Remember the Badr Brigade, the vicious jihadists that were the bane of our existence in the Iraq War? Remember Iran, the vicious jihadists that have been the bane of our existence ever since the hostage crisis during the Carter administration? Well, the Badr Brigade and Iran are both our allies in the struggle against the even more vicious jihadists known as the Islamic State.
The fact is, the struggle in the Middle East is not just against the West or even Israel. We are seeing a religious war between the two major sects of Islam, the Sunni and the Shi’a. Their relationship is about the same as that of the Catholics and the Protestants during the Thirty Years War. While they are both arrayed against the West and Israel (just as Protestants and Catholics were both arrayed against the Muslims in the 17th century), these two groups consider each other heretics and apostates and wage jihad against each other. After the jump, a rough guide as to who is on what side.
Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL = SunniSyria’s dictator Assad = Shi’a, oppressing a Sunni majority
Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein = Sunni, oppressing a Shi’a majority
Iran = Shi’a
al-Qaeda = Sunni
Lebanon’s Hezbollah = Shi’a
Palestinians = Sunni
Afghanistan’s Taliban = Sunni, oppressing a Shi’a minority
Pakistan = bitterly divided
Muslims in Africa = mostly Sunni
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Arab Emirate, Bahraine, Qatar = Sunni
