LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 06/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 04/14-21:”Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on July 05-06/2019
Funeral Procession Takes Place for LDP Member Killed in Qabrshmoun Clashes
Aoun Addresses Lebanese Youth in Message
Lebanon's Druze Criticize Sect's Absence from Defense Council Meeting
Officials Surprised at Plan to Integrate Palestinian Refugees in Lebanese Society
Hariri receives Foucher
UK team briefs Bou Saab on border control progress
UAE Ambassador: Arsal's image different than that portrayed by media
Country presentation on investment opportunities in Lebanon held in Rome
HRW Condemns 'Illegitimate Pressure' on Syrians to Leave Lebanon
Arslan Calls on Aoun, Berri, Hariri Not to 'Mix Blood with Politics'
Bassil: Today's Battle is against Approach of Thuggery
Rifi Warns Bassil on Tripoli Visit Eve, Security Reportedly under Control
Mashnouq Lashes Out at Justice Minister
Hizbullah Official Rejects 'Insults, Intimidation, Murder' after Aley Incidents
Report: Efforts Ongoing to Contain Qabrshmoun Repercussions, Victims to Be Laid to Rest
HRW Condemns 'Pressure' on Syrians to Leave Lebanon
Spotlight: U.S.-backed peace deal harmful to Lebanon, will fail: analysts

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 05-06/2019
Iran Demands Britain Release Tanker Held in Gibraltar
Saudi Arabia Intercepts New Yemen Rebel Drones
U.N. Chief Encouraged by Sudan Power-Sharing Deal
Sudan military council, opposition welcome power-sharing agreement
Black Sea Adventurers Plan Reed Boat Trip to Egypt
Rami Malek: ‘I'll Never Play an Arab Terrorist’
Chess Piece Sold for $1 Million at Auction
Algeria's Protesters Respond to Bensalah's Call for Dialogue
Griffiths Concludes Tour by Meeting Houthi Officials in Muscat
Israel Considers Proposal to Repay Taxes to PA
1,000 Dead in Three-Month Fight for Libya's Tripoli
Niqab Banned in Tunisia Government Offices

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 05-06/2019
Spotlight: U.S.-backed peace deal harmful to Lebanon, will fail: analysts/Dana Halawi/Xinhua/July 05/2019
Militias to merge into Iraqi Security Forces/Jerusalem Post/Jonathan Spyer/July 05/2019
The Palestinian War on Businessmen/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/July 05/2019
Analysis/With His Good Pal Trump in the White House, Erdogan's Conquests Will Be Much Easier/Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/July 05/2019
Analysis/No Talks, No War: For Some Washington Hawks, One Iran Strategy Remains/Amos Harel/Haaretz/July 05/2019
China’s War on Trash Is the World’s, Too/Adam Minter/Bloomberg View/July 05/2019
Trump’s Iran Sanctions Face Seven Fallacies/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/July 05/2019
US: 2020 ‘Meal’ is Being Prepared/Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/July 05/2019
Why Iran’s nuclear blackmail gambit will fail/Dr. John C. Hulsman/July 05/2019
How Assad will prosecute peace in Syria/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arab News/July 05/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on July 05-06/2019
Funeral Procession Takes Place for LDP Member Killed in Qabrshmoun Clashes
Naharnet/July 05/2019
The funeral procession of Lebanese Democratic Party member, Rami Salman who was killed in Sunday’s Qabrshmoun clashes, kicked off on Friday in his hometown of Ramlieh. Salman and another man, Samer Abi Farraj, were killed in armed clashes in the Aley town of Qabrshmoun when the convoy of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib was passing through Aley. Both men were bodyguards of the Minister. Salman’s body was moved from the Bshamoun hospital to his hometown in Ramlieh in the morning on Friday where hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their condolences. The LDP leader MP Talal Arsaln attended the funeral. On Sunday, Progressive Socialist Party supporters (of ex-MP Walid Jumblat) closed roads in Qabrshmoun to prevent Foreign Minister and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil from touring the region. An armed clash erupted between the convoy of al-Gharib and the people who were closing the road to prevent Bassil from passing. Two guards were killed and one person was critically injured. The two parties have traded blame over the incident, with Gharib and Arslan describing it as an ambush and Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party accusing the minister's bodyguards of forcing their way and opening fire on protesters.

Aoun Addresses Lebanese Youth in Message
Naharnet/July 05/2019
President Michel Aoun on Friday delivered a message addressing the Lebanese youth saying “because you are the future of Lebanon, my message today is dedicated to you,” the address began.
The President’s address continued as follows:
“We have inherited from our ancestors a beautiful but exhausted country that needs much effort and work at various levels; and we are striving with all our strength to pass it on to you in a better shape, so you can move on in turn, and so that your children and grandchildren receive a more beautiful and finer legacy.
This is the law of nature and life, every generation bends on the pillars laid down by its predecessors, relying on the expertise of prior generations, developing them and enriching them with its own, with new sciences and knowledge, adding a new course to it. This is how humanity evolved; this is how knowledge, science and culture piled up; and this is how man reached inventions and innovations as he did.
You are qualified to behold more knowledge than we have, as we have acquired more knowledge than our fathers; knowledge is in constant development and in a constant race against time. However, principles, values ​​and ideals are unwavering and they are in danger, so beware because they are the basis of society and if they fall they bring it down.
People are all equal in birth and death, but they become distinguished in how they lead their lives. Distinction begins in shape, color and fingerprint, and the difference begins in thought, opinion, feeling and belonging.
Difference is more than a right, it is the nerve of life and evolution because it is the uniqueness of man. Otherwise, humanity would not have progressed, nor would we have known any creativity. Imagine for a moment that all human beings, were intellectually cloned, carrying the same opinion and thinking.
Therefore this difference is a blessing, not a curse, but what is important is how to manage it because adding the difference between us enriches us and pushes us forward in all fields, but if we drift to disagreement, we lose.
The correct administration of the right to be different first means recognizing it, that is, acknowledging the other's right to exist and be different in color, belonging, thinking, belief and opinion ... this is the human society to which we all belong.
The freedom of religious and political belief is sacred, keep in mind that the relationship between man and his creator is a direct vertical relationship, no one has the right to interfere in it. Remember too, that the human mind is free and soars however it wishes, and he alone bears responsibility for his right and wrong.
Free of expression is also sacred, but it takes truth as its ceiling and ethics as its boundaries; each human has the right for self expression, to express his opinion and belief, and to try to convince the others with logic and argument. Yet, launching of rumors and lies and using insults are not freedom, because they are an assault on the rights, dignity, reputation and credibility of others.
These are the pillars of a cohesive society and the fence that protects the nation. Remember them well: the right to difference, the freedom of belief and opinion and the freedom of expression. Experience has taught us that these are untouchable constants, when at some point we tended to undermine them, we almost lost the nation. My hope is that you will be able to consolidate them further, so you can succeed where we failed."

Lebanon's Druze Criticize Sect's Absence from Defense Council Meeting
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
The Druze Spiritual Council strongly criticized the non-invitation of a Druze representative to a recent meeting of the Supreme Defense Council, which is headed by President Michel Aoun. This came amid efforts to contain the recent dispute in Aley.
As approved by Lebanese customs, the Army’s chief of staff should be from the Druze sect. The post is currently occupied by Major General Amin al-Aram, who directly follows the post of the Army Commander, while the director of intelligence, who was present at the Supreme Council’s meeting, comes in the third line. The position of the Druze Council’s meeting, which was attended by the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), Walid Jumblatt, was placed by ministerial sources close to Aoun in a political context. The sources stressed that the non-invitation of the chief of-staff did not target a particular sect. PSP MP Hadi Abu al-Hassan criticized the move, saying that it made the Defense Council lose its legitimacy. “If the Civil Defense Law was adhered to and only the concerned ministers were present, we would not have raised the question mark. However, individuals not concerned with the matter were invited, such as as Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Selim Jreissati,” he commented. He added that the recent meeting was held to discuss the recent dispute in Chouf, stressing that it was a “delicate matter related to the Druze confession.”“Maj. Gen. al-Aram was closely following up with the situation alongside the army commander, and yet he was not invited,” al-Hassan emphasized. In response, ministerial sources close to Aoun noted that the chief of staff generally represented the Army Commander when the latter was absent, adding that General Joseph Aoun attended the meeting.

Officials Surprised at Plan to Integrate Palestinian Refugees in Lebanese Society
Beirut - Khalil Fleihan/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
Lebanese officials have expressed surprise at the insistence of President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to naturalize Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as part of his new plan for peace in the Middle East. The officials are alarmed by the fact that Kushner claims that integrating Palestinian refugees in Lebanese society could achieve what he called “a fair solution to the Palestinian cause.” Lebanese political parties hope that Kushner would understand the fragile situation of refugees in Lebanon, and call for “pragmatic” solutions. They downplayed the statements in which Trump’s son-in-law claimed that the integration of Palestinian refugees would grant them more rights and better livelihoods. Last week in Bahrain, Kushner unveiled a $50 billion economic plan for the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Asharq Al-Aswat asked former minister Hassan Mneimneh about his position from Kushner’s claims. “Those statements have been previously made when Kushner explained the Deal of the Century,” he said. According to Mneimneh, who is the chairman of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee, Trump’s adviser ignores the history of the region, including the Arab-Israeli conflict. “He acts as if the Palestinian cause is a business deal detached from the legitimate rights of a people whose land was taken by force,” the ex-minister said. “Does Kushner know that the Lebanese Constitution prohibits the resettlement of Palestinians?” he asked, saying all political parties strongly reject their naturalization. Mneimneh said he called for a meeting of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee next Thursday to discuss results of the Bahrain Conference and Kushner’s insistence to integrate Palestinian refugees in Lebanese society. There are around 174,000 refugees in Lebanon, according to the latest count provided by the Central Administration for Statistics. He said around 60,000 Palestinian refugees came to Lebanon from Syria during the eight year war. “Now, there is not more than 22,000,” Mneimneh added.

Hariri receives Foucher
NNA - Fri 05 Jul 2019
The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received this afternoon at the Center House the French ambassador to Lebanon, Bruno Foucher. They discussed the situation and the bilateral relations between the two countries.

UK team briefs Bou Saab on border control progress
NNA - Fri 05 Jul 2019
National Defense Minister, Elias Bou Saab, on Friday held a meeting at the Ministry of Defense with the head of the British Advisory and Training Team, Lt. Col. Giles Taylor, as part of Bou Saab’s task — assigned by the Council of Ministers — to control illegal border crossings. The team presented a full briefing on the achievements made in the field of border control with Syria, and beefing up border control groups, within the framework of a military cooperation agreement between Lebanon and Britain. Minister Bou Saab had also been briefed on the next steps to be implemented to complete this project.

