LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 10/19

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
The very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 05/31-36: “‘If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on February 09-10/19
Family of George Zreik condemns assault on journalists, confirms nonparticipation
UN Urges Lebanon's Parties Not to Back Foreign Conflicts
UN Urges Lebanon’s Government to Stick to Dissociation Policy
Matar Says National Solidarity Tantamount to Reform
Matar: Reform can be achieved through national solidarity
Hariri arrives in Dubai to partake in Governments' World Summit
Berri confers with Egyptian Ambassador over bilateral relations
Berri presides over 'Development and Liberation' bloc meeting
Kouyoumjian says economic, financial, social dossier a government priority
Jumblatt before Druze Sheikhs: No one can uproot AlMukhtara!
Family of Lebanese Prisoner in Iran Demands Zarif to Release Him
Hezbollah Seeks to Contain Differences Among its Allies
Lebanese Man Self-Immolates over School Tuition
Moscow backs Hizballah ahead of Netanyahu visit, eyes Lebanon’s gas
The corniche of Ras Beirut: A porous and vibrant public space
While the rest of the region advances, Iran is trapped in the past

Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 09-10/19
Israeli Report: Iran Manufacturing Precision-guided Missiles in Syria
US ‘Relentless' to Deter Iran Missile Program
Palestinian Arrested over Killing of Israeli
Trump adviser Kushner to visit Middle East on peace plan’s economic part
European Sources Criticize Arab Efforts to Normalize Ties with Damascus
White House Speaks to Palestinians Via Twitter
Gantz: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict a Security Matter that ‘Can be Settled’
Germany, France Warn ISIS Not Yet Defeated
Iraq: 'PMF' Shuts Down Fake Offices, Arrests Commander Who Criticized Iran
Jihadists Get Life for Deadly 2015 Tunisia Attacks on Tourists
Venezuela's Guaido: 'We Will Do What is Necessary'
Thai Princess' Bid for PM Scuttled as Party Obeys Royal Command
Seeking Influence, Egypt's Sisi to Chair African Union
Tony Blair: Iran ‘an ideology with a state’, controlled by hardliners
Trump says North Korea talks productive, summit will be in Hanoi
Irish prime minister says Brexit deal ‘can be done’
Quebec mosque shooter gets life, no parole for 40 years

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 09-10/19
UN Urges Lebanon's Parties Not to Back Foreign Conflicts/Associated Press/Naharnet/09 February/19/
Moscow backs Hizballah ahead of Netanyahu visit, eyes Lebanon’s gas/DEBKAfile/February 09/19
The corniche of Ras Beirut: A porous and vibrant public space/Samir Khalaf /Annahar/February 09/19
While the rest of the region advances, Iran is trapped in the past/Raghida Dergham/The National/February 09/19
Israeli Report: Iran Manufacturing Precision-guided Missiles in Syria/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 09/19
In Apple vs. Facebook, Let Users Decide/Stephen Carter/Asharq Al-Awsat/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 09/2019/
Analysis/The Islamic Revolution Succeeded, Iran Not So Much/Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/February 09/19
Analysis/In the Glass House Called Syria, Iran Has Thrown One Too Many Stones/Amos Harel/Haaretz/February 09/19
Afghans don’t want to be another Iran/Camelia Entekhabifard/Arab News/February 09/19

Latest LCCC English Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on February 09-10/19
Family of George Zreik condemns assault on journalists, confirms nonparticipation
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - The family of the deceased George Farid Zreik declared in a statement on Saturday its condemnation of the "barbaric attack on journalists during the funeral service today", stressing that "no member of the family participated in this attack."The statement thanked all media outlets for their exerted efforts and sympathy with the family during this difficult time.

UN Urges Lebanon's Parties Not to Back Foreign Conflicts
Associated Press/Naharnet/09 February/19/
The U.N. Security Council called on all Lebanese parties Friday to implement a policy disassociating themselves from any external conflicts "as an important priority," a statement that appears clearly aimed at Hezbollah which has sent fighters to Syria. The council also reiterated its call for implementation of its resolutions which "require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon so that there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon" except those of the state. This is also aimed at Hizbullah fighters. The council statement issued Friday night welcomed the Jan. 31 announcement of a national unity government in Lebanon, which broke a nine-month deadlock. Council members encouraged all political leaders to build on the momentum of the new government's formation "to address the pressing security, economic, social and humanitarian challenges facing the country" and called on the new government to urgently implement reforms, fight corruption and strengthen accountability. Rival political groups had been locked in disagreement over the make-up of a new government since May, after the country's first parliamentary elections in nine years. A breakthrough became possible after weeks of backroom deals as Lebanon's economic woes mounted. The new government is headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the Western-backed Sunni politician who has held the job since 2016. But Hizbullah, the powerful Shiite group, made significant gains at the expense of the largest Sunni party and controls three ministries including the health ministry. The Trump administration expressed concerns about Hizbullah holding three Cabinet posts and called on the new government to ensure that group is not supported by the ministries' resources. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday the group would defend Iran in the event of war with the United States. He said the so-called axis of resistance, led by Iran, is the strongest it has ever been. The axis groups the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad with Shiite militias in Iraq and Hizbullah.

UN Urges Lebanon’s Government to Stick to Dissociation Policy
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/The UN Security Council called on all Lebanese parties Friday to implement the dissociation policy "as an important priority," a statement that appears clearly aimed at Hezbollah which has sent fighters to Syria. The Council also reiterated its call for implementation of its resolutions which "require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon so that there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon" except those of the state. This is also aimed at Hezbollah. The Council statement issued Friday night welcomed the Jan. 31 announcement of a national unity government in Lebanon, which broke a nine-month deadlock. Council members encouraged all political leaders to build on the momentum of the cabinet's formation "to address the pressing security, economic, social and humanitarian challenges facing the country" and called on the new government to urgently implement reforms, fight corruption and strengthen accountability. In the new government headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Hezbollah controls three ministries including the health ministry. The US administration expressed concerns about Hezbollah holding three cabinet posts and called on the new government to ensure that the group is not supported by the ministries' resources.

Matar Says National Solidarity Tantamount to Reform
Naharnet/09 February/19/Beirut Archbishop Boulos Matar on Saturday said that reform can “only be achieved” through comprehensive national solidarity among Lebanon’s different components, calling on the newly formed government to work as one in order to restore the confidence of the Lebanese in their homeland. In remarks he made marking St. Maroun Day in Saint Maroun Church in Gemayzeh, he said: “National unity governments are usually formed when the country is in danger,” referring to Lebanon’s “national unity cabinet” that was formed after a nine-month deadlock. Urging everyone to work for the country’s interest, he said: “Lebanon is the homeland of freedom with distinction. We must all work together in order to safeguard its future,” he added. The sermon was attended by a number of politicians and officials­ including President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and many others who gathered to honor the patron saint of the Maronite community.

Matar: Reform can be achieved through national solidarity
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - President of the Republic Michel Aoun, First Lady Nadia Aoun, House Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Saturday attended a Mass to celebrate St. Maroun's Day, the patron Saint of the Maronite community. Senior political, security and religious officials gathered at the St. Maroun Church in Gemmayzeh to attend the Mass service officiated by Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Boulos Matar. In his sermon, Bishop Matar pointed out that reform can be achieved through national solidarity. "Reform can be achieved through comprehensive national solidarity, unequivocal and without hesitation," he said. Matar expressed his optimism about the formation of the new government, especially as it brought new hope for the Lebanese. "At the domestic level, there is a consensus over this government, and it is called upon to restore Lebanese citizens' confidence in their homeland," he added. Commenting on the recent Pope's visit to the United Arab of Emirates, Matar lauded Pope Francis' visit to UAE, deeming it as "a new era of peace and love." Matar concluded his sermon by calling on Lebanese officials to work closely together for the sake of the country.

Hariri arrives in Dubai to partake in Governments' World Summit
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - Prime Minister Saad Hariri arrived Saturday afternoon at the Emiri Hall at Dubai Airport to participate in the World Summit of Governments in its 17th session which opens tomorrow under the patronage of UAE Vice President and Prime Minister, Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. More than four thousand figures from 140 countries will be attending the Summit, including heads of states, governments, ministers, international officials and leaders of 30 international organizations. Premier Hariri and his accompanying delegation, which includes MP Ghattas al-Khoury and a number of advisors, were greeted at Dubai Airport by UAE Minister of Health and Community Protection, Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais, Lebanese Ambassador to the UAE Fuad Dandan, UAE Ambassador to Lebanon Hamad Saeed Al Shamsi, and Consul of Lebanon in Dubai Assaf Doumit.

Berri confers with Egyptian Ambassador over bilateral relations
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - House Speaker Nabih Berri met Saturday with Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Nazih al-Najari, with talks touching on the latest developments and bilateral relations. On emerging, al-Najari said: "I was honored to meet with Speaker Berri and congratulate him on the formation of the Lebanese government, which he was always keen on accelerating and played a major role in facilitating its formation."The Egyptian Ambassador wished Lebanon all success in administering the next phase at the political, economic and various levels, voicing his country's support within the context of its relationship with Lebanon. He deemed the upcoming period as "a very important stage for Lebanon and the whole region."

Berri presides over 'Development and Liberation' bloc meeting
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - House Speaker, Nabih Berri, is currently chairing at his residence in Ain el-Teeneh a meeting for his parliamentary bloc to prepare for the discussions over the cabinet's policy statement and votes of confidence for the new government in the coming few days.

Kouyoumjian says economic, financial, social dossier a government priority
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - Social Affairs Minister, Richard Kouyoumjian, stressed Saturday that the current government's priority is to address the economic, financial and social issues at stake, anticipating good achievements for Lebanon with the support of the Cedar Conference.
In an interview with "Radio Free Lebanon" this morning, Kouyoumjian asserted his Party's support to the exclusivity of arms in the hands of the Lebanese State and its full authority over all its territory. "The position of the Security Council might be supportive to this stance, which is good," he added. Kouyoumjian noted that the Lebanese Forces ministers have previously voiced their reservation within cabinet regarding the exclusivity of weapons and the strategic decision of the State. "Unfortunately, our position has not been adopted, and I do not think there would be any significant developments in this respect," regretted Kouyoumjian.

Jumblatt before Druze Sheikhs: No one can uproot AlMukhtara!
Sat 09 Feb 2019/NNA - Progressive Socialist Party Chief, former MP and Minister Walid Jumblatt, stressed Saturday that no one could succeed in uprooting the "Mukhtara". This came before several delegations of Druze sheikhs, including spiritual and social bodies and judges of the Sect, heads of committees and members of the Druze religious council, who visited the Mukhtara Palace today to show support Jumblatt. Attending the encounter was Democratic Gathering Head, MP Taymor Jumblatt, Education Minister Akram Shehayeb, Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour and MPs Faisal Al Sayegh and Hadi Abul-Hassan. "They think that with the current political structure and ministries they can push Al-Mukhtara 70 years back...Al-Mukhtara has existed over centuries and still does, and no one will be able to uproot it!" exclaimed Jumblatt. However, he noted that "despite what happened, we will deal with matters realistically and positively on the basis of dialogue and interaction with what occurred for the interest of the Mountain, coexistence and Lebanon." Over his position on the Syrian issue, Jumblatt said he does not force anyone to abide by his stance towards the Syrian regime. "Today, allow me to remain comfortably in my Mukhtara home, for I do not want to take the road to Damascus. Yet, I am not an obstacle standing in your way if there is a need for you to take that road," he underlined. "With regard to the Party's policy of counteracting this liberal wave that wants to sweep off the vital parts of the State, we will address it with a lot of calm to preserve the public domain and reject such brutal privatization that Lebanon has not seen for a long time," Jumbaltt went on. He pointed to the power of privatization to overthrow stable regimes. "I also hope that the parties that have not yet spoken about privatization would do so, as now is the time because poverty does not distinguish between the Shiites, the Druze, the Sunnis and the Christians," emphasized Jumblatt.

