Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
Ray, you are taking the same, shallow, biased tact that everyone else is taking. This is not religious. That is just the way it manifests itself. This is Identity Warfare. The same type of identity warfare that caused the religious wars in Europe or the genocide in Rwanda.

It is a combination of three factors. 1st, a social identity. Depending on your specialty this is either Identity Theory or Social Identity Theory. It is derived from the need for self esteem. The second element is limited resources. In a world of limited resources people tend to band together more tightly into the group that they identify with. This is derived from our need for security. The final element is some form of injustice, real or perceived. This causes them to lash out against those they see causing the injustice. The fact that this is an identity war should be clear from the fact ISIS claims Takfiri status - able to decide for themselves who shares their identity as a true Muslim and who does not.

The second and third elements are relative. Resource constraint was far greater 200 years ago. Each group compares themselves with other groups - where do they stand relative to others.

There are three ways to fight an identity war, 1) diminish the identity - you do this by crushing it (Not advised); 2) replace the identity - the idea behind creating a state identity (we are all Iraqis) or an individual identity* (the liberal or democratic peace); or 3) divide and conquer - find the fault lines within the group and exploit them. That is a temporary solution, but it can work.

Besides the fact that we are missing the reality of the situation, as long as we think this is a religious war it will never end ... well, it can end, when you kill off all the "radical" Muslims. But odds are that, the farther you go, the larger the group of "radical" Muslims becomes until you wipe them all out.

*creating a liberal identity requires removing the resource limitation. Once resources are sufficient then people no longer feel the need to band tightly together and begin to accept others for their individual characteristics instead of their stereotypical group identity.
Completely agree Iraqi politics were not always about sect, in fact for most of Iraqi history it was not, but since 2003 it has become one about conflicting politics of identity.

For the best book about this check out Fanar Haddad's Sectarianism in Iraq. He argues that sect and identity are constantly changing and based upon the socio-political-economic situation in the country.

http://www.amazon.com/Sectarianism-I...s=fanar+haddad

Here's an interview I did with Fanar as well:

http://www.musingsoniraq.blogspot.co...ianism-in.html

Another good book is by Harith Hasan's Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-political Conflict in Iraq. Harith's thesis is that Iraq suffers from failed state building and that is what has given rise to the current trend of sectarianism in the country. The state has failed to create a shared sense of identity and history and that's what has given rise to the current wave of sectarianism

http://www.amazon.com/Imagining-Nati...ing+the+nation

Here's an interview I did with Harith

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/20...tionalism.html

Finally here is an article that I wrote about how the current Sunni sectarian identity is in fact a recent creation that came out of the community's inability to deal with the changes in Iraq after 2003

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/20...raq-after.html