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Of all the countries neighboring Syria, Lebanon is the most vulnerable to spillover from the Syrian conflict. The state is weak, sectarian tensions are high, and the main political coalitions have chosen sides, either explicitly backing or opposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Lebanon has already been affected by sectarian skirmishes, border clashes, targeted assassinations, kidnappings, and large refugee flows. Though the country has avoided collapse thus far, long-term dangers exist and urgent steps are needed to reinforce stability. 

Lebanon’s Domestic Situation

• Political parties have been divided over support for or opposition to the Assad regime since the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
   
• Hezbollah, the powerful Shia group with a dominant stake in the Lebanese government, supports Assad but is eager to avoid sectarian clashes in Lebanon.
   
• Some Sunni groups are directly aiding the Syrian rebels, but the main Sunni parties are also eager to maintain internal stability. 
   
• Despite the general aversion to domestic unrest, the Syrian crisis could further inflame Sunni-Shia tensions and Sunni discontent about Hezbollah’s dominance, destabilizing Lebanon.
   
• The government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared an official position of dissociation from the Syrian conflict, enabling the state to maintain a tenuous middle ground.
   
• The flow of Syrian refugees into Lebanon—already more than 120,000 registered and tens of thousands more undeclared—threatens to upset the country’s precarious balance.
   
• Hezbollah’s fate depends in part on the outcome of the Syrian crisis. If rebels defeat the Assad regime, the group might have to reconsider its political and strategic options. If the Assad regime survives, Hezbollah will likely be reinforced.

Recommendations for Lebanon

Build up the Lebanese army and Internal Security Forces. These forces are playing an important crisis management role but need more support.

Form either a new national unity government or a more neutral technocratic government. Government legitimacy must be enhanced by reducing the dominance of the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition. A new national unity government should include wider representation for the opposition anti-Syrian March 14 coalition and the Sunni Future Movement. A technocratic government would consist of individuals not strictly aligned with either coalition. 

Rapidly and effectively address the needs of the growing Syrian refugee community with help from the international community. Beyond humanitarian concerns, a more robust refugee strategy would limit the potential political and security fallout of the inflow.

Approve an election law and hold parliamentary elections. The current or a new government should take these steps to renew the country’s democratic institutions.

The Syria-Lebanon Connection

Of all the countries neighboring Syria, Lebanon is the most vulnerable to spillover from the conflict there. The state is weak, sectarian relations are fraught and easily inflammable, and the main political coalitions in the country either explicitly back or oppose the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The process of domestic alignment has been accompanied by periods of high political tension or paralysis. Brief bouts of armed clashes have flared up, and there have been assassinations of anti-Syrian figures, most recently the assassination of the head of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces’ intelligence branch, General Wissam al-Hassan, in October 2012. 

Lebanon has been intertwined with Syria since 1976, and the alignments for and against the Assad regime have defined Lebanese politics since 2005. The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005 led to a Lebanese uprising against the Assad regime’s presence in Lebanon. An anti-Syrian coalition in Lebanon, the so-called March 14 coalition made up of Sunni, Christian, and Druze parties, emerged as a result, and Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon. March 14 was backed by the Bush administration, France, and Saudi Arabia, among others. Some within the coalition hoped that the U.S. administration might take steps to dramatically weaken, or even overthrow, the Assad regime in Damascus, as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Meanwhile, Syria’s allies in Lebanon, led by Hezbollah, formed the March 8 coalition including the Shia Amal movement and other Sunni, Christian, and Druze parties, which openly supported the Assad regime and was backed by Iran (and Syria). 

Lebanon’s political alignments dangerously mirror the pro- and anti-Assad battle lines inside Syria.

Given this history, when the Syrian uprising broke out in March 2011 and deepened in the following months, it is not surprising that most observers inside and outside Lebanon feared that the country would be inexorably dragged into the conflict and might even be torn apart by it. Lebanon’s political alignments dangerously mirrored the pro- and anti-Assad battle lines inside Syria. The increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict in Syria directly inflamed already-high sectarian tensions in Lebanon. And Sunnis in Lebanon gravitated to support the rebels while Hezbollah stood by the Assad regime. 

