Essay: Syria Iran alliances-Ethnicity and Religious backgrounds

Sample Essay

Despite the fact that the two countries are no made of Arab people, religion is the main unifying factor. Wrangles within Muslim as a religion are very common especially with the Sunni and the Shia Muslims. These differences are usually not conspicuous when Muslims and non-Muslims are disagreeing (Patchen, 1998, p. 6). For example, all Arab and in this case all Muslim states in the Middle East, usually act in synergy when it comes to matters concerning Israel. This indicates that religion is a force to reckon when it comes to alignments, be it political or economic. Syrian officials including Bashar al-Assad and others have routinely been quoted saying that Arabism and Islam are the main pillars of their alliance (Byman, 2006).

A synergistic display of both countries to support Hezbollah, which is evident that religion is a cardinal source of the alliance’s strength. As much as these factors may have played a role in establishing and maintaining this alliance, they are likely to potentially split it on the same basis. Iran predominantly comprises of Persian and Shiite regime while Syria has a majority of Sunni Arab although Alawite minority rules it. These differences have occasionally been associated with the eventual collapse of the alliance with many scholars predicting that Iran will one day return to the Sunni Arab group. This hypothesis is however ironical as Alawites who rule Syria are regarded as Shias thus explaining why Syria has a strong affinity for Iran and Shiites of Lebanon more so Hezbollah (Ranstorp, 1997, p. 91).

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