From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and Its Jihadi Legacy

Filiu, Jean-Pierre

ISBN 10: 0190264063 / ISBN 13: 9780190264062

Published by Oxford University Press, USA, 2015

About this Item

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Seller Inventory # G0190264063I4N00

Bibliographic Details

• Title: From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and Its Jihadi Legacy
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0190264063
• ISBN 13: 9780190264062
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Weight: 1.16 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

In his disturbing and timely book Jean-Pierre Filiu lays bare the strategies and tactics employed by
the Middle Eastern autocracies, above all those of Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Algeria, that set out to crush the democratic uprisings of the 'Arab Revolution.'

In pursuit of these goals they turned to the intelligence agencies and internal security arms of the 'deep state,' the armed forces, and to street gangs such as the Shabiha to enforce their will. Alongside physical intimidation, imprisonment and murder, Arab counter-revolutionaries discredited and split their opponents by boosting Salafi-Jihadi groups such as Islamic State. They also released from prison hardline Islamists and secretly armed and funded them.

The full potential of the Arab counter-revolution surprised most observers, who thought they had seen it all from the Arab despots: their perversity, their brutality, their voracity. But the wider world underestimated their ferocious readiness literally to burn down their countries in order to cling to absolute power. Bashar al-Assad clambered to the top of this murderous class of tyrants, driving nearly half of the Syrian population in to exile and executing tens of thousands of his opponents. He has set a grisly precedent, one that other Arab autocrats are sure to follow in their pursuit of absolute power.

About the Author

Jean-Pierre Filiu is Professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, and has held visiting professorships at both Columbia University and Georgetown University. His book The Apocalypse in Islam was awarded the main prize by the French History Association. His books and articles on the Arab world have been published in a dozen languages. His most recent book is Gaza, also available from Oxford University Press.