And indeed, there has been considerable spillover into Lebanon. This has come in the form of sectarian conflict in the cities of Tripoli, Sidon, and the capital Beirut, increasing Sunni radicalization, a spiral of kidnappings, clashes along parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border, a growing Syrian refugee crisis, and targeted assassinations. The spillover has led to a deterioration of security and stability in Lebanon, rising political tension, and a slowdown in the economy. 

Surprisingly, despite its many vulnerabilities, Lebanon has managed to avoid a major breakdown. But the country is dangerously close to the brink. Sectarian tensions (particularly between Sunni and Shia communities) are close to an all-time high. The government’s legitimacy is disputed by a wide swath of the population, and security is deteriorating in the face of increasing communal mobilization and a growing Syrian refugee population. 

Whether Lebanon can continue to hold together as the Syrian conflict presses onward in the months—and perhaps years—ahead is an open question. The sources of Lebanese instability and the potential for spillover between the Syrian conflict and Lebanon are numerous, but Lebanon also has coping mechanisms that have seen it through the conflict so far, and might still help it survive the turbulent period ahead. Though the country is likely to maintain basic stability in the short run, serious long-term risks exist. The evolution and outcome of the conflict in Syria will have a great impact on the Lebanese state, Hezbollah, and other political actors.

Sources of Instability and Spillover

Lebanon has its own sources of instability and has been connected to Syria in many ways that render it particularly vulnerable to spillover from the conflict there.

Soft State

Lebanon might not be a fully failed state, but unlike Syria’s Turkish and Jordanian neighbors, the Lebanese state is not truly sovereign. It does not have a monopoly of force within its territory and does not fully control the country’s borders. Hezbollah is the more powerful force within the country and has more control over issues of hard power, war and peace, and borders. In addition, between 1976 and 2005 Syrian troops were fully deployed in Lebanon, and for much of that period dominated Lebanese political and security affairs. 

Nevertheless, the Lebanese state’s security services play an important role in managing internal security and have been key to maintaining what stability prevails. However, they are weaker than Hezbollah in overall firepower and are intertwined with the political factionalism of the country. The army, for instance, has generally been positively regarded by most communities, including in the north, as an inclusive national institution, but army intelligence has been tainted in the eyes of some by its close association with Hezbollah. The office of General Security, which is in charge of border crossings, ports and airports, and visas, is also seen as politically close to Hezbollah. The Internal Security Forces play an important role. But they are seen by some as unduly close to the anti-Syrian March 14 and the Sunni Future Movement, which is the largest within the Sunni community and is currently led by Saad Hariri, the son of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. 

Sunni Discontent Over Hezbollah’s Dominance

The danger of instability in Lebanon relates to Sunni-Shia tensions and Sunni discontent about Hezbollah’s dominance. The Sunni and Shia communities are of almost equal size in Lebanon and are allied with the competing regional powers of Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively. Recent Sunni discontent stretches back to 2005 and the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Sunnis accused Syria and their local ally Hezbollah of the assassination—accusations that were apparently borne out by indictments from the international Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Further stirring up tensions, in May 2008, Hezbollah responded to decisions by the government by forcibly taking over Beirut and humiliating government supporters and Sunni militiamen in the city. Then, in January 2011, Hezbollah ministers and their allies all resigned, which brought about the collapse of Hariri’s government. 

Sunnis in Lebanon feel increasingly marginalized and humiliated by an all-powerful Hezbollah.

Sunnis in Lebanon feel increasingly marginalized and humiliated by an all-powerful Hezbollah. They saw the uprising in Syria as an opportunity not only to support fellow Sunnis to rise up against a regime dominated by Alawis that had politically marginalized Syria’s Sunnis, but also a chance to bring down a regional power that stood behind Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon. Sunnis in Lebanon were also energized by the rise of majority-Sunni populations against repressive regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. 

