If Syria And Iraq Breaks Apart Will Lebanon Be Next?

BBC

Alastair Crooke, Huffington Post: If Syria and Iraq Become Fractured, So Too Will Tripoli and North Lebanon

BEIRUT -- The talk now is all about whether Syria and Iraq will end up as divided states. The impetus for such speculation derives firstly from the latest Saudi, Qatari and Turkish joint resolve to mount huge numbers of jihadists on Syria's borders. According to two senior political figures I spoke to, up to 10,000+ Wahhabist/Salafists (predominantly An-Nusra/Al Qaeda) have been gathered by the intelligence services of these latter states, mostly non-Arabs from Chechnya, Turkmenistan, etc. Plainly, Washington is aware of this (massively expensive) Saudi maneuver and equally plainly it is turning a blind eye to it.

Secondly, the speculation about a coming fractured Iraq has gained big momentum from ISIS's virtually unopposed walk-in to Ramadi. The images of long columns of ISIS Toyota Land Cruisers, black pennants waving in the wind, making their way from Syria all the way -- along empty desert main roads -- to Ramadi with not an American aircraft in evidence, certainly needs some explaining. There cannot be an easier target imagined than an identified column of vehicles, driving an arterial road, in the middle of a desert.

WNU Editor: The discussion on breaking up and/or altering the borders of the Middle East have been around for a long time. These borders were primarily set by the European powers over a century ago .... and there are many groups who have not been satisfied with the outcome. Having said that .... are events leading to such a fracture? My answer is yes.

The Sunni - Shiite divide is now being fought on many battlefields .... and the trend is for even more war. In such an environment .... I see no hope for reconciliation or compromise .... and while Lebanon has avoided much of the wars that are now engulfing the region .... they have a history of civil war that can easily be reignited ... .and if Syria and Iraq can be broken up .... so can a deeply divided country like Lebanon.

A Third Lebanon War Could Be Much Worse Than The Second -- A Commentary

Israel - Hezbollah War 2006. Photo from The L.A. Times

From Commentary Magazine:

Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah recently announced that he could hit any and every place in Israel with long-range missiles. That would mean that, unlike in 2006, Hezbollah could strike not only the northern cities of Kiryat Shmona and Haifa but also Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion International Airport, and the Dimona nuclear-power plant.

I dismissed his claim as a wild boast last week, but Israeli army commander Major General Gabi Ashkenazi confirmed it this week. So while we've all been worried about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been quietly arming his chief terrorist proxy with more advanced conventional weapons.

Read more ....

My Comment: Michael Totten has become one the best writers on the Middle East in the past few years. This post on Lebanon does not disappoint.

Lebanon's Choice Side With The West, Or Iran?

From The New York Post:

RIVAL powers are pouring vast sums of money into Lebanon in the hope of influencing the outcome of the general election to be held sometime this spring.

There are no exact figures concerning these efforts to buy the election. But observers of the Lebanese scene claim that hundreds of millions of dollars have been pumped into the economy, producing an enviable growth rate of around 7 percent this year.

Read more ....