They always cite the Battle of Karbala back in 680 A.D. The reality is that we take it right up to the 20th century. Iraq was artificially formed as was Syria. We just started drawing straight-line borders and compiling countries together and putting the minority in power. Saddam Hussein was in the minority, yet he had the majority. There was long-term hostility.
We see just the opposite over in Syria. If we had tried to figure out how to make that world as hideous as what the people are having to face, we couldn't have done it any better. In 1953 we had the CIA support the overthrow of a popular government in Iran. We backed Nouri al-Maliki instead of Allawi. If Allawi were in charge of Iraq right now, you would not have the problem. Yet the United States ended up supporting Maliki, stealing the government from Allawi when Grand Ayatollah Sistani told Allawi to follow the constitution. Now Maliki is getting ready to steal the government again and that's why it's important he gets all this genocide done before April, because Maliki is going to stay in power, and the United States is going to support him. We saw the fiasco in Syria recently. We couldn't have handled that one more wrongly if we tried.