Why is this noteworthy? This is obvious to anyone with even minimal knowledge of the Middle East.

There was an Iraq/Iran war in the 80's with casualties in the millions. Iraq, a country with a dominant Shia population was ruled by Saddam and the Baathists, an elite Sunni minority.

The conflicts and politics in the Middle East are very complex, but you can paint it with a broad Sunni vs. Shia brush. Before this, there was a secular, pan-Arab movement in the middle east, tacitally supported by the USSR, but the west didn't like the idea of a pan-Arab movement. So this is the result