More than a hundred dead, thousands injured and hundreds of thousands rendered homeless: The human toll of the massive explosions in Beirut last Tuesday demands an immediate response from the rest of the world. It is no exaggeration to say that many will die, or be permanently maimed, if succor doesn’t come quickly.
But the tragedy also puts the world’s leaders and lenders on the horns of a familiar dilemma: How to help a stricken people without empowering their shady — and sinister — rulers?
The quandary was raised recently in Iran, when the government of the Islamic Republic sought $5 billion from the International Monetary Fund to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. At the time, I argued that the regime in Tehran could not be trusted with cash: The risk was too great that the money would be siphoned into Iran’s well-established program of spreading terrorism and sectarian violence across the Middle East. Better to offer material help — food, medicine, doctors and nurses — instead.