Why Lebanon Growth Story Will Always Be A Mirage?
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Alaina
- . November 8, 2020
- . Update: November 9, 2020 11:26 pm
Hezbollah and Iran are not interested in letting Lebanon emerge from the pits and are hell-bent to ensure that its economy does not find a rebalance.
Sources have confirmed that Iran has been instrumental is creating regional tension and continues to fuel civil unrest. All this is a simple way of preventing Lebanon from ‘enacting badly needed reforms to emerge from political, social and financial crises’, said Ziad Majed, associate professor and program coordinator for Middle East pluralities at the American University of Paris, while she was attending a virtual panel discussion organized by the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
Undeniably, a prolonged dysfunctional political system has been instrumental in exasperating its financial crises. Lebanon is one of the few Middle Eastern countries that are surviving on huge monetary debts. Instability in the country has led to nonpayment of loans and therefore embarrassing loan defaults.
The spirits of the Lebanese people are long broken. There is complete lack of sense of security and pride. In less than a year, per capita income more than halved and almost 80 percent of the value of the currency has been lost. Poverty rate has now increased to 50percent and inflation has reached 150% leaving people with no savings at all.
The destruction has been self-inflicted, with the government acting as a facilitator of war and financial aid to the Iranian sponsored Hezbollah party. After Diab resigned in August, Saad Hariri has come back to power but he also remains closely allied to Hezbollah. Iranian backed Hezbollah would not want peace and prosperity for Lebanon as it continues to use it to gather momentum to forward its various militaristic operations worldwide.
