Hello and welcome to Almanack. The Oxford Middle East podcast. My name is Filters Focus.
And today I'm joined by Felix Walker and Michael tomorrow to discuss the ongoing and
interlocking crisis in Lebanon because of the drawbacks of the confessional system,
the importance of foreign actors, the economic crisis, and why all these problems are so difficult to say.
The entire Lebanese government has stood down after Tuesday's catastrophic explosion in Beirut.
Some Lebanese would joke that they can't tell the difference between when they have a government and when they don't have a government.
The state has to observe the people's life here. But the government is not in the mood.
You don't see something else in short supply.
Is faith in the power of the Lebanese state such as it is to get the virus or anything else under control?
So as you can see, some people from the from the government here and they just do nothing, doesn't fix things like we do.
Evolution doesn't tell me it's a more aggressive at one time either.
So what can we do? I mean, at the moment. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our episode on Lebanon.
We're going to solve the episode by giving a short overview of the situation now so that Felix is going to explain the confessional list framework.
At the moment, Lebanon has had what might be some of the worst years in his history.
It's facing political deadlock. Its caretaker prime minister has been a caretaker since August.
His replacement quit after only a month. At the moment, it seems unlikely that the new government will be formed due to ministerial turf puzzles.
There have also been ongoing protests which started back in October twenty nineteen against higher
taxes and now envelop everything from taxes to political transformations to representation.
Also covered as rampaging through the country. January 20 21 has been the deadliest month for covered in Lebanon since the pandemic began.
The country is also dealing with millions of Syrian refugees who put enormous strain on the health care system and also increasing debt,
very high inflation and in general and the economic collapse due to two sources of income being tourism and services,
have been extremely hard hit by the Korona murders. But as I mentioned, there's been political deadlock,
and that is something you cannot understand without understanding the confessional system which defines Lebanese politics.
So, Felix, would you want to get into that? Yeah, sure.
The political system of Lebanon is basically a compassionate system.
Lebanon is very diverse, diverse country in the Middle East with 19 different religious communities.
And this compassionate system was basically put in place in night in 1943 during what they call the national pact,
in which in order to avoid having one group dominating or others,
they had an unwritten agreement which laid the foundation of Lebanon as a multi confessional, independent state.
And it was basically an agreement between the then president Bishara and Haughty, who was a Christian, Maronite Christian, and the prime minister.
He had a son who was a Sunni Muslim. What they got out of that was the Maronite Christians would not seek any more Western intervention.
And the Muslims would abandon their aspirations to unite with Syria. So the system works basically with based on the census back in 1943.
The president has to be a man, Maronite, Catholic, Christian.
The prime minister has to be a Sunni Muslim. Speaker of parliament has to be a Shia Muslim.
The chief of the general staff of the armed forces has to be a Druze back in the day because it was more in favour of the Christians,
because they were larger. They had the larger portion of the population.
But since after the civil war, which ended in 1989 with the 28th agreement with Saudi Arabia,
they changed the ratio to 50 percent Christians and 50 percent Muslims in parliament because the portion of the population had changed over time.
And currently there are two big political alliances composed of parties from different sects.
There is the March 14 bloc, which is a combination of Sunni and Druze parties and the March eight bloc,
which is a combination of Christian and Shia parties, including Hezbollah.
What is the current population like? Division like? Is it.
So does the Parliament sort of reflect the demographic realities of the country?
To be honest, like I said back in the past, the Christians have the the advantage because they were a larger population.
But over time, a lot of Christians left because it was easier for them to leave compared to the Muslim population.
But also the Muslim population grew because they were the poorer population at the beginning.
And also they gained in in not just in numbers, but also in financial and political power, which led to that change in 1989 with the type agreement.
But since then, there has been population changes. And I mean, I think there is an unwillingness to.
Do a new census in Lebanon, because that may create some problems,
because that would probably have to mean that some rearranging would have to be done in the political system.
But it seems like the Muslims do have a majority of the population.
But I'm unsure of the exact so there hasn't been a census since 1989.
The last official census in Lebanon was performed in 1932. So it's 90.
Eighty million years old. Holy crap.
But but it seems like basically the the missing.
I mean, there were a lot of reasons behind the civil war. Right. But one of the big reasons was that the Christian population was diminishing.
