The latest conspiracy theory to grip the Middle East is theShiite Crescent – an emerging Iranian-backed Shiite alliance stretching westward from Iran to Lebanon that threatensAmerica’s Sunni allies in the region. In the arch’s keystone, Syria, many say a Shiite takeover is in the works.Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, but it is ruled by the Assad regime, which hails from the Alawite Shiite Muslim sect. Akey part of Tehran’s alleged regional coup are rumors of“Shiitization” – the conversion of Sunnis to Shiite Islam. Many if not most of the gaggle of growing Syria experts deny Shiitization is happening, but their contradictory statements indicate otherwise. Syrian ParliamentarianMohammed Habash, head of Damascus’ Islamic Studies Center and a major source on Islam in Syria for foreign journalists, told me following last summer’s war in Lebanon that talk of conversions was “Wahabbi propaganda” – a reference to the conservative version of Sunni Islam practiced
