Imagining a Viable Lebanon
“This country has no business being where it is,” said His Excellency Minister of Economy Amer Bisat.
That line was not staged. It came mid-thought, almost in passing, but resonated deeply across the room. Not because it was provocative, but because it was true.
On June 23, 2025, LAU convened a fireside conversation with Dr. Bisat, moderated by Dr. Fadi Nicholas Nassar, director of the Institute for Social Justice and Conflict Resolution. The high-level discussion marks the culmination of a grant generously provided by the Carnegie Corporation. For more than three years, this support allowed Dr. Nassar and Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab, director of the Institute for Migration Studies, to ask big questions about Lebanon’s concurrent crises and listen carefully to the answers.
Both institutes have produced more than 50 publications, held conferences across Lebanon and LAU’s campus in New York, launched fellowships for the next generation of scholars, and led far-reaching public opinion surveys in Lebanon since the war with Israel, in addition to focus group discussions with refugees, humanitarian actors and stakeholders to uncover what quantitative data alone could not.
The fireside chat was part of a broader conference titled Seizing Lebanon’s Moment: From Crisis to Renewal, which brought scholars from across the world to focus on the factors affecting households in the country, starting with the economy we live in to the hope of rebuilding. Reflecting the candor of the discussion, Dr. Bisat put it more plainly, “it is the future we deserve.”
The discussion moved deliberately through the structural questions facing Lebanon’s economy, between financial collapse, sovereign debt, the banking crisis and the limits of international support. It then dived deeper, connecting these urgent challenges with the political hurdles that have long sustained them.
Dr. Bisat made the case for a strategic vision that could respond to the country’s immediate needs and unlock its potential, including regional re-alignment, latent comparative advantages and the untapped assets of its labor force and educational institutions.
In his opening remarks, Senior Advisor to the President for Public Affairs Christian Oussi highlighted LAU’s determination amid crisis, war, and uncertainty to become the forum that can lead critical policy dialogue at a time when it is most needed. This message resonated deeply with the audience, featuring LAU President Chaouki T. Abdallah, senior leadership, ambassadors, academics, journalists, industry leaders and students who came together against the backdrop of crisis and regional escalation to listen, learn and participate in a conversation that touches them all.
Reinforcing LAU’s role not as a podium but a university committed to the truth, Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University Melani Cammett reminded the audience of the urgency and possibilities facing Lebanon and the realities it must confront if it aims to seize this moment.
From the event’s academic opening to the policy discussion that followed, one question loomed over every audience member, which Dr. Nassar kept returning to: Can this government meet the trust still extended to it and the responsibility that comes with carrying a nation’s hope for a better future?
It was a conversation enriched by data from a nationwide survey that ran on-screen and revealed the widespread belief in Lebanon. A fragile, but real belief that Lebanon can be saved. A belief that shapes fundamental decisions over whether to stay or leave Lebanon.
Dr. Bisat did not challenge the data. He leaned into it.
“Your imagination of what Lebanon should look like is not an unrealistic or naïve or romantic vision,” he said. “This country has no business being where it is. The Lebanon that you imagine is relatively easy to achieve with the labor force we have and the educational institutions we have.”
It was perhaps a rare public recognition: That realism, in this moment, is not about lowering expectations but rising to meet them.