Opening the Pandora's Box The Evolution of the Iraqi Sunni Insurgency From the Roots to the Caliphate (2003 - 2014)

Using chronological approach of qualitative method of researching, this thesis aims to answer "how did the Iraqi Sunni Arab insurgency evolve?" The insurgency that started immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and ended with the Islamic State's declaration of Caliphate in June 2014 has been characterized by complexity. This thesis helps to explain this complexity through identifying the roots and the cause of the insurgency, its evolution towards extremism, and the environmental factors that shaped and directed it. The thesis identifies four identities that had been promoted by Ba'ath regime of Iraq, namely tribalism, Salafi Jihadism, militarization, and Sunni Arab nationalism, and argues that these promoted identities eventually contributed to the demise of the Ba'ath regime and the emergence and evolution of the insurgency in post-Ba'ath Iraq. Having myriad groups with different nature, ideology, and end goals, the insurgency is beyond the aptitude of a single theory's explanation. Various theories of terrorism and insurgency have been used to explain the insurgency's evolution, but proved completely inadequate for the complexity of Iraq. This thesis finds the theory of Civil Wars by Stathis N. Kalyvas (2006) sufficiently wide and flexible to explain this heterogeneous endeavour in its entirety. According to the theory, civil war consists of two layers: public and private. The public or master cleavage is the central overarching cause of the war while the private is the local and personal reasons for joining the war. This thesis, based on historic facts of Iraq adds that pre-war identities form an intermediary layer that connects the master cleavage to the private ones, i.e. the insurgent elements are connected to identities that are in turn connected to the master cleavage of the war. This insight helps in forecasting the emergence and evolution of insurgencies and understanding heterogeneous insurgencies.