Why is there Sunni Arab support for Isis in Iraq?

Attempts to understand the success of Isis in Iraq would benefit from Marxist analysis, since social and economic factors are the key to explaining Sunni Arab support for, and complicity with, the group.

By Lucy Fisher

(Photo By Many Iraqis fled from Mosul when Isis swept in, but why have some supported the group? Photo: Getty)

For Western military analysts and policy-makers trying to unravel the implosion of Iraq, a Marxist analysis of the situation is long overdue.

The appeal of Isis’s extreme religious doctrine to Sunni Arab Iraqis has been well documented, but in fact it is the economic situation of many of those Sunni Arab civilians that lies at the root of their support for the insurgents.