Nothing less than a titanic clash between two logics is at play today in Lebanon and in the larger Middle East. When the Cedar Revolution rose against the order imposed by Syria in 2005, after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, its main characteristic was non-violence. A unique event was at hand, an example to the world that had no precedent since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Une pétition circule depuis plusieurs jours au sein de la société civile, appelant les Libanais, aussi bien au Liban qu'à l'étranger, à réagir et assumer leurs responsabilités nationales face à « la guerre sectaire lancée par le Hezbollah » et à initier « une résistance civile et pacifique pour faire face au coup d'État du Hezbollah ».

Three years after we marched, together with half of the country's population, to ask for the truth in former Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, the crime commandeers are still at large. Other than a number of second-rate generals who have been rotting in prison without a trial, as would be their right under universal human rights standards, the investigation has yet to respond to a universal demand for truth and justice.

The assassination last week of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was the latest tragic expression of a sour reality that characterizes the Middle East and its broader geopolitical orbit: In the absence of democracy (meaning regular change at the top by means of free and fair elections), political violence is a certainty.

For the ninth time, Speaker Nabih Berri convened Lebanese Parliament to elect a president last Monday. For the ninth time, he frustrated the election by refusing to open the session. For over a year now, Parliament has been closed down coercively by the speaker, preventing MPs elected freely for the first time since 1972, from exercising their constitutional duties.

Beirut - Presidential candidate Chibli Mallat congratulated Carlos Edde for his stance in opposing the amendment of Lebanon's constitution , in favor of electing General Michel Suleiman as the president of Lebanon.

On the evening of President George W. Bush's election for a second term on November 2, 2004, I was the host of celebrated Arab TV journalist Marcel Ghanem. More important was the presence of a State department spokesman, who expressed the Bush administration's full support to a Palestinian state.

For 100 years, the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict has been elusive. This is because the equation was set wrong: it was all about land, settlements and borders, conceived under a zero-sum paradigm. What Palestinians (or Arabs, or Muslims) gain, Jews lose, and vice-versa, down to the wire.

Those of us who welcomed the naming of Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister of France are wearing a hair shirt in penance. We deserve no better for having believed in a man with a scaffolding of recklessness to prop up a towering ego. Before his latest return to Lebanon - we've lost track of how many - he said this: "I realized that arriving at the last minute would be insufficient and that Lebanon merits more, even if this comes at the expense of my personal rest and my family life."

In his 47 years, Chibli Mallat has seen his homeland of Lebanon, a small nation of 4 million on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, devolve from a once-prosperous center of Middle Eastern finance and culture into a society fractured along ethnic divisions - a land used as a staging area for larger geopolitical conflict.

The army spokesperson's call to keep its commander "outside the political bazaar" provides one of those unique occasions in the life of the Lebanese Republic. Suddenly history beckons with an opening onto a better future for the country's democracy and for the region. The US presidency knew such an occasion when its first president, George Washington, refused to seek a third term and retired from politics in 1797.

BEIRUT: Presidential candidate Chibli Mallat on Thursday saluted the stand undertaken by the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), General Michel Suleiman, concerning the presidency poll, describing it as "democratic and sincere." The LAF issued a statement on Wednesday saying Suleiman was not a candidate for the presidency and calling on those eager to protect the military institution to keep his name out of the "political bazaar." "The commander's democratic stands and his determination to preserve the Constitution ought to be noted," Mallat said.

Il y a deux ans, M. Chebli Mallat était venu annoncer, lors d’une conférence de presse organisée par l’Association des correspondants de presse aux Nations unies (UNCA), sa candidature à la magistrature suprême. Cette année, il est venu au siège de l’ONU, porteur d’un message de la famille de Charles Chikhani, tué dans l’attentat contre le député Antoine Ghanem, et pour exposer son programme devant la presse internationale.

