Is Syria Being 'Lebanized' or is Lebanon Being 'Syrianized'?

[cali]

When Hezbollah made its fateful decision to intervene militarily in the Syrian civil war, it was only a matter of time before the war would follow them back home and ignite a fire in Lebanon. This month three car bombs went off in Lebanon, killing scores and injuring hundreds.

The first bomb, which exploded in Dahiyeh, Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut, killed 27 and injured many more. No-one claimed responsibility for the blast, but few Lebanese doubted that it was a message from supporters of the Al-Qaeda-like wing of the anti-Assad Syrian rebels. A few days later, two car bombs exploded outside of mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, a Salafi stronghold. The twin blasts killed 47 people and injured hundreds. Many Lebanese Salafis in the north are Sunni supporters of the Syrian rebels.

Hezbollah went to war in Syria only to encounter, among other foes, Al Qaeda. Salafist-Jihadists apparently brought the war home to them as well. This series of tit-for-tat bombings has created the most violent and volatile dynamic in Lebanon since the end of the civil war. The Syrian war, predictably enough, followed Hezbollah right back to its home territory.There was, by the way, a muted but palpable sense of Schadenfreude in Israel at seeing Hezbollah and Al Qaeda go to war in Lebanon.

When the Syrian conflict first broke out, it quickly spread to the northern parts of Lebanon around Tripoli, which contain atypically conservative Lebanese Salafi Sunni communities, alongside Alawite ones. With their comrades and coreligionists at each other's throat just across the border, these forces could not resist combating each other in northern Lebanon.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/29/is-syria-being-lebanized-or-is-lebanon-being-syrianized.html

[4Q2u2]

1. But, But, But

We stabilized the area when Saddam was removed, peace and Democracy rained down on the region all is well.

"Now we bring you back to our regularly scheduled bombings"

[FarCenter]

2. Lebanon was more or less part of Syria

In both areas, there were extensive battles between Sunnis, Alawites, Christians and Druze during Ottoman rule in the 1800s.

The French created the nation of Lebanon in the 1920s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lebanon

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/French_Mandate_for_Syria_and_the_Lebanon_map_en.svg

[geek tragedy]

3. Functionally, they've been one country for the past few decades. nt