The American Industry

Sectarian strife is a distinctive American industry. Its awakening began in our fellow nation Iraq where it was used as an impure instrument to weaken the resistance after attacking Iraq’s unity. This instrument was intended to control the explosive situation that was developing in the face of a divisionary occupation. It did, indeed, awaken strife and ignited a struggle between the Sunni and Shiite communities. Systematic and planned attacks on both sides, which did not spare residential areas, has led to the possibility of a civil war — a possibility that continues to threaten the unity of this brother nation by reducing it to a series of competing rival states.

The American occupation laid the foundation for such strife and assured both its continuity and its sustainability through L. Paul Bremer’s constitution. His constitution destroyed the unity of Iraq and its people by establishing an entity based on confederation, doctrinarian attitudes and sectarian quotas. Moreover, the issue didn’t stop at Iraq’s borders. Infectious sectarian conflict spread throughout the region from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Mediterranean coast and changed an intellectual dispute into the kind of violent struggle seen in many Islamic regions. For instance, tensions between the two sects are high in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There have been explosions in mosques, and the fighting in Lebanon has created a rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. In Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri, the leader of the Sunni sect, has allied with Washington while the Shiite leadership is Iran’s closest ally in the region. This division has stretched all the way to Syria, pitting the Alawites against the Sunnis. A real expansion of the Shiite Crescent from Iran to Lebanon and from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean has begun.

The conflict has been caused by the repercussions of the Arab Spring. There are clear tensions between the Shiite Crescent and the Sunni states, and these tensions are facilitated by Washington, which exploits them to further its strategic interests in the creation of a new Middle East and the abortion of the Arab revolutions that constitute a strategic threat for Washington and its ally, the Zionist enemy.

In the midst of the conflict, many forget that ideological differences are as old as Islam. They surfaced after the assassination of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib (may peace be upon him), and increased with the spread of religious, sectarian and philosophical differences. However, for more than 14 centuries Islamic history hasn’t witnessed the violence and strife between Sunnis and Shiites to the extent that it is happening today. The conflict has never before been so full of enmity and blasphemy. The Islamic state, in all its stages, was always a Sunni state. It is worth noting that America has exaggerated Islam’s sectarian differences and is pouring oil on the fire in hopes of attacking our brother nation’s unity, so as to take control of it. Unfortunately, the two parties have not yet noticed the American conspiracy, which hasn’t yet come to an end. The United States is using this conflict in order to gain control of the region, while looting its wealth and strengthening the Zionist enemy’s hand in the area.

In short, the only way to repel the American-Zionist conspiracy and protect the Arab revolutions is to snuff out the flame of doctrinal and sectarian struggles. We must return to Islam’s pure source: “This community of the faithful is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship me.”* That is the only way to escape the Holocaust that targets both Arabs and Muslims. God is our Savior.

*Translator’s note: This quotation is taken from the Quran, Sûrah al-Anbiyâ’: 92.