Qifa Nabki
Arab Spring
Thinking About a Post-Conflict Syria
I recently caught up with a friend of mine, Camille Otrakji, who is the founder of Creative Syria, Mideast Image, and was a longtime blogger for Syria Comment before some… artistic differences emerged, right around the spring of 2011. Camille has been working on something called “The Syrian Dialogue Project” and I thought some readers might be interested in checking … Continue reading
A Political Solution in Syria: The Readership’s View
Last week, I asked readers to contribute their own views on a political solution in Syria, and promised to feature some of them in a subsequent post. As the Obama administration cracks heads and bends ears on Capitol Hill (with the help of a legion of AIPAC lobbyists) in the hope of winning Congressional approval … Continue reading
Syria: The Political Solution
My dear friend Sean Lee has written a great “open letter on Syria to Western narcissists” over at his blog, The Human Province, later picked up by The Huffington Post. He scratches an itch that’s been bugging me for years. Read it. The other piece to read this morning is Bassam Haddad’s interview with Democracy Now, which makes … Continue reading
Al-Qusayr: Salafist Emirate or Frontier of the Future Alawite State?
What exactly is happening in al-Qusayr? I have no idea, but I’m going to tell you what I think anyway, seeing as how the biggest beneficiaries of the media blackout on Syria are the bloggers, tweeters, and other distant readers whose impressionistic musings are based almost entirely on a process of triangulating between other second-hand … Continue reading
Ubiquitous Liberalism: Amr Shalakany on Law and Revolution in Egypt
I went to an excellent talk a couple nights ago at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, to hear the very talented legal scholar Amr Shalakany discuss his new book, Izdihār wa-Inhiyār al-Nukhba al-Qānūniyya al-Miṣriyya, 1805-2005 (“The Rise and Fall of the Egyptian Legal Elite, 1805-2005”). Amr is the Aga Khan Distinguished Visiting Professor of … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…