On Friday morning Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy who is trying to broker a truce in Syria, warned: "This conflict, label it as you wish, if it continues, will not be limited to the Syrian borders."

By Friday afternoon it appeared that Brahimi's prophecy was being fulfilled when a bomb ripped through a very ordinary residential street in the Lebanese capital, killing eight people and wounding dozens more.

Regardless of who actually triggered the explosion, given the political context, few had any doubt that the Damascus regime ultimately lay behind it. 

Coming in mid-afternoon when the streets are usually jammed and with no apparent target other than the inhabitants of Ashrafiyeh, a largely Christian district of Beirut, the bombing at first looked like a crude attempt to inflame tensions and drag Lebanon into the Syrian conflict.

Almost four hours later, though, news seeped out which changed that picture significantly. While the bombing had been carried out with general disregard for civilian lives, in fact it had a very specific target: Brigadier-General Wissam al-Hassan, the intelligence chief for Lebanon's internal security service, who had been driving through the street at the time.

Hassan's assassination places the Friday bombing within a very familiar pattern – though one that had been in abeyance for several years. It is a pattern where high-profile Lebanese figures who become a "problem" for the Damascus regime have to be eliminated. Blowing them up as their vehicle passes by has often been a feature of the pattern, and that appears to be what happened in Hassan's case.

The assumption is that Hassan had crossed a fateful red line (as far as Damascus is concerned) by pursuing former Lebanese information minister Michel Samaha – a well-known ally of the Assad regime – who has been accused of plotting terror attacks in Lebanon and against whom there is substantial prima facieevidence..

Knowing that a security chief was the target rather than the Lebanese population in general makes the attack slightly less alarming. But only slightly. It suggests the attack was one more example in a long history of Syrian meddling rather than a deliberate attempt to embroil Lebanon in Syria's current internal conflict. Even if not intended, though, there is still a risk that it will do so. 

It would not be the first time that the Assad regime's calculations in Lebanon have gone awry. In 2005, for example, Assad badly misjudged the Lebanese public's reaction to the killing of Rafik Hariri (who had also crossed Damascus's fateful red lines) and was forced to withdraw his troops as a result.

The public's reaction this time remains to be seen. There are certainly many Lebanese – across the sectarian spectrum – who know enough of civil war never to want to become embroiled again. There are also many who would be glad to see the Assad regime gone once and for all and, on the other side, also many who sympathise with it.

And then there's the question of Hizbullah which is widely believed to be providing a degree of military support for Assad in Syria. But Hizbullah has divided loyalties. On occasions, it also plays the "Lebanese patriotism" card. It has to, because its main rationale for retaining its weapons is to defend Lebanese soil from Israeli threats (since the Lebanese army is incapable of doing so on its own).

Hizbullah's position vis-à-vis Syria is controversial even among some of its own supporters and looks increasingly untenable. A strong reaction from the Lebanese public to General Hassan's assassination could force it to shift decisively one way or the other.

Of course, Lebanon is already embroiled in the Syrian conflict to some extent. The porous border makes that inevitable and Lebanon's main political divide – the March 14 allaince versus March 8 – is based around attitudes towards Syria.

So far, though, outright conflict has been kept mainly on the margins – places like Tripoli and parts of the Bekaa – but bringing it to the heart of Beirut is a much more serious matter. 

Once again, Lebanon finds itself in a precarious position and it would be a lot easier to steer a safe course through this latest crisis if the country had an effective state and government – which doesn't.

On that front, it looks as if things are about to get worse, with reports this morning that prime minister Najib Mikati's resignationis imminent. It that happens, the country may enter another periodwhere government is not merely weak and ineffectual but non-existent.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 20 October 2012