Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
AP, you could be right. However, I think that history has demonstrated in Iraq, Syria, and even places like Kosovo that, in places where there are traditional sectarian differences that have been suppressed via extreme cohesion, once that suppressive force is released those old hatreds surface with a vengeance. Until they are properly addressed, there will be no peace.
That's true to an extent. But "traditional sectarian differences" implies that they not inherent and that they are mutable. The escalation and descalation of conflict goes through phases over time and across generations; some time periods better or worse than others. Each of those countries you cited have long periods of both, and in the eras of peaceful co-existence normalcy consisted of mixed neighborhoods and marriages, and significant cross-cultural polination. Ethnicity is a specific frame not always correctly selected and accurately applied, and sometimes, like the recent conflict in Iraq, it takes on a life of its own after some instigatation. This is actually true in nearly all instances of intensifying inter-ethnic conflict, including cases of genocide. Once one group decides to seize power for itself (or is placed into power by an external force), the situation compels all other groups to act accordingly. Identifying division is an act of alienation in itself, and institutionalizing it in the political system invariably leads to conflict since someone is always the out-group. This is what the United States did in Iraq by attempting legitimize in law the religious differences of the population. It's a structural problem, not a cultural one.

"Those old hatreds" did not "surface with a vengeance" in Syria, Iraq, and Kosovo until instigated by intervention. In the case of Iraq, it was the failure of the Bush administration to replace the Hussein regime with an effective government - instead, the CPA dismantled government entirely starting with the security forces and administration. And we held on to the narrative of Baathists = Sunnis = repressive minority to justify their legal alienation in the new political system. And in Syria, it was the instigation of armed groups through US allies while the US itself worked diligently to destablize the Assad regime, obstructing Syria's ability to actually keep its civil society together.

There's a reason why the West has generally abolished laws distinguishing rights and priveleges on the basis of race or religion.