When I that there was a Thirty Years War starting up between Shi'a and Sunni it was not simply a historical analogy penned for the sake of intellectual reflection. It was something that people in the United States should take seriously. Yet, even two months later, even as the pundits started to use the right vocabulary, they merely made an academic exercise of it -- "ooh, cool comparison!" -- and moved on.
There is a larger narrative that no one seems to appreciate. Here is that narrative: Iran and Saudi Arabia are setting up a power struggle that is going to encompass the heart of the Muslim world; a smaller version of the cold war; with satellite states; and lots of covert, decentralized mercenary usage. In fact, there is some evidence that this struggle has already started. However, this is not just a geo-political struggle. It is colored by almost 1400 hundreds years of inter-Islamic strife. It is colored by brutal massacres. It is colored by theology. It is colored by religious authority. In other words, the battle between Saudi and Iran is not a battle between two random countries. It represents the longest-standing and most violent face-off within Islam. If people thought that Protestant versus Catholic was bad; appreciate the fact that the Islamic face-off was around for almost 900 years before a Protestant even existed.
And the worst thing about this coming battle is that the United States has absolutely no idea that 1) it is coming, 2) or what to do about it. Here, then, is some education.
History
It is irrelevant what actually happened in the past between Shi'a and Sunni, which is what pundits usually start talking about when they get to this point. Objectivity is irrelevant. What is relevant today is what Shi'a masses and Sunnis masses are taught.
Sunnis masses are taught that shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, a man who was formerly a Jew (and was probably not really a convert at all), helped to stoke the flames that created the Shi'a/Sunni division in Islam. This means that immediately a Sunni equates a Shi'a with a Jew, and that means that today, a Sunni can immediately equate Shi'a with a global Zionist conspiracy. It is why I found this fatwa by a Saudi cleric important enough to link to. This fatwa perpetuates this already long-standing propaganda.
Shi'a masses are taught that Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad to whom Shi'a are connected, was inappropriately denied the Caliphate, not once, but on three separate times, and that the worst offender in the usurpation was the third Caliph, Usman, who only cared about nepotism and consolidating power for his family (which is actually kind of true). Thus, Shi'a immediately dislike anyone that comes from Usman's stock -- and that, my friends, has been a huge problem because numerous Muslim leaders since that time have been from Umayyad stock.
The Shi'a -- by way of today's Iran -- have attempted to neutralize the lie that is perpetuated against them (i.e. they are a Jewish conspiracy), by going after Israel. If they kill Jews, and free Jerusalem, surely no one will think they are a Jewish conspiracy. It is why Hizbollah exists. Not to free the Palestinians. It is a PR campaign by the Iranians. It works. I had with an activist during the Israel-Hizbollah war. Look at the way in which Hassan Nasrallah is beheld by the Arabs. You might also be interested in learning that after the war, Hizbollah gave out rolls of cash worth 12,000 bucks. Iran knows PR as well as the Israelis and Americans. Iran has actually been able to win the heart of fence-sitting Muslims by propping up Hizbollah.
Sunnis, on the other hand, because they are the majority, do not play defense. They simply keep hammering the idea that the Shi'a are a sort of heretic cult, and go to town with it. This should not be as easy as it is, because the Muslim reformists of the 20th century were able to patch up a few of the problems between Sunni and Shi'a and should have been able to resist this. The foremost patching occurred under a modernist cleric at Cairo's al-Azhar university. He made it so that the Shi'a school of law, for twelve hundred years not accepted as legitimate by the Sunni religious authorities, was accepted as the fifth legitimate school of Islamic Law. Those scholars; the ones who ought to be rising up on behalf of Shi'a Sunni solidarity are not speaking up. They can't. They live in a police state (Egypt). Around the rest of the world they simply are not organized.
You then have the issue of historical geo-politics. Numerous times over the history of Islam, a Sunni empire was defeated or kept in check, by way of an aspiring Shi'a empire. It started really early.
As the Caliphate (children of the third Caliph Usman) spread Westward towards Africa, they suddenly ran into the , a Shi'a Caliphate, which prevented them from expanding.
Later, when the Abbassids Sunnis expanded to Baghdad, they were on for neo-Fatimid and Shi'a infiltration.
