Lebanon

Lebanon exists because the mountains exist—the cedar-forested ridges of Mount Lebanon have sheltered minority communities for two millennia, creating the world's most intricate sectarian balance in one of history's oldest trading corridors.

The Phoenicians invented the alphabet and dominated Mediterranean trade from these shores three thousand years ago. Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos were among the ancient world's great ports—exporting cedar wood, Tyrian purple dye, and glassware across the Mediterranean, founding colonies from Carthage to Spain. But what made this coastline distinctive was the mountain behind it. Mount Lebanon's rugged terrain provided refuge for communities persecuted elsewhere: Maronite Christians fleeing Byzantine orthodoxy in the 7th century, Druze in the 11th, and eventually eighteen recognized religious communities packed into an area smaller than Connecticut.

When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, France carved Lebanon from Syria, drawing borders to ensure Christian political dominance. The 1943 National Pact codified sectarian power-sharing: the president must be Maronite Christian, the prime minister Sunni Muslim, the parliamentary speaker Shia—based on a 1932 census that showed a Christian majority. That census has never been updated because everyone knows demographics have shifted. From 1952 to 1975, Beirut thrived as 'the Switzerland of the Middle East'—banking secrecy laws, a gold-backed currency, and liberalism in a region of authoritarians made it the financial hub of the Arab world. Then the 15-year civil war (1975-1990) killed 150,000 and displaced one million. The 1989 Taif Agreement ended fighting but preserved sectarian politics, while Rafik Hariri rebuilt downtown Beirut as a symbol of recovery.

That fragile reconstruction collapsed spectacularly after 2019. A banking crisis froze deposits, the currency lost 98% of its value, and GDP fell from $52 billion to $23 billion—the steepest contraction in modern history for a country not at war. The 2020 Beirut port explosion—one of history's largest non-nuclear blasts—destroyed neighborhoods and exposed the corruption that had stored 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate unsafely for years. Poverty surged from 20% to 80%. By late 2024, Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon added an estimated $8.5 billion in damages—40% of remaining GDP. The country struggles with electricity shortages, limited running water, and political paralysis.

Lebanon in 2026 faces what the World Bank calls 'deliberate depression'—a crisis engineered by ruling elites who extracted wealth while blocking reforms. Recovery requires political transformation that the same sectarian system makes nearly impossible. The question is whether institutional collapse finally forces reform, or whether crisis becomes the permanent state.