Syria s Sectarian Stalemate

Syria s internal conflict has now become a Sunni Shia sectarian war that is spreading across the region. The Sunni clerics who have just declared a jihad against the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, and its sectarian allies are the voice of millions across the Muslim world.

If Arab leaders fail to overcome these deficiencies, the latest Arab force could become the Middle East s newest source of anti democratic, sectarian based instability, potentially intensifying the Sunni Shia conflict.

The issues were, of course, ethnic sectarian violence.

This means doing everything possible to stop infiltration of terrorists into Iraq and rethinking support for militias. None of Iraq s neighbors, including Iran, would benefit from sectarian conflict that grows into a regional war.

Would you like to see civil war, sectarian killing?

Sunni ministers who had been boycotting the government since last year have returned to their posts. Thus, Iraq is seeing both escalating intra sectarian violence and cautious steps towards inter sectarian alliances.

The escalating violence in Iraq gives a bleak impression of that country s prospects. Sectarian conflict seems to be increasing on a daily basis, with militias massacring hundreds of Sunnis and Shiites solely on the basis of their religious identities.

For some, it will lead to anger, religious and sectarian violence and terrorism.

Ideologically, the central conflict between Iran and its neighbors is based on the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Islam. The devastating Syrian civil war is already being fought along these lines given signs of a military and political stalemate, those lines could become the basis of a permanent division of the country, as in Bosnia.

They would bring prosperity, security, overcome sectarian violence, ensure that states would never again harbor terrorists.

ISTANBUL Conflict in the Middle East threatens not only the security of many of its states, but also their continued existence. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and others, now gripped by sectarian fighting, risk fragmenting into ethnic sub states, transforming a region whose political geography was drawn nearly a century ago.

PRINCETON What began in Syria as a revolt against an oppressive regime has evolved into a sectarian civil war and, more recently, into a proxy conflict. In the process, the struggle has become increasingly convoluted, with conflicting agendas among allies, together with deep seated communal tensions, rendering the situation nearly intractable.

Furthermore, fallout from relentless regional conflict is destabilizing Lebanon, a country that offers Christians a constitutional guarantee of political representation. Some 400,000 refugees many of them Sunni Muslims, including fugitive rebels have poured over the border from Syria, exacerbating sectarian tensions and threatening to disrupt Lebanon s delicate social and political balance.

Its center has shifted from Iraq (where sectarian strife has recently escalated again) to Syria, but it encompasses Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia as well. Farther east, Afghanistan is suffering its second decade of violent conflict, while Pakistan seems to be chronically on the brink of war, civil war, or social breakdown.

The ills of two decades in South Asia can be attributed to the Afghan jihad years the rise of the Taliban, the dominance of Pakistani sponsored religious fanatics within the Kashmir freedom movement, and the eventual spread of sectarian conflict within Pakistan. In Afghanistan, Pakistan s military and intelligence agencies sought strategic depth against India.

The international community's goal must be to persuade neighboring countries to halt their brazen, unwarranted attacks on parts of Syrian society. In particular, the US, which has significant influence in Saudi Arabia, must act to stop attacks by that country's extremists on Syria's religious minorities attacks motivated merely by a desire to provoke sectarian conflict.

In the United States of America, neofascist organizations also were abundant, which disseminated their racist, xenophobic and sectarian propaganda throughout the media.

Indeed, throughout the region, warring parties are relying on sectarian identity politics to mobilize support, further polarizing populations along religious, ethnic, and ideological lines. Saudi Arabia and Iran are using Yemen s internal divisions over historic political and socioeconomic grievances in their proxy war there, presenting the conflict as a manifestation of the historic Sunni Shia rift.

The introduction of chemical weapons and the possibility of Western military intervention threaten to draw Israel directly into the conflict. The spillover effects of the Syrian crisis have also unsettled Lebanon, exemplified in the recent spate of sectarian violence, and threaten to destabilize Jordan, which is struggling under the burden of more than 500,000 Syrian refugees.

