IRAQI-SYRIAN RELATIONS AND THE SYRIAN UPRISING

This chapter examines how the interaction of Iraq and Syria affected the Syrian Uprising. It will locate this story within a political sociology perspective on the external-internal co-constitution not only of the state’s formation but also its deconstruction. Beginning with the collapse of the Iraqi state amidst the US invasion, the Syrian regime encouraged the transit of jihadists to fight the Americans, unwittingly creating a force that would boomerang on it. After the Uprising, the borders between the east of Syria and the west of Iraq were increasingly erased as trans-state tribal ties, running to the Gulf, fed the Syrian Uprising. On the other hand, the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi regime provided the Asad regime with a life-line stretching to Iran. Two failed states left a vacuum in which sectarian movements and regimes in Syria and Iraq intensified or supported each other. They also enabled the rise of ISIS, threatening what were long seen as artificial borders between the two countries. © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Raymond Hinnebusch and Adham Saouli.