First Impact

The Syrian uprising began not with a bang, but with isolated protests, and the full import of it was not appreciated in Lebanon for several months. When protests erupted in Syria in March 2011, Lebanon was looking inward. Despite some civil society protests calling for a radical reform of Lebanon’s confessional political system in which power is apportioned among leaders of the main communities, most Lebanese politicians were focused on internal issues, impervious to the so-called Arab Spring breaking out in North Africa or the potential long-term impact of the protests that were starting up in Syria. 

In the wake of the government’s collapse, Najib Mikati, a Lebanese Sunni billionaire businessman-politician from Tripoli who had been an electoral ally of Saad Hariri, accepted the task of forming a new government. Mikati’s decision drew angry responses from Hariri and parts of the Sunni street, and was viewed negatively by Saudi Arabia’s leaders. It signaled one step in the weakening of Hariri’s dominance of the Sunni community and was indicative of an emerging pattern of fragmentation of Sunni leadership.

Mikati’s Government and the Policy of Dissociation

As the Syrian troubles commenced in March 2011, Mikati had still not formed a government. He was mired in complex political negotiations with Hezbollah and its allies over cabinet portfolios with no near end in sight. Pressure mounted from Damascus to put a friendly government in place, and Hezbollah leaned on its allies, particularly the Christian Free Patriotic Movement led by Michel Aoun, to facilitate talks with Mikati. He was finally able to announce a new government on June 13 in which Hezbollah and its various allies controlled the majority of seats.

The government was welcomed in Damascus and Tehran, but not in the Gulf, Europe, or the United States. Nevertheless, both Gulf and Western countries—at this point more concerned with developments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria than in Lebanon—accepted the change as an unfortunate fait accompli and dealt with the new Mikati cabinet as Lebanon’s legitimate government. 

In retrospect, the replacement of Hariri’s government with one dominated by the pro-Syrian March 8 coalition may have been a temporary stroke of good fortune for Lebanon’s stability, as it moved the Lebanese government out of the crosshairs of the embattled Syrian regime. Had the Syrian uprising developed when Hariri was still at the head of the Lebanese government, Syrian hostility toward Hariri and the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition might have led Damascus to launch a much more intense campaign of destabilization in Lebanon. And with hostile governments in Beirut and Damascus, Lebanon might have fared much worse during the Syrian uprising. Instead, Damascus’s policy has been not to destabilize the government but to lash out at enemies of the Assad regime inside and outside the state. 

In the first months after his government’s formation, Mikati proved deft at easing potential tensions by declining the pro-Syrian moniker and declaring an official policy of “dissociation” from the Syrian conflict. He also managed to secure Lebanese funding for the international Special Tribunal, an issue that had divided and helped bring down his predecessor Hariri’s government. As the conflict escalated in Syria, March 14 and its backers were initially happy to bide their time as the Syrian regime weakened and to avoid rocking the Lebanese boat or attracting the embattled regime’s attention. Meanwhile, March 8 was eager to keep the government it dominated afloat and tensions in Lebanon low.

This combination of conditions did not eliminate a gradual heightening of tensions, as a Sunni community increasingly mobilized in support of the Syrian rebels—particularly in the north—and Hezbollah and the government came under pressure from Damascus to do something about it. But the conditions did help Lebanon maintain over a year of calm as the uprising in Syria gained momentum and the conflict morphed into civil war. 

Border Clashes

Still, the conflict indeed spilled over the Lebanese-Syrian border. Clashes along parts of the border first started in October 2011. These were mainly in the form of Syrian regime forces chasing rebel groups across the border or shelling villages that provided support to the rebels. These attacks occurred mainly in the northern Bekaa and Akkar border areas, where links between the Syrian rebels and various Sunni towns and villages are strong. The Lebanese army tried to deploy its already thinly stretched resources to these border areas for two reasons: to stem the flow of support and arms going from Lebanon to Syria and to avoid the instability spilling into Lebanon that would result from an escalation of Syrian strikes. Hezbollah also supported this army policy for the same reasons. But the army does not have the capacity to fully undertake this task. Hence incidents and clashes have continued and increased in frequency and intensity. 

