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Tavis: Vali Nasr is a senior fellow from Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a professor of Middle East and south Asia politics at the Naval Post Graduate School. His new book is called 'The Shia Revival, How Conflicts with Islam Will Shape the Future.' Dr. Nasr, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Vali Nasr: Nice to be here.

Tavis: I wanna talk in a moment about how these conflicts are already shaping the future, even as we speak. But let me start with a question I daresay most of us need to be educated on, and I admit this myself. And when I got a chance to get into the text, it actually enlightened me. We watch the news, we read the paper, we hear the radio, we even engage in conversation about Iraq, and most of us, I think, know these terms, Shia and Sunni.

Nasr: That's right.

Tavis: We hear these terms all the time, I talk to guests every night, talking about this issue, and yet, I don't think we really understand who the Shia are, who the Sunni are, and what this conflict is really all about. So I'm wondering if you might not act as if we're all fifth graders, and break down this Shia and Sunni thing so that we understand it.

Nasr: Well, this is the major divide within Islam, much like Protestantism and Catholicism in Christianity. It goes back to the very beginning of Islam; there was a dispute over who should succeed the prophet. The Shi'ites believed it should be his son in law and cousin, the Sunnis chose the most senior elder in the community. And then they gradually sort of grew apart, interpreting Islam very differently.

Just like Protestants and Catholics do. But in modern times, it's, in many ways, like Northern Ireland. Where you hear Protestants and Catholics. It's not about whether or not they go to church, it's about identity. What side of the tracks were you born? What are you getting from the system? Are you on top, or are you on the bottom? And it's the same in the Middle East.

The Shi'ites were at the bottom in Iraq. They were the majority, but they didn't have power. They were defined by their faith, in the same manner as in America; you might have race or language define who you are and how the system treats you. And whereas the Sunnis used to rule. And when we went into Iraq, we disturbed the balance that there was, and as the Sunnis are resisting sharing power, and the Shi'ites want the power. And as a result, we have this bloody conflict.

Tavis: Tell me, with regard to the faith, with regard specifically to Islam, in a contemporary sense - you've given us the history. In a contemporary sense, what is the primary difference or differences in how they interpret Islam today?

Nasr: Well, on minor things, they vary. They have different laws about marriage, inheritance, and the like. And they read the text and interpret it differently. Much like Protestant and Catholics may do in Christianity. The Sunnis, much like Protestants, don't believe there is any intermediary between man and God. Every individual can read the text and interpret it.

The Shi'ites, more like Catholics, look to their ayatollahs, the way a Catholic may look to a bishop. And the Shi'ites follow saints. We hear about these shrines in Iraq, one of which was destroyed in February, much like a Catholic may look at, say, the shrine of Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. You believe there is somebody between man and God you can appeal to.

Tavis: So this conflict between the Sunni and the Shia has been ongoing for how many years?

Nasr: Well, it goes right to the beginning. There are periods that there's been calm and coexistence, but there are periods that it flares up, either because there is religious intolerance on one side or the other, or because there is a real fight about who rules, and who gets the wealth in society.

Tavis: Okay, I would assume, then, you're the expert here, not me. I would assume, then, that when we, that is to say, the U.S., went into Iraq, to your point, and disturbed this balance inside of Iraq, there's something that we must not have understood. Because again, I'm just on the outside looking in. It just seems to me, I'm not a rocket scientist here, that we could have handled this better, had we been clearer about what we were about to engage in, in terms of disrupting that balance, or did we do that intentionally?

Nasr: No, I don't think we did it intentionally, but I think we ignored or misunderstood or didn't take into consideration how serious this rift was. We thought Democracy or regime change in Iraq means merely giving power to the people, and bringing rule of law and civil liberties. We didn't understand that when you have two communities divided along communal lines, people in that community identify with the community. And at the very beginning, you're gonna have a shift in power from one to the other. And we could have handled it better, without a doubt, had we taken it into consideration.

Tavis: One of the issues that I confess here, this is my own issue, my own axe to grind. One of the issues that I've had with this administration, particularly on this Iraq front, is that, and not just in Iraq, in other places. We seem to think, the Bush administration seems to think that the spread of Democracy is merely about giving people a chance to vote.

And that just because people can vote, that equates with Democracy, when we have to know now that Democracy is much more than just giving people the right to have one person, one vote. Which is an important principle, but it's much deeper than that. I say that only because I wonder whether or not Democracy as we know it can, in fact, thrive in a place like Iraq, where the divide amongst the people is a divide along religious lines, more so, one could argue, than on political lines.

Nasr: That's very true. Democracy is not just about voting, it's about rule of law, and above all, it's about having a constitutional framework. If those don't exist, voting just becomes an ethnic or a religious referendum. So everybody votes with his own kin. All the Shi'ites will vote for Shia candidates, and all Sunnis will vote for Sunni candidates, and all Kurds vote for Kurdish candidates.

So the only thing you achieve is to confirm where you belong. But not about whether you're gonna have a Democratic government. And we facilitated that in Iraq, in many ways. It was good for the Shi'ites and the Kurds. One has to look at it that way. But we also learned, in a very sort of basic way, that power doesn't go from one group of society to another one peacefully. They're gonna fight.