UAE Ambassador: Arsal's image different than that portrayed by media
NNA -Fri 05 Jul 2019
Future bloc MP, Baker Al-Hujairi, on Friday held a luncheon in honor of United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamad Saeed Al Shamsi. Marking the occasion, Al-Hujairi delivered a welcoming speech to the guest ambassador, seeking the latter‘s support helping Syrian refugees return to their homeland. "Arsal has received 60,000 Syrian refugees on non-existing infrastructure, so it does not even have a sign on the international road to lead to it,” Al-Hujeiri said, regretting all the rumors describing Arsal as a vile place. The lawmaker also expressed hope that the UAE would cooperate with Arsal by means of facilitating the liquidation of its products. Al-Shamsi then made a speech and said that his team had done all that was necessary to help Arsal and tackle the refugee crisis in Lebanon. "The Emirati people love Lebanon and its people, and when I came to this town, I was sure that its image was not appropriately portrayed by the media. We should look at Arsal in a positive way,” the UAE diplomat added. He concluded that he would help "Arsal and the neighboring region, after assessing the necessities, through MP al-Hujairi.”

Country presentation on investment opportunities in Lebanon held in Rome
NNA - Fri 05 Jul 2019
The Italian Ministries for Foreign Affairs and for Economic Development, in cooperation with the Embassy of Italy in Beirut and the Italian Trade Agency, organized on July 3, 2019 in Rome the first Country Presentation on Lebanon. The event, hosted at the headquarters of the Italian Trade Agency, aimed at presenting to the Italian private sector the opportunities of investment in Lebanon arising from the Capital Investment Program in its priority sectors of energy, water and wastewater, solid waste, infrastructures, telecommunications, and with a focus on agroindustry. 103 Italian companies attended the Country Presentation, confirming the strong interest of the business community towards Lebanon and its business opportunities.The Lebanese delegation was headed by Nadim Munla, Chief Economic Advisor of Prime Minister Hariri, and was composed by Mira Daher, Lebanese Ambassador in Rome, Youssef El Khalil, Executive Director of the Central Bank, Ibrahim Chahrour, Director for Planning of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, Fady Gemayel, President of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, Nabil Itani, President of the Investment Development Authority of Lebanon, Nazih Braidi, representative of the Lebanese Syndicate of Contractors, and Albert Aoun, President of Lebitalia Business Council. On the Italian side, the event was opened by Roberto Luongo, Director General of the Italian Trade Agency, and saw the interventions of Luca Gori, Director for Middle East of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stefano Gatti, representative of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Francesca Zadro, Director of the Italian Trade Agency in Beirut, and Pierluigi D’Agata, Director of Confindustria Assafrica Mediterraneo. Cristiano Pasini, UNIDO Regional Director, also intervened to present the program of development of Industrial Zones, developed by the Lebanese Ministry of Industry in partnership with Italy, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the UN Agency. Following an outline of the Capital Investment Program and of the business environment in Lebanon, the Country Presentation focused on the project foreseen in the priority sectors identified, and on the success stories of Italian investments in the country. The last segment of the program was dedicated to B2B meetings. Participants expressed the need to shift from a business model based exclusively on trade relations, to one open to industrial partnership and joint ventures, in order to build on the manufacturing potential of Lebanon.

HRW Condemns 'Illegitimate Pressure' on Syrians to Leave Lebanon
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned Lebanon's order for Syrian refugees to tear down their hard shelters as tantamount to "illegitimate pressure" on them to return to their war-torn country. Lebanon, a country of some four million people, says it hosts at least 1.5 million Syrians on its soil after they fled the eight-year civil war next door, many living in informal settlements in the country's east. Nearly a million are registered as refugees with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. To discourage any permanent settlement, a military decree gave Syrians living in the northeastern region of Arsal until July 1 to demolish shelters made of anything but timber and plastic sheeting. Families have been forced to tear down any small cinderblock room they may have built, with the army stepping in to destroy at least 20 remaining hard shelters as the deadline passed on Monday. "This crackdown on housing code violations should be seen for what it is, which is illegitimate pressure on Syrian refugees to leave Lebanon," Human Rights Watch (HRW) refugee rights director Bill Frelick said. "Many of those affected have real reasons to fear returning to Syria, including arrests, torture and ill-treatment by Syrian intelligence branches," he said. Young Syrian men in Lebanon have told AFP they fear military conscription if they return. Aids groups have estimated up to 15,000 people, including 7,500 children, to have been affected by the demolition order. One family made to destroy their shelter last month told AFP they would not return to Syria as their Syrian home had been destroyed by war, leaving them instead to face another harsh winter in a tent. Echoing similar warnings from other rights monitors, HRW said the demolitions were just one of several methods used to pressure Syrians into leaving Lebanon. "They include ramped up arrests and deportations, closing of shops, and confiscation or destruction of unlicensed vehicles, on top of other long-standing restrictions, including curfews and evictions, and barriers to refugee education, legal residency, and work authorization," Frelick said. "Lebanon shouldn't create pressures that cumulatively coerce refugees to return involuntarily in conditions that are not conducive to a safe and dignified return," he said.

Arslan Calls on Aoun, Berri, Hariri Not to 'Mix Blood with Politics'
Naharnet/July 05/2019
Lebanese Democratic Party leader MP Talal Arslan on Friday called on President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Saad Hariri not to “mix blood with politics,” in reference to the ongoing political efforts to contain the repercussions of the deadly Qabrshmoun incident. Speaking at the funeral of Rami Salman in the town of Ramliyeh, Arslan said it saddens him to “bid farewell to any young man from the Druze community.” Salman and another bodyguard of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib were killed Sunday in an armed clash with Progressive Socialist Party supporters in Qabrshmoun. Four other people were wounded. “Our decision is to live in dignity and we do not care about posts. When right and the tawhid (Druze) sharia are absent, we become governed by the law of the jungle and this is tragic,” Arslan added. “Does politics stand for resigning from our role as officials?” he asked. He also called on Aoun, Berri and Hariri not to “mix blood with politics,” stressing that “the state is entrusted with Mount Lebanon.”“If we wanted revenge, we would not have called for referring the case to the Judicial Council. The solution begins with the Judicial Council... and the continued disregard for the security of people and society is dangerous. I have endured tyranny and attacks for years but I will not tolerate a single drop of blood in Mount Lebanon,” Arslan added.

Bassil: Today's Battle is against Approach of Thuggery
Naharnet/July 05/2019
Free Patriotic Movement chief and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Friday lashed out at what he called the “approach of thuggery” in Lebanon's political life. “Our battle today is between two concepts: the concept of the state and the concept of authoritarianism,” Bassil said in a speech at a graduation ceremony at the Antonine University. “Our battle today is between two approaches: the approach of institutions and the approach of thuggery,” he added. “I reassure you that the forces of evil will not triumph over the forces of good,” Bassil went on to say.

Rifi Warns Bassil on Tripoli Visit Eve, Security Reportedly under Control
Naharnet/July 05/2019
Ex-minister Ashraf Rifi has issued a warning to Free Patriotic Movement chief and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on the eve of the latter's visit to the northern city of Tripoli. Rifi appeared in a social media video in which he described Bassil as “the Daesh of Christians.”“This country cannot bear Muslim or Christian Daeshists,” Rifi added. “Be careful!” he went on to say, addressing Bassil. Bassil will meet with FPM supporters at Tripoli's Rashi Karami International Fair on Saturday. Quoting security sources, TV networks said security will be under control during the visit. Bassil's visit to the Aley district on Sunday had sparked tensions with supporters of the Progressive Socialist Party, who blocked roads to prevent him from touring the region. The tensions culminated in a deadly incident in the town of Qabrshmoun where the protesters, some of whom were armed, clashed with the convoy of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib. Two of Gharib's bodyguards were killed and a third was wounded while three PSP supporters were injured, in an incident that has sent political tensions soaring in the country and forced the cancellation of a cabinet session. Several parties have described Bassil's visits to various Lebanese regions as “provocative,” accusing him of using a “sectarian” rhetoric.

Mashnouq Lashes Out at Justice Minister
Naharnet/July 05/2019
Al-Mustaqbal bloc MP and ex-interior minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Friday criticized Justice Minister Albert Serhan, who is one of the ministers who are loyal to President Michel Aoun in the government. “It is obvious that the justice minister has favored his political affiliation over his professional reputation,” Mashnouq tweeted. “I repeat what I said on May 3: if there are privileged and underprivileged judges, then the Justice Ministry has become a grocery, and this is what we will not accept or allow to happen,” Mashnouq added. “I also suppose that Minister Albert Serhan does not accept that the ministry be turned into a theater for political vengeance during his tenure,” Mashnouq went on to say.

Hizbullah Official Rejects 'Insults, Intimidation, Murder' after Aley Incidents
Naharnet/July 05/2019
Sheikh Ali Daamoush, the deputy head of Hizbullah's Executive Council, on Friday stressed that “harming, insulting, intimidating and killing people is something rejected,” in reference to the unrest and deadly incident in the Aley district. “Imposing new norms in Lebanon, which is the country of diversity, coexistence and openness, is something that does not serve the interest of any Lebanese, and it is not beneficial to establish things that harm the image of coexistence and rapprochement among the Lebanese,” Daamoush added. “Has it become necessary for anyone who wants to visit a certain region in Lebanon to request a permission from its leaders and dignitaries?” the Hizbullah official asked, referring to Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil's visit to the Aley district, which witnessed road-blocking protests aimed at preventing Bassil from touring the region. Daamoush added: “It is unacceptable to undermine civil peace, harm stability, distort Lebanon's image or inflict economic damage on the country for the sake of addressing personal crises, sending certain messages or drawing foreign support against domestic rivals.”Stressing that preserving Lebanon's image, coexistence and stability is “everyone's responsibility,” the Hizbullah official said his party's priority is “preserving civil peace and domestic stability seeing as they are an essential gateway for the government to address the people's social and economic issues.”Two bodyguards of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib were killed and a third was wounded while three Progressive Socialist Party supporters were injured in a clash involving the minister's convoy in Qabrshmoun. The two parties have traded blame over the incident, with Gharib and his Lebanese Democratic Party describing it as an ambush and the PSP accusing the minister's bodyguards of forcing their way and opening fire on protesters.

