Read in
The Ruwais blast that shook Beirut’s southern suburbs a week ago did more than just bring back the specter of civil war to Lebanon. It also revealed the new power balance controlling the Arab Levant and confirmed that the principal conflict, from which the rest of the region’s conflicts have spawned, is namely the Sunni-Shiite conflict.
That incident marked, if nothing else, the fall of the very notion of having a state that is responsible for security and stability. The social contract, upon which the state is founded, has eroded. And that erosion is in turn due to the sharp divisions separating Lebanon’s societal components and their siding with opposing regional camps that are in conflict.
