External Involvement in the Syrian Civil Conflict and the Rise of Islamic State Movement

Abstract

Sovereign states especially those in the Middle East have over the last couple of years been enmeshed in high profile internal challenges that  have flagrantly shown a more or less usual vindictive display of power and resources by those that own it and willing to deploy it in pursuit of some perceived objectives both overtly and covertly expressed. This study focuses on external involvement in the Syrian conflict and the rise of the Islamic State movement. Particularly, the study investigates the link between external political and logistics support to the opposition pro-democracy movement and the expansion of the Islamic State in Syria. The study used ex post facto research design and the qualitative method to generate data while qualitative descriptive analysis was used to assign descriptive explanation and analysis to the data in order to show the relationship between the variables. Anchored on the Marxist political economy paradigm, the study found that external support to the opposition pro-democracy movement in Syria gave rise to the expansion of the Islamic State resulting in the capture and control of territories in Syria. The study also found that the drive for regime change and the installation of democracy by the West is a matter of age-long foreign policy thrust and not a mere involvement rooted on humanitarian justifications. It therefore recommends the complete withdrawal of the corporate-financier support driven by foreign interests that fuel the conflict otherwise the Syrian civil conflict will persist and the Islamic State movement would remain a force that would not be easy to defeat.