Lebanon’s border geography interacts with the dynamics of the Syrian conflict in complex ways. The Assad regime has been eager to maintain a land corridor between the capital Damascus in southwestern Syria and Tartus, on the Mediterranean in Syria’s northwest. That is a reason many of the early battles in the uprising were around Homs and Hama, located to the east of Tartus, and the border town of Talkalakh. These towns are close to Lebanon’s Akkar region.

Given the difficulties encountered along that route, the Assad regime’s ally, Hezbollah, has explored a backup land bridge through Lebanese territory. The alternative route goes from Lebanon’s central Bekaa Valley up through the northern Bekaa and Hermel regions and into the edge of northwestern Syria. The northern Bekaa Valley has a large Shia majority and has long been dominated by Hezbollah. 

Hezbollah’s dominance in Beirut and the Bekaa and its influence over the Lebanese government helps reassure Damascus that Beirut could maintain its function as Damascus’s nearest port and a critical supply route in case of acute need.

The overland route from Beirut to Damascus could also be an important strategic supply route for the Syrian capital, particularly if the regime loses control over its strategic internal highways. Hezbollah’s dominance in Beirut and the Bekaa and its influence over the Lebanese government helps reassure Damascus that Beirut could maintain its function as Damascus’s nearest port and a critical supply route in case of acute need. 

Refugee Flows

Even before the Syrian uprising, there were already 300,000–400,000 Syrians in Lebanon mostly holding lower-income jobs in construction, agriculture, and the services sector. Many of these workers’ families remained in Syria, and the workers returned home on weekends or holidays. Reliable numbers of Syrians in Lebanon are hard to come by because Syrians do not need visas to enter Lebanon, and the office of General Security, which is responsible for keeping track of such numbers, generally does not make its data public. 

The Syrian uprising saw an influx of a different kind. The first Syrian refugees began to cross into Lebanon in May 2011, fleeing regime attacks in the Syrian town of Talkalakh and seeking refuge in the Akkar region. Refugee flows steadily increased as Syrians fled fighting in Homs, Hama, Idlib, and eventually Aleppo and Damascus as well. By November 2012, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was already assisting over 120,000 refugees with numbers expected to climb steadily. But this masks other tens of thousands who crossed over and stayed with friends or relatives, or refugees with financial means who have snapped up hotel rooms or rental apartments throughout the country and set up temporary homes in Lebanon. The Lebanese government has worked quietly with the UNHCR to assist these refugees but was slow to raise the issue at the national or international levels, for fear of embarrassing the Syrian regime. In early December 2012 the government finally launched an international appeal for $178 million in financial assistance to meet refugee needs.   

If the number of refugees jumps dramatically, or if Syrian refugees become more widely politicized and armed, the Syrian refugee presence could become as destabilizing as the Palestinian refugee presence was in Lebanon in the 1970s.

The number of Syrian refugees has already strained the local communities in which they are housed, and as more refugees flow into Lebanon and summer turns to winter, the situation could spark serious local tensions. In areas where mainly Sunni refugees are hosted in or close to Shia majority areas, the situation has so far been largely calm but risks becoming a flashpoint as sectarian tensions continue to climb. 

So far, only a small minority of the displaced Syrians are armed or directly involved in the armed rebellion, and they are mainly in the north. The vast majority of the remaining refugees are exhausted civilians fleeing unbearable conditions and seeking safety and repose. However, if the number of refugees jumps dramatically, or if Syrian refugees become more widely politicized and armed, the Syrian refugee presence could become as destabilizing as the Palestinian refugee presence was in Lebanon in the 1970s. 

Indeed, there is a risk that the overwhelmingly Sunni Palestinian refugee camps, such as Ain al-Hilweh near Sidon and others in and around Beirut, might be dragged into the rising sectarian tensions. The main Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, are adamant about not becoming involved in the Lebanese or Syrian conflicts, but a number of Islamist groups reside in the camps—such as Usbat al-Ansar and Jund al-Sham—with radical jihadist links, and they could more easily be engaged in sectarian fighting. 