Then, when the Sunni (Usmanis - no connection with the Caliph Usman) came to power, they ran into the in Iran -- who formalized Shi'a Islam in Iran and prevented the Ottomans from linking up with the somewhat Sunni in India. If you go to South Asia today, you still have people upset over the fact that the Safavids were like a wedge between Turkish and Indian Islam. They argue that the Muslim world would not have become colonized if the Sunni powers -- Ottomans and Moghuls -- weren't undermined by the Shi'a subversive Safavids.
For more detailed reading on how this historical prejudice against the Shi'a now manifests itself via people like Zarqawi which does a fairly good analysis of Shi'a demonization within Islamic theology, and how geo-political failures -- like colonialism -- get pushed onto the Shi'a.
Then, of course, there is the matter of ; the plains in modern day Iraq, where Imam Hussain, son of Ali, grandson of the Prophet, was killed by an Umayyad usurper (who, to Sunnis Yazid is not an usurper; at best, just a misguided idiot). Not only was Hussain killed, so was his entire family. This massacre -- which occurred in Iraq -- is the fundamental historical event that requires reconciliation. Yazid was an Umayyad -- a couple of generations removed from the Caliph Usman. Yazid's father Mu'awiya had waged a bitter fight against Hussain's father Ali when Ali was Caliph. Yazid killed Hussain when he suspected that Hussain was on his way to Kufa to make a claim upon the Caliphate. As noted, Kerbala is in modern day Iraq. That would be the place which we are now occupying.
Finally, there was a little thing called the , which is the forum which gives us a little thing called suicide bombing. Almost 2 million people died on each side. The Iranians described the war as an attack on Shi'a Islam. The Sunni world was told that it was a war for the future of Sunni Islam. It was about neither; but that is irrelevant today.
The Stupidity of the United States
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So, in essence, when we waltzed into Iraq, a place which was torn between Shi'a and Sunni, a place which contains the planes of Kerbala, a place where numerous stand offs between Shi'a and Sunni had happened in the past (Abbasid infiltration, Safavid conquest of Iraq), we did so by ignoring the entire cavalcade of history.
Thereafter, we failed to broker any sort of peace between the religious communities. The insurgents realized this and they started to use the historical antagonism as a way to get back at us. It's been working for them.
Not only that, but we didn't realize that if the Sunni-Shi'a situation got out of hand, we'd have a real problem, because Iran already had huge regional hegemonic ambitions.
Nor did we consider that if and when Iran started acting up, you would have some Sunnis somewhere react and try to put them back in their place. We were genuinely surprised when we found that it was the Saudis -- our long standing bitches -- that took up the anti-Shi'a anti-Iran mantle. We were surprised when Saudi turned off all the anti-Israel remarks and started saying that Iran was more of a threat to the future of Islam than Israel itself. Yes, we were surprised by this because we are stupid.
What we did not understand -- or care to know -- was this little thing called Religious Authority. What we did not understand -- or care to know -- was this little thing called Islam.
You see, Islam does not have a clergy. It means that anyone with the votes -- or the guns -- becomes the leader. In that sense Islam is Protestant. However, that is merely Sunni Islam. Shi'a Islam does have a clergy. It has a sort of "Church." People ascribe very closely to what their clerics -- Ayatollahs -- tell them to do. In that sense, it is Catholic. Over history, Sunni Islam has contained the ambitions of people -- and their violence -- by positing that people had to behave according to what the "scholars" were saying (who then preached peace and pacifism). But people stopped adhering to the limits that the "scholars" put on them (ask the academics why). Now, Sunni Islam is a free for all and Shi'a Islam is not at all.
The only one who can take charge in Sunni Islam is Saudi Arabia. For one simple reason: Saudi controls Mecca and Medina. You can be the biggest baddest thug in the Sunni Muslim world but you have to bow down to the guy who holds Mecca and Medina. That is Saudi's ace in the hole. Not oil; Mecca. Because they have that ace, Saudi will, no matter how ignorant and backwards, take the lead in the Muslim world. That, is, exactly, what, it, has, done.
How exactly did Wahhabism spread to Chechnya, Bosnia, Indonesia, the US and elsewhere? Very simply: a mosque got founded, people argued as to who should lead it, the reply was: anyone trained by the Saudis. Why? Because Muslims just assume that if you studied in the shade of Mecca or Medina you are more religious than anyone else. It is this psychological power which transforms into actual power that gives Saudi Arabia its big time status in the Muslim world (and the oil money is just a tool that it uses to rely on this psychological power). For the longest time Saudi Arabia -- relying on this psychological power -- spread its tentacles. It went into the Soviet-Afghan war. It went into Europe. It went into anywhere there were Muslims. It shipped free Qurans (which I showed are acidic as hell).
