Lebanon, one of the world's smaller sovereign…
2003 CE
Lebanon, one of the world's smaller sovereign states and one of the most densely populated countries in the Mediterranean area, is a Middle East trouble spot with problems in dire need of a solution.
As an Arab republic, Lebanon shares many of the cultural characteristics of the Arab world, yet it has attributes that differentiate it from many of its Arab neighbors.
Its rugged, mountainous terrain has served throughout history as an asylum for diverse religious and ethnic groups and for political dissidents.
Arabic is the official language, but French and English are widely spoken; the country has one of the highest rates of literacy.
A small percentage of the population is Armenian-speaking, and Syriac is used in some of the churches of the Maronites (Roman Catholics following an Eastern rite).
In the wake of the Lebanese civil war that devastated the country form 1975 to the early 1990s, Sunnite, Shi'ite, and Christian factions vied for political power within Lebanon's revived constitutional framework.
The pro-Iranian Shi'ite group Hezbollah, founded during the early 1980s, aspired to eliminate Israeli influence from the country and replaced the PLO as Israel's principal antagonist in southern Lebanon, waging a vigorous war against the Jewish state even after that country's final withdrawal from Lebanon in mid-2000.
Seeking to develop a broader base in the 1990s, Hezbollah became increasingly active in Lebanon's coalition politics and established its own social, medical, and educational infrastructure to serve its supporters.