Report: Efforts Ongoing to Contain Qabrshmoun Repercussions, Victims to Be Laid to Rest
Naharnet/July 05/2019
The Lebanese Democratic Party has set the date for the funeral of two guards of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib, who were killed in Sunday's Qabrshmoun clash, after it had linked the funeral with the extradition of the perpetrators and referring the case to the Judicial Council, Asharq al-Awsat daily reported on Friday. Meanwhile General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim continues his mediation in the case in an effort to contain the repercussions. Gharib has stressed in response to a question whether the party agreed to set a date for the funeral meant it has backed down from its request to refer the case to the Judicial Council, Gharib said: “Not at all.” “Out of respect and down at the will of the Druze sheikhs, and in accordance with the well-known tradition it has been decided to bury the martyrs,” the Minister has said after holding talks with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh on Thursday.
The General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim has also met with head of the Lebanese Democratic Party MP Talal Arslan. Ibrahim hailed the position of Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat who “said something essential yesterday by announcing that he is under the law,” said Ibrahim.
Ibrahim assured that “things are on the right track,” noting that “the issue of the Judicial Council is not within my jurisdiction seeing as it is related to politics.”The LDP media office announced Thursday that “Arslan at the request of the Druze Supreme Spiritual Body and wise sheikhs, and in honor of the values ​​and customs,” have agreed with the families of the victims Rami Salman and Samer Abi Farraj to set the funeral date. A funeral procession for Salman will be held Friday in his hometown of Ramlieh, while that of Abi Farraj is to be held Saturday in the village of Baalshmey.
Two of Gharib's bodyguards were killed and a third was wounded while three Jumblat supporters were injured in a clash involving the minister's convoy in Qabrshmoun. The two parties have traded blame over the incident, with Gharib and Arslan describing it as an ambush and Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party accusing the minister's bodyguards of forcing their way and opening fire on protesters.

HRW Condemns 'Pressure' on Syrians to Leave Lebanon
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 05/2019
Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned Lebanon's order for Syrian refugees to demolish their hard shelters as tantamount to "illegitimate pressure" on them to return to their war-torn country. Lebanon, a country of some four million people, says it hosts at least 1.5 million Syrians on its soil after they fled the eight-year civil war next door, many living in informal settlements in the country's east. Nearly a million are registered as refugees with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.To discourage any permanent settlement, Lebanese authorities gave Syrians living in the region of Arsal until July 1 to demolish shelters made of anything but timber and plastic sheeting.
Families have been forced to tear down any small cinderblock room they may have built, with the army stepping in to destroy at least 20 remaining hard shelters as the deadline passed on Monday. "This crackdown on housing code violations should be seen for what it is, which is illegitimate pressure on Syrian refugees to leave Lebanon," Human Rights Watch (HRW) refugee rights director Bill Frelick said. "Many of those affected have real reasons to fear returning to Syria, including arrests, torture and ill-treatment by Syrian intelligence branches," he said. After several Russia-backed victories against rebels and jihadists since 2015, the Damascus regime controls around 60 percent of Syria's territory.
Young Syrian men in Lebanon have also told AFP they fear military conscription if they return. Aids groups have estimated up to 15,000 people, including 7,500 children, to have been affected by the demolition order. One family made to destroy their shelter last month told AFP they would not return to Syria as their Syrian home had been destroyed by war, leaving them instead to face another harsh winter in a tent. Echoing similar warnings from other rights monitors, HRW said the demolitions were just one of several methods used to pressure Syrians into leaving Lebanon. "They include ramped up arrests and deportations, closing of shops, and confiscation or destruction of unlicensed vehicles, on top of other long-standing restrictions, including curfews and evictions, and barriers to refugee education, legal residency, and work authorisation," Frelick said. "Lebanon shouldn't create pressures that cumulatively coerce refugees to return involuntarily in conditions that are not conducive to a safe and dignified return," he said. Lebanese politicians and part of the population have called for Syrian refugees to go home, blaming them for a string of economic woes in the country. Syria's war has killed 370,000 people and displaced millions at home and abroad since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

Spotlight: U.S.-backed peace deal harmful to Lebanon, will fail: analysts
Dana Halawi/Xinhua/July 05/2019
 The Mideast peace plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, known as the "Deal of the Century," is not viable and will have harmful impacts on Lebanon, analysts said.
"This deal is suicidal for Lebanon because it will naturalize the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and break the sectarian balance in the country," said Hilal Khashan, chair of the Political Studies Department at the American University of Beirut (AUB). The over 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon will turn the Sunni sect into the largest sect, and this will not be accepted by other sects, explained Khashan. For his part, political analyst Youssef Diab said that the "Deal of the Century" will trigger security instability in Lebanon because the Palestinians' presence is very sensitive in the country. "Also, the deal will create demographic changes. This could be sensitive as the Christians are concerned that they only represent 30 to 35 percent of the population," he said. U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and presidential adviser Jared Kushner submitted an economic plan to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, but the proposal was dismissed by Palestinians, Lebanon and many others. The plan calls for 50 billion U.S. dollars of investments over 10 years, with 28 billion dollars to be given to the Palestinian territories in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and the rest to be split between Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. The deal hopes to improve the Palestinian economy by reducing unemployment rate and poverty rate by 50 percent. While the deal focuses on economy mostly, it does not recognize a two-state settlement, as Trump also refuses to clearly condemn Israel's settlement policy in the occupied territories. "The Deal of the Century wants Palestinians to give up one of their rightful demands, which is building a legitimate Palestinian state. The deal wants to create something that looks like a Palestinian state, but is more or less biased towards Israel for its security and economy," said Makram Rabah, a lecturer at AUB's Department of History.
Rabah argued that the deal did not take into account any measures to restart the negotiation on a two-state solution. He thought the deal is not viable because it assumes that everything can be resolved through financial means, whereas past experiences showed that money was never the problem.
"If money was the issue, Gulf countries could have provided the money in 1960s instead of perpetuating this struggle. So technically, the deal is a marketing gimmick by Kushner which lacks any real insights," he said. Khashan reiterated Rabah's comments, adding that the source of money to fund this deal is still unknown. "Some Arab and Gulf countries pledged to provide the investment, but it does not mean that the money will come around," he said. Diab believes that the deal will never be implemented, because Palestinians have never been united as they are today facing this deal.
"Palestinians will not compromise, otherwise their sacrifices for the past 60 years would be wasted," he said. Diab believes that Trump will not be able to implement the deal or any of the plans that are related to the deal, such as giving Golan Heights to Israel, declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or naturalizing Palestinians in their host countries. Local analysts believe that the only way for Palestinians to achieve prosperity is by ending Israeli occupation of their territories. Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi recently tweeted that "first lift the siege of Gaza, stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources and funds, give us our freedom of movement and control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc. Then watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people."

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 05-06/2019
Iran Demands Britain Release Tanker Held in Gibraltar
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 05/2019
Iran demanded Friday that Britain immediately release an oil tanker it has detained in Gibraltar, accusing it of acting at the bidding of the United States. A senior foreign ministry official "described the UK move as unacceptable" in a meeting with British ambassador Rob Macaire, who had been summoned to hear a formal protest, the ministry said in a statement. He "called for the immediate release of the oil tanker, given that it has been seized at the request of the US, based on the information currently available," the statement added. The secretary of Iran's Expediency Council, a key advisory and arbitration body, warned that if Britain failed to release the tanker Iran would be forced to take tit-for-tat action against a British vessel. "If Britain does not release the Iranian oil tanker, the relevant authorities will be duty-bound to take reciprocal action and seize a British oil tanker," said council secretary Mohsen Rezai. Authorities in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on Spain's southern tip at the western entrance to the Mediterranean, said they suspected the tanker was carrying crude to Syria in violation of EU sanctions. The detention of the 330-metre (1,000-feet) Grace 1 comes at a sensitive time in Iran-EU ties as the bloc mulls how to respond to Tehran announcing it is poised to breach the uranium enrichment limit it agreed to in a troubled 2015 nuclear deal. The Grace 1 was halted in the early hours of Thursday by police and customs agencies in Gibraltar, aided by a detachment of British Royal Marines. Gibraltar's Supreme Court ruled Friday that the vessel can be held for 14 more days, the territory's attorney general said.
'Maritime banditry'
The ship was detained 2.5 miles (four kilometers) south of Gibraltar in what it considers British waters, although Spain, which lays claim to the territory, says they are Spanish. Iran insists the vessel was intercepted in international waters and the foreign ministry official accused Britain's Royal Navy of taking action "tantamount to maritime banditry.""Britain has no right to impose its own unilateral sanctions or those of the European Union in an extraterritorial manner against the other countries," the official said. The Gibraltar authorities say the tanker was boarded when it slowed down in a designated area used by shipping agencies to ferry goods to vessels. "We have reason to believe that the Grace 1 was carrying its shipment of crude oil to the Banyas refinery in Syria," Gibraltar's Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said. In a statement, Britain's Foreign Office said: "We welcome this firm action by the Gibraltarian authorities, acting to enforce the EU Syria sanctions regime."Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told reporters the vessel was detained at the request of the United States. But Gibraltar insisted it acted of its own accord. "There has been no political request at any time from any government," Gibraltar's government said in a statement. "The decisions of Her Majesty's Government of Gibraltar were taken totally independently, based on breaches of existing law and not at all based on extraneous political considerations."
- 'Excellent news' -
European Union sanctions against war-torn Syria have been in force since late 2011. The 28-member bloc has imposed sanctions on Syrian officials including government ministers over their role in the "violent repression" of civilians. The tanker's detention comes just days after Iran announced it would exceed the uranium enrichment limit set under the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran took the action in response to Washington abandoning the deal last year and hitting Iran's crucial oil exports and financial transactions with biting sanctions. The unilateral move has sent tensions in the Gulf soaring as the administration of President Donald Trump forges ahead with a policy of "maximum pressure" against Iran in coordination with its Middle East allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. White House National Security Advisor John Bolton, a champion of the hawkish policy towards Tehran, applauded the interception of the supertanker. "Excellent news: UK has detained the supertanker Grace I laden with Iranian oil bound for Syria in violation of EU sanctions," Bolton tweeted. According to specialised shipping trade publication Lloyd's List, which analyses vessel-tracking data, the 1997-built ship is laden with Iranian oil. It reported that the ship loaded oil off Iran in April and sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Saudi Arabia Intercepts New Yemen Rebel Drones
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 05/2019
Yemeni rebel drones targeting a civilian airport in southern Saudi Arabia were intercepted on Thursday, a Riyadh-led military coalition said, as the Iran-linked group steps up attacks on the kingdom. The drones targeted Jizan airport, the coalition said in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency. The coalition did not report any damage or casualties. Huthi rebels earlier claimed drone attacks on the airports in Jizan and Abha, the capital of southern Asir province, according to the group's Al-Masirah TV. The coalition did not confirm the attack on Abha. The rebels in Yemen -- who have faced persistent coalition bombing since March 2015 which has exacted a heavy civilian death toll -- have stepped up missile and drone attacks across the border in recent weeks. On Tuesday, a Yemeni rebel attack on Abha airport left nine civilians wounded, the coalition said. On June 12, a rebel missile attack on Abha airport wounded 26 civilians, drawing promises of "stern action" from the coalition. And on June 23, another rebel attack on Abha airport killed a Syrian national and wounded 21 other civilians, according to the coalition. The raids come amid heightened regional tensions after Washington accused Iran of shooting down a US drone over international waters and of carrying out attacks on oil tankers in the strategic Gulf of Oman. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly accused Iran of supplying sophisticated weapons to Huthi rebels, a charge Tehran denies. The coalition intervened in support of the Yemeni government in 2015 when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile as the rebels closed in on his last remaining territory in and around the second city Aden. Since then, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, many of them civilians, relief agencies say. The fighting has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with millions of people displaced and in need of aid.

