ARIARATNAM, KAGUSTHAN

Student ID # 8460541

Karia046@uOttawa.ca

Understanding the Causes of Civil War in Iraq and Syria

November 14, 2016

ECH1100A: Introduction to the Study of Conflicts and Human Rights

Instructor: Dr. Jean-François Ratelle

Fall 2016

Faculty of Social Sciences

University of Ottawa

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Introduction

The civil wars in Iraq and Syria are the most catastrophic and worst humanitarian crisis

since World War II. The two main causes of civil wars in Iraq and Syria are authoritarianism and

sectarianism. This essay will examine the causes and comparative analysis between two

contemporary civil wars: The Iraqi civil war from 2006 to 2008 and the Syrian civil war from

2011 to 2013, with the aim of seeking to identify why each conflict erupted. Firstly, the essay

will look at the nature of undemocratic and authoritarian regimes in both Iraq and Syria that were

consequently categorized as failed states, where the incubation of civil war was inevitable.

Secondly, the paper will discuss how sectarian violence in both Iraq and Syria caused ethnic and

religious unrest that eventually led to civil wars in both countries. Finally, the essay will

conclude by explaining why authoritarian regimes and sectarian violence were perceived as

salient vis-à-vis civil wars in Iraq and Syria and its implications within the wider Middle Eastern

region.

Authoritarianism in Iraq and Syria

The similarities between both the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki’s, and the Syrian

President, Bashar al-Asad’s regimes were authoritarian in nature. In an authoritarian regime, the

fundamental democratic principles, such as, participation, competition, and liberty, are very

limited (O’Neil, 2013). In addition, in such a regime the government is above the law and no one

holds them accountable for their misconduct and violations. However, to stay in power, the

rulers need some sort of alliance with military or religious leaders as seen in Iraq and Syria.

The element of “greed” in a civil war could be measured by the theory of “cost-benefit

analysis,” which is a systematic process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs of a

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decision, policy or an action (Rodreck, Patrick & Adock, 2013). A case in point is how and why

authoritarian regimes in Iraq and Syria came into being. For example, Iraqi Prime Minister,

Nouri al-Maliki’s regime was hungry for power to take control of the country’s natural resources

and commodities, such as oil. Alternatively, ordinary people engage themselves in rebellion in

Iraq and Syria, where they are driven by economic motives that they could attain self-enrichment

and material gain. Hence, greed that led to authoritarianism can be perceived as one of causes of

civil war in Iraq and Syria

As noted by Collier and Hoeffler (2004), in Iraq’s political landscape, there was an

increasing amount of struggle for power and resources. There was an insatiable desire to take

control of state institutions by authoritarian regimes. At numerous times in Iraq’s recent history,

political leaders have sought to expand their influence over government ministries, security

forces, and civil society groups as means to increase their power. According to Marisa Sullivan

(2013):

Since 2007, Prime Minister Maliki has used the creation of extra-

constitutional security bodies to bypass the defense and interior

ministries and create an informal chain of command that runs

directly from his office to the commanders in the field, allowing

him to exert direct influence over the both the targeting of

individuals and the conduct of operations. Chief among these are

the Office of the Commander in Chief (OCINC) and provincial-

level operations commands. OCINC reports directly to the prime

minister and is staffed by Maliki loyalists. The extra-constitutional

body has no legal framework to govern its existence and therefore

no accountability or oversight, yet it has significant powers and

resources. Maliki has also attached Iraq’s most elite units to his

military office, and has used them for political purposes (p.6).

This battle for power has also become extremely personalized for political

triumph in Iraq, which is mainly tied to personal survival. Although, according to realists’ school

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of thought, an anarchical system in world politics is advanced by statism, survival and self-help

(Baylis, Smith, and Owens, 2014), in Iraq’s case, however, power is highly centralized and the

regime is extremely corrupted. Political mobilization at the national level in Iraq has completely

jeopardized the role of the judiciary as an independent check on the other branches of

government. Prime Minister Maliki’s growing influence over and limitations on supposedly

independent institutions have weakened the legitimacy and efficiency of these bodies,

particularly the judiciary and the parliament. The judiciary has been an accomplice to the

centralization of power by Maliki through a series of provocative rulings that have empowered

the executive power and restrained or removed his political rivals. Through his emergence of

power, Maliki has destabilized the system of checks and balances that were proposed in the

constitution (Sullivan, 2013). Therefore, such an undemocratic regime as Iraq is prone to

violence and disorder due to animosity and resentment of the general populace, which eventually

led to civil war.