Then, Iran picked up on their game. It rooted its religious authority in becoming the defender of the third holiest city in Islam (Jerusalem). Then, with its own oil wealth, it started spreading its own tentacles. You got an oil pipeline (Pakistan's got a huge number of Shi'a with some who are in high powered places). It went to the Arabs -- in areas where there are a lot Shi'a Arabs -- and suggested that the . It went into places which we abandoned -- in favor of Iraq -- and which were available for the taking and is now . I am not even going to talk about the battle brewing in the Central Asian nations.
Ok, I Accept I am A Stupid American, But Please Help Me Solve This Globalized Civil War
The answer lies with the Iraqi Shi'a. Funny and ironic, right? The people that GHW Bush abandoned to Saddam's brutality after promising them military backing in 1991. The ones that are dying by the boatload now because we weren't able to prevent insurgents attacks on them so they took to forming their own militias. The group who used to give allegiance to Sistani but slowly gave it over to Sadr because he would protect them.
Thing with the Iraq Shi'a is that they ara Arab and not Persian. While they look to Qom for spiritual guidance they do not listen to Qom. The Arab/Persian divide is one that even Shi'a Islam has not been able to bridge. When the Safavids were romping in Iran, they weren't able to simply annex Iraq despite its majority Shi'a population. They had to take it over with conquest.
If the Iraqi Shi'a can create a viable state in Iraq in which there is some modicum of peace with the Sunnis, the threat of a Shi'a crescent can be minimized. However, I am not exactly optimistic that the current Administration in any way shape or form knows how to solve this problem and that is why a new American narrative that confronts Iran directly is needed. The entire goal has to be to let the Arab states talk their hardline while we give strategic softening to the Iranians.
We have to do something about Israel-Palestine. I recently heard that Israelis are again creating settlements. We need to get them back to the 1967 borders and be actively engaged -- using economic incentives -- in reigning in Hamas. For this reason we need a new strategy towards Hamas as well. As long as the Palestinians suffer, Hizbollah will be considered the saviors of Jerusalem, and as long as Hizbollah is not de-legitimized (which can only happen with peace), Iran will have far more influence in the Arab world than it should.
Conclusion
There has been no evidence to me that the United States is aware of the magnitude of the problem at hand. Those that have expressed some measure of alarm have done it solely to try and find a military option in Iran. Unfortunately, we are neither capable of of a military victory in Iran -- -- nor does it do anything but exacerbate a Shi'a Sunni war that no one knows how to control. Besides, what would an outright Saudi victory in the middle east really get us? It isn't as if their Islam is all that peaceful.
Finally, someone needs to invent a world for a Religious Civil War. "Sunni, Shi'a Schism" is too arcane; and Islamic Face off is too Hollywood.
Update: via Haroon
1. Umayyads and Fatimids: There was no Umayyad empire when the Fatimids were born. In fact, the Fatimids were born well after the Abbasids had even declined. One could say that the real "cold war" inside Islam began with the struggle of Fatimiyyah vs. Seljuk; the Seljuks sponsored the Nizamiyya system, which was to counter Fatimid propaganda. Fatimid propagandists reached to India (birthing the Bohra communities) and Seljuks tried to counter-act it. Indeed, the struggle is crucial because while Sunni and Shi'i fight it out (this time, though, Sunni ruled Iran and Shi'i ruled Egypt, and Sunni Islam's greatest champion was an Iranian, al-Ghazali, who was birthed by the Nizami madaris that Nizam al-Mulk established throughout the Seljuk state as a way of defending Sunnism.
2. That time period was also crucial because the Holy Land was being occupied, and though the Seljuks faded before there was a concerted Sunni resistance movement, it was the Sunnis who, under Salah al-Din, took Egypt first, and then took on the Crusaders, and on taking Egypt from the Fatimids, they "returned" Egypt to Sunnism (Egypt had never really been converted; it was a matter of nominal allegiance and handing al-Azhar over to Sunnism.) From that point on, Sunni Islam became centered on Al-Azhar. Shi'i Islam began retreating and dispersing, and would not really emerge in organized state form for several centuries, under Safavid rule. But the Safavids, who FORCIBLY converted Iran to Shi'ism, adopted Twelver Shi'ism, which was far more "mainstream."
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