Northern Insurrection

In May 2012, the relative calm that Lebanon enjoyed from the beginning of the Syrian uprising was shaken. On May 12, the office of General Security, led by an officer close to Hezbollah, arrested a young Sunni anti-Syrian activist, Shadi al-Mawlawi, in the northern city of Tripoli. The arrest led to an eruption of violent protests in the majority-Sunni city and other parts of the Sunni north. Salafi groups, which have had a small following in the northern city for many years and which have been emboldened by funding from the Gulf and mobilized in support of Syria’s rebels, took the lead in taking to the streets with guns and anti-Hezbollah and anti-Assad slogans. The large-scale armed protests that followed the arrest of Mawlawi represented effectively a Sunni insurrection against Hezbollah’s power and the government it dominated and an open declaration of support for the Syrian revolution. 

The Lebanese army’s attempt to restore order went terribly wrong when soldiers at an army checkpoint in the northern district of Akkar opened fire on the motorcade of a Sunni sheikh from the region, killing him and his aide. The army, generally a symbol of national unity and a pillar of Lebanon’s precarious stability, was seen now as potentially hostile. Unrest in the north then spread temporarily to Beirut with several killed and injured in clashes between anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian groups. In the southern city of Sidon, a Sunni Islamist sheikh, Ahmad al-Assir, also launched a protest movement—but largely unarmed—against Hezbollah dominance and the Assad regime.

Abductions, Arrests, and Assassinations

As the northern crisis raged on, Lebanon’s stability was hit from another direction on May 22, when Syrian rebels in the Aleppo area kidnapped eleven Lebanese Shia. The Lebanese were apparently returning from religious pilgrimage in southern Iraq, but the rebels claimed that they were Hezbollah operatives working in support of the Assad regime. Hezbollah reacted calmly to the kidnappings, pulling back protesters who had initially taken to the streets and leaning on the government to negotiate their release. 

The kidnappings escalated in mid-August, when another abduction of a Lebanese Shia in Syria led the Meqdad clan to which he belonged to abduct over 30 Syrians in Lebanon and to threaten the nationals of countries that supported the Syrian rebels. Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Turkey urged their nationals to leave Lebanon, but not before the self-styled “Armed Wing of the Meqdad Clan” managed to abduct a young Turkish businessman. 

Hezbollah distanced itself from the actions of the Meqdad clan. It was deeply frustrated by the continued detention of Lebanese Shia in Syria but decidedly did not want to fall into the trap of escalation. In September, Hezbollah quietly encouraged the Lebanese army to go after the Meqdad group in parts of the southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, leading to the release of the Turkish businessman and other persons detained by the clan. 

These politically motivated kidnappings have been followed by a wave of criminally motivated kidnappings for ransom as well as a rising pattern of hijackings, robberies, and thefts. It is not surprising, with state security services stretched to the limit, worsening socioeconomic conditions, and rising numbers of refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria—many of them in desperate need, and some armed and dangerous—that there would be a rising level of lawlessness and criminality. 

The Lebanese political system was also shaken in August 2012 by the arrest of former information minister Michel Samaha. The closest Lebanese adviser to President Assad, Samaha was smuggling explosives given to him by the head of Syrian intelligence for use in attacks in northern Lebanon. The arrest seemed to signal that the Syrian regime was intent on punishing the Sunni north of Lebanon and that its security network had declined to such a degree that it had to smuggle explosives in a Lebanese former minister’s car. It also indicated that Syria’s influence in Lebanon had ebbed so much that a Lebanese security agency could dare to arrest someone as close to Assad as Samaha. The arrest also revealed that the security agency in question—the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces—had the technology, capacity, and will to carry out the operation. 

The largest blow to Lebanese stability came on October 19—and possibly in response to the Samaha arrest—when a car bomb in the Christian district of Ashrafieh in Beirut killed the head of the Lebanese Internal Security Force’s Information Branch, General Wissam al-Hassan, and several civilians. The highest-level assassination to occur in years, it followed failed assassination attempts against anti-Syrian March 14 leaders Samir Geagea and Boutros Harb. Although no evidence was immediately available, March 14 laid the blame for these assassinations at Assad’s doorstep. 

