Qifa Nabki
Hezbollah
Hizbullah Celebrates the Fall of al-Qusayr
I was about to publish a post this morning about the different scenarios of a post-conflict Syria and their implications for Hizbullah, but someone sent me this photo and I couldn’t resist posting it. What we have here is the scene of a couple Hizbullah volunteers handing out candies in celebration of the fact that … Continue reading
Hizbullah and Rational Choice
“What matters is not what the Gentiles will say, but what the Jews will do.” — David Ben Gurion When Hizbullah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah admitted last week that his party was militarily involved in the Syrian conflict, the news seemed to deepen the cognitive dissonance initially caused by Nasrallah’s vocal support for the Syrian … Continue reading
Al-Qusayr: Salafist Emirate or Frontier of the Future Alawite State?
What exactly is happening in al-Qusayr? I have no idea, but I’m going to tell you what I think anyway, seeing as how the biggest beneficiaries of the media blackout on Syria are the bloggers, tweeters, and other distant readers whose impressionistic musings are based almost entirely on a process of triangulating between other second-hand … Continue reading
Dissertation Prizes, Fake Twitter Followers, and Imad Mughniyyeh
The semester is drawing to a close, and I’m looking forward to a long summer of book research and some more consistent blogging. A couple quick notes: Syria Offed Imad Mughniyeh? Check out this Foreign Policy article about the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh. The author, Mark Perry, promises a big reveal and doesn’t fully deliver but … Continue reading
On Syria, What Separates Assir From Hizbullah & Hariri?
Everyone is wringing their hands over Lebanese Salafist leader Shaykh Ahmad al-Assir’s call to send jihadists to help Syria’s rebels. On Monday, he announced the formation of resistance battalions that were prepared to join the side of the uprising, saying: “There is a religious duty on every Muslim who is able to do so… to … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…