Lebanon - A Wake-up Call for the West

A car bomb rocked a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group in an area south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, today, wounding at least 53 people in the most serious spill-over sectarian effect from Syria's civil war on its smaller neighbor since the crisis began. Residents said the bomb went off in a parking lot near the Islamic Coop, a supermarket usually full of shoppers, and a gas station. Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said most of the injuries were light, and that many of them were caused by breaking glass. The car bomb hit a busy commercial and residential neighborhood just at the time when many Lebanese Shiites began observing the Moslem holy month of Ramadan. It was the worst explosion to hit Beirut's southern suburbs in years. There has been growing fear in Lebanon that Hezbollah could face retaliation for its now overt role fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's troops inside Syria, including participting in the retaking of Qusair and now in the embattled city of Homs, both near the Lebanese border. The bombing also is likely to heighten growing tensions inside Lebanon itself, where deadly clashes between Shiites (who support al-Assad) and Sunnis (who support the Syrian rebels) have grown increasingly common as the Syrian civil war has taken on more sectarian overtones. Some Sunnis in Lebanon have expressed growing resentment over what they see as Hezbollah's unchecked power in the country. The bomb exploded near the Hezbollah offices in an area inown as 'security square.' Many party officials live and have offices nearby. "We will not bow," said Ziad Waked, a municipal official speaking on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television. Hezbollah operatives fired in the air to disperse people who attacked the interior minister with stones after he inspected the scene of the blast, trapping him for 45 minutes in a building before he was escorted through a backdoor. Some Shiites see the interior minister as a supporter of the hardline Sunni cleric Ahmad al-Assir, who was agitating against Hezbollah for months and is now in hiding. The bombing was the first in the capital's southern suburbs since the end Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990, and a major breach of a tightly controlled, high security area. President Michel Suleiman said "such acts are a reminder of darker days, which the Lebanese would like to erase from their memories." Syrian rebels have vowed to target Hezbollah areas in Lebanon in retaliation for the group's role in the Syria conflict. An Islamist brigade affiliated with the Syrian rebels claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack on its Facebook page, but the Syrian National Coalition, the main Syrian rebel group supported by the West, condemned the bombing, saying that attacks on innocent civilians are not acceptable. Hezbollah operatives in civilian clothes, some of them carrying Kalashnikov rifles, cordoned off the site of the explosion with yellow ribbons. They and Lebanese security officials barred journalists from approaching the site itself. In May, two rockets hit a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, wounding four people. The rockets struck hours after Hezbollah leader Nasrallah vowed in a speech to help al-Assad win Syria's civil war. In June, a rocket slammed into the same area, causing no casualties. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it is increasingly clear that the Syrian civil war, if not ended through negotiation brokered by the West and Russia, will undoubtedly become the fuse for a generalized regional war between Sunnis and Shiites. But, the possible consequences of this could become more profound now that Egypt has re-ignited into turmoil as it searches for a stable political model to replace generations of dictatorships. This would perhaps not be so crucial regionally, even though Egypt is the lynchpin of the Arab world, except for the fact that the Moslem Brotherhood has been disgraced and ousted from its position of Egyptian political leadership. The Brotherhood will certainly seek to redress its humiliation and what better way to do this than to join the sectarian fight and thereby re-impose itself as the leader of radical Islam in the Arab world. Instead of arguing about whether to cut off military aid to the Egyptian military, the United States should be supporting Egypt's military and interim government, while leading a coalition of world powers to resolve the Syrian crisis before the region goes up in flames.