ISIS: A History.

• Author: Admirand, Peter
• Position: Book review

By Fawaz A. Gerges

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016, 384 pages, $27.95, ISBN: 9780691170008.

Reviewed by Peter Admirand, Dublin City University

As of this writing in late February 2017, ISIS has lost much territory and financial capital since their peak a year or so ago, when the book under discussion was about to go to press. In this regard, the author of ISIS: A History, Fewaz A. Gerges, would not have been surprised, having written: "As a totalitarian-religious movement, ISIS will ultimately self-destruct, not because it commits evil deeds, but because it lacks a political imagination and its ideology is deeply at odds with the values and ways of life of local communities" (p. 29). Its obituary, however, is far from written, which also does not remove its legacy inspiring groups in the future. While weakening and diminished, ISIS (as a Salafi-jihadist movement) remains a threat either through lone-wolf inspired terrorism (especially abroad) and through the bumbling, and often self-defeating way foreign powers continue to try to influence and refashion the Middle East in their own images. Add to this the rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia in some parts of the West with corruption and political tyranny within Arab state systems, then groups like ISIS can have the recruiting done for them.

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While often repetitive, Gerges' book helpfully provides historical context to the creation, fall, and rise of ISIS, connecting its impact and fashioning from seeds planted in the First Gulf War, and especially the destruction and occupation of Iraq in the Second Gulf War. Coupled by the coalition and Iraqi leaders' failure to promote "an inclusive national project and rebuild the political landscape" in Iraq (pp. 116-117); to the alleged failures of the Arab Spring (allowing ISIS to claim their way is the only viable way); and the war in Syria (where competing foreign and Syrian claims and interests provided the discontent and desperation for many Sunnis to side with ISIS as an only or last option). Gerges, moreover, is adamant that "of all variables empowering ISIS, the anti-Shia, anti-Iranian factor tops the list" (p. 17). ISIS' main aim is to defeat whom they see as the main enemy: Shia Muslims, with foreign enemies (especially the United States) deemed secondary.

The book consists of eight chapters and a conclusion focused on ISIS' future. Chapter one and chapter two provide an overview of ISIS ideology and the...