Qifa Nabki
Syria
The Eagle Strikes Back: Okab Sakr vs. al-Akhbar & OTV
My, my, my… what a tangled web we weave. The embattled Lebanese MP Okab Sakr treated us to a dizzying piece of political theater today (reminiscent in all of its finger-pointing and high inflection to the most spirited performances of the great master himself) and promised that there would be more to come, thereby threatening … Continue reading
Okab Sakr, Purveyor of Fine Armaments & Explosives
It’s a little late in the game for me to hide the fact that I’ve long cultivated an unhealthy obsession with Okab Sakr and his formidable rhetorical skills. His performances on the Lebanese evening talk show circuit are the stuff of legend (see here and here for only a couple of my purplest paeans to … Continue reading
Syria’s Culture War
Here’s a recording of a short interview I did with the Watson Institute for International Studies here at Brown University. I wrote about some of these themes in a piece for the Times last year (“Syria’s Defecting Bloggers”), which you can find here, and have generally been interested in the problems of representing reality in … Continue reading
Was Michel Samaha Set Up by Wissam al-Hassan?
There are several conspiracy theories swirling around about the reasons for Wissam al-Hassan’s assassination (and even about whether or not he was even killed in the explosion on Friday…Some are apparently claiming that he was actually killed on the border between Turkey and Syria, and that the explosion last week was a false flag operation … Continue reading
Einstein & the Jackass (Or, the Brilliance of Nadim Koteich)
Sincere apologies for neglecting you all for the past couple weeks, but it seems that you’ve gotten along in the comment section very happily without me. Thanks for a great debate about Syria, and thanks to Camille for sharpening his knives and joining in. There are a million things to talk about and I have lots … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…