One strategy being adopted by the US against Islam, Muslims and Muslim
culture is to weaken them by dividing them and making them fight each other.
The US has already begun to work on this plan, by classifying Muslims as
'Shia'/'Sunni' and 'extremist'/'non-extremist'. At present, the bloody situation in
Iraq is being called a clash between Shias and Sunnis, and thus the Shias and
Sunnis are being encouraged to kill each other. This is a US conspiracy, which
they want to extend to the Middle East, Iran and Pakistan. American scholars
are emphasizing the need for US forces to leave Iraq, but not before they
succeed in creating such discord among Shias and Sunnis that they willingly
kill each other in large numbers, Iraq be broken into several parts as
Yugoslavia had been, Sunnis leave Shia areas, Shias leave Sunni areas, Kurds
leave the areas of the Arabs, and Arabs leave the areas of the Kurds-in short,
migration take place on as large scale as at the time of Partition in the
subcontinent. Then, this hatred in Iraq would be used in every place where
Shias and Sunnis live together. Also part of the plan is to encourage the Sunni
minority to rise against the Shia majority in Iraq, and the Shia minority against
the Sunni majority in Pakistan, thus creating chaos in both countries, and to
prepare them both to use their nuclear power against each other. We should
see the bomb blasts and suicide attacks in the month of Muharram in Pakistan
from this perspective. Imperialist forces are constantly trying to divide
Pakistani society into extremists and non-extremists, and reawaken the ShiaSunni prejudice which the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal has been keeping a check
on.
The present situation in Iraq and the unsuccessful attempts of the US to
strengthen sectarian prejudice in Pakistan reminded us of an article written last
year by James Kurth, (Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College,
where he teaches American foreign policy, defence policy, and international
politics), in which he outlined such a divide. In his article, he has tried to
convince his government that the US faces great and long-lasting danger from
Islamism, and their fight against Islamism, may, like their fight against
Communism continue for several generations. To deal with the danger, the US
should have a policy similar to the one with which they faced Communism.
James Kurth writes in his article 'Splitting Islam', written for The American
Conservative:
"During the Cold War, the most consequential splitting strategy used by the
United States was that directed at the Sino-Soviet bloc … and it was a major
factor in the ultimate victory of the United States over the Soviet Union in the
Cold War. The contemporary analogy is the division between Sunnis and
Shi'ites in the Islamic world. The ongoing sectarian violence between Sunnis
and Shi'ites in Iraq provides a daily reminder of the intensity of the division in
that country, but the division, suspicion, and conflict between the two versions
of Islam is a feature of many other Muslim countries as well, especially
Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. … [I]f the Sunni-Shi'ite conflict
became not only intense and widespread but also prolonged, perhaps as much
so as the Sino-Soviet conflict during the last three decades of the Cold War,
the global Islamist movement might have almost no meaning or attraction at
all. In the Muslim world there might be Sunni Islamists and Shi'ite Islamists, but each might consider their greatest enemy to be not the United States, but
each other. …
"Iraq represents a test case and potential crucible for the Sunni-Shi'ite split. It
is easy to imagine the current sectarian suspicion and violence in Iraq
descending into an actual civil war between the Sunni and the Shi'ite
communities. … Shi'ite and Kurdish militias, if well trained and well armed by
the United States, would be fully capable of destroying Sunni insurgents in the
Shi'ite and Kurdish-populated areas of Iraq. … The Sunni population might be
reduced to a rump territory in central and western Iraq, along with sections of
Baghdad and Mosul. … In the end, Iraq, like Yugoslavia, is likely to split into
several hostile ethnic states… [In] an Iraqi civil war, or a war between
separating Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurdish states… for each ethnic community, the
immediate and operational enemy would be the other communities now
engaged in killing them… If a war between the states should expand and
persist in Iraq, the Sunnis will be in grave danger of being ground to powder
between the two millstones of the Shi'ites and the Kurds. …
"[A] war between the states in Iraq might do much to render Islamism
irrelevant, at least in Iraq if not other countries of the Middle East. What
meaning will Islamism have if Sunni Arab Muslims are killing Shi'ite Arab
Muslims (along with Sunni Kurdish Muslims), and vice versa? …What would
the global Islamist movement look like then? It would have a rather different
meaning and attraction than it does today. An Islamist identity might still
appeal to some Muslims, but it might well become less salient than the
warring Sunni and Shi'ite identities."
