Not a year passes by and another sets in without strife in its worst forms looming over this small country. The Lebanese people bid farewell to 2013 with an assassination that targeted a political figure (Mohammad Chatah) who represented the state as well as moderation, in what seemed to be a direct targeting of the Future Movement and subsequently the Sunnis in Lebanon. The year 2014 started off with a bombing in Beirut’s southern suburbs in response to the assassination of Chatah, as a sort of figurative arrow shot through the heart of the Shiites.
It is as if the Lebanese scene has become the main battle front for the conflict taking place in the Middle East. The expansion of the center of gravity from Damascus, where the battles typically rage, to Beirut, where terrorism is taking over, is apt to continue for the following reasons:
