2019 will be remembered for key political events including, the start of the partisan proceedings in the US Congress to impeach Donald J. Trump, the resounding election victory of the Tories in the UK, and the unprecedented democratic protests in HK. Closer to the Middle East, the milestones of 2019 will be split between the financial landmark of the quasi-successful Aramco IPO, the civilian protests in the streets of Iraq and Lebanon, and the saga of repeat-elections in Israel, which are starting to have a twist of the ‘Groundhog Day’ motion picture.On that latter chapter of pain and toil in the Levant, the story has just begun and the last weeks of the current year that were punctuated by the dual resignations of the respective PMs in Iraq and Lebanon, the joint naval exercises of Iran-China-Russia in the Gulf of Oman, and the most recent US strikes on Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq and Syria, do not bode well for the coming year.In a globalized world, it is difficult to dissociate such events. The US election in 2020 means that the US President will have his hands tied during the campaign. Thus, launching large scale military operations against Iran, as opposed to surgical strikes, will be difficult if not near impossible. The hawkish advisers in the WH such as Steve Bannon and John Bolton, who would have advocated a more robust retaliation, are no more. Add to that, the genuine aversion of this President, despite predictions to the contrary, to forays into foreign lands. He prefers to keep his ‘powder dry’ unless he is pushed to using it or is being paid to do so. Ask the Saudis and South Koreans and their answers would be in unison. In 2020, Russia looks to be more active in the Middle East, as it continues to prosecute its war against the opponents of the Assad regime in Syria, without any international recriminations.  Russia will keep the Eastern Mediterranean basin busy with war-like activities as it presses forward with its Nord Stream 2 project and secures its supply of natural gas into the EU. Syria will bear the brunt of Russia’s military meddling although the Libyan theater will not remain unscathed, thus reinforcing the views that gas from Russia is the safest and best supply route to Western Europe.From all the nations of the Middle East, the one to worry about the most in 2020, is Lebanon. At such critical time, Lebanon will have to face its demons all by itself: no US support, no brotherly love from the GCC, no EU tangible plan and no national unity to bring the country onto a possible path for recovery. Iran can offer Hezbollah few US Dollars and many missiles, but that is as far as the list goes. The national political class is gripped with apathy, a touch of idiocy and grave complete ignorance about financial matters. The elite class (bankers in its near majority) are complicit or implicated -one way or another- into the financial morass and do not favor any deal that would reduce to ashes their already wiped out equity. This brings to mind what John Kenneth Galbraith said about the Crash of 1929: “The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil.” Moreover, TVs are crammed with programs that feature self-appointed banking experts, economic gurus and even astrologers who have their own hair-brained plans for getting the country out of the fix. Unofficial spokespersons of the ‘street revolt’ are bickering among themselves. They are split between a group of opportunists who see their newly acquired fame a bridge for a ministerial position, and a group of idealists who want to revive the failed dreams of socialism. Ordinary people in the streets are helpless and continue to blame the ruling elite whilst asking for change, but change without a clear & radical transformation in the political culture of Lebanon would not do them any good.Fixing this nation does not start by fixing the financial problems only,