If we look at the situation in Iraq, it seems as if the US government has taken
up James Kurth's ideas as their own policy.
In the same article, it is further stated that if these clashes succeed so that the
Shias and Sunnis kill each other, the nuclear problem can also be addressed by
generating a nuclear war between two nuclear powers, Iran and Pakistan:
"If both countries [Pakistan and Iran] are nuclear powers, there will also be
ample potential for nuclear threats and crises between them. The likelihood of
conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iran and Pakistan will be heightened if
the conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq descends into an intense and
prolonged civil war. This would likely accentuate and energize Sunni and
Shi'ite identities and hostilities in Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and
Pakistan. A widespread Sunni-Shi'ite split could issue in a nuclear Iran and a
nuclear Pakistan confronting each other in a very dangerous and destructive
way. … A nuclear and Sunni Pakistan sandwiched in between a nuclear and
Shi'ite Iran and a nuclear and Hindu India, might be in as grave a danger of
being destroyed as the Sunnis of Iraq."
This will be a very dangerous situation for the Ummah, and for Pakistan and
Iran themselves, and if 'slaves' of the US remain our dictating rulers; there is
nothing that cannot be expected of them. If some people considered Pervez
Musharraf's trip to the Middle East, part of the US plan to create a Sunni
block against Shia Iran, with this background, such a theory is plausible.
And it won't stop at Shia-Sunni clashes. James Kurth writes: "The history of the Cold War shows that, when dealing with an opposing
political ideology, a strategy of separating its moderate adherents from its
extremist adherents can sometimes be successful. In Europe in particular, the
United States was very successful in separating moderate Marxists-socialists
and social democrats-from extremist Marxists-communists".
In a similar way, Muslims are divided into four types, in a report published by
the RAND Corporation, 'Civil Democratic Islam'.
1. Modernist: These are defined as those who go with the times, and believe
that everything the West loves is truly Islamic. In other words, they present
such an Islamic edition which is compatible with Western values. As an
example, General Musharraf after making alterations in the Hudood Ordinance
said that this is the Women's Rights Bill, and it is not against Islam, but
completely according to it. The proof is that we are no less Muslims than
others-even though Islamic scholars from all sects agree that the Bill is an
alteration in Allah's Hudood, and rebellion against the Prophet (SAW).
2. Secularist: These people say that religion and the world are separate
matters. We respect religion, but religion has nothing to do with state and
social affairs.
3. Traditionalist: These are the people who still live in the age of degenerationthey believe that State and government have nothing to do with religion. In
other words, religion is a tradition for them, and they have forgotten the Deen
that the Prophet (SAW) had brought, and the example he had set of struggling
against wrong.
4. Fundamentalist: The ones who want Islamic government and laws based on
Quran and Sunnah. These are the people who they call extremists, and single
out as their enemies, against whom they have to fight. They say these are the
people who should not unite with any other group; in fact all other groups
should stand up against them.
Today, when we see someone exhort people to stand up against extremists,
and not vote for them in every speech he makes, it is easy to understand who
he is serving. Furthermore, things such as campaigns against Madaris and
mosques, Ulema, and people who love Islam, making a mockery of religious
emblems and changes in laws based on Quran and Sunnah, can also be seen
and understood with this background in mind. It is necessary to awaken the
Muslims, in order to fight against such plans and intentions. Such unity is a
great challenge at this time. Our poet Allama Iqbal said that the reason of the
Muslims dispersal is that they have forgotten their centre of unity i.e. Quran
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