A year after the Beirut blast: still no bottom to Lebanon’s crisis

outside Mohammad Fahmi’s well-guarded house last month was a microcosm of Lebanon’s seemingly bottomless collapse. In the crowd were relatives of the more than 200 people killed in the catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port on August 4th 2020. They were furious that Mr Fahmi, the interior minister, was stonewalling the investigation into the blast by refusing to lift immunity for a general.It should not have been his decision to make. Mr Fahmi serves under a prime minister, Hassan Diab, who resigned last year. But Mr Diab and his cabinet lurch along in a caretaker role because Lebanon’s shambolic politicians cannot agree on a new government. When the crowds grew rowdy, they were pushed back by police whose wages, paid in the debased local currency, have shrivelled to less than $100 a month. They are agents of a bankrupt state—albeit one that can still afford tear gas.