And the remainder of the population being being Muslims and Jews felt that the apportioning
of power was not representative of the actual number of people of each sect in the country.
And so tensions rose. The civil war happens. And that's why in 1989, they kind of recalibrated that.
That remains an issue in Lebanon. That's putting it lightly because related to that is also the role of foreign actors,
because it is a blow and has to some extent become a football field for the other powers in the region, too, to settle the differences.
You know, most famously amongst those groups is Hezbollah, which receives a lot of support from Syria and Iran.
Obviously, Israel, for safety reasons, also has a lot of interest in in Lebanon.
But do you want to go a bit further into that, Michael?
So, yes, Iran is certainly watching developments in Lebanon closely and is very wary of of losing any of its hard won influenced Visa v,
its proxy, Hezbollah. And as far as Iran is concerned, Lebanon and Syria are spaces for it to put pressure on Israel and the United States.
Now, there has been a lot of growing criticism of both Hezbollah and Iran, particularly since the 2019 protests and more recently the port incident.
There was a lot of fury online within Lebanon in early January after a statue of assassinated Iranian
General Awesomes Soleimani appeared in the Hezbollah stronghold of Obeidi in southern Beirut.
And many Sunni and Christian politicians were condemning recent remarks by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force commander Ameer Ali.
Haji's out there who claimed in early January that Lebanon owed its missile capabilities
to Iran and that Lebanon was in the front line in Iran's fight against Israel.
So for Iran, Lebanon is certainly another environment from which it can project its its regional influence and
perhaps even implement its forward defence strategy that is core to its national security strategy.
Now, four other actors in the region, Saudi Arabia,
has always been regarded as the main protector of Lebanon's Sunni Arabs and has historically enjoyed huge sway over the politics of the country.
However, that has changed, particularly since the abduction and resignation of Saad Hariri in 2017,
which most observers believe wasn't done because of the Saudis.
The Gulf states, which once funnelled funds into Lebanon, have grown wary in recent years,
and particularly they are alarmed by the rising influence of Hezbollah, especially as their wariness to the perceived threat of Iran regionally grows.
And they realise that neither the Lebanese state nor politicians such as Hariri that they count
close to them can do much about Hezbollah's activities and domestic influence in Lebanon.
Now, that being said, they still provide some relief and are are willing to engage with the country not to give up all of their influence.
So we do see amongst regional actors this using Lebanon as a.
Another front with which to fight their, you know, their own personal conflicts with each other.
You also think that the support which Saudi Arabia, for example, gives to Lebanon will be conditioned on,
for example, being exclusionary towards potential Hezbollah affiliates?
Or do you think they'll be kind enough to let anyone benefit from the support?
That's hard to say. There is a tendency amongst regional actors in the Middle East to pursue a zero sum strategy.
But this is very ineffective.
I can't imagine any actor asking the Lebanese government to not include Hezbollah and its allies in any government scheme or structure.
And France knows this.
And interestingly enough, this has been a source of contention between Macron and the U.S., particularly during the Trump administration.
When he was secretary of state, Mike Pompeo made clear that Washington was not happy with Francis strategy to include
Hezbollah in efforts to resolve the economic and political crisis in Lebanon.
But France recognising the inextricable role that Hezbollah has in Lebanese politics and society.
Has said that Hezbollah's elected arm has a legitimate political role to play.
So we do see. This understanding by certain actors, particularly McCrone and France, that it's very hard,
almost impossible to come up with any political arrangement that does not include Hezbollah.
I would go further than that and say that it is impossible to have any political arrangement which doesn't include Hezbollah, because it is you know,
I think it's safe to say the most powerful force in in Lebanon at the moment, especially concerning how well equipped this military is.
And one one one thing about the Gulf situation is that a lot of Lebanese travelled to the Gulf and sent home remittances,
which were a substantial part of the GDP in Lebanon.
But due to the Coronado's pandemic, that has dried up.
And I'll not get into the details of this, but the banking crisis in in Lebanon was also caused by lack of foreign reserves,
which they would get through through remittances.
And I just wanted to add concerning Hezbollah, not only did they garner support from the Shia consists constituencies within the country,
but they also garner support from the other sects within Lebanon. And in August 2008, when a new cabinet came into power,
this new cabinet unanimously approved a draught policy statement that recognises Hezbollah's existence not just as a political actor,
but also as an armed organisation and guarantees its right.
