You were 100% on the money, right up until this point.
A unification of the Muslim sects sounds scary, but you know as well as I that if both sides got nuclear weapons, they'd use them on each other long before they did us. They're no different than medieval Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox societies who were more than happy to spill each other's blood. Aside from a few crusades into Muslim held areas, that's pretty much all they did.
Even now, hundreds of years later, it's considered a fairly novel thing that so many non-Catholic Christians have come forward to support the Pope's words. The idea that everyone's going to forget their differences and become Catholic is as out there as the idea that Sunni Salafists are going to give up on that line and become Shi'ites.
"They're no different than medieval Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox societies who were more than happy to spill each other's blood. Aside from a few crusades into Muslim held areas, that's pretty much all they did."
You need to speak to your educator about a refund.
In a world populated by followers, the leaders all begin to look the same.
The Caliphate, which united Shia and Sunni under one leader, only ended 80 years ago. You probably weren't alive then, I certainly wasn't, but I know people who were.
The victors in World War I, the British and the French, carved up the Caliphate into the nations we know today, which are all artificial constructs that bear only a vague resemblence to the provinces which formerly existed under that Caliphate.
Is nationalism stronger than the drive to unity among Muslims? I don't see much national identity, they seem unified along religious lines, not national boundaries.
They've thrown aside their differences in the past, what holds them back from doing so again?