A former senior Lebanese security official had this to say about the accelerating security developments in Beirut: “If you lived in a house in the middle of a forest engulfed in a fire that was dramatically expanding as the result of a severe windstorm, and if your doors and windows were wide open before the fire began and if you were the head of the house and engaged in daily fights with your wife and children, would you surprised if a thief entered your home and stole some or your possessions or destroyed what remained of your furniture?”
This is the exact state Lebanon is in today, the former official told Al-Monitor. The house is Lebanon and the forest is the Middle East, which given its chaos is more like a jungle. Meanwhile, the raging fire is the series of internal wars that have been erupting in neighboring countries for a little more than two years. Our absent doors and windows are none other than the crises fomented by the Lebanese sectarian feudal system. The quarreling family is the skeleton that remains of the Lebanese state, where a vacuum controls almost everything.