Like Prime Minister Maliki’s government in Iraq, the Syrian republic is also ruled by the

authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Asad. Asad was recognized as president for his

second term in a 2007 referendum that was not free or fair by international standards. The

president made key decisions with counsel from a small number of security advisors, ministers,

and senior members of the ruling Baath Party. Alawites, the ruling religious sect, were

dominating the regime in a disgraceful way in Syria, particularly in the military, in the

appointment of officers and even recruits. The constitution mandates the predominance of Baath

Party leaders in state institutions and society. President Asad and party leaders dominate all the

branches of government. Security forces report to civilian authorities. According to Raymond

Hinnebusch (2012):

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By the end of 2010, the outcome of Bashar al-Asad’s authoritarian

upgrading had become apparent. He had used the external threat to

generate nationalist legitimacy, enabling him to marginalize the

old guard and ward off pressures from democracy activists. This

was combined with an economic opening used to mobilize

financial capital as a substitute for declining oil rents. He had

positioned himself as balancer above a divided society,

propagating an image of himself as both a modern reformer and a

pious Muslim. Compared to those of other Arab republics, the

regime enjoyed a foreign policy congruent with public opinion, a

young President still enjoying the benefit of the doubt and seen as

preferable to alternatives in the regime, security forces more loyal

and effective than elsewhere, a weaker civil society and a more

fragmented opposition (p.106).

Even though, Syria’s civil society is weakened by militarization, demands for democratic

reform by nonviolent demonstrators began in March 2011, which continued throughout the year.

When the protests began, local committees emerged and took responsibility for organizing

events within their own communities. The Asad regime responded with indiscriminate and

deadly forces to suppress such protests, including military attacks on several cities. For instance,

in April 2011, the regime blocked supplies to the southern city of Daraa of electricity, water, and

medical services, and it constrained entry and exit for almost 20 days while shelling the city’s

soft targets, such as mosques, hospitals, schools, markets, and other public places. The regime

continued the use of deadly military force against its citizens despite its agreement to an Arab

League plan to engage in reforms and to end killing civilians in November 2011. The UN

reported that more than 5,000 civilians were killed between 2011and 2012 (Hinnebusch, 2012).

It is against this backdrop that both Iraq and Syria fall under the category of failed states.

The Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy Magazine conduct research and collect data to indicate

whether a state is fragile or failed. Such factors like economic instability, human rights

violations, and security issues, are some of the many elements that are taken into consideration

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when determining the status of a state (The Fund for Peace, 2016). Furthermore, according to

the study, Iraq and Syria are ranked in a very high alert for possessing the characteristics of

failed states during the years between 2006 to 2008 as well as 2011to 2013 respectively. For

example, failed states have minimum security and sovereignty and may not collect taxes

regularly. In addition, contrary to Max Weber’s definition of a state, a failed state does not have

the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory (Weber, 1919). As

such, both in Iraq and Syria, the outbreaks of civil wars were inevitable given the nature of

undemocratic authoritarian regimes and subsequent failed states.

Sectarianism in Iraq and Syria

Before proceeding further, the term “sectarianism” needs to be clearly defined. As Fanar

Haddad (2011) notes, a sectarianism is a form of bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from

attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a

group. It is, therefore, one of the causes of civil war in Iraq and Syria can be explained under the

pretext of sectarianism between Shia and Sunni factions in both states. The Shia Muslims of Iraq

are Arabic-speaking majority group, which is comprised of 60%-65% of the Iraqi population.

They were politically marginalized under the Saddam Hussein regime. Alternatively, the Sunni

Muslims of Iraq are an Arabic-speaking minority group, which is comprised of 32%-37% of the

population. The Sunnis have been politically dominating Iraq for centuries until the American

invasion of 2003 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2016).

The element of “grievance” in a civil war can be viewed by the “relative deprivation

theory”, which is a view of social change and movements whereby people act for social change

to acquire opportunities, status, or wealth that others possess in which they believe they have the

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right to obtain (Townsend, 1979). For instance, rebellion in Iraq and Syria have sprung when

people cannot bear the misery of their life, such as a feeling of injustice and inequality, ethnic

and religious hatred, denied dignity and freedom, and political exclusion and repression; mainly

due to sectarian violence. The notion of grievance that led to sectarianism can thus be perceived

as prominent vis-à-vis civil wars in Iraq and Syria.

As pointed out by many scholars, the 2003 American invasion of Iraq paved the way for

sectarian violence between Iraqi Sunni and Shia factions due to the establishment of pro-Western

Shia government in Baghdad. The Sunnis’ spiritual and emotional struggle in accepting Iraq’s

Shia government is awkward. Shireen T. Hunter (2014) explains:

The most significant factor behind Iraq’s problems has been the

inability of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and its Sunni neighbors to come to

terms with a government in which the Shias, by virtue of their

considerable majority in Iraq’s population, hold the leading role.

