“It was 2018 in Beirut. The October 17, 2019, uprising was still months away. The Ponzi scheme that would steal our money from the Central Bank—masterminded by Riad Salameh and benefiting the corrupt political elite—hadn’t imploded yet. COVID hadn’t struck. The war in Syria seemed to have settled, with Assad clinging to power thanks to Nasrallah, Putin, and Khamenei.”
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