A massive new US embassy complex in a tiny Middle East nation is raising eyebrows

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A massive new US embassy complex in Lebanon is causing controversy for its sheer size and opulence in a country where nearly 80% of the population is under the poverty line.

Located some 13 kilometers (about 8 miles) from the center of Beirut and built on the site of the current embassy, the US' new compound in Lebanon looks like a city of its own.

Sprawling over a 43-acre site, the complex in the Beirut suburb of Awkar is almost two-and-a-half times the size of the land the White House sits on and more than 21 soccer fields.

Many Lebanese on Twitter questioned why the US needs such a large embassy in their capital. Lebanon is smaller than Connecticut and has a population of just six million. Few American tourists go to the country as the State Department has placed it on the third highest travel advisory level, but it does have a sizeable population of Lebanese American residents.

"Did the US move to Lebanon??" tweeted Sandy, a social media activist.

"Maybe you'll have enough room to work on all those pending visa applications," tweeted Abed A. Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, responding to the grandiosity of the new complex.