A fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul, June 23, 2014. Credit: REUTERS/Stringer
Sectarian Genie Is Out Of The Bottle From Syria To Iraq -- Samia Nakhoul, Reuters
(Reuters) - 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.
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My Comment: This is a sectarian conflict that has been ongoing since the birth of Islam .... and after a brief interlude in the 20th century .... it is now back with a vengeance.
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