Qifa Nabki
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Nasrallah To Discuss Hariri Tribunal Tonight
Hizbullah secretary-general Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah will be interviewed this evening on al-Manar at 21:30 PM Beirut time (14:30 PM EST, 18:30 GMT). I expect it to be an important exchange, and the choice of an interview format (rather than a formal address) may suggest that Nasrallah is aiming to defuse tensions resulting from all the … Continue reading
David Lesch on Bashar’s Fence-Hopping
I recommend this piece by David Lesch, a Syria specialist and confidante of President Bashar al-Assad, for Foreign Policy’s Mideast channel. Lesch makes a similar point to the one I made on this blog a few weeks ago, only to earn the ridicule of many of my Syria Comment buddies (!) Here are the crucial … Continue reading
Defense Strategy, STL, Democracy
A few notes: 1. Defense strategy: Mara Karlin, the former Pentagon Levant director, has an interesting piece about U.S. military assistance to Lebanon, in The Daily Star: “One year ago, my first effort after leaving the US Defense Department was to publish a piece in a major Israeli newspaper explaining why Israel should support a … Continue reading
Secret Witnesses in the Hariri Investigation?
Check out this story by Jean Aziz in al-Akhbar. What I’m wondering is where the TV station got the information about the route that the “secret informant” traveled after the interview with the STL investigators, among other things. I’ve posted an English translation of part of the article below, courtesy of Mideastwire. (I’ll fill in … Continue reading
Tribunal Investigators in Lebanon for 3D Filming
That’s right, folks. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has dispatched a team of 3D filmmakers to Lebanon to shoot a sequel to Avatar set in downtown Beirut. Or something like that. There have been several notable items in the press over the past week about Hezbollah. Rather than spending an hour trying to figure … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…