Only because the mouth breathing masses fall for the politics of fear. Next stop, Iran! After all, they're scary and mooslim and brown!
In fairness, it's not schools will exactly teach history. They will especially not teach useful history.
"A rule of thumb is when it comes to modern Islam is that within the fundamentalist ranks, Sunni will travel to blow things up and Shiites will generally not. However, Sunni controlled governments regularly bribe Department of State employees and appointed officials. Ergo, Sunni countries are typically allies of the US on paper, and *expletive deleted*it countries are enemies. Other point of consideration is this applies to what the locals think as 'their turf' which does not always correspond to lines on a map."
