amir tahari: insight into the background to the current Middle East drama

Amir is always worth reading, but particularly when he discusses the background issues of conflicts in the Muslim world. Here, he shows how Iran is vying with Sunni Islam in an effort to controll the agenda of Radical Islam.

An excerpt:

The present rupture in Lebanon has much to do with who will lead the
fightback against the West. For almost a quarter of a century there has been
intense competition within the Islamist camp over who could claim leadership.
For much of that period Sunni Salafist movements, backed by oil money, were in
the ascendancy. They began to decline after the 9/11 attacks that deprived them
of much of the support they received from Arab governments and charities. In the
past five years Tehran has tried to seize the opportunity to advance its own
leadership claims. The problem, however, is that Iran is a Shia power and thus
regarded by Sunni Salafists as “heretical”. To compensate for that weakness,
Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made the destruction of Israel a
priority for his regime. The war triggered by Hezbollah is in part designed to
show that President Ahmadinejad is not bluffing when he promises to wipe Israel
off the map as the first step towards defeating the “infidel” West.