When governments do not protect their citizens in the harsh and brutal conditions of war, people turn to paramilitary organizations for their security. Decades of corrupt and authoritarian governments in the region which brutally suppressed both secular opposition and moderate Islamists have created the breeding ground for a more nihilist ideology.The boundary of the nation state is gone in the minds of many of its citizens, and events on the ground have reinforced this. A remapping of the region is taking place along sectarian lines breaking up into potentially hostile statelets, carved into exclusively ethnic enclaves.
openDemocracy: The new great regional game: Saudi Arabia and Iran, July 7, 2014
The Guardian: Isis declares caliphate in Iraq and Syria, June 30, 2014The Atlantic: Our Man in Baghdad, July 1, 2014New York Review of Books: ISIS: The New Taliban, July 2, 2014