Family of Lebanese Prisoner in Iran Demands Zarif to Release Him
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/The Lebanese family of Nizar Zaka, who has been imprisoned in Iran for more than three and a half years, on Friday sent an open letter to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif, who is visiting Beirut on Sunday and Monday. "We are the family of Nizar Zaka, who is being arbitrarily detained in Iran. We call upon you, with great urgency and away from the diplomatic niceties that you exercise, to immediately release our son Nizar, who has been arbitrarily detained in your prisons since September 2015 without charge." The Zaka's family said Iranian government was clear when Shahindokht Molaverdi spoke on its behalf saying: “This is in no way approved by the government. We did all we could to stop this from happening, but we are seeing that we have failed to make a significant impact.”The family added, in response to this confession: "We must go directly to you without gloves, demanding that Nizar's suffering be ended and the injustice done to him promptly, without delay, procrastination or delay, in order to preserve human dignity and the life of our son who lives a tragedy that shortens his life and destroys his family and children."

Hezbollah Seeks to Contain Differences Among its Allies
Beirut - Nazeer Rida/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/Hezbollah has been mediating to bridge differences among its allies, an act that would pave way for comprise solutions by the government on the electricity crisis and rampant corruption. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is expected to hold a meeting with the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, to coordinate on several issues that would be put on the new cabinet’s agenda. The Shiite party is considered a go-between to settle differences among its allies - the FPM, the Amal Movement of Speaker Nabih Berri and the Marada Movement, which is headed by Suleiman Franjieh. “Hezbollah has launched an initiative to calm tension among these parties because it needs to make achievements on issues that require ministerial solidarity,” the sources said. The cabinet is expected to vote on important matters such as providing 24-hour electricity and fighting corruption. Amal, Hezbollah and other Lebanese parties agree that the government needs to be productive and avoid quarrels. “We were the first to call for limiting tension because the situation can no longer bear more crises,” Amal official Deputy Ali Khreiss told Asharq Al-Awsat. Marada sources agree that the cabinet should be productive. “There is a need to stop corruption,” they told Asharq Al-Awsat. According to former minister Ghattas Khoury, who is close to Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the government is invited to work because the country can no longer tolerate a further deterioration in the situation. “Hezbollah is a principle part of Lebanon. There are two ways to deal with the party: Either appease or launch an attack against it. But, we choose appeasement and protecting civil peace.”

Lebanese Man Self-Immolates over School Tuition
Beirut/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/Lebanese Education Minister Akram Chehayeb has ordered an investigation after reports that a man set himself ablaze following the rejection of his daughter’s school to give him a certificate that would enable him to transfer the girl to a more affordable public school. George Zreik died at the hospital on Friday after he poured gasoline over his body and self-immolated in the private school’s courtyard in the small town of Bkeftin in Koura, northern Lebanon. Chehayeb told Asharq Al-Awsat, however, that the man’s self-immolation is not directly caused by the alleged rejection to hand him over the school certificate following his failure to pay the school tuition. The issue requires further investigation, he said, adding that the ministry would cover the tuition payments of Zreik’s two children. Chehayeb earlier said in a statement issued by his press office that the ministry has always assisted those seeking to transfer their children from a private school to a public institution by securing the necessary paperwork.The school’s statement denied claims that it had threatened to expel Zreik’s daughter if he didn’t pay. It also said that it had exempted Zreik from paying the school tuition since the 2014-2015 academic year except for transportation and other smaller fees.

Moscow backs Hizballah ahead of Netanyahu visit, eyes Lebanon’s gas
دبيكا/موسكو عينها على غاز لبنان وتساند حزب الله قبيل زيارة نيتانياهو
DEBKAfile/February 09/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72028/debkafile-2/
The Russians have switched their focus to Lebanon and are hailing Hizballah as a “force for stability and security” ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow on Feb. 21 for talks with President Vladimir Putin. Russian diplomacy and media are for the first time coming out with high praise for Hizballah, giving Netanyahu to understand that Putin has no interest in hearing about the Shiite terrorist movement’s misdeeds or Israel’s operations against its tunnels.
On Saturday, Feb. 9, Russian Ambassador to Beirut Alexander Zasypkin said in an interview with Sputnik that a new conflict could erupt between Israel and Lebanon “as a result of the United States’ actions aimed at sowing discord in the region, as well as Washington’s campaign against Tehran and the Lebanese Hizballah movement.”
When events started unfolding in Syria, Hizballah “sided with the lawful authorities in the fight against terrorists as its duty, ” he said. “Hizballah became directly involved in military operation at Syria’s request, alongside Russia and Iran and took a responsible approach.”
Turning to Washington, the Russian ambassador said, “Instead of trying to deal with tensions in the region together with Russia and other countries, the United States has launched a campaign against Iran and Hizballah, making the situation in the region even more volatile.”
Zasypkin went on to say: “As for a conflict between Israel and Lebanon, nothing can be predicted with certainty because the region is at a crossroads.”
Moscow’s compliments for Hizballah as a “positive and responsible” force in Syria and the region, may come as a surprise to many Israelis given some of the stories appearing in local media in the past month. DEBKAfile’s military sources offer three striking examples:
The S-300 air defense missiles Russia delivered to Syria last October were wrongly reported as having become operational. Our sources stressed that the missiles are not operational.
Iran was misreported as having completed and started production at a factory for manufacturing precise ballistic missiles in northern Syria. This story was shown with depictions of large chambers filled with machinery and it was presented to support an purported Israeli threat to strike the plant unless it is dismantled. DEBKAfile: In reality, the factory was built, but its halls stand empty and no precise ballistic missiles are as yet being produced.
Tehran was said to have acceded to a Russian demand to evacuate from Damascus international airport the “Glass House” – by which Iran’s headquarters are known – to ward off Israeli attacks. DEBKAfile: There is no sign of the Iranians moving out of this building.
The Kremlin appears to believe that these unfounded stories were planted by the Americans and Israelis to drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran/Beirut and decided to nip this campaign in the bud ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival in Moscow.
DEBKAfile accounts for Moscow’s changed attitude towards Hizballah on two grounds:
Next Thursday, Feb. 14, Presidents Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Tayyip Erdogan meet at the Black Sea resort of Sochi for a thorough airing of the Syrian issue. This time, unlike previous summits, Putin realizes that his Iranian and Turkish guests will expect to hear him lay out a clear, substantive policy for the next chapter of Russian involvement in Syria. A decision to recognize Hizballah’s regional standing and forge ties with the pro-Iranian Lebanese group is one of its main ingredients.
Rosneft, the Russian energy giant, has planted a foot in Lebanon’s gas and oil industry, having recently signed a 20-year accord for the management of the oil and gas facilities in the northern town of Tripoli. Moscow may well swing its support behind Hizballah’s claim that Israel’s Leviathan gas field has commandeered some of the offshore Mediterranean gas that it says belongs to Lebanon. A dispute over control of this energy resource, with Beirut backed by Moscow, could become the pretext for an outbreak of hostilities, rather than the causes outlined by the Russian ambassador.

