Lebanon: Another Cycle of Violence?

"The Syrian regime is trying to position itself as being the only entity able to talk down the opposing forces in Lebanon should there be a conflict.
"Hezbollah will start to face serious questions in the coming weeks.  Its interests are diverting from the Syrian regime's.  Lebanon will have to wait and see what happens in Syria, but more violence is likely."
Imad Salamey, Lebanese American University, Beirut

 The divisions between Muslims and Christians, Sunni and Shiites, secular and fundamentalist groups in Lebanon have sizzled below the surface of everyday life for a number of years.  Bearing scant resemblance to the destructive burning fervour of the civil war years.  Lebanon remains a country in transition, once an oasis of civility between factions, now a sleeping volcano.

"Of all Syria's neighbours, Lebanon is the weakest, the most political and ideologically polarized and split among sectarian lines.  The fear is not if the Syrian conflict will spill over - but whether it has already reached the streets of Beirut", said Fawaz Gerges, head of the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics.

The massive car bomb blast that led to the death of Lebanon's premier intelligence chief is unbalancing the slender thread of tolerance.  Syria's malign influence on the country is as nakedly evident today as it was before Syrian military withdrawal in the wake of the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri after three decades of foreign intervention.

But political Hezbollah, Syria's ally, has infiltrated Lebanon to such a degree that it now manipulates the parliament, and its separate, more powerful military and far more advanced arms declare it the real power in the country.  A power which it has temporarily loaned out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in assisting his regime to defeat the Free Syrian Army rebels.

President Assad had previously promised interfering Western interests that Syria was pivotal to the stability of the Middle East.  And he has just poked his thumb in the eye of the West, trained on Syrian human rights abuses, by stirring up Lebanon's hornet's nest-at-rest into a raging foment of unrest, uncertain whether now is the time to explode or whether to wait awhile yet until Sunni and Shia are ready to meet again in direct conflict.

The Lebanese have been reminded, in case it slipped their collective mindset, where Hezbollah's loyalty lies; the lie has been put to its pretense of being a force of 'resistance', with its support for the Alawite regime of President Assad.  It remains to be seen whether Lebanon is capable of reasserting itself, of overtaking the dominance of Hezbollah and leading itself out of its influence. 

"Lebanon is becoming a country where everyone can throw their trash.  There are some Lebanese who are always ready to burn their country at the orders of foreign countries."
Michael Azzi, Beirut student