Unless a new president is elected before November 24, Lebanon and the region will enter a period of chaos with incalculable consequences. Parliament has been prevented by continued intimidation since 2004 from electing a president as mandated by our democratic Constitution. It is the duty of the international community, which passed UN Security Council Resolution 1559 in September 2004, to ensure "free and fair presidential elections" and the restoration of democracy to Lebanon.

INTERVIEW | The Lebanese law professor Chibli Mallat has chosen the path of politics instead of remaining a pure academic. He has been involved in the opposition to Saddam Hussein, as well as in attempts to get Ariel Sharon indicted. He is also running a campaign to become elected president of Lebanon.

Lars Tragardh, prominent Swedish historian and sociologist, published a detailed feature on Mallat's vision for the Middle East. The full article, in Swedish, is getting translated. Here is the beginning, in English and Arabic

Could disagreements between the chief protagonists of March 14 lead to a weakening of the bloc? If the leaders of the March 14 bloc agree with the opposition in the coming weeks on a compromise presidential candidate, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt says he and the five members of his parliamentary bloc will abstain from voting.

Unless the new president of Lebanon is fully committed to the mixed Lebanese-international tribunal to punish those involved in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, creation of the tribunal will be further delayed, if not effectively stopped.

I had several occasions, since the beginning of my campaign, to underline the need for Parliament to fill the presidential void resulting from the coerced nature of the extension of Emile Lahoud's mandate, over which Speaker Nabih Berri presided in September 2004.

As the center of gravity shifts to the UN, we need to reflect on the allures and dangers of what I have called over-determination, that is, the overbearing nature of international interests on the domestic Lebanese battleground. This conjures up a strong feeling of deja vu. Back in late August 2004, from Sydney, Australia, for the Truth and Responsibility campaign launched with Sadreddin Sadr, the endearing son of Imam Musa Sadr who was "disappeared" in Libya in 1978, I got in touch with a number of leading Lebanese figures, including Walid Jumblatt and Ghassan Tueni.

What can or should a new Lebanese president do with Syria? What is most needed, for a start, is consistency based on principles. There are long-standing doubts about Syrian policy under the two President Assads, including the assassination of many prominent Lebanese, including Kamal Jumblatt in 1977, Bashir Gemayel in 1982, the mufti of the republic, Sheikh Hassan Khaled, in 1989 and Rafik Hariri in 2005. While one should not lay direct responsibility for the first three of these crimes at the door of Bashar Assad, who came to power after the killings, the system he presides over has shown no desire to make amends.

SABRA Y CHATILA (LÍBANO). No se sabe siquiera cuántos muertos -¿800... 3.000?- yacen en las tumbas colectivas que se improvisaron para enterrar una de las carnicerías más brutales del siglo XX.

Chibli Mallat est un homme au charme discret et à l'allure souple qui assène ses arguments avec méthode et objectivité. Rencontré dans ses bureaux, orné d'oeuvres d'art d'artistes du Proche-Orient, il déclare "je suis toujours candidat à la présidence, c'est une question de principe. En ce moment charnière de l'histoire du Liban, un autre style de campagne, et un autre type de candidat sont plus que jamais nécessaires".

The Daily Star, an-Nahar, as-Safir, al-Mustaqbal, as-Sharq

L'Orient-le Jour, al-Anwar, ad-Diyar, al-Akhbar, al-Liwa'

The absurd, Ubuesque dimension of Lebanese constitutional life knows no bound. After three years of a coercively prolonged mandate for a president whom no respectable ambassador and no decent Lebanese is prepared to visit, Emile Lahoud continues to assign himself a role in deciding how the country should look like when his usurped power comes to end. Meanwhile, after he physically shut down Parliament for over a year, Speaker Nabih Berri has been insistently requesting from the United States government answers to his questions over the Lebanese Constitution.

L'Europe par sa politique de voisinage, veut jouer un rôle au Proche et Moyen-Orient. Mais son action est bricolée face à la divergence des trajectoires sur les deux rives de la Méditerranée.

