The teaching moment began the day we toppled Saddam from power. We did not notice. We were busy congratulating ourselves for liberating Iraq. But the Arab, Sunni Muslim world was not celebrating. Their view was that our invasion of the Sunni heartland unshackled the beast of Shia Islam which had been chained for a “thousand years.”
Since then, all of Iraq’s Sunni neighbors have struggled to curtail Shia power in Iraq, and its growing influence throughout the region. Consequently, some Sunni regimes which have been occasionally cooperative with us in the Middle East now see us as unwitting friends of their theological enemies. No longer can we trust these Sunni regimes to work in concert with our efforts in the region.
This is one reason why countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and others have permitted many of their citizen-jihadists to fight “the good war” against American troops in Iraq: They do not want us to succeed. They cannot digest the image that the former seat of the Sunni Abassid Caliphate and capital of oil-rich Iraq would be ruled by the Shia, as would be the case if we succeeded in establishing a peaceful, united, democratic Iraq. The Shia, who form a large majority of Iraq’s population, would best any coalition of Sunni political factions. Moreover, if the U.S. and its allies succeed in Iraq, Muslims throughout the region would be tempted to see a Shia-controlled Iraq and Shia Iran as the models to emulate instead if the Sunni model.
These Sunni states also fear instability among the Shia populations inside their borders. For instance, the al-Saud family in Arabia will worry about the majority Shia population at the center of its oil empire in the Eastern Province of al-Hasa. The minority Sunni al-Khalifa family in Shia Bahrain will be thrust into a state of anxiety, and there is the high likelihood of unrest among Kuwait’s 30% Shia Muslim population.
via hudsonny.org
the solution is simple. Shi'a, is the second largest denomination of Islam, after Sunni Islam. Shias have come to account for roughly one-tenth of the Muslim population worldwide. They are not a threat in a large Islamic Democracy (if Democracy is possible in Islam). With a larger border arrangement in the Middle East the Shi'a would remain a minority in most regions. I'm not sure why it is in American interests to dictate an obvious solution to any Sunni frustrations, but looking in as an outsider I don't see any threat to global Islam. Essentially you have individual Sunnis that don't want to give up power, but if a great Democratic Arab world ever happened there would be no threat of attrition. Essentially the greedy Sunni make their own problem with the Shi'a. As crazy as Iran is... I can empathy with their feelings that they are being black sheeped. To me it is the pot calling the kettle black, but these Sunni are aggressive and create their own problems
