My Beirut Chronicles

Lebanon has been without a president for over two years. But has it been two year or much longer than that – forty years to be precise? Wasn’t Sleiman Frangieh, elected in 1970, the last president that actually had a true executive role as head of state? Let’s look back.

History repeats itself, they say. If you ever doubted that, look closely at Lebanon, s ee how it’s stuck in some nightmarish version of Groundhog Day , without the cute furry animal and the genius of Bill Murray. Here’s a rare recording of a radio broadcast by playwright icon Ziad Rahbani , probably soon after the Lebanese civil war. Still, it’s as relevant as it gets and could have been written and broadcasted this very morning.

Iran is about to become a nuclear power, but it could also have been a beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East, if the West didn’t suck it resources dry for so long and didn’t meddle in its internal affairs. At the turn of the 20th century, while Arabs were still under the Ottoman boot, Iran witnessed a democratic revolution that turned the absolute monarchy into a constitutional one, and aimed at transforming the country into a rich independent nation. Back then, the country resources were divided between Great Britain and Russia. Both reckoned that a democratic Iran was against their interests. So they worked together to crush the democratic movement and bring back the absolute monarchy.

One year without a president… But is it only one year? Isn’t it much more than that?  Isn’t it really forty years without a president? Wasn’t Sleiman Frangieh, elected in 1970, the last president that actually had a true executive role as head of state? Let’s look back. In April 1975, the so-called Lebanese civil war starts. In 1976, as the presidential term of Sleiman Frangieh – Syrian president Hafez el-Assad ’s personal friend – comes to an end, the Syrian army enters Lebanon. As a successor to his friend, Hafez el-Assad imposes a consensual president, Central Bank governor Elias Sarkis . But Sarkis is just a figurehead and doesn’t have much effective authority. He barely manages to give some dignity to a crumbling and powerless State.