The corniche of Ras Beirut: A porous and vibrant public space
Samir Khalaf /Annahar/February 09/19
The absence of government and municipal authorities produced havoc in zoning ordinances and threatened the country’s landscape and natural habitat.
BEIRUT: The catalogue of cruelties spawned by seventeen years (1975-1992) of protracted hostility in Lebanon have been chronicled ad nauseam. Any further documentation is only a painful elaboration of the obvious. The war has generated an endless carnage of innocent victims, immeasurable human suffering, devastation and destruction. The most profound, perhaps, has been the redrawing of the country’s social geography. Massive population shifts and dislocations, fueled by deepening enmity and collective vengeance, have generated deformations in spatial configurations and sustained a pervasive mood of geography of fear. Such spatial deformations assume poignant features. Mixed and heterogeneous communities have diminished. Decentralization has undermined Beirut’s primacy and its dominance as a metropolitan center. Land use patterns are in disarray. The absence of government and municipal authorities produced havoc in zoning ordinances and threatened the country’s landscape, natural habitat, and much of its archaeological and architectural heritage. Pervasive hostility and fear have reinforced the psychological barriers and distance between communities.
Equally graphic is the way the spaces and tempo of war had asserted their ferocious logic on the perceptions and uses of space. Conventional distinctions between public and private spaces, between rural and urban, local and global, and the symbolic meanings and uses of home, street, courtyard, alleyway, neighborhood were all blurred or overhauled. For example, cities and sprawling suburbs are being “ruralized” as successive waves of dislocated groups, strangers to city life, converge on squatted settlements in the center and urban fringe. Conversely, as uprooted groups sought shelter and become spatially anchored in compact mountainous regions, the bucolic and pastoral character of such areas is bludgeoned by abusive forms of land exploitation. At both ends, the habitat is victimized. With internecine conflict, as combat assumed the manifestations of “turf wars”, quarters often splintered into smaller and more compact enclosures. Spaces within which people circulated shrunk even further.
The war had not only destroyed common spaces and reinforced the proclivities for the formation of exclusive and secluded enclaves, it has also generated a mood of lethargy and indifference which borders, at times, on collective amnesia. Much like other victims of collective suffering the Lebanese have become increasingly desensitized and disengaged. Even in times of relative stability and order, groups in Lebanon have not been particularly conscious of their public role in regulating or at least mitigating some of the abuses of living space. By and large, and more so than other public issues, problems of planning and zoning which directly infringe on their individual rights are often overlooked and relegated to others. Though public space is being increasingly contested, the average citizen remains, to this day, heedless and unaware that his informed attention or aroused consciousness could make a difference. The issue here converges on who are the most qualified groups and agencies that can mobilize and speak on behalf of those who have been numbed and rendered impotent by years of fear, terror and grief.
Even architects and urban designers have been delinquent in living up to the idealistic and aesthetic sensibilities so germane to their edifying and ameliorative professions. They have not been the sobering voices. Nor have they become the vectors through which the necessary measures of calculus, rationality, control, and forecasting could be incorporated into our flawed and lethargic planning process. Instead, excluding a passionate few, many of the gifted architects and builders have become willful participants, often accessories, to the very process of despoiling our living space.
Finally, the war, with all its cruelties, may still be seen in a more beneficent light, particularly with regard to its urban planning potential and prospects for recovering some of Beirut’s redeeming heritage. Indeed, if judiciously exploited, some of the physical and spatial devastation of the war may well prove to be a planner’s windfall. By literally bulldozing large stretches of some of the choicest and cherished urban spaces, such as Beirut’s historic central business district, urban planners have now access to priceless virgin land which could not have been released by the normal exorbitant and cumbersome processes of expropriation.
The war has not only permitted planners to reclaim part of Beirut’s maligned urban legacy. It has also created new spaces. It is rather telling that the subject of the Harvard GSD studio turns out to be none other than downtown Beirut’s waterfront, a landfill of about 600,000 square meters, created literally by the debris and rubble of the war (Rowe and Sarkis, 1995). The landfill, in fact, was the city’s makeshift garbage dump, an aberrant product of Beirut’s fractious political history. The municipal incinerator happened to be on the “Easter” part of the city’s divide. During the war, garbage trucks on the “Western” and other suspect sectors of the city were not, for security considerations, allowed passage to the East. Hence the stopgap and provisional garbage dump, bounded by St. George’s Bay on the west and the Port Company on the east, became the landfill under consideration.
The landfill is clearly not an ordinary appendage to the city. As captured in the aerial view it is unquestionably the most compelling site destined to reshape and define Beirut’s future skyline and overall identity and image.
It is within this context that this collaborative venture becomes timely and instructive. Out of the debris of the war, so-to-speak, planners and entrepreneurs have now unprecedented historic opportunities to evolve inventive but realistic schemes for rebuilding and restoring devastated areas and to partake in the more venturesome projects of designing new ones for the reclaimed and appended sites.
It is in such malleable places, open enough to permit constant alterations, that the basic impulses for intimacy and distance are met. In heeding such elemental human needs, the urbanist, in other words, has to design week “borders” rather than impassable “boundaries”. Boundaries, like walls, conjure up images of partition, exclusion, and confinement. Borders, on the other hand, are more scalable, and hence, they are less likely to serve as barriers or fearsome demarcating lines.
The present Corniche encircling much of the sea front of Ras Beirut, Perhaps the only genuinely open space in the city, has evolved as one such porous and vibrant public space. For seven years (between 1995 and 2003) we lived in one of AUB’s faculty apartments facing the iconic Corniche of Western Beirut. Hence I had the opportunity to observe rather closely and to document the, changing character of the activities and patrons it attracted. Various groups and users, representing virtually all sectors of society, have spontaneously evolved distinct but mutually compatible routines for maximizing use of this scarce resources without encroaching on the needs and routines of others. For example, in the early morning, often pre-dawn hours, it is the health-conscious and sport-minded groups, largely drawn from privileged strata, attired in the latest-fashion jogging outfits, who monopolize its spacious sidewalks. The agile, fit and not so fit, animated by the fresh sea breeze or their buoyant companions, are out to be refreshed before they report to work. A few are seen jogging, others walk briskly, but the majority stroll gingerly in groups and appear to be engaged in gregarious and chatty talk.
By mid-morning and until early afternoon, the Cornich becomes the preserve of diverse groups of idlers, mostly unemployed, disengaged, or retired who seem in no particular hurry to get anywhere or indulge in any focused activity or consuming pastime. They just tarry around, again mostly in groups, and bide their time watching the fishermen, speed boats, and distant ships.
By late afternoon and early evening, the Corniche is stormed by yet other groups of leisure seekers. Once again this is an odd medley of disparate crowds, social categories and age groups: families on their daily outings; after work colleagues and companions; young men and women, veiled and in trendy clothes; others sporting their new cars and latest electronic acquisitions; hyper-active after-school kids, on bicycles, in-line skates, skateboards, careening their way, recklessly, through the congested sidewalk. Street vendors, hawkers, peddlers, often in colorful vans and carts converted into eating stalls, also join in.
During weekends, or holidays, throngs of the underclass from the inner city and urban fringe literally take over the Corniche with its central shrubbed divide. It is instantly transformed into a boisterous picnic ground and amusement park. Families, parties of friends spread their mats, deck chairs, kitchen utensils next to their cars. They indulge their private fancies with much abandon as though the Corniche was as an extension of their backyards. It is also on weekends that the Corniche becomes an appealing venue for even more rambunctious and graceless groups: vociferant motorcades of weddings and funerals, supporters of local and religious leaders, soccer enthusiasts, and vehicled conveyors of amplified peddlers marketing their merchandise.
At night and often late into the early morning hours, the Corniche unfolds into an alluring, perhaps more lurid space; it becomes a lover’s lane. As the raucous evening crowds fade away, the luscious tranquility of the sea front attracts yet another assorted motley of pleasure seekers: after-dinner crowds, young amorous couples, and some lascivious groups; generally those bereft of the privileges of private quarters or access to covert or guarded places of assignation. To many the Corniche becomes such an open but sheltered place. Its dark anonymous milieu shrouds its seekers with the needed cover. People drop their reserves and indulge their whims with more abandon.
They also become, for better or worse, more oblivious of others. Even traditional and reserved groups, those who normally denounce the liberalization of sexual mores, become more permissive. Bearded “fundamentalists” with their veiled partners walk arm in arm. Others may be seen serenading as they exchange intimate tokens more freely.
What is striking is that, in the process, the Corniche never lost its basic function as a major traffic artery. It has become, like any other vibrant and porous urban space, a space of many spaces. The metamorphoses of the Corniche are instructive precisely because they prompt us to reconsider some of the salient misconceptions regarding the interplay between private and public use of space.
There is, in other words, some justification to uphold the image of the Lebanese as a spatially anchored creature, one who is culturally predisposed to huddle compulsively and define his domains (i.e. the compact enclosures of family and neighborhoods) against potential and alleged trespassers. Yet the Lebanese is also a creature of the outdoors. At least until the war terrorized his public spaces, he was inclined towards such gregarious and convivial encounters in much of his daily life and public celebrations. Street life is emblematic of urban provocation and arousal precisely because one lets go, so to speak, and drops his conventional reserves towards others. This is, after all, the ultimate test of a civil and open society.
I wish to conclude by one parting thought inspired by a felicitous historical precedent. When Daniel Bliss, the founder of the American University of Beirut, was considering in the early 1860’s an appropriate location to house the proposed College, he devoted endless surveying trips scouting for such a spot. When he finally beheld the site, he was instantly spellbound by it. It was at the time a desolate, forsaken stretch of scabrous, craggy, terraced hill punctuated with wild cactus and feral shrubs. As Bliss recorded in his engaging memoir: “We paid for the property far more that its market value; it scarcely had a market value. It was a home for jackals and a dumping place for the offal of the city”.
This garbage dump of old, largely by fortuitous circumstances, was fateful in redirecting the urban growth of Beirut and in begetting one of the most dominant and cosmopolitan urban centers in the Arab world! Beirut’s current landfill, a gift of the debris of war and human refuse is also a compelling site. It has much more going for it. May it not also usher in Beirut’s recovery and prefigure the contours of its auspicious growth?
*Dr. Samir Khalaf is a retired professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut and has the been a director of the Centre for Behavioural Research at the university since 1994. He received his PhD in Sociology in 1964 from Princeton University.

While the rest of the region advances, Iran is trapped in the past
Raghida Dergham/The National/February 09/19
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In the effort to export its revolution, Lebanese sovereignty is being steadily eroded
It was difficult not to feel joy at Tuesday’s historic papal mass in Abu Dhabi, and the meeting between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Dr Ahmed Al Tayeb. Both men came to the UAE at the invitation of Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. In the midst of all the tragedies of the Middle East, the UAE has once again come up with an initiative that revives hope in the region, with a view to reforming religious discourse and countering extremist ideologies. It reminded us that dreaming is a right, and that the function of government is to secure the welfare and wellbeing of its citizens. The chasm couldn’t be greater between Abu Dhabi and other capitals, such as Khartoum, Baghdad, Damascus, or Sanaa – not to mention Tehran. Yet this week also saw an exceptional development in Beirut, where the Arab world’s first female interior minister Rayya Al Hassan assumed office. It was a historic sight, witnessing Ms Al Hassan march in front of male security leaders and officers and receive salutes from Lebanon’s top brass.
Meanwhile, in Iran, there was a familiar scene as the leaders of the regime celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, clinging on to their archaic vision despite its many failures and painful consequences for their people.
In Lebanon, Ms Al Hassan, beyond her first act of removing concrete blocks in the heart of Beirut and the message of hope and recovery from terrorism it sent, spoke of a new working plan for her department. She tackled the security situation, traffic law, electoral law, prison reform, and the civil defence and emergency services. She raised the issue of domestic violence, calling on women who experience abuse to recall that police stations across Lebanon’s cities and villages are duty bound to protect them. Making such a statement after taking over a traditionally male post is how change is made.
Yet this does not mean that Lebanon now respects the rights of women to be part of political decision-making. It remains a country of political and sectarian feudalism. True, it is a precedent in the country for four competent women to serve in the government, but they have all been appointed by male leaders or were chosen for their partisan affiliations. One can only hope that these appointments pave the way for a wider recognition of women’s rights to political participation and for the Lebanese system to evolve accordingly.
In Iran, the state of the Islamic Republic 40 years after Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution requires the pillars of the regime to show some humility and introspection. Doubling down on and exporting the revolution as a policy will push Iran further back in time, regardless of its leaders’ boasts of building missiles, developing military capabilities, and winning battles in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. Today, there is a wide chasm between Iran and the rest of the world, and the Iranian people have been robbed of the ability to dream and live a normal life.
In effect, former US President Barack Obama harmed Iranians when he abandoned them in favour of a deal with the regime. He also made Tehran believe it is above being held to account. Mr Obama drove Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran's clients, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq, into a trap when he made them believe the revolution had triumphed, and that their project for regional dominance was irreversible.
Today, Iran's stock is falling, not just in America but in Europe as well. Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif and his broad-smiling diplomacy seemed to succeed in Europe, amid the encouragement of Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini – the two women who served successively as the EU foreign policy chiefs – until the bloc dealt him a blow and all but reneged on its promises and commitments.
Iraq and Syria too have dealt blows to the rulers of Iran. Both countries seemed to offer Iran a major victory and a guaranteed conduit for the Persian Crescent project for regional hegemony. That is before it transpired that nothing was guaranteed, even in Syria, not just because of Israel but also because of Russia. It is therefore wise for Iran’s leaders to take stock and acknowledge that there is no choice but to reform the regime in order to regain status within its borders. However, this will not be easy, because an internal battle is raging in Iran, and because the so-called reformists remain much weaker than the hardliners, who refuse to compromise. The hardline faction will not consider reform because it would invalidate their raison d’etre, by which they dominate the regime.
Here, a crucial question is this: can the reformists bring about fundamental change in the equation against the continued intransigence of the hardliners? Will the political landscape in the region push Iran into further escalation and intransigence? Or will it bring about a realistic reconsideration that leads to a decision to adapt and reform, in order to survive?
It may be difficult to answer these questions until the battle for the succession of the Supreme Leader begins, which may not be as long as he is alive. Iran is sending out signals of both escalation and strategic “patience”. On the ground in Lebanon and Syria, it is sending entirely different messages.
On Sunday, Mr Zarif will visit Beirut and meet Lebanese officials, led by President Michel Aoun. He will also meet Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and attend a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. The visit comes as Mr Nasrallah pledged Iran “will not be alone when America wages war, because all of our region is linked”. As “a friend of Iran”, he is prepared to import Iranian air defences for the Lebanese army “and bring from Iran all that the Lebanese army needs to become the strongest army in the region”.
Mr Zarif’s visit also comes amid talk of Iranian repositioning in Syria, moving from Damascus airport to the T-4 Airbase in Homs, as its position in the capital has come under repeated Israeli bombardment in the past two months. The visit also comes after the IRGC threatened Israel with a torrent of missiles if it attacks Iran. But what matters here is to understand the purpose of the visit in the context of Iran’s vision for Hezbollah and Lebanon.
Iran and Hezbollah understand well that offering air defence capabilities to the Lebanese Armed Forces is a manoeuvre. Yet there is genuine talk of Iranian attempts to infiltrate other Lebanese institutions through aid. Tehran may want to use official Lebanese cover to protect its assets and Hezbollah from US sanctions, a course of action that has the secondary objective of also driving a wedge between Lebanon, the US and Arab Gulf states. The onus now falls on Lebanon to prove it is serious about protecting its sovereignty. The Hezbollah chief’s rhetorical escalation against the US and the Gulf states, and offers of Iranian aid by proxy, indicates that the hardliners in Iran have decided to inch towards confrontation, at least tactically. Advocates of this military confrontation are squarely in the hardliner camp. Indeed, they are well aware that the “victory” of the Iranian revolution will not be complete unless they achieve military victory against Israel. However, they do not want to fight the war to end all wars. They prefer to pretend to be victorious, while exporting a revolution that has brought darkness upon their people.

