Between 2011 and 2015, more than 30,000 foreign fighters, most from the Arab world, traveled to Syria and Iraq to join radical jihadi groups, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda loyalists. Countering these forces, a new article in Middle East Policy shows, was a different group of mercenaries, one that has been largely ignored in analyses: combatants fighting on the side of the Assad regime as part of an attempt to revive Arab nationalism.
The Fall 2025 issue of Middle East Policy is now available in an Early View. The journal’s 165th installment examines dehumanization in the Gaza war, the effects of Israel’s June bombings on Iran, and the potential for both regional integration and further division across sectors of economics, trade, and social services.
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In their article on pan-Arab fighters, Djallil Lounnas and Israa Mezzyane trace the formation and mobilization of the Arab Nationalist Guard, a secular, highly ideological organization that constituted the largest group of anti-Islamic State fighters in Syria. It was also the third-largest transnational non-jihadist movement fighting on the side of Damascus. As one member told the authors as part of their extensive interviews with participants and leaders in the movement: “The Islamic State? Never! They are agents of imperialism!”
Lounnas and Mezzyane explore the origins of the neo-pan-Arab movement and show how it gained steam in 2010 with an ambitious agenda:
- renewing Arab cultural heritage
- calling for Arab unity as a response to divisions enforced by former colonists and outside hegemons
- establishing democratic governments as a response to autocracy in the Arab world
- creating independent economic and social-development programs to reduce if not eliminate dependence on forces outside the region
- fostering social justice and reducing economic and social inequality
- securing national independence free of foreign interference, liberating territories occupied by external powers, and preventing further dismemberment and secessions of Arab provinces.
To distinguish between the Nasserist era of the 1950s and 1960s and today’s pan-Arabism, one neo-nationalist leader tells Lounnas and Mezzyane:
There are many things that continue to exist in the pan-Arab doxa, while many others have changed. What changed is the concept of Arab. Today, we consider it, in a very broad sense, as an inclusive, universalist concept. In the past, despite what was claimed, it was seen through an ethnic definition. Today, the idea is to absorb the religious and ethnic contradictions that have always existed and caused divisions by insisting on the Arab language and culture, even more than before. Today, Berbers, Kurds, etcetera are considered part of the Arab nation. It is an inclusive umma.
While some pan-Arab fighters traveled to resist the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the movement grew a decade later through the Arab Nationalist Guard. The authors relate its origins and actions, and examine its relationship to Iran and Hezbollah—ostensible allies in Syria. The Arab nationalists found common cause with them in resistance to Israel and imperialism.
Ultimately, the estimated 1,000 pan-Arabist fighters were driven to fight for Damascus due to their commitment not to Tehran and Hezbollah, or even Bashar al-Assad, but to the nationalist cause. The authors describe one young leader’s perspective:
Syria had experienced an atrocious cycle of violence where the very authoritarian nature of the Assad regime was to be blamed. There was no question, he said, that Damascus should have implemented radical political changes, including economic and anticorruption reforms. But he maintained that his Arab nationalism compelled him to fight for the regime.
But with Assad’s ouster in December 2024, another fighter tells Lounnas and Mezzyane, “This is a major blow to the pan-Arab dream.”
The Fall 2025 issue of Middle East Policy includes four open-access pieces: Yagil Levy’s examination of the Israeli dehumanization of Palestinians through disregard; Banafsheh Keynoush’s analysis of the future of Iran nuclear talks; Hannes Baumann and Alice Hooper’s tracing of a pan-Arab corporate elite through the network of transnational interlocking directorships; and Namig Abbasov and Emil A. Souleimanov’s examination of how the new regime in Syria signals the marginalization of Russia in regional geopolitics.
If you’re still with us…please check out our special issue marking two years since the deadly Hamas attacks and the Israeli reprisals, The October 7 Emergencies. We will officially launch this collection next week. It features our recent coverage of the Gaza war and its spread across the region, as well as works from our archives that probe resistance in the West Bank and Washington’s role as Israel reshapes the Middle Eastern order. Of the 14 original articles and four book reviews, 11 are free to read, even without a subscription.
Middle East Policy, Fall 2025 Early View
Dehumanization of Disregard: The Case of Gaza
Yagil Levy—open access!
THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC’S HOMELAND CONFLICTS
The June 2025 Israeli War: Iran’s Assessment and Regional Consequences
Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi—free to read!
The Perils of Nuclear Talks after the US-Israel War on Iran
Banafsheh Keynoush—open access!
The 2022 Iran Protests: The View from the Streets
Rauf Rahimi | Sajjad Rezaei
EFFECTS OF REGIONAL TRADE AND ECONOMICS
Arab-Israeli Gas Diplomacy: Interdependence and a Path Toward Peace?
Gawdat Bahgat
The Development and Political Effects of a Pan-Arab Corporate Elite
Hannes Baumann | Alice Hooper—open access!
The Corridor War in the Middle East
Arash Reisinezhad | Arsham Reisinezhad
FALLOUT FROM SYRIAN AND LEBANESE CRISES
After Assad: How Russia Is Losing the Middle East
Namig Abbasov | Emil A. Souleimanov—open access!
Forgotten Fighters in Their Own Words: Pan-Arab Volunteers in Syria-Iraq
Djallil Lounnas | Israa Mezzyane
The Factors Driving Lebanon’s Medical Brain Drain
Mohamad Zreik | Houssein Mallah | Mohamad Mokdad
BOOK REVIEWS
Javad Heiran-Nia, Iran and the Security Order in the Persian Gulf
Reviewed by Mahmood Monshipouri
Rob Geist Pinfold, Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits
Reviewed by Nathaniel Shils
Steffen Hertog, Locked Out of Development: Insiders and Outsiders in Arab Capitalism
Reviewed by Ahalla Tsauro
Gilbert Achcar, Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective; and Erik Skare, Road to October 7: A Brief History of Palestinian Islamism
Reviewed by A.R. Joyce