Hussein Ibish

Across the Arab world, terrifying sectarian dynamics are starting to emerge, essentially pitting Arab Sunnis versus all religious minorities. The elements of this have been obvious for quite a while, but the pattern has become so pronounced and almost pervasive that it demands to be recognized no matter how frightening the prospects.

Throughout the region, political forces are lining up time and again along this extremely dangerous binary divide. For instance, the ecumenism of the Egyptian revolution has given way to the most gruesome sectarian violence between the military and Islamist mobs on the one hand and Coptic protesters on the other hand. This was particularly evident over the weekend, with deadly clashes and sectarian incitement raging throughout Cairo.

The Syrian regime has done its best to cast the uprising in that country in a sectarian light, with a disturbing degree of success. Regional support for Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite-minority rule is now almost entirely restricted to non-Sunni Arabs (as well as Iran), including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Shia-led Iraqi government, Shia parliamentarians and activists in Kuwait and other Gulf States, and a significant number of Christians in Lebanon and Syria.

By contrast, Assad’s alliance with Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has collapsed largely along sectarian lines. Support for Assad among Arab Sunnis has dropped to virtually zero, including all Sunni-dominated governments. Support for his rule has also further exacerbated the already deeply-damaged reputation of Hezbollah among Arab Sunnis.

The Sunni Arab world, meanwhile, has been largely silent about the campaign of relentless persecution and repression against the Shia majority in Bahrain, implicitly backing the oppressive rule of the Sunni-minority royal family.

Sectarian tensions simmer in Kuwait but are held at bay by the country’s wealth and small population. In Saudi Arabia, however, they have been bubbling away for months, particularly in the country’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Last week they boiled over in Al-Awamiyah, as Shia rioters were fired on by security forces. Saudi spokespersons dismissed the incident as “nonsectarian” and merely criminal in nature, but immediately undermined their arguments by blaming Iran for the unrest.

The narrative of the last few years of the previous decade—the “culture of resistance” (which supposedly included both Sunni and Shia Islamists and some Arab nationalists) versus the “culture of accommodation” (a term of abuse for all moderate or pro-Western forces in the Arab world)—has been completely subsumed by this emerging sectarian narrative.

It will be rightly objected that this scattershot analysis is superficial, and that in each society there are many detailed and specific forces at play, particularly in countries as diverse as Lebanon or Iraq. It will further be observed that there are many exceptions to this pattern, such as the role of imprisoned Sunni social democrat Ibrahim Sharif in Bahrain or the presence of Christians, Alawites and others in the Syrian opposition.

It is absolutely true that when you look at individual groves, there are many details that do not correspond to this narrative or dynamic; but it’s also plainly the new shape the broader forest is taking. I’ve been watching this pattern emerge for a long time without being willing to clearly identify it in writing, both because there are so many details that complicate, and even contradict, such a reading, and in hope that other dynamics would prevent a regional sectarian divide from becoming definitive.

I now think it’s impossible to deny that the single most important factor shaping the Arab regional dynamic is a sectarian divide, not between Sunnis and Shia, but between Sunnis and everybody else. On the sidelines are also significant divisions between Arabs and ethnic minorities such as Kurds or Berbers, but it is the sectarian split that is the real dividing line these days. This new sectarian consciousness has greatly assisted the rise of Turkey as a regional power, strongly aligned with Arab Sunnis, at least for the moment.

Iran is probably the biggest single loser in the regional realignment so far, and the mainstay of many governments trying to blame unrest on “foreign powers” (along with al Qaeda, Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, depending on which government is making excuses). However, an Arab world divided along sectarian lines will continue to provide potential openings for Iran in Shia and other non-Sunni areas, even where they have had little or no influence in the past.

The emerging sectarian narrative threatens to rip apart many Arab societies, and indeed the Arab world in general. More than military dictatorships or violent organizations that may seek to exploit these tensions, the illusion that Sunni Arabs across the region are seeking to impose a new and repressive order on non-Sunni Arabs, or that non-Sunni Arabs are subversive elements or disloyal agents of Iran or other foreign powers, poses the gravest threat to a better future in the Middle East.

These narratives are almost always implicit, but they are on the brink of becoming hegemonic. Counter-narratives, based on deeds as well as words, are more urgently needed than ever. If they wish to avoid it, Arab national and religious leaders are going to have to move quickly to prevent this stark sectarian divide from defining the regional landscape into the future.

Hussein Ibish is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at www.Ibishblog.com.