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on February 09-10/19
Israeli Report: Iran Manufacturing Precision-guided Missiles in Syria
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019
Israeli Directorate of Military Intelligence (AMAN) sources have said that Iran attempted to deceit Israel and established a factory in Syria instead of Lebanon to produce precision-guided missiles to avoid Israeli strikes. The sources told Channel 2 that given the difficulties faced by Iran and Hezbollah to find the right infrastructure to produce missiles in Lebanon, Iranians and Syrians discovered creative ways to provide necessary equipment to Lebanon.
The Organization of Technological Industries (OTI) helped circumvent US and European sanctions and contribute to Iran and Hezbollah’s plan to develop precision-guided missiles, claimed the report. Israeli military sources revealed that Iran is likely to move its weapons supply center for Syria from the Damascus international airport to the Syrian air base known as T4, located between Homs and Palmyra. The alleged decision comes following the latest wave of Israeli attacks on the Damascus airport, which has caused tension between Iran on the one side and the Syrian regime and Russian on the other because it undermined the attempt by Damascus and Moscow to create the impression that the regime had restored stability to the country after scoring a series of victories in the latest battles. Iran has progressively stepped up the presence it established years ago at the Damascus airport, with the consent of the Syrian regime. During the war, the international airport has turned into a hub where arms transported from Iran have been received, sorted and supplied. The Damascus facility is Syria’s main civilian airport. Traffic through it diminished during the war, in part because the regime severed diplomatic ties with several countries. Next to the civilian terminal is the seven-story Glasshouse, which was originally built as a hotel. The Quds Brigade of the Revolutionary Guard Corps has its own independent compound within the airport, just dozens of meters from the international terminal through which passengers and tourists enter and leave Syria. In recent years, the seven-story Glasshouse has served as the headquarters from which Iran runs its Syrian operations. Access to the Glasshouse is restricted. Arms storage depots, including two underground bunkers, which were originally intended to protect jet planes from aerial attack, lie nearby.

US ‘Relentless' to Deter Iran Missile Program
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/The United States has vowed to remain "relentless" in pressuring Iran to deter its missile program following Tehran’s unveiling of a new ballistic weapon days after testing a cruise missile. "Iran's blatant disregard for international norms must be addressed," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement. "We must bring back tougher international restrictions to deter Iran's missile program," he added, according to Agence France Presse. "The United States will continue to be relentless in building support around the world to confront the Iranian regime's reckless ballistic missile activity, and we will continue to impose sufficient pressure on the regime so that it changes its malign behavior - including by fully implementing all of our sanctions." Tehran reined in most of its nuclear program under a landmark 2015 deal with major powers but has kept up development of its ballistic missile technology. President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear accord in May and reimposed sanctions on Iran, citing the program among its reasons. "Iran's latest missile launch again proves the Iran deal is doing nothing to stop Iran's missile program," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted late Thursday. Iran's Revolutionary Guards unveiled a new ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers, their official news agency Sepah News reported. Fars news agency published pictures of an underground missile factory called “underground city”, saying the “Dezful” missile was a version of the Zolfaghar missile that has a 700 km range and a 450 kg warhead. The move was the latest show of military might by the country as it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the revolution. Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khameneisaid Friday that Europe "cannot be trusted", a week after the EU launched a trade mechanism to bypass US sanctions on Tehran. "These days there's talk of the Europeans and their proposals. My advice is that they shouldn't be trusted, just like the Americans," he said at a meeting with air force officials, his website reported. "I'm not saying we shouldn't have relations with them. This is about trust," he added. Britain, France and Germany last week launched a special payment mechanism called INSTEX to help save the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. It would allow Tehran to keep trading with EU companies in spite of US sanctions renewed after Washington quit the accord last year. Tehran has cautiously welcomed INSTEX as a "first step", but US officials said the new entity would not have any impact on efforts to exert economic pressure on Iran. Khamenei also accused Europe of hypocrisy over human rights, criticising France's treatment of protesters in Paris. "They (anti-riot police) attack protesters in Paris streets and blind them, then they have the audacity to make human rights requests of us," he said. Turning to the United States, Khamenei said Iranians would chant "death to America" as long as Washington kept up its hostile policies, but the slogan was not directed at the American people."Death to America means death to (President Donald) Trump, (National Security Advisor) John Bolton and (Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo. It means death to America's rulers ... we have nothing against the American people," he said.

Palestinian Arrested over Killing of Israeli
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/09 February/19/A Palestinian suspected of having killed a young Israeli woman has been arrested in a raid in the West Bank city of Ramallah, an Israeli police spokesman said on Saturday. The body of Ori Ansbaher, 19, was found on Thursday evening in the south of Jerusalem, and she was buried on Friday in the Israeli settlement of Tekoa. The suspect comes from the flashpoint city of Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank, police said. All other details of the woman's killing remain the subject of an Israeli gag order. Previous Israeli statements about her murder came only from top diplomats and politicians. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, accused the UN Security Council of staying silent in the face of what he charged was the complicity of the Palestinian Authority (PA) of president Mahmud Abbas in such attacks. "The PA maintains its policy of paying salaries for terrorists and educating its youth with incitement, and a 19-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Israel," he said. "The Security Council has the responsibility and moral duty to make a clear condemnation of this barbaric murder and to act firmly against the culture of terror in the Palestinian Authority." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a statement on Friday evening that "the security forces will track down those responsible for this killing and we will treat them with the full force of the law." Netanyahu's principal challenger in an April 9 general election, former armed forces chief of staff Benny Gantz, said he had full confidence in the ability of the security forces to arrest the killer. The West Bank was hit by a bout of unrest in December as tensions eased in the Gaza Strip. but they later eased in the West Bank too. The future of the West Bank is set to be one of the main issues of the Israeli election campaign. Gantz, who is running on a centre-right ticket, has hinted that he may be ready to pull back from the territory as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners are campaigning for the unilateral annexation of large swathes of the Palestinian territory. Some 650,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem. The settlements are seen as illegal under international law and a major obstacle to peace, as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Trump adviser Kushner to visit Middle East on peace plan’s economic part
Reuters, Washington/Saturday, 9 February 2019/White House senior adviser Jared Kushner will travel to at least five Arab countries in late February to brief diplomats on the economic portion of a long-awaited US peace proposal for the Middle East and seek their support, officials said on Thursday. Kushner and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, plan stops in Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar on their week-long trip, two senior White House officials said. They may add two other countries to their itinerary. Kushner and Greenblatt, joined by State Department envoy Brian Hook and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz, will not brief the diplomats on the “political component” of the peace plan, which covers all core issues of the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the officials said. Instead, they will gauge the level of support for the economic part of the plan, which is expected to include a combination of aid and investment to help the Palestinian people, the officials said. “Jared is going to share elements of the economic plan to the region. The economic plan only works if the region supports it,” said one official who briefed a small group of reporters. “This is a very important part of the overall equation.”Seeking regional support for the economic plan is a step on the way to the eventual unveiling of Trump’s sweeping proposals to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The economic plan is widely expected to include international funding proposals for the impoverished Gaza Strip. Officials said they realized that the Arab diplomats Kushner meets will want to know elements of the political component before rendering a judgment on the economic plan. “They’re not going to support the economic plan without making sure they also support the political plan, and we recognize that. So the support, I’m sure in some manner, will be conditioned on whether they are comfortable with the political plan,” one official said.

European Sources Criticize Arab Efforts to Normalize Ties with Damascus
Paris - Michel Abou Najm/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/Several European countries believe that time is not yet ripe for the normalization of relations between Arab states and Syria, diplomatic sources said in Paris. “We understand the proposals of some Arab capitals on their desire to restore ties with the (Syrian) regime,” the sources said. But “conditions are not ripe yet” for such a leap. Arabs believe they should resume relations with the regime of Bashar Assad to prevent further Iranian expansion, the sources said. Several Arab states claim that their rapprochement with Assad would give him more independence in decision-making, away from Iranian dictates, they said. Also, the sources said Arabs believe there is a Russian-Iranian clash of interests in Syria, a situation that should weaken the position of Tehran and set the stage for the return of Arab influence. However, the diplomatic sources stressed that Arab states, which have expressed enthusiasm in restoring ties with Syria, have miscalculated the strength of relations between Damascus and Tehran. “This relationship is considered by the regime as a life insurance,” according to the sources. They warned that if Arab states start pouring money into the Syrian economy, Damascus would benefit from the funds but would remain under Iran’s influence.

White House Speaks to Palestinians Via Twitter
Washington - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/The United States and the Palestinian Authority are not officially on talking terms, but President Donald Trump's administration has found a way to communicate nonetheless – Twitter. Jason Greenblatt, the Twitter-loving US leader's special representative for international negotiations, has taken to social media over several days in an indirect, if also plainly visible, dialogue with the Palestinian leadership, Agence France Presse reported. Greenblatt and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser, have been handed the herculean task of coming up with a plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians after decades of failed initiatives. The pair has been discreet, managing against the odds to avoid leaks of upcoming proposals. But their task is complicated as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut off talks with the administration in 2017 after Trump took the landmark decision of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In his latest tweets this week, Greenblatt responded to Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh who warned that no peace was possible without the Palestinian people's assent. "Well, Mr. Nabil, we agree on something -- there is no peace without an agreement. We are working hard on that. You're doing nothing," Greenblatt tweeted.
"You can't claim to want peace and also try to sabotage the potential for an agreement. It can't go both ways," he wrote. Greenblatt in recent days has also gone on Twitter to reply to Palestinian Liberation Organization secretary general Saeb Erekat and fellow senior figure Hanan Ashrawi, often addressing them by their first names on issues ranging from Israeli settlements to US assistance to the status of Jerusalem, AFP said. "Who says the US and the PA aren't talking? The only difference now is that we are speaking about these matters in public via twitter so the public can understand everyone's positions. Transparency is better for all," he tweeted. The strategy is similar to that of Trump, who has embraced Twitter as a way to speak without the filter of critical media or cautious aides. When Ashrawi criticized Greenblatt for seeking the "gratification of a tweet" over "serious engagement," the Trump aide said he was happy to speak. "I'm happy to meet anytime -- you, Saeb and all your colleagues are ALWAYS welcome to visit me at the @WhiteHouse to speak in person," he tweeted.

Gantz: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict a Security Matter that ‘Can be Settled’
Tel Aviv - Nazir Magally/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/Benny Gantz, whose new Resilience party is gaining ground against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud in the April 9 general election, considered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a security issue that can be settled. In his first bold interview since entering politics, the former top general denied that the Israeli presence in the West Bank is an “occupation,” rejecting the use of such a terminology. “The central question is a security question. We need to ensure the State of Israel’s security. Now, we have here a question of interests – and even Bibi [Netanyahu] said this at his Bar Ilan address [in 2009] – that we don’t want to rule over anyone else. We need to find a way for us not to be governing other people,” he said. The latest Israeli poll has shown that Gantz is capable of defeating Netanyahu in the election. It indicated that a united Gantz-Lapid list would win 36 of parliament’s 120 seats, ahead of Likud with 32. The poll showed the New Right getting nine seats and the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, getting six each, while Labor would get only five seats and Meretz and Gesher would fail to cross the electoral threshold. Running separately, the same poll found that Gantz’s Israel Resilience would get 24 seats and Lapid would get 10. However, Meretz would get four seats. In this scenario, Likud would get 32 seats, the New Right would get nine, the Joint (Arab) List seven, lawmaker Ahmed Tibi’s Ta’al would get six, Shas, UTJ, Jewish Home and Labor would each get five. Israel Beytenu and Kulanu would get four each. Gesher would still fall below the threshold. Asked who they preferred to see as prime minister, 48 percent of pollsters chose Netanyahu, 35 percent Gantz and 17 percent did not know.

