LEBANON, STATE OF SURVIVAL

Lebanon is often described as “the most successful failed state of the 21st century”. This irony perfectly describes the reality of the country, which harbors vital forces and remarkable economic and cultural potential, but which suffers from extreme and inextricable violence. 
This book, which reads like a thriller, traces this turbulent history since the 19th century: that of a country condemned to constant struggle, constantly buffeted by external interventions, from the Ottomans to the Iranians, via the Syrians, the Israelis, the British and the Americans, not forgetting France, which continues to play a pre-eminent role. 
Although Lebanon, the gateway to the Middle East and hostage to international rivalries, has managed, despite everything, to survive, and, like Sisyphus, to heal its internal dissensions in order to constantly climb back up the slope, it has nevertheless been hit in recent years by a succession of unprecedented crises, with a financial and economic collapse that has brought the country to its knees, This has been compounded by a huge influx of Syrian migrants fleeing the war in their homeland, equivalent to half the Lebanese population, and topped off by a particularly destructive confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah, which has ravaged whole swathes of Lebanon.

What are the possible solutions for the country of the cedar today? What scenarios are on the horizon? These are the answers that this book also seeks to provide.

Fouad Khoury Helou is director of the French-language Lebanese daily L'Orient-Le Jour, one of the most influential dailies in the Middle East. L'Orient was founded in Beirut in 1924 by Gabriel Khabbaz and George Naccache, and Le Jour was founded in 1934 by Michel Chiha.

He has published “Mondialisation, la mort d'une utopie” (Calmann-Levy, 2017), as well as “L'Amérique et le Moyen-Orient” (Hermann, 2015) and “L'effondrement du monde arabo-islamique” (Hermann, 2018).