Adam Silverman's take.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/02/17/so-tell-me-whatcha-want-whatcha-really-really-want/

It is here that Woods’ article also misses something else important. Iraqi Islam, both Sunni and Shi’i, is tribal centric. The concept of ijma, in an Iraqi context, is related to Iraqi tribal dynamics. Most of the senior sheikhs and grand sheikhs are also the imams for the portions of their tribes where they reside and often for the greater community in their area. This is because of cross tribal ties. Only the three Shi’a Sayid Tribes (descended from the Prophet’s through his grandsons) are exclusively of one sect – Twelver Shi’ism. The rest of the tribes are all interrelated by marriage. For instance, one of the most senior Jabouris I interviewed told me that his mother was from the Utbi tribe and she was Shi’a, as was his sister in law. Moreover, I was told over and over that even if the Jabouris south and east of Baghdad are all Sunni, they have Shi’a Jabouri cousins in Basra, because everyone in Basra is Shi’a. The Shamori, which include tribes in Syria and Saudi Arabia too, are completely internally mixed according to sect. The tribe is so big and so far flung that it has both Sunni and Shi’a members prominently displayed on its tribal tree. As a result of not relating the complexity of the interaction between religion and tribe among Arab Iraqis, Woods does not take into account what helped cause the downfall of al Qaeda in Iraq – they pissed off the tribal leadership, especifically the sheikhs, sub-sheikhs, and their heirs. AQI did not seem to understand that tribe and religion was so intermingled. As a result they tried to do the same thing in Iraq that they did in Afghanistan – marry in to a kinship group (Pashtun khel in Afghanistan, tribe in Iraq). Once affiliated by marriage, they then made a play for leadership because they had money, weapons, and other resources. This worked in Afghanistan, because despite using the term, there really are not any tribes in Afghanistan, at least among the Pashtun. Pashtun kinship dynamics, when mapped graphically, are chaos – they look like a Jackson Pollack painting. In Iraq, the tribal dynamics map very neatly either on traditional family tree type of graphics or hub and spoke diagrams.

An interesting read.

Cheers,
Scott.

(It might even be a meta-failure, given the overlays of relationships among the squabbling millions (both Authorities and their minions.)
The most visibly operative clusterfuck appears to be quite pedestrian (residing in reptile brain) and universal/not just a Muslim thing) but transcend sects, tribes ... organization of any sort; maybe it is the anti-organization root-emotion? ~~ Don't *you* tell me what to do! and especially: don't tell me what the Right(eous?) interpretation of my religion is supposed to be!!

{{sigh}}ⁿ

Further, (per both analysts cited) the major justification for all the bloody battling seems to be about convincing all these 'individual'-muslim-interpreters that, the most important Reason for rolling out this new Caliphate is:
Apocalypse ~~Now~~ er, real-Soon next!! aka The Sky IS Falling.

That is: (too) a Jackson-Pollock painting is a lousy model for a Venn or other attempt at picking out relationships.. let alone (anything like! ijma /"consensus" ... as weirdly interpreted by these masses.
But we needn't attempt to grok-to-even mediocrity all these confabulations: Murican Taliban have given us the Fatherland version of rapturing out [a FAIL already, for mistaking "the spiritual" with the icky/material corpus.]

(To me) the absurdity of this entire tissue of Claiming Knowledge of the un-Knowable (that is: missing the point that The Absolute is Without Attributes, meaning: you CAN'T! fucking psychoanalyze His/Her/IT's "wishes, preferences" etc. This root-absurdity neatly cancels-out all the jillions of hours of 'scholarship' and all the modern nattering about the previous natterings.
You might as well be determinedly lecturing a starfish about 2d/2p electrons determining valence.

At least these two commentators seem capable of describing [one hand clapping?] what appears to be the longest-running-ever, game [something with 'Doom-' as suffix or prefix] which predates the necessary transistors to play today's versions. The whole plot and underpinnings as described by both these worthies strikes me as the Model of bringing pure-Boolean, (machine-) digital logic to matters that lie right at the limits of Reason: ineffable matters about the (sometimes provably!) un-Knowable ... (no matter How one "frames" n Questions.)

(Read Silverman's epistle.) Also heard recently that Ralph Nader was mightily impressed withThe Tyranny of Words! [yes.. That one] and is/or has produced a book with his version of all that. Heh.
Ergo: [Cool Hand Luke] 'What we've got here is a failure to communicate' [/Cool]

There's no hope for a John Dewey, American-inculcated pragmatist to comprehend the slightest thing of Why? How! WHAT-FOR!! these Millions of individual-"interpreters" are willing to massacre some n-Thousands to "make their individual *Points*."

What does this MEAN? At highest scale of Importance, in my lexicon, is that: the next.. unto perpetual.. dragging-out of their millions of "Missions" shall further confound the pursuit of any worldwide CONSENSUS on courageously-Facing The Planetary Issues. Period.

Add this collective of mo-fos as: sworn Enemies of the survival of the entire fucking species. Screw Them: the thousands or millions whom they will self-slaughter, as they demand attention away-from a REAL problem, not an esoteric re-definition of The Ineffable, a concept which none of these are likely ever to climb ^Up-to.

This vast waste of mental and physical effort will top How many angels can dance on the head of a pin; I shan't waste any time next, attempting to follow the pure-distilled Idiocy afoot. Hope BHO keeps up, on the reasons for herding ... and not the Usual. The dis-US could still blow this.
{{washes hands}}

Ed: oTpy

Welcome to IWETHEY!