Lebanon: A Country without a State?

Lebanon has an army, central bank, a president and prime minister. Yet, these state-like institutions mean surprisingly little to the life of the country.

The car came whizzing the wrong way up a one-way street, squeezing past the car in which I was sitting with millimeters to spare. "You have to get used to that here," explained one of my in-country hosts.

People describe Lebanon as a country without a state. That's a little too glib. Lebanon has an army and a central bank. Taxes are imposed, and often collected. There's a president and a prime minister and elections to select members of Parliament. It's just that these state-like institutions mean surprisingly little to the life of the country.

Schools and hospitals are run by religious or confessional organizations. The garbage is collected (when it is collected) by private companies using contract foreign labor.

For the single largest group of Lebanese, the Shia, Hezbollah is the government. It provides what services they get, enforces norms, keeps order, protects them from their enemies. After a visit to Hezbollah's political headquarters yesterday, a member of the group proudly boasted a woman could walk through any street in South Lebanon without fear of crime. He didn't add, although he could have: "provided of course she keeps her hair covered."

The thing the Lebanese state most conspicuously omits to do is protect Lebanon from its neighbors. Lebanon does not defend its sovereignty, which is disregarded by Iran and menaced by Syria. Lebanon exists as an independent country not because it pushes back from within, but because the forces pressing Lebanon from the outside balance each other out.

As Americans debate the role of government, it's worth remembering: you want your government small, but you also want it strong. It's a good saying, "A government big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take all you have." It's equally true that a government too weak to compel its citizens is also a government too weak to protect them.