. The realms of globalization all fit together in one category for this topic because they all go hand in hand very well. Iraq is a very divided country culturally. It is a predominantly islamic country, but divided into separate sections of islam. Around 60 percent of the country is Shia Muslim, while the other 40 percent is Sunni. There has been conflicts between the two for hundreds of years, and the ISIS situation has come around to fuel it. ISIS, who controls a good portion of Syria began recruiting people from Iraq by saying that they are trying to take over the Shia run government, and put the Sunnis in control. This obviously has allowed ISIS to gain a huge following from the Sunni population in Iraq, making their organization much bigger and broader. The political situation is not only being felt in these two countries, but around the world. Countries like Britain, Turkey, and even the US have bombed parts in Syria known to be ISIS hangouts[1]. This shows the force that the group has, and the threat that they pose to many different governments. This follows the logic of Steger[2]in the fact that Steger states “Globalization can be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by event occurring many miles away and vice versa.”More recently, Syria began a civil war against their president, Bashar Al-Assad, in 2011. Because Syria shares a border with Iraq, it was easy for ISI units to move into the disputed areas. ISI had been able to recruit a great number of rebels in Syria to join its organization, as they were already willing to fight against their current government. Renaming themselves ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), they have made incredible gains against Al-Assad's government. However, holding so much territory (and the military assets/infrastructure within) has very nearly turned ISIS into a de-facto nation, and it has also given them the strength to better project force into Iraq. At this time, ISIS controls about 2/3 of the area of Syria and 1/3 of the area of Iraq. They are infamous not only for their warring and extremism, but also for their cruel treatment of prisoners and captured locals. They have been raping and murdering everywhere they go, as well as human trafficking. They also have more or less made terrorist threats against