Lebanon is closer to civil war than to another sectarian conflict due to the polarisation of its society, following the announcement by Hezbollah that its fighters are engaged in full-scale warfare in support of embattled Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
The fighting between Sunnis and Alawites in the northern city of Tripoli and the rocket attacks on Sunday on southern Beirut, where Hezbollah has the most support, show that this tiny state cannot escape the war in Syria unless its leaders manage to distance their country from the Syrian quagmire.
Therefore, it is not only shameful but also strategically wrong that Hezbollah has chosen to side — and fight along — with a regime that has been at war with its own people for more than two years.
In a televised speech last Saturday, which no doubt has ratcheted up tensions along sectarian lines in the Arab world, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his group would stay in the Syrian war “to the end of the road” and help his ally Al Assad secure a victory.
That is wrong. Hezbollah had been perceived as a champion of Arab causes, particularly that of Palestine’s, in the eyes of some of Arabs. However, today, it is no longer a pan-Arab movement. Rather it is merely a sectarian war machine in the eyes of most Arabs. Never mind the justification of its alliance with Al Assad — “fortifying the resistance and protecting its backbone”. Few will buy that.
Nasrallah has decided to turn the legitimate Syrian uprising into a sectarian issue and that is just deplorable. In so doing, he has not only exposed himself as a short-sighted leader, whose main concern is to maintain immediate support for his party, but has given yet another “justification” for more militarisation, more killings in this painful experience in Syria.
Hezbollah and its allies must not underestimate the seriousness of the rocket attacks on south Beirut. They are just a glimpse of things to come — unfortunately.
