India, March 3 -- To assume that there is no sectarian angle to the attack on Iran is to live under a rock. What started as dispute over leadership after the death of the holy prophet, soon evolved into a irreconcilable theological divide of Shia-Sunni framework. First signs of the violent divide within the Ummah (Islamic World) came with the First Fitna (656-661 CE). Since then the sectarian dissonance got institutionalised within the respective sects.

In majority Shia Iraq, the Sunni leader Saddam Hussein had a predominantly Sunni Military and he diminished his Shia populace. Recently deposed Bashar al-Assad led Syria, had majority Sunni populace which was ruled by a predominantly Shia (Alawite) clique. In Sunni majority Yemen, the Shi...