To many in the West, the conflict in Iraq is seen as a battle between coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents – but it’s not that simple as two facts make apparent. First, there is virtually no conflict in the northern third of the country where Kurds are predominant. Second, appalling though coalition casualties are, the overwhelming majority of the deaths are Iraqis killing Iraqis. How do we explain this?
\nFundamentally it is to do with the division of Islam into two branches: the Sunni and the Shi’a. Whereas there are serious theological divisions between Catholicism and Protestanism in the Christian religion, the differences of belief between Sunni and Shi’a are comparatively minor.
\nThe basic difference – which goes back to the very origins of Islam – is over the source of authority. Sunnis believe that God has not specified the leaders of the Muslim community after Muhammad and that the leader has to be elected, while Shi’as hold that leadership should not be passed down through elections but rather through divinely appointed infallible descendants of Muhammad. This may seem subtle to non-Muslims, but to many Muslim extremists it is literally a matter of life and death.
\nOne of the many complicating factors in Iraq is that, while in the Arab world as a whole Sunnis are in the clear majority, in Iraq the Shi’a are in the majority by around 60% to 40%. A further complication is that, in spite of Shi’as being the majority in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein it was the Sunnis who held the instruments of power. So a lot of scores are being settled and the battle for power is literally murderous.
\nWhat we see today in Iraq is effectively a civil war with the main division being between branches of the same faith. The conflict is increasingly bringing about a ‘de facto’ partitioning of the country: the Kurdish north already has a considerable degree of independence, Sunnis dominate the centre, Shi’as control the south, and in mixed Baghdad most sections of the city are becoming increasingly Shi’a or Sunni.
\nThe coalition invasion and its aftermath may have exacerbated the Shi’a\/Sunni conflict in Iraq but did not create it. I am currently reading a history of the Middle East by Bernard Lewis prior to my Easter visit to Israel and it is clear from this book that bitter divisions between Sunni and Shi’a – often involving violence and bloodshed – go back 1400 years to the death of Muhammad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To many in the West, the conflict in Iraq is seen as a battle between coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents – but it’s not that simple as two facts make apparent. First, there is virtually no conflict in the northern third of the country where Kurds are predominant. Second, appalling though coalition casualties are, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}