But there are simply too many groups to properly cover in this brief chapter. There are a variety of other actors in the region that need to be accounted for to fully grasp the ‘industry’ of violent non-state actors that shape the level of conflict in the region and the related political outcomes that result from these conflicts. While we will explore in more detail in this chapter only a handful of the more infamous VNSAs, they are not operating alone in the conflicts in the Middle East. Either in opposition to the state or as a partner of the state (e.g., Hezbollah in Syria,), VNSAs are important political actors in the widening political and military conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced tens of millions of citizens with global repercussions (Human Rights Watch 20). VNSAs as varied ideologically as transnational Salafi-Jihadi groups such as ISIS and its affiliates, and Al Qaeda and its affiliates, operate in the Middle East as well as Shia Lebanese nationalist groups such as Hezbollah and Sunni Palestinian nationalist groups such as Hamas. In this chapter, I focus on the origins and primary goals of four key VNSAs that represent major organisations that are able to mount sustained campaigns of strategic anti-government violence to achieve their political goals in the Middle East – those that use terror, guerrilla warfare, punishment and, when possible, conventional warfare to challenge the incumbent governments for control of territory (Jones 2016 Salehyan 2009). What has emerged in a more virulent form in the region since at least 2001 (Gerges 2005), however, is the entrance of the disruptive force of transnational VNSAs whose radical Islamist political and social vision for the region demands the violent transformation of the Islamic world beginning with the home of Islam, the land and peoples of the Middle East. As a result of civil wars and/or the use of military force by foreign powers, four countries in the region (Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Libya) are failed or failing states that provide sanctuary for many of the most violent and resilient violent non-state actors (VNSAs) along with the wide assortment of criminal gangs and war profiteers. As part of that hegemonic competition, states sponsor violent groups as part of a bid to revise or maintain the status quo (Byman 2005). the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Gause III 2014). Iraq (Williamson and Woods 2014) or more current rivalries such as Iran vs.
Independent of the agency of the groups we will discuss in this chapter, there are a variety of structural conditions in the Middle East that permit a range of political actors to violently resist or even defeat the authority of the state and its allies.Ĭompetition for regional hegemony is a fact of life in the international system and is particularly evident in this region of the world – whether longstanding rivalries such as Iran vs. Especially since the 1967 war between Israel and a group of Arab nations led by Egypt, peace in the Middle East has been elusive (Quandt 2005 Dennis 2004). The history of the Middle East is littered with violent conflict – interstate wars, civil wars, insurgencies, revolutions, coups, invasions by foreign powers, and ethnic and sectarian strife. This is an excerpt from Regional Security in the Middle East: Sectors, Variables and Issues.