Qifa Nabki
Syria
Camille Otrakji and Elias Muhanna Talk Syria at Bloggingheads.tv (Part II)
I recorded another segment with Camille Otrakji for Bloggingheads about Syria. Some of you may remember the first conversation we had last year, and the interview I did with Camille (which generated 724 comments). In this discussion, we look at the deepening conflict and what — if anything — can be done to bring the … Continue reading
Syria’s Man in Lebanon Goes Downtown
Here’s a quick postmortem I’ve written for Al-Monitor on the very strange news of former minister Michel Samaha’s detainment yesterday by Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces. First paragraphs below, then much more after the jump. Three Reasons Why Syria’s Man in Lebanon Was Arrested (Al-Monitor) What to make of today’s arrest of former Lebanese minister Michel … Continue reading
What WikiLeaks Tells Us About Assad’s Foreign Policy Record
Al-Akhbar has published an article of mine about the Assad regime’s relations with the West and its foreign policy objectives, as revealed by the original WikiLeaks cache of US diplomatic cables. Needless to say, this article is a response of sorts to Amal Saad-Ghorayeb’s multi-part series which argues that Arab intellectuals should support Assad because … Continue reading
On Revolutions, Past and Present
Thomas Babington Macaulay, the British historian and politician, once had this to say about the French Revolution and its discontents (as Roy Mottahedeh reminds us in the preface to his The Mantle of the Prophet): “A traveller falls in with a berry which he has never before seen. He tastes it, and finds it sweet and … Continue reading
Al-Akhbar and Syria
I’m in Beirut for a couple of weeks, and as usual, the blogging takes a back seat to seeing family, catching up with friends, and fulfilling my craving for hindbeh bzeit, shish barak, and chicken livers in pomegranate syrup. However… I have been working on a piece about Amal Saad-Ghorayeb’s recent articles on “Third Way” intellectuals … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…