Sam Menassa

The debate in Lebanon turns on the vacuum that the end of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission might leave behind. But the more useful question is not whether these forces should be kept, or a similar force substituted for them, but whether Lebanon is ready to move from…

The Turkish-Israeli tension is no longer merely a reflection of the disagreement over Gaza or of the political enmity between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Developments in Syria and Lebanon reveal that the relationship has moved to a deeper level of…

The Israeli elections set for October 27 carry exceptional weight- not only because they could close Benjamin Netanyahu's long chapter, but because they are being held amid upheavals stretching from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria to the US-Iranian war and its regional fallout. Gadi Eisenkot has emerged…

The 60-day window that the American-Iranian memorandum of understanding set aside for negotiating a final agreement has now closed. Tension is rising, and there is no visible path toward addressing the causes of the war. As the United States and Israel move deeper into their election seasons,…

Unpredictability has been an essential part of Donald Trump's method of conducting foreign policy. The American president raises the ceiling of threat, pushes his adversary toward believing he is ready to go further than expected, then opens the door to negotiation or steps back from escalation…

If it is true that identifying those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for the sustained campaign of killings that targeted “March 14” leaders over the years, for the Beirut port explosion, and for the loss of bank deposits threatens civil peace - then what of…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington last month again brought the nature of the US-Israeli relationship into focus, amid differences over Gaza, Iran, and the future of the region. The alliance remains strong, yet these developments raise a broader question: Does Donald…

America's standing in the world has never rested on military and economic power alone. It has also rested on the stability of its institutions, its respect for the orderly transfer of power, and the predictability of its policies—qualities that inspired allies' confidence in American leadership of…

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's visit to Washington carries exceptional significance, not because it is the first presidential visit of this level in years, but because it comes at a regional moment in which Lebanon has returned to the forefront of American attention after decades of slipping down…

However which way one reads the visit of Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani to Beirut, it restored Lebanese-Syrian relations to their normal course and remains a step of great importance- provided the relationship rests on cooperation and coordination between two independent states. This was…