Who will be the dominant power in the Middle East: Sunni Saudi Arabia or Shia Iran?  The theological divide between the two versions of Islam, now 1,400 years old, is unbridgeable.  About 85 percent of the world's Muslims are Sunnis.  Only Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, have a Shia majority. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by the Sunni Saud family, currently Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, in which 90 percent of the population is Sunni.  Saudi Arabia is custodian of Islam's two holiest sites at Mecca and Medina, and the site of the annual pilgrimage of the world's Muslims.  In the Islamic Republic of Iran, 95 percent of citizens is Shia. Coupled with this theological divide between the two countries are five other factors: tension between an absolute monarchy and a ruthless Islamic republic, struggle for political hegemony in the Middle East, the historic conflict between Arabs and Persians, the Iranian interest in nuclear weapons, and...(Read Full Article)