Qifa Nabki
Syria
No Deal on Lebanon Tribunal: Opposition Set to Bring Down Hariri Government
NOTE: This piece is being updated as the story develops. Updates will be added to the bottom of the post. See below. The Lebanese opposition led by Hizbullah is expected to resign from PM Saad al-Hariri’s cabinet later today. Coupled with the resignation of one additional “neutral” minister, the Hariri government would be brought down … Continue reading
Justice in the Bazaar
The Syrian-Saudi negotiations over the fate of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) are a persistent topic in the Arab press these days. According to an interview with Saad al-Hariri which will appear tomorrow in al-Hayat, an agreement about how to mitigate the STL’s repercussions has already been reached, and is just waiting implementation on … Continue reading
Questions Raised about CBC Hariri Exposé
The ink has hardly dried on the CBC report about the Hariri investigation, and I’ve already heard at least two substantive critiques of it, which I thought I’d share with you. The first comes from T_DESCO, a smart commenter at Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment blog, who has been following the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) … Continue reading
Lynch and the Lebanese Zombie
I rarely get a chance to disagree with my friend Marc Lynch about Middle Eastern politics, so when I read his most recent article about the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), I thought I’d jump at the chance. Here are the three basic arguments: The STL has credibility problems. In its early stages, it blamed … Continue reading
Who’s Afraid of a False Witness?
The “false witness” issue has gone from being a conspiratorial throw-away line in one of Nasrallah’s early summer speeches, to a full-blown scandal involving several arrest warrants from the Syrian judiciary, and threats by Lebanese opposition parties to boycott cabinet sessions until the issue is resolved. Who is to blame for this fiasco? While it … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…