In Syria, the religious factor in politics was intimately related to the sectarian structure of Syrian society. Just like in Iraq, Syria, under the Ba'ath Party, had always been deeply influenced by sectarian politics. And ever since the rise to power of the Ba'ath in 1963, Alawi sectarian solidarity played an important role in regime stability. A fact never openly admitted by the men in power, but a fact just the same. Ba'thi secularism was a vehicle for the sectarian domination of the Alawi minority. The systematic marginalization of religion was a blessing for the Alawis, whose heterodoxical faith was a political and social liability. Therefore, from its inception in 1963, the Ba'thist regime was avowedly secular and even radically so during the reign of the so-called Neo-Ba'th from 1966 to 1970. But under Hafiz al-Asad who came to power in 1970, the Ba'th changed course. After rising to the Presidency, Asad sought to enhance the religious legitimacy of the Alawis. In 1973, he reinstated the clause in the constitution requiring the head of state to be a Muslim, a clause that the Neobathis had previously removed. Asad also managed to get the leading Lebanese Shi'ite cleric, Moussa Sadr to recognize the Alawis as orthodox Shi'is, and thus as ostensible Muslims, constitutionally eligible for the presidency in Syria. And from then onwards, the link with the Shi'is in Lebanon has been particularly strong. But many in the Sunni majority community of Syria here continue to regard the Alawis as socially inferior heretics, whose political dominance was an anathema. But after having crushed the Sunni opposition, as expressed by the Muslim Brethren in 1982, President Asad adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood that was matched in the 1990s by a greater measure of tolerance toward religion in general. The process begun by of having the Alawis accepted the Shii's was accelerated under Bashar, his son. Bashar as President of Syria developed a more sustained program of Shi'ization generally, with the help of the Iranians, as a means of legitimizing both the Alawi community, and the regime in the eyes of the Sunni majority. Hundreds of Alawis were sent to Iran for religious training. While Iranian men of religion toured Syria to preach on Shi'ite religion to the Alawite areas, as the regime sought to rid itself of its former ultra secularist, anti-religious image. The Syrian mass media diligently presented Asad to the Syrian public and the world at large as a bona-fide Muslim. Bashar like Kafirs before him, made a deliberate effort to portray himself not only as a Muslim but as a devout one. Furthermore, since the 1990's religious schools have opened all over the country. Religious literature was readily available, and was sold to the general public in far greater quantities than books on other subjects. The number of students studying Sharia in the university was constantly on the rise, and popular religious programs just like in other Arab countries were broadcast on national television. Syrian society, especially its Sunni components, was becoming more observant. At least if judged for example, by participation in prayer or the adoption of the Islamic dress code. But all of the above failed to overcome the sectarian fault lines. Many in the Sunni majority community continued to regard the Alawis as socially inferior heretics whose political dominance was unbearable. And when the Arab Spring erupted in Syria, it did not take long for it to develop into an all out sectarian civil war. Even in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, the regime went through an Islamizing phase. Shiite opposition to the essentially Sunni regime was always ruthlessly suppressed. After Saddam Hussein's final rise to power in 1979, along with his effort to forge an Iraqi sense of national consciousness drawing on Iraq's supposed pre-Islamic Babylonian past, Saddam was not averse to exploiting political Islam when he felt that such a shift might better serve his purpose. Thus, while cracking down on Shiite political movements, outlawing the Shiite opposition party Aldawa, and arresting and executing Shi'ite leaders, the regime changed gears in its political language. Saddam even began to claim direct descent from Ali bin Abi Talib, revered by the Shi'ites as the rightful successor to the prophet. The employment of Islamic themes for regime legitimization increased consistently, from a toeing of the Islamic line, for most of the war with Iran in 1980s, to deliberate Islamic flag waving in the 1990s. During the war with Shiite Iran, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites fought shoulder to shoulder with their Sunni compatriots, partly out of loyalty to the state of Iraq and to their own Iraqiness, partly out of intimidation by the state's ruthless organs of suppression. The war, however, also made it increasingly clear to the regime just how effectively the Iranians had made religion into a mobilizing force, as opposed to the weakness of Marthy ideology in emotionally mate, motivating Iraqis. This further encouraged the process of Islamization, which peaked on the eve of the Gulf War in early 1991, when the words Allahu Akbar were embroidered on the Iraqi flag. But these efforts were obviously artificial and got nowhere in bridging the sectarian divide between the Sunnis and Shiites, in Iraq. After Saddam's overthrow by the US in 2003, as we have already seen, the country rapidly degenerated into sectarian strife, between Sunnis and Shiites, which has yet to come to an end, over a decade later
