RandomGuy
10-25-2021, 08:31 AM
Lebanese civil war part two is brewing. The factors underlying the general uneasy truce are unwinding.
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Evidence of Lebanon’s impending collapse piles up by the day: About 230,000 citizens emigrated in the first four months of this year alone, a disproportionate number of whom are Christians. About 40 percent of Lebanon’s doctors and 30 percent of its nurses have departed; with comparable levels among teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and other professionals. More are looking to flee as the nation totters on the threshold of civil war, relinquishing all hopes of meaningful, rewarding futures in their beloved homeland.
The UN estimates that 82 percent of citizens cannot afford essential services like healthcare and education. With routine operations costing more than a year’s salary, children unable to afford treatment are dying outside hospitals. With the international airport under threat of closure, taxi drivers, lecturers and other segments of society are threatening civil disobedience in response to their desperate situations. Soldiers and policemen on unsurvivable salaries have simply withdrawn from their positions.
As soaring sectarian and factional tensions risk triggering war, the duty of conscientious leaders is to calm the situation. Instead, we got Hassan Nasrallah frenziedly pouring gasoline on the flames, boasting that Hezbollah has 100,000 fighters ready to hurl themselves into battle.
One analysis estimated that if Hezbollah actually possesses 100,000 fighters, its annual budget likely far exceeds $2 billion. Given that this is about three times what Hezbollah reportedly receives from Tehran, this either indicates that Nasrallah was grotesquely exaggerating, or was making a tacit admission that Hezbollah has been reaping billions of dollars from illegal activities, like drugs, arms and people smuggling.
Nasrallah’s ugly, confrontational speech last Monday was sectarian warmongering personified: He accused Christian leaders of lying to their communities that Hezbollah has an aggressive sectarian agenda, then spent an hour aggressively threatening these communities in the most sectarian language conceivable! Anybody who previously doubted that Lebanon was on the brink of civil war now comprehends exactly which way the wind is blowing. Hidden deep underground, Nasrallah forgets that Lebanon’s population is on the brink of starvation: Hence, his threats simply bestow upon citizens the option of dying slowly, or with a quick, merciful bullet to the head.
Nasrallah always claimed that Hezbollah purely existed for the purpose of fighting Israel, or perhaps Daesh — or maybe innocent Syrian citizens. This time the fig leaf dropped altogether: If other factions act in a manner which Hezbollah does not like, Hezbollah will unleash war against them and to hell with the consequences. During a second speech, Nasrallah was so consumed by divisive pronouncements about Bahrain, Yemen and Palestine that he apparently did not have time to comment on the catastrophic situation facing Lebanon’s citizenry.
...
Nasrallah is tossing hand grenades into the current explosive status quo because the upcoming elections are fated to be disastrous for his allies. The FPM has gone from occupying one of the largest niches of the Christian community to shedding its entire support — even more so after recent events. No surprise then that the only issue which animates President Aoun is obstructing the holding of early elections. And if this devolves into a wide-scale Shiite-Christian conflict, what side will Hezbollah’s Christian lackeys Aoun and Jibran Baseel stand on? These are dirty, ugly equations, but such are the sordid calculations of sectarian conflict.
...
The international community must likewise stop pretending that Lebanon’s predicament has nothing to do with it: Lebanon’s fragmentation means a new influx of refugees pouring into Europe, just when Belarus has decided to weaponize the refugee crisis by flooding Europe with displaced Syrians. It means a confrontation which will suck in Israel and the wider region. And it entails Hezbollah becoming even more nakedly criminal and terrorist in its orientation.
And where is the Arab world as the Lebanese volcano is poised to erupt in their midst? Lebanon is the beating heart of the Arab world. Is there a single family throughout the Gulf which does not have familial, emotional or material ties to Lebanon? A Lebanese crisis is never simply a Lebanese crisis — such disputes have always been internationalized in nature. Even parties which desire to remain neutral will rapidly be sucked into the conflagration.
Better that Lebanon’s closest friends act now, before Nasrallah and Tehran’s miscalculations blow up in everybody’s faces.