Germany, France Warn ISIS Not Yet Defeated
Asharq Al-Awsat/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/Germany and France declared Friday that the ISIS terrorist group has not been defeated. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the group is far from defeated, and instead is morphing into an asymmetrical warfare force after the militant group lost almost all of the territory it once controlled in Syria. Merkel’s remarks at the inauguration of the Berlin headquarters of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND contradicted statements by US President Donald Trump that the terrorists have been defeated. “The ISIS has been luckily driven out of its territory but this unfortunately doesn’t mean that it has disappeared,” Merkel said. “It is transforming into an asymmetrical warfare force. And this, of course, is a threat.” The conservative chancellor said monitoring events in Syria was one of the BND’s top priorities, which also include tracking cyber threats and fake news designed to influence democratic elections. In Baghdad, French Defense Minister Florence Parly warned that "the work is not over" in the fight against ISIS, despite the terrorists facing the loss of their last scrap of territory. "The territorial caliphate, which has not yet been wiped out, is being defeated," she said in the Iraqi capital. "We must continue the fight against ISIS and terrorism in the region because ISIS is probably in the process of reorganizing underground and spreading out." US-backed fighters in neighboring Syria are gearing up for a final push to oust ISIS from the sole village it still holds, all that remains of a proto-state that once spanned swathes of both countries. Trump, who committed late last year to pulling US troops out of Syria, has said he expects a final declaration of victory over ISIS next week. Parly called for France "to strengthen the relationship of cooperation and partnership with Iraq", both as part of a US-led coalition and bilaterally, to face the "persistent threat" of ISIS. Trump sparked the ire of Iraqi officials last week when he said he plans to keep American forces in their country to keep an eye on neighboring Iran, also a major power-broker in Baghdad. Defense ministers from the anti-ISIS coalition, of which France is a central member, are set to meet soon to determine how it can maintain a regional "presence", Parly said. "It is a proposal that will be made subject to Iraq accepting the conditions of this presence. We are on sovereign territory."

Iraq: 'PMF' Shuts Down Fake Offices, Arrests Commander Who Criticized Iran
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 9 February, 2019/Khafajah tribe denounced the arrest of Aws al-Khafaji, leader of Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade, and demanded his release two days after the "Popular Mobilization Forces" (PMF) arrested him. The leader of Khafajah tribe, Ameer Ghani Sikban, denounced in a statement the arrest of Aws al-Khafaji, calling on the government to help in releasing him. Khafaji, a well-known commander at PMF, criticized the visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to Iraq and his five days stay.
Sources indicate that Khafaji also accused some PMF leaders of exploiting their positions and taking advantage of the real fighters. Some sources also refer to Khafaji’s accusations claiming some militias had killed his cousin, the prominent Iraqi novelist Alaa Mushthoub who was slain in Karbala on Saturday. For his part, the popular crowd confirmed the arrest of al-Khafaji in the Karrada district, and that his arrest came after he refused to close his office. Thursday evening, the Forces released a statement saying its fighters had closed four offices “pretending to belong to the PMF” in the Karrada district of central Baghdad. “This move came after a meeting by security heads of the Popular Mobilization with the municipality of Karrada to close centers claiming to belong to the PMF.”The statement also indicated that among the offices were two who claimed they belong to the PMF’s 40th Brigade and the headquarters of the so-called Abu al-Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade administered by Sheikh Aws al-Khafaji located in the center of Karrada. The group noted that its security unit “tried to shut down the unauthorized office, but those who were present there stopped us from doing so, and disciplinary action had to be taken against them.” PMF Directorate called on all citizens to "inform the Directorate of any harassment of those who claim to belong to the PMF, to take legal action against them." According to an Iraqi source, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat, the arrest process took place fundamentally after Khafaji refused to comply with the order issued by Baghdad operations and the PMF. He explained that the Forces want to unify the offices and identify their affiliations, which will include other centers claiming to be part of the group’s security system. He noted that the action taken was organizational and does not bear any political consequences and is not related to Khafaji’s position of this party or that country. Following the 2014 rise of ISIS, Aws al-Khafaji founded Abu al-Fadhl al-Abbas Brigades, a group of several Shiite factions that fought in Syria. Abu al-Fadhl al-Abbas Brigades first fought as part of the PMF, but later announced the dissolution of the fighting force after the announcement of ISIS’ defeat in December 2017, while its office remained in Baghdad until it was closed by the PMF.

Jihadists Get Life for Deadly 2015 Tunisia Attacks on Tourists
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/09 February/19/A Tunisian court has sentenced seven jihadists to life in prison over attacks at a museum and on a beach in 2015 that killed 60 people, many of them tourists, prosecutors said Saturday. Dozens of defendants faced two separate trials over the closely linked shootings, which occurred just months apart in Tunis and Sousse, but many were acquitted. Three were given life sentences for homicide over the first attack in March 2015 at the capital's Bardo museum, in which two gunmen killed 21 foreign tourists and a Tunisian security guard. Four received the same term for the shooting rampage at a Sousse tourist resort in June that year, which killed 38 people, mostly British tourists. Other defendants were sentenced to between six and 16 years, said prosecution spokesman Sofiene Sliti on Saturday. Prosecutors said afterwards that they planned to launch appeals in both cases. The court heard that the two attacks, both claimed by the Islamic State group (IS), were closely linked. Several defendants pointed to the fugitive Chamseddine Sandi as mastermind of both.According to Tunisian media, Sandi was killed in a US air strike in neighbouring Libya in February 2016, although there has been no confirmation.
'Duty to IS'
Among those who were facing trial were six security personnel accused of failing to provide assistance to people in danger during the Sousse attack. That shooting was carried out by Seifeddine Rezgui, who opened fire on a beach before rampaging into a high-end hotel, where he continued to fire a kalashnikov and throw grenades until being shot dead by police. Four French nationals, four Italians, three Japanese and two Spaniards were among those killed in the Bardo attack, before the two gunmen themselves, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, were shot dead. Investigations showed one of the gunmen, Yassine Laabidi -- who was born in 1990 and was from a poor district near Tunis -- had amphetamines in his body.  His fellow attacker Jaber Khachnaoui, born in 1994 and from Tunisia's deprived Kasserine region, had travelled to Syria in December 2014 via Libya. One suspect questioned in court, Tunis labourer Mahmoud Kechouri, said he had helped plan the Bardo attack, including preparing mobile phones for Sandi, a neighbour and longtime friend. Kechouri, 33, said he was driven by a "duty to participate in the emergence of the (IS) caliphate". Other defendants accused of helping prepare the attack said they had only discussed ideas with friends. Several alleged they were tortured in detention.
'Finally recognised victims'
Victims' family members in France and Belgium watched the Sousse attack hearing via a live video feed. "It was important for us to see, and especially to hear -- to try to understand the role" of each defendant, said one French survivor. "Arriving at the end of the process will help us to turn the page, even if we can never forget." "The trial allowed them -- by organising the video conferencing and giving the floor to lawyers chosen by the victims -- to finally be recognised as victims by the Tunisian state," said Gerard Chemla, a lawyer for the French victims. But he lamented that the families of those killed had not been compensated. The Sousse attack, which killed 30 Britons, is also the subject of proceedings in front of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, which is seeking to establish what happened. Since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, jihadist attacks in Tunisia have killed dozens of members of the security forces. As well as leaving many dead, the Bardo and Sousse attacks dealt a devastating blow to Tunisia's vital tourism sector -- although it has begun to recover.

Venezuela's Guaido: 'We Will Do What is Necessary'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/09 February/19/Opposition leader Juan Guaido is challenging President Nicolas Maduro for control of crisis-hit Venezuela, a country plagued by hyperinflation, shortages of basic necessities and rampant violence. Guaido has declared himself interim president and has been recognized as such by dozens of countries, but Maduro, buoyed by support from the armed forces, has declined to step aside. In an interview with AFP, Guaido discusses the entry of foreign aid, contact with the military and whether he would be willing to allow the highly-controversial step of foreign military intervention.
- Foreign military intervention -
-Question: Would you use your prerogatives as speaker of the National Assembly and acting president to authorize the intervention of foreign military forces?
"We will do everything possible, once again, this is obviously a very, very controversial subject, but making use of our sovereignty and, within our jurisdictions
 we will do what is necessary."
- Entry of foreign aid -
-Question: How is the entry of humanitarian aid advancing?
"When we have sufficient supplies, we are going to make a first entry attempt. We know that there is a blockade in Tienditas (on the border with Colombia)."
"The armed forces have a huge dilemma, whether or not to accept the aid. It would be almost miserable at this point of huge necessity not to accept it."
-Question: When will the first attempt be?
"I think it's going to be next week, when we have formed the corps of volunteers and organized the distribution process."
- Contact with the military -
-Question: Why do you think the offer of amnesty for members of the military has not yet produced a massive defection from high command?
"We have to go deeper into that, we saw a division general speak openly a few days ago, we saw some sergeants of the National Guard show discontent and they are being tortured."
"Part of what we have to overcome is explaining very well that (the armed forces) have a role in the reconstruction."
Russia and China
-Question: Have you had contact with officials from Russia and China (which are allies of Maduro)? "I am sure that Moscow and Beijing know the situation in Venezuela really well: Maduro doesn't have the popular support and he can't stabilize the economy, which produced the world's largest inflation of two million percent."
- Negotiated solution -
-Question: Would you receive emissaries of the International Contact Group seeking a negotiated solution? "We are ready to talk with everyone, with a very specific agenda."
Pope's position
-Question: Does the position of Pope Francis seem lukewarm? "He did not receive anyone from the government, he does not even take them into account anymore."

Thai Princess' Bid for PM Scuttled as Party Obeys Royal Command
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/09 February/19/A new Thai political party vowed Saturday to obey a command from the king blocking the candidacy of a princess for prime minister in a dramatic reversal that appeared to boost the junta's chances ahead of March elections. The announcement effectively blocks Princess Ubolratana's unprecedented bid for the premiership and comes after an extraordinary rebuke of the candidacy by her younger brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The Thai Raksa Chart party, affiliated with the powerful Shinawatra political clan, announced the princess as their candidate on Friday morning. The move looked to rattle the status quo and threaten the ambitions of the junta that has ruled Thailand since it toppled the administration of Yingluck Shinawatra in a 2014 coup. But the Thai king torpedoed the bid in a sharply worded statement the same day that said bringing senior royal family members into politics is against tradition, national culture and "highly inappropriate."Thai Raksa Chart responded swiftly, cancelling a campaign event on Saturday and issuing a statement saying it would respect "tradition and royal customs". "Thai Raksa Chart party complies with the royal command", it said. Thailand has some of the most severe lese majeste laws in the world and the king's word is considered final. Royalist Thais and celebrities praised the intervention on social media after the order, writing "long live the king". Analysts believe the events that unfolded over the past day will help the junta consolidate power and tilt the odds in favour of coup leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha.
Military gains upper hand
Prayut is standing as premier for the Phalang Pracharat party, a group aligned with the regime.
The military has "gained the upper hand", said professor Anusorn Unno from Thammasat University, adding that it is poised to perform well in the upcoming vote. The election on March 24 is the first since the 2014 coup. Even before Thai Raksa Chart's reversal, many warned the palace statement had scuttled the princess' chances. "The palace disapproval invalidates her candidacy," said Puangthong Pawakapan, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has not had a royal run for frontline office since 1932. The 67-year-old princess did not address the royal rebuke head-on when she thanked supporters on Saturday on her widely followed Instagram account, saying vaguely that she wanted Thailand to "move forward". The king did not criticise the princess directly and seemed to focus blame on political party members who brought her on board.
Thai Raksa Chart is aligned with Yingluck and her brother Thaksin, who was ousted by the army in 2006. Both live in self-exile to avoid charges they say are politically motivated. Observers assumed Thaksin and the party would not have taken the princess on board without royal approval. But the bold play appears to have backfired dramatically on Thaksin. "After last night the king's intervention had an effect of discrediting Thaksin," Anusorn said. Ubolratana gave up her royal titles when she married an American decades ago, but they divorced and she moved back to Thailand. The first-born of the former king is an unusually public figure for a royal, having starred in movies and dished out advice to nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram.

