Sectarian genie is out of the bottle from Syria to Iraq

[dipsydoodle]

As jihadists storm through the Sunni heartlands of Iraq towards Baghdad, where a Shi’ite government they regard as heretic clings on, they have lifted the veil on deep sectarianism which has also stoked the fires of Syria’s civil war and is spilling over into vulnerable mosaic societies such as Lebanon.

The sectarian genie is now well out of the bottle, eclipsing traditional inter-state rivalries that plague the Middle East - even if these still play a part in the drama.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution brought a Shi’ite theocracy to power in non-Arab Iran, giving a sectarian edge to the long-standing, state-to-state contest for influence in the Gulf between Iran and Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy underpinned by the fundamentalist tenets of Sunni Wahhabi doctrine.

And the 2003 US invasion shattered Iraq into ethno-sectarian fragments, giving the majority Shi’ites the whip-hand over the Sunni minority and overturning a century-old balance of power.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/30/uk-iraq-security-sectarianism-insight-idUKKBN0F510820140630

[CJCRANE]

1. With a lot of help from foreign fighters and social media.

This is the first war recruited via and propagandized via social media.

[bemildred]

2. Nothing like a good religious war. No doubt ti will be easily contained.