Dr. Nassif Hitti

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding to halt the war and reaffirm the sixty-day ceasefire, with half of that period devoted to a transitional phase aimed at addressing outstanding, difficult, and highly complex issues, places at its center, without doubt, the nuclear file, which served as the…

On the eve of the launch of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations under full US auspices and, we might add, with US “engineering” of the launching and management of the negotiation track, Lebanon was facing three possible scenarios amid both vertical - in terms of firepower - and horizontal - with the…

President Donald Trump’s 43-hour visit to Beijing was very different from his first visit in 2017. Then, some described the trip as an attempt to break the ice, a natural step at that stage that sought to improve their “personal acquaintance” and reinforce dialogue between the two superpowers. …

The Israeli war on Lebanon has entered its third month. The “pretext” for this war was, of course, a response to Hezbollah’s strategy of “unity of arenas,” or “unity of tracks,” which the group pursued first in the name of solidarity with Gaza, and then in solidarity with Iran after the…

Talk of potential negotiations between Lebanon and Israel continues to fluctuate, appearing plausible at times and nearly nonexistent at others. This comes amid a renewed Israeli war that is open-ended in both time and geography, nearly two decades after the July 2006 war and the adoption of United…

Israel is accelerating its effort to “enshrine” its annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Some see this effort as part of a gradual process toward the formalization of full annexation following the decision taken by the mini-cabinet on February 8. The decision announced, or effectively…

After most had expected an imminent US/Israeli strike on Iran, it never materialized. Matters have calmed somewhat for now, but questions around the scale and timing of such a strike remain. Would it send a deterrent message to Iran intended to compel a shift in its regional policy? Or, as others…

At the start of 2026, the Middle East seems surrounded or besieged, geographically and politically, by crises and wars. Some are directly or indirectly interconnected, while de-escalation of conflict will not, of course, allow for solutions or even temporary arrangements that could facilitate later…

Much has been said about the appointment of a civilian (former ambassador Simon Karam) to head of the Lebanese delegation to the Mechanism- the body established to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire reached on November 26 last year between Lebanon and Israel. Some of the explanations of…

The Arab-Islamic Summit in Doha that followed the attempted assassination of Hamas leaders on Qatari soil reaffirmed its participants’ principles in the wake of Israel’s assault on Qatar, which has been playing the role of an active “mediator” in order to halt the assault on Gaza. Held one…