Seeking Influence, Egypt's Sisi to Chair African Union
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/09 February/19/Nearly six years after the African Union shut it out in the cold, Egypt will take the organisation's helm -- and strengthening multilateral powers is unlikely to be on the agenda. Cairo's tenure "will probably concentrate on security and peacekeeping", said Ashraf Swelam, who heads a think tank linked to the country's foreign ministry. Incoming AU chair President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will likely focus less on "financial and administrative reform" than his predecessor, Swelam added. Such reform was the cornerstone of outgoing AU chairman Paul Kagame's year in the role. The Rwandan president has pushed for a continent-wide import tax to fund the AU and reduce its dependence on external donors, who still pay for more than half the institution's annual budget. An African diplomat told AFP that Egypt -- along with fellow heavyweights South Africa and Nigeria -- does not want a powerful AU. This diplomat, who has been tracking AU affairs for over a decade, said Cairo has "never forgotten" its suspension in 2013. The near year-long lock out from the AU came after Egypt's army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who in 2012 had become the country's first democratically elected president. Sisi is due to take the helm at the AU's biannual heads of state assembly, which takes place on February 10 and 11 at the AU's gleaming headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. As usual, the continent's multiple security crises will be high on the VIPs' agenda.
Rwanda's ambitious funding proposal will also likely be on the table. But it has met resistance not only from Egypt, but other member states, so may fail to pass. Reform of the AU Commission is an even more sensitive topic. In November 2018, most states rejected a proposal to give the head of the AU's executive organ the power to name deputies and commissioners.
Egypt backs free trade zone
But the Egyptians are "fully engaged" in pushing other AU reforms, according to an AU official. One key initiative backed by Cairo is the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), an initiative agreed by 44 of 55 member states in March 2018. The single market is a flagship of the AU's "Agenda 2063" programme, conceived as a strategic framework for socioeconomic transformation. However, the trade pact has met resistance from South Africa. Sisi will therefore need to push hard for ratification of this accord, if it is to come into effect. For Elissa Jobson, head of Africa advocacy at the International Crisis Group, Sisi can be expected to "use the presidency to increase his country's standing among other African states". "This is not a departure from previous administrations", particularly that of the outgoing chairman, she added. "Kagame showed that the presidency -- for a long time considered to be merely a figurehead -- can be used to promote national interests and boost a leader's international profile," Jobson said. The AU official -- who requested anonymity -- said Rwanda's president will remain a point person for the organisation's broad reform agenda, despite handing over the chair.
Limited power
But there are major limits to the power wielded by the post of AU chairman.
Kagame suffered a crushing disavowal by the AU after expressing "serious doubts" about the results of Democratic Republic of Congo's recent presidential election, which was officially won by Felix Tshisekedi. While also disputed by the Catholic church, the results were validated by DRC's constitutional court and saluted by continental heavyweights South Africa, Kenya and Egypt. For Liesl Louw-Vaudran at the Institute of Security Studies, Sisi wants Egypt to be considered part of Africa, not just the Arab world -- but that will require work. "North African countries have a reputation of looking in a different direction than Africa, and Egypt will have to overcome that stereotype," she said. The AU's theme for this summit is "Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons" presented within a security context. Cairo is casting itself as a champion in the battle against illegal immigration -- and as a model for hosting refugees on its soil.

Tony Blair: Iran ‘an ideology with a state’, controlled by hardliners
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 9 February 2019 /“I would say, frankly, that the hardliners are still very much in control of Iran, and I think we in the West tend to view this sometimes very naively,” Blair said. (Screen grab)
Forty years after its Islamic Revolution that toppled US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran is still controlled by hardliners and has become “an ideology with a state”, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya in London. “I would say, frankly, that the hardliners are still very much in control of Iran, and I think we in the West tend to view this sometimes very naively,” he said. “We think of Iran as a state with an ideology, but actually Iran really is an ideology with a state.”In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya news channel’s London Bureau Chief Rima Maktabi, Blair drew parallels between the Arab Spring and the Iranian Revolution, stating that the different groups involved thought the revolution was going to open up Iran into a whole set of liberal influences, and that there was “a profound disagreement over what happened afterwards.”“The trouble is always when you have got a fight between Islamists, who are numerous and well organized, and a broad mass of the population who are numerous but badly organized. Well organized people win,” Blair said. “It is a little like what happened in parts of Arab Spring, I think. And therefore the West, because it looked at this really more through its own lens than through the lens of the country itself, believed that this was going to usher in a time of great hope for Iran, and quite the opposite happened.” Iran’s Islamic Revolution overturned 2,500 years of monarchical rule and brought hardline Shiite clerics to power. The anniversary starts every year on February 1 - the day Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 returned from France after 14 years in exile to become the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Across the country on Friday, sirens rang out from trains and boats and church bells chimed at 9:33 am - the exact time Khomeini’s chartered Air France Boeing 747 touched down 40 years ago at Tehran’s International Mehrabad airport. The United States marked the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution by highlighting what it says are the “broken promises” of the Middle Eastern country’s leadership.
“When he returned to Iran in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini made lots of promises to the Iranian people, including justice, freedom, and prosperity. 40 years later, Iran’s ruling regime has broken all those promises, and has produced only 40 years of failure,” the US State Department wrote on its official Twitter account on Sunday.
Many international rights groups have blasted the republic over the past decades for violent crackdowns on minorities, journalists and activists. Media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said that Iranian authorities jailed, and sometimes executed, 1.7 million people around the capital Tehran alone in the first 30 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The organization on Thursday revealed its count that included regime opponents, Baha’is and other religious minorities and at least 860 journalists. Iran has also been asserting its influence through its ties with “extreme groups” like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi militias in Yemen, Blair said. He added that they do not support a two-state solution with respect to the Palestinian issue, and have provided on-the-ground support to the Assad regime in Syria as well. “The nuclear question is obviously important. This regime with a nuclear weapon would be disastrous and dangerous but quite apart from the acquisition from the nuclear weapons, it’s this destabilizing influence,” he said.
A needed alliance
Blair noted that part of the problem is the West’s narrow view of struggles in the Middle East, categorizing them as “Sunni versus Shiite, or Iran versus Saudi Arabia.”“I think this misses the essential point. The struggle across the Middle East today is really about whether you have religious faith as a normal part of society or whether you turn one view of one religion, which is the view of Islam, to a political ideology that necessarily becomes totalitarian. What is important to realize about Iran is that they are driven by this ideology,” he said. Last November, US President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers, saying the accord was flawed in Tehran’s favor, and reintroduced sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the pact. The sanctions hit the Iranian regime’s energy, shipping and financial sectors, targeting over 700 entities, heightening tensions between the two countries.
When asked about a solution, Blair said that an alliance needs to be formed. “You have got to be clear eyed about what Iran is doing. It is in my view the single most destabilizing force across the region, and we have to realize that in these circumstances, therefore it’s important that we build a strong alliance to push back against that power and influence where it’s possible to try and help those people in countries that are having their independence undermined, to stick by their independence and promote it,” Blair said.
Blair added that the upcoming conference in Warsaw is a first step.
The US State Department had announced that it would jointly host a global conference focused on the Middle East, particularly Iran, this month in Poland. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the planned event, where more than 70 countries are invited, as a “desperate anti-Iran circus.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News in an interview that the meeting would “focus on Middle East stability and peace and freedom and security here in this region, and that includes an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence.”“The meeting coming up in Warsaw is actually important, to build an alliance between external players like the US, UK, Europe and those within the region who support a view of the region that isn’t about taking on Iran because it’s a Shiite nation, or taking on Iran because of Iranian interests, but are standing up for the principles that religion should be in its proper place in politics,” Blair said. The meeting is set to take place on February 13 and 14.

Trump says North Korea talks productive, summit will be in Hanoi
Reuters, Washington/Saturday, 9 February 2019/President Donald Trump said on Friday that US diplomats had a “very productive meeting” with North Korean officials, and he announced that his summit later this month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be held in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. “My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un. It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28,” Trump said on Twitter. Earlier this week, Trump announced the dates for the second summit with Kim and said it would be held in Vietnam, but the city had not been disclosed. Stephen Biegun, the US special representative for North Korea, held three days of talks in Pyongyang to prepare for the summit, the State Department said on Friday. It said Biegun had agreed with his counterpart Kim Hyok Chol to meet again ahead of the summit. In their talks in Pyongyang, from Wednesday to Friday, Biegun and Kim Hyok Chol “discussed advancing President Trump and Chairman Kim’s Singapore summit commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations, and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the State Department said. Its statement, which referred to North Korea by the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, gave no indication of any progress in the talks. Just weeks ahead of the planned summit to follow on from an unprecedented first meeting between the leaders in Singapore last June, the two sides have appeared far from narrowing differences over US demands for North Korea to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States. Biegun said last week his Pyongyang talks would be aimed at seeking progress on commitments made in Singapore and mapping out “a set of concrete deliverables” for the second summit. He said Washington was willing to discuss “many actions” to improve ties and entice Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and that Trump was ready to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
‘Economic powerhouse’
Biegun said Kim Jong Un committed during an October visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the dismantling and destruction of plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities and that “corresponding measures” demanded by North Korea would be the subject of his talks. At the same time, he set out an extensive list of demands that North Korea would have to meet eventually, including full disclosure of its nuclear and missile programs, something Pyongyang has rejected for decades. On Saturday, Biegun said his talks in North Korea had been productive and Trump looked forward very much to his meeting with Kim in Hanoi. “We have some hard work to do with the DPRK between now and then,” Biegun said in South Korea before a meeting with its foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha. “I am confident that if both sides stay committed, we can make real progress.”Trump, eager for a foreign policy win to distract from domestic troubles, has been keen for a second summit despite a lack of significant moves by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. He and Biegun have stressed the economic benefits to North Korea if it does so. “North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, will become a great Economic Powerhouse,” Trump said on Twitter. “He may surprise some but he won’t surprise me, because I have gotten to know him & fully understand how capable he is,” Trump said. Trump said much work remained to be done in the push for peace with North Korea, but cited the halt in its nuclear testing and no new missile launches in 15 months as proof of progress. The Singapore summit yielded a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, where US troops have been stationed since the Korean War. While in the US view North Korea has yet to take concrete steps to give up its nuclear weapons, it complains that Washington has done little to reciprocate for its freezing of nuclear and missile testing and dismantling of some facilities. North Korea has repeatedly urged a lifting of punishing US-led sanctions, a formal end to the war, and security guarantees.