U.N. Chief Encouraged by Sudan Power-Sharing Deal
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 05/2019
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday he was encouraged by a power-sharing deal reached between Sudan's military rulers and protest leaders on a transition to civilian rule. Guterres "encourages all stakeholders to ensure the timely, inclusive, and transparent implementation of the agreement and resolve any outstanding issues through dialogue," said a U.N. statement. The agreement was reached in the early hours Friday after two days of talks brokered by Ethiopian and African Union mediators. It calls for setting up a sovereign council with a rotating military and civilian presidency for a period of three years and three months. Guterres said he welcomed the parties' commitment to conduct an independent investigation of a June 3 crackdown on protesters in Khartoum that left dozens dead. Sudan has been gripped by political deadlock since the generals ousted longtime president Omar al-Bashir in a palace coup in April following months of mass protests nationwide.

Sudan military council, opposition welcome power-sharing agreement
/Arab News/July 05/2019
KHARTOUM: Sudan's ruling military council and its pro-democracy movement both welcomed a new power-sharing agreement reached Friday, raising hopes that the deal would end a three-month political crisis that has paralyzed the country and led to scores of deaths following a violent crackdown on peaceful protesters by authorities. News of the deal touched off street celebrations in the capital of Khartoum with hundreds dancing and waving Sudan's flag as drivers honked their horns. The crisis has gripped Sudan ever since the military ousted longtime autocrat Omar Al-Bashir in April. Saudi Arabia welcomed the power-sharing agreement that Sudan’s ruling military council and the Alliance for Freedom and Change reached on Friday. A statement issued by the foreign ministry said the Kingdom hopes that this step will be the beginning of a new phase of security and stability in Sudan, and reaffirmed its support for Sudan and its people.The sides agreed to form a joint military and civilian sovereign council to lead the country during a transition period of three years and three months, said a statement by the Sudanese Professionals' Association, which has spearheaded the protests. The joint council had been a sticking point in the negotiations. The council will include five civilians representing the protest movement and five military members. An 11th seat will go to a civilian chosen by both sides. A military member will preside over the council for the first 21 months, followed by a civilian member after that, according to the statement. That suggested a significant concession by pro-democracy forces, which had insisted that the sovereign council have only a civilian president. But the deal also secured a key demand by protest leaders: that they select the members of a technocratic Cabinet to be formed independently from the generals. The creation of a legislative council will be postponed for three months, during which time the sovereign council will make the nation's laws. "Today, our revolution has won and our victory shines," the SPA said in the statement, which was posted on its Facebook page. The generals also hailed the deal, with the military-controlled Al-Sudan TV channel playing national songs and rerunning excerpts of the news conference by both sides announcing the agreement, with the caption: "Congratulations to the Sudanese people."
"This deal will be comprehensive and will not exclude anyone and will meet the ambitions of the Sudanese people and their victorious revolution," said Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy chief of the ruling military council, speaking at the news conference with protest leaders and African mediators. The talks had collapsed when security forces razed a protest camp outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on June 3, and protest leaders said more than 100 people have been killed since then. In the ensuing weeks, protesters stayed in the streets, demanding that the generals hand power to civilian leadership.
Omer El-Digair, a leader of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, a coalition representing the protesters, said they hoped that forming the transitional institutions "marks the beginning of a new era."
"We hope it is an era where we can shut off the sound of pistols and destroy for good prisons of arbitrary detention," he said at the news conference. “We would like to reassure all political forces, armed movements and all those who participated in the change from young men and women … that this agreement will be comprehensive and will not exclude anyone,” said General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the Transitional Military Council.
“We thank the African and Ethiopian mediators for their efforts and patience. We also thank our brothers in the Forces for Freedom and Change for the good spirit,” said Dagalo, who heads the Rapid Support Forces accused by the FFC of crushing the sit-in. Opposition medics say more than 100 people were killed in the dispersal and subsequent violence. The government put the death toll at 62. The UAE congratulated Sudan on its power-sharing agreement and said that it stands with Khartoum in “good times and bad times.” The UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash also wrote on Twitter that he hopes the “next stage will witness the establishment of a solid constitutional system that will strengthen the role of institutions with broad national and popular support.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday he was encouraged by a power-sharing deal reached between Sudan's military rulers and protest leaders on a transition to civilian rule. Guterres "encourages all stakeholders to ensure the timely, inclusive, and transparent implementation of the agreement and resolve any outstanding issues through dialogue," said a UN statement. Egypt and the Arab League also welcomed the power-sharing agreement between the ruling military council and a coalition of opposition and protest groups.

Black Sea Adventurers Plan Reed Boat Trip to Egypt
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 05 July, 2019
Adventurers are getting ready to set off on a 3,000-km voyage in a reed boat to test a theory that ancient Egyptian merchants used such as vessels to travel as far as the Black Sea, Reuters reported. A crew led by German explorer Dominique Goеrlitz is planning to leave the Black Sea port of Varna next month, then try to island-hop around the Aegean and cross the Mediterranean to Alexandria. The boat Abora IV is still being built in the nearby town of Beloslav, with the help of two members of the Aymara ethnic group from Bolivia - Fermin Limachi and his son Yuri who have flown in to share their expertise using the fragile material. According to Reuters, Goеrlitz said the Ancient Greek historian Heroditus had cited even older sources suggesting Egyptians "sailed into the Black Sea, to get precious materials they could not find in the Eastern Mediterranean". The accounts were supported, he said, by the discovery of Egyptian remains around the Black Sea. Other members of the Aymara group, who live on Lake Titicaca high in the Andes, were involved in earlier Abora expeditions to other destinations and helped Norwegian writer Thor Heyerdahl, who crossed the Pacific in the "Kon-Tiki" balsa-reed raft in 1947.

Rami Malek: ‘I'll Never Play an Arab Terrorist’
New York - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
The US actor of Egyptian ancestry, Rami Malek, has revealed that he needed to be reassured his character would not be linked to an "Arab terrorist" before accepting his role as the villain in the new Bond film. Malek, who received an Oscar earlier this year for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, admitted that he had to think twice before agreeing to take on his next role. The Mirror cited Malek, 38, saying that “he needed a guarantee from the American film director Cary Fukunaga that his character would not be an Arabic-speaking terrorist," stressing that "he will never play an Arab terrorist.""It's a great character and I'm very excited. But that was one thing that I discussed with Cary. I said that we cannot identify him with any act of terrorism reflecting an ideology or a religion. That's not something I would entertain. But that was clearly not his vision. So he's a very different kind of terrorist," the American-Egyptian actor said. Rami is playing the primary villain in the latest Bond 007 also starred by Daniel Craig. The new movie is set to be displayed in April 2020. Rami also admitted that as an actor of Middle Eastern heritage, Hollywood was quick to typecast him into particular stereotypical roles. However after playing the role of the suicide bomber in the action drama 24, Rami decided that he needed to draw a line with his agents and refuse to play Arab or Middle Eastern characters in a negative light.He added: '"In the past it was like, 'Oh well, he's an acceptable terrorist! But after I did that I said to myself 'This is not how I want it'."Rami's role in the TV drama Mr. Robot made him the best candidate for the Freddie Mercury role.

Chess Piece Sold for $1 Million at Auction
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
A chess piece purchased for five pounds in 1964, and kept in the closet of a house in the Scottish city of Edinburg for 55 years, fetched 735,000 sterling pounds ($928,000), hitting a new record for a medieval chess piece at auction. The chess piece was found on the Isle of Lewis in 1831 in a room with stone walls. The treasure made of sculpted ivory is composed of 78 chess piece and 14 pieces involved in other games, along with a buckle of a bag or belt. The stone is thought to be made in Trondheim, Norway between the years 1100 and 1200, at the end of the Viking Age.

Algeria's Protesters Respond to Bensalah's Call for Dialogue
Algeria- Boualem Goumrassa/Muscat - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
Observers considered that the proposal submitted by interim President Abdelkader Bensalah to protesters lacks mechanisms to guarantee success as the political class expressed doubts in the authorities’ intention to make a real change despite his pledges to exclude the army and its leadership from an upcoming national dialogue. "This dialogue will be led freely and with total transparency by national independent figures who have credibility and who are not linked to any party," Bensalah said in a televised speech on Wednesday. He didn’t mention names, leaving the impression that it was up to protesters and activists to choose independence figures. "The state in all its components, including the military, will not be a party to this dialogue and will remain neutral throughout," he added. "The presidential elections are the only way to democracy," he said. "It [the elections] remains the only democratic, realistic and reasonable solution."Algerian army chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah has called for dialogue beforehand but protesters, who are preparing for a "million march" on the occasion of Algeria’s 57th independence anniversary (July 5, 1962), haven't heeded his request. Bensalah himself called for a dialogue but was asked to step down before talking about any dialogue. Jalloul Joudi, from the Workers' Party, commented on the dialogue’s proposals, saying the calls for talks coincide with the detention of politicians. From his point of view, Bensalah has gone far from the main demand which is to radically change the regime. Nasser Hamdadush, head of the Movement of Society for Peace, welcomed any call for dialogue and every serious initiative towards finding the solution sought by Algerians. Hamdadush affirmed that there is a serious argument regarding who oversees this dialogue and how the individuals would be chosen, as well as the scope of compliance to standards and specifications that guarantee credibility and success. He also stressed that the continuity of the popular movement with its national prospect is the guarantor in the democratic transition.

