Lebanon (all aspects)

[marct]

Another one of those cheat sheets from CNC.ca. This one has a nice timeline in it.

In Depth
Lebanon
Timeline
Last Updated January 30, 2007
CBC News

Lebanon has been the home of civilized cultures for nearly 5,000 years. Phoenicians, originally from Babylon, settled on a narrow strip of land on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean in 2700 BC, and established city-kingdoms in what are now Tripoli, Sidon and Beirut.

The region has been the territory of the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, Persians, the Roman Empire, Arabs, Egyptians, the Ottoman Empire and France, before gaining independence in 1943. As a result, Lebanese culture is rich with influences from them all.

From its independence to the start of the civil war in 1975, Lebanon was the wealthiest country in the region and was held up as an example of co-operation between different cultures and religions. Beirut was sometimes called the "Paris of the Middle East."

More...

Marc

[Jedburgh]

...a good backgrounder from USIP: On the Issues: Lebanon

Lebanon's internal politics can be baffling to outsiders, even as fresh rounds of assassinations and demonstrations continue to make international headlines. But understanding Lebanon is essential if we are to make sense of the broader region, says Institute Senior Program Officer Patricia Karam. "Lebanon is the barometer of the Middle East," she says. "It has always reflected regional tensions and drawn in outside powers." To help unravel Lebanon's complexities, USIP talked with Karam about the country's past and its prospects for the future. What emerges is a portrait of a nation riven by deep internal cleavages and surrounded by powerful neighbors, a country at the epicenter of ever-shifting geo-political forces, where the hard, precarious work of peace can be upset by sudden, unpredictable tremors....

[Tom Odom]

Here is another good source

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

It offers access to the UN research library with mission reports and maps. I just used the mission reports from my time in Lebanon for a paper I am working.

Best

Tom

[Jedburgh]

CSIS, 22 Jun 07: Summer Wars in Lebanon?

Lebanon is already involved in four potential struggles:


A Syrian effort to restore influence, if not control.


The rebuilding and restructuring of Hezbollah military power as both a means to gaining power in Lebanon and as an Iranian and Syrian supported threat to Israel.


Confessional struggles for power reflected in a major division between a Christian-Sunni prime Minister and a slim majority of Parliament and a Presidency with Syrian and Hezbollah ties, and


A struggle against the emergence of Sunni Islamist extremist movements with ties to Al Qa’ida that has led to clashes between the Lebanese Army and extremists in Palestinian Camps, but which involves Lebanese supporters of Al Qa’ida as well.

None of these struggles need turn into a “war,” but all of them can. They also interact, not only with internal developments in Lebanon, but developments in Israeli-Syrian relations, regional tensions with Iran, Palestinian struggles, and conflicts involving Sunni Islamist extremist movements like Al Qa’ida. The question of who will use whom interacts with the question of how far things can escalate, and no one can predict the outcome....

[SWJED]

25 June NY Times - 5 U.N. Peacekeepers Killed in Lebanon by Nada Bakri.

A car bombing killed five United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Sunday, opening another potentially disastrous fault line in a country held hostage to violence and political deadlock.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack on the peacekeepers, who were deployed along the border with Israel after last summer’s war with Hezbollah. But suspicion immediately fell on militant Islamists, who are fighting the Lebanese Army in the country’s north. The United Nations force, Unifil, has been on alert for weeks because of that fight and several bombings that are believed to be related to it...