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The still growing Sunni-Shia divide

The Atlantic Council yesterday introduced a book by a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center, Geneive Abdo, titled A New Sectarianism: The Arab Spring and the Rebirth of the Sunni-Shia Divide. Abdo was interviewed by Joyce Karam, Washington Bureau Chief of the Al-Hayat newspaper, and the conversation was broadcast on CSPAN.

Abdo‘s book focuses on the aftermath of the Arab Spring and how the divide between Sunni and Shia factions has widened since 2011. She specifically studied Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The divides undermine already unstable states and may lead to more conflict in the future.

Abdo explained that while many of the revolutionaries of 2011 were optimistic that all the various factions would come together to build a better government—particularly in Egypt—in reality, every faction wanted dominance more than peace. Radical factions took advantage of the chaos to take power and left more moderate factions behind. The competition for dominance over religious messaging is still increasing.

The Sunni-Shia divide has increased as Saudi Arabia and Iran have tried to co-opt the respective Sunni and Shia causes throughout the region. This rivalry between Saudi and Iran comes at the expense of the majority of Sunnis and Shias in the region, who identify more with their own unique brand of Shiism or Sunnism rather than the Iranian or Saudi brand. For example, many Arab Shias feel that Iran controls the Shia who dominate the Iraqi government, which therefore does not represent the Iraq’s interests. The divide between Sunnis and Shias is further exacerbated by intra-Shia and intra-Sunni conflicts throughout the Arab world.

Abdo considers Saudi and Iranian meddling in regional affairs highly detrimental to the pursuit of peace in the Middle East. For example, the Arab Spring in Bahrain was initially a joint Shia-Sunni effort against the government. However, once Saudi Arabia intervened, the conflict became Sunni Bahranis and Saudis versus Shia Bahranis. As a result, Shia Bahranis are virtually silenced in public discourse, to the detriment of the country.

Despite the general animosity between Sunnis and Shias in the region, many governments have avoided uprisings by warning their people that their country could become like Syria. In Morocco, Abdo met individuals who were unhappy with their government, but do not dare protest for fear that Morocco could become the next Syria. Even the Syrian government has been using this tactic. Bashar Al-Assad has often reminded Syrians that as bad as his rule is, it’s better than ISIS rule—if Assad were to leave, the alternative could be much worse.

Too often, according to Abdo, Washington analysts overlook radical tweets and Facebook posts because they are in Arabic or because they are not considered to be reliable. However, radical anti-Sunni or anti-Shia tweets are widely disseminated and significantly contribute to sectarian hatred. The anonymity of social media allows information and ideas to spread without the burden of individual responsibility.

Though Abdo was hesitant to speculate on how a Trump administration would affect the Sunni-Shia divide, she expects Trump to be much tougher on Iranian interventions than Obama was. But his hyper-focus on countering violent extremism will not leave much room for paying attention to sectarian reconciliation in the region.

When asked if she sees any room for Saudi-Iranian reconciliation, Abdo said that a real peace between these two countries is unlikely. Both Saudi and Iran benefit from the regional rivalry, so it is unlikely that either country will take any steps towards rapprochement. Additionally, there is little that the US can do to encourage these regional rivals to reconcile—the best that we can do is work with them and around them.