Tha’ir Ghandour has an interesting exclusive interview in today’s Al-Akhbar newspaper with an unnamed “security source close to Saad al-Hariri”. (There’s an English summary of the story here.) The gist of the source’s testimony is the following: In 2006, the Lebanese intelligence services uncovered evidence of the involvement of certain Hizbullah members in the Hariri … Continue reading
Is Prime Minister Hariri’s government about to be toppled? This is the main question on people’s minds in Lebanese policy circles, to gauge from various conversations I had in Washington DC this week. Certainly, all signs in Beirut point to the brewings of a major clash over the government’s support for the U.N. Special Tribunal … Continue reading
A week ago, Jamil al-Sayyed’s threats sounded like the rantings of Uncle Junior: unintelligible, inconsequential, and frankly a little embarrassing to the whole family. `Uqab Saqr (who seems to have become Saad al-Hariri’s unofficial spokesman) dismissed the ex-security chief as a mentally unbalanced has-been, and added that his threats do not reflect the positions of … Continue reading
The big news in Lebanese politics these days is Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri’s exoneration of Syria in the matter of his father’s assassination. Here’s the relevant section of last week’s interview in Al-Sharq al-Awsat: وقال الحريري: «فتحت صفحة جديدة في العلاقة مع سورية منذ تأليف الحكومة». وتابع: «يجب على المرء أن يكون واقعيا في هذه … Continue reading
Last month, I reviewed The Ghosts of Martyrs Square, Michael Young’s new book, for The Nation. Shortly after the review appeared, I got in touch with Mr. Young and invited him to expand upon certain themes from his book in the form of a QN interview. Very much looking forward to the discussion that follows. … Continue reading
And the people say…