Qifa Nabki
Qifa Nabki
Whither Syria?
Back in June 2005, Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment blog ran a post entitled “Whither Syria?” in which Josh discussed a recent article by Sami Moubayed characterizing President Bashar al-Asad’s liberalization attempts as a kind of Syrian “glasnost”. Moubayed concluded his piece by saying: As the press became more open in the USSR, the Soviets, just … Continue reading
Feltman to Speak at Harvard
Apologies for the radio silence over the past week. I was in New Orleans attending the annual conference of the American Comparative Literature Association, and the lure of great music, great seafood, and great company proved more irresistible than Lebanese politics. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, … Continue reading
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
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…