With all eyes focused on sectarian violence in Iraq and Syria, little attention has been paid to Sunni-Shiite relations in Lebanon. Yet the potential for a perfect storm is brewing.
In the Bekaa Valley town of Arsal, a Sunni enclave in a Shiite-majority region, Muslim militants recently attacked Lebanese army units and abducted soldiers, whom they accused of working with Hezbollah. Arsal borders Syria’s Qalamoun region, where the Syrian army and Hezbollah are fighting Syrian rebels and Muslim militants.
When the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, reportedly beheaded a Sunni army member in Arsal, few of the town’s inhabitants interviewed on Lebanese television publicly condemned the group. Instead, they focused their anger on Lebanese politicians. Many people blame worsening sectarian relations on Lebanon’s deteriorating social and economic situation, itself a consequence of the conflict in Syria.
Services and construction — two main pillars of Lebanon’s economy — have suffered badly and tourism has all but dried up. The country’s infrastructure is in calamitous shape. Power is rationed; in some places to just a few hours per day. A dry winter has resulted in severe water shortages. Lebanese now increasingly rely on private generators and water suppliers, which are costly, and therefore reduce consumption and economic growth. With debt levels estimated at nearly 150 percent of GDP, economic collapse is now a serious possibility.
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that Lebanese cite a corrupt and ineffective state as the source of their troubles. The problem is that this general dissatisfaction might aggravate political and sectarian tensions.
While the mood in Lebanon’s Sunni community has become increasingly hostile, Hezbollah’s behavior in recent years has made the situation worse. The militant group-cum-political party imposed its power following the February 2005 assassination of prominent Sunni leader and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, for which an international tribunal in The Hague has indicted several of its members.
Following the Hariri assassination, widespread protests forced the Syrian army to withdraw from Lebanon. Fearing that the departure of a strategic ally would shift the balance of power against it, Hezbollah began intimidating its rivals.
In 2008, Hezbollah forces overran Sunni neighborhoods in western Beirut, killing several civilians. In 2011, it ousted then-Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, Rafik Hariri’s son, and replaced him with its preferred Sunni leader. Most significantly, Hezbollah last year announced that it was siding with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its fight against mainly Sunni rebel forces in Syria.
Hezbollah’s actions were bound to exacerbate Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon, a country with a complex sectarian makeup. The dangers multiplied when the Islamic State took control of Mosul in Iraq and expanded its authority in Syria. Though most Lebanese Sunnis are moderate, many could not help but feel some satisfaction about the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government’s losses and al-Assad’s military defeats in eastern Syria.
Sunnis also recognize that Hezbollah is trapped in the Syrian quagmire, where many hundreds of its fighters are believed to have been killed since spring last year. They know that Hezbollah would be unable to contain a possible Sunni uprising in Lebanon, which is why Hezbollah has leaned on the Lebanese army to help repress Sunni militancy. The army’s scope for action is limited, though — an estimated 30 percent of its rank-and-file soldiers are Sunni.
Add to this combustible mix the 1.5 million Syrian — mainly Sunni — refugees now in Lebanon, as well as the Salafi jihadist groups in the Palestinian refugee camps, who, with economic discontent running high, might be enlisted in a sectarian war. If that happens, Hezbollah could be overwhelmed, particularly because the three areas of Shiite concentration — Beirut’s southern suburbs, south Lebanon and the northern Bekaa Valley – are geographically separate, with lines of communication passing through mainly Sunni regions.
The Lebanese government will have to work hard to reduce the risk of a worst-case scenario. However, with parliament having now gone four months without electing a new president, and the challenges of daily life mounting, the signs are not encouraging.
Sectarian tension in Lebanon is at an ominous level. Avoiding war, let alone solving some of the country’s economic problems, would be a major achievement. If the international community is to counter the Islamic State and find a way to prevent the further erosion of order in the Middle East, its leaders will have to think about the region as a whole. That must include shoring up Lebanon’s stability.
Michael Young is the opinion editor of the Lebanese newspaper Daily Star and author of The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under