Syria, which once welcomed thousands of Christians fleeing war torn Iraq, is experiencing an analogous change, as the country s increasingly sectarian civil war generates fear and mistrust throughout the population. Although Christians have largely sought to remain neutral in the conflict, they have become involved gradually, some by taking up arms and others as victims of kidnapping and violence.

Significant measures must be taken, including the active involvement of neutral international agencies and observers to keep the government in check and ensure that voters can have their say. We are hopeful that Iraqis, who have had their fill of sectarian political parties, will be allowed freely to choose candidates who embrace a non sectarian and non racist agenda.

With Shia dominated Iran providing weapons, money, troops, and training for Assad s forces, the conflict s sectarian dimension has taken on greater significance. Indeed, government forces have devolved into a sectarian army, motivated by the fear that, if the largely Sunni rebels are victorious, they will annihilate the Shia affiliated Alawite minority that has ruled Syria for decades.

Women's role in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post conflict reconstruction

If Sunnis come to believe that Shia and Kurds intend to treat them as second class citizens, they will have no stake in the success of Maliki s government and could again begin to pursue their political interests by other means, provoking another surge of sectarian violence. Worse still, factional conflict would undermine further development of a post Saddam Iraqi identity.

Regardless of religious and sectarian backgrounds, it is in the interest of every Iraqi to contribute to forging a broad political consensus on the way forward.

Mr. Joko is also facing pressure from lingering sectarian tensions in Indonesia, where members of the Muslim majority have embraced a more conservative form of the faith.

All the while, Assad was describing the violence as the product of terrorists and Sunni extremists seeking dominion over minority Alawites, Druze, Kurds, Christians, and other groups. He worked assiduously to fan the flames of sectarian civil war, succeeding to the extent that now the chief reason for not intervening to stop the killing is the impossibility of doing so effectively in an environment of sectarian violence.

So the Saudi regime is divided, its legitimacy is questioned, and sectarian tensions are growing. Moreover, while oil export revenue is booming, the neighborhood is in revolutionary flames.

Egypt looked forward to the day when the entire international community would help bring an end to those sectarian practices that were being inflicted on a defenceless people.

Conflict, post conflict reconstruction and the private sector

The US did not offer any clear indication of what it thought should follow such an outcome, apart from some kind of election process, which in a largely sectarian conflict like Syria s would amount to nothing more than an elaborate census. Lo and behold, political leaders, especially tough and terrible ones like Assad, tend not to embrace a process whose stated purpose is to eliminate them.

Australia believes peacebuilding must be interpreted broadly to encompass the whole conflict cycle, such that the Protocol would cover pre conflict, conflict and post conflict operations.

They also identify good officers and those who are corrupt or participating in death squads or sectarian militias. More funds for equipment, improved facilities, and training would also help.

There are ominous indications that the relative forbearance of this group may end. If that happens, the insurgency will be superseded by a much more dangerous sectarian civil war.

12. Calls for the enhancement of the role of women in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post conflict peacebuilding

(a) delivering humanitarian, political or development assistance in peacebuilding, including in pre conflict, conflict and post conflict situations or

Conflict

Several delegations expressed support for the interpretation that peacebuilding comprised operations undertaken in pre conflict, in conflict and post conflict situations.

When sectarian violence erupted there following the removal of Hosni Mubarak, the revolutionary coalitions adopted the slogan, You won t gloat over this, Mubarak. Repressive dictatorships cannot win free and fair elections.

A training module on gender and conflict was developed for inclusion in the training curriculum around conflict analysis and conflict sensitive programming.

The role of business in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and post conflict peacebuilding.

Conflict resolution

The combination of ethnic and sectarian fears and rivalries, historical memories, and willful blindness among outside powers seems almost predestined to destabilize the entire Middle East again. Turkey is resurgent yet troubled

addressing conflict and political instability on the continent, with the aim of achieving a conflict free Africa by 2010 by prioritizing and allocating more resources to conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding