Qifa Nabki
Bashar al-Assad
Whither Syria?
Back in June 2005, Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment blog ran a post entitled “Whither Syria?” in which Josh discussed a recent article by Sami Moubayed characterizing President Bashar al-Asad’s liberalization attempts as a kind of Syrian “glasnost”. Moubayed concluded his piece by saying: As the press became more open in the USSR, the Soviets, just … Continue reading
David Lesch on Bashar’s Fence-Hopping
I recommend this piece by David Lesch, a Syria specialist and confidante of President Bashar al-Assad, for Foreign Policy’s Mideast channel. Lesch makes a similar point to the one I made on this blog a few weeks ago, only to earn the ridicule of many of my Syria Comment buddies (!) Here are the crucial … Continue reading
Syria Walks the Tightrope
What is it with Bashar al-Assad? One minute, he’s clinking champagne glasses in celebration of Syria’s return to America’s good graces, and the next minute he’s raising a toast with Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah at a Resistance Reunion. The don’t-trust-Syria crowd is having a field day. There’s something deeply puzzling about this man. Until recently, I … Continue reading
Choices, choices…
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman just returned from a productive trip to Russia. Apparently, he modified Lebanon’s earlier request for a fleet of MiG-29’s, replacing them with an order for several Mi-24 attack helicopter gunships. A sensible idea, to my mind, given the fact that a MiG-29 can fly the length of Lebanon in 6 minutes, … Continue reading
Game-Changer: Nasrallah Announces a New Hezbollah Deterrence Strategy
What began as an apparent mistranslation of Ehud Barak’s remarks regarding Israel’s peace negotiations with Syria has snowballed into the clearest possible articulation of a new strategic posture by Syria and Hezbollah towards Israel. Let’s rewind the tape to last week. On February 1st, Ehud Barak made some remarks at an IDF gathering, saying something … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…