The Political Geography of Upper Mesopotamia: How Al-Jazira Became Home to the Islamic State
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This project analyzes the unique geopolitical history of the Al-Jazira region of Iraq and Syria, an area better known today as the safe haven of the Islamic State. Nested between and immediately around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Upper Mesopotamia, the Al-Jazira region has a physical and human geography that encourages the importance of tribal structures. Al-Jazira is also distant from capital cities and the major urban centers associated with governing states, hindering direct political control of the area. The unique governance challenges associated with the Al-Jazira region have major strategic implications for defeating the Islamic State. Using the historical analysis of this project as a guide, I offer two different scenarios associated with the governance of this region by the Islamic State. The first suggests that the communities of Al-Jazira will be unable to generate resistance to the Islamic State because the citizens and social groups in this region lack experience with organized resistance. In this scenario, the Islamic State maintains control of Al-Jazira in the absence of external intervention. The second scenario suggests that because of high levels of social solidarity across and within the tribes of Al-Jazira, the Islamic State, like other political units seeking to exercise sovereignty over the region, will fail in its attempts to politically subordinate the existing tribal structure. In this scenario, once the tribal leadership of key tribes in the area turn against the Islamic State, internal resistance will lead to overthrow of the Islamic State without the need for external intervention.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | [ca. May 2016] |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Bonstrom, Kayla |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Blaydes, Lisa |
Subjects
| Subject | Al-Jazira |
|---|---|
| Subject | Islamic State |
| Subject | ISIS |
| Subject | ISIL |
| Subject | safe haven |
| Subject | tribe |
| Subject | tribal structure |
| Subject | upper mesopotamia |
| Subject | Center for International Security and Cooperation |
| Subject | The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies |
| Subject | Stanford University |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Bonstrom, Kayla. (2016). The Political Geography of Upper Mesopotamia: How Al-Jazira Became Home to the Islamic State. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/ty841cv3091
Collection
Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses
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- Contact
- kaylab@stanford.edu
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