"Lebanese and foreigners alike have long nurtured nostalgic...

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    "Lebanese and foreigners alike have long nurtured nostalgic images of what Lebanon supposedly represents. But the tragic explosions in Beirut on August 4 demonstrate again how far that reality is from the truth.?"

    https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/08/05/lebanon-as-paradise-lost/

    "One hopes that the shock of the August 4 port explosions will provoke a new political earthquake in Lebanon, one that gives the Lebanese authorities no way out but to conduct a credible investigation or — as in 2005 — forces them to turn over the forensic task to credible outsiders. A political earthquake that at last forces Lebanese leaders and warlords to clean up the governance and financial mess they have created. But will the Lebanese react in mass, as they did in 2005? Even before a large section of their capital was leveled with horrific human casualties, the Lebanese already suffered from a culmination of their country’s financial collapse, de facto currency devaluation, coronavirus, soaring poverty rates, food insecurity, and more. One can hardly blame the Lebanese if, instead of mobilizing for accountability and political change, they hasten to find an exit from their once beautiful but seemingly doomed country."
 
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