In 1983, he assumed his first political role as co-founder of
Al Liqa’ al-Islami ("The Islamic Meeting"), a political gathering of prominent politicians and civil society leaders that called for an end to Syrian dominance of Lebanon and a halt to civil conflict. In 1992, he was appointed senior political advisor to Prime Minister
Rafic Hariri. He served in this position until 1998, when he was forced into exile by the Syrian intelligence apparatus for his efforts to reduce Syrian tutelage of the country. Upon the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005, he resumed his journalistic career as a weekly columnist for Lebanese daily
Assafir, before running for parliament in 2009. In 2014, he was named Minister of Interior and Municipalities in
Tammam Salam’s national unity government. As minister, he devised and implemented a comprehensive security strategy to gradually impose state sovereignty on all the Lebanese territory. This put an end to the rounds of sectarian infighting that had taken place in
North Lebanon for a decade and helped dismantle the criminal networks that served as support infrastructures for terrorist groups operating in the northeast of the country. In December 2016, Nohad El Machnouk was appointed
Minister of Interior and Municipalities.
Beirut protests On 22 August 2015,
protesters took to the streets of Beirut demanding a resolution to the trash crisis, the protests led to a clash with the riot police who fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters and shot rubber bullets directly at them and real bullets in the air. Hundreds of people were wounded in the events and the public demanded the prosecution of the responsible forces and the resignation of Machnouk. Machnouk was abroad at the time of the protests. However, upon his return he defended officers involved in controlling the protests and rejected calls for his resignation, ==External links==