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https://www.arabnews.com/node/1953881
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Evidence of Lebanon’s impending collapse piles up by the day: About 230,000 citizens emigrated in the first four months of this year alone, a disproportionate number of whom are Christians. About 40 percent of Lebanon’s doctors and 30 percent of its nurses have departed; with comparable levels among teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and other professionals. More are looking to flee as the nation totters on the threshold of civil war, relinquishing all hopes of meaningful, rewarding futures in their beloved homeland.
The UN estimates that 82 percent of citizens cannot afford essential services like healthcare and education. With routine operations costing more than a year’s salary, children unable to afford treatment are dying outside hospitals. With the international airport under threat of closure, taxi drivers, lecturers and other segments of society are threatening civil disobedience in response to their desperate situations. Soldiers and policemen on unsurvivable salaries have simply withdrawn from their positions.
As soaring sectarian and factional tensions risk triggering war, the duty of conscientious leaders is to calm the situation. Instead, we got Hassan Nasrallah frenziedly pouring gasoline on the flames, boasting that Hezbollah has 100,000 fighters ready to hurl themselves into battle.
One analysis estimated that if Hezbollah actually possesses 100,000 fighters, its annual budget likely far exceeds $2 billion. Given that this is about three times what Hezbollah reportedly receives from Tehran, this either indicates that Nasrallah was grotesquely exaggerating, or was making a tacit admission that Hezbollah has been reaping billions of dollars from illegal activities, like drugs, arms and people smuggling.
Nasrallah’s ugly, confrontational speech last Monday was sectarian warmongering personified: He accused Christian leaders of lying to their communities that Hezbollah has an aggressive sectarian agenda, then spent an hour aggressively threatening these communities in the most sectarian language conceivable! Anybody who previously doubted that Lebanon was on the brink of civil war now comprehends exactly which way the wind is blowing. Hidden deep underground, Nasrallah forgets that Lebanon’s population is on the brink of starvation: Hence, his threats simply bestow upon citizens the option of dying slowly, or with a quick, merciful bullet to the head.
Nasrallah always claimed that Hezbollah purely existed for the purpose of fighting Israel, or perhaps Daesh — or maybe innocent Syrian citizens. This time the fig leaf dropped altogether: If other factions act in a manner which Hezbollah does not like, Hezbollah will unleash war against them and to hell with the consequences. During a second speech, Nasrallah was so consumed by divisive pronouncements about Bahrain, Yemen and Palestine that he apparently did not have time to comment on the catastrophic situation facing Lebanon’s citizenry.
...
Nasrallah is tossing hand grenades into the current explosive status quo because the upcoming elections are fated to be disastrous for his allies. The FPM has gone from occupying one of the largest niches of the Christian community to shedding its entire support — even more so after recent events. No surprise then that the only issue which animates President Aoun is obstructing the holding of early elections. And if this devolves into a wide-scale Shiite-Christian conflict, what side will Hezbollah’s Christian lackeys Aoun and Jibran Baseel stand on? These are dirty, ugly equations, but such are the sordid calculations of sectarian conflict.
...
The international community must likewise stop pretending that Lebanon’s predicament has nothing to do with it: Lebanon’s fragmentation means a new influx of refugees pouring into Europe, just when Belarus has decided to weaponize the refugee crisis by flooding Europe with displaced Syrians. It means a confrontation which will suck in Israel and the wider region. And it entails Hezbollah becoming even more nakedly criminal and terrorist in its orientation.
And where is the Arab world as the Lebanese volcano is poised to erupt in their midst? Lebanon is the beating heart of the Arab world. Is there a single family throughout the Gulf which does not have familial, emotional or material ties to Lebanon? A Lebanese crisis is never simply a Lebanese crisis — such disputes have always been internationalized in nature. Even parties which desire to remain neutral will rapidly be sucked into the conflagration.
Better that Lebanon’s closest friends act now, before Nasrallah and Tehran’s miscalculations blow up in everybody’s faces.
------------------------------------------------
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1953881