With Sunnis and Shiites arrayed for a battle to the death in Syria, clerics on both sides are only making matters worse. Columnist Hazem Mubaidin of Iraq’s Al Mada warns that rival shiekhs – Hezbullah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi – are issuing religious fatwas for reasons having nothing to do with religion, and are leading their respective sides to an unhappy fate: that of post-invasion Iraq.
For Al Mada, Hazem Mubaidin writes in part:
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has finally acknowledged, proudly and in public, what was already known: that elements of Hezbullah are fighting alongside Assad’s forces in Syria, getting as far as Homs and parts of Damascus. He also warned opponents of the Syrian regime that they will be unable to topple al-Assad militarily. It was as if he assumed the role of chief of the Syrian Army staff and Assad’s personal strategic analyst.
In total contrast, “transnational” Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi thanked Washington for supporting Assad’s opponents with arms – as if he were their spokesperson – and called on the United States to do the manly thing and what is right and good in the eyes of God by intervening militarily to defend Syrians – as it did in Libya. He reassured the United States that a victory for the Syrian opposition would not mean that it would launch a war against Israel.
The viewpoints of these two sheikhs may be as diametrically opposed as the color of their headgear (Shiite Nasrallah wears a black turban; Sunni Qaradawi wears white), but both are issuing fatwas for political and sectarian purposes – not purely religious ones. With the Syrian regime’s intransigence, stubbornness and persistence in resorting to military force, and the fragmentation and competing trends within the Syrian opposition, we are seeing an almost perfect reproduction of the Iraqi scenario, which has so far produced nothing but destruction. The suicide attacks and car bombs we have seen over the past two days in the heart of Syrian cities constitute an additional step that is expected to accelerate – without reference to the innocent victims.
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