None of Iraq s neighbors, including Iran, would benefit from sectarian conflict that grows into a regional war.

Syria s internal conflict has now become a Sunni Shia sectarian war that is spreading across the region.

At the same time, the surveys found little support among any of these three major groups for sectarian conflict.

But the protracted conflict contributed to the decline of both empires and devastated Iraq, leaving behind a deep sectarian cleavage.

The sectarian divide is more a matter of conflict of interest unlike what a lot of media outlets try to portray.

Syria s Sectarian Stalemate

Syria s internal conflict has now become a Sunni Shia sectarian war that is spreading across the region. The Sunni clerics who have just declared a jihad against the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, and its sectarian allies are the voice of millions across the Muslim world.

PRINCETON What began in Syria as a revolt against an oppressive regime has evolved into a sectarian civil war and, more recently, into a proxy conflict.

Sectarian conflict seems to be increasing on a daily basis, with militias massacring hundreds of Sunnis and Shiites solely on the basis of their religious identities.

Thus, Iraq is seeing both escalating intra sectarian violence and cautious steps towards inter sectarian alliances.

The regime s effort to turn its struggle for survival into an ethnic and sectarian conflict could wreak havoc across the region, starting with neighbors like Lebanon and Iraq.

It also happened to be that al Houthi had personal connections with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has also added a sectarian angle to the Yemeni conflict.

If Arab leaders fail to overcome these deficiencies, the latest Arab force could become the Middle East s newest source of anti democratic, sectarian based instability, potentially intensifying the Sunni Shia conflict.

The root causes are political, sectarian, and personal.

This means doing everything possible to stop infiltration of terrorists into Iraq and rethinking support for militias. None of Iraq s neighbors, including Iran, would benefit from sectarian conflict that grows into a regional war.

Is it wise and advisable to wade into a sectarian civil war two thousand miles away? Just examine the trajectory of sectarian violence over the last decade.

Sectarian violence poses a grave threat to Pakistan s security and stability, primarily because conflict between mainstream religious communities threatens to involve and radicalise greater swathes of the Pakistani population than any other kind of militancy.

In Lebanon, sectarian power sharing is enshrined in the constitution.

The new Iraqi army can hardly be called non sectarian.

Equally ominous, the banning of hundreds of candidates for alleged ties to the Baath Party signals a return to sectarian politics, which could reignite a sectarian civil war.

What are the possible ramifications for such a policy on sectarian violence in Pakistan? Is it likely to exacerbate and make more deadly sectarian cleavages or the opposite?

Who is the victim and who is the perpetrator of sectarianism? How does systematic sectarian oppression work in Bahrain? And why is the Bahrain uprising tainted as sectarian?

But trying to ignite sectarian strife is more offensive than anything.

We are hopeful that Iraqis, who have had their fill of sectarian political parties, will be allowed freely to choose candidates who embrace a non sectarian and non racist agenda.

Anyone can talk about sectarian cheers, and make claims about the nature of the Syrian conflict, but, deep inside, I trust that this revolution pulled us all out of the thousands of shells we used to hide in.

Many more are feared as violence among the main sectarian groups escalates.

Others were awash in sectarian speech loaded with excessive fear and hatred.

Sunni ministers who had been boycotting the government since last year have returned to their posts. Thus, Iraq is seeing both escalating intra sectarian violence and cautious steps towards inter sectarian alliances.

The escalating violence in Iraq gives a bleak impression of that country s prospects. Sectarian conflict seems to be increasing on a daily basis, with militias massacring hundreds of Sunnis and Shiites solely on the basis of their religious identities.

The US did not offer any clear indication of what it thought should follow such an outcome, apart from some kind of election process, which in a largely sectarian conflict like Syria s would amount to nothing more than an elaborate census.

The war has pulverized Iraqi society, dissolving it into an ethno sectarian patchwork.

Such condemnations can only sharpen sectarian divisions within Saudi Arabia and the region.

Ideologically, the central conflict between Iran and its neighbors is based on the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Islam. The devastating Syrian civil war is already being fought along these lines given signs of a military and political stalemate, those lines could become the basis of a permanent division of the country, as in Bosnia.

Indeed, as in Iraq, Syria s sectarian strife looks increasingly like a jihadist religious war.

Hattar was charged with inciting sectarian strife and insulting Islam, according to the Guardian.

The ills of two decades in South Asia can be attributed to the Afghan jihad years the rise of the Taliban, the dominance of Pakistani sponsored religious fanatics within the Kashmir freedom movement, and the eventual spread of sectarian conflict within Pakistan.

But the price has been high in terms of Iraqi lives lost in sectarian fighting.

Left to its fate, Syrian society began to disintegrate and reorganize on a sectarian basis.

Researcher at the University of Cambridge and author of Sectarian Gulf Toby Matthiesen expressed concern

The congress has approved billions of dollars of US taxpayers money to fund these sectarian militias who are directly responsible of the ethnic and sectarian cleansing that has been taking place in Iraq during the last 5 years.

Although the fate of Assad and his family s decades long rule remains the core demand at the heart of the Syrian conflict, the debate in Syria has touched on broader issues none more sensitive and potentially deadly than the sectarian enmity brewing in the country.

The US should be working to create a strong, unified government, rather than strengthening sectarian militias.

If that happens, the insurgency will be superseded by a much more dangerous sectarian civil war.

In October 2006, for example, Mecca was used to host talks among Iraq s warring sectarian factions.

True, sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq have escalated since the fall of Saddam.