In endless Sunni-Shiite battles, blood keeps flowing as the pendulum swings

There seems to be no end in sight for the religious war going on in the Middle East. More and more battlefronts are joining the long and inglorious list of cities, villages and other places where Sunnis are killing Shiites and vice versa.

A decisive victory is a long way off, and it is hard to predict which side, if any, will be the winner. For now, it seems that the two sects, which started fighting in the seventh century CE as part of the wars of succession after Mohammed’s death, will continue massacring one another for many years to come.

Three of the (at least) four Middle Eastern countries in which the Sunni–Shiite war has been going on no longer exist as successful nation-states: Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The fourth is Lebanon, which is managing to hang on to the designation of nation-state, though just barely.

As the most violent representative of the Sunni sect, the Islamic State terror group represents the most extreme element in the war between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

For all practical purposes, the fight over the future of the Middle East is much broader than the battles that Islamic State is fighting in Ramadi in Iraq or in Palmyra in Syria. The Sunnis’ great patron is Saudi Arabia, while Iran is sponsoring almost every known Shiite group operating in the enormous theater. Riyadh vs. Tehran is the name of the game.

Black columns of smoke rise during a battle between Islamic State militants and Syrian government forces on a road between Homs and Palmyra, Syria in this picture published Wednesday, May 21, 2015 (the website of Islamic State militants via AP)

The recent events in Syria illustrate the scope of this war all the more strongly. First, Iran’s investment in the campaign to rescue Syrian President Bashar Assad has reached almost unreal proportions. A report this month by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a New York-based watchdog, cites abundant examples and statistics on the scope of activity of the various Shiite militias throughout Syria.

Roughly 70,000 Shiite combat troops — some from Iraq, others from Afghanistan and Pakistan — are fighting on Syrian soil, according to the paper. These militias receive financial support, training and arms from Iran. One quote cited by the author tells of an airlift consisting of four flights per day bringing in Shiite fighters from various countries, Iran first among them, via Baghdad, with the Alawite stronghold of Latakia as the final destination.

The Shiite groups come from militias in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. There are also Shiite-Syrian and even Palestinian-Syrian militias. All of them receive financial and logistical support from Iran. So, too, does the Lebanese Hezbollah. They constitute a major factor in Bashar Assad’s survival, and his dependence upon these Shiite groups has made him a protégé of Iran rather than the president of an independent country.

Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah in the southern town of Nabatiyeh on May 24, 2015, watch a televised address by Hassan Nasrallah, the movement’s leader. A sign reads in Arabic and Hebrew: “Invasion of the Galilee – the promise will not be broken.” (Mahmoud Zayat/AFP)

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has in recent days taken pains to express his pride in his group’s “enormous” accomplishment — cleansing the Qalamoun ridge of the radical Sunni groups in the border region between Syria and Lebanon. Apparently few people remember Hezbollah’s cleansing of the Qalamoun ridge of Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front only about a year and a half ago.

There’s a kind of pendulum movement in Syria today, between Hezbollah and its allies on the one hand, and the radical and moderate Syrian opposition on the other. It’s a case of one step forward and one step back.

Islamic State took over Ramadi fairly easily: It brought dozens of armored vehicles bearing the insignia of the Iraqi police force into the downtown area. Locals and the Iraqi army were sure that the gigantic convoy was from their own side

Hezbollah has not managed to clean out the Qalamoun ridge completely. It racked up a significant accomplishment by gaining control of the southern portion of the ridge in battles against al-Nusra and on Tel Musa, the mountain that overlooks the important border crossing in the region. But radical Sunni groups continue to operate in Qalamoun and in places north of there, such as the Arsal region. And Hezbollah is taking severe hits on other Syrian fronts such as Idlib, Homs and Aleppo.

Even more important, Hezbollah has suffered significant losses in battle against the Sunnis. Nasrallah claimed that only 13 Hezbollah troops had fallen in the battles in Qalamoun. But the actual number is probably much higher. To date, Hezbollah has lost more than 1,000 of its troops in Syria, with many more wounded, out of an estimated total of approximately 15,000 troops.

A boy and his sisters watch graffiti artists spray-paint on a wall, commemorating the victims who were killed in Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Sana’a, Yemen, May 18, 2015. (AP/Hani Mohammed)

In the war in Yemen, Iran’s foremost rival, Saudi Arabia, recently adopted the method Iran uses in running the Shiite militias in Syria: Riyadh succeeded in establishing popular Sunni militias in Yemen and giving them funding and arms to fight the Houthi separatists, who support Iran. Tehran, for its part, uses the Popular Mobilization Forces (Al-Hashd al-Sha’abi) a great deal in battles against Islamic State in Iraq.

These Shiite militias were at the forefront of the taking of Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar Province, by Islamic State troops. The Americans, who provide the Iraqi army with support, training and protection from the air, knew that Islamic State would make a move in Ramadi, perhaps in an effort to strike at the planned Iraqi move in Mosul — in other words, to split the effort of the Iraqi army, which has Kurdish and American support. But the American advisers opposed bringing troops from the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces to the region for fear that they would massacre and pillage Ramadi’s Sunni population. So Islamic State took over Ramadi fairly easily, using a deceptive tactic: It brought dozens of armored vehicles bearing the insignia of the Iraqi police force into downtown Ramadi. The inhabitants and the Iraqi army were sure that the gigantic convoy of vehicles was from their own side, and did not realize that Islamic State had tricked them.

Then Islamic State simultaneously detonated six car bombs in vehicles driven by suicide terrorists. The effect was horrific, and created a deterrent effect. Within a short time, Islamic State troops were flying the group’s flag over the government offices downtown, and the Iraqi army had fled from the various neighborhoods. The suburbs and Camp Habbaniyah remained in the hands of the (mostly Shiite) Iraqi army, which now awaits the arrival of reinforcements — the same reinforcements whose entry into Ramadi the Americans opposed at first. Together with the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Iraqi army is planning, with help from Iranian advisers, the recapture of Ramadi from Islamic State. It is greatly feared that the Shiite militias, unchecked, will massacre the local inhabitants afterward; they already have a history of committing similar acts.

Displaced Iraqis from Ramadi cross the Bzebiz bridge fleeing fighting in Ramadi, 65 km west of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, May 20, 2015 (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

In any case, the Sunni population’s situation in what remains of Iraq is dire. One example of that is a regulation issued by the governor of Baghdad that any Sunni arriving at the checkpoints set up roughly 20 miles from the capital must be stopped and inspected. Like the Shiite prime minister, the governor fears that Islamic State will take advantage of the high number of Sunni refugees streaming toward the capital to smuggle in terrorists, including suicide terrorists, and that the demographic balance in Baghdad will shift in the Sunnis’ favor.

And what about Islamic State? As stated above, its war against the Shiites looks like the movement of a pendulum, with alternating victories and defeats. Islamic State took over the oil refinery in Baiji just a few months ago, then lost it, then recaptured it several days ago. It has been hit hard quite a few times in recent months, but despite the international coalition’s fighting and its own territorial losses, it succeeded in capturing Ramadi, one of the largest and most important cities in Iraq. It completed its takeover of the Syrian city of Palmyra at the same time.

Still, the taking of Ramadi and Palmyra is not the rule but the exception. Islamic State has withdrawn from the Syrian city of Kobani, the Iraqi army succeeded in wresting Tikrit from its possession (with help from the militias), and it has lost about one-third of the territory it captured in Iraq and Syria, together with a significant portion of its economic revenue. Ramadi, too, will likely be retaken by the Shiites in the end.

The pendulum keeps swinging, and the blood keeps flowing.