Posted on 06/13/2014 10:15:07 AM PDT by PoloSec
For those who don’t know or fully understand the millennial war between Sunni and Shia – the unending battle to prove who are the true Muslims — the preeminent scholar on Islam Robert Spencer explains it fully at Aleteia.
The Fall of Iraq
Jihad between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims is raging hotter now than it has in centuries. Robert Spencer, Aletheia, June 12, 2014
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has just seized the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and is close to taking control of the nation’s largest oil refinery — indicating that the jihad between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims is raging hotter now than it has in centuries, and isn’t going to die down anytime soon.
ISIS, a Sunni group, according to the Washington Post now “effectively governs a nation-size tract of territory that stretches from the eastern edge of the Syrian city of Aleppo to Fallujah in western Iraq — and now also includes the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.”
What’s more, it has the resources to outlast its foes in a long conflict. ABC News reports that the jihadists “looted $429 million from Mosul banks, making them richer than some small countries.”
However, Iraq’s Shi’ite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has vowed to retake the city, blaming its fall on a “conspiracy” and adding: “Today, the important thing is that we are working to solve the situation. We are making preparations and we are regrouping the armed forces that are in charge of clearing Ninevah from those terrorists.”
Maliki may indeed be able to clear the region of the Sunni jihadists, for behind him stands the power of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which also backs the Alawite Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. But it is unlikely that they will be able to achieve total victory, for Sunni jihadists from all over the world have flocked to Syria in order to fight against Assad, and Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting the Sunni jihadists in Iraq.
American analysts had naively hoped that both Sunnis and Shi’ite would have been able to put all this behind them. Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained in January 2007: “There’s still a tendency to see these things in Sunni-Shia terms. But the Middle East is going to have to overcome that.”
Seven years later, they still haven’t. In fact, the idea that the Sunni-Shi’ite divide, which is 1,400 years old and goes all the way back to the murky origins of Islam, is something that can without undue difficulty be “overcome” is a sterling manifestation of the general superficiality of Washington’s analysis of the Middle East, during both the Bush and the Obama administrations.
Unbeknownst to the analysts and policymakers who have influenced Washington policy for decades now, the Sunni-Shi’ite divide cannot be bridged by negotiations, or by bribes (“aid”), or by anything but the full surrender of one group to the other — which is not going to happen. This is because the divide has enough roots in each side’s differing understandings of Islam for hardliners in both camps to label the other “unbelievers,” and thus people who can lawfully be killed.
Islamic tradition holds that after Muhammad died (which is supposed to have happened in 632 AD), the Muslim community chose his companion Abu Bakr to succeed him as caliph, or successor of Muhammad as the military, political and spiritual leader of the Muslims. But one group among them thought that the leadership belonged by right to Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad’s son-in-law and one of his first followers, and after him to a member of the prophet’s household.
Ali finally did become caliph after Abu Bakr had been succeeded by two other companions of Muhammad, Umar and Uthman, but was assassinated only a few years later. Then in the year 680, his son Hussein was killed in battle with the caliph Yazid I at Karbala in Iraq, and the split between those who believed that the caliph should be the best man in the community (the Sunnis) and those who believed the Muslims should be led by a relative of Muhammad (the Shi’ites) became formal, bitter and everlasting.
There is not much doctrinal difference between the two camps, but since each believes that the other has departed from the truth of Islam, and each (particularly the Shi’ites) nurses centuries-old grudges over ancient wrongs done to them, this split is not going to be “overcome.” Saddam Hussein kept a lid on it in Iraq by brute force, but now that he is gone and a Shi’ite government is in power there, the Sunnis are determined to wrest control back from them, and the Shi’ites and their Iranian patrons are just as determined to keep it.
It is a recipe for endless warfare, until the Mahdi returns and reveals whether he has come as the Sunni or the Shi’ite version. In the meantime, the strength of ISIS, the Shi’ites’ determination to win back the territory they have lost, and the very real possibility that Sunni-Shi’ite war could engulf the entire Middle East, are grim monuments to the price of Washington’s faulty analysis.
The Shiites actively seek and would welcome Armageddon, in which EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET will die by fire. Shiites, of course, will fast-track to Firdous with the 72 Virgins, etc. All Infidels, and bad (i.e non-Shiite) Muzzies, too, will become their slaves in Firdous for all eternity.
In the meantime, Allah will recreate the world, an earthly paradise, that is a perfect, All-Shiite, All-the Time, beautiful Beverly Hills-type planet.
The Shiites also have other customs that irretrievably piss off other Muzzies, particularly the Sunni. They have "saints," shrines, hang holy pictures in their cabs, and generally carry on like Halloween in Mexico. Allah however, did place much of the world's petroleum under their none-too-clean posteriors, something for which the Sunni of Saudi Arabia will never forgive them. (E.G., Much of the Saudi oil wealth is in the Shiite-dominated eastern region!)
The Sunni Saudi attitude toward Shiites: Jesus! WTF was Allah thinking?
Like saying that these bearded savages have square beards, and those bearded savages have round beards. They’re both subhuman savages.
Iraq crisis: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia
Which version does Caliph Baraq adhere to?
“They’re both subhuman savages.”
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Now you have insulted savages the world over.
The country is run the way Tony Soprano runs Newark. One Prince has KFC, another MacDonalds, another Mercedes, another Ford, another Motorola, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Bosch, Firestone, etc etc etc.
One Prince Runs the Royal Army. Another the National Guard. Another The Air Force, another the Navy, another Military intelligence, another civil intelligence, a third the Religious Police, one guy has the phones, another cable TV. Each of these guys is wealthy beyond belief.
So one Prince may bankroll al qaeda, another will back the taliban, another will buy weapons for Assad, while his cousin bankrolls the rebels. Yes, there is a government ... and it knows all, but as to who exactly is bankrolling what ... fuggedaboutit. You can ask, of course.
The Saudis play chess on 20 different boards at once. There is only one thing worse than the Saudi government: that is what ever comes next.
I see an ad for a mooslem marriage service on the link. If Gellar is against the mooslems why the site ad? Pinche mooslems. Feed them pork!
Enjoyed your irreverent, humorous and real take on the Muslims.
Since he’s not moving to help the Shia president of Iraq, he could be Sunni.
bkmk
That might be the Chinese. They are Iraq's biggest customer. They want the oil, and don't care what they have to do to get it. They have already have offered assistance to Iraq.
The Shia gov’t of Iraq are twelvers, aka, fanatics.
“The Islamic State: Leaving al-Qaeda Behind”
Posted by: Mursal Posted date: January 05, 2014
If the Saudis spend their money, that would also be our money. The Saudis are treacherous, lyin' bastards, who figure a million angles on every deal, and to whom "Truth" is a rare and well-guarded commodity.
They may well deserve each other. After all, the Brits refer to them both as "Worthy Oriental Gentlemen." Of course the Brits also say that "The WOGS begin at Calais!"
Except now they begin at Soho.
Can you recommend a book on that subject?
On a real slow internet connection, otherwise it would be no problem to get you a link. There is a collection of BBC videos on the history of Scotland available on the web somewhere. Something like a 10 or 14 part series. They run around 20 minutes or so each I think. Or at any rate, there are books written about the Rebel King.
what side does Obama favor? He did bow to the King of Saudi Arabia—Hes a Sunni. He might be able to make a deal with Al Baghdadi—maybe give him the guys in Gitmo?
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