BBC Articles on Lebanon Conflict - History and Future
BBC correspondent Jim Muir in Lebanon has two excellent articles on the current conflict in Lebanon - “History repeats with a vengeance” and Washington risks a wider conflict.
The second article makes a very interesting point, saying:
The Hezbollah operation of 12 July was apparently launched at least partly in support of the embattled (Sunni) Hamas in Gaza, perhaps at the prompting of their mutual supporter Iran.
So the seeds of co-operation between Sunni and Shia radical groups are already there, and - encouraged by Iran and Syria - they could start sprouting elsewhere in the region.
This, I bet, is something that Israel and its US backers would probably not have envisaged when they started on this tragedy and I fear that his thought that:
If an increasingly isolated US, with anaemic support from Britain, continues to support or even encourage Israel’s absolutist approach, the consequences could be dire both in Lebanon and in the wider region.
is probably not far off the mark.
