Goodbye to Beirut
Syria begins to acknowledge that it has outlived its welcome
IN THE ten years since Lebanon's civil war sputtered out, furious gentrification has airbrushed away most of the pockmarked, shell-shredded façades that had made Beirut a monument to human folly. With the hushed departure of 6,000 Syrian troops this week, the city shed one more reminder of its 1975-90 trauma.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Goodbye to Beirut”
From the June 23rd 2001 edition
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