And I quote,
to liberate or recover occupied lands such as the Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon because these these lands would be recovered from from Israel.
Right. Well, they're basically saying is Hezbollah would become Lebanon's military.
I mean, and in a way, that was kind of the case, like in 2006, where basically there was a war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is considered by most to have successfully fared in that in that in that conflict,
at least in keeping the Israelis out of the country and inflicted actually the worst defeat Israel has ever had with an Arab force.
And after that, they did gain a lot of support from from a lot of people within the country, not just from the Shia constituency.
Their numbers of volunteers, for example, rose drastically after the conflict.
And I think after that, they basically gain a certain respect within the country as an armed force.
And yes, it is not the official army, but it's widely believed to be better armed and just more efficient than the Lebanese army itself,
because the Lebanese within the Lebanese army divided according to sectarian lines.
And that does affect its efficiency. The whole the whole country is divided along sectarian lines, Illouz institutionally.
But I think later in this episode,
it will become a lot clearer that most people have very similar priorities concerning what they're what they want and what they don't want,
especially in their own government. Now, one of the things I don't want is, you know,
the inefficiency of which comes from this whole extremely complicated political system where power is divided up between different religious groups,
which in turn makes those religious groups very powerful. And the people who who leave those religious groups,
that gives them both a lot of financial and economic power because bureaucracy, for example, becomes a tool for patronage.
And it also does not change because of how extensive the interests of certain powerful people is to maintaining the bureaucracy.
I mean, that's that's one of the main criticisms of this confessional system in Lebanon, is that, like you said,
it breeds this system of patronage where government posts are guaranteed to all confessions and
therefore they are not held accountable and they are free to dispense any patronage as they like.
And this creates a certain dependency from the population that rely on their sectarian patrons for basic services such as education or health care.
And I mean, this whole sectarian system seeps into every facet of life in the basketball league will have been infiltrated by this sectarian system.
And as an illustration of what I'm saying, the bureaucracy of this country is completely bloated.
You have four hundred thousand people employed by the public sector.
For example, the National Train Service that's been defunct for decades and still has hundreds of staff on its payroll,
which is just proof that people are I mean,
due to the fact that they are desperate and the country finds itself in such a desperate economic situation.
The only way for people to survive in the system is to become clients of this this patronage system,
which is basically a vicious cycle and the worst country gets,
the better it is for this sectarian system because it just forces people into their client patron system that they have.
The corruption that exists basically invites a lack of accountability, a lack of transparency and really divide society along sectarian lines.
That, in turn, fuels division and kills meritocracy. And breeds complacency.
So if I can just reinforce what Felix is saying about how even the political
system failing reinforces the power structures and elites within that system.
When Lebanon's financial meltdown began in late 2008, 19 banks had to clamp down with capital controls.
So this left a huge financial vacuum and stepping in where the state and financial institutions really failed.
Hezbollah has provided ordinary Lebanese citizens with a vital lifeline through the Alapatt al-Hassan Association, which is one of its financial arms.
So because citizens are cash strapped due to these capital controls allocated, Alhassan Association has been able to circumvent these measures.
And anyone who look looking for a hard currency and liquidity has really relied on this financial arm of Hezbollah.
It's able to offer people small interest free loans of up to 5000 dollars.
And most importantly, these loans are given in dollars.
Despite the fact that Hezbollah has been heavily sanctioned by the US,
it's just another tool by which Hezbollah is able to further entrench its support amongst the country's population and not just Shiite population.
Another good example of how deeply dysfunctional politics is can be expressed in the economic situation of the country,
because, as I mentioned in the beginning, you know, there's serious inflation going on and the country is almost bankrupt.
And the cause for that, like the long term, causes how Lebanon rebuilds itself.
After the civil war, which ended in 1989, is really sad because the state would borrow a huge amount of money in order to fund construction.
But a huge amount of it was lost in incorrupt deals.
And it is estimated that since 2000, about 100 billion euros dollars has been lost in the banking system,
probably, you know, in kickbacks to to the elite, to services that the government had to spend about 40 percent of its budget on simply paying off
Durand's for them for the borrowing it had incurred sorry for the voters had incurred since then.
