The Sunni Tragedy in the Middle East

Abstract

Northern Lebanon, the mountainous terrain bordering Syria and the coastalplain centered on the city of Tripoli with its nearly 130,000 residents, has longbeen the heartland of the country’s Sunni Arabs, along with the old scholasticand population hub in the southern city of Sidon. The outbreak of mass popularprotests and eventually armed rebellion in neighboring Syria againstBashar al-Asad’s government in the spring of 2011, and that country’s continuingdescent into an increasingly violent and sectarian civil war, has had aprofound effect upon Lebanon, particularly in the north, for both geographicaland demographic reasons. First, northern Lebanon borders strategic areas ofcentral-western Syria (e.g., the town of al-Qusayr) and is located just south ofthe major Syrian port city of Tartus. Second, the north’s population includessignificant minority communities of Christians and Alawis, the latter of whichare largely aligned politically with Damascus. These factors have made theborder regions particularly dangerous, for while the Lebanese army attemptsto maintain control of the country’s territory, Iran-aligned Hizbullah poursfighters and military supplies into Syria and militant Sunni groups (e.g., ISISand Jabhat Fath al-Sham [JFS]) seek to establish a foothold in Lebanon fromwhich they can pursue their anti-Asad campaign.Bernard Rougier is uniquely placed to write about the contemporary historyand complex web of politics among Lebanon’s Sunni factions and particularlythe rise of jihadi militancy among some of its segments. The bookunder review, like Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestiniansin Lebanon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), isbased upon extensive in-country fieldwork and interviews beginning in theearly 2000s and ending in 2014. It provides a fascinating and nuancedoverview of jihadism’s rise as a viable avenue of political frustration and expressionin the wider milieu of Lebanon’s intra-Sunni socio-political competitionand a fast-changing regional situation.Rougier argues that the contentious political disputes and competitionamong the country’s mainstream Sunni political figures (e.g., the al-Haririfamily), as well as the impact of Syrian control of large parts of Lebanon between1976 and 2005 and ensuing power vacuum after its withdrawal, enabledthe emergence of jihadi militancy. Northern Lebanon also became a center ofcompetition among regional actors through their local allies, which pitted ...