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If the Arab Spring Turns Ugly

(New York Times) Vali Nasr - There are no recent examples of extended power-sharing or peaceful transitions to democracy in the Arab world. When dictatorships crack, budding democracies are more than likely to be greeted by violence and paralysis. Sectarian divisions - the bane of many Middle Eastern societies - will then emerge, as competing groups settle old scores and vie for power. Syria today stands at the edge of such an upheaval. The potential for a broader clash between Alawites and Sunnis is clear, and it would probably not be confined to Syria. Instead, it would carry a risk of setting off a regional dynamic that could overwhelm the hopeful narrative of the Arab Spring itself. Throughout the Middle East there is a strong undercurrent of simmering sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shiites, of whom the Alawites are a subset. Shiites and Sunnis live cheek by jowl in the long arc that stretches from Lebanon to Pakistan, and the region's two main power brokers, Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, are already jousting for power. Today, Shiites clamor for greater rights in Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, while Sunnis are restless in Iraq and Syria. For the past three decades the Saudi monarchy, which sees itself as the guardian of Sunni Islam, has viewed Iran's Shiite theocracy as its nemesis. Saudis saw Iran's hand behind a rebellion among Yemen's Houthi tribe - who are Zaydis, an offshoot of Shiism. Iran blamed Arab financing for its own decade-long revolt by Sunni Baluchis along its southeastern border with Pakistan. And since 2005, when Shiite Hizbullah was implicated in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, a popular Sunni prime minister who was close to the Saudis, a wide rift has divided Lebanon's Sunni and Shiite communities, and prompted Saudi fury against Hizbullah.
2011-08-31 00:00:00
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