Broadly speaking, religious and ethnic groups fight each other mainly because they feel they are protecting their interests and their community, in the absence of state institutions and the rule of law that protect individual rights and collective identity. The prevalent pattern in the world is for such groups to negotiate a tolerant coexistence, if not mutual respect, and a sharing of resources based on their relative power. In the absence of such understandings, they fight.
In the case of Iraq today, the violence reflects a cruel combination of four cumulative elements: 1) a modern Iraqi state that artificially groups different ethnicities and nationalities, created by British colonialism without the consent of the Iraqis themselves; 2) recent history of despotic rule by former Baathists and other tyrants that generated great resentment and a desire for revenge among various sub-groups, notably Kurds and Shiites; 3) a reckless U.S.-led war that removed the state structures that had held the place together -- with all its faults -- allowing ethnic and religious identities to rise to the fore; and 4) a deliberate, successful campaign by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other jihadists to foment Shiite-Sunni strife.
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