In addition to that, as a number of systemic problems, one of them relates to electricity because electricity is heavily subsidised in Lebanon.
And just like its census and everything else is an old Band-Aid fix,
which hasn't been improved because electricity prices were based on oil prices from 1996.
And obviously the oil prices have gone up since 1996.
But because of that, these subsidies have had to fill in the gap and means that it's estimated that 40 percent of Lebanon's and tired.
That is caused by that desire to subsidise electricity.
And they can't stop doing so because of how reliant people in general are on electricity.
You know, the need for lot fridges and either to cook and a steady supply of electricity has not existed since the end of the war.
Instead, you have the so-called generator mafia where people pay others so that they can run illegal generators.
And it is obviously a huge drain on the spending power, which means that instead of spending money on clothes and food,
it goes into a corrupt system so people can show that they can't cook.
They have to throw their food, which means a loaf gets even more expensive. And most of Lebanon only has electricity for two or three hours a day.
It's gotten so bad recently, a plane trying to land on Beirut's airport could not land because there was no electricity for the landing lights.
The traffic lights often don't work and traffic in Beirut was pretty awful anyway.
You that was even worse. And surgeries can often not be done because the lights in hospitals cannot be kept on.
You know, in addition to deliveries, the subsidies, the sorts of subsidies on food, medicine and fuel.
But because the prices of these go up, because things have to be imported in Lebanon, because of how little air base itself.
This is a huge drain on the on the government coffers. But an analyst said that lifting the subsidies would cause a social implosion.
And the subsidies, as Felix said,
also give political factions a huge amount of influence as they can control who gets subsidies and which sectors get subsidies.
And it's unclear when the money will run out for the subsidies. But everybody seems to say it's going to happen next month.
But as has been said for the last five or six months, so it's you know, it's anyone's guess when that will actually happen.
The long term problems of this is unemployment, obviously, but also migration,
because many young people try to leave the country where jobs are a major issue for the future if all the people educated.
The worry is for many people that the combination of covered the political crisis,
the financial crisis and the explosion in the book Ports of Beirut in August might destroy
the middle class beyond repair and therefore seriously hamper the country's recovery.
So in addition to these problems, their Lebanese plan has an inflation rate of above 100 per cent, meaning that every year it loses half its value.
Lebanon has also been affected by American sanctions in other countries.
Michael, you know more about that. Yes. So, of course,
the major cause of instability and instability from the outset has been the monetary
and fiscal policies of the government and the lending policies of the banking sector.
However, U.S. sanctions on Lebanon, including secondary sanctions for banks knowingly facilitating Hezbollah, have.
Undermine the stability of Lebanon's banking sector by creating what's called a
chilling effect and thus reducing the inflow of foreign capital into Lebanon.
There has been over the years a dramatic increase in.
Sanctions related to Lebanon on the part of the US, and they mainly revolve around Hezbollah and the conflict in Syria.
And in fact, of the over 260 targeted sanctions by the US that relate to Lebanon, over two hundred and twenty of them involve Hezbollah.
And former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explicitly stated that the Trump administration coupled
Hezbollah and Iran in its sanction policy considerations and its maximum pressure campaign.
An illustration of the effect that sanctions US sanctions can have on Lebanon is the following.
The Trump administration sanctioned Jamal Trust Bank in August 2019, and it had to liquidate the following months.
The Trump administration also signed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018,
which expanded on the powers of a previous act signed by the Obama administration,
which first introduced the threat of secondary sanctions on banks accused with dealing with Hezbollah.
U.S. financial pressure on the nine is far from negligible and has had a lot of consequences.
And even disregarding Hezbollah sees her serious Civilian Protection Act has also negatively affected Lebanon.
While that act was aimed to.
Mainly to punish businesses that that interacted with the Syrian government because of the close ties that actors within Lebanon,
particularly Hezbollah, have with us.
The Assad government sees her act as another financial mechanism that has negatively affected Lebanon's financial sector.
In there, in the politicians eyes or in the international community, the eyes,
perhaps people are also to blame for the corruption and issues in the country because they keep on getting voted in.
But obviously, one could say that the elections are rigged in the sense that there is no choice because it
is practically impossible to have a party which runs on a non-professionals ticket to win.
I mean, for example,
the only person to have been able to do that was a billionaire called Halloumi who basic right to buy his way into joining the political elite.
