This Just Became The Most Important Map In Geopolitics
Earlier today, in “Mid-East Melee: Sectarian Showdown Looms As Bahrain Cuts Ties With Iran, UAE Recalls Ambassador,” we brought you the latest from the war-torn Mid-East where a worsening spat between Saudi Arabia and Iran threatens to plunge the region into chaos.
Make no mistake, things were already out of control. The conflict in Syria has mushroomed into a global proxy war, Iraq is struggling to drive Islamic State from key cities, and Yemen remains mired in war nine months after the Saudis entered the fray to drive back the Houthis and restore the Hadi government.
Against that backdrop, the region could have done without the events that unfolded over the weekend. By executing prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, Riyadh has infuriated the Shiite community which took to the streets in protest, even going so far as to firebomb the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
In order to understand the upcoming sectarian strife and in order to fully grasp who belongs to Iran’s sphere of influence and who is loyal to the Saudis, one needs to have a working knowledge of what the Sunni-Shiite split looks like across the region. Because this is set to become the key geopolitical issue in the weeks and months ahead, we thought it an opportune time to present the following map from Goldman which does a nice job of delineating the sectarian split. Note the asterisks which indicate the affiliation of a country’s leadership.
From Goldman
Where are the main sectarian and ethnic divides in the Middle East today? Saudi Arabia and Iran, with their large respective Sunni and Shiite majorities, are generally viewed as two major opposing forces in the Middle East. They lie on opposite sides of an abstract and somewhat contentious demarcation known as the Shiite crescent, an area of Shiite influence stretching from Iran through southern Iraq and into parts of Syria and Lebanon.
The region’s geopolitical, religious, and sectarian relationships are in reality more dynamic and complex. The conflict in Syria continues to pit anti-government insurgents, including Sunni Islamists, against the Alawite (Shiite) government’s forces and Shiite militias supported by Iran. In Iraq, some Sunnis have felt increasingly disenfranchised under the Shiite-majority government in Baghdad (a relatively new development given Iraq’s long history of Sunni rule). The Islamic State (IS) militant group has exploited this sentiment, particularly in the Sunni-majority areas of northern Iraq.
How are the different branches of Islam represented in politics? In some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the rulers adhere to the same branch of Islam as the majority of their citizens. However, this is not always the case. Despite being predominantly Shiite, Iraqis lived under Sunni rulers for much of history, including under the Ottoman Empire and the Ba’thist regime of Saddam Hussein. (Ba’thists are members of the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party, a political party founded in Syria in the 1940s on platforms of Arab nationalism and anti- colonialism. In Iraq, the Ba’thists governed from 1958 until the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.) The Iraqi Ba’thist regime was secular in name but reserved political influence for the Sunni elite. In a break from its long history of Sunni political dominance, Iraq is currently ruled by a Shiite-majority government centered in Baghdad. Conversely, in Sunni-majority Syria, members of the Shiite Alawite sect have controlled the government since 1970.
What is the composition of Sunnis and Shiites in the Muslim world today? Sunnis make up the majority of Muslims worldwide – an estimated 85-90%. Sunnis comprise 85% or more of the Muslim populations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates, and 70-85% in Kuwait, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Shiites comprise the majority in Bahrain, Iraq, and Azerbaijan (all 60-65% Shiite), as well as in Iran (90-95%), home of the largest Shiite population. Although the Middle East and North Africa region is overwhelmingly Muslim (93%), it is home to only around 20% of Muslims worldwide. The majority – over 60% – lives in the Asia-Pacific region.
(32 votes)
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Stoner?! Pffft...we could be so lucky. Strung out coke fiend, alcoholic, war mongerer and despot would be more accurate.
Obama is a Shiit.
Wahabbist.
He's Christian.
Yes
He's just a confused Kenyan faggot
Nothing like a Zionist Jew-Kike motherfucker telling you how you will lose both your "money" and your "life" in the coming year!
And best part of all?...
They have already placed the odds against their most loyal "goy" Uncle Sammy and will be collecting in Roubles by then end of 2016!!!
As the Old Hebrew saying goes...
If you can't beat the Russian Join the Russian!... And twist the knife in your partner(s) backs while your on the way out the "door"!!!
You heard it here first!!!
P.S.
