The people, not warlords, should choose the president

Driving around Beirut last month, older Lebanese could have been forgiven for feeling a little nostalgic. Across the city, hundreds of cheaply produced posters of former President Fouad Chehab appeared, each encouraging him to return to the top job this month. This seems unlikely, since Chehab died in 1973, but it is worth remembering a time when Lebanon’s politicians were made of sterner stuff. Throughout his period in government, Chehab succeeded in growing the country by reaching out to the best-educated Lebanese across the world. They brought their skills home and joined the public administration as part of a great nation-building exercise. At that time, working for the country’s state universities, civil service and other areas was something to be proud of, and it paid people appropriately. In the mid-1980s, all that changed. A decade into the civil war, the Lebanese lira collapsed. As the violence became more vicious and