ISIS, IS, the Caliphate, the Islamic State

ISIS, IS, the Caliphate, the Islamic State

The Gist

The Islamic State is a Sunni group that was originally part of Al-Qaeda that broke away back in February, 2014 which currently controls large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Its stated purpose is to create a caliphate (the term was first used by rulers to describe the original Islamic empire in the 7th century). There are many theories as to how we got this point, but as always in the Middle East it’s a bit complicated. First, President Obama waited a bit too long to back one side or the other in Syria, creating a vacuum in that country’s ongoing civil war. Second, President Maliki of Iraq antagonized his Sunni countrymen by blatantly favoring Iraqi Shiites and marginalizing Sunnis, making it very easy for the Islamic State to win them over to their side. The Islamic State makes it money selling crude oil (somehow everything Middle East-related is stained with oil) on the black market. Although the world is rallying against the Islamic State with targeted airstrikes, what will be interesting will be how the Kurds fair in all this. The Kurds have long wanted their own state (they didn’t fare well when the colonial secretary Winston Churchill was drawing up Mideast boundaries back in the 1920s). The Kurds have solidified their hold on their autonomous region and may be able to convince the world that Kurdistan should join the community of nations as a full-fledged member. Also interestingly, the crisis has left such foes as Iran and the United States on the same side….and now you know the gist.