Apr 24, 2015

The Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria may effectively employ radical Salafist doctrine to mobilize core believers and foreign fighters, but it relies on complex networks led by former Iraqi Baathist officers to operate and control its so-called caliphate. Baathist leadership in IS, most recently noted in Christoph Reuter’s riveting article in Spiegel International, reinforces the political nature of IS and its Sunni Arab, Iraqi nationalist roots. Alongside or within IS’ aim to devise a "pure" Islamic society is a Baathist plan to run a meticulously calculating state able to monopolize power, control territory and eradicate potential threats through brutality and terror. Baathist influences are evident in the nature of IS terror operations — extensive security and spy networks, hierarchical bureaucracies, battlefield tactics and elaborate financial and logistical networks — similar to those used by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his Baathist circles for 35 years in Iraq.

How could Iraqi Baathists, known for their secular ideology, find common ground with radical Salafist groups? While the presence and strength of former Baathist officers in IS appears contradictory it reflects the influence of the Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshbandi (JRTN), a group of Saddam’s former officers and Sunni Arab tribes that formed in reaction to the post-2003 Iraqi order. Led by Izzat al-Douri, Saddam’s former vice president and deputy chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (proclaimed to be killed in a recent battle in Tikrit), the JRTN represents a fusion of Islam, Sunni Arab identity and Iraqi nationalism.

This fusion can be traced to the early 1990s, when Saddam commenced his Islamic faith campaign to consolidate Baath Party power. The campaign reflected geopolitical challenges and Iraqi security priorities after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Iran-Iraq War (1980-89) and Saddam’s attempts to control the "Zoroastrian" Iran and Persian-Shiite threat. It involved the Baath Party’s direct control of all religious policies and institutions in Iraq, creating Islamic structures, recruiting networks of spies and Islamic activists to work for the regime, and embedding Baath Party structures, members and security organs into religious circles.

By the late 1990s a "religious deep state" had emerged in Iraq, whereby most Sunni Islamic leaders and institutions that were created, co-opted and/or controlled by the regime were now inside the state. One of these institutions was the Islamic University of Baghdad, attended by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, current leader of the so-called IS caliphate. Admission into the university demanded, at minimum, close ties to Baathist leaders. The Baathist-Salafist nexus was reinforced by the 13-year international sanctions regime against Iraq (1990-2003) and Baathist manipulation of the sanctions-smuggling economy. These conditions helped break down the middle class and enhanced a sense of relative deprivation and alienation in which religious radicalism and militant Iraqi Arab nationalism could breed.

The Baathist-Salafist nexus did not necessarily entail a Baathist ideological conversion. Even though Saddam forged alliances with Islamic groups and advocated greater piety in Iraq, he did not became “a born-again Muslim” as some have argued. Nor did Baathists become core believers or develop a shared identity with Salafist groups. Rather, most continued to instrumentalize Islam for their own individual political and party interests. Many remained tied to secular ideas, opposed Iran and Persian Shiites, and loathed the Salafists. They turned to influential local Sunni Arab Islamic leaders and groups while different Islamic strains — Salafists, Sufis and the Muslim Brotherhood — allied and opposed each other as well as distinct Baathist officials.