Arab Spring

Alley Politics: Saad al-Hariri vs. Za’im al-Zaroubeh

Lina Khatib has an article in the Guardian today about the response of Lebanon’s Sunnis to the bloodshed in Syria, the violence in Tripoli, etc. It’s worth reading along with Mustapha Hamoui’s report for the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and his previous writings on the topic at his blog (here and here). Lina remarked on an interesting difference … Continue reading →

The Debate on Syria

Not too long ago, if one wanted to get into a debate about Syrian politics, there was really only one place to go: Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment blog, where I cut my teeth as a thread-lurker. The site’s comment boards played host to an international fraternity of political junkies: Arab nationalists, SSNP pan-Syrianists, Lebanese resistance supporters … Continue reading →

The Number One Sunni in Lebanon

Shortly after Najib Miqati became prime minister of Lebanon early last year, he went on Marcel Ghanem’s venerable political talk show, Kalam el-Nas.

Marcel asked him to respond to his opponents’ critique that he was not “Sunni enough” to assume the post from which Saad Hariri had been unceremoniously ejected by Hizbullah and its allies. Miqati responded with a hysterical tirade… Continue reading →

Satire & the Syrian Revolution

As it so happens, there are other things one can do with a camera phone during a revolution besides filming gun battles. I recently arrived late to a very good party, the party of Jiim Siin’s brilliant and wickedly satirical monologues about the Syrian uprising. Recorded on an iPhone by an anonymous Syrian fellow living … Continue reading →

The YouTube Revolution: Sorting Truth from Fiction in Syria

It has been said that CNN first achieved international prominence during Gulf War I, and that Al-Jazeera captured the attention of the West during Gulf War II. Is it too early to suggest that YouTube be crowned the leading news source for the Syrian revolution? Dip into my Twitter feed at any given moment, and … Continue reading →