A Study Of Islamic Radical Groups In The Middle East

The constant conflicts between Islamic radical groups (IRGs hereafter) in theMiddle East and sovereign states have been under academic spotlight. Althoughscholars in the field of international relations theory have attached much attention tothe above issue, many fundamental problems concerning these groups are still callingfor an effective theoretical explanation. Therefore, this thesis tries to answer two basicquestions related to the IRGs: What kinds of actors are these groups? Why do theyalways have conflicts with sovereign states?Rules must be discovered and theory must be created. Despite that the IRGs havebeen viewed as natural “actors” on the arena of world politics, it is still necessary toanalyze and examine how these groups became such actors before we can findsatisfactory answers to the above-mentioned questions. To help the reader understandrelevant terms and concepts in this thesis, the author first introduces the concept of“violent non-state actor”（VNSA hereafter）, then sums up their types of power andmajor contemporary political forms occurred through the changes of the powerdistribution in the international system. The author believes that the religiousfundamentalist movements with IRGs at the core are a VNSA that has most importantinfluence on current international system. In addition, history shows that essentialdifferences exist between the IRGs and national liberation movements, ethnic(identity) political movements or other VNSAs: the political goal of the IRGs is to setup, by all means, including the use of violence or force,“an Islamic state” or Ummaor a Khlifah state, which is a “political system” totally independent of the sovereignstate system. In contrast, the top political goal of national liberation movements orethnic(identity) political movements is to overthrow their existing governments,establish a secular state run by themselves and integrate the new regime into thecurrent sovereign state system. Therefore, compared with the impact of other VNSA son the international system, the impact of the IRGs on the international system willdefinitely lead to conflict. In the process of their construction, the IRGs have constructed themselves asactors in the Umma system under the sovereignty of Allah. These actors are highlyhomogeneous, which means they are just like those varied but highly homogeneous“states” in modern sovereign state system. This belief and the necessity of acting inaccordance with their self-interests determine their role on the stage of world politicstoday, that is, to deconstruct modern sovereign state system and construct a Ummasystem. However, modern sovereign states, especially those large ones, are firmadherents of the international system. With the IRGs as absolute negators and modernsovereign states firm adherents, they have conflicts in both reality and logic, whichcan be further proved by the violent conflicts between the IRGs and such sovereignstates as the US, Europe and Russia. Moreover, the conflicts between the IRGs andthe sovereign state system are, to a great degree, uncompromising “zero-sum games”instead of "coexistence" competition. In response to the attacks from the challengingIRGs, the USA, Europe and Russia and other sovereign states are compelled to eitherstrike back single-handedly or strike back together as a counter-terrorism alliance. Asa result, the two sides are lost in a paradigm of conflict circle featuring“challenge-response-challenge”. Such conflicts, in a word, are the confrontationbetween the Umma system under the sovereignty of Allah and the sovereign statesystem.As a matter of fact, the conflict between the IRGs and sovereign states is merelya special case of its kind. Today the “new war” spreading between VNSAs and stateactors is no longer an exception on the spectrum of conflict but common relationshipfaced by international security and a topic worthy of further studies in academia aswell.