Even Iraqi Arab Shi’ites, whom Islamic State views as loathed enemies that must be annihilated, aren’t its principal enemies. Its principal enemies are the Persian Shi’ites, whom it calls Safavids, after the Safavid dynasty that forcibly imposed Shi’ite Islam on Iran in the early 16th century. After all, the political and strategic leadership of the global Shi’ite community is located in Iran, not Iraq, so logic demands that Iran be attacked first and foremost. But that isn’t what happened.
Islamic State’s hatred of Shi’ite Islam stems from two complementary sources. The first is religious and theological. The organization is a Salafi Sunni movement that is close to Wahhabi Islam, which comes from Saudi Arabia, and to this day, the Wahhabi movement sees Shi’ites as people who left the fold of Islam. [...]
The second source of hatred is modern politics. Islamic State is above all an Iraqi Sunni movement with a dual leadership — religious and semisecular — whose main shared goal is restoring the Sunni Arab community to power in Iraq. This isn’t to discount the radical Salafi wing’s dream of imposing Islam on the entire world, but the common denominator of the two wings is a clear order of priorities topped by restoring Iraq to Sunni rule. [...]
What can we expect in the future? The Iranians blame the Saudis for the terror attacks, but neither country is beating the war drums. A Saudi-Iranian war would drag in the entire Gulf. The various emirates, aside from Qatar and Oman, would side with the Saudis, and most likely Jordan and Egypt would too. Iraq would presumably aspire to remain neutral, but Iran could force it to take its side, and the United States would be drawn into the turmoil against its will. This is a nightmare scenario that nobody wants.
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