The Comparisons Between Lebanon’s Civil War and America’s Situation Now Are a Step Too Far

The Comparisons Between Lebanon’s Civil War and America’s Situation Now Are a Step Too Far

Time was in the 1990s, even after 2000, that any country in danger of political chaos or “implosion” – a word I still instinctively loath, along with “epicentre” – was in danger of being “Lebanised”.   Djibouti would become “the Beirut of the Horn of Africa” and the Balkans, inevitably, subject to “Lebanonisation”. For a…

Doubt is a Treacherous Path. We Must Avoid Being Diverted Towards Terminal Cynicism

Doubt is a Treacherous Path. We Must Avoid Being Diverted Towards Terminal Cynicism

What I think of as the cynical left are once again berating the progressive critical left, myself included, for failing to write what they want written about Covid-19. I take this as a kind of unintended compliment: that they think we can write about their concerns better than they can themselves. But even if I…