Griffiths Concludes Tour by Meeting Houthi Officials in Muscat
Muscat - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
United Nations envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths concluded on Thursday his tour to the region by meeting Houthi leaders in Oman’s capital Muscat in the hope of saving his mission in Yemen. Griffiths had kicked off the tour by holding talks in Riyadh with Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen last month in a bid to repair strained ties with President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who had accused him of bias towards the Iran-backed Houthi militias. Last Monday, Griffiths met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his deputy Sergei Vershinin in Moscow before heading to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. The UN failed to provide details about the envoy’s tour, except for issuing some routine statements, in the hope that his meetings would salvage his mission and peace efforts in Yemen. The militias said Thursday that Griffiths met with several insurgent leaders including Houthi spokesman and the group's acting foreign minister Mohamed Abdel Salam Fleeta in the Omani capital. The Houthi version of the Saba news agency claimed that Fleeta confirmed willingness to continue working on issues agreed upon in Sweden last December, including the truce in Taiz and the release of all prisoners and detainees.
It also claimed that the two sides discussed the political, humanitarian and economic situation. Griffiths’ office did not announce any new arrangements or any new visits to Sanaa to meet the Houthi leader in an attempt to exert pressure on the militias ahead of discussing the situation of security forces currently managing the Hodeidah ports. Yemeni observers believe it is impossible to achieve any progress on Hodeidah as long as the militias continue to violate the Sweden deal and show no desire for peace. The Yemeni Vice President asserts that the government is ready to engage with Griffiths’ efforts and implement the Stockholm Agreement, on condition that the other parties respect the deal’s substance in line with the three references and UN Security Council Resolution 2216.

Israel Considers Proposal to Repay Taxes to PA
Tel Aviv- Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 5 July, 2019
Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Palestinian Finance Minister Shokri Bshara have discussed in their meeting, last week, a plan regarding the monthly salaries of families of martyrs and captives, sources in Tel Aviv and Ramallah revealed Thursday.
The proposal states that Israel would retreat from its decision to deduct the value of the salaries amounting to 200 million shekels (USD65m) of the taxes and customs' funds. However, it dictates that Israel would continue to take these salaries but returns them to the Palestinian Authority (PA) through exempting it from paying the customs of fuel bought by it from Israel. Kahlon has promised to consider the suggestion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and so did the Palestinian minister. The news was leaked to media on Thursday to test the public's reaction.  A high-rank official in the Israeli government said that this development came to prevent the economic collapse of the PA. Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, director of JCPA’s Project on Regional Middle East Developments and former head of the Israeli Forces Military Intelligence Research Division, said that Israel backing off its stance is strategic wrongdoing and the warning of the Authority’s collapse is baseless. The Authority is financially capable, and the proof is that it increased its payments to the captives and martyrs’ families by 11 percent since the beginning of the year. Kuperwasser noted that researches show that the Palestinian president is trying to the intimidate the Western countries and Israel.

1,000 Dead in Three-Month Fight for Libya's Tripoli
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 05/2019
Some 1,000 people have been killed since Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar launched a push three months ago to capture Tripoli, the U.N. said Friday, including 53 detained migrants who died in a devastating air strike. Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army, which holds eastern Libya and much of the country's south, launched an offensive in early April to wrestle the capital from forces loyal to the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). Air strikes and ground fighting have since left nearly 1,000 people dead and some 5,000 wounded, the U.N.'s World Health Organization said, without specifying the breakdown between civilians and fighters. The fighting has forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes in a country mired by a bloody power struggle between militias since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Among the dead are 53 migrants killed Tuesday night in an air raid on a detention centre in the Tripoli suburb of Tajoura, held by the GNA, which accused Haftar's forces of carrying out the strike. A Geneva-based spokesman for the International Organization for Migration said six children were among the migrants killed. Joel Millman said that "350 migrants, including 20 women and four children" were still detained at the centre, one of five air hangers hit in the raid.
'Tragedy'
Video surveillance footage from the detention centre, circulated Friday on social media, showed people walking outside the hangar as a strong explosion erupted, triggering panic, and leaving behind clouds of smoke and dust. U.N. agencies and humanitarian groups have repeatedly voiced concern over the plight of thousands and migrants and refugees held in detention centres near combat zones in the capital. "The contact details of these detention centres in Tripoli are well known to both sides of the conflict," spokesman for the UN's refugee agency Charlie Yaxley said. The carnage in Tajoura was "a tragedy that should have never happened", he added.  Libya has become a major conduit for migrants seeking to reach Europe and remains prey to numerous militias vying for control of the country's oil wealth. Rights groups say migrants face horrifying abuses in Libya, and their plight has worsened since Haftar launched the offensive against Tripoli. According to the UN, some 5,700 refugees and migrants are being held in detention centres in Libya, 3,300 of which are vulnerable to fighting in and around Tripoli.
Plane downed
An initial lightning assault in early April saw the LNA steam towards the capital. But they have since been bogged down on its southern outskirts, where frontlines have been frozen for months. The GNA forces launched a surprise counter-attack late last month, seizing the strategic town of Gharyan, the main supply base for Haftar's offensive. After the setback, Haftar's forces threatened to intensify strikes against their rivals. Both sides have launched daily air raids throughout the fighting and each lost several planes. Troops loyal to Haftar said late Thursday they had downed a GNA jet near the town of Tarhuna, used by the LNA as a rear base some 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Tripoli. A GNA spokesman said they had lost contact with the L39 Albatros, which had been on a combat mission south of the capital, without providing further details. Taking advantage of international divisions over the fighting in Libya, the two rival camps have both remained convinced that with the help of their backers they can win the battle. The GNA receives support from Turkey and Qatar, and Haftar is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and according to experts, to some degree by the United States.

Niqab Banned in Tunisia Government Offices
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 05/2019
Prime Minister Youssef Chahed decided Friday to ban the niqab Muslim face covering for women in Tunisian government offices "for security reasons", his office said. It said Chahed signed a government circular "banning access to public administrations and institutions to anyone with their face covered... for security reasons".

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 05-06/2019
Militias to merge into Iraqi Security Forces?
Jerusalem Post/Jonathan Spyer/July 05/2019
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abd el-Mehdi this week announced that the Shia militias of the Popular Mobilization Units or ‘Hashd al-Shaabi’ are to be fully integrated into the Iraqi security forces. According to the statement announcing this decision, ‘All Popular Mobilisation Forces are to operate as an indivisible part of the armed forces and be subject to the same regulations.’The prime minister’s statement went on to clarify that headquarters, offices and independent checkpoints maintained by the militias are to be shut down. Militias failing to comply with this directive by July 31 will be considered illegal organizations. Those wishing to continue under their old names as political parties must disband their military component.
The Shia militias are the main instrument of Iranian policy on Iraqi soil. Not all groups involved in the 150,000 strong PMU are Iran-linked, but the largest and most consequential groupings are. These include the Badr organization, led by Hadi al-Ameri, Ktaeb Hizballah, headed by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Asaib ahl-al Haq, and Hizballah al-Nujaba.
All the above mentioned groupings are franchises of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). All were established by and are controlled by Iran, answering directly to the IRGC’s Qods Force and its leader, General Qassem Soleimani.
The Iraqi announcement comes in the wake of a sharp increase in anonymous attacks almost certainly carried out by the militias on US targets in Iraq in recent weeks. These included: a mortar attack on the Balad air base in Iraq’s Salah al-Din Province on June 14 (the base hosts US troops), a mortar attack on the Taji base, which also hosts US advisers, on June 17, and a Katyusha missile attack on the Burjesia site on June 19 – this area hosts facilities maintained by a number of global oil companies, including Exxon Mobil.
While no group claimed responsibility for the attacks, there is no real suspect other than the Shia militias. (ISIS, which remains active in Iraq, is currently otherwise engaged – in rebuilding its networks in Sunni central Iraq and reimposing its hold on the Sunni population in its rural heartlands).
The US government considers that Ktaeb Hizballah was most likely also responsible for the launching of a drone on at the East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia on May 14th.
Ktaeb Hizballah members (in their political manifestation) stormed the Bahraini embassy in Baghdad on June 27th, in protest at Bahrain’s hosting of the US-sponsored ‘Peace to Prosperity’ conference. The Shia militants carried placards reading ‘no to the deal of the century, and ‘Arab Zionists sold their Arab identity for a failed deal.’
The attacks on US facilities have been accompanied by increased rhetorical threats against the US and Israel from militia leaders. Nasir al-Shamari, assistant secretary general of the Hizballah Nujaba militia, stated that ‘confrontation with the US will stop only when it is eliminated from the region, along with the Zionist entity.’
Hadi al-Ameri, leader of the Badr Organization and perhaps the most powerful pro-Iranian political and military leader in Iraq, expressed his views in a recent interview with the Farsi- language, IRGC associated Fars News Agecy regarding the US and Israel in the following terms:
‘There is no doubt that ISIS is a bastard child of the United States. I and my comrades will never surrender to the involvement of the United States and its allies in Iraq, and this was our position from the beginning….(ISIS’) main designers and the creators were the United States and their master, Israel.’
The move by the Iraqi government to integrate the militias comes in the wake of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s May visit to Iraq. Speaking after the visit, Pompeo said that he had ‘urged the Iraqi government, for its own security, to get all of those forces (the militias) under Iraq central control.”
So is the matter now settled? Will al-Ameri, Al-Muhandis and the others now be content with a new role as besuited politicians, or as anonymous divisional commanders in Iraq’s army?
They will not.
Firstly, it is worth remembering that this latest announcement is not without precedent. The first law making the militias part of the Iraqi security forces was passed in November, 2016. From that time on, they have constituted a part of the state security apparatus. Formally, the militias report directly to and are under the authority of the Prime Minister.
In March 2018, then Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a decree formally integrating the militias into the security forces, regularizing their salaries and affording them similar rights to members of the Iraqi army and other services, under the control of the Ministry of Defense.
The latest decree, undertaken it would appear largely in response to US pressure and cajoling, resembles these earlier moves. What was their result?
With the welcome cover of official status, the militias predictably continued to act as the strong arm of Iran in Iraq. As a result of the blurring of the boundaries between the state army and the Shia militias, however, Iran’s fighters gained welcome access to the resources available to the official security forces.
These included state of the art US equipment – such as the nine M1A1 Abrams tanks that the militias used against (pro-US) Kurdish forces in the assault against Iraqi Kurdistan following the Kurdish bid for independence from Iraq in late 2017. The latter operation was planned by Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
The US has provided over $22 billion in aid to the Iraqi Security Forces since 2005. As the lines between the army and the militias blur, so the possibility of preventing this access will also fade. Only strong and direct action against the militias and their leaders could prevent this.
The militias are powerful players – politically, militarily and economically. Prime Minister Adel Abd al Mehdi, meanwhile, is a weak figure with no real power base of its own. Iraq is not a country ruled by law. The prime minister as a result simply possesses no coercive mechanism for imposing his will on the Shia militias. He can order their dissolution if he so wishes. The result will be the further enmeshing and fusing of the militias with the official bodies of the state – without the ceding by the latter of their own vital chain of command. This chain of command leads to Qassem Soleimani, and thence to the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The IRGC does not regard Iraq as a country, but rather as one arena, in which it is growing its power and prosecuting its attacks against US forces. In this contest, the official Iraqi state and its various structures afford a convenient cover. If they can burrow into it, and incidentally benefit from the largesse afforded it by its allies (who are the militias’ enemies), then so much the better.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is the game plan successfully pursued by the IRGC in Lebanon in recent years, through its Hizballah franchise in that country. That model is now being applied in Iraq, on a larger and far more consequential scale. Prime ministerial decrees won’t stop it.

