The Future of Sectarian Relations in the Middle East

S ectarianism—particularly the Sunni-Shi‘a variant1—is a prominent feature of the Middle East landscape. From the civil wars raging in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, to regional competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia, to governing strategies in religiously mixed countries, sectarianism is shaping regional developments. Sectarianism, which is difficult to measure or separate from other factors with which it may be interacting, is also a focus area for the U.S. intelligence community, which is tasked with judging its salience and forecasting its evolution over time. This Perspective is designed to assist the intelligence community by presenting scenarios for the evolution of sectarianism in the Middle East over the coming decade. We generated scenarios through structured analysis—including a facilitated discussion with subject-matter experts—that builds from assumptions and drivers that we deem important to how sectarianism develops. These assumptions and drivers informed our scenario generation, which is based on the criteria that each scenario is plausible and analytically distinct so that it can be differentiated from alternative scenarios. For ease of consumption and to “show our work,” the outline of this publication follows the steps in our method, beginning with a review of the assumptions undergirding our study, proceeding to the drivers, and moving on to scenario generation. We conclude with identification of related topics fruitful for future research.