The assassination inflamed public opinion among March 14 supporters and the Sunni community in particular and brought Lebanon once again to the brink of collapse. Protests broke out in many parts of the country, and armed clashes erupted in Tripoli as well as Beirut. The March 14 coalition demanded that the prime minister immediately resign along with his cabinet, while the president and other political leaders in Lebanon warned against the political vacuum that would ensue if the government stepped down. International powers that traditionally support March 14 denounced the assassination but warned against a hasty collapse of the government and the political uncertainty and instability that would follow. 

The crisis ebbed and Lebanon once again stepped back from the brink, but it is not clear if the country could survive many more of these crises. 

Hezbollah and Damascus 

Hezbollah continues to try to maintain a low profile. Once it realized that Samaha was apparently caught red-handed, it chose not to defend Assad’s ally, but to stay quiet instead. The group endeavored to downplay its association with Assad in the interest of maintaining a low profile and convenient domestic calm in Lebanon. But in October 2012, reports began to mount of Hezbollah’s involvement in the fighting in Syria. In Lebanese Shia villages, numerous funerals were held for Hezbollah fighters who were buried as “martyrs” without further information. Syrian rebels claimed, as they had in the past, that Hezbollah’s men were fighting alongside Assad’s. 

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, offered an explanation of the situation in a speech in early October, saying that some two dozen Shia Lebanese settlements just across the border in Syria were being attacked by the rebel Free Syrian Army. Some of the inhabitants were Hezbollah members and were defending their towns and families. 

Sources close to Hezbollah in Lebanon indicate that the Assad regime had indeed asked Hezbollah for large-scale support but that the party had sent only small numbers of fighters because of its eagerness to keep a low profile in the conflict. Although they remain strategic allies, there appears to be a slight rift between Damascus and Hezbollah, as Assad could have received more open and powerful support from Hezbollah and the government it put in place. Most in Hezbollah believe that the Assad regime still has the upper hand in the fighting in Syria and that there is no urgent need for greater involvement; however, there is some speculation that if the Assad regime loses Aleppo, and a battle for Damascus ensues, Hezbollah might take a stronger and more direct role. 

Economic Slowdown

The Syrian crisis has caused a serious economic slowdown in Lebanon but not a full-scale economic collapse, which would have widespread political and possibly security consequences. GDP growth has dropped to around 1.–1.5 percent, down from 4–5 percent in previous years. Tourism has declined 50 percent in 2012, compared to 2011, and exports have dropped by 20 percent in 2012. The tourist trade was hurt by the instability, and hurt even more by the wave of kidnappings that scared away Lebanon’s high-spending Gulf tourists. The influx of some Syrians with means compensated only partially for the loss. Hundreds of businesses have been forced to close, adding thousands to the ranks of the unemployed. Lebanese exports were hit by the closure of overland routes through Syria that were particularly important for transporting goods to Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan; but industrialists have adapted by using sea routes, although they add to transportation costs. 

The banking industry, which is the backbone of the Lebanese economy, also faced serious challenges. It has deposits of around $120 billion, which is approximately 250 percent of GDP, and provides an anchor of confidence to the economy. But banks have $42 billion out in loans to the private sector—and some recipients of those funds have defaulted during the current crisis—and it has around $30 billion loaned out to the public sector.¹  Lebanese banks are also very concerned about possible actions by the U.S. Treasury given Washington’s campaign against Hezbollah’s financing, the international sanctions against Iran, and U.S. sanctions against Syria. In February 2011 the U.S. Treasury charged a leading Lebanese bank (the Lebanese Canadian Bank) of money laundering and involvement with drug trafficking and financing Hezbollah. Lebanese bankers fear that Lebanese banks might be targeted again. Any serious run on the Lebanese banks would probably break the backbone of the Lebanese economy and would lead to an acute crisis in public debt management and in the financing of private-sector growth. 

Large remittances from the over half a million Lebanese working abroad, a private sector that has