Fueling Lebanon’s oil delusions

ENAR

Those attending the official launch of Lebanon’s first licensing round for offshore oil and gas exploration on Tuesday may have been forgiven for thinking they had walked into a Gebran Bassil fan club convention. The session opened with an unintentionally comical animated video of the minister’s fantasy for a future Lebanon. During “A father’s journey… A nation’s dream”, the viewer was led by the minister of energy and water as he guided his son through a utopian vision of Lebanon freed from so many of the ills that currently burden this dilapidated country.  See also: Gebran Bassil – Lebanon's divisive power player The car seller of Kabul In this glorious vision the minister’s hometown of Batroun had been protected and developed as a picture postcard of Lebanese heritage, Beirut had a modern metro system, a sleek railway sped along the pristine coastline liberated from the existing “private infringements”, Beirut river