Robert Fisk Tells Us What Lebanon’s Real Problem Is

Fisk:

The problem with Lebanon is perfectly simple, even if the Western powers prefer to ignore it. It is a confessional state. […] The problem is that to become a modern state it must de-confessionalise. But Lebanon cannot do so. Its identity is sectarianism and that is its tragedy […]

The Shias of Lebanon, of which Hezbollah is the leading party, are perhaps 40 per cent of the population. The Christians are a minority. If Lebanon has a future, it will be in due course be a Shia Muslim country. We may not like this; the West may not like this. But that is the truth.