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Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon earlier this week of declaring war against it because of aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, a dramatic escalation of a crisis threatening to destabilize the tiny Arab country.
Hezbollah is both a military and a political organization that is represented in the Lebanese parliament and in the Hariri-led coalition government formed last year.
Its powerful guerrilla army is widely seen as stronger than the Lebanese army, and has played a major role in the war in neighboring Syria, another theater of Saudi-Iranian rivalry where Hezbollah has fought in support of the government.
No indications as of yet as to what action Saudi Arabia might take against Lebanon, a country with a weak and heavily indebted state that is still rebuilding from its 1975-90 civil war and where one-in-four people is a Syrian refugee.
