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“Politics is the daughter of history, and history is the daughter of geography, and geography is constant and immutable” – (Napoleon Bonaparte).
Lebanon’s banking system plays a critical role in the national economy, as banks still dominate the country’s financial system and are the main funders of people and institutions. The Lebanese Republic was financially linked to France before independence in 1943, then the aforementioned system became a center for the transfer of “petrodollar” money, that is, the Gulf states, in their foreign trade operations, together with the activity of the “transit line”. From Lebanon, to Iraq and the Gulf, passing through the Syrian territories.
In the context of following the development of this system over the past decades, Gulf money has started to atrophy in Lebanese banks, since the creation of commercial banks in the Gulf countries in the 1970s, and the banking system Dubai today is the largest of the Arab banking systems.
Therefore, it is evident that there is no interest from the Gulf and the Emirates in particular in reestablishing the currently weak Lebanese banking system, especially in light of the expansion of the “wave of normalization of the Gulf and the same with the Israeli enemy” . The Gulf states can establish free commercial transportation lines between themselves and the region, through occupied Palestinian ports. Here, a strategic reference confirms that the goal of hitting the banking sector and then destroying the port is to erase Lebanon’s role and its historic role in the region and the world.
Faced with this reality, and after losing confidence in Lebanese banks, as a result of the United States’ financial blockade of Lebanon, the effect of the liquidation of the “Jamal Trust Bank”, and then the outbreak of protests and riots at the end of 2019, that affected Lebanese banks, a researcher in international relations assures that Lebanon has no way to ease the weight of the economic crisis it is suffering, except to open up to Syria and re-develop relations with it, especially in terms of concluding agreements. economic interests that are of interest to the two countries, as established in the Treaty of Fraternity, Cooperation and Coordination signed in May 1991.
The researcher does not rule out the possibility that Lebanon will transform, with respect to Syria, into a situation similar to “Hong Kong” for China in economic terms, if concerned officials in Lebanon have the courage to accept reconciliation with geography, he said. . In other words, Lebanon, with its free economic and financial system, can constitute an economic-financial window for Syria in the world, and it needs it to help emerge from its crisis, and Lebanon benefits from Syrian financial transfers, especially since the Syrian elites did not allow the establishment of a capitalist financial system. It controls the articulations of the Syrian national economy, as is the case in Lebanon, with the aim of protecting the productive sectors (industry and agriculture) from any form of monopoly and speculation, at the cost of the lives of citizens. Likewise, agricultural and industrial products can be exchanged between the two countries, but the matter depends on the initiative of those interested in Lebanon to take that step, otherwise we are going to the famine of 1914, as he himself put it, the researcher concludes.
Furthermore, the reestablishment of relations between the two countries, in accordance with the Treaty of Fraternity, Cooperation and Coordination, also limits smuggling operations, and here a high-ranking diplomat working on the line of relationship between the two countries points out that some Syrian industrial and agricultural products enter Lebanon through smuggling crossings. From here, the voices of the monopoly traders of the aforementioned products are calling out loud to close the smuggling steps between the two countries, under the pretext of combating tax evasion. The aforementioned diplomat warns that the Lebanese economy is destined for “free fall”, and that there is no partial and temporary solution in front of the interested parties in the two male countries, except to go to mixed marriage in the economies of the two countries. , and then develop it to form an economic confederation in the strategic term, if the stakeholders accept the reality Geography. The beginning of the road may be through the remodeling of the Treaty of Fraternity and Cooperation, especially in the economic aspect of it.
In the same context, Syrian political sources confirm that smuggling usually takes place “without demand”, that is, according to needs, for example, the consumer market needs gasoline and a quantity is smuggled. Sources claim that smuggling does not establish joint projects or economic ventures, considering that the solution to remedy the repercussions of the financial collapse in Lebanon and the economic malaise in Syria is to establish a common market between Lebanon and Syria, which can be expanded to include others. Arab countries later, and this is without the slightest form. It helps to ensure the total or partial sufficiency of consumer goods.
Sources pointed out that the most effective way to re-develop relations between the two countries, especially economic ones, is through the reactivation of the Treaty of Fraternity and Coordination, which included the abolition of customs duties on consumer goods. agreed. In addition to the exchange of experiences and work between the two countries, the sources conclude.
On the other hand, Lebanese academic sources believe that establishing a common market with Syria at the present time, when it is exposed to US sanctions, will inevitably be counterproductive to the economic and security situation in Lebanon, and the Americans will multiply all kinds of pressures. , especially economic and security, about the country.
Sources consider that the difficult conditions that Lebanon is going through are supposed to constitute an incentive to reactivate the different productive sectors that comprise it, agriculture, industry, livestock and poultry … and in case this begins to To happen, Lebanon will embark on the path to a productive rather than rentier economy.
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