Analyze

It is dishonorable to hand over a fugitive to his enemies! In our region, the “duty of asylum,” an unavoidable obligation, dates back to the pre-Islamic Jahiliyyah era. No “noble man” would surrender a person to those pursuing him, for the disgrace would stain his entire lineage. But what, then, should be said of judicial extradition in our contemporary world? Is it acceptable merely because international conventions have laid down its conditions and procedures? Bashar al-Assad and his camarilla, whose members number in the dozens, found refuge as early as December 2024 in the Russian Federation, as well as in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Is there any chance that all these people will one day stand trial, in Damascus or elsewhere?

In a moment of acute regional sensitivity, where Lebanon’s security dossiers intersect with the trajectory of regional and international negotiations, three closely intertwined themes impose themselves on the domestic landscape: the threats of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, the controversy surrounding attempts to reposition the “Lebanese card” in the regional bargaining game, and the dossier of displaced persons and their encampments within the capital, particularly in densely populated neighborhoods such as Bechara al-Khoury. These themes, despite their apparent divergence, point in their depths to one and the same question: to what extent does Lebanon remain a state capable of asserting control over its own decision-making and controlling its security and social boundaries?

A widespread view in Lebanon holds that the Lebanese quarrel with Hezbollah stems from its doctrine and its adherence to the wilayat al-faqih as theorised by Khomeini. But the question deserves to be framed differently: does the problem truly lie in the doctrine itself, whether one agrees with it or rejects it, or rather in the imposition of that doctrine and the practices it entails upon society as a whole and upon the State? We have no right whatsoever to object to what others believe, nor to contest their full right to embrace whatever ideas and convictions they choose, whatever these may be. Any individual or community is free to forge its own intellectual and spiritual vision of the world, whether religious or political. This falls within the domain of freedom of conscience, a freedom enshrined in the Lebanese Constitution, one that is not, in its very essence, open to debate, nor should it be.

The entire region finds itself today before great transformations that are redrawing the political and military balances and equations. The war that erupted between America and Israel on one hand, and Iran and Hezbolla on the other, cannot be reduced to a passing confrontation or a limited skirmish, but constitutes a pivotal event whose profound repercussions will be felt across all states, and singularly in Lebanon, which finds itself once again at the heart of the storm. Experience has repeatedly demonstrated that great wars do not stop at the borders of the belligerent states, and that their consequences spread to fragile and torn entities, to states incapable of consolidating their sovereignty and of concentrating their decision-making power within their legitimate institutions. It is for this reason that maintaining Lebanon bound to regional axes and leaving it as an open arena for the conflicts of others places the Lebanese before existential dangers that it would be unwise to underestimate.

The cry of the nonagenarian Stéphane Hessel in his pamphlet Indignez-vous! had awakened millions of young people to a form of liberation, after reading in that slim volume: “You have the right to anger, to refusal, to opposition.” But that cry was certainly not enough. It was at most an impulse that drove them into the streets to confront the social, political and cultural conflicts of their time. Things have genuinely changed since then, and one of the greatest victories of the dominant forces has been the discrediting of the words “activist” or “dissident”, labels sometimes deployed to attack young people who had managed to achieve substantive progress.

My experience with memoir literature has generally been unrewarding, and this holds particularly true for the first volume of the memoirs of former Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa, entitled The Missing Narrative (Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 2015). From its lyrical, subjective, and impressionistic opening, the book appears to promise the reader a work of personal reflection, only to draw him into a reading of political history written with an unqualified bias toward the Assad regime and the figure of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. Assad between Political Mythology and Image-Making

There are certain keywords whose mere utterance is enough to put your interlocutor from the camp of the Momana’a on alert: the moment one pronounces “Palestine,” “resistance,” “America,” or “Israel,” something triggers within him, a kind of mental switch, and he stiffens to the point where any calm, objective discussion becomes impossible. The problem in Lebanon today is no longer that of divergent opinions, but rather the absence of the thinking process itself. Ready-made positions are summoned instantly, discourses repeated unchanged, choices maintained in spite of everything that shifts around them. As though we never questioned ourselves, never re-evaluated anything, never asked: are we still genuinely thinking about what we are doing, or are we merely repeating what we have grown accustomed to, simply because it has become part of our identity? This is precisely where the danger begins, when repetition substitutes itself for thought.

On Thursday, May 14, the world's attention was focused on Beijing, where a meeting between the President of the United States, who still sees himself as a major power, and President Xi Jinping, who aspires to be even greater, could have significant consequences for many countries, both in the short and long term. For some—likely many—these consequences could be dramatic. What will become of the state of the world after this? No one could say for certain yet. President Trump likely spoke first about trade. President Xi did as well. The former will quickly tout his victories—a word he cherishes—on his site, as is his custom.

Radical shifts are taking shape across a world that, over the past two decades, has seen the slow disintegration of the global order established after the Second World War, giving way to a new system now beginning to emerge on the horizon. Since the start of his second term, and in line with his National Security Strategy (NSS 2025), President Donald Trump has redefined US priorities. First and foremost are domestic affairs – America First – and the American continent itself. As for the rest of the world, Europe, he argues, should takes responsibility for its own defense and no longer rely on the United States as it has done since 1945. In his view, Russia, despite its bellicose posture, is no longer considered a threat, having proven incapable of defeating Ukraine and incapable of invading Europe.

Influence in the Middle East is no longer measured solely by the ability of states to impose their military or political domination; it is now bound up with their capacity to build attractive cities and craft convincing narratives. In this shift, cities such as Riyadh, Dubai and Doha are emerging as new centres of gravity, while states unable to produce an effective city or a coherent discourse find themselves receding. Between economics and media, a different model of governance is taking shape, one that raises a fundamental question: who actually governs? In this context, the city has ceased to be a mere urban space or administrative hub and has become a fully-fledged political instrument. Its rise cannot be understood through the lens of economic growth alone; it points to something deeper — a redefinition of power itself. Cities are no longer built simply to house populations, but to serve as transborder platforms of influence, capable of attracting investment, drawing in talent and affirming their presence in the global economy. These are cities that compete with states, presenting themselves as models of stability and openness in a region long associated with conflict and uncertainty. In this sense, the city becomes the face of the state, and in certain contexts its substitute, where success is measured by the capacity to attract rather than to dominate, to produce rather than to declaim.