Just think how strong the USD might have been had you not listened to us before you decided to destroy better than 2/3 of the Middle East and sold out the rest of your "crown jewels" of commercial technology to the Chinese and Indians?...
Sorry about the way we used you on 9/11 but you fucked up (as per your usual) and trusted us just like you did with the U.S.S. Liberty, only this one will be staying with you many "blood moons" longer...
Henry was right. Your military "heads" are worse than stupid animals... They are as dumb as "pig shit"!
Sorry things couldn't have worked out differently but we tried and YOU failed us -Again!...
I sense you're holding back. ;-)
Now don't go Pulp Fiction and Samuel L Jackson's Ezekiel on us.
Might as well take some really good drugs like our boyz and girlz in uniform and the "proxies" they train called Daesh and get a good laugh at what is coming courtesy of the Zionist puppet masters...
Made me think of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-glKGjp50Ug
lets see the map of "Countrie's that ISRAEL CONTROLS covertly... THAT WOUDL BE INTERESTING, yes IM SHOUTING!
Fucking Zionist pigs
No need to Twist & Shout. If it helps, use the Rothschild map of Central Banks around the world.
Hint: it's easier to find the countries that do NOT have a Private CB. Note that Iraq and Lybia were in that group.
Statistics in Turkey are untrustworthy because they classify as Sunni any MUslim and as Muslim anyone whose ancestors were Muslim. Their religious nuts just made holding hands in public an offence so watch the place explode. These same statistics define all Westerners are "Christian" like an ethnic designation rather than religion
"Their religious nuts just made holding hands in public an offence so watch the place explode."
I think it's long been considered bad social manners as much as a religious taboo. When a girlfriend and I backpacked through Turkey in the 1960s, we never held hands or smooched in public. A week before we reached Izmir, a Danish couple had been stabbed to death in their tent for doing just those things. And in those days Ataturk's secular rules were still in general application - which they're not now.
It really just depends on the neighborhood you're in.
It's roughly the same in Detroit/Chicago/LA/New Jersey/Miami/wtf.
Remember the band "Dead German Tourists"?
Yeah, good point. Actually most of these stats are cooked in one way or another.
This map sucks, below one is much better :
http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Mid_East_Religion_lg.png
small :
http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Mid_East_Religion_sm.png
or even this one :
http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4231075/sunni_shia_nasr.jpg
(and important to know that the Shia region in the East of KSA is also where the oil fields are)
The Goldman map is useless because it is constrained by existing geopolitical boundaries. Here is a better map:
http://thesinosaudiblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mid-east-religion.jpg
Nice - Wahhabism is clearly centered around Riyadh and a couple of other place to the northwest of it.
I thought I was looking at a map of governments favorable to and complicit with such crime syndicates as the PTB, BIS... etc. Then to find out what a large Suni population is positively correlated with said governments is kind of interesting.
The laws of the Koran, being the word of God and all, suggest that there are no Muslims that are "moderate". Muslims in large enough concentrations anywhere will split hairs over doctrine, murder one another over it, murder the infidel, oppress and rape their Muslem women, murder and rape and oppress all other women, and "Durka Durka"...
Now that I think about it, these Muslims sound a lot like their Zionist cousins. Although, it is apparent that large masses of the former can be whipped into frenzy and mobilized very fast like some ethnic minority groups in the America. This isn't going to end well. Russia, China and Iran are going to hang tight. Israel is indefensable, except for the nukes Israel no doubt possesses. Iran and SA having issues is insanely funny if you are a twisted fuck like myself. The only way to not puke my guts out in existential horror at the majority of the human species is to make fun of it.
Heads are gonna roll, bitches!
So then why is the Whorehouse of Saud attacking Yemen? They are apparently 64% Sunni, and support the Sunni cause.
See the map I just posted for your answer
Shia Houthi's overthrew the Sunni government.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/regime-change-is-coming-saudi-prince-calls-...
Because it's not about religion, never has been, especially for the Saudis, lol. They adopted their wacky totalitarian dogmas in order to bully their serfs and erase long-cherished cultures, for their own omniscience alone. Why on earth people are still loyal to them is anyone's guess.
($$$$$$$$$$$$$)
Money is the classic easy way of gaining loyalty. It works very well, as long as the money lasts.
