From Jihad To Politics

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.The Syrian regime unleashed unprecedented violence to suppress large-scale non-violent protests amid the Arab uprisings. Hundreds of armed groups formed throughout the country to defend the protesters and fight back. However, in contrast to other conflicts previously dominated by al-Qaeda and Islamic State, the two largest Syrian Jihadi groups, Ahrar al-Sham and then Jabhat al-Nusra, rejected global jihad and began to cultivate new ties with the population, other armed opposition groups, and even foreign states. This strategic shift is a response to the Jihadi paradox--a realization that while Jihadis excel at leading insurgencies, they fail to achieve political victories. In From Jihad to Politics, Jerome Drevon offers an examination of the Syrian armed...