Une année d'Exil doré dans une université américaine donne au moins cette avantage: voir le Liban, dans la métaphore de la Démocratie en Amérique, comme "ce voyageur qui, en sortant des murs d'une vaste cité, gravit la colline prochaine. A mesure qu'il s'éloigne, les hommes qu'il vient de quitter disparaissent à ses yeux... il discerne avec peine la trace des rues: mais son oeil suit plus aisément les contours de la ville, et, pour la première fois, il en saisit la forme".

Lebanon's Constitution is the oldest in the Middle East. Established in 1926, it has survived foreign control over Lebanon, international or Arab. It also increasingly operates as the reference point for Lebanese citizens. Its longevity is remarkable, even if the constitutional text has given way to widely divergent interpretations in periods of revolutionary turmoil.

I was, and remain, a supporter of Republican Senator John McCain's presidential bid. During the difficult days of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, McCain was a reliable advocate of human rights as the guiding agenda for policy in Iraq. This commitment has not subsided. The picture of that great beacon of freedom in Asia, Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, hangs at the center of McCain's Senate office. He is also someone who has sought to reform how money is used in the American political process. Unfortunately for McCain, his polls and his campaign finances have been especially poor in recent weeks. John McCain seems to have lost his presidential spark.

Chibli Mallat, a candidate for the Lebanese presidency, spoke at Harvard Law School last night not to gain support for his electoral aspirations, but to deliver an academic address on Middle Eastern governance.

In the two years since tragedy struck Beirut with the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the mourning Lebanese people have tried to resist discouragement to create a better future for Lebanon. February 14 marked the two-year anniversary of the killing, as hundreds of thousands came out to protest en masse, condemning the brutal car-bombing and calling for a peaceful solution to their country’s problems.

Chibli Mallat, a leading Middle Eastern human rights lawyer and visiting senior research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School, is running for president in Lebanon, which is scheduled to hold elections next fall. Information about his platform is available at mallatforpresident.com. A professor of law at Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut, Mallat helped found Indict, an organization dedicated to bringing former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime to trial on charges of crimes against humanity. He recently spoke with PAW’s Mark F. Bernstein ’83.

Narratives over wars are fluid, either in their causes or their outcomes. Few doubt that the First World War dominated the 20th century, in the Middle East and elsewhere, but causes and consequences long remained a fascination for the generations that suffered from the war, not to mention the special concern of historians.

JURIST Guest Columnist Chibli Mallat, visiting professor at Princeton University and a Middle East human rights lawyer who in 2003 turned down an invitation to join what became the Iraqi High Tribunal which eventually tried Saddam Hussein and sentenced him to death, says that sound legal process in the Saddam case was overwhelmed by passions unleashed by his rule, chaotic Iraqi politics after the US invasion, and the trial itself...

I like reading Friedman, he is lively and has a synthetic mind, but I think he is wrong on this one, hence my response to his Mideast Rules to Live By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times 20/12/06

PRINCETON BOROUGH -- When the long-running conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia erupted into a 33-day war this summer, Lebanese presidential hopeful Chibli Mallat put out an S.O.S. call of sorts to a couple of his friends who teach at Princeton University.

Elect Ghassan Tueni interim president. It has now been one year since I announced my candidacy for the presidency of Lebanon, against the unconstitutional continuation in office of President Emile Lahoud. By offering an alternative, and by pursuing the first democratic campaign in the country's history through six months of day-to-day meetings with citizens, I believe my campaign created new dynamism on the domestic political scene.

Forum: Op-eds on legal news by law professors and JURIST special guests... Pluralism and the Iraqi Constitution: Critical Issues For All of Us JURIST Guest Columnist Chibli Mallat, visiting professor at Princeton University and the EU Jean Monnet Professor in Law at St. Joseph's University in Beirut, Lebanon, says that Iraq's constitutional response to pluralism may yet make it an example to the world...

Many Wilson School professors propose sweeping changes to government policies. Visiting professor Chibli Mallat may actually get to implement some. Mallat, a former lawyer, writer and human rights activist, is running for president of Lebanon. The election is set for 2007, when current president Emile Lahoud's term ends. "We need to start a new logic in the region ... based on nonviolence," Mallat said in an interview.