Good guess !
Yemenese got uppity which house of saudomy can't stand
Hey let's kill each other over minor differences in how we worship the same fake god.
Works for me.
Let them eat falafel. I'm bored with shitskin nonsense.
Recipe for Peace:
Add equal parts Sunni and Shiite and simmer over low heat for 1.2 millennia.
Stir in equal parts Russia, China, France, USA, Iran, and Saudi Arabia and bring to full boil in Turkey broth. Add Pakistan, Kuwait, Syria, UAE, Lebanon and Yemen to taste.
Add 1/4 teaspoon of Israel and burn everything to a crisp.
Serve over MRE's. Mmmm. Peace. It's what's for dinner....
I'll give you a better map. Learn about Climate Scam. Please watch to educated.
Welcome to 2016 | S0 News Jan.4.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vasetjZecHo
If you're Sunni, you ain't Shiite!
They all look alike to me.
99% of terrorists are sunni
no shi(i)t(e).
Yep. They're indoctrinated and supported by the Wahhabist movement, headquartered in Saudi Arabia. So Georgie Porgie invades Iraq. Genius!
sunnies, shiites.... whatever... thay are ALL MUSLIM SHITHEADS... who gives a fuck... let them kill each other as they have done for centuries... the more they do their deeds amongst them, the better off the world will be...
go ahead shiitheads.... exterminate each other....
wow, they wuz saying that about Christians not too long ago....
What the "incoherence of the philosophers" by Al Ghazali started : the demise of the golden age of the Abbasid Caliphate, inspite of Averroes's response : "the incoherence of the incoherence", saw the end of rational and scientific thinking in the realms of Islam.
We are talking about the year 1200 AD, when Islam became a theocratic empire that "lost" the flame...
So this regression back to the age of Safavids vs Ottomans is the swan song of an ideology that has stultified the peoples of that region--from Indonesia to Senegal-- who have missed not only the Renaissance but also the Enlightenment. And have not invented anything of equivalent cultural potency.
That the dominant Western Empire is now caught in the spiral of hubris based on the strategic handshake of 1945, making it the pardner to the worst ideologies of Islam : the Talibanist/ISIS/Wahhabist regression; is an eloquent testimony of the West's corruption by its own non-adhesion to neo-Platonicien and neo-Aristotelian legacies; those ethics that made the West what it is.
When AMerican corporate oligarchy drowns the country of Jefferson in "greed is good" mantra and the WS spigot becomes the fount of ephemeral happiness for humanity, we are indeed in Alice's world having penetrated to the other side of the mirror.
From the West's perspective it was ALL for OIL; form theirs' it all for God, or different versons of his holy word.
No wonder Elon Musk wants to go to Mars!
This is a cultural shock that it will take multiple generations to efface.
Elon Musk fled to Canada at age 17 rather than do his part defending a still free South Africa from the ANC. He wants to go to Mars for a similar reason---so as not to have to live in the nest people like Elon Musk have fouled beyound redemption.
Yes, I know that's beside the point.
The whole Sunni/Shia "sectarianism" mapping/meme/sing-along BS is nothing but a false construct, a la "You're either with us or against us". It's literally about borders, as is so clearly illustrated by the ground positions of US/NATO aggression centers.
The "proof" of actual animosities between civilians was mostly stoked/concocted/false-flagged its way into being during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Honestly anyone who knows Muslims knows it's BS in the real world.
Let's dispose with the veneer of "religion" as the root cause of any of this, already. So many here are open to the possibility of 9/11 being an international crime, yet seem to have retained the concurrent propanganda surrounding and following that Event. The problem is ignorance I guess.
Blatantly ripping off Trotsky, I'd say, "You may not be interested in a religious war, but a religious war is interested in you."
>>> Religion
>>> Paycheck
It's false, this isn't the dark ages and they're not doing it to get into heaven no matter how many times the CIA, who is paying them, tell you they are.
Putin: We know who is paying them and how much.
Yup. Dangerous world.
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
Mark Twain
is it the Sunni that believe the world should be run by
the descendants of Mohammed and the shia believe it should be
run by his friends or is it the other way around? or something else?
Does it matter? The whole thing is a 19th century headline blown up to mask CIA mercenarism to the goal of NATO hegemony.