The Palestinian War on Businessmen
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/July 05/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14488/palestinian-war-on-businessmen
By boycotting the conference in Bahrain, in fact, Palestinian leaders had already sent a message to the world that they would rather see their people continue to suffer economic hardship than receive billions of dollars in aid.... Rather than spitting in the faces of businessmen, Palestinian leaders should be working closely with Israel and the US and any other party that wants to help the Palestinian people.
Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account.... They want the conflict to continue for as long as possible so that they can continue receiving funds from Americans, Europeans and others.
Palestinian leaders want to continue blackmailing the international community into giving them unconditional and unlimited financial aid, while at the same time depriving Palestinians of any opportunity to improve their living conditions. They want their people to continue living in misery so that Abbas and his officials can blame Israel and the rest of the world for the "suffering" of the Palestinians.
These leaders' biggest fear is that economic prosperity might divert Palestinians' attention from the fight against Israel. Like his rivals in Hamas, Abbas seems afraid that once Palestinians start enjoying the fruits of a strong economy, they will stop thinking of killing Israelis or abandon the Palestinian dream of destroying Israel.
Thirteen Palestinian businessmen who defied the Palestinian Authority's call for boycotting the recent US-led "Peace to Prosperity" economic conference in Bahrain are now being targeted by Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the West Bank. Some of the businessmen have been forced to go into hiding. Pictured: Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner speaks at the conference about boosting the Palestinian economy, reducing unemployment and improving Palestinian living conditions, on June 25, 2019. (Image source: Bahrain News Agency)
The Palestinian Authority's crackdown on Palestinian businessmen who participated in the recent US-led "Peace to Prosperity" economic conference in Bahrain signals strongly how Palestinian leaders act directly against the interests of their own people.
Even more worrying is the message that this crackdown sends to the Palestinian public: anyone who dares to work with US President Donald Trump's administration will be denounced as a traitor and collaborator with the "enemies" of the Palestinians: the US and Israel.
Thirteen Palestinian businessmen who defied the Palestinian Authority's call for boycotting the Bahrain conference are now being targeted by Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the West Bank. Some of the businessmen have been forced to go into hiding, while others are keeping a low profile after receiving threats from many Palestinian groups, including Abbas's ruling Fatah faction.
Worse, the families of the Palestinian businessmen have been forced publicly to "disown" their sons out of fear that they, too, will be targeted by Palestinian activists and security forces.
The campaign of intimidation against the businessmen who attended the Bahrain conference began weeks before they headed to the Bahraini capital of Manama. Palestinian social media users launched an online campaign to shame the businessmen, which included publishing their names and photos on several sites. Spearheaded by Fatah, the campaign organizers warned that participation in the Bahrain conference was tantamount to treason.
Despite the threats, Palestinian businessman Ashraf Jabari, who belongs to a large clan from the West Bank city of Hebron, headed a 13-member delegation of business leaders that traveled to Bahrain. The delegation was part of a group called Palestinian Business Network, which has no political affiliations.
Jabari and his friends say they did not go to Bahrain as representatives of the Palestinian Authority or any Palestinian faction. Instead, they add, they went to the conference after receiving personal invitations from the US administration.
The Palestinian businessmen's participation in the conference enraged Abbas and many Palestinians, who called for punishing the attendees and putting them on trial for betraying the Palestinian people and cause.
It did not take long for Abbas to order his security forces to chase and arrest the businessmen. Palestinian security forces moved to arrest them less than 24 hours after they returned to their homes in the West Bank.
The Palestinian security officers succeeded, however, in apprehending only a single businessman, Saleh Abu Mayaleh, from Hebron. Abu Mayaleh was arrested during a raid on his home. The following day, the Palestinian Authority, under pressure from the US administration, was forced to release him, an act that drew sharp criticism from many Palestinians.
A second businessman from Hebron, Ashraf Ghanem, said he managed to flee his home before the Palestinian security forces arrived. Ghanem said he was injured during the escape. Fifty security officers, he added raided his home and confiscated his passport and credit cards. Ghanem, owner of a furniture business, said he has been forced to go into hiding and fears for his life.
The Palestinian security forces also raided the homes of several other businessmen who attended the Bahrain conference, but did not find them. They, too, have apparently been forced to go into hiding.
The businessmen did not go to Bahrain to discuss political issues. None of them is even known to be affiliated with any Palestinian political faction. They traveled to Bahrain, it would seem, to discuss ways of boosting the Palestinian economy and improving the living conditions of their people. They presumably went to the conference to discuss economic projects -- as any normal businessman would do.
By cracking down on these businessmen, the Palestinian Authority leadership is making clear that improving the economy is that the last thing it has on its mind. By boycotting the conference in Bahrain, in fact, Palestinian leaders had already sent a message to the world that they would rather see their people continue to suffer economic hardship than receive billions of dollars in aid.
It is also worth noting that, by labelling the businessmen as traitors and collaborators, Palestinian leaders are giving a green light to their people to kill Jabari and his friends for attending the conference.
The Palestinian Authority's highest priority should be fighting Hamas and preventing it from extending its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority's highest priority should also be combating financial and administrative corruption and seeking ways to boost the Palestinian economy by solving issues related to soaring unemployment and poverty. Rather than spitting in the faces of businessmen, Palestinian leaders should be working closely with Israel and the US and any other party that wants to help the Palestinian people.
Instead, Abbas and his senior officials in the West Bank understand their mandate as intimidating and incarcerating businessmen for going to an economic conference whose main goal was to help the Palestinian people.
What message is Abbas sending to his people when he orders 50 intelligence officers to raid and search the homes of a businessman whose only crime was that he accepted a personal invitation to attend an economic conference? Why was there a need to enter the homes of these businessmen and their families in the middle of the night? Why do Palestinian businessmen need to become terrified fugitives for discussing projects that would benefit the Palestinian people?
How has the international community, specifically the Europeans, responded to Abbas's crackdown on the businessmen? Where are the EU and UN condemnations, so free and easy when anything to do with Israel is at hand? Why was the US administration the only party to speak out in defense of the businessmen?
The answer is clear and simple: the businessmen were not targeted by Israel. Instead, they are being hunted down by their very own leaders.
A few questions arise: If the Palestinian Authority truly believes the businessmen who attended the conference in Bahrain to be traitors, then why are the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank continuing to conduct security coordination with the Israel Defense Forces? If the Palestinian Authority truly believes that the US administration is hostile towards the Palestinians, why is the Palestinian Authority continuing to denounce the Americans for cutting financial aid to Palestinians?
Under the willfully unwatchful eyes of the international community, the Palestinian leaders continue their longstanding double-dealing. On the one hand, they denounce Trump and his senior officials, specifically US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and presidential advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, by dubbing them "Zionist settlers." On the other hand, the Palestinian leaders demand that the same US open its pocketbook wide to Palestinians. For how long will the Palestinian leaders choose to cheat their own people by insisting on playing with a marked deck?
Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account. They want the conflict to continue for as long as possible so that they can continue receiving funds from Americans, Europeans and others.
Palestinian leaders want to continue blackmailing the international community into giving them unconditional and unlimited financial aid, while at the same time depriving Palestinians of any opportunity to improve their living conditions. They want their people to continue living in misery so that Abbas and his officials can blame Israel and the rest of the world for the "suffering" of the Palestinians.
Like his rivals in Hamas, Abbas is afraid that economic prosperity might soften Palestinians' attitudes towards Israel. Abbas and his associates seem afraid that once Palestinians start enjoying the fruits of a strong economy, they will stop thinking of killing Israelis or abandon the Palestinian dream of destroying Israel.
*Bassam Tawil is an Arab Muslim based in the Middle East.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Analysis/With His Good Pal Trump in the White House, Erdogan's Conquests Will Be Much Easier
زفي بارئيل/الهآرتس: غزوات أردوغان ستصبح أكثر سهولة بوجود صديقه ترامب في الأبيض
Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/July 05/2019
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Although Trump's heart goes out to the Turkish president, the question now is how far Erdogan intends to stretch the limits with his American counterpart.
Donald Trump is a happy president. He must be, since he is a president surrounded only by good friends. There's North Korea's leader, and Russia's president, and Israel's prime minister – all "good guys" he can do business with.
His heart goes out even to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, though Erdogan betrays him behind his back. But just one meeting between the two was enough, at the G20 summit in Osaka, for Trump to say, "I don't think he was treated fairly."
He was referring to the $2.5 billion deal for the S-400 missile air defense systems that Turkey signed with Russia. This deal had been driving NATO leaders and the U.S. Congress crazy and, right up to that meeting with Erdogan, it had almost obliged Trump to punish Turkey. Almost. Because Trump convinced himself that the person responsible for this embarrassing and dangerous agreement was none other than former President Barack Obama, who blocked Turkey from buying Patriot missile systems.
"He [Erdogan] wasn’t allowed by the Obama administration to buy it until after he made a deal to buy other missiles. So he buys the other missiles, and then all of sudden, they say, ‘Well, you can now buy our missiles.’ You can’t do business that way. It’s not good," Trump explained his turnabout, as though history began with his term.
Erdogan, as usual, immediately took advantage of the respite in the American pressure and Trump's sudden amiability and announced the Russian missiles will land in Turkey in a week to 10 days. Turkey has already appointed an air force colonel to head the new missile systems, Turkish officers and soldiers are training to operate them in Russia and Erdogan himself announced to the world that "Trump promised not to impose sanctions on Turkey."
Erdogan knows how to repay a favor. Last week he said Turkey was going to buy some 100 American Boeing planes in a deal estimated at $9-$44 billion dollars, depending on the plane models and their technical specifications.
But what Trump can declare isn't necessarily in keeping with what he can do. According to Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), the president is obliged to impose sanctions on any state that could harm the United States' interests by buying weapons from Russia, and Turkey falls within that category.
The law enables Trump to choose five of 12 sanctions, beginning with preventing entry visas to senior officials of the rival state, imposing economic sanctions, slashing loans to that state from financial institutions up to a full boycott.
Trump, whose relations with Congress are murky, among other things due to his decision to bypass legislation intended to prevent selling arms to Saudi Arabia, is facing another struggle on the Turkish issue. Erdogan cannot be certain yet that the missile deal will leave Turkey unscathed. The main possible blow for Turkey is its expulsion from the F-35 program, whose stealth jets it ordered and took part in assembling, and perhaps other economic sanctions.
The F-35 purchase has already been temporally frozen, as has the training of Turkish pilots in the U.S., until July 31, when the Congress' ultimatum on cancelling the Russian missile deal comes into effect.
Trump can avoid the sanctions if he persuades Congress that a concession to Turkey serves the U.S.' national and security interest. But then he'll have to answer some penetrating questions and confront U.S. partners in NATO, which see those missile systems a threat to the organization's ability to defend itself from a Russian offensive.
The concrete concern over those systems is that they will compel Turkey to act according to Russian rather than Western protocol. Russia will then be able to obtain important intelligence about NATO aircraft and defense methods from airstrikes. Moreover, if Turkey gets the F-35 jets, which Israel has also bought, Russia will be able to learn their secrets at first hand.
Turkey argues that the fear of passing on intelligence and technological knowhow should concern the Russians as well, because as a NATO member, Turkey would presumably be obligated to share this information with NATO countries. In other words, Turkey says the fear works both ways and therefore should not worry its Western partners.
Crossing a red line
But beyond the operative intelligence concerns, the missile deal raises questions in the West about Turkey's strategic position, attested to by the special military and economic ties between Ankara and Moscow that had strong economic ties before the missile deal. Turkey also serves as a transition station for Russian oil on its way to Europe, and Turkey's cooperation with Russia in the Syria's civil war secured its place in the Russian-Iranian-Turkish triangle, which is leading the war and the strategic moves to end it.
But deploying Russian missile systems that make Turkey independent of NATO in this aspect and the presence of Russian advisors in the Turkish military system are seen as crossing a red line that could undermine NATO's unity basis, which leans on the principle of "one for all and all for one."
Despite the contempt with which Trump treats NATO and his demand that member nations pay for the protection the U.S. provides them, he understands, at least according to his statements, that NATO is a vital body and here too lies his dilemma regarding his response to the Russian missile purchase.
Imposing sanctions on Turkey could distance it further from the Western club and tie its military future to Russia. An American leader, not to mention a Republican, who sees Iran as a global enemy and wants to mobilize all the world states against it, cannot renounce a strategic stronghold like Turkey.
Erdogan is counting on this dilemma. He is convinced that even if Washington slaps him with sanctions they'll be light ones, to pay lip service to the American law. At any time he can buy Patriot systems and thus allay the American fury and help the American coffer.
It's not clear why Turkey needs the Russian missile systems and against whom. The S-400 are seen as the most advanced systems and purchasing them would ensure Turkey a foothold in building the next generation of the S-500 defense missiles, but at this time Erdogan's goal is to position Turkey as a military power that can maneuver between Russia and the United States and gain strategic profits. This goal is a continuation to Turkey's influence in the Middle East and central Asia. It has a military base in Qatar and a training base in Somalia and it's planning to set up a military base in Sudan. Its forces have occupied territories in north Syria and it is acting in north Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Turkey maintains military ties with most central Asia states and has become one of the major weapon exporters. Its military industry has moved from almost total dependence on other states to domestic production, and if in the past it exported mainly light weapons, today it exports helicopters, drones, ships and advanced technological means.
The dramatic change it made from a country that has distanced itself from regional conflicts to an involved nation that sometimes dictates regional moves is a result of Erdogan's success in removing the army from politics and freeing himself from military dictates. He himself has become the true commander in chief of the Turkish armed forces and intelligence. For the first time in its modern history a civilian heads the army, even if he serves no military position and has no military experience.
The question now is how far Erdogan intends to stretch the limits with Trump. He has already proved at least twice that he's willing to step back when the pressure becomes intolerable. He did so when he was forced to apologize and appease Moscow after downing a Russian fighter jet in December of 2015. Russia then imposed extremely harsh sanctions on Turkey, critically harming its tourism and the economic ties between both countries.
Only about a year and a half later Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin met and signed a military cooperation agreement. The second time was when the United States imposed sanctions on Turkey as a penalty for the continued imprisonment of the American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was tried for allegedly cooperating with the Fethullah Gulen movement.
The sanctions, consisting of doubling the tariffs on Turkish metal products, caused the Turkish lira to plummet, a devaluation from which the Turkish economy has yet to recover. Erdogan decided the price was too high and in the summer of 2018 the pastor was released. This lesson not only attests to Erdogan's conduct, but shows that Trump knows how to use a whip when his blood pressure rises following bad behavior by someone who "is getting very high marks," as he then described Erdogan. This is the uncertainty factor Erdogan will have to deal with in the missile deal as well.
But withdrawing from the deal now will be a fatal blow to Erdogan's prestige, especially after the defeat in the Istanbul mayoral election, in addition to his fear of the Russian reaction. The Turkish president may end up in a diplomatic tangle and discover that in disregarding Trump he had set a trap for himself.

