Abstract
The states of the Arab East have always experienced challenging political and social issues mainly inherited from their creation by Great Powers after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the Western organizational model of the time, i.e. nation-state, poorly fitted the regional realities. The concept had no historical antecedent in the political culture of Islam and neglected the sectarian component of the area. Lebanon was no exception. Since its independence in 1943, the country's growing instability ultimately led to the breakout of the civil war in 1975, which only really ended with the Taif Agreement fourteen years later. 1975 underlined a major shift in the perception of Lebanon abroad . Once thought as a liberal and tolerant state, dealing relatively efficiently with a deeply multi-confessional society, it became the symbol of political instability and radicalism.
