...Nuri Yeşilyurt The essay analyzes relations between Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council since the early 2000s in order to determine whether it is possible to acknowledge the emergence of a Sunni bloc against the so-called Shiite Crescent in the Middle East. It argues that although positive...

...Mohamed A. El-Khawas The essay examines Bush's strategies to democratize Iraq. Failure to draft a plan for Iraq's stabilization led to costly mistakes that drove many Sunnis to join insurgent groups, fueling sectarian strife. Holding multiparty elections was a major accomplishment, but it did...

... and not a Western analysis of that perspective—is a sine qua non to understanding what happened and how to begin to formulate policies and actions to deal with the new reality. The Islamic State has become the champion of disaffected Sunni Muslim youth building on those perceptions, and the West underestimates...

.... If Iraq becomes a cockpit of instability, as it was during the first four years following the US invasion, the implications for the region are ominous. Unfortunately, the factors that cause turbulence, including Kurdish secessionist aspirations and simmering Sunni-Shiite tensions, are largely beyond...

... Arab nationalists whose support for Alawi, Druze, and Christian minorities and socialist orientation engendered resentment from Sunni fundamentalists. Hoping to forestall an insurrection, the Baathists were careful not to alien- ate all Sunnis, and under successive regimes they forged alliances...

... the West and cleanse the Muslim world of Shiite and Alawite apostasy. This revival of the proclaimed caliphate was driven mainly by passions generated by the Syrian civil war. By 2013 the war had attracted more than ten thousand Sunni foreign fighters hostile to Damascus’s Alawite-­dominated...

... tapestry that could easily unravel. The coun- try’s population is divided among Sunni Arabs (a little less than 60 percent of the population); Christians (about 10 – 12 percent); Alawites, a Shiite offshoot Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is the author of nine books...

... and preemptive war-fighting. Iraq most definitely fits the preventive dimension of this overall strategy. 6. In other words, President George W. Bush has constructed his own unique Middle East policy box in Iraq where, in the name of crushing Baathist — and by extension Sunni Arab — authority, he...

... unions. In almost all of these events, Bahraini Shiites and Sunnis have par- ticipated together. In August 1971, when Bahrain became fully independent from Great Britain, the amir, at that time Isa bin Salman al-Khalifah, expressed a desire...

... contributed to the consolidation of the position of Alawites in Syria and the Sunni Arabs in Saddam’s Iraq. Kumaraswamy: Islam and Minorities  103 Furthermore, a number of countries have recognized sharia (Islamic reli- gious law) as a major source of jurisprudence...

... quarrels with Anbar Province’s Sunni sheiks engendered the wrath of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-­ Zawahiri. In his famous 2005 letter to Zarqawi, Zawahiri rebukes the AQI leader for his sectarian agenda and his killing of Muslim civilians that the Egyptian pre- 8. Chris Dishman, “The Leaderless Nexus...

... prime minister, billionaire magnate, and political colossus of the Lebanese Sunni Muslim community. Hariri opposed Lahoud’s presi- dential extension and had turned against Syria’s hegemony in Lebanon. His assassination outraged the international community and provoked Lebanon’s Sunni, Christian...

... of the Republic of Turkey, the 1923 Treaty of Lau- sanne, used language that was a straightforward expression of the late Otto- man definition of nation as a community of Sunni Muslim citizens.36 It offi- cially recognized as minorities only Greeks, Armenians, and Jews (hereafter called the Lausanne...

... and other Sunni Arabs are likely to continue to resist the American military occupation and regime change because they perceive themselves as the losers in the formation of a new Iraqi govern- ment. They are fighting not for Saddam but for their political, and perhaps physical, survival. And the Sunnis...

... in the wake of the growing struggle for freedom and democracy in the Arab world. Society and State in Syria Syria’s social fabric comprises diverse ethnoreligious communities: Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Turkmen, and others, with the Sunni Mus- lims constituting...

... countries would sign military agreements, but none of these reports came from reliable sources. The real and more pressing reason for the Saudi king’s visit was clear to most observers: to enlist Turkey’s more direct participation in a countervail- ing Sunni bloc against growing Shiite power...

... with the Shiite politicians who are now domi- nant in Iraq and what reciprocity exists? What do the Iraqis think about Iran and its ambitions? A few Iraqi politicians, mostly Sunnis, regard Iran as a threat, but most do not. In March 2008, Iraqi prime minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, greet- ing visiting...

... Bush could have never imagined that develop- ment. At the same time, it was a Shiite-dominated government, since Shiites make up about 65 percent of that country’s population. The Sunnis, who had ruled Iraq for the past fifty or more years even though they were in the minor- ity, suddenly became...

... in the Arab world, the dynas- tic kingdoms, with the notable exception of Bahrain, were barely affected by the turmoil. All Arab monarchies, aside from Oman, are ruled by Sunni Muslim royal families, but Bahrain is the only Sunni Muslim kingdom with a Shiite Muslim majority population. The GCC...

... jihadists like Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi to fight US occupation forces, AQI embarked on a nihilistic terror campaign aimed at Shiite civilian popu- lation and religious centers. Zarqawi wanted to drive US forces out of Iraq by stoking civil war between Shiite and Sunni factions. Zarqawi’s...