#6 Maybe he's worried about Assad's longevity. The Sunni population of Syria, at about 15m, is 6x the Shiite population of Lebanon (and 3x the entire population). If the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Syria, Hezbollah is in big trouble, given that Syrians have generally viewed Lebanon much the way Iraqis view Kuwait - as a province unfairly pried away by a European power. I would expect hordes of Sunni Arabs from Syria to swamp the Shiite areas of Lebanon. Hezbollah would then be looking to Israel to protect them from the Ikhwan, since Hezbollah has nugatory military capability compared to Syria, and its civilian human shield military tactics aren't going to faze fellow Arabs, for whom killing heretics and apostates, civilians or not, is a benefit rather than something to be avoided. |