Lebanon after the civil war: Peace or the illusion of peace?

This article investigates the effectiveness of Lebanon's post-conflict strategies by exploring the "reconciliation" efforts that were undertaken after the war, and highlights the obstacles to such efforts. While Lebanon signed a peace agreement in October 1989 to officially end a 15-year civil war, today it is still a troubled country. Many have attributed Lebanon's inability to shed its conflict-prone past to its sectarian system; however, this article traces the ongoing instability, in part, to the failure of the government to deal effectively with the abuses of the civil war.