Qifa Nabki
Hezbollah
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
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
UN Sanctions on Iran: How Should Lebanon Vote?
As Michael Young points out in his column in The Daily Star today, there’s a decent chance that Lebanon will soon find itself in a bit of a tight spot vis-à-vis the proposed UN resolution to sanction Iran. Apparently, Obama administration officials believe that they can persuade China to get onboard, which would then put … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…