THE SUNNI-SHIA CONFLICT AND ITS STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE
THE SUNNI-SHIA CONFLICT AND ITS STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE

Summary/Abstract: With the invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition, the West found itself operating in an environment they little understood. Military forces, coming from countries where religious differences did not matter politically, were forced, in planning and executing even the smallest of tactical operations, to take into account the religious specificity of each area, modeled by Islam and by the rift between the two main branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia – rift that can go down to family level. The same thing is true at strategic level, where the Sunni-Shia conflict, if not correctly understood and assessed, has the potential of making irrelevant or pushing into failure even the most detailed Western plans.

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