Shiites-Sunni 'divide' and the The Oil map by M.R. Izady Jon Schwarz

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed Shiite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday. Hours later, Iranian protestors set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. On Sunday, the Saudi government, which considers itself the guardian of Sunni Islam, cut diplomatic ties with Iran, which is a Shiite Muslim theocracy.

To explain what’s going on, the New York Times provided a primer on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam, informing us that “a schism emerged after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632” — i.e., 1,383 years ago.

But to the degree that the current crisis has anything to do with religion, it’s much less about whether Abu Bakr or Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor and much more about who’s going to control something more concrete right now: oil.

In fact, much of the conflict can be explained by a fascinating map created by M.R. Izady, a cartographer and adjunct master professor at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University in Florida.

Shiites-Sunni 'divide' and the  The Oil map  by M.R. Izady

What the map shows is that, due to a peculiar correlation of religious history and anaerobic decomposition of plankton, almost all the Persian Gulf’s fossil fuels are located underneath Shiites. This is true even in Sunni Saudi Arabia, where the major oil fields are in the Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population.

As a result, one of the Saudi royal family’s deepest fears is that one day Saudi Shiites will secede, with their oil, and ally with Shiite Iran.

This fear has only grown since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq overturned Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime, and empowered the pro-Iranian Shiite majority. Nimr himself said in 2009 that Saudi Shiites would call for secession if the Saudi government didn’t improve its treatment of them.

shia-oil-cropped-2 The map shows religious populations in the Middle East and proven developed oil and gas reserves. Click to view the full map of the wider region. The dark green areas are predominantly Shiite; light green predominantly Sunni; and purple predominantly Wahhabi/Salafi, a branch of Sunnis. The black and red areas represent oil and gas deposits, respectively.

Source: Dr. Michael Izady at Columbia University, Gulf2000, New York

As Izady’s map so strikingly demonstrates, essentially all of the Saudi oil wealth is located in a small sliver of its territory whose occupants are predominantly Shiite. (Nimr, for instance, lived in Awamiyya, in the heart of the Saudi oil region just northwest of Bahrain.) If this section of eastern Saudi Arabia were to break away, the Saudi royals would just be some broke 80-year-olds with nothing left but a lot of beard dye and Viagra prescriptions.

Nimr’s execution can be partly explained by the Saudis’ desperation to stamp out any sign of independent thinking among the country’s Shiites.

The same tension explains why Saudi Arabia helped Bahrain, an oil-rich, majority-Shiite country ruled by a Sunni monarchy, crush its version of the Arab Spring in 2011.

Similar calculations were behind George H.W. Bush’s decision to stand by while Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in 1991 to put down an insurrection by Iraqi Shiites at the end of the Gulf War. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained at the time, Saddam had “held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.”

Of course, it’s too simple to say that everything happening between Saudis and Iranians can be traced back to oil. Disdain and even hate for Shiites seem to be part of the DNA of Saudi Arabia’s peculiarly sectarian and belligerent version of Islam. In 1802, 136 years before oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, the ideological predecessors to the modern Saudi state sacked Karbala, a city now in present-day Iraq and holy to Shiites. The attackers massacred thousands and plundered the tomb of Husayn ibn Ali, one of the most important figures in Shiite Islam.

Without fossil fuels, however, this sectarianism toward Shiites would likely be less intense today. And it would definitely be less well-financed. Winston Churchill once described Iran’s oil – which the U.K. was busy stealing at the time — as “a prize from fairyland far beyond our brightest hopes.”

Churchill was right, but didn’t realize that this was the kind of fairytale whose treasures carry a terrible curse.

Additional reporting: Murtaza Hussain

==================

M. R. Izady, PhD
Dr. Izady received his college education in the United States, finishing his doctorate in Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia University, New York in 1992.  He has taught at various American and European institutions such as Harvard University (1990-95), Smithsonian Institution (Washington, 1996), Uppsala University, (Sweden, 1997), Free University of Berlin (Germany, 1998), and Fordham University (New York, 1998-present).  Dr. Izady has also testified before two U.S. Congressional committees.  During the past eight years, Dr. Izady has been an Adjunct Master Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and History at the USAF Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University (JSOU/USAFSOS), Hurlburt Field, Florida. Dr. Izady’s expertise has been in the education and preparation of military and diplomatic personnel being deployed in various volatile and unstable areas of the world.  He has provided comprehensive training in cultural, social, economic political and security fields here in America and in Europe.  The military units he has trained range from the Special Operations Commands (Hurlburt Field, Fort Bragg and Coronado) to CENTCOM, the Naval Academy and the National Defense University.  His training has also included the 1st Special Forces, Ft. Carson, CO, the Army Corps of Engineers, Winchester, VA, the Army Intelligence and Security Command, Belvoir, VA, and various Reserve and National Guard units in the US.  In Europe, he has provided training for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Reimstein, Germany and Special Forces units, Mildenhall, UK.  Dr. Izady has published and lectured extensively on ethnic and socio-historical topics on Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.  For six years, he served as the editor-in-chief of The International Journal of Kurdish Studies and is presently serving as the editor for the English edition of the Encyclopedia CyrticaHis first book titled The Kurds: A Concise Handbook was modeled after the U.S. State Department country handbook series and has been exhibited by theU.S. Information Agency around the world.

