Qifa Nabki
Lebanon
New ICG Report On Syria
I try to read everything pertaining to the Middle East published by the International Crisis Group, and wanted to alert QN readers to its latest report on Syria, published today. The executive summary is posted below. Download the full report as a PDF here. Update: Part 2 can be found here. Reshuffling the Cards? (I): … Continue reading
Sleiman in Washington to Meet Obama Today
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman is in Washington today for an Oval Office ziyaara with President Barack Obama. Here’s what White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had to say about the visit: “The president looks forward to consulting with President Sleiman on a broad range of issues of mutual concern, including efforts to strengthen the bilateral relationship … Continue reading
Yes, Prime Minister?
Let’s not misunderestimate the man just because he’s not a 21st century Mutanabbi, alright? In fact, I feel sure that lurking beneath the halting phrases, garbled desinential inflection, and butchered vowel harmony lies a rhetorical brilliance, just waiting to reveal itself. As such, allow me to declaim the following panegyric in its honor…
Should Lebanon Default On Its Debt?
In addition to being responsible for Shakira, the biggest plate of hummus in the world, and Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, the Lebanese can be proud of another dubious distinction: their enormous national debt, which is said to be in the neighborhood of $47-52 billion. Measured per capita or as a percentage of GDP, it … Continue reading
The Turnstile Executive
Michael Young’s op-ed over at the Daily Star makes sense on the following point, I find: But right after shattering the jar of complacency on Hizbullah, Sfeir was asked about the abolition of political confessionalism. And here the patriarch fell back into a disposition that showed why, for all his qualities, he is no innovator. … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…