Irish prime minister says Brexit deal ‘can be done’
Reuters, Dublin/Saturday, 9 February 2019/Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Friday said he believed “a deal can be done” to avoid a disorderly British exit from the EU, after a meeting with a key ally of British Prime Minister Theresa May that he said went very well. Varadkar later hosted May for a formal dinner in Dublin that an Irish official described as “very warm” - in contrast to a relatively chilly reception given to May in Brussels earlier this week. Varadkar said talks with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party in Belfast in the afternoon showed there was “more that unites us than divides us when it comes to Brexit,” unusually conciliatory language in what has often been an acrimonious relationship. The DUP, which props up May’s government, has been one of the fiercest critics of Britain’s exit deal with the European Union, which parliament in London has rejected and more particularly the contentious “backstop” championed by Varadkar. The provision is an insurance policy meant to keep the border between Ireland, a euro zone member, and the British-run province of Northern Ireland open under any and all circumstances. The DUP says its terms are unacceptable as they would undermine trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The EU has said it will not remove the provision or re-open the legally binding Brexit deal agreed with Britain over two years, but has said it is ready to rework the political declaration that accompanies it. After the meeting, DUP leader Arlene Foster said she had a “good engagement” with Varadkar and that the DUP wanted “to be as helpful as we can to try and get a deal that works for the United Kingdom and also works for the European Union.”She declined to comment on the detail of the talks, saying both sides needed space to complete discussions. The support of the DUP’s 10 members of parliament is seen as key to May’s winning over skeptical members of her Conservative party and securing parliamentary approval for the withdrawal agreement. Asked by Irish state broadcaster RTE how he envisaged a deal could be done between Britain and the EU after weeks of stalemate, Varadkar cited the common ground between the Irish government and the DUP. Both sides, he said, wanted to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, ensure Britain left with a deal and enabled frictionless trade.“Often when you share all the major objectives, it is possible to come to a solution,” Varadkar said. “I think that on balance we will secure a deal - whether it will be by the end of March or after an extension I can’t say,” he added. Speaking ahead of his dinner with May, which included cured salmon, beef fillet and a selection of Irish cheeses, Varadkar said the meeting was aimed at seeing “confidence and trust restored.” An Irish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the meeting would not involve any formal negotiations, which are being led by Brussels.

Quebec mosque shooter gets life, no parole for 40 years
AFP, Quebec City/Saturday, 9 February 2019/A 29-year-old who shot dead six worshipers at a Quebec City mosque in the worst anti-Muslim attack in the West got life in prison on Friday. Alexandre Bissonnette will have to wait 40 years -- longer than usual -- before he can apply for parole. Judge Francois Huot rejected a prosecution request for a 150-year sentence, which would have been the longest ever in Canada, saying this would be a cruel and unusual punishment under Canadian law. But he also noted the killer’s “visceral hatred of Muslim immigrants” in his decision. Ahmed Cheddadi, who was wounded in the attack, said the sentence was appropriate in that he found it unlikely that Bissonnette would ever be released. The killer’s “highly premeditated” attack on the mosque will go down in Canadian history “written in blood” as one of this country’s worst tragedies, Huot said in court. Bissonnette’s actions sought to “undermine our fundamental societal values,” he added. A university student at the time of the shooting, Bissonnette was seduced by nationalist and supremacist ideologies into committing this “unjustified and deadly” massacre, Huot said. As the 240-page verdict was read over a six-hour period, Bissonnette sat quietly in the packed courtroom, gazing at his feet while his parents and several friends and family of the victims wiped tears from their eyes. On the evening of January 29, 2017, Bissonnette burst into the Quebec City mosque and unleashed a hail of bullets on the 40 men and four children who were chatting amongst themselves after evening prayers. Six men were killed and five were seriously injured, one of whom is now quadriplegic. The victims were all dual nationals who emigrated to Canada over recent decades: two Algerians, two Guineans, a Moroccan and a Tunisian. They were a scholar, a butcher, a daycare operator, a food industry worker, a public servant and a computer programmer -- all connected by faith.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 09-10/19
In Apple vs. Facebook, Let Users Decide
Stephen Carter/Asharq Al-Awsat/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 09/2019/
Pardon me while I offer a few words in Facebook’s defense. I stand by my previous column, in which I noted that the company had once more goofed on privacy with a research app that vacuumed up information from users’ mobile phones. On issues concerning user data, Facebook seems unable to improve its tin ear. Nevertheless, my libertarian instinct on freedom of contract compels me to defend a group caught up, perhaps to their own surprise, in this battle: users who downloaded the app and liked the money they got from it. The burden of the criticism is that Facebook took advantage of them.
The Facebook Research App targeted users between 13 and 35 years of age, with a special focus on young teenagers (who needed permission from their parents). Those who downloaded the app were paid up to $20 a month to leave it on their phones, and could earn more by referring others to the program. The app was capable of discovering and sending onward to Facebook nearly everything about their phone and internet use.
All this caused Apple to temporarily suspend Facebook’s enterprise license, which meant that for a brief moment Facebook developers could not share potential new apps with each other. As I have said, Facebook’s mistake here was distributing the app in a way that both breached its agreement with Apple and circumvented Apple’s privacy protections for programs distributed through the App Store. But that issue concerns the contract between the two companies.
By contrast, most critics have argued that the main problem is Facebook’s effort to take advantage of users by sweeping up so much data — and, implicitly, paying too little for the privilege. Besides, the argument goes, Facebook hid its hand in the process, so that users might not have known whom they were dealing with.
The trouble is, it’s not obvious that the users of the app were quite as clueless as critics seem to think. In fact, a glance at online comment threads over the two years of the Facebook Research App’s operation indicates that lots of users were far more savvy about the whole thing than the coverage suggests.
After the app was made available, online discussants quickly noted the opportunity to earn easy money. Many threads involved users who were considering the app seeking assurance that the research app was really from Facebook. They weren’t trying to avoid dealing with the company; they wanted to make sure they weren’t dealing with someone else. And plenty of eager users asked how they could sign up.
As to the privacy aspects of using the app, it’s fair to say that they were openly debated. Some users even offered advice about how to sign up while protecting one’s data. One clever suggestion: Use a “dummy” phone, so that Facebook gets no information, and you can just sit back and collect the money. True, there were problems, but not related to privacy. A prominent online complaint asked why payments were late.
True, one can’t assume that those who participated in online comment threads are representative of the general population at which the app was targeted. But neither can one assume that the rest of the users were mainly idiots. There’s evidence that millennials are much better than their elders at finding ways to save a few bucks online — for example, by clever exploitation of banking apps — so it wouldn’t be surprising if most of those who downloaded the app were perfectly aware of what they were getting into.
True, one might argue that the young people at whom the research app was targeted — even if they entered the deal with eyes wide open — were foolish to go along. Under this theory, even the users who clamored for the apps improperly weighed the risks and benefits. Thus, forcing Facebook to back down is protecting users from themselves.
I find this approach troubling. In the first place, as I have noted, $20 per month may seem trivial to some readers, but it can add up. (The annual payment of $240 will buy a discounted ticket from New York to Europe.) If a user is willing to trade online privacy for less than I would demand, that’s the user’s business.
At any rate, I reject the paternalistic notion that two parties shouldn’t be allowed to enter into a bargain they believe will make them better off because a third party thinks it’s a bad deal. For reasons that have been forcefully expressed by the philosopher Jessica Flanigan, this conception of what should and shouldn’t be allowed constitutes a deeply illiberal affront to individual autonomy.
I believe in people. I believe that nearly all people, nearly all the time, are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about what to do next. That includes making up their own minds about which contracts to enter. If Facebook finds a way to distribute its research app that doesn’t involve circumventing its agreement with Apple, I’m all for standing aside and letting users decide for themselves whether to accept the offer.

Analysis/The Islamic Revolution Succeeded, Iran Not So Much
زفي برئيل/هآرتس: الثورة الإسلامية نجحت ولكن ليس إيران
Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/February 09/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72013/zvi-barel-haaretz-the-islamic-revolution-succeeded-iran-not-so-much-%d8%b2%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a6%d9%8a%d9%84-%d9%87%d8%a2%d8%b1%d8%aa%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ab%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%a9-%d8%a7/
The revolution’s success still nourishes the dreams of Sunni movements as well, but ‘Shi’ite flexibility’ went by the wayside, and many Iranians feel their country is imprisoned in an Arab and Muslim circle of hostility.
“The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday,” said John Bolton, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, at a 2017 conference with members of Mojahedin-e Khalq that took place before Bolton’s appointment. “And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!”
The storm of applause came as no surprise. Mojahedin-e Khalq, a large and militant Iranian opposition organization that was on Washington’s terror-group list until 2012, has become America's chief ally in its war against the Iranian regime. Unlike Trump and Bolton, who have, at least officially, abandoned their desire for regime change in Iran, MEK still seeks it.
The same is true of leaders of the large community of Iranian exiles in Los Angeles, many of whom would like Iran to revert to being a monarchy with the former shah’s flaccid son, Reza Mohammad Pahlavi, on top.
But for now, Bolton and those who share his dream will have to postpone it. On Sunday, Iran will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the day the Islamic Revolution led by Khomeini declared victory. And despite the economic and political crises the country faces, its unique system of government shows no signs of disappearing.
And this isn’t a system frozen in time; it’s capable of seeing and responding to both social changes and the diplomatic environment. The flexibility that has helped the separatist Shi’ite branch of Islam survive since the seventh century also characterizes Iran’s political and diplomatic behavior.
From its inception, the Islamic Revolution rested on a variety of groups, including the national movement, the Communist Party and the bazaar merchants who financed the revolt. It was backed by both women and men, by religious people and secular ones.
In the transition period between the shah’s departure from Iran on January 16 and Khomeini’s arrival in the country on February 1, he also had to ensure that the army would back him, and that the West, especially the United States, wouldn’t foil his plans.
He had no social media, faxes, smartphones or internet, but he made massive and effective use of tens of thousands of audio recordings. He also built a political opposition near Paris, which hosted intellectuals and activists from all the opposition movements. All this enabled him to build himself up as the only leader capable of realizing the dream of toppling the shah’s regime.
“Shi’ite flexibility” goes the narrative he nurtured in exile. According to this explanation, Khomeini sought to establish a democratic state that rested on Islamic jurisprudence but would grant human rights to everyone; women could even choose whether to wear a headscarf. In his recorded sermons, every political movement could find an expression of its own desires.
But to Khomeini’s religious disciples and Islamic clerics, his message was unequivocal: Iran would be a state governed by Islamic law. Government officials would have to know the foundations of this law and obey it, and the country’s leader would combine superior religious knowledge with outstanding political abilities.
Ruthless brutality
Khomeini built a system of government that sought to combine certain democratic fundamentals – like a parliament, local councils and a president that are elected by the people – with the supremacy of Islamic law, and especially of the supreme leader. And upon victory, his flexibility evaporated.
With ruthless brutality, he instigated a “cultural revolution” aimed at eradicating any vestige of the shah’s reign, replacing the entire bureaucracy, writing new textbooks that would supplant the old curricula, and creating loyal forces to enforce the new regime. The shah’s terror was swiftly replaced by Khomeini’s terror, and the leadership of the revolution began plotting the next stage – exporting the revolution to all Islamic countries.
This was the turning point in relations between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam in the modern era. Arab regimes that had clashed with radical Islamist movements saw the success of the Iranian revolution as a call to arms meant to instigate religious revolutions, or at least threaten the fragile balance between governments and religion.
The Arab states rejected Iran’s proposal to build an “Islamic nuclear bomb,” out of fear that such a bomb would actually threaten them. And when the Iran-Iraq War broke out in August 1980, most Arab states sided with Iraq.
Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sobered up from the dream of exporting the revolution to other Islamic countries. But the revolution’s success has continued to nourish the dreams of both radical Iranian leaders and Sunni Islamist movements to this day.
The Islamic threat – and not necessarily the Shi’ite one – made revolutionary Iran a hostile and even threatening political entity from the standpoint of the Arab states. Meanwhile, Iranians increasingly felt that their country was imprisoned in an Arab and Muslim circle of hostility.
To its west were Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Turkey, which in the ‘80s defined Iran as a threat. To its east were Pakistan and India, which had nuclear weapons. And off its coasts were American warships and submarines, which carried nuclear missiles.
The Iranian regime needed to defend the state’s borders against this plethora of threats while preserving the foundations of the revolution and strengthening its religious principles, and all without causing a rift between the people and the leaders. Thus once again, the leadership of the revolution was forced to consider the limits of its flexibility.
False dichotomy
Confusion and hesitation over how to achieve these fundamental goals created what the West describes as a battle between conservatives and reformists. But this is a misleading concept that doesn’t explain the state’s conduct.
The assumption is that this dichotomous division puts the reformists on the side of the West in general and the United States in particular, while the conservatives are anti-Western, reject democracy and oppose human rights.
But how does one define a leadership that executes drug dealers and gay men, imprisons human rights activists without trial and persecutes women whose headscarves aren’t put on “appropriately,” yet has developed a widely praised film industry, lets Western music be played and maintains an excellent education system?
How can a radical Islamic state celebrate the New Year holiday, Nowruz, which has pagan origins, or portray the 1953 ouster of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh by American and British intelligence as a national event that proves the West’s vileness, even though Mossadegh wasn’t religious and the very idea of nationalism is controversial in radical Islamic discourse?
The West, especially the United States, which shapes the discussion of Iran and defines its regime, isn’t exempt from doing some diplomatic and moral soul-searching. During the shah’s reign, Washington treated Iran as it did other countries ruled by dictators. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi received a free hand to do as he pleased to his own people as long as oil, construction, infrastructure and trade companies and cultural agencies from America, France, Israel and Germany were all making profits.
Under President Richard Nixon, Iran and the shah were seen as a bulwark against the spread of communism, and therefore as deserving of all support and assistance despite the country’s thuggish regime. And though President Jimmy Carter suddenly began talking about human rights violations and demanded that the shah change the way the regime treated its citizens, Carter called the shah a reformer who was advancing democracy.
Would tough American pressure that leveraged Iran’s dependence on the United States have changed history by diluting the anger and hatred for the shah and preventing the Islamic Revolution? This is neither an unanswerable hypothetical question nor one that’s already moot. Washington’s partnership with Saudi Arabia is reminiscent in many ways of its partnership with Iran under the shah.
Saudi Arabia seems tranquil. There are no stormy demonstrations in its streets, its economy is solid and its borders are well defended. It survived the Arab Spring revolutions and didn’t become another Syria, Yemen or Libya.
Nevertheless, the potential for a Saudi revolt periodically raises its head. There’s no guarantee that the Saudi government, which is nothing but a pro-Western dictatorship, carries an insurance card guaranteeing its continued existence.
But should Washington apply the lessons of the Iranian Revolution by putting pressure on Saudi Arabia? The question poses a dangerous dilemma.
President Barack Obama tried this tactic in his relations with Egypt. He supported the Arab Spring demonstrators, didn’t lift a finger to help Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and also didn’t rush to support President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi when the field marshal seized power in July 2013. As a result, Washington and Cairo had a severe falling out that healed only after Trump became president.
Is this dilemma valid regarding Iran? The threats and the talk of regime change certainly don’t help.
Withdrawing from the nuclear agreement or imposing ruinous sanctions may achieve specific goals like freezing Iran’s ballistic missile program. Yet forging a balanced relationship between Iran and the West that could reduce not just Tehran’s military capabilities, but also its motivation to use them, would require an intellectual and ideological revolution of the kind that made it possible to sign the nuclear deal.

