Lebanon's working wounded - by Heather Stewart
The Israeli general who promised to 'take Lebanon back 20 years' may not have been speaking for his country's government, but many of the targets the military have chosen have a distinctly economic character. Roads, bridges and power stations have been destroyed, Beirut's spanking new airport has been left barely usable, and its normally bustling port has been completely blockaded. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora says there is now only enough oil left to last a week. The extremists' cause in Lebanon is unlikely to be harmed by this sense of economic, as well as physical, siege. You don't have to be a hardened Marxist to believe economic conditions shape politics ('it's the economy, stupid').
Weimar Germany, crippled by humbling reparations after the First World War, is an extreme case, but striking at a country's standard of living is always a blunt and dangerous weapon.
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