[luckylion]

Minor correction about Iraq: ethnicity isn't that big a deal, religion is. Saddam and his government were Sunni muslims, the majority (2:1) are Shiite (both are predominately Arabs), with other tiny minorities making up the rest (Kurdish, Yezidi etc).

[jacobush]

Yeah, I've heard that too, but I wonder... religion is not something you easily switch between families, and families run deep and old.

I am more familiar with Yugoslavia. Look at the Serbs and the Croats. They are both Slavs.

Yet the war was hardly over Orthodox Christianity (Serbs) vs Catholic Christianity (Croats).

[luckylion]

That's true, but I don't know if Slavs are comparable to Arabs. There are different Slavic ethnic groups with very distinct languages. Arabs are one ethnic group with one language, but part of the Semitic family.

I suppose the Sunni/Shia conflict has an ethnic component with the Persians mostly being Shiites, while most Arabs are Sunni.

[jacobush]

Not convinced. According to arabs I know, they hardly understand each other at all if they are from to far away countries and never learned the "formal" form.

[meiraleal]

This is more about factions and power than religion.