A big blast should lead to big change in Lebanon

SO POWERFUL WAS the explosion that rocked Beirut on August 4th that people in Cyprus, 240km (150 miles) away, thought they had suffered an earthquake. Scores of people died and thousands were injured in the blast, which left the port in ruins. The Lebanese government says it was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which can be used as fertiliser or as an explosive (see ). This appears to have been confiscated years ago from an abandoned Russian-owned cargo ship heading to Mozambique. Customs officials proposed exporting the stuff, giving it to the army or selling it to an explosives company—but they needed the judiciary’s approval. Their repeated requests were met with silence. So the material sat in a warehouse at the port.What kind of government leaves a mountain of explosive chemicals lying around unsafely for the better part of a decade? The same kind that cannot agree on a budget for 11 years and that let its central bank run a Ponzi scheme to defend its unrealistic currency peg. The kind which is so deluded that it relies on aid, loans and remittances, spending far more than it collects in taxes. The kind that is controlled by an out-of-touch elite who fiddle and extort while the economy burns. In short, it is the government of Lebanon—and it is in desperate need of reform.