ISIS

Abstract

Fawaz Gerges identifies four factors which were crucial to the Islamic State’s (IS) expansion across Iraq and Syria in his well-researched and insightful account of the history of the group and its individual members. He writes that IS itself can and should be considered the direct progeny of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which is clear for those who trace the organization’s lineage, and argues that the fragmentation of Iraq after the 2003 invasion allowed the group to flourish (first as AQI and then as IS). The other two factors he identifies are concerned with other countries: Gerges contends that the group would not have been able to carry out its headline-grabbing military conquests without the safe refuge afforded by the collapse of Syria, and that the military gains it made in part due to said collapse could not have been tenable were it not for the derailment of the Arab Spring revolutions during the first few years of the decade ...