The Reproduction of Chaos

by Dr. Dhib Al-Qaraleh

At a highly sensitive moment—where internal Syrian dynamics intersect with a rapidly escalating regional confrontation between the United States and Iran—the Syrian–Iraqi border region is once again emerging as a critical arena in the evolving equations of anticipated regional chaos.

The ongoing clashes in northeastern Syria between Syrian government forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), alongside reports of ISIS detainees escaping from prisons, cannot be separated from the broader context of reshaping regional power balances.

These developments are unfolding as signs multiply of an approaching U.S.–Iran confrontation, likely preceded and followed by phases of indirect military and security pressure in which fragile theaters—chiefly Iraq and Syria—serve as battlegrounds for settling scores before and after any presumed direct clash.

The escape of ISIS members revives an old yet renewed question: is the organization once again being instrumentalized as a tool of chaos in a transitional regional phase? Recent history offers a clear answer. ISIS did not emerge in a vacuum; it grew and expanded during moments of regional and international collision—namely the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Syrian civil war—while benefiting from covert support from one side or another.

Today, nearly identical conditions are reemerging: security vacuums, local conflicts, and sharp contradictions among rival forces—creating an environment conducive to ISIS’s reconfiguration in new, less centralized, and more flexible forms.

Any ISIS activity along the Syrian–Iraqi border threatens not only Syrian security but directly destabilizes Iraq’s internal landscape, which remains fragile due to political and sectarian balances and the presence of armed factions directly or indirectly aligned with Iran.

An ISIS resurgence carries the grave risk of reigniting Sunni–Shiite conflict—the most dangerous scenario at this stage. Ideologically, the group targets Shiites and weaponizes sectarian violence to fracture societies and states.

In Iraq, any major ISIS attack would almost certainly provoke violent retaliation by Shiite militias, potentially unleashing a new wave of domestic and cross-border violence and dragging the country back into its darkest years. In Syria, ISIS could exploit existing tensions to strike sectarian symbols or retaliate against Kurdish forces that fought it fiercely—possibly igniting Arab–Kurdish strife and widening the conflict’s scope.

Amid escalating U.S.–Iran tensions, Syria and Iraq appear increasingly likely to become proxy theaters of attrition both before and after any direct confrontation. In such circumstances, ISIS functions as a destabilizing wildcard—while Iraq remains the most vulnerable fault line. Caught between intensifying American pressure, deep Iranian influence, and chronic internal divisions, Baghdad may once again find itself at the storm’s epicenter—one whose fallout will inevitably reach Damascus.

Past experiences have shown that manipulating chaos and extremism never produces stability. When allowed to grow, ISIS does not remain anyone’s tool—it transforms into a comprehensive threat to all.

The critical question, then, is whether regional and international actors have learned from past mistakes, or whether the region is once again being steered toward a chaos whose beginning is well known but whose end remains unpredictable.

Equally pressing is whether there is a link between the international coalition’s withdrawal from its last base in Iraq—declaring the end of the first phase of its war against ISIS and the transition to a second phase centered in Syria—and the coalition’s failure to intervene to prevent the loss of control over the Al-Shaddadi prison, which houses thousands of ISIS detainees and lies only minutes away from coalition forces.