Tavis: It reminds me of that Frederick Douglass quote, who said power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.

Nasr: Exactly.

Tavis: So it doesn't concede easily. Before I come back to the subtitle of the book, 'How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future,' before I move to that part, I'm hearing in this conversation some parallels to what we are saying now with Israel and Hezbollah. Am I overstating that?

Nasr: No, you're not, because Hezbollah is a Shia organization. And Iran is a Shia country, which is the main supporter of Hezbollah. And these two powers have now made a bid for defining the Arab-Israeli issue. And some say they've hijacked the Palestinian issue. They've emerged as the major power brokers in the region, and many Sunni countries in the region, like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, who were already worried about Shia power in Iraq, are now very worried about Shia power in Lebanon, and Shia power across the region through Iran. So we're seeing what began in Iraq as a Shia-Sunni rift now finding much broader regional dimension, as well.

Tavis: All right, so now to those conflicts within Islam that will shape the future. Those conflicts would be?

Nasr: Would be essentially this power struggle between these two sects of Islam. Between the Shi'ites, whose numbers are now about half the population of the Middle East, who want to seat at the table, who want a share of the wealth, who wanna have their say. And the Sunnis who have dominated the region and don't wanna give up that power easily.

And we have to recognize that this is a real issue, that we have to work to make this transfer of power is not violent like Iraq, but will be more peaceful. But also that the U.S. interests now have to be calculated and followed in the context of reality in the region, which is now largely defined by the competition of power between these two sects.

Tavis: All right, so what does a country like the U.S. do, given the reality of this pending - not pending, but this ongoing friction, and these pending issues that we're gonna have to navigate?

Nasr: Well, the very first thing we've learned out of Lebanon is that most of our allies in the region are the Sunni governments. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan. They're of no value in handling the Shias. And I think after this conflict is settled, we're gonna learn that there is no substitute for beginning a conversation and engagement with the Shia powers. We may not like them, like in Iran and Hezbollah. But we cannot ignore them anymore.

Tavis: Ah, but you know the rule of this government. We don't negotiate, we don't talk to terrorists.

Nasr: That's true. But we did so when we dealt with Communist China, and we dealt with Soviet Union, when Ronald Reagan called them evil empire. He nevertheless understood that you cannot, in this world of globalization, and with so much vital U.S. interests on the line, you cannot just not talk to the other side. Especially when the case of Lebanon shows that all the cards are held by Hezbollah and Iran.

Tavis: So refusing to talk to them now puts us where? What's the end game here, if we never sit down and talk?

Nasr: The end game would be ineffective. We can't bring about a cease fire without talking to them. We cannot guarantee a cease fire without giving these countries, Iran and also Hezbollah, a stake in the system that we'd like to see in the Middle East. If you put somebody out there, all they're gonna do is throw stones. They're not gonna cooperate unless they have some vested interest. And you can't get them have a vested interest unless you engage them.

Tavis: And I assume that becomes even more difficult as a strategy to ignore when you have organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas who are being democratically elected in their various countries.

Nasr: Absolutely. They're being democratically elected. Hezbollah won about four-fifths of the Shia vote in Lebanon. And the Shias are close to 50 percent of the population. And secondly is that we've learned in Lebanon you can't even crush them militarily, either. So what is the third option? You can't beat them at the polls, you can't defeat them militarily. So you have to find a way to defang them or mollify them by bringing them in. We simply cannot afford ignoring this force.

Tavis: What's your sense, then, Professor, of what has to happen for the world community and for certain powers that be to understand your last point, which is that you cannot bomb people into behaving as you wish for them to behave?

Nasr: I think Lebanon is already establishing this. In other words, we are learning that you can even destroy many things, many of Hezbollah's rockets militarily. But you cannot change the demographics on the ground. And in fact, we're seeing that Hezbollah's becoming popular across the Arab world. So they may be weakened militarily, but politically, they're becoming far more strong.

And we have to understand that in the Middle East, we cannot just operate with a fist. That we have to take care of things politically, as well.

Tavis: So finally, I've asked you about what the strategy ought to be for the U.S., going forward. For the U.N., for the world community. How does the world community navigate a much - I know it's a general question, but as a community of peoples of the world, how do we, as a community, navigate these challenges?

Nasr: Well, the world community's been far more engaged in talking to everybody than we...

Tavis: Than the U.S.

Nasr: ...than the U.S. has been. So I think the path forward is for us to let whatever assets they have to work themselves. So the Europeans have relations with Iran, they have relations with Syria, they have relations with Hezbollah. We have to use that in order to bring them to the table. In order to achieve what Israel wants, which is release of those soldiers and security in its northern borders.

But at the same time, get them to have a vested interest in the system in the region. We need to build up on our influence, and we need to leverage what the world community has to help U.S. influence be more, rather than less.

Tavis: That's why I love being on PBS. Every now and then, you get a chance to have a conversation where I certainly feel a lot more enlightened now about the Shia and the Sunni. Thanks to Vali Nasr. The new book by him is 'The Shia Revival, How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future.' Professor, I enjoyed that immensely. Learned a lot. Nice to have you on.

Nasr: Thank you for inviting me. Thank you.

Tavis: Glad to have you. Up next on this program, actor Stephen Root. Stay with us.