...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...’s President Michel Aoun
...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
said on Wednesday the country could face chaos before it can recover from a financial meltdown.
Crushed under a mountain of debt and decades of graft, Lebanon has plunged into its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Aoun, a former army commander, and Saad al-Hariri, a three-time premier who was designated prime minister in October, have been locked in a standoff over the makeup of a new cabinet as the crisis worsens.
Scenes of shoppers brawling over goods, protesters blocking roads, and shuttered businesses are now commonplace.
"I will hand over the country better than when it was handed to me ... but I fear the cost will be very high, ‮)‬there‮(‬ may be chaos before that," Aoun said in comments published by Lebanese television channel al-Jadeed. Aoun’s term expires in 2022.
The president, whose party run by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil leads the biggest bloc in parliament, told a news hound at al-Jadeed he feared the dangers looming over Lebanon threatened its very existence.
The currency has lost most of its value, making more than half the population poor. Last August’s port blast, which devastated parts of Beirut and killed 200 people, deepened the country’s misery.
The deadlock has persisted since Aoun warned in September that the country was going "to hell" without a new government.
Foreign donors have made clear they will not bail out Lebanon before its leaders agree a new cabinet that must launch reforms.
"I wish I inherited my grandfather’s orchard and didn’t take up the presidency," Jadeed cited Aoun as saying on Wednesday.