![]() However, the political nature of this rivalry is often oversimplified by mainstream media outlets. Iran-Saudi Arabia's rivalry is the main reason behind the conflicts and instabilities in the region. This paper seeks to trace the causes and motivations for sectarian conflict in these two states through an examination of political sectarianism- based on rational choices that prioritise the pursuit of political and material interests – and social sectarianism – based on symbolic politics which stresses on the importance of group identities and myth-symbol complexes, and fears in perpetuating hostility. If there is to ever to be any solution to this phenomenon, that poses a significant threat to the stability of the region, it is vital to understand how sectarian identities are formed and mobilised to perpetuate violence. Iraq and Syria, in particular, having been engulfed in communal violence, and witnessed the emergence of sectarian militant organisations such as the Islamic State (IS), have become the frontlines of the Sunni-Shi’a conflict. Sectarianism has attained an unprecedented degree of prominence in the Middle East over the last decade, and has manifested in violent sectarian clashes across the region. Of these, the most vital is structural change and elite reactions to it, with state collapse the most likely cause of any future descent into full sectarian chaos. In doing so it reasserts the modernist case, emphasising how political identity in Syria, both national and sectarian, have developed in a complex inter-related manner in the modern era and how the recent violent mobilisation of sectarianism is the result of long term and short term structural, economic, socio-cultural and political factors rather than ancient animosities. It then draws on the theoretical debates on identity between primordialists, ethno-symbolists and modernists to historicise identity development in Syria. It firstly questions how sectarian the civil war actually is, suggesting that the conflict is ‘semi-sectarian’ given the multiple other fault lines of contention, notably class, ideology, geography and other non-sectarian sub-state ties. This article challenges the sectarian narrative of Syria’s current civil war, which relies on several false assumptions about the nature of political identity. This dispute centralized on Muslim leadership but more broadly on the moral basis of legitimacy regarding “political and religious authority in Islam” (Hashemi, N. Shias, in contrast, believed it should be chosen among his family. One group, the Sunnis, argued that the next leadership should be chosen among his close companions. These scholars describe the conflict by delving into the past, when ruptures first appeared between Sunni and Shia Muslim branches over the disagreement regarding Prophet Muhammad's successor, after his death in 632 AD (Hashemi, N. Regardless, scholars preferred ‘ancient hatreds’ and sectarianism as explanations for the current domestic and regional political conflict in both Syria and the Middle East (Darwich, Fakhoury 2016, p. Still, it would be simplistic to refer to sectarian identity as the main driver of uprising against the Assad regime or continued violence. Sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia, including Alawi, of which the al-Assad family stems, is ensuring a protracted war. The Syrian civil war, that started in 2011, seems never ending.
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