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Sectarian War a Two-Way Street For Iraq and Syria

What lessons do Syria’s Alawites learn from the experience of the Sunnis in Iraq?
Residents gather at the site of bomb attacks in Baghdad May 27, 2013. More than 70 people were killed in a wave of bombings in markets in Shi'ite neighbourhoods across Baghdad on Monday in worsening sectarian violence in Iraq. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) - RTX10368

There is much wringing of hands by officials in Washington and Baghdad over the influence that the civil war in Syria is supposedly having over Iraq’s own fractious politics. Americans are certain that the sectarian barbarity in Syria will spill over into Iraq, while members of Iraq’s ruling Shiite religious coalition are terrified at the precedent of a Shiite regime falling to a Sunni rebellion. But officials in both capitals should consider that precisely the opposite may be occurring: Iraq’s newly empowered majority is contributing to the ferocity of the fighting in Syria by its absolute unwillingness to make meaningful compromises with the minority that fell from power.

As in post-2003 Iraq, it is obvious that there is a large sectarian dimension to the current Syrian conflict. The upper echelon of the regime, consisting overwhelmingly of the minority Alawi sect, has largely remained loyal because the regime has successfully convinced them that what awaits them in a post-Assad Syria is alienation, disenfranchisement and possibly much worse. Those now engaged in fighting the regime are from the Sunni majority.

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