A Busy Weekend as I Shift Into Annual Conference Mode

The Middle East Institute's 63rd Annual Conference starts tonight (Monday) and runs through tomorrow. It's called Rewriting the Middle East Agenda, and it would seem that the region itself is doing that even as I have to lighten my blog duties for a couple of days to be at the Conference and represent the Journal. This weekend alone we've had:

• Abu Mazen following up his announcement he won't run with a threat to dissolve the Palestinian Authority and declare the peace process dead;
  
• Lebanon actually, finally, five months after the election, maybe definitely (soon!) about to form a government;
• Iraq finally passing an electoral law; and
• a senior Iranian official seemingly backing off on the nuclear deal.

I'm going to try to do short posts and links on these this morning, but beyond that you can expect light posting for a couple of days. I'm not likely to have easy Internet access during the Conference, and Wednesday is a US holiday, but I'd advise keeping up with the MEI website and MEI Twitter feed, though I'm not certain when stuff will be available there. (Will try to communicate that information when I get it.)