When Syria sneezes, Lebanon catches a cold

 

Beirut

News that the Syrian regime has agreed to hand in its arsenal of chemical weapons is a great relief to Lebanon. For the past few weeks we have been wandering around like inmates on death row, fearing that a US-led strike would ignite a potentially apocalyptic conflict between Hezbollah and Israel or at the very least provoke a prolonged internal Shia-Sunni terror campaign. This was no idle fear. The salvos fired at the end of August brought back memories of the darkest days of the civil war. But Lebanon is still not in the clear, especially as a framework for handing over the chemical weapons still needs to be thrashed out. Sectarian tensions persist and there is the small issue of more than a million Syrian refugees in a country that has barely enough infrastructure for its own people. Oh yes, and an economy that has gone into deep freeze. Beirut is no longer a party town.