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Lebanon at Crossroads Of Containment and Crisis

Nassif Hitti asks whether Lebanon has learned from its history or if it will invest itself into yet another destructive and difficult crisis.
Newly elected Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam (L) talks with Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman at the presidential palace in Baabda, near Beirut April 6, 2013. Lebanon's president formally asked Sunni Muslim politician Tammam Salam to form a new government on Saturday after Salam won overwhelming support from parliamentarians to be the country's new prime minister. REUTERS/Sharif Karim (LEBANON - Tags: POLITICS) - RTXYAK0

Prime Minister Najib Mikati's resignation reminds us that certain regional critical junctures or political crises in Lebanon could immediately turn into a national one.

The settlement, or the containment, of a major Lebanese crisis has always been done through an external understanding among key foreign powers brokering a fragile, even temporary, reconciliation between their Lebanese allies or “clients.”

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