You know, the world basically champion the head of the central bank SAMU,
who is now one of the most hated figures in Lebanon because it's revealed that while head of the central bank,
he basically was completely corrupt and was perhaps involved in a Ponzi scheme and is now also being
investigated for having he raided the coffers of the country and sent a lot of money to Switzerland.
I can try to give, like a fifth grade version of what happened to the banks because it is a really weird idea.
Like what? Yeah.
During the 2008 financial crisis, he was hailed for doing an an exceptionally good job of saving Lebanon from the worst effects of it.
And he was considered a fantastic, great banker. But in the last year or so, it's become clear that his way of banking was absolutely insane,
because one of the prime reasons for the economic crisis in Lebanon right now is that the central bank
required dollars to in order to buy things on the international market because of how much Lebanon imports.
And the only way it could get that was by having very high interest rates on dollar deposits,
which would make it appealing for foreign depositors to deposit the dollars into the country.
It could only pay those interest rates by getting more dollars in the bank.
In order to pay the principal plus interest and we'll get that from the banks within Lebanon.
So what we would do is encourage Lebanese banks to deposit money into the central bank of Lebanon and then use that to pay off the debt,
which he had to the other commercial banks in Lebanon. And they would then again, in turn, use that money and deposited in the central bank.
And that worked for a while. And then when this collapsed, that's why we have the financial crisis and that's a Ponzi scheme.
People talk about basically trying to make money out of nothing and that's sustainable until somebody realises how unsustainable the system is.
On the other hand, though, the IMF has been trying to to improve the economic situation in Lebanon,
but there has been a huge amount of resistance to it.
For example, the IMF wants currency controls to ensure that money does not leave the country unless it has to.
A number of rich people resist these currency controls because they want to move
their money offshore while it's still possible to make sure it cannot be taxed,
because IMF is also encouraging a so-called haircut's,
which basically means that a lot of the very wealthy people look just lose a percentage of their money and they'll be used to pay off debts.
No. MF also wants Hezbollah to give up the finance ministry.
But because the finance ministry is possibly the most powerful ministry in Lebanon, Hezbollah, of course, does not want to do so.
And this is, you know, as we mentioned in the beginning, one of the reasons for the political deadlock in a country that,
like the patient ID systems are so deep that no one can can dislodge.
So the fact that in late November,
the central bank basic continued to obstruct the forensic audit that was led by an international restructuring consultancy.
And they had to basically quit in desperation. So I think it was the completion of the audit, the central demand of international donors.
Yeah, the donors and basically the IMF basically requested that an audit would be done.
And the central bank obstructed it. So that's one of the reasons that you were talking about?
No, I think I think the IMF was willing to give Lebanon a 10 billion dollar loan if they implemented certain policies.
But considering the debts which Lebanon has currently incurred, which is ninety five billion, it is a fairly insignificant amount of money.
And Hezbollah has said that if IMF terms were acceptable, it would cause a revolution.
But considering what's happening in the country today,
a revolution revolution seems already to be going on as people in the streets constantly like society, has imploded on itself.
Not all countries are in deep trouble,
but none of the IMF reforms are not going to be implemented because of the amount of political resistance to it.
It's unlikely that there's some rest is going to stop in the short run because the most important things in Lebanon's economy,
you know, services and tourism will not recover for the foreseeable future.
Because of coalbed and B, because of the very unstable nature of the country, is not appealing for tourists or investors.
And that might cause the instability to accelerate because the head of the University of Beirut said that he considers what the country is facing,
the biggest crisis since 1866 when the University of Beirut was founded.
The fact that people consider this a bigger problem than a civil war probably says enough about how truly catastrophic the situation has become.
And yeah, exactly. The situation won't be getting better. To add to that, you know that the protests in 2019 basically started because the government,
desperate for money, tried to tax frequenting services like WhatsApp.
And the only reason the protests really died down was, I mean, to be honest, because I've covered the process that we see today should be seen,
at least in my opinion, as a continuation of these protests,
as with the worsening of the situation due to combat and due to the fourth of August port explosion.
These protests, you know, I've just further been fewer than given more reason and more legitimacy.
And the fact that with the port explosion to happen, no officials had to take have taken any responsibility.
Even the efforts of the judge tasked with determining the cause of the poor black led to the indictment of four politicians.
