Lebanon Slips Into Syria Quagmire
Nassif Hitti writes that Lebanon cannot distance itself from the Syria war.
The village of Al-Kassir in Syria is becoming a symbol of the emerging Lebanese war. The proximity of Al-Kassir to the Lebanese borders and its geographic importance — located on the axis extending from Damascus to the Syrian littoral — adds a strategic component to this new offshore Lebanese proxy war.
What was once a timid, but not so discreet, backing of allies in Syria — be they the regime or the opposition — is becoming an open war.
Indeed, the clashes on and across the borders are becoming a recurrent phenomena. Regardless of the name or pretext given to the Lebanese incursion into Syria's war by each party, it has important sectarian as well as strategic meanings.
The weight of each varies from one actor to the other as well as the implications that go beyond the party's involvement. What is fought indirectly today between Hezbollah and the Salafists, who are mobilizing to join the jihad in "the land of Islam,” is a war over the future configuration of power in Lebanon.
