The suicide bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut on Tuesday morning offered up the sort of grim tableau that is typical of such affairs: blackened bodies, wailing survivors, and, in seeming defiance of physical laws, the visible remains of one of the bombers, stuck to a nearby wall.
But the most significant aspect of the bombing was not its aftermath but its implication: the sectarian war unfolding in Syria is beginning to engulf Lebanon as well. We don’t yet know who carried out the attack, which took place in the largely Shiite neighborhood of Bir Hassan. The Iranian Ambassador, who survived, blamed the Israelis. A jihadi group known as the Abdullah Azaam Brigade claimed responsibility, according to a Lebanese press report. A leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, blamed takfiris—Muslims who accuse other Muslims of apostasy.
The best bet is that the attack was carried out by a group close to the Syrian rebels, who are trying to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad. In the two and a half years since the rebellion began, the war in Syria has become an almost entirely sectarian struggle. On one side sits the Assad government, dominated by Alawites, who consider themselves Shiites. Arrayed against them (and Syria’s other minorities) is the vast majority of Syria’s population, which is Sunni Muslim. It’s a death match; the Alawites rightly fear that if they lose the war they will probably vanish from Syria altogether.