Among the less discussed symptoms of the collapsing Syrian state is the realigned trade balance with Lebanon. Before, everything from gasoline to eggs was sourced cheaply in Syria and sold lucratively in Lebanon, an equation amounting to a multi-billion-dollar trade deficit for Lebanon. Today, the balance of payments is much more even. In Syria, shortages and hobbled transportation networks are fuelling inflation and reversing the flow of goods. Another reason goods are moving the other way is the collapsing Syrian economic model. Subsidies, along with price and currency controls, have effectively vanished in much of the country as Syria is whipped from a centralized, state-controlled economy to a vicious, smuggling-based, no-holds-barred chaos form of ‘free’ market capitalism. Indeed, the centralized state authority is evaporating en masse, with the Kurds in the east asserting more autonomy, and sectarian fiefdoms forming where once there were mixed neighbors under one government. This is far
