Post 1. Muhammad and The Great Sunni – Shi’a Schism

Before invading Iraq in 2003, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld didn’t know the difference between the Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam, much less why it…

Post 2. Sunni – Shi’a Today

First the demographics. Of the 1.6 Billion or so Muslims in the world, roughly 85%, 1.35 Billion, are Sunni, the rest, 15%, 240 million, Shi’a.

Westerners who tend to…

Post 3. 1919 Sykes-Picot Agreement: Planting the Seeds of Conflict

Even before World War 1 was over, two colonial administrators, Mark Sykes for Great Britain and François Georges-Picot for France, aristocrats both, carved up the defunct Ottoman Empire into…

Post 4. 1947 – 1948. Al-Nakba: Partition of Palestine and Creation of Israel

Theodore Herzl

In the late 1800’s, Theodore Herzl and other Jewish leaders in Europe began pushing for the establishment of a Jewish…

Post 5. Syria 1949: The First, But Not Last, U.S. Coup Against Democratic Governments in Middle East

Syria was created as a French mandate after World War I as the Arab Kingdom of Syria,  but in 1946, with King Faisal as its nominal head, Syria became an…