The Broader Arab Civil War For Which Egypt Should Be An Improbable Party

In their international relationships, the Arab States are better at attacking one another than at reconciling peacefully their differences.  The late American Professor Malcolm Kerr of UCLA wrote in 1958 a distinguished treatise entitled "The Arab Cold War."  If he were still alive today he would have been the author of a book on a much devastating inter-Arab ware.  The coming Sunni-Shii war, for which Egypt should be an improbable party.  Such conflict is expected to have cataclysmic consequences for regional stability and world peace.

This broader civil war is ironically one of the consequences of the Arab Spring, on which this blog has focused in regard to its Egyptian sector.  Triggered by the Syrian civil war, the Sunni majority of that troubled country has seen the ruling Alawite (Shii) minority, led by the killer regime of Bashar Al-Assad, drawing its fighting strength  from Shii troops from outside Syria. From Iran and Shii-majority Iraq to the east, to the Lebanese Hezbollah to the west, the Syrian bloody landscape witnessed militarized Shiism pinning the Sunnis down.

The embers of conflict between Shii Islam and Sunni Islam which have simmered east of Suez for the past 14 centuries have now been allowed to shoot up its flames.  The intense Arabism of Syria which made Damascus boast of its continuous resistance to western influences and to Israeli claims to the entirety of historic Palestine has become, under Bashar dictatorship, largely a Shiism on the defensive.  The stalemate in the largely Sunni fight for an Assad-less Syria prompted a realignment of Islamic sectarianism.  Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf States have been pouring in armament and volunteers -in aid of the Free Syrian opposition.  Their ideological conviction is that a Shii triumph in Syria would be a net Sunni loss to all these Sunni States.

The complications leading to that religious/Arab versus Arab/Muslim versus Muslim broad civil war do not stop at that.  Religion in armed conflicts has always meant the prolongation of these conflicts as each side sees itself fighting on behalf of God. These complications in the present Syrian civil war can be discerned in the entry of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates like Al-Nassra into the field of battle.  These latter groups, with agendas of their own which have become more pronounced after the liquidation of Bin Laden are, as to be expected after 9/11, labelled terrorist organizations.

Thus the so-called "war on terror," having become intertwined with "regime change" saw a Russia assisting Bashar; a China on the sidelines; an America hesitant to provide lethal arms to the "free Syrians"; a Britain and a France reluctantly drawn into the conflict without a clear sanction from the European Union; and a United Nations which, in civil wars, can contribute no more than a limited humanitarian assistance and a heap of toothless resolutions condemning blood-letting.

Into this unholy mess, post-Mubarak Egypt has found itself in the unenviable situation of doing nothing except to kick the Syrian embassy out of Egypt.  In mid-June, President Morsi declared that rupture with Syria's Bashar before throngs of his Muslim Brothers.

The Morsi declaration at the Cairo stadium quickly galvanized the secular opposition which so far found no unifying theme amongst its components except to try to force Morsi and the Islamists out of power.  Both El-Baradie and Amr Musa, the two most prominent leaders of the secular opposition which is now getting ready for massive demonstrations against "the Islamization of the State" on June 30, condemned the severing of relations with Syria.

More importantly, the spokesman for the Egyptian armed forces made it clear that "we shall not be used for war outside of our boundaries particularly in combat against a sister State" (meaning Syria).

As for Bashar, he taunted Morsi by saying in response to that speech: "You do not know where to set your feet, because you have no political experience.  You need to grow up."

So where is Egypt now from the looming Sunni-Shii civil war?  In all probability, the new Egypt shall largely stand aside.  It has its own internal problems.  It also is now looking west of Suez to forge an alliance with Libya and the Sudan.

However this assessment does not rule out an Egyptian involvement.  The Salafis are trying to push Egypt into that unholy confrontation.  In this regard, let it not be ever forgotten that neither the Quran, nor Al-Sunna of the Prophet Muhmmad has denied the existence of a variety of Muslim sects.  In teaching Islamic jurisprudence at Fordham University School of Law, New York City, I have not come upon a shred of evidence justifying the demonization by Sunnis of Shiis.  Al-Azhar University, established in Cairo by the Fatimides(Shiis) more than a thousand years ago, teaches both Sunni and Shii schools of thought.  The expansion of the scope and modernity of sharia has been largely due to Shii ijtihad(the application of reason to the written texts).  The great Shii scholar, Sheikh Al-Sistani, observing in quiet anguish the looming Sunni-Shii conflagration, uttered recently in Baghdad the following electrifying words in Arabic (my translation):

"Al-Sunna are not our brothers.  They are ourselves.  Even if they kill half of us, we shall never condone killing them!!"

Let the demons of sectarian conflict in Egypt, as well as elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world beware.  The fires which they ignite may destroy the hopes of the 1.5 billion Muslims for becoming fully integrated in the world community.