The decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court to revoke the almost 85-year-old museum status of Hagia Sophia and allow its conversion to a mosque did not come as a bolt out of the blue. Instead, it is the by-product of a decades – old battle concerning the republic’s oppressed Islamic soul and the orientations of her foreign policy vis-à-vis the Arab and the Muslim world.

Lebanon’s size has always been inversely proportional to the magnitude of its turbulence. More of a mirror of the region’s intricacies than a catalyst, the country offers a unique regional case; although in ever-simmering tension, it manages to escape the contours of a country-wide flare-up. This is more often than not attributed to the country’s bitter memories of the civil war (1975-1990). For others, it is the product of an ill-thought out, yet relatively balanced consociational mechanism of power-sharing.

Klaus Wivel's book is one of those books that, as per Franz Kafka, resemble the axe hitting the frozen sea. In the post-9/11 world there has been no shortage of bibliography regarding the Mediterranean/ Middle East. By contrast, one could make the case that there has often been an abundance of bibliography, focusing excessively on issues such as terrorism, Western attempts at a normative reconstruction of the region and the intricacies of political Islam.

Lebanon is a small and internally complicated country, so why should anyone on the outside bother? And since at present it is also tranquil then maybe it is wise just to leave good enough alone. These realities, while true, cannot constitute valid reasons for open-ended benign neglect. Hidden corrosive forces in and around the tiny country are constantly at work, and sudden calamitous setbacks as happened on many occasions in Lebanon's recent past remain a menacing possibility at all times. What sits quietly and unobtrusively on the sidelines could merely out of carelessness find itself sliding into turmoil and thus be swiftly catapulted to center-stage with ugly fallout on the immediate surroundings and possibly far beyond. In this respect Lebanon may not exactly be a ticking time-bomb since it does exhibit a healthy "been there, done that" resilience, but it persists as a delicately cobbled polity with much about it that is unfinished or unresolved, thereby harboring built-in vulnerabilities that are potentially worrisome.