Would it have been possible for Lebanon to avoid the political and security repercussions to which Hezbollah's intervention in the war in Syria was inevitably going to result? Even Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah himself, when he announced for the first time the participation of Hezbollah members in the fighting in Qusayr, did not hide the fact that he was willing to pay the price and bear the consequences of this participation and of the reactions that it would lead to. In his latest speech on the commemoration of the war of 2006, Nasrallah once again confirmed what had already been known and circulated about the fact that the recent bombings targeting areas where Hezbollah is influential, the latest being the bombing that took place in Beirut's Southern Suburb (Dahieh), were aimed at responding to Hezbollah's participation in the war in Syria alongside the regime. Yet this did not drive Nasrallah to reconsider his stance on such participation. On the contrary, he in fact threatened those he referred to as "takfiri terrorists", saying that Hezbollah's intervention would be multiplied and that he himself was prepared to personally take part in this war "for the sake of Syria and its people". Such threats by Hezbollah to escalate its intervention in the war in Syria obscure the fact that the profound disagreement and division that exists in this country is precisely over Syria's interest and the future of its people. The conflict has grown in Syria and the regime has confronted the peaceful protests organized by those who opposed it at the beginning of the crisis with violence and blood-spattered repression. The conflict has thus developed from clashes between the opposition and the regime to a sectarian and confessional war, in which the regime and the majority of its sect stand on one side, while the majority of Syrians in the opposition from the other sect stand on the other. Any attempt to overlook this reality and to describe the conflict in different terms, whether of patriotism or of "defiance", as Hezbollah's media apparatus tries to do, does not change the reality of the matter in any way. Indeed, the reality is that Hezbollah's intervention in support of the regime in this war has led to arousing the enmity of the majority of Syrians, opposition supporters and ordinary citizens, in whose view the future of their country can only be ensured by changing this regime. Moreover, and due to the confessional nature of the war taking place in Syria, Hezbollah's intervention has turned into support for one sect against another. Making such an image even clearer has been the discourse that has come to dominate recent stances taken by Hezbollah and its Secretary-General, who no longer hesitate to assert and boast of their confessional identity – something which Hezbollah had made sure to avoid in all of the conflicts it had waged in the past, preferring to give itself the image of a party that defends a "patriotic" ideal and considers the resistance of Israel to represent the sole purpose of its political and military activity. This regression in the nature of Hezbollah's discourse has finally led it to exclude Israel from among those accused of being responsible for the recent bombing in Dahieh, after it pointed all accusations towards these "takfiri" groups, without even repeating its traditional accusation of these groups working for Israel. Of course, one should not exclude the involvement of "takfiris" in acts of violence and terrorism in Lebanon and in other countries in the region, from among those that have become the arenas of clashes, bombings and suicide attacks, which are today taking on clearly confessional features. It is because of such fears that prudent calls were made from the beginning to keep Lebanon safe from these confrontations by refraining from implicating the country or any of its active parties in the war in Syria, because of the dangerous reactions this might entail for the fragile relations that exist between Lebanese sects. Yet confronting "takfiri" ideology and preventing Lebanon from entering the flames of a confessional war, which Nasrallah said the "takfiris" want to drive him into, can only take place by moving away from the language of "treason" – i.e. that of accusing other Lebanese citizens of treason merely for having an opinion different from that of the party. Indeed, accusing others of treason represents the other side of "takfir" (accusing others of apostasy), as it relies on the same kind of exclusionist thinking that deprives others of their right to an opinion... reaching up to depriving them of their right to life. As for the other way to confront "takfiris", it is by reaching out to the moderate voices that also reject this kind of thinking in all sects, and in particular within the Sunni sect. Indeed, fighting such voices and trying to eliminate them, accusing them of being foreign agents at times and of treason at others, would leave no one in the forefront but extremist movements and voices, whose terrorism Hezbollah claims today to have become the victim of.
