The Derb asks in an email: Here's a thing I have been wondering about, in the context of a possible Iraqi civil war: Are Shias any good as fighters?
I ask because I am not clear how the Sunni minority managed to maintain its grip over the Shia majority in Iraq for all those decades. **And** I have been wondering for some time why the Iran-Iraq War was such a stalemate, when Iran's population is nearly 3 times Iraq's (70m vs. 26m).
Modern Arabs are supposed to be hopeless at war. (Moshe Dayan famously replied, when asked the key to success in modern warfare: "Fight Arabs.") Could it be that the Shias, both Arab and Persian, are even less warlike than Sunni Arabs? Any thoughts? The Spectator notes: Strictly speaking, the last war of aggression launched by an Iranian monarch was in 1739, and since that time, the Iranian state has largely been on the defensive.
posted by Steve Sailer at 12:17 AM on Feb 14, 2005
"Can Shias fight?"
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