CAIRO — A blindfolded 6-year-old reached into a glass bowl on Sunday to pick the first new Coptic pope in more than 40 years, a patriarch who promises a new era of integration for Egypt's Christian minority as it grapples with a wave of sectarian violence, new Islamist domination of politics, and internal pressures for reform.
But the loss of growing numbers of Sunni Muslims in the upper ranks could make the conflict appear to be ever more sectarian in nature, underscoring the domination of the country by a small minority.
The Taliban were then quite prepared in the 1990s to employ sectarian tactics to advance their aim of total domination (persecuting the mostly-Shiite Hazara people in particular, who were the main victims again this week).
The comparison is often drawn between Saudi Arabia and Iran as two regional powerhouses engaged in a struggle for domination of the Middle East, with a sectarian ideology of "Sunni vs Shia" hatred fueling their mutual ire.
Massive anti-Syrian demonstrations prompted the abrupt withdrawal of Syrian "peacekeeping" troops and intelligence agents, ending nearly three decades of Syrian domination over its smaller neighbour.But the pieces of Lebanon's complex sectarian puzzle have been shaken since then.
A beleaguered minority movement, led by Christian and Druze politicians who once fought each other, was reinforced by members of Mr Hariri's own Sunni Muslims, as well as thousands of others whose indignation transcended the old sectarian loyalties.Lebanon's anger has a cause as well as a martyred hero: freedom from domination by Syria, whose regime many Lebanese instinctively blame for the crime.
Iraq, now shakily ruled by its Shia majority after ugly years of sectarian war, fears what may happen if Syria's Sunni majority, three-quarters of the population, seized power after decades of domination by Mr Assad's Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam numbering a tenth of Syria's people.
He expected Aryan domination.
