Like a lot of people, I heard the news about the photographer James Foley, and was sadden. No person should be taken as a hostage because of their nationality, or their job. James Foley, as you might know, was captured by ISIS fighters in November 2012 and a video of him being beheaded went online the 19th of August. But it got me thinking, "Why are we allowing circumstances that lead to beheadings in 2014?"
So a quick refresher on ISIS: It's kinda hard to pin down their exact in linage, but the main part of them started out as al-Queda Iraq, but then wanted to absorb the Syrian part of al-Queda too. When the head of al-Queda said no, ISIS were like: "Cool, but you are gonna regret it". Then the Syrian Civil War came, and ISIS turned out to be good soldiers, and as they spread their influence, so did their reputation, which is that of an extremely harsh Islamic group. That reached al-Queda's HQ, and they say to ISIS to turn it down a bit, to which ISIS said: "Yeah, that's not gonna happen, because we are not a part of al-Queda anymore". After ISIS had gathered enough strength in Syria, they capitalized on the fact that the Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki was REALLY sectarian, and rolled into the Shia areas of Iraq, where they almost were greeted as liberators, because they felt stomped on by al-Maliki.
Another important thing to remember here is that Iraq can be separated into 3 parts: A northern Kurdish area, the Sunni Muslims in the South and West and the Shia Muslims everywhere else. Nobody is really sure of how many Shia and Sunni's is in the country, but most estimates put Shia at 65% of the population and 35% Sunni's. So when the Shia al-Maliki comes to power and decides that his government primarily should consist of Sunnis, that makes for some really angry Shia’s.
Now, I'm not one to argue that ISIS justified in beheading journalists, demanding that Christians pay a tax to be Christians or face beheading or starving thousands of Yazidis on a mountain, but when you two big population groups with a history of animosity with each other, history shows that you are bound to get some revolts. And al-Maliki has only lit a powder keg that would set of at some point.
And when you think of it from a Sunni's perspective, the rise of ISIS is maybe not a bad thing. They get a feeling that they actually are heard at their government, since they now are ruled by Sunni's, instead of being forced to live with a Shia majority. It's pretty much the same thing that happened in Ireland, a minority sect of a religion felt discriminated by the majority sect, which leads to war.
And I think that's the most important takeaway here: Iraq as a country was always destined to be doomed, because of the population split, and an inablity on both sides to talk to each other like equals
