by Laura Stuart
It appears that the policy of “Divide and Rule” that has served the super-powers of the day so well since the times of Caesar and the Roman Empire, is again being put to use in the Middle East. Setting Muslim against Muslim is becoming a real possibility. Perhaps the realisation that it was fighting protracted and unwinnable wars in Muslim lands, has led the United States/Israel to consider ways of stirring up Shia against Sunni. This surely would maximise the shedding of Muslim blood with the minimum of investment and effort and, as ever, provide rich pickings for the weapons industry.
Reading an article in “The Jewish Chronicle” entitled “P.A. Share Israel’s Nuclear Iran Fears”, two issues spring to mind. The first is that the Palestinian Authority is the worst of collaborators, and wholly unfit to represent the brave Palestinian people. This much was made clear on the release of the Palestine Papers last year.
“The Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, has attacked the behaviour of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said that he shares Western – and Israeli – concerns with the Iranians’ nuclear project”.The second thought is that there may be a much bigger long-term strategy here – a strategy which may have been in the planning even before the invasion ofIraq. The post- invasion Shia/Sunni unrest might have been a coincidence but it is still one which, in my opinion, is now being heavily manipulated to Western advantage.
After Iraq; Bahrain another country with a Shia majority but ruled by Sunnis and where Shia are treated unequally, has erupted into protests. Civilian protesters are being crushed with terrible force and these protests have been brutally suppressed with the seemingly tacit approval of Western governments who, at the same time have bandied about empty words about human rights to Arab leaders. On a sincerity-scale of 1 to 10 these measure about one and a half – that is, marginally better than the completely empty statements they occasionally issue chiding Israel for its murderous acts against Palestinian civilians (or indeed American and Turkish Human Rights Activists). And of course, an ex British police officer is helpfully supplying the Bahraini leadership with the “know how” to deal with protesters, while the U.S.A. supplies the tear gas and the practical weaponry needed to do the job. The result is an ongoing and steadily-climbing death-toll.
Less well-publicised is Yemen, another country where Saudi forces have been active in invading, bombing and fighting the Houthi Shia. Yemeni civilians get no press coverage when they are killed by American drones, or by Western backed Yemeni forces. Even the completely unconstitutional murder of an American child warrants only a miniscule mention in the International Main Stream Media.
Playing on the historical schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims may be fruitful but it is still just a continuation of an old and proven policy of “Divide and Rule” – a policy to which Muslim leaders should have long since become wise, but sadly they have not. Money is there to be made as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Emirates spend millions of dollars increasing their fighting capability to counter a perceived threat from an increasingly belligerent Iran. The question is whether this present increase in tension between the Gulf States and Iran is part of a long-term strategy to keep the Middle East weak and destabilised for decades to come.
A strong and united Muslim world is something Israel/America would not want to see and they are seemingly ready to go to great lengths to prevent it from ever becoming a reality.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
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