Lebanon is in crisis mode, again, and as usual it is not only a Lebanese concern. Crisis and foreign intervention go hand in hand in this small, fought-over state. This time around, it is Syria and Saudi Arabia who have added their names to the long list of failed intermediaries. Their foreign interventions, as well as those of Israel, France, the United States and Iran, have regularly ranged from ineffective to catastrophic.

The diplomatic excesses and Machiavellian schemes of foreign states in Lebanon have left a depressing legacy in the country that has been deftly examined by veteran British journalist David Hirst in his latest book ‘Beware of Small States: Lebanon, battleground of the Middle East.’ The book takes its title from Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who warned that while smaller states are often the victims of larger ones, they are also a source of danger for regional powers — a fitting warning here in Lebanon, the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of many of the region’s power brokers.

The world does not need more books on Hezbollah. The question of how and why an organization with little more than two million — largely impoverished Shia — among its support base has been able to sting the world’s only superpower and its closest ally has been pondered in literature by many. Undeterred by the panoply of former and current esteemed Hezbollah-watchers in whose footsteps he follows, Thanassis Cambanis, a New York Times and Boston Globe journalist, has thrown his hat into the ring with his new book “A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel.”