How Shiites Won the Battle Against Islamic State
The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq inadvertently changed the balance of power in favor of the Shiite community in Iraq and beyond. How Shiites Won the Battle Against Islamic State: Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq sheds light on how the Shiite-dominated government’s sectarian policies deepened the divide between Iraq’s major communities (Shiites, Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds) and led the country on the path of unending sectarian violence. This book explains how the government’s failure to address Sunni Arab grievances led to the emergence of the radical Islamic State and convinced the Kurds that they could not coexist with Iraqi Arabs, who had been at each other’s throats since 2003. This book notes that the emergence of a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad was a historical event that led Iran to achieve its longstanding dream of extending its influence from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. How Shiites Won the Battle Against Islamic State places a special focus on how Shiite politicians’ slick diplomacy and media campaigns diverted attention from its sectarian policies in 2014 by labeling the Sunni Arabs as terrorists and Kurdish leaders as corrupt separatists and troublemakers. This book also uncovers how the Iraqi government was able to garner Western military and political support to defeat ISIS and derail the Kurdish statehood movement.
Mohammed M.A. Ahmed is the president and founder of the Ahmed Foundation for Kurdish Studies, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that sponsors conferences and undertakes scholarly studies concerning Kurdish culture, history, and politics in the Middle East. Ahmed worked for the United Nations for 24 years in different capacities in developing countries and at the headquarters in New York City. As a UN expert, he provided advisory services to member states on economic and social development issues and represented the organization at numerous regional and international conferences. Ahmed is the author of America Unravels Iraq: Kurds, Shiites, and Sunni Arabs Compete for Supremacy and Iraqi Kurds and Nation-Building and is the coeditor of The Evolution of Kurdish Nationalism, The Kurdish Question and International Law, Kurdish Exodus: From Internal Displacement to Diaspora, The Kurdish Question and the 2003 Iraq War, and The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds.