This is Maliki’s doing too. In a country such as Iraq where animosity between shia & sunni has a very long history (centuries), he should have been a lot more inclusive & demonstrated a high level of maturity in the political process as well as all other aspects of life, living conditions and power sharing. Of course that requires a massive cultural change & a significant shift in mindset all around. Not something that can be achieved in a decade or two. Especially when there is constant instability or no stabilizing ‘force’ to oversee it.
they desperately want to cast this as merely “sectarian.” However, it’s not. ISIL has been executing Sunnis as well; anyone who was employed by or even apparently sympathetic to the attempt to establish a semi-secular modern state in Iraq is on their hit list. They are now imposing the most extreme form of sharia on Mosul and other places they have captured, and announcing, not that Sunnis rule, but that they are establishing the new caliphate where all the world will be ruled by this law.
Muslims have always had huge internal divisions, but historically that has not stopped them from sweeping across huge stretches of territory and subduing the inhabitants with extreme and savage violence. We’re just seeing another iteration of the 7th century - something they have repeated time and again over the intervening 14 centuries.