As if Lebanon needed the news, the international rating agency Moody’s downgraded the outlook for the country’s banking sector – giving it a negative grade after it had managed to remain stable. Moody’s explicitly cited the unrest in Syria as one of the principal reasons for its decision, although uprisings and instability in other parts of the Arab world also played a role.

The news is not something to take lightly, or dismiss with one of the usual cliches, such as “things are bad everywhere.” It is true that conditions are less than ideal in a wide range of countries, and that the United States and European countries have been hit with similar downgrades. But while those states have much more efficient regional and international cooperation to rely on, as they seek to weather their political and economic turbulence, Lebanese politicians lack such tools.

They and the business community are looking down the barrel at several unappealing fronts, and must pull together to salvage the overall economic situation.

Naturally, there is a general problem with the slowdown in domestic growth. The proposed 2012 state budget involves a higher deficit, and the government is now tackling the issue of an across-the-board wage increase, which will only increase expenditures further. Another domestic component is the high national debt, which itself should prompt officials to generate real solutions to minimize the effect of this burden on economic activity, instead of engaging in intra-Cabinet fighting.

On the regional front, despite the brave faces, the unrest in Syria has affected the economy. Only a trickle of tourists are arriving by land these days, due to the security situation in Syria, and the Bekaa has suffered from the drying up of transit and the flow of goods with Lebanon’s eastern neighbor.

Moody’s latest pronouncements should be taken as a serious warning in such a climate, as the government finds itself with fewer and fewer tools to compensate.

While ministers push through massive spending projects, which are needed, they must also be smart enough to figure out where additional revenues will come from. In the past, loans from the region, especially the Gulf, were more plentiful; there are also more international restrictions on the operations of Lebanese banks, one of the pillars of the economy.

Politicians and business leaders must study the problem seriously and waste less time on petty disputes and struggles for influence. A government that was supposedly free of the burden of having “national unity” partners has squandered its momentum to put Lebanon’s house in order.

Officials have repeatedly reassured the Lebanese that they would be spared the turbulence of the global economy, or the political unrest in the region. But it’s now time to face facts and come up with solutions, not further verbal sparring and political pyrotechnics.