Syria (barely) survived a civil war. Can it weather the latest financial crisis?
BEIRUT - A devastating war, relentless sanctions, a gutted economy under siege: All these have ground the Syrian pound down to a tenth of its value since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.
But it's the anti-government protests in neighboring Lebanon that may deliver the finishing blow to the pound. This week, it nose-dived to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since it began trading in 1919, threatening the collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government even as he and his allies have largely won the almost nine-year civil war.
The pound had traded at 47 to the dollar before the war. By the end of
