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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep763: The "tragedy of the Sunnis" stemmed from their lack of a monolithic political project and internal tribal infighting. In cities like Ramadi, total chaos left civilians caught in the crossfire as ISIS capitalized on fragmentation by providing a sense of "o

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

News, Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The "tragedy of the Sunnis" stemmed from their lack of a monolithic political project and internal tribal infighting. In cities like Ramadi, total chaos left civilians caught in the crossfire as ISIS capitalized on fragmentation by providing a sense of "order" for young men. Meanwhile, Iranian intelligence had been quietly building influence since 2003, integrating their trainees into the backbone of the new Iraqi security forces. (6)
1934 BAGHDAD

Transcript

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0:00.0

This CBSI in the world with Haith Abdulahad.

0:09.0

A stranger in your own city travels in the Middle East long war.

0:13.0

It is halfway between Baghdad and Mosul is a city called Ramadi.

0:19.6

We heard about it much in the Sunni awakening of 2007. Well,

0:23.1

it's back, except one witticism that we learn in the telling of this story is that I believe when

0:30.6

the women want to, the women of the Sunni women want to make certain that you're going to have a bad

0:36.4

time. They say something like,

0:38.3

may you have many sheiks in your clan or your tribe? What does that mean, Haith? Why do they say that?

0:44.1

It's not only the Sunnis, but it's in every tribal society in Iraq, if women want to curse a woman from another tribe,

0:51.6

they say, may Allah increase the, you Allah increase the tribal elders in your society?

0:56.1

Because the more sheikhs, the more tribal elders you have in a tribe, the more infighting

1:01.8

you have. And every one of them will try to use outside powers to increase their influence.

1:10.1

And this is exactly what's happened at Ramadi, which is to the west.

1:13.5

Baghdad is here, Mosul is there.

1:15.4

Ramadi is to the west.

1:17.7

And, you know, different to me politicians, tribal elders, forces to, you know, some use the

1:27.0

power of Maliki to fight others.

1:29.6

Some kind of use the power of the jihadis, allied themselves,

1:32.5

align themselves to the Americans.

1:34.5

And this internal infighting between the Sunnis,

1:37.7

I mean, sometimes I call what's been happening in Iraq in the past 20 years,

1:41.3

I mean, until ISIS is the tragedy of the Sunnis.

...

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