Analysis/No Talks, No War: For Some Washington Hawks, One Iran Strategy Remains
عاموس هاريل/هآرتس: لا محادثات ولا حرب.. بالنسبة لبعض صقور ادارة ترامب الإستراتجية بمواجهة إيران هي واحدة
Amos Harel/Haaretz/July 05/2019
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The relative paucity of news from the Persian Gulf this week shouldn’t mislead us. The crisis between the United States and Iran is still the No. 1 worry for countries in the region. The reluctance of the leaders in both Washington and Tehran to embark on a direct military confrontation doesn’t guarantee against the eruption of such a conflict, which could also affect other states in the region from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Israel and Syria.
As far as is known, the sides haven’t even been in indirect talks. Iran is still signaling to the Americans that there will be a price to pay for a lack of negotiations. The signals now have to do with the nuclear agreement between Iran and the big powers that the United States withdrew from a year ago. On Monday, Tehran announced that it had gone beyond the permitted cap on its possession of low-level enriched uranium. On Wednesday, President Hassan Rohani said that next week his country would resume uranium enrichment at a higher level.
The current catchphrase is “regime collapse,” a more anodyne term than regime change. This is the way the wind is blowing among officials with influence on U.S. President Donald Trump, among them his national security adviser, John Bolton, and some of the people at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank in Washington.
This week in Haaretz, Amir Tibon described the rift in the Republican camp concerning the possibility of war with Iran. On one side, Trump has advisers like Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who are pressing for an aggressive stance on Iran. On the other, there are the isolationist sentiments of influential Republicans, among them commentators on Trump’s beloved Fox News, who are warning him against another unnecessary war in the Middle East. One of the people with the most influence on Trump, Fox’s Tucker Carlson, has been churning out nearly pacifist (and quite convincing) antiwar speeches in recent weeks.
In the more hawkish camp we can discern a renewed awakening that reminds many observers of a bleak period – the gung-ho launch by the George W. Bush administration, based on weak pretexts, of the 2003 Iraq War as a delayed response to the September 11 attacks.
Since some of the people who are now enthusiastically hosting the shah of Iran’s son in Washington were also on the scene 16 years ago, it’s no wonder that with some dread there is mention of Ahmed Chalabi, a foe of Saddam Hussein back then. Chalabi was that charlatan from the Iraqi opposition who helped push the Americans into the Baghdad mire via exaggerated (and often mendacious) intelligence about Saddam aiding Al-Qaida, and about the presence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The isolationists also fear a new economic crisis in the United States if a war breaks out. The hawks supposedly have an answer: If the Iranian regime implodes, it isn’t a war but a successful strategic move at a low cost. There will be no need to send hundreds of thousands of American troops to the Gulf, so we won’t see thousands of them returning home in body bags, as happened in the long war in Iraq.
Trump has expressed reservations about a war, most notably when he explained his decision to call off a strike on Iran after the downing of an American drone last month. But he also expressed opposition to the nuclear agreement and support for renewing the heavy pressure on Iran – right at the outset of his reelection campaign.
In May he declared a new wave of sanctions, exactly one year after his decision to withdraw from the agreement. Apparently the real aim behind Pompeo’s 12-point plan and the policy of maximum pressure on Tehran is to replace the regime. The question is whether the president will go along with his hawkish advisers or listen to the isolationist warnings from Carlson & Co.
John Rood, the U.S. under secretary of defense for policy, told Haaretz this week that from Trump’s perspective, the way is open to renewing the talks with Iran. But it appears that many people in the administration are striving for regime change in Iran, not for a better nuclear deal.
Is the president likely to be lured in that direction? It’s nearly impossible to predict anything when it comes to Trump. Alongside his reluctance about war, he’s a great believer in economic pressure, from China to Venezuela (where Washington is having no luck imposing regime change, even in a bankrupt country in its own backyard).
For now, the chances of a conciliatory summit between Trump and the Iranians, like the one earlier this week in North Korea, seem small. The leaders in Tehran aren’t keen for one; America’s regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, would strongly oppose such a summit, and it’s doubtful that Trump is willing to risk angering his big donors (among them the Jewish-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson) just moments before a new race for the presidency.
War games
At a conference held at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya this week, an instructive war game was conducted in a closed forum, in which a scenario of direct talks between delegations from the United States and Iran was presented after additional future escalation in the Gulf.
The American delegation was made up of a number of top specialists, among them former members of the Trump administration and think tank people from Washington. In the absence of authentic representatives from Tehran, Israeli intelligence officials and academics, among them former Mossad and Military Intelligence senior officials played the Iranians. The scenario for the game was written by Brig. Gen. (res.) Yoram Hamo and Col. (res.) Udi Evental.
The difference in approaches was evident during the first meeting between the sides. The Israelis playing the Iranians entered into the talks with a patient negotiating stance, in which it would be possible to reach agreements after prolonged and cagey bargaining. The Americans rushed into the room full speed ahead, suggesting that the other side accept their dictates and cave in or else risk getting hammered. The Israelis went so deeply into the role of the Iranians that it seemed as though they really were surprised and even insulted.
The American officials played their roles very skillfully but were they representing Bolton or Trump? And come to think of it, this week’s Trump or the next week’s Trump? Even they found this hard to answer. The game ended without any clear conclusion because everyone understands that in the end things are determined between the president’s two ears.
Not destined to be adversaries
In that same interview with Haaretz, the under secretary of defense described the relations between his country and China as “competitive” but “not destined to be adversaries." The warning about excessive Israeli coziness with China was the main issue Rood wished to advance in the conversation.
When asked about the reservations expressed by retired admirals of the American fleet regarding Chinese involvement in the expansion of the Haifa port, he quickly swerved to talking about the administration’s real concern: Thwarting the Chinese attempt to take over the cellular network market, especially 5G, the fifth generation communications technology, mainly through the Huawei telecom giant. Rood said the administration has warned Israel about possible involvement by the Chinese security establishment in technological projects in Israel, which would supposedly be signed with civilian companies.
From the American administration's point of view, the main struggle with the Chinese is in the competition over technology and innovation. Whoever installs the fifth generation infrastructure will be in a hugely advantageous position.
China steals technology from the West, offers rock-bottom prices to other countries and thereby trounces the competition. In the long run, however, the countries that cut major deals with it are liable to find themselves exploited. The message the Americans are now sending to their friends around the world is: “If you buy 5G technology from the Chinese, you will have manage without us in the security realm."
Brig. Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion directs the China-Israel research program at the Institute for National Security Studies. According to him, "The competition for setting up future information transmission infrastructures is at the forefront of the strategic competition between the United States and China."
The two countries are vying for other countries’ support in order to acquire technological, economic and security advantages. Preventing the involvement of Chinese companies in 5G infrastructures in Israel is the clearest and most explicit demand the administration has addressed to Israel, clearly stressing the connection between that and American military aid as well as intelligence cooperation.”
He says Israel should accede to the American demand and at the same time continue to advance its relations with China in areas in which trade and economic activity do not entail grave risks to national security.
The administration’s main claims against Huawei are laid out in a Pentagon report on 5G from April, 2019, which states that evidence has been found of the existence of “back doors” and security vulnerabilities in the company’s equipment, and that this evidence is connected to the Chines intelligence establishment’s demand that local companies gather data about their users.
Moreover, the Chinese cyber law of June, 2017, stipulates that foreign companies in China, if the need arises, hand over information and technologies to the Chinese authorities to continue activity on Chinese soil.
“The American measures against Huawei,” says Orion, “derive both from fear of damage to their national security and from fear of damage to their economic competitiveness. The United States sees maintaining its technological superiority in the world as a supreme interest, which affects every dimension of its national strength. China, in light of its advanced technologies in the development and spread of 5G infrastructures, is perceived as a significant player.”
Senior administration officials have said that various countries’ cooperation with Huawei is endangering their security relationships with Washington because they are thereby leaving an opening for China that will enable it access to American infrastructures and secrets.
According to Orion, “The American warnings against Huawei’s involvement in Israeli communications infrastructures and the transmission of these warnings at the highest levels reflect that the issue is at the top of the American administration’s current agenda.
"The threat the United States has chosen to stress — possible damage to military aid — is aimed at Isreal's supreme interest that is a pillar of its national security.” Therefore, Orion estimates that “It is very likely that Chinese components will not be installed in 5G infrastructures in Israel.”
Col. (res.) Yuval Sharshevski, who has held senior posts in Military Intelligence, says: “Israel has a significant place in China’s Middle East strategy. There are three reasons for this: A Chinese desire to get their hands on a unique Israeli technology, a thrust to penetrate communication networks in Israel and the aim of increasing China’s economic presence in Israeli economy. The two latter reasons are also prevalent in China’s relations with other countries.”In his view, although the risk this currently entails is not high, “In the long term there is a significant threat here, with strategic implications for Israel.”

