Question

What is sectarianism in Lebanon? What are its roots? Have the underlying issues been resolved?

Why did the military regimes in Syria and Iraq persist for so long?

What is OPEC? What is its significance?

Answer 1

Solution -

sectarianism has been defined as, 'the existence, within a locality, of two or more divided and actively competing communal identities, resulting in a strong sense of dualism which unremittingly transcends commonality, and is both culturally and physically manifest.
Sectarianism is a form of prejudice, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group. Common examples are denominations of a religion, ethnic identity, class, or region for citizens of a state and factions of a political movement.

The root cause of increased levels of sectarian violence in the region is the centuries-old theological divide that exists between Sunni and Shiite Islam, which is manifested in today's rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. ... It also began to arm, train, and equip Shiite terrorist groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

• Lebanese religious leaders do not incite sectarian hatred. They are invested in coexisting within and preserving the political system that confers their power.
• In some respects, religious representatives are well-placed to defuse sectarian tension. They tend to publically oppose the politicization of sectarian divisions, and can be instrumental in deradicalization.
• But the way Lebanon recognizes and empowers exclusivist religious leaders also exacerbates the country’s difficulty in faithfully representing its religious diversity. These leaders promote narrow orthodoxies that marginalize and at times radicalize nonconformists such as Islamists or secularists.
• Religious leaders help perpetuate a sectarian system that inhibits social integration and has suppressed the representation of diversity rather than improved it. Their monopoly over religious affairs maintains divisions between citizens and confines them to communally bound lives.

Iraq–Syria relations are the bilateral relations between Iraq and Syria. Relations are marked by long-shared cultural and political links, as well as former regional rivalry. The two countries took their present form after the Sykes–Picot Agreement to dismember the Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence after World War.

Both countries are largely Arab and Muslim, with Kurdish, Christian and Syrian Turkmen and Iraqi Turkmen minorities. Political relations between them have often been hostile. Ever since King Faisal took the Iraqi throne in the early 1920s, Iraqi leaders have dreamed of unifying the two countries. Even during the thaw in Iraqi-Syrian relations during the last years of Saddam Hussein, relations between the two countries were not good. New diplomatic relations established in November 2006, were heralded as the beginning of an era of close cooperation between Iraq and Syria.

Both countries fought against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi volunteers have been fighting in Syria alongside the Syrian Army. The two countries are part of the Russia–Syria–Iran–Iraq coalition which was formed as a consequence of an agreement reached at the end of September 2015 between Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria to "help and cooperate in collecting information about ISIL to combat the advances of the group, according to the statement issued by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command.

OPEC

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a group consisting of 14 of the world's major oil-exporting nations. OPEC was founded in 1960 to coordinate the petroleum policies of its members and to provide member states with technical and economic aid.

The purpose of OPEC for members is to "coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its Member Countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital for those investing in