Qifa Nabki
Qifa Nabki
The Prodigal Son
As many of you know, the Lebanese-Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helou was in Lebanon last week meeting with political and business leaders and discussing various projects of interest. Slim, who recently regained his title as the World’s Richest Man, was given a medal by Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman, and fêted in the Lebanese press for … Continue reading
Axis(tential) Questions
A couple of days ago, I sat in on a lecture about Nasser’s foreign policy in the 1950’s-60’s, and the importance of regional axes in the Cold War world. It left me wondering about the extent to which we still live in such a world today, at least as far as Middle East politics are … Continue reading
National Dialogue
Today, Lebanon launched the first session of its much-anticipated “national dialogue” talks. The meeting, held under the auspices of President Michel Suleiman at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, lasted two hours, and everyone who is anyone was there: Hariri, Jumblatt, Aoun, Geagea, Frangieh, Raad (representing Nasrallah), etc. In most other countries, two hours would be … Continue reading
The End of Political Confessionalism in Lebanon?
Many thanks to everyone for all of their kind words and well wishes about the new baby: both mother and daughter are doing very well. As noted yesterday, I will not be at the Safadi/POMED event in Washington tomorrow, but you should still plan on going to hear Mona Yacoubian and Jared Cohen speak about … Continue reading
Washington Update
Hi folks: For those of you planning to attend the Safadi/POMED event that I was going to speak at on Friday in Washington, alas, I won’t be able to make it, because last night I became the proud father of another beautiful baby girl! (Two and a half weeks early.) As far as I know, … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…