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:

First, terrorism infiltrated the Shiite residential neighborhoods and towns that constitute Hezbollah’s welcoming environment, making them the party’s soft and vulnerable underbelly. Hezbollah has always chosen the place and timing of its battles — such as in 1996 and 2006, during the two wars with the Israelis. Hezbollah fought both wars in the south according to its own distinct military style of guerilla warfare. These military tactics depleted the Israeli army, which has more capabilities and is more organized than Hezbollah.

Although Hezbollah chose how to start and be engaged in the battle in Syria, the party is no longer in control of its course or geographical limitations. Hezbollah’s secretary-general tried in vain to address his political rivals, as happened in February 2013 to limit the conflict in Syria and distance Lebanon from it. Yet, facts on the ground contradicted his rhetoric. At least two variables have gone beyond Hezbollah's calculations and introduced an element of surprise: the flux of displaced Syrians and the extension of extremism into Lebanon. These two variables pose a threat to Hezbollah in the long and short runs, equal to and maybe worse than the fall of the allied regime in Syria.