Western intelligentsia say bloody division is inevitable because it's Islam, thus hardwired into Muslims. But the catalyst, they forget, is often Western intervention...
Lately, it has become a habit of Orientalist apologists of Western imperialism to offer reductive historical and theological explanations for the Sunni-Shi'a conflict in the Middle East region in order to cover up the blowback of ill-conceived Western military interventions and proxy wars that have ignited the flames of internecine conflict in the Islamic world.
Some self-anointed "Arabists" of the mainstream media posit that the division goes all the way back to the founding of Islam, 1400 years ago, and contend that the conflict emerged during the reign of the fourth caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib, in the seventh century A.D.
One wonders what would be the American-led war on terror's explanation of such "erudite" historians of Islam, that the cause of "the clash of civilizations" between Christians and Muslims can be found in the Crusades when Richard the Lionheart and Saladin were skirmishing in the Levant and exchanging courtesies at the same time.
The fact of the matter is that,
in modern times, the Sunni-Shi'a conflict in the Middle East region is essentially a political conflict between the Gulf Arab autocrats and Iran for regional dominance which is being presented to lay Muslims with a veneer of religiosity.
Comment: MarketWatch reports more on Soros' comments: China has since responded by saying that Soros' comments are a 'a gross distortion not even worthy of a rebuttal.':