Peace deals or a war pact,

One can be good, the other can be dangerous

For all the news of the recent thaw between Israel and Arab states like Saudi Arabia I’ve seen no mention of the sort of alliance forming from these deals. The Trump administration chose to hold Saudi Arabia close, so close that the U.S. wouldn’t lodge a protest over the Saudi murder and dismemberment of journalist and U.S. resident, Jamal Koshoggi. With the addition of Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan to the list of Muslim countries making deals with Israel, the Trump administration has established a clear strategic thrust, possibly on purpose.

There is one enduring divide in the Middle East, a conflict to which Israel is largely an observer. Trump administration policy has now committed the U.S. to one side of this divide. The conflict is the Sunni/Shia split, a clash that has burned throughout the region for centuries, and both the U.S. and Israel have now thrown their weight behind the Sunni led nations.

Sunnis make up the majority of global Muslims, around 85% of approximately 1.6 billion, and the schism between its two branches goes back to the Seventh Century, shortly after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Saudi Arabia is majority Sunni as is their ruling family, whose century’s old alliance with the Wahhabi mission legitimizes the House of Saud in its claim to rule Saudi Arabia. It’s important to remember that both al Qaeda and ISIS arose out of followers of Wahhabism and are Sunni as well.

The politics of many Middle East countries have been shaped by this divide, and western nations engaged there ignore it at their peril. When the U.S. recruited resistance fighters against the Russians in Afghanistan, many were Sunni Mujahideen from Saudi Arabia, notably Osama Bin Laden, and others were Shia. After the Russians withdrew, conflict between Sunni and Shia Mujahideen helped fuel the ensuing Afghan civil war among war lords and resistance groups for control of the fractured state. This bloody, years long conflict led to the rise and rule of the Sunni Taliban, who invited al Qaeda to set up residence and provided them a haven from which to plot and execute 9/11.

George W. Bush was persuaded, in part by Kurdish Iraqis, that toppling Saddam Hussein would spark the rise of democracy in Iraq. There’s little evidence that he or his administration understood the Sunni/Shia split in Iraq where like Bahrain, a Sunni minority ruled over a Shia majority. Taking out Saddam’s largely secular rule and dismantling his ruling Ba’ath party, while calling for “democracy”, opened the door for majority Shia rule. This opening was exploited by Sunni extremists like Abu Mus ‘ab al-Zarqawi who formed al Qaeda in Iraq to fight both the U.S. occupation and the new Shi-ite dominated Iraqi government.

Pledging allegiance to Osama Bin Laden in return for his endorsement, Zarqawi unleashed terror attacks in Iraq, first on security forces, government institutions and civilians, and then on Shia Iraqis and their mosques and shrines. al Qaeda in Iraq helped ignite a horrific civil war between the two ethnicities that tore the country apart and trapped us there for years.

Even in Syria, where a minority Alawite regime ruled over a majority of Sunni Syrians, religious and ethnic divisions came to drive the conflict. The Assad government acted at first just to maintain political control, but his position as protectors of the small Shia population and other religious minorities quickly drew in actors like Hezbollah. This strategic arm of Shia Iran stepped in early to defend largely Shia villages close to Lebanon. Not only did Hezbollah serve to prop up a weakened Assad, but the political conflict quickly devolved into an ethnic/religious fight which attracted and bred Sunni/Wahhabist militant groups, eventually leading to the rise of ISIS. When ISIS swept back into Iraq it was facilitated by the support of Iraqi Sunnis, who saw themselves as victims of the majority Shia Iraqi government, and ISIS atrocities against non Sunni populations inevitably drew U.S. forces back into the conflict.

All of these conflicts are more complex than I can describe here, more complex than I can probably understand. I would like to warn however about the hazards of ignoring this enduring religious conflict when making policy. I think it’s reasonable to assume that joining one side or the other is not going to lead to regional peace any time soon.

Neither side is going away, neither side is likely to defeat the other, and triumphs on either side have the potential to set off bloodbaths and potential genocides. The Trump abrogation of the Shia Iran nuclear deal scuttled any sense of warming relations between the U.S. and Iran, scuttling as well any claim we might have had as a fair broker between Shia and Sunni nations. This divide will replace the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as the main source of conflict in the Middle East, if it hasn’t already.

Israel’s decision to ally with the Sunni side, as Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran jockey for regional position, effectively divided the many Muslim nations once allied against it. Our support of the Saudi military campaign against Shia Houthis in Yemen has to be seen as part of this gambit. These alliances may serve to reduce the threat against Israel, a desirable goal, but Iran stands as the only powerful protector of minority or disempowered Shia populations throughout the region, and they are unlikely to abandon this stance.

We can only hope that the new leadership in Washington will restore some balance to our position in the Middle East. Rebuilding our commitment in the Iran nuclear deal will go far to reduce their isolation, not only from the majority populations of the region but also from Europe and the U.S, bulwarks of the free world at least for now. Our current policy has driven both Iran and Syria into the arms of the Russians, just as our anti-communist and pro colonial policy after WWII drove Vietnam into the arms of China and Russia.

We likely share more values with the Iranian people than we do with the Saudi Arabians, and as in Vietnam the possibility exists to side with those values in the region. We blew the opportunity to reward our WWII Vietnamese allies with support for their nationalist aspirations. Our mistaken fears of a global Communist conspiracy caused us to confuse independence movements for communism on the march. Quite literally, millions of innocent people paid with their lives for that mistake. Let’s be wiser this time.