By MICHAEL SPECTER

THE
DAY I ARRIVED in Beirut I was collected at my hotel by Huda Baroudi, a
cheerful woman who had offered to show me around. It was a lazy Sunday,
grim and gray, and I was jet-lagged. But her eyes were shining and she
was eager to take me to the Bechara el-Khoury Mansion, a 19th-­century
villa that long ago — before it had been abandoned, pillaged and finally
shelled during the civil war — was one of Beirut’s grand residences.

As
I settled into the passenger seat of her S.U.V., Ms. Baroudi, an
influential designer of textiles and furniture, propelled us at high
speed toward what looked like a four-way stop. Beirut’s streets are
narrow, potholed and anything but straight; a car was approaching
rapidly from the opposite direction, but Ms. Baroudi seemed unconcerned.

At
the last moment, the other driver swerved to let us pass. I was unable
to speak, but Ms. Baroudi laughed sweetly. “I looked into his eyes,” she
explained with a smile and a shrug. “And I could see that he would
yield the right of way.”

Natasha Bertrand

Protesters stormed Iraq’s heavily fortified Green Zone over the
weekend, for the first time since its concrete barriers were erected
more than 13 years ago to separate US security forces and Iraqi
elites from the rest of Baghdad. The unprecedented breach has created an “accelerated meltdown” that “could be
both a local catastrophe and a signature blot on Obama’s foreign policy
record,” David Rothkopf, the CEO of the Foreign Policy publishing
group, said on Monday.

Ever since ISIS overran the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in
June 2014, much of President Barack Obama’s dealings with Baghdad
have revolved around formulating a cohesive strategy to halt the
jihadists’ momentum in Iraq and Syria.

It has been a battle that, as The Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe pointed out, “is predicated on having a credible and effective Iraqi ally on the ground in Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.”

Daily Star

The Lebanese Army early Sunday released a short clip it said showed militant positions being blown up on the country’s northeastern border.

The
aerial footage was apparently shot Saturday afternoon, showing two
large, successive explosions caused by missiles at a militant base in a
rugged area on the outskirts of Arsal. The army identified the area targeted as Wadi al-Aoueini, saying a number of militants were killed and wounded in the attack.

The clip then cuts to a scene from the same site after the smoke began to clear showing an individual running. The footage also shows another site where about two dozen artillery shells struck a nearby valley.

Daily Star

The Lebanese Army early Sunday released a short clip it said showed militant positions being blown up on the country’s northeastern border.

The
aerial footage was apparently shot Saturday afternoon, showing two
large, successive explosions caused by missiles at a militant base in a
rugged area on the outskirts of Arsal. The army identified the area targeted as Wadi al-Aoueini, saying a number of militants were killed and wounded in the attack.

The clip then cuts to a scene from the same site after the smoke began to clear showing an individual running. The footage also shows another site where about two dozen artillery shells struck a nearby valley.

In 1996, Christine Sfeir decided to introduce Dunkin’ Donuts to Beirut. It
wasn’t an easy sell. Not only had her home country of Lebanon been
through a civil war less than a decade earlier, but the foods she was
trying to push—doughnuts and American-style coffee—were alien concepts.
Fast-food franchises themselves were uncommon.

Now the 42-year-old Ms. Sfeir has what may be an even tougher
mission: to bring her own Mediterranean-food franchise to the U.S.
Preparing American palates for shawarma and authentic Mediterranean
hummus has meant huge investments in promotion and market research. “I’m
passionate about Lebanese cuisine, and I want to take it all over the
world,” says Ms. Sfeir. It has “been very challenging, but we are
determined to make it happen.”