US No evidence to support North Korean ‘hydrogen bomb’ claim

White House: No evidence to support North Korean ‘hydrogen bomb’ claim

During a daily press briefing Jan. 6, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration is skeptical of North Korea's claims to have carried out a hydrogen bomb test. (AP)

By Anna Fifield January 6 at 2:48 PM

TOKYO — World leaders slammed North Korea on Wednesday for carrying out a fourth nuclear test, an explosion that Pyongyang claimed was a powerful hydrogen bomb but whose strength was strongly questioned by international experts and American officials.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said initial data from various monitoring sources were “not consistent with North Korean claims of a successful hydrogen bomb test.”

Nuclear monitors also said the magnitude of the blast suggested an atomic explosion rather than one produced by an exponentially more powerful hydrogen device — potentially more than 1,000 times more destructive than the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima near the end of World War II.

In New York, meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council gathered in an emergency session and strongly denounced the reported test as a “clear threat to international peace and security,” said Elbio Rosselli, the envoy from Uruguay, which currently holds the council presidency.

He said the council would begin work on a new resolution. But Rosselli did not specify possible further U.N. measures against the North, which described the device as an “H-bomb of justice” needed for defense against the United States.

“Regardless of whether this is a hydrogen test or a normal, vanilla device, this is a very serious provocation,” said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

North Korea's three previous nuclear tests since 2006 have been met with international condemnation, including resolutions and sanctions from the Security Council. But the response has done nothing to deter Pyongyang.

Despite the widespread skepticism about the North’s assertion, data from the blast will be carefully scrutinized for any hints of technological advances in its nuclear program. Even incremental progress would demonstrate that the North has been able to develop its expertise despite international sanctions and other pressures.

The test also appeared to be part of efforts by the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to project strength at a time when the country faces increasing isolation, including growing strains in its critical lifeline with China.

The North’s renegade status has been further underscored by the nuclear deal reached last year between Iran and world powers, including the United States and China. Under the pact, Tehran agreed to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of international sanctions.

Over the past decade, Iran has developed capacities to make nuclear material, but its leaders insist they do not seek an atomic weapon.

In contrast, North Korea “is apparently willing to accept international isolation,” said Earnest.

In Vienna, Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said a seismic reading on Wednesday was “slightly down” compared with the level from the North’s last nuclear test in 2013.

A full analysis by the watchdog group could take days as experts look at other data including airborne radioactive isotopes, said Zerbo.

A U.S. dry fuel hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb tested in 1954 at Bikini Atoll had a yield of 15 megatons, making it more than 1,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.

In Seoul, South Korean President Park Geun-hye put her military on alert and said North Korea would pay a price for the test, which she called a “grave provocation.” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a similar message, describing it as “a major threat” that Japan “absolutely cannot accept.”

The United States pledged to stand by its allies in the region.

“We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear armed state, and actions such as this latest test only strengthen our resolve,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in a statement.

“The answer to North Korea’s threats is more pressure, not less,” said Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

White House: no evidence to support North Korea's hydrogen bomb test claims  

But the severity of any international response will depend on the level of political will in China and Russia, both veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council and the closest thing North Korea has to friends.

After a nuclear test in 2013, the first of Kim’s tenure as North Korea’s leader, China supported expanded sanctions against the country, although it is not clear how strictly Beijing has enforced the restrictions on its neighbor.

Still, China also condemned the test Wednesday.

“Today [North Korea] ignored the general objection from the international community and conducted a nuclear test once again. As to this matter, China strongly opposes,” Hua Chunying, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, told reporters in Beijing.

Although China remains North Korea's biggest patron, relations have been severely strained since Kim took power and detonated a nuclear device a month before Xi Jinping took over as president of China.

Russia, which declared 2015 a “year of friendship” with North Korea, also condemned the detonation and called for international nuclear talks with North Korea to resume.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave Kim a rare foreign invitation for a visit last year, ordered a full study of data from Russia’s monitoring stations, said the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.

“The first H-bomb test was successfully conducted,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement issued shortly after a special announcement was broadcast on state-run television. It said it needed the weapon for defense against the United States, which it described as “the chieftain of aggression” and a “gang of cruel robbers.”

“Nothing is more foolish than dropping a hunting gun before herds of ferocious wolves,” the statement said in North Korea's trademark colorful prose.

But there were immediate questions about the claim. Nuclear experts noted that the yield appeared to be similar to North Korea’s three previous atomic tests, rather than the “enormous” yield that would be expected if it had been a thermonuclear explosion.

Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif., said Wednesday’s explosion looked very similar to past tests and was not enormous, suggesting it was not a hydrogen bomb.

Either way, Pyongyang’s action presents a new challenge to the outside world, which has struggled to find ways to end North Korea’s nuclear defiance.

“North Korea’s fourth test — in the context of repeated statements by U.S., Chinese and South Korean leaders — throws down the gauntlet to the international community to go beyond paper resolutions and find a way to impose real costs on North Korea for pursuing this course of action,” said Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Simon Denyer in Beijing, Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, Yoonjung Seo in Seoul, Yuki Oda in Tokyo and Carol Morello and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.