CIAO DATE: 06/2013
May 2013
Syria’s conflict is dragging down its neighbours, none more perilously than Lebanon. Beirut’s official policy of “dissociation” – seeking, by refraining from taking sides, to keep the war at arm’s length – is right in theory but increasingly dubious in practice. Porous boundaries, weapons smuggling, deepening involvement by anti-Syrian- regime Sunni Islamists on one side and the pro-regime Hizbollah on the other, and cross-border skirmishes, all atop a massive refugee inflow, implicate Lebanon ever more deeply in the conflict next door. It probably is unrealistic to expect Lebanese actors to take a step back; Syria’s fate, they feel, is their own, and stakes are too high for them to keep to the sidelines. But it ought not be unrealistic to expect them – and their international partners – to adopt a mo re forward-looking approach to a refugee crisis that risks tearing apart their own coun try’s economic, social and political fabric, igniting a new domestic conflict that a weak Lebanese state and volatile region can ill afford.
Resource link: Too Close for Comfort: Syrians in Lebanon [PDF]