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The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shia-Sunni Divide

(Saban Center-Brookings Institution) Geneive Abdo - Tehran's tendency to see the Arab uprisings in its own terms is more strategic spin rather than an accurate reading of events. The Arab uprisings are the very definition of local politics and represent a significant break with a past largely dictated by outside forces, foreign policy considerations, and proxy contests between rival regional and global forces. In other words, it is domestic politics that now drives foreign policy - not the other way around. Any dream that the uprisings would spawn a new era of pan-Islamism has been dashed by the Syrian war, which has revived the central narrative of Shia-Sunni conflict that has raged off and on for centuries. The wave of Arab uprisings has deepened ethnic and religious tensions between Sunni and Shia, which had been largely contained in recent years, and pushed them once again to the fore. As a result, a strong argument can be made that the Shia-Sunni divide is well on its way to displacing the broader conflict between Muslims and the West as the primary challenge facing the Islamic societies of the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Such sectarian conflict is also likely to supplant the Palestinian occupation as the central mobilizing factor for Arab political life. As Arab societies become more politically active and aware at home in the aftermath of the uprisings, fighting Israel is less of a priority, especially because there are so many domestic crises. The writer, a nonresident fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and a fellow in the Middle East program at the Stimson Center, was a foreign correspondent for 20 years, focusing on the Middle East and the Muslim world.
2013-04-17 00:00:00
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