The Israeli assault on Lebanon has poignantly brought two truths home: that some Arab states are unable to respond to ever- mounting external threats, and that the burden of homeland protection is increasingly shifting from the standard political order to non-state actors.
The Lebanese case offers a glimpse of the shape of the balance of powers in the Middle East in years to come.
The modern state, we should recall, derives its legitimacy from the right to monopolise and use the instruments of organised violence for the purpose of maintaining internal stability and civil peace on the one hand; and securing its borders, or what is conventionally referred to as national sovereignty, on the other.
Some Arab states have failed on either or both counts. Of these, the worst and most striking has been its impotence to confront external dangers, be it in Syria, Iraq or Lebanon.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/10E17155-88CD-4837-9600-2303870886F2.htm
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