The Baffling Islamic State

By Published on August 27, 2015

Maybe some points are, in fact, explicable. Anonymous discusses a number of new books about the movement, and one of those books, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, does a first-rate job of describing the Islamic State’s layers, at least in Syria and Iraq. The movement there enjoys an authentic following among Sunni Arabs in certain pockets, and the popular support conforms to a logic that we have seen among followers of other totalitarian movements over the last century—a popular support based on reasonable fears and practical calculations, admixed with a few intellectual confusions. The ordinary Sunnis in those pockets may dislike the Islamic State’s Quranic crucifixions, beheadings, lashings, and amputations, and may recoil at the mass slaughters. But the Sunnis have been terrified by the rise of Shiite power, and they see in the Islamic State a force that is willing to protect them.

The Islamic State’s anti-crime policing goes down well, too. Weiss and Hassan quote a resident of the Syrian town of Deir Ezzor: “We never felt this safe for twenty years.” The Islamic State eagerly executes its own militants whenever they are accused of corrupt or criminal behavior, which counts as another grisly point in its favor, among the local Sunnis. The Islamic State sweeps the streets, protects the fisheries, controls the warlords, and regulates the economy. Oil revenues come its way because it understands the business. And it maneuvers cleverly among the tribes.

Read the article “The Baffling Islamic State” on tabletmag.com.

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