The Syrian Jihad in the Age of Ideology

Abstract

Abstract Lister's excellent work on the composition and evolution of the Syrian Jihad will remain a valuable chronicle of events as seen from the perspective of the revolutionaries. But to discover the cause motivating or allowing the horrendous slaughter in Syria, we must look beyond the brutality of the Asad regime, although that undoubtedly played an important role; instead we need to look at the global tectonic forces that shook the greater Middle East even before the Arab Spring, and how those forces interacted with the Baʿthist response to the formation of the modern Syrian State after World War I, the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and the demise of European colonial efforts after World War II.