Syria - Shariah law threatens democracy, stability

Syria on track to become Islamic state

By Fred Gedrich

Shariah is incompatible with democratic theory

 

The conflict raging in Syria for 20-plus months to oust Bashar Assad from power has evolved into a sectarian battle for Middle East supremacy by two ancient enemies: Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Sunni rebels appear poised for victory. 

It’s vitally important for the Obama administration to discourage a new Syrian government from supplanting the secular dictatorship with a more dangerous regime based on Islamic law. 

Another Islamic state in the Middle East could threaten regional residents with more religious tyranny, perpetual war with neighbors and another caliphate.

Syria’s Sunni Muslims, who comprise nearly 75 percent of the country’s 22.5 million people, sparked the uprising by demanding more freedom and a greater role in government from Mr. Assad’s oppressive minority Alawite regime. 

Mr. Assad responded with a brutal military crackdown. Demonstrations spread and escalated into full-fledged war involving other countries and foreign fighters, mostly along religious lines. 

This almost exclusively Muslim-on-Muslim conflict has claimed 60,000 civilian and warring-faction lives and displaced an estimated 2.5 million people.

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