Isn't Beirut, like Alexandria and Sarajevo, a victim of the very openness and tolerance that have made it such a special place?

I just read Robert Fisk's piece about Beirut, as incorporated in Howie's post below.

I've never been there, and don't suppose I would ever have gotten there even if there were still a "there" to get to. But I've often felt the pull of the spirit of openness, diversity and tolerance Beirut has long represented, and have often felt that this spirit, rather than any "curse," is what has repeatedly doomed the city.

It's something in human nature that we have to acknowledge—something that can't abide openness, diversity and tolerance, that insists it not be allowed to survive. It's a feeling you get too when you read about the mostly destroyed old city of Alexandria, and more particularly a feeling I had while the world watched Sarajevo, another famous (or perhaps notorious?) flashpoint of openness, diversity and tolerance, reduced to rubble in furtherance of sectarian insanity.

Does everyone remember how recently the great triumph of forcing Syria out of Lebanon was being hailed as vindication of the so-called Bush doctrine of worldwide Americanization, as a key step in the passage to freedom of the Middle East? I don't suppose the neocon loons who were crowing back then have hung around to take a bow. And there seems hardly any point in asking them for an apology. Would that do the suffering non-Hezbollah Lebanese any good?

The only hope for Lebanon now is that all of the parties to "the troubles" become fatigued enough with destruction to turn their interest elsewhere. Because, to quote once again Mags' recent observation here:

[T]he very people charged with fixing this are the very people who benefit from it. They will not suffer as the people suffer. Their motivations are financial and political.