This inability was displayed early on, when Iraq’s Sunnis refused

to take part in Iraq’s first parliamentary elections, and resorted to

insurgency almost immediately after the US invasion and fall of

Saddam Hussein. All along, the goal of Iraqi Sunnis has been to

prove that the Shias are not capable of governing Iraq. Indeed,

Iraq’s Sunni deputy prime minister, Osama al-Najafi, recently

verbalized this view. The Sunnis see political leadership and

governance to be their birthright and resent the Shia interlopers

(p.1).

After hundreds of years of ruling, both under the Ottoman empire and after

independence, and then during Saddam Hussain’s era of marginalization of Shias as atheists of

society, the Sunnis have difficulty accepting the Shia rule. The peak of sectarian violence in Iraq

was probably when the February 2006 bombing of one of the holiest shrines of Shias, the al-

Askari Mosque in the city of Samarra, by the Sunni militants. This led to a wave of Shia

retaliations against Sunnis followed by Sunni counterattacks. Consequently, in October 2006, the

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Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Iraqi

government estimated that more than 370,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing

of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million

(Katzman, 2009). By 2007, the conflict intensified over the next several months that a United

States Government Accountability Office Report (2007), described the situation as having

elements of a civil war, quoting a US intelligence assessment.

Like Iraq, the ruling party in Syria belongs to Alawite, a division of Shia Muslim, that is

comprised of 13% of the country’s population. Moreover, President Asad and his most senior

political and military associates are tied to Alawite, therein Asad’s regime is backed by Shia

governments such as Iran in the region. Furthermore, similar to the marginalization of Sunni’s in

Iraq, the Asad regime in Syria is also politically and militarily oppressing the country's Sunni

Muslim majority, which is comprised of 74% of the population. Consequently, the Sunnis in

Syria are aligned with the Syrian opposition rebels and other regional Sunni states including

Persian Gulf States. Furthermore, external actors including Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia also

largely impacted sectarianism in the Syrian conflict. Christopher Phillips (2015) argues:

Iraq’s civil war was felt in Syria. Regime news outlets manipulated

the chaos in Iraq to raise the fear of sectarianism and present the

regime as protector. Geopolitically Assad was determined to

weaken the USA in Iraq, so he facilitated the transit of Sunni

jihadist fighters across the Iraq frontier. Not only would these

fighters later turn on their former patron, but their ideology spread,

albeit in limited pockets. […] External elites also exploited

sectarianism in Iraq. Saddam’s fall heightened tension between

Saudi Arabia and Iran. The more Tehran’s influence grew in Iraq,

the more Riyadh sought to undermine Iran’s play for regional

leadership by emphasising its Shia character. Saudi Arabia’s ally

King Abdullah II of Jordan warned of a ‘Shia crescent’ across the

region, while pan-Arab satellite television, mostly indirectly

owned by the Saudis and other Gulf states, offered a new forum to

promote sectarian language (p.368).

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As the violence in Syria has deepened, outsiders have backed the different sides, and set

the conflict into the background of a wider Sunni-Shia internal strife. For instance, due to

sectarian divide, Maliki’s Iraqi regime, which is made of majority Shia factions, was pursuing a

pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian regional policy despite American sanctions on Syria and Iran. This

imbalance led other regional Sunni regimes to support the insurgency in both Iraq and Syria

thereby exacerbating the civil wars in both states. Even though Bashar al-Assad's government

generally avoids sectarian language, the departure of many former supporters has left him ever

more dependent on the Alawites. While anti-sectarian ideology turned out to be a main theme of

the Baath Party, factions within it could not escape their sense of identity and still counting on

the external regional actors for who backs up whom. Thus, the Damascus government's attempts

to blame rebels and foreign fighters for the country's turmoil seems to be legitimate.

In contrast, within the Syrian opposition, people talk about the other sects, including

Christians or Alawites in their ranks, categorically rejecting the label of Sunni Jihadists. Or the

Syrian government supporters will hint the existence of non-Alawites in the higher echelons of

the regime. That said, each faction meanwhile tries to undermine their opponent with the

sectarian label (Urban, 2013). This tradition has left the Syrian nation largely undeveloped,

strongly aware of sectarian identity, and open to the messages of those who justify Jihadism and

create an opportunity for intercommunal violence that led to civil war.

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Conclusion

The political, military, and humanitarian implications of civil wars in Iraq and Syria were

largely caused by authoritarianism and sectarianism, which are not resolved, to date. While the

only remaining super-power, the United States of America, supported Iraqi authoritarian regime

for a limited time, the ever-present Russia is still supporting the authoritarian regime in Syria,

both in the name of regional stability, which will have negative ramifications and only

exacerbate tensions and divisions within the wider Middle Eastern region. On the other hand,

Maliki’s Iraqi regime and Asad’s Syrian regime were responsible for sectarianizing the Sunni

versus Shia conflicts within the wider region of Middle East as well. Ultimately, the

international community must recognize that stability in the Middle East will only come through

an inclusive, representative, and fair political system that protects the rights of all Iraqis and

Syrians.

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