CAIRO — The Shiite leaders of Iran the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia traded insults over the deaths of lots of of Iranian pilgrims near Mecca. The authorities of Bahrain, long blamed for repressing the country’s Shiite majority, expelled the Iranian ambassador, after accusing Iran of shipping arms to Bahrain making an attempt to foment “sectarian strife.” a gaggle of hard-line Sunni clerics in Saudi Arabia, fired up by Russia’s intervention in Syria, issued a scathing sectarian call for holy war. Events over the previous couple of weeks have raised fears of an accelerating confrontation between the region’s Shiite Sunni Muslims, with Saudi Arabia Iran escalating their power struggle, extremists attacking Shiite mosques within the Persian Gulf armed conflict aggravating religious variations in Iraq, Syria now Yemen. However as the violence flares crosses borders, national and spiritual leaders appear as earnest as ever to stoke the fires, mobilizing followers using implicit or naked sectarian appeals which are reworking political conflicts in to religious struggles making the bloodshed within the region more constant to include, students analysts allege. “This is unprecedented, and we do not have a street map,” stated Rami Khouri, a senior fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American College of Beirut. “When political dynamics fail, people turn back to religion. We are in this terrible moment of transition where sect is very high in people’s minds.” “Radical individuals are deliberately fomenting this violence,” he added. “And irresponsible governments allow it to happen.” The perils of sectarian polarization have been evident for greater than a decade, ’cause the United States-led invasion occupation of Iraq. …

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