Dr. Nader Hashemi:

One of the interesting developments that explains why ISIS is so powerful is that former elements of Saddam’s Iraqi Government, who were defeated but did not disappear but bided their time, have allied themselves with ISIS. This explains the rapid success, because these people know how to run an army and a state. It is not simply a band of radical Islamic militants. One of the key elements of the support structures of ISIS is the remnants of the former Iraqi Ba’ath army, which has played a critical role. This speaks to the fundamental question of Iraq’s future. Iraq’s new Government does not have the legitimacy it needs to defeat the remnants of the former regime.

The rebels need to be vetted. There are many Syrian young people, some of whom have joined ISIS or other rebel groups, some more extreme, some more moderate. One of the challenges of supporting a moderate rebel movement is that there must be proper vetting. In any battle that takes place there are people who do not have strong ideological convictions but are young and destitute and have taken up arms to fight for a better future. They will often switch sides based on who is winning a particular war. One reason ISIS has attracted many recruits is because it seems to be winning. It is the lead horse. If one can support the moderate Syrian rebels, show they have a base of support, a buffer zone and a future, many recruits will go the other way, simply because they seem to be on the winning side. This is a major part of any civil war calculation.

On the Senator's question about religion and suicide bombings, it comes down to a confluence of a set of political circumstances that feeds a particular religious interpretation. Do the members know which country produced most of the 9-11 suicide bombers? It was Saudi Arabia. Of the 19 people involved in the attack, 15 came from one country. Was it a coincidence, or does it tell us something about the internal politics and policies of Saudi Arabia? These were not destitute or the poorest of the poor, but middle class people, many of them educated, but who felt their political future could best be invested in by engaging in such a suicide operation. It highlights the tragedy and nightmare authoritarian regimes produce for their civilians and societies. There have been many reports that many of the ISIS suicide bombers who have engaged in attacks in Iraqi cities against other rebel groups also come from Saudi Arabia.

A predictable set of consequences emerge from closed political systems with no representation, political parties, civil society or newspapers and where the only way a young person feels he or she can change his or her future is by engaging in some type of radical political action. It is not fundamentally a problem of religion, although religion is a component of it, but a question of the political and social circumstances that produce such behaviour at a particular moment in time. This is the root of the problem. It does not happen in Indonesia, the biggest, most populous Muslim country in the world. One reason is because Indonesia is an emerging democracy. For all its flaws and problems as a developing society, the indicators and measurements for democratic development in Indonesia are fairly good by developing world standards, and in terms of the Muslim world, it is one of the most advanced countries.

That tells us something about how we should deal with these questions of radicalisation and destabilisation. If we support a broader process of democratisation, political development, inclusion, with strong civil societies and interpretations of Islam that are more inclusive and humanistic, it will not produce the radicalisation we are seeing in the Iraqi, Syrian and Saudi Arabian nexus.