There's an old conspiracy theory in Lebanon that emerged during the civil war and never went away. It suggests that there is a secret plan to divide the entire Middle East into ethnic and sectarian states, legitimising in the process the nature of Israel as a Jewish state among Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Alawite and Kurdish states.
This theory originated with the late Lebanese politician Raymond Eddé, who accused Henry Kissinger of hatching a plan to divide Lebanon along such lines. Since then, it has re-emerged frequently as a way to explain sectarian conflict in the region.
Were Eddé, who died in 2000, still alive, he would find quite an audience for his theory. Following the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, Sunni-Shiite rivalry, which had hitherto been muted, has emerged as a major dividing line within the country. Lebanon has veered from one crisis to the next ever since, as the dream of a sovereign and independent state has all but disappeared.
Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/the-rise-of-sectarian-conflicts-will-not-fragment-the-levant#ixzz2Pir02bS4