Syria Deeply: Syria has not traditionally been a seat of extremist Islam. What has contributed to the radicalization of the country? What’s driving it now?

Nader Hashemi: First and foremost, it’s the conflict itself. It’s not a coincidence that we are seeing the spread of Islamic radicalism in Syria as a direct result of the barbarity of the Assad regime, and as a result of a conflict that in my view is borderline genocidal.

In the midst of the chaos, mayhem, bloodshed and crimes against humanity, you don’t produce liberal, democratic opinion. You produce the antithesis of it: an environment that reflects the social conditions of chaos and anarchy.

There is also an ideological battle taking place in the Middle East today with respect to different political currents of Islamism, and it’s not a coincidence that we are seeing the upsurge and the rise of radical Islamism of various forms, with the most radical being ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, after the crushing of the Arab Spring and the democratic openings it unleashed.

Syria is a case study of the deep and intimate relationship between the closure of political opportunities and democratization, and in the aftermath of their demise, the upsurge of the rise of radical Islamic tendencies. In the early days of the revolution, in the first six months of 2011, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra weren’t present inside Syria. The early formation of radical jihadism in Syria started to take root and gain currency as political openings and possibilities for political change started to diminish. Human-rights violations and repression feed into a narrative of radical extremism and they undermine the prospects for more democratic and more moderate expressions of political Islam. [Continue reading…]