Asharq al-Awsat op-ed: In fact, “that Lebanon” has existed only in the imagination of most observers. The events that have unfolded since October 2019 have revealed the other face of Lebanon: a corrupt state in which politicians and laypeople have plundered the national treasury, and its sectarian regime, which has led to political paralysis.

The black list seems endless:

Day after day, scandals erupt around officials and politicians who have joined efforts to rob the state and the public funds;

- Rivers of garbage flood the cities;
- Electricity was a tool used for financial manipulation, which led to the energy crisis;
- The medical crisis saw the desertion of 40% of Lebanese physicians and drove 30% of the nurses to better havens;
- The incredible confession of Druze politician Walid Jumblatt who transferred $500 million out of the country;
- A governor of Lebanon’s central bank was investigated over assets accumulated in Europe and elsewhere;
- The depletion of foreign currency has caused the local currency to dwindle to a rate never reached before – from 8,400 Lebanese Liras to the Dollar at the beginning of 2021 to 30,000 Lebanese Liras today;
- Massive flux and depletion of manpower from the army now forced to beg for meals and contributions from abroad, even offering helicopter sightseeing trips to beef up its operational funds.

Suffice it to say that almost a quarter of a million Lebanese have left in the first quarter of 2021 to join a growing diaspora that until now has saved Lebanon through expatriates’ money transfers. Funds transferred to Lebanon after the port explosion of Beirut, which devastated a third of the capital city, have disappeared, and the reconstruction effort is stuck with no end in sight.

Lebanese citizens are forbidden to withdraw their money from the national banks and have been allowed to withdraw only small sums at given times. This did not stop the outflow of six billion dollars in less than three months after the decision was made to block all transfers of foreign currency to the outer world!

If this was not enough, politicians from all parties fight relentlessly over the dying corpse of the Lebanese body-politic. The Shiite duo (Hizbullah and Amal,) as they are nicknamed in Lebanon, have chosen to paralyze the government, which has not convened since October 2021, because of the government’s refusal to replace judge Tarek Bitar, the investigator of the mega-explosion of August 4, 2020, in the Beirut port.

Hizbullah behaves in Beirut as if Beirut was the second capital of Iran, with banners bearing the portraits of the notorious Qassem Suleimani and other Shiite “heroes” decorating the main arteries of the capital, especially those leading to the Beirut international airport. In October 2021, armed men affiliated with Hizbullah and Amal marched defiantly through Beirut’s Christian neighborhood of Tayouneh, which almost incited a third civil war.

The Shiite militias threatened to deploy 100,000 enlisted and trained men to storm the Christian areas. Seven people were killed and 32 wounded in the clash before the Lebanese Army restored a semblance of order.

Cartoon: The State of Lebanon (Asharq al-Awsat, Amjad Rasmi, Twitter)