Analysis/In the Glass House Called Syria, Iran Has Thrown One Too Many Stones
عاموس هاريل/هآرتس: إيران في الببت الزجاجي المسمى سوريا رمت منه الكثير من الحجارة
Amos Harel/Haaretz/February 09/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72017/amos-harel-haaretz-in-the-glass-house-called-syria-iran-has-thrown-one-too-many-stones-%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%88%d8%b3-%d9%87%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%84-%d9%87%d8%a2%d8%b1%d8%aa%d8%b3-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%b1/
As Haaretz reported, Iran seems to be moving its activity away from Damascus Airport. But its weapons will still be in Israel's striking range.
The Iranians have apparently thrown too many stones at the glass house. As reported in Haaretz on Wednesday, there seems to be a decision taking shape in Tehran to evacuate the Quds Force from its main command center in Syria in the heart of the Damascus international airport.
The seven stories of the building with the big glass windows, some of which shattered in one of the frequent Israeli attacks last month, will be abandoned. The weapons depot where the Iranians are running their extensive operation to reinforce Hezbollah and the deployment of forces and materiel in Syria will also have a change of address.
Iran is not withdrawing from Syria, far from it – and it is doubtful that Israel could bring that about even if it persists in its attacks. But apparently the heart of the Iranian operation will move far from the border with Israel in the Golan Heights to the T4 Syrian air force base located between Homs and Palmyra (Tadmor). The Iranians’ move from Damascus, if it indeed happens, will spare embarrassment to Bashar Assad’s regime and the Russians. However, it will not remove the Iranian weapons systems from the range of harm by Israel.
Israel has already twice taken upon itself responsibility for attacks on T4, once on February 10 of last year after downing an Iranian drone that entered its territory from Syria; its launch truck was destroyed in a round of blows during which an Israeli F-16 was also downed in its own airspace. The second time, on May 10, after a failed Iranian attempt at revenge by means of rockets, Israel responded with another attack on an Quds Force compound at T4. Since then, Iran has lowered its profile there. Now it looks as though there will be another change.
At the beginning of last week, the sharp-eyed editors of the Israeli intelligence blog IntelliTimes noticed unusual movement of a Syrian Ilyushin-76 cargo plane. The flight followed a routine course between Tehran and Damascus, but then went off the radar and apparently headed north to a Syrian air force base, which might be T-4. More than two hours later, reported the blog, the plane returned to its original route.
The apparent Iranian decision has to do with the latest Israeli wave of attacks around Damascus airport, which is causing tension between Iran and the Assad regime on the one hand, and with Moscow on the other because it has undermined the attempt by Syria and Russia to create the impression of fostering renewed stability in the country, after the regime’s victory in the civil war.
The Iranian presence at the Damascus airport expanded during the nearly eight years of civil war in Syria. In that period the international airport became a center for the reception, sorting, storage and provision of materiel sent from Iran. The Quds Force under the command of General Qassem Soleimani operates a independent compound of its own inside the airport, only a few dozen meters from the international terminal through which thousands of Syrian civilians and tourists pass daily. Israel says the Iranian activity at the airport endangers the passengers there and also endangers the regime’s security.
The airport in Damascus is the main civilian airport in Syria, although traffic there decreased during the war, in part because ties between the regime and many countries were severed. The glass house in the heart of the Iranian area operated as a closed compound with a number of arms storage areas nearby, including two underground hangars.
The materiel – from bullets to surface-to-air missiles, to “precision systems” for improving the accuracy of the rockets Hezbollah holds in Lebanon – are smuggled to Damascus airport on civilian flights from Iran, in military transport planes and sometimes even on planes that the Revolutionary Guard leases from private Iranian companies. The weapons shipments are held in the compound for a few hours to a few weeks. From there, they are taken on trucks by Hezbollah in Lebanon to military bases that belong to Iran and Syria, and into the hands of the Syrian army.
Israel has recently admitted to two attacks on the airport. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took responsibility for the first attack, on January 11. The second attack, on January 29 before dawn, came in response to the launch of an Iranian rocket that was intercepted by an Iron Dome battery in the area of Mount Hermon the day before. (The Iranians responded that same way to an attack which Israel did not admit to officially, on that same day).
The Arab media reported a number of other Israeli air attacks in recent months, which according to the reports were aimed at thwarting specific weapons shipments. The airport area is defended by batteries of Syrian ground-to-air missiles, including SA-22s. The Syrian defense is operational, extensively, during most of the Israeli attacks in the area. In the last round of attacks, at the end of January, the Israeli air force attacked and destroyed a large number of missile launchers in the Syrian batteries, after the firing on its planes.
The Israeli leadership has announced that it will act to thwart the arms smuggling and the Iranian efforts to dig in militarily on Syrian territory. Israel says the Iranian activity at the Damascus airport, which includes massive arms smuggling, endangers civil aviation and passengers at the airport as well as Assad’s regime. It says that the Iranian presence there also violates the Russian commitment to distance the Iranians to 80 kilometers away from the border with Israel. (Moscow has claimed in retrospect that the commitment does not include Damascus).
Apparently the recent series of attacks on the Damascus airport, some of which were carried out in broad daylight and documented in the international media, caused a certain amount of embarrassment to the Assad regime, in front of Russia as well. In recent days there have been signs of Iranian preparations to move its activity out of Damascus.

Afghans don’t want to be another Iran
Camelia Entekhabifard/Arab News/February 09/19
US Marines keep watch as unseen Afghan National Army soldiers participate in an IED (improvised explosive device) training exercise at the Shorab Military Camp in Lashkar Gah in the Afghan province of Helmand. (File photo/AFP)
President Donald Trump decision in December to withdraw about half the remaining US troops in Afghanistan shocked many people in the country.
Though he has still to provide further details, or set a timetable, there is concern that the pullout, combined with the peace talks between the Taliban and Trump’s special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, may embolden the Taliban and encourage its leaders to attempt to reestablish a fundamentalist Islamic government. The group has asked for the Afghan army to be dismantled, a transitional government to be formed and a new constitution to be written under their supervision.
Do the Taliban really believe millions of Afghans would welcome a return to a dark age of torture and abuse? Women’s-rights activists were among the first to respond with alarm, but Khalilzad has failed to reveal any details of the negotiations with the Taliban, or whether any agreements have been reached.
Parallel to the talks between the US and the Taliban, Moscow has opened a channel for talks between the Taliban and senior Afghan political leaders. This is a clear Russian attempt not only to compete with the US in the peace process, but also to engage influential Afghan leaders with other players such as Iran, India and China. In his State of the Union speech last week, Trump mentioned the peace talks with the Taliban and said that while there is still no plan in place for pulling out the troops, it would be a reduction in numbers rather than the complete withdrawal the Taliban wants. Therefore his strategy for Afghanistan, like his many of his strategies as he reaches the half-way point of his term in the Oval Office, remains uncertain and unpredictable.
This young democracy is facing great challenges but hundred of thousands of Afghans also lost their lives during the 18-year conflict, and the freedoms they now enjoy are important to them. They do not want to become another Iran.
I see no great sympathy toward the Taliban within Trump’s administration. I expect the president to fulfill his campaign promises to the American people to bring US troops home, but that does not mean he will abandon American interests in the region to the Iranians or Russians after the deaths of more than 2,000 Americans in Afghanistan. The Afghan people appreciate all the international support and the sacrifices made to liberate them from the archaic rule of the Taliban, and do not believe that American efforts to support democracy will change.
This young democracy is facing great challenges but hundred of thousands of Afghans also lost their lives during the 18-year conflict, and the freedoms they now enjoy are important to them. They do not want to become another Iran, with the Taliban ruling over them again with a strict, fundamentalist interpretation of Shariah. I believe Afghan politicians attended the Moscow talks not in an attempt to interfere with state affairs or bypass the government, but out of concern and curiosity about what is going on behind the scenes of the talks between Khalilzad and the Taliban.
Afghanistan must not fall back into the hands of the mullahs, and Iran is a good example why.
*Camelia Entekhabifard is an Iranian-American journalist and political commentator, and the author of ‘Camelia: Save Yourself By Telling the Truth’ (Seven Stories Press, 2008).