Mallat Campaign. In an oped published in the leading Nahar daily, Dr Albert Sara underlines the fog of war over the Shebaa farms. The Mallat presidential Campaign has long refused the logic of open war established under the Shebaa pretext, a logic which has robbed the country from peace since the Israeli army completed its withdrawal in May 2000 in accordance with a unanimous arrangement of the Security Council. From Princeton, where he is visiting, Mallat commented: 'We repeat our demand to PM Siniora to consider serious, non-violent discussions under UN auspices on key conflictual issues like Palestinian refugees and Lebanon's right over its water resources, rather than this phony issue of Shebaa, which Dr Sara has courageously exposed today.'

Campaign team, 25 August- In an exclusive interview to leading journalist Assaad Bishara of the Diyar on the issue of Israeli responsibility for war crimes, Mallat explained the difficulties faced by any judicial action against Israel, despite the assessment by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that the Israeli army committed war crimes in its excessive policy of force against civilians. Mallat discusses the major options available and proposes an alternative 'Stockholm approach', in which emphasis is placed on the compensation by donors of innocent civilians both in Lebanon and Israel.

In the Hezbollah-Israel war, another pattern resulting from the asymmetric conflict

Paul Anid, The Riverdale Press, New York – Front Page: “What’s happening is basically the result of a weak state, In a normal government there’s no excuse for any other group to be armed”.

"But he's not serious, is he? Not in the sense of thinking he can win? He must just want to put certain issues in the limelight..." Last November, I put these questions to a Lebanese political scientist in Barcelona. We were sharing a taxi and discussing the just-declared presidential candidacy of a mutual acquaintance, Chibli Mallat, Jean Monnet professor of European law at the University of Saint Joseph, Beirut.

In order to keep an uncomfortable spotlight on Lahoud, law professor Chibli Mallat declared his symbolic candidacy to replace him and is running a slick, well-publicized campaign promoting the notion of a nonsectarian Lebanese President.

Chibli Mallat has the air of a man who would be president. It seems it was always his destiny, his birthright, and mandate. Now, he is actually running for president of Lebanon, although there is no campaign, and the current incumbent, the pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud, extended his term by a further three years by constitutional amendment pushed through by Damascus.

Aoun met Monday with presidential candidate and lawyer Chibli Mallat, who said after the meeting that he and Aoun had focused on the need to hold "open presidential campaigns."

The Doha Debates are a forum for free speech in the Middle East, tackling the most controversial issues in the Arab and Islamic worlds. The Doha Debates take place in Qatar in front of an audience of students and local residents.

... Allez-y messieurs, faites montre de clarté, que le Libanais sache enfin quels sont ceux qui ambitionnent de le gouverner et qu'il se sente foncièrement concerné par la question. C’est son droit évident de citoyen.

Read full interview

Citizen gathering organized by organized by Generation for the Integrity of Lebanon (GIL) in Nabatieh

... To be or not to be, that is the question!

Even though a national election isn’t scheduled, human-rights activist Chibli Mallat is running for president. And his chances of winning are looking better all the time.

Chibli Mallat put itself an ambitious goal. The lawyer, lecturer and human right activist want to become president of Lebanon.

On the Iraq war's third anniversary and in a Gallup poll last week, 60% of those surveyed said no. In the pages that follow, a diverse and international group of thinkers give their opinions. Presidential candidate Chibli Mallat gave his opinion.

"Lebanon is at a historic crossroads. It can choose to lead the Middle East into vibrant multi-sectarian democracy or slump back into corrupt local politics under foreign tutelage. The latter path could easily lead to civil strife and, perhaps, another civil war." says Mallat

Pourquoi pas Chibli Mallat? par Lina Zakhour

la priorité devrait être donnée au règlement du problème de la présidence, quitte à « tenir ensuite une réunion pour évoquer les autres problèmes en suspens, dont la question des armes »