"I welcome a rift between the different sects of the cult of Islam but then I also realize they will hold hands, kiss and make up to attack us."-- from a reader

Only if the Americans or other Infidels are there to be attacked. If they are not immediately present, and if the war is one over the country, and the spoils of that country -- that is, the oil wealth -- the sides are too evenly matched, taking into account not only population, where the Shi'a clearly lead, but also military training and aggressiveness, where the Sunnis have a lead, one that has been whittled away, inadvertently no doubt, by the Americans training all those Shi'a volunteers for the police and army, and also the availability of outside help. The Saudis and other Gulf Arabs cannot stand the idea that the "Persians" -- used loosely to include even Arab Shi'a, seen as potential handmaids of the Islamic Republic of Iran -- might control the Land of the Two Rivers, and Baghdad, fabled city, madinat al-salam, of the Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, and essential to the mythology of Muslims about their glorious past. The Sunni Arabs will never acquiesce. The Shi'a Arabs will never surrender, after enduring so much from the Sunnis, the power they now possess. This has no end.