Escalation and US-NATO Military Intervention in Syria? War Spreads to Lebanon!

• Emphasis mine:
• Escalation and US-NATO Military Intervention in Syria? War spreads to Lebanon! 
  by Thomas Gaist, World Socialist Web Site
  Escalating fighting in Lebanon along with growing efforts by the US and the European powers to arm the Syrian rebels are raising the risk of a region-wide war. Lebanon, having served as a corridor for arms shipments to US-backed Sunni opposition forces inside Syria, is itself becoming a war theater.
  –
  Fighting raged last week between Alawites aligned with Bashar al-Assad and Sunni oppositionists in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing at least 23 and wounding 170. As of Sunday night, the Lebanese Daily Star reported that clashes were set to continue today, for the eighth straight day. Significantly, fighting has spread to the Lebanese capital, Beirut. On Sunday, rockets struck Hezbollah–held areas of Beirut, including a residential building and car showroom, leaving at least three wounded. A Syrian rebel, Ammar al-Wawi, stated that the rocket attacks were launched in retaliation for Hezbollah’s support of Assad.
  –
  “In coming days we will do more than this,” he threatened. “This is a warning to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to keep Hezbollah’s hands off Syria.”
  –
  Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah declared that his movement will not back away from its support for Assad. “We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position,” Nasrallah said in the speech Saturday.
  –
  The fighting in Lebanon demonstrates the explosive repercussions of Washington’s policy of stoking sectarian conflict to advance its strategic aims. As the Washington Post wrote last week, “the two-year Syrian conflict has become a regional war and a de facto US proxy fight with Iran.” Iran, which is aligned with Assad and with Hezbollah, has allegedly been flying weapons to the regime in Syria with the support of the Shi’ite majority regime in Iraq.
  –
  Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that Iran, as well as Hezbollah, “have made it very clear, Assad is a red line.” The situation points to a massive, region-wide conflict.
  –
  While peace talks are scheduled, dubbed Geneva 2, the US and its regional allies are using the occasion to prepare for war. The US is using the possibility of talks to consolidate its “coalition of the willing,” which includes Britain, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
  –
  US and opposition representatives have made clear that they will accept a negotiated solution only on condition that Assad be removed and that the remains of his regime subordinate themselves to a deal with Washington’s Sunni Islamist proxies.
  –
  The imperialist powers are preparing to ramp up their indirect interventions in Syria. European leaders are meeting in Brussels on Monday, where British representatives will make the case for ending the arms embargo against Syria, opening the way for European efforts to arm the opposition.
  –
  Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 to allow Washington to arm the rebel militias. Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Corker sponsored the bill, which gives the green light for “critical support to the Syrian opposition through provision of military assistance, training, and additional humanitarian support.”
  –
  read more!

end