May 21, 2014: An Interview with Paul Salem.
This MEI Policy Focus seeks to address the Syrian war’s effects on Lebanon against the backdrop of exacerbated sectarian tensions and political-religious instability. The study first provides a brief background on the state of Salafism in Lebanon, followed by an assessment of the situation of the Sunni street at large. It then examines the wider implications that the Syrian war has had on Lebanon, namely the call for jihad launched in 2013 by Sunni sheiks around the country and the resulting burgeoning of relations between Salafis and Syrian military and radical organizations.
Testimony by MEI’s Paul Salem before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs, delivered February 25, 2014. Find more information here about the hearing, including full video (Salem’s testimony begins at 1:22:40).
The recent spate of bombings in Beirut underline the degree to which Lebanon has become entangled in the wider regional conflict being fought in and around Syria, but the paralysis of Lebanon’s political institutions indicate an equally deep domestic dysfunction. There is no doubt that part of Lebanon’s problems derive from its difficult geostrategic environment and require external developments and changes, and part of them come from the weaknesses of its domestic political and socioeconomic system and require internal reform.
On January 2, only days after a car bomb in Beirut took the life of former Finance Minister Mohamad Chatah and several bystanders on December 27, another bomb struck the capital’s southern suburbs. With initial reports of four dead and 40 wounded, this latest, and possibly retaliatory, attack fits into an ominous pattern as Syria’s conflict spills into Lebanon.
On Wednesday, December 4, Hassan Laqees, a Lebanese Hezbollah leader who was reportedly involved in the group’s weapons procurement and development, was assassinated south of Beirut. On Sunday, another Hezbollah military commander was killed in Syria, bringing the number of Hezbollah dead in the Syrian conflict into the hundreds.
2013 Annual Conference: Overview | Banquet | Conference | Luncheon
Moderator: Kim Ghattas, BBCF. Gregory Gause, University of Vermont & Brookings DohaMohsen Milani, University of South FloridaPaul Salem, The Middle East InstituteMona Yacoubian, Stimson Center
Earlier today, double explosions near the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed at least 23, including an Iranian diplomat. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an Islamist group with links to al-Qa`ida, took responsibility for the attack. MEI sat down with its Vice President for Policy and Research, Paul Salem, to discuss the significance of the bombings in Lebanon as well as their regional and global implications.
Tell us about the bombing and the group that claimed responsibility for it.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in Washington this week for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and President Barack Obama. We sat down with MEI’s Vice President for Policy and Research, Paul Salem, to discuss the topics on the table, what each side hopes to accomplish, and how the United States should approach Iraq.
What is Maliki looking to accomplish?
Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, and Randa Slim, director of MEI’s program on Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues, join host Paul Salem to discuss the Helsinki Summit and takeaways from the latest meeting of the US-Russia Middle East Dialogue in Berlin, where participants outlined challenges and opportunities for US-Russian cooperation in Syria and elsewhere in the region.
The sun is beating down and it isn’t even midday. Clutching the all-important paperwork that will get them coveted UN food vouchers, Syrian refugees look harried. The women pull at their children to hurry through the litter-filled yard of the sports club in the town of Bar Elias that serves as a distribution center for the UN’s hard-pressed World Food Program (WFP). Unlike their men, who head for the shade to smoke and exchange news, the women don’t dally, making for the snaking lines into a crowded hall where they will be called in groups by registration numbers.
The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East, by Kenneth Pollack and Daniel Byman et al., 2011
Randa Slim, MEI Scholar and adjunct research fellow at the New America Foundation, discusses the implications of Hezbollah's growing role in Syria for Lebanese politics and Lebanon's Shiite community.