The tendency among many Lebanese today is to deride the Independence Intifada of 2005. This is a result of the…
Author: Michael Young
For years a lubricious rumor had circulated about Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai. A Lebanese author in Paris, Antoine Basbous, has,…
To capture the essence of the Syrian regime’s behavior today, a very useful place to start is W. H. Auden’s…
The recent violence in Egypt between Copts and the Egyptian army, with its sectarian overtones, poured ice on the high…
Among the more dismal displays in recent weeks has been that of governments openly expressing their support for the regime…
This week the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa, citing sources at the Maronite patriarchate in Bkirki, reported that relations between France and…
To write that Walid Jumblatt is shifting political direction is a conspicuous waste of perfectly good words. Changeability, we know,…
If reverse had multiple gears, Beshara Rai would be shifting into fourth about now. Since his return from France last…
Perhaps I’m alone, but in recent months almost no significant remark from Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai has failed to disappoint…
In 2009, at the death of David Dodge, a former president of the American University of Beirut, I wrote that…
For a party that repeats how unconcerned it is with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Hezbollah spends much time showing…
Among the more dismal spectacles in an already dismal political landscape is that of Michel Aoun talking about Syria. In…
The Obama administration has embraced evasion and self-delusion in dealing with the ongoing repression in Syria. Until now it has…
Last Saturday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, did more to discredit Prime Minister Najib Mikati than did all the…
Imagine, for a thrilling moment, that you are an Arab autocrat. Your regime has just crumbled all around you and…
The visit to Lebanon of Jeffrey Feltman, the US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, is another visible…
Today, President Barack Obama, in what is being described by administration officials as “a major address,” will talk about the…
Strangely, there has been uneasiness among some Lebanese Christians at the prospect that the Syrian regime might collapse amid popular…
Who truly regrets the assassination of Osama bin Laden? There are those of us who never saw the Al-Qaeda founder…
On Wednesday, Syria got a reprieve at the United Nations Security Council, when Russia, China and Lebanon opposed condemnation of…
The Obama administration’s policy toward Syria has been narrowly portrayed as vacillating between heart and mind. On the one side…
Among the more idiosyncratic innovations of dictatorships is the mass demonstration in favor of the regime. Normally, countries organize elections…
Two developments in the past 24 hours, one inside Lebanon, the other in neighboring Syria, have the potential to exacerbate…
Bishop Beshara Rai, who was elected Maronite patriarch on Tuesday to succeed Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, has declared that his tenure…
Consider for one moment the savagery in Libya this week, when Moammar Gadhafi unleashed his jets, helicopter gunships, and artillery…
Reading between the lines of NOW Lebanon’s interview this week with François Roux, the head of the defense office at…
One thing has been intriguing me since the beginning of the popular revolts in Tunisia and Egypt. Why is it…
Despite the talk of a “coup” circulating in recent days in March 14’s ranks, Saad Hariri and his allies must…
While there is still some doubt as to what will happen next Monday, when President Michel Sleiman will call for…
Two questions are essential in approaching the events of the past week in Lebanon. The first is, Can Syria can…
Did the opposition fall into a trap by bringing down the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri? Did the United…
Michel Aoun has announced the end of the Syrian-Saudi initiative, with no results. “[W]e’ve reached a dead end,” said the…
The decision of President Barack Obama to make a series of recess appointments that, among other things, sent Robert Ford…
The Syrian-Saudi initiative is like the abominable snowman. Some people claim to have seen it; some can even describe it.…
Recently, the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, offered up an interpretation that he has frequently repeated since moving closer to Syria…
Little attention was paid last week to an Al-Hayat interview with the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Ghadanfar Roknabadi, particularly what…
Last week an amusing rumor circulated in Beirut. It went like this: The former head of the General Security Directorate,…
Hezbollah has been spreading word that it may soon implement an apocalyptic scenario to prevent Lebanese collaboration with the Special…
The rhetoric of Hizbullah representatives lately has been so extreme, so contrary to the conventions of courteous political exchange in…
Walid Jumblatt has been apocalyptic in predicting what lies ahead for Lebanon. The Druze leader may be overstating things, but…
Once a year, on September 14, members of the Gemayel family and supporters gather in Achrafieh to commemorate the assassination…
We can say of Daniel Bellemare, the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, that he is like the proverbial…
If there were doubts that the rivalry between Syria and Hizbullah has reached new levels of complication, then consider the…
You had to agree with the pro-Hizbullah daily Al-Akhbar when it observed in its Wednesday edition that one could only…
Marvel at the contempt Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, must feel for us all, that he would expect us to…
Lebanon is caught up in a game of political billiards these days, each side playing a second ball against the…
If there were doubts about whether Hizbullah participated in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, for many…
A perennial shortcoming in America’s interactions with the Middle East is that they tend to emerge from insular discussions. Policy…
Hizbullah has been terribly excitable in recent weeks. It has threatened, condemned, demanded, and warned, all suggesting the party is…
By the time you read this article, President Barack Obama should have decided whether to keep General Stanley McChrystal on…