But the judge was then swiftly discredited and accused of targeting officials.
It seems like the political system in Lebanon is managing some way to give no concessions to the population,
which is just going to keep on fuelling these protests. And I don't know where this is going to go.
I think it's going to be interesting to see. What gives way?
First, the social pressure on the political system.
So we're seeing protests against the mandated lockdown for Kofod,
but we also have this intransigence by the political elite and actors to make necessary reforms in terms of good governance,
accountability, transparency, no more corruption.
And we also have calls from international donors.
And this is very much supported both by McCrone as well as by the U.S. and the IMF, that any international help.
Financial help has these red lines, these requirements of instituting political reforms.
So. It really is just a matter of time.
Which of these forces either boils over and goes out of control or just gives way,
becomes more complacent and whether things will remain more of the status quo or if there's going to be substantive change,
whether on the social sides in terms of a social uprising in some sort or political reform that is good,
that is beneficial for the country and can take steps forward.
And I mean, it's hard, at least on the social side,
because you do have political actors such as Hezbollah that have implemented intimidation tactics and they've always had.
I do think you say something interesting.
It's interesting because I believe that the ongoing crisis is probably going to be the deciding one if this doesn't break of the political system.
I can imagine something like the political system survived the civil war when at some point something does does have to break.
And I do hope it's a political system because. You know, you can't you can't have an unemployment rate at 30 or 35 percent,
have one in five people in the country, be Syrian refugee and expect stability.
And however much the political elites in the country benefits from the status quo,
I do think that they also understand that if the country is completely at war,
completely collapses, there is no economic system for them to leech onto and drain money out of.
So I do wonder at some point, will there come a point where they think, OK, it has gotten bad enough,
now we have to institute some degree of reform because the protests have been going on now for I think it's 14 months.
You know, there's not going to stop. I believe they give they've gone on for that long.
They're not going to just go away. One development to look out for is, I think what happens with.
The Iran nuclear negotiations, because Hezbollah has certainly not hidden its delight that Biden is replacing Trump and
therefore the maximum pressure campaign on Iran and therefore Iran's proxies such as Hezbollah,
will be lifted. Interestingly enough, when French President Macron called for major reforms to Lebanon, he was met with criticism in Iran.
Iran's ultra conservative newspaper, Kayhan, accused him of trying to, quote,
weaken the Lebanese resistance when talking about the French hosting conference
at which international donors pledged over 250 million euros to help Lebanon.
They called it merely a bluff and said that if they really wanted to help Lebanon,
international actors should lift sanctions against the Lebanese government and its people.
And so you see, Iran and Hezbollah are extremely reticent to enacting any types of political reforms that international donors are asking for.
Of course, we should not overstate the influence of the nuclear deal on Lebanese politics,
even if a nuclear deal is reached with Iran, which offers financial relief to Iran, and therefore,
Iran is able to provide Hezbollah with the hundreds of millions of dollars in funds that it has long given that it's not going to solve Lebanon's
problems and that but it will certainly advantage Hezbollah vs of the other political actors and perhaps enough to keep Hezbollah afloat and in turn,
keep the current political arrangement afloat. I totally agree with Michael.
The chances of perhaps a new Iran nuclear deal mean that the system would survive longer.
But it seems at least to be pretty clear, since 2000, the 2015 demonstrations in Beirut were over.
A hundred thousand people asked for change due to the fact that those huge mounds of uncollected garbage in the streets,
I mean that in that situation, the government quashed the protest.
But it's generally considered to be basically the birth of the civil movement that later, which has now sought to challenge the political system.
The government had their chance after these demonstrations to prove that they were going to change.
And 2018, they had parliamentary elections. By that point, it was it was already too late because the voter turnout was under 50 percent.
So the people really seemed to have no trust and no faith in the system, even though perhaps it's going to it will try to show that it's changing.
I mean. After that, you have the 2019 nationwide protest.
The establishment proposed as Prime Minister Hassan Dhiab,
who was a computer engineering professor and who basically was going to form a new
government that they claim was composed of technocrats with no political loyalties.
But like we saw, that didn't bring any change.
One would have thought that with the port explosion, which, to be honest, is the worst thing that could happen to the capital city of a country.
A lot of people thought finally, you know, the system is going to have to change after such a devastating event.
