Turkey Invades Syria

[Drew Phipps]

I can assure you, and Escobar, that

the alleged apocalyptic Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian divide, which is the only Divide-and-Rule strategy spun and deployed non-stop by the US, Israel and the House of Saud.

is in fact a real thing, having lived for about a year (full disclosure: back in the 80's) in a country that housed both Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. A Shi'ite family, with which I broke bread on many occasions, and whose patriarch accompanied me on a couple of cross-country road trips, feared the (majority) Sunni as much as they feared Israel. The Iraq / Iran war is certainly the most spectacular example (half a million deaths) of the reality of this ideological divide, which historically stretches back to just after the death of Mohammed in 632 AD, and the arguments over who would succeed him.


Now, I have no way of personally knowing how the end of the Iraq (Sunni) / Iran (Shiite) war in 1988 and other developments since that time have impacted the relations between these Islamic sects; but I suspect that, with the recent rise of more militant factions, and with the Saudi's and Quatar's (Sunni) seeming willingness to foot the bill for military incursions against the (Shi'ite) government of Syria, that not that much has changed. (It must be noted that Assad's Shi'ite faction, that controls the government of Syria, is but 13% of the population, with 74% of the population being Sunni.) And a further example is that Saudi Arabia today accuses Iran of covertly supplying the Yemeni rebels with missiles.


I don't know whether or not it would be possible to redraw the Middle East to allow Sunni and Shi'ia to govern themselves. Probably not. It certainly seems like it would otherwise be a positive step towards a lasting peace in the area.