Overview

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 to literally 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.

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Reviews

'It takes patience, clarity and perspective to explain the whole grim picture [in the Middle East] and the links between its constituent parts. These qualities are on impressive display in an important new book by the French scholar Jean-Pierre Filiu. His particular skill is to describe the development, survival and resurgence of the Arab deep state, the security agencies that have kept it going and the monster they helped create - in its most extreme form the jihadis of the Islamic state (Isis). ... The answer, Filiu concludes bravely, has to be more democracy, not less, not a fatalistic acceptance that change can never come to the Middle East.' - The Guardian; 'Filiu ... argues ... that the Arab revolutions (as he calls them) have been foiled - Tunisia apart - by successful counter-revolutions organised by the 'deep state'. In Syria - as in Egypt and Yemen - the deep state is the hard core of a regime that strongly resembles those of the Mamluks in Egypt and the Levant long ago. He holds the Syrian 'Mamluks' responsible not only for the devastation of their own country but also for the rise of Islamic State ... In [this] polemical book ... Filiu offers the radical view that the 'Mamluks' were crude usurpers of the original national revolution, which they hijacked at independence; he insists that this was the case in Algeria before broadening the charge to apply it to Egypt, Syria and Yemen.' - London Review of Books; 'An authoritative and revealing tour of the role of Arab security mafias in shaping the politics of the Middle East. Filiu's account of the failure of the Arab uprisings places the blame for the region's chaos where it belongs: with the reconstituted deep states, security agencies and autocratic leaders determined to hold on to power at any cost.' - Marc Lynch, Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University

'It takes patience, clarity and perspective to explain the whole grim picture [in the Middle East] and the links between its constituent parts. These qualities are on impressive display in an important new book by the French scholar Jean-Pierre Filiu. His particular skill is to describe the development, survival and resurgence of the Arab deep state, the security agencies that have kept it going and the monster they helped create - in its most extreme form the jihadis of the Islamic state (Isis). ... The answer, Filiu concludes bravely, has to be more democracy, not less, not a fatalistic acceptance that change can never come to the Middle East.' - The Guardian; 'Filiu ... argues ... that the Arab revolutions (as he calls them) have been foiled - Tunisia apart - by successful counter-revolutions organised by the 'deep state'. In Syria - as in Egypt and Yemen - the deep state is the hard core of a regime that strongly resembles those of the Mamluks in Egypt and the Levant long ago. He holds the Syrian 'Mamluks' responsible not only for the devastation of their own country but also for the rise of Islamic State ... In [this] polemical book ... Filiu offers the radical view that the 'Mamluks' were crude usurpers of the original national revolution, which they hijacked at independence; he insists that this was the case in Algeria before broadening the charge to apply it to Egypt, Syria and Yemen.' - London Review of Books; 'An authoritative and revealing tour of the role of Arab security mafias in shaping the politics of the Middle East. Filiu's account of the failure of the Arab uprisings places the blame for the region's chaos where it belongs: with the reconstituted deep states, security agencies and autocratic leaders determined to hold on to power at any cost.' - Marc Lynch, Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University; 'Among authors trying to make sense of why the uprisings of 2011 largely failed, Jean-Pierre Filiu stands out. His new book ... combines passion, scholarship, and insight to present a convincing explanation of the deep malaise afflicting the Arab world.' -The Economist

Author Information

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, Gaza: A History, is also available from Hurst.

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