I read about 40% of the Iranian population is sunni and in the past in the UAE I have come across such sunnis though i did not ask about their political views.
I think we sunnis need to stop looking at shias as enemies. That would be perhaps the first step to resolving this ever increasing dispute. I think having a large population of minorities helps any country love its people more and respect the diverse make up of the country. I haven't seen Iranians to be as abusive to sunnis as Saudis are to shias.
I think first and foremost to resolve this dispute we need to begin talks under the banner of ijtehad.
Today, the
TwelverShia branch of Islam is the official
state religion and to which about 90% to 95%
[228][229] of Iranians officially are. About 4% to 8% of Iranians are
Sunni Muslims, mainly
Kurds and
Balochs. The remaining 2% are non-Muslim
religious minorities, including
Christians,
Bahais,
Mandeans,
Yezidis,
Yarsanis,
Zoroastrians,
Jews.
[29][230]
Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As you said, shias are less hostile toward non-shias than Wahhabis... In Iran a small minority of "End of Time" Evanglist type of people are against Sunnis...but based on my personal exprience in decades I can see certain that %99 of Iranian shias have no problem with Sunnis... but I am also sure that %99.9 of all Iranians no matter what religion are against suicide bombing Takfiris Wahhabis...
In some relatively big cities of Iran, the majority is with sunnis or they are a huge minority... cities like Zehedan, Sanandaj, Taibad, etc... Persians, Kurds, Arabs, Lurs, Baluch and Azeris are living together in those cities with no problem... for example, I have been to a city in Golestan provinc, north of Iran, near Caspian sea... since decades ago and after severe droughts, thousands of Sunni Balouchis from Pakistan border region moved to there... the area is Shia majority with significant Sunni Turkmen but I never noticed any problems among them... they learnt to mix and live in peace...
I think all Wahhabi hostility phenomenon has started or soared when King of Jordan announced publicly that Shias are forming a Crescent of Shism from Mediterranean to Persian gulf... then other leaders poured more fuel on this fire... they wanted to use this as a political tool to get the support of GCC and Egypt but childishly burned all the ME along...
They talk about the emergence of shia crescent but they never say... Shias in those regions were there for centuries and now after a long time are forming shia majority states as Iraqis and Iranians did...Iraq was and is a shia majority country...it was under the rule of minority sunnis for decades and now after hey changed the system to democracy, they have shia leaders... it is natural.... so they shia and sunnis were living in ME for more than 1300 years and now after a while a few inexperienced leaders play with fire and talk dangerous...