Book Review: The Lebanese Connection

By the third page of Jonathan Marshall’s new book, “The Lebanese Connection: Corruption, Civil War and the International Drug Traffic”, anyone who knows Lebanon can see why the book may be controversial. In one stroke of the pen, Marshall accuses modern Lebanon’s founding fathers Bechara el-Khoury and Riad el-Solh of profiting from the drug trade as they were putting together the pieces that is Lebanon today. By 1990, the glue that held those pieces together, and almost tore them apart, was hashish and heroin.  The Lebanese Connection is Marshall’s third book about drug trafficking, covering the history of the Lebanese drug industry, its supporters (both internal and external) and the extent to which it constituted a major linchpin in the global narcotics trade from independence until the end of the civil war. In doing so, Marshall runs the gauntlet of implicating major Lebanese families, politicians, political parties, banks, airlines, external