In the lengthening queues at Beirut’s Rafiq Hariri Airport and in the lines at the main border crossing between Syria and Lebanon at Masnaa, the talk is of little else but bombs.
It is a waiting game many are refusing to play – those Syrians who can afford to are fleeing to Lebanon, while wealthy Lebanese are fleeing, too – to France, Britain or anywhere beyond the reach of the threatened US missile attacks on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and the anticipated violent aftermath.
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Mona Yacoubian, senior Middle East adviser at the Stimson Centre in Washington, warns that any military intervention must be embedded in a much broader political strategy.”Even then, prospects for a near-term resolution remain dim, and targeted strikes, no matter how limited, carry the risk of unforeseen consequences that must be weighed in any decision to use force,” Yacoubian says.
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