🇱🇧 I've been watching and writing about Lebanon for more than 20 years. I can sometimes get carried away.
Joined April 2009
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The Mecca Accord is the Walid Jumblatt of the Gulf
The Mecca Defense Accord is in Tehran.
🇸🇦🇹🇷🇵🇰🇮🇷
The message to #Iran:
• We opposed this war from the start. We won’t join US-Israeli strikes.
• Attack #Saudi interests, and you may force us into action. Don’t.
• We’ll help broker a diplomatic off-ramp.
The bigger picture:
Trump’s full-throated endorsement of Netanyahu & threats to expand the war is widening the rift with regional partners. They fear a postwar vacuum: an unchecked #Israel, a wounded but dangerous Iran, and a retreating US.
The result?
A race to reshape the region’s security architecture, with competing coalitions and middle powers rushing to fill the void.
🇱🇧 Usually by this stage of muddling through, the west gets bored and the Jumblatt-Berri-Miqati axis of status-quo goes back to peddling the warm blanket of appeasement and the fantasy of disarmament by consensus. The Aoun-Salam way is not perfect, but it’s still the best we got
‼️ Quite significant (~surprising):
A sharp US rebuke of Jumblatt’s remarks.
A State Department spokesman said :
•In keeping with his long record, Walid Jumblatt will do and say whatever is best for Walid Jumblatt, with little regard for principle, his own constituency, or the future of his country.
•Hizballah and their friends thought the so-called Islamabad Track could serve as license for Hizballah to retain its arsenal while Israel withdraws again. That was never a realistic option.
•The Trilateral Framework is an agreement between two sovereign states, with a clear, reciprocal, sequenced process. Israel has already agreed to withdraw, contingent on Hizballah disarmament and the LAF moving into pilot zones.
•Relying on Iran to disarm Hizballah is a mechanism for preserving Tehran's veto over Lebanese sovereignty.
•Hizballah has dragged Lebanon into two suicidal wars on behalf of Iran. In the end, until they are disarmed, Hizballah will do whatever their puppet-masters in Tehran tell them to do and the people of Lebanon will be forced to pay the price.
•As Ambassador Issa has said, the United States is prepared to engage Hizballah only through the Lebanese state, and only on the topic of disarmament.
🇱🇧 President Aoun’s visit to Tripoli is the mirror image of PM Nawaf Salam’s visit to the South. The message is that they are national leaders in a state that cares for the wellbeing of all its citizens equally.
👀
BREAKING: Washington has ordered all US embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, a diplomatic source told @AFP
The families of embassy staff were also ordered to leave the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain.
Interesting. Protesters in France are coalescing around the slogan “Bismillah, c’est les ténèbres”. The New York Times has an explainer (gift link)
nytimes.com/2026/10/20/world…
Mustapha Hamoui retweeted
Today is a dark day for depositors and financial recovery in Lebanon.
Ibrahim Kanaan, one of the figures associated with the obstruction of reforms, has been re-elected Chair of Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee. At the same time, the Constitutional Council struck down Article 3 of the amendments to the Banking Restructuring Law, a provision called for by the international community in line with best standards, while overturning safeguards that would have paved the way for holding banks accountable.
What we are witnessing is the protection of vested interests at the expense of depositors’ rights, and the continued obstruction of a recovery plan whose requirements are well known, after seven years of studies and negotiations with international donors.
One of the internet’s great con jobs was branding supporters of any rights for Palestinians as “woke extremists” and supporters for Netanyahu’s extremist government as common sense based liberals who are somehow defending western values and lifestyles
“There is a difference between Washington calling for the repeal of legislation that criminalizes dealings with Israel, and actually finding a Lebanese member of parliament willing to adopt this demand.”
almodon.com/politics/2026/10…
🇱🇧 Why did it take American airliners coming to Beirut’s International Airport for the dangerous inadequacies and lack of certification to be revealed? This raises so many questions. To Lebanon and to other international airlines who apparently don’t do any due diligence?
I think the percentages are similar in Lebanon
How Israelis Identify Politically
🔵Strong right: 24%
🔵Right: 21%
🔵Moderate right: 9%
🔵Center-right: 11%
🟣Center: 10%
🔴Center-left: 9%
🔴Moderate left: 6%
🔴Left: 6%
🔴Strong left: 1%
via @JewishPolicy October 2026 Israeli Society Index
X: Ooooh, Ahhhh 😍
Blue Sky: Stupid Elon appealing to teenage boys
Threads: No reactions yet. Video will start showing after 3 days
🇱🇧 If for any reason or by any means Hezbollah ends up getting back those explosives, it’s game over for the President, the Lebanese Government, and the LAF. That would be the **exact opposite** of “disarming Hezbollah”, the demand that is at the heart of the new political order
The intimidations based on shaming people for dealing with Israel are backfiring. I was browsing Instagram and I saw a (dubious) news story that Costco is opening in Lebanon. Someone wrote a comment that Costco supports Israel, and immediately some people replied "Even better"
This week, a Hezbollah-aligned lawyer targets Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad with a complaint forwarded to Lebanon’s military prosecutor. Before her, I faced trumped-up accusations and an account freeze through the central bank’s Special Investigation Commission, after investigating Lebanon’s cash economy illicit finance and Hezbollah’s financing.
State institutions are still being used to intimidate those who expose or challenge Hezbollah and their allies.
Washington must go beyond condemnation. US sanctions should reach officials in government and financial institutions where evidence shows they carry out Hezbollah’s orders. Holding the enablers accountable is essential to ending this impunity.
I found this Libertarian headline on the protests in France funny:
“Protestors Angry at Government Demand more Government”
