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Makram Rabah

Makram Rabah

Makram Rabah is an Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. His book Conflict on Mount Lebanon: The Druze, the Maronites and Collective Memory (Edinburgh University Press) covers collective identities and the Lebanese Civil War.

Aoun’s real test in Washington

On July 21, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is expected to walk into the Oval Office for his first face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump. The optics will matter, as they always do in......

 The agreement Hezbollah feared and Lebanon needed

For decades, Lebanon has found itself trapped in a cycle that has become painfully familiar. Every international initiative has been dismissed by one political camp or another as a conspiracy against......

 Vance and Ghalibaf’s shared blind spot on Lebanon

The remarkable thing about the recent statements by US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is not how different they are, but how much they reveal about the......

 Lebanon’s sixty days to choose statehood

The latest agreement between the United States and Iran has produced the predictable wave of Lebanese illusions. Some have rushed to declare that the war is over. Others have convinced themselves that......

 Syria should not be America’s shortcut to Hezbollah

There are bad ideas in Middle East policy, and then there are ideas so reckless that they manage to revive every historical trauma at once. The suggestion that Syria could somehow be recruited into a......

 Trump saved Beirut, not Hezbollah

For a few terrifying hours, many Lebanese believed Beirut was about to be dragged into another devastating war. Israel was preparing to strike the southern suburbs. Families were frightened. The old......

 No US-Iran deal can save Lebanon without local initiative

Next week, Lebanese and Israeli officials are expected to meet in Washington for separate talks aimed at preventing a wider war and setting the parameters for a possible political arrangement. The......

 Lebanon must reclaim war, peace, and the state

Despite all the predictable attacks against the Lebanese state for daring to engage in direct talks with Israel through American mediation, the second phase of this diplomatic track has started this......