China’s War on Trash Is the World’s, Too
Adam Minter/Bloomberg View/July 05/2019
Trash is the talk of Shanghai. Starting Monday, the city required residents and businesses to sort their waste and recyclables into separate bins. The task is towering: Shanghai generates more than 9 million metric tons of garbage every year and -- like every other city, town and village in China -- it lacks even a rudimentary municipal recycling system.
And China isn’t alone. As of 2018, humans were on track to generate waste at more than double the rate of population growth through 2050, with most of the growth coming in developing countries. Whether or not those nations can establish formal recycling systems will be crucial to managing the world’s trash and minimizing its environmental consequences. China’s experience will be a first, critical test.
In most of the world, profits rather than environmental concerns drive recycling, which is largely performed by self-employed waste pickers. It's a dirty job but highly efficient: In Nanjing, for example, a city of 9 million people located 200 miles from Shanghai, waste pickers recovered as much as 80% of the city's recyclables (around 500,000 metric tons) as recently as 2015.
Without those workers, as Beijing learned to its chagrin when it pushed out hundreds of thousands of waste pickers in advance of the 2008 Olympics, the trash simply piles up. Unfortunately, as countries become more affluent, waste picking as a profession is becoming less attractive. Better-paying job opportunities exist, while affluent homebuyers are naturally reluctant to have folks rummaging around in their garbage. Cities, too, are pushing out the small, unattractive recycling businesses that buy from waste pickers and sustain the informal industry.
As far back as 2000, the Chinese government foresaw this problem and designated eight cities, including Shanghai, to pilot municipal recycling programs. They all failed miserably. Not only did the cities lack the equipment and facilities to recycle, residents were given no incentives to sort their trash or education in why it was so important. This ignorance persists. A 2018 survey of 3,600 residents of major Chinese cities found that nearly three-quarters could not identify how to properly sort their trash for recycling.
Regardless, the government is trying again. In 2017, China's powerful policy-making State Council announced a plan to promote "garbage sorting" in China's major cities. Specifics were left to local officials and, over the last two years, several have embarked on modest pilot programs.
Shanghai's new program is the most visible and extensive municipal recycling initiative ever attempted in China. Under the plan, citizens are required to sort their trash into four separate categories: food waste, recyclables, hazardous wastes (such as batteries and light bulbs) and "residual wastes" (which include everything from floor sweepings to pottery).
Importantly, the system in Shanghai is uniquely public and punitive. Residents can only dispose of waste during certain hours, ensuring that neighbors will see who is and who isn’t sorting properly. They must empty food waste into public bins without using bags, so everyone can also see what they’re throwing away. Fines of up to 200 yuan, roughly $30, await those who don’t sort. And officials threaten to cut off garbage collection for whole communities if they don’t abide by the rules.
At the same time, Shanghai has spent weeks using every possible propaganda tool at its disposal, from social media to local and even national newspapers, to explain how and why residents should recycle. On Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media service, the subject has repeatedly trended, with reports that the new regulations apply to foreign tourists as well proving particularly popular. Younger Chinese seem to have favorable opinions of the program, though they fear it will be time-consuming.
Far more will be required. Shanghai and other cities have yet to build the infrastructure needed to manage even properly sorted waste. They require trucks designed to carry sorted recyclables; large, industrial-scale recycling facilities; and environmentally sound incineration and composting sites for the "residual" and organic wastes. This will require years and billions in investment.
Still, the fact that Shanghai has residents thinking and talking about waste on social media, in their compounds and at home is remarkable progress. It's also a lesson to other developing countries that the first step in creating a modern waste management system is to educate the public and foster a sense that recycling is a collective civic responsibility. If the world is going to clean up its trash heaps, Shanghai’s new program could well be the model.

Trump’s Iran Sanctions Face Seven Fallacies
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/July 05/2019
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As President Trump tightens the screws on the current ruling elite in Tehran, the debate on the possible consequences of his policy rages on in American media, think tanks and political circles. Moreover, because Trump’s constituency is outside such elite spheres the impression created is that his Iran policy either has failed already or is set to produce undesirable unintended consequences.
In that context, seven claims form the main themes of the campaign launched by the pro-Tehran lobby with support from sections of the US Democrat Party and others who dislike Trump for different reasons. The first claim is that sanctions do not work.
That theme is developed without spelling out what the intended aims of sanctions are. Trump has said his aim is to persuade the Khomeinist clique in Tehran to change aspects of its behavior abroad. In that sense, sanctions are working.
The mullahs have started to reduce their footprint in Syria and Yemen, without quite opting for total withdrawal. Offices in more than 30 Iranian cities, to enlist “volunteers” for "Jihad" in Syria, have been closed, and the recruitment of Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries has stopped. Tehran’s military and diplomatic presence in Yemen has been downsized, ostensibly for security reasons. Smuggling arms to Houthis continues albeit at a reduced rate.
Cash-flow problems caused by sanctions have also forced the mullahs to cut the stipends of proxies, notably the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian "Islamic Jihad" by around 10 percent with more cuts envisaged. Tehran has also been forced to swallow the disbanding of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabai (Popular Mobilization) which is given 30 days to disarm and become a political party or merge into Iraqi Army under the Prime Minister’s command.
More importantly, perhaps, the mullahs have frozen their missile program at the current range of 2000 kilometers. Cash-flow problems have also led to cuts in a number of political and business outfits controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. As the regime digs deeper into its war chest, accumulated over years, it is bound to cut expenditure on more of its adventures at home and abroad.
The second claim is that sanctions do work but harm the ordinary Iranians. The usual rant about babies left with no milk and old ladies unable to replace pacemakers is underlined in numerous op-eds and think tank papers produced by the mullahs’ lobby and their American supporters.
However, the Islamic Ministry of Health has rejected that claim with repeated assurances that since food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian items are under no sanctions, there are no shortages of the kind claimed.
The third claim is that the mullahs may opt for retaliatory measures against the US and allies. This they have already done by attacking oil tankers close to Fujairah and the Jask peninsula in the Gulf of Oman and by shooting down an American drone. However, all that came in homeopathic doses with care taken not to cause human casualties or serious threat to the flow of oil.
Do not forget this is the regime that sent suicide bombers to kill 241 US Marines and 52 French paratroopers in their sleep in Beirut and, in the tanker war of 1987, wreaked havoc in international oil traffic. The mullahs decision to increase their stockpile of low-enriched uranium, of no use for anything, above the 300 kilograms, and to re-start producing plutonium, again of absolutely no use to anyone, is too farcical to merit further attention.
The fourth claim is that Trump’s sanctions may turn the mullahs’ regime into a cornered cat that, finding no way out, may spring in one’s face. One or two US-based lobbyists have also compared the situation in Iran today with that in Germany after World War I when punitive measures imposed by allies helped destroy the Weimar Republic and bring Hitler to power. However, the Khomeinist regime is no democracy as the Weimar Republic was, and Ur-Fascist elements are already in control in Tehran.
The fifth claim is that Trump’s sanctions are putting a strain on the trans-Atlantic alliance and that European powers may help the Khomeinist regime survive for decades as did the Castro outfit in Cuba.
However, there is a big difference between the two cases. In the case of Cuba, the US boycotted the island but did not impose sanctions on others trading with it. The Castro clique survived thanks to the support by the Soviet Union, Canada, Europe, and some Latin American nations. In Contrast, Trumps’ sanctions are based on a brutal choice: If you trade with Iran, you cannot trade with the US!
Theoretically, any government can breach those sanctions by accepting to compensate businesses for damages caused by US “punishment” for trading with Iran. However, no European nation has agreed to do so, accepting a sharp fall in their trade it Iran, in the case of Germany around 45 percent.
The six claim is that sanctions may force Iran to quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and go blazing ahead to build the bomb. That claim, too, is fallacious. According to Islamic Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif Tehran needs to sell 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to cover current expenses including payment of military and civil service salaries. Last month Iran’s oil exports fell to 500,000 barrels a day, the lