Dozens of citizens attacked Iraqi Prime Minister, Haydar Abadi, the day before yesterday, throwing stones at him, and prevented him from visiting the suicide bombing site in the district of Karrada, Baghdad, which tolled 300 dead and injured, leading the Iraqi Premier to flee from protestors accusing the Iraqi government of corruption and negligence; which is not so far from the truth, according to recent international reports and scandals.
The Karrada bombing comes in the midst of a popular distress that is far from sectarian, and has more to do with disparities among Shiite powers themselves, in light of accusations by head of the Sadri movement to Abadi, aftermath conflict and similar disparities between Abadi and the Popular Mobilisation forces, whose whims were out of control in Fallujah, blown by videos showing scalable and dangerous transgressions and violations by these sectarian militias.
In Adlib, Syria, the “Nusra” front broke into the strongholds of Free Syrian Army (FSA)’s Liberation Army (Jaish al Tahreer) front, and apprehended its leaders and dozens of its personnel. In Daraa, There is cut-through confrontation between ISIS and other armed factions, which led to the murder of dozens. Simultaneously, disparities have been more recurrently turning into clashes between locals and FSA factions in the Daraa countryside.
This is only a presentation of events in that last two days. And while it is true that sectarian tension is the highlight of turmoil in our region, and that it is —as well— the lurking spectre of civil and social destruction, pushing the region towards the edge; sectarianism, however, is not our only problem! There are political wars among Shiites and deepened disparities; a general status of dissatisfaction and distress among Iraqis towards ruling powers in Iraq. The same goes for Sunni, as well as Shiite, powers in Iraq and Syria, let alone disparities among Arab countries regarding Syria and Yemen.
As for ISIS, they do not target Shiites in exclusion of other groups; their priorities are not religious minorities. On the contrary, before targeting any minorities, they target Sunnis. An ISIS strategy, for example, is to “plant a single bullet in the heads of “Crusaders” and 9 in the heads of apostates”; while exploiting the sectarian description, ISIS views varying Sunnis —referred to as “apostates”— even more dangerous.
In this discourse, regional agendas do not derail from this complex reality. In Menbaj, the US, Arab, even Turkey backed Democratic Syria army is fighting ISIS while, on the other side, this particular faction has strong relations and backchannels with the Syrian regime.
In Libya, the west backs a faction especially designed and formulated to face ISIS in Sirt, with the Brotherhood affiliated “Fajr Libya” faction being one of the faction’s main suppliers and recruiters, among other Islamic powers in consolidation in the Presidential Council in Tripoli. On the other hand, Arab states that consider the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist movement back Gen Khalifeh Haftar!
In truth, the happenings in the Arab region goes beyond sectarianism, as dangerous as that is, to a “war of all against all, as prominent English thinker Thomas Hobbes put it, who lived in the 17th century of turmoil and English civil war, in his book “Leviathan”; which refers to a social contract that prefaces the rise of tyranny as opposed to a precursing chaos.
This, definitely, is what Arab states sought to arrive at; states with a social contract similar to Thomas Hobbes’, rather than John Locke’s contract that has founded the democratic state.
Nonetheless, the point is that a “war of all against all” dominates the regional scenario, leading to the disintegration and collapse of Arab states!
