On Nov. 10, 1942, after the victory at El Alamein in Egypt, Winston Churchill cautioned those rushing to proclaim triumph: "This was not the end. It was not even the beginning of the end. But, it was perhaps the end of the beginning." His realism would prove justified amid the dramatic events and enormous sacrifices that followed before the unconditional surrender of the "axis of evil" three years later.On April 24, 2025, in a vastly different and far less dramatic context, Lebanon’s Parliament, under pressure from the international community, was forced to dismantle the final defenses shielding three decades of silence surrounding endemic corruption and abusive privileges. Banking secrecy — long considered an impenetrable "fortress" — finally fell by knockout, after two preparatory rounds in the previous...