The Challenges Posed by the Salafi-Jihadist Groups to Convergence in the Middle East

The Middle East has always been facing a variety of crises and conflicts over the past century. Owing to several developments in this region in the post-2011 years there have emerged a number of Salafi-Jihadist groups the most dreadful of which has been the self-proclaimed caliphate of the ISIS (so called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). The emergence of ISIS has resulted in the formation of a number of confrontations in the Middle East obscuring and complicating the future of this important region. Keeping this in view, the present research work intends to look into the challenges posed to convergence in the Middle East following the emergence of the Jihadist groups; particularly the ISIS. The findings of the research indicate that after the emergence and coming to power of Salafi-jihadist groups, a wide range of regional and trans-regional conflicts have taken place in the Middle East causing obstacle to the trend of convergence in the region. By the same token, based on the theoretical from of this research, the findings also show that convergence in the Middle East calls for four preconditions, which include: a) desire on the part of governments and nations; b) common economic interests; c) common understanding about existing interests and threats; and d) consensus over cultural commonalities. The emergence of Salafi-jihadist group’s, however, prove that none of these preconditions for the promotion of convergence are currently present in the region. As a matter of fact, following the emergence and significant presence of Salafi-jihadist groups, especially ISIS, the Middle East region may be referred to as a region ridden with a series of complicated conflicts and contradictions.