The Sushi War

The Sunni-Shiia quarrel is an increasingly pervasive, cross-border and high-stakes affair

This post picks up from where my friend LP from Lebanese Political Journal left. He testified that the word on the Lebanese Sunni street indicates that the Sunnis are starting to see Iran as a bigger threat than Israel.

In my opinion, calling this conflict a Sunni-Shiaa one is misleading because it implies a dogmatic confrontation. Instead, this is a high-stakes war between two ways of looking at the world and two ways of spending large amounts of money.

I made this argument before, but the heart of the conflict is really of the “Clash of Civilizations” nature. It’s a clash between two kinds of Moslems: One that wants to be part of the international trade system and live off oil-driven prosperity. They want to build new cities, modern schools, malls and banks in arms-free environments. The other group sees its way of life under threat. It sees the outside world as a predator who only understands the language of force. It wants to spread weapons, build nuclear bombs and protect itself. Both groups contain Sunnis and Shias, but it so happens that the first group is dominated by powerful Sunni countries, and the second by Shiaa ones.

The war was initially a cold one, but we are witnessing the various Sunni leaders coming out of their silence one after the other to denounce “Shiaa” designs. Why? because the Arab layman is increasingly believing the Iranian (and now Bin Laden’s) storyline, that the Americans are out to get Moslems. If you watch Aljazeera, which is the most popular T.V. station in the Arab world, you’d think its editorial team is Iranian.

The problem is, America and Israel are both real liabilities to the Sunnis’ vision of economic prosperity, and this is showing most profoundly in divided countries like Lebanon and Palestine. “You think America really wants free trade and democracy?” The Lay man asks, “Look at what they did with Dubai’s ports deal.” “look how they back the Saudi dictatorship.” “You think Israel wants peace?” Why is it that it only responds to power? Didn’t it withdraw from Lebanon and from Gaza only because of the heroic resistance? Doesn’t the United Nations ignore Israel’s wrongdoings? Why are they punishing the democratically elected Hamas? Don’t they want democracy?

The Sunnis are on the defensive. After Jordan’s King comments about the Shiia crescent and the Egyptian President’s comments about the Arab Shiaa’s loyalties, we find today that the Lebanese newspaper Almustaqbal, (which is owned by Lebanon’s most powerful Sunni), is co-publishing with a Jordanian newspaper an interview where Sunni-backed Palestinian President lashes out at Tehran-backed yet democratically elected Hamas. Congratulations, Palestine has officially been Lebanonized.

In the countries where both influences are strong, like Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, we are witnessing the strongest schisms. Let’s hope is that this doesn’t spread to other countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but the news so far are not very good:
Today, I read an article in Al-Arabiya entitled: “The Egyptian People is Sunni in Name but Shiaa in Nature.” Ouch!