In the light of the devastating explosions outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut and the rising number of attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, there will be many who say that by their interference in support of the murderous Assad regime in Syria, the Iranians and Hezbollah have sown the wind and are now beginning to reap the whirlwind. Yet the attacks in Beirut yesterday, which killed 22 people including the embassy's cultural attache and injured 160, should be of concern to all Lebanese and those who still hope that the vicious conflict in Syria will not overflow into neighboring countries. More significantly, these horrific assaults were both suicide bombings which have been claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists. Lebanon was the first country in the region to suffer from the current scourge of the suicide bomber, when the 1983 truck bombing of two Beirut barracks buildings killed 300, mainly American, troops. The return of this awful phenomenon in which dupes are convinced by cynical terror-masters to throw away their lives in a wicked cause will send shivers down the spines of all Lebanese. The heirs of Osama Bin Laden care only for the creation of death and destruction and the promotion of chaos in which their evil existence can flourish. Yesterday it was the Iranians and their Hezbollah clients. Tomorrow it could be any other of Lebanon's diverse communities. For sure, Hezbollah is to blame for undermining the cohesion of the Lebanese political establishment and paralyzing its government. But this is now a battle that all Lebanese must fight to drive out the violent interlopers in their midst. However, at the moment, even though the price in Lebanese lives is rising constantly, Hezbollah's commitment to Bashar Assad's campaign to crush his own people seems likely to continue. Until Tehran decides that it can no longer support the brutal regime in Damascus, Hezbollah forces will continue to fight and die alongside members of the Iranian revolutionary guards whose covert involvement in the bloodletting is ever more clear. For Hezbollah there could, however, be one of two tipping points. The first and most obvious would be the collapse of the Assad regime. It must be feared that when that happens any Iranians or Hezbollah people caught by the victorious rebels on Syrian soil would face the same sort of unpleasant fate that will befall leading members of the Assad regime. Indeed, because they have intervened in a struggle that was not their own, what happens to them could be even more unpleasant. The second tipping point is surely the more likely. It is that as the Free Syrian Army continues doggedly in its struggle to destroy the Assad regime, the death toll among Hezbollah fighters, already high, will rise inexorably. At that point, ordinary Lebanese in the Shia community will rightly start to ask themselves where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is really leading them. This is not their war. And the soil that is soaking up the blood of their young men is not Lebanese soil. However, what is falling onto the Lebanese earth are the tears of wives and mothers, sisters and brothers. The Iranian embassy bombings are a terrible reminder of the carnage that could return to Lebanon unless all communities in the country, including Hezbollah, can reunite in the face of their outside enemies.
