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Article: Keep it together; Lebanon.(Can Lebanon be patched up yet again?)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 17, 2008
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lebanon's problems reflect those of the wider region. They must be tackled all the same
IT IS tempting to conclude that Lebanon never was, and never will be, a real country whose inhabitants have an overarching loyalty to their state. Historians have argued, with some cogency, that its inhabitants would have had a better chance of living in peace had it been incorporated into a Greater Syria, when the Ottoman empire collapsed at the end of the first world war. Being parts of a larger whole might--but only might--have given the Christians and Druze and perhaps even the Shia Muslims a good slice of autonomy in the areas where they predominate.
But all ...