Word: sectarianism
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What lies at the heart of the sectarian violence in Iraq is not so much religious dispute as it is a very secular competition for power and prominence in the new Iraq. Iraq is not all that different from Northern Ireland or Bosnia, where religion paraded as ethnicity and became a vehicle for communal rivalries. In the vacuum of power left by the fall of Saddam Hussein, the game of numbers has favored Shi'as, who are 60% of the population. It is for this reason that they wholeheartedly embraced democracy. Disgruntled Sunnis, on the other hand, vested their fortunes...
...guess would be that as the insurgency continues to create insecurity, sectarian militias will continue to grow in power and influence. They will increasingly supply local security, but in the form of protection rackets that extort as they protect. They will clash with each other over territory and control of revenue sources. Since the Sunnis remain highly disorganized, some of these local fights may initially be intra-Shi'ite. But in the absence of effective political incorporation and protection from national police and army units--which are heavily infiltrated by Shi'ite militias--Sunnis will gradually form a patchwork...
...Samarra explosion was surely designed to set sectarian hostilities aflame. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing of al-Askari, but suspicion fell on al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its leader there, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, subscribes to an extremist Sunni view that regards Shi'ism as an apostasy and all shrines as idolatrous abominations. Al-Zarqawi, whose group comprises mainly foreign jihadis, has encouraged his followers to attack Iraqi Shi'ite targets...
...shared by all Iraqis, who struggled to make sense of what their countrymen had wrought. Although the violence of last week may have been sparked by a single act of provocation, it came in the context of a history of Shi'ite-Sunni enmity. The roots of the sectarian divide lie in a schism that arose shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. Under Saddam, communal hostilities in Iraq were suppressed, their very existence denied. Beneath the surface, though, relations between the two sects have always been tainted by prejudice and discrimination. Although Shi'ites...
...Iraq’s four sacred Shiite shrines, Iraqi Shiites released their fury across the country with an unprecedented illustration of the delicate fault-line running through present day Iraq in the ongoing struggle between Shiites and Sunnis. In the two days since the Golden Mosque bombing, sectarian violence has claimed the lives of at least 138 Iraqis, most of them Sunni Muslims. Additionally, the Interior Ministry has confirmed attacks by sectarian militias and armed rioters on 90 Sunni mosques in Baghdad alone. It is worth noting, however, that the response has not been entirely violent: The New York Times...