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Originally Posted by tk27
Neither al-Assad in Syria, the Houses of Saud and Al-Sabah, Mubarak in Egypt , or any other government in the Middle East wants the return of the Caliphate. To do so would be to relinquish power;
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Very true; I think I may have spouted off too quickly. Certainly the existing regimes wouldn't want to yield power. It's the religious leaders who want a Caliph.
Both Shiite and Sunni want a Caliph, it's just that neither group wants him to be a member of the other group.
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Originally Posted by tk27
IMHO, I think the Sino-Soviet split was a result of competing national interests and think the analogy is not a good fit.
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Maybe not. I meant it in the sense that we tend to lump followers of Islam together the same way we lumped Communists together. The Sovs and ChiComs had their "fraternal socialist ally" public line while not seeing eye-to-eye; Shiite and Sunni both speak of Muslims vs the infidel while they blow each other up.
As for ethnic tension, maybe that's not a prime driver in the Arab - Iranian relationship, but it exists. Islamic Arabs are not blind to ethnicity. I think the
janjaweed prove that pretty easily.