But even then, like I said earlier, they made sure that the judges were unable to do their job and to indict anybody and
actually have been paid for the negligence that they basically showed during that situation.
To be honest, in my opinion, as it's clear that the people who don't believe in the system anymore.
But at this point, they don't even have any other option than not to protest because they've been pushed to such a brink.
It's very possible that the only way for you is for there to be a renewal of the system is to
perhaps go down into either some sort of civil war which would lead to Lebanese self-destruction.
And perhaps out of that,
could a new system be born or you would have perhaps a situation where there would be a form of cantonization where you would basically have
a territorial partition of Lebanon like they used to be there in the civil war where the Sunnis would hold Tripoli and parts of Beirut.
The she's would hold the western part of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley and the south of the country.
The Druze would hold south and mount Lebanon and the Christians in the north of Mount Lebanon.
But it really seems like the government is not actually serious about its efforts because it's continuously trying to block any.
Possibility or opportunity for change? And the people have reached the point at which they cannot possibly live anymore.
Like you said. And so a big problem with that was the Lebanese political system faces as though, you know, it's a system based on Band-Aid fixes,
the sensors in the 1930s, a Band-Aid fix to avoid the sectarian tensions which had taken place in an.
Syria in the 1920s, then, for example, the idea of fuel subsidies, I meant so much based on 1994 process and haven't changed.
And then the new changes to the to the parliament from 1989.
I know that there's never been a desire for truly systemic change.
You know, I wonder, as you said, you know, what's going to cause it.
And I don't know if even a civil war would change unless the country, as you say, like sort of devolves into into cantons.
On the other hand, you have the Magnitsky Act,
which the U.S. uses to target human rights offenders and claim based on something which happened in Russia.
It's how they sanction certain people in Putin's regime. A similar approach would be one of the few things which would work for Lebanon as well,
because they would punish the people who benefit from the system economically.
And that's the only way to punish them, because politically, they you know,
I think we've proven in this episode there is nothing to worry about for them. Know the political system will remain.
And if unless you take away the enticements for them to maintain our political system,
which is financial wealth and power for primarily financial wealth, you know, it's not going to change.
I do think that if countries would be serious about it, I think, you know,
targeted sanctions against a Lebanese political elite might be a solution, but that's questionable.
Do you think the American government would apply the sanctions equally amongst the different NOCs?
No, there wouldn't. And there's a problem, right?
You know, as as Michael has made very clear, that target Hezbollah way more than it would target the Maronites.
I think France would have serious reservations about sanctions against the marinates.
Other countries are so closely intertwined in Lebanese politics that there would be a lot of pushback against
any sanctions against them and even actors within the political system that do want change like hasn't.
When he tried to drop the prices of cement from one hundred dollars to thirty dollars per time,
which basically had been produced previously controlled by a cartel of three companies,
that basically pegged the price extremely high and didn't allow any international competition,
even when politicians are trying to bring the prices down and to fight these cartels, which are so closely tied to the political system.
This planet is basically only had success for a temporary amount of time.
It seems practically impossible for change to happen from within.
And like you said, any pressure from the outside doesn't seem to have any any effect on on on the political system in Lebanon.
Look, if something were to happen to Lebanon, a conflict, a civil war,
this would only exacerbate the whole situation with Syrian refugees in the country
and create probably a new wave of refugees trying to come towards Europe,
which would then create more tensions between Turkey and Europe.
There's definitely an interest for the international community to solve this issue because they will have international repercussions.
You know, Lebanon is on its eastern border, Syria, where there's a war.
On its southern border, Israel, with which Lebanon is at war and to its north is Turkiewicz, which it has a complicated set of relations,
and to its west is the Mediterranean, which has become its own political minefield recently.
But I do agree absolutely that, you know, it's in everybody's best interest to ensure that Lebanon situation improves, because if it doesn't,
it is not going to let the troubles or the problems aren't going to be consigned to the Middle East will percolate into Europe just like Syria did.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Almanack, the Oxford Middle East podcast.
Join us next time when I sit down with the historian Eugene Rogan to discuss his perspectives on studying history and the importance of it.
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The opinions expressed in the podcast are not in any way represent official opinions of the University of the Middle East.
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So Felix Walker, Michael Memory and Max Randall.