Syria's Mess Spilling Into Lebanon

Assad of Syria is not stepping down.  The place is a mess.  And messes have a way of spreading. 

Let's remember that Syria funds the major terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which has it's headquarters and missiles in Lebanon.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Gunmen clash in deadly street battles, protesters block roads with burning tyres and opposition politicians demand the prime minister’s downfall, denouncing the army as an agent of a foreign power.

Fragile Lebanon’s sectarian tensions, which festered for two decades since the end of its ruinous civil war, have been re-ignited by the turmoil in powerful neighbour Syria and threaten to plunge the country into a sustained period of unrest.

“There is now … a real threat of the conflict spilling over into Lebanon,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a critic of Western and Arab hostility to Syria’s leadership.

On Tuesday, angry Shi’ites blocked roads in southern Beirut in protest against the abduction in northern Syria of a dozen Lebanese Shi’ites by rebels from the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim insurgency against Assad.

“We are entering a phase of protracted instability in Lebanon. There is no direct way in which these events will be fully contained,” Eurasia Group analyst Ayham Kamel said.

Four Gulf Arab nations – Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – have told their citizens to stay away from Lebanon, citing security concerns, and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah said the “shadow of civil war” hangs over Lebanon.

The crisis is likely to hurt the summer tourism season, an important source of foreign revenue, and has helped push Beirut’s stock market index down to 1,154 points on Wednesday, 30 percent down from levels in April 2010 before domestic and regional unrest hit investor confidence.

Here;  http://www.euronews.com/newswires/1527134-syria-violence-shakes-lebanons-fragile-stability/

So it sounds like we have another classic showdown of Sunni vs Shi'ite playing out in Syria and Lebanon.  Of course they are both Muslim but their was a split between them that started soon after Muhammad died and they couldn't agree on his successor.  They have been fighting ever since...with some extended periods of peace...but it seems that the tension is always simmering right below the surface.

"He will be a donkey of a man: his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."  Genesis 16:12

Of course the "he" in the passage is Ishmael...who ended up being the father of the Arabs...who have been in constant conflict with each other, and their brother Isaac (Father of Jews) ever since.