Qifa Nabki
Middle East
Defense Strategy, STL, Democracy
A few notes: 1. Defense strategy: Mara Karlin, the former Pentagon Levant director, has an interesting piece about U.S. military assistance to Lebanon, in The Daily Star: “One year ago, my first effort after leaving the US Defense Department was to publish a piece in a major Israeli newspaper explaining why Israel should support a … Continue reading
Tribunal Investigators in Lebanon for 3D Filming
That’s right, folks. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has dispatched a team of 3D filmmakers to Lebanon to shoot a sequel to Avatar set in downtown Beirut. Or something like that. There have been several notable items in the press over the past week about Hezbollah. Rather than spending an hour trying to figure … Continue reading
3000 Years Building Jerusalem…
In a speech given at AIPAC on Monday night, Benjamin Netanyahu declared to a roaring crowd: “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement; It’s our capital.” The game of chicken continues. As Netanyahu continues to pursue a hard line on the … Continue reading
UN Sanctions on Iran: How Should Lebanon Vote?
As Michael Young points out in his column in The Daily Star today, there’s a decent chance that Lebanon will soon find itself in a bit of a tight spot vis-à-vis the proposed UN resolution to sanction Iran. Apparently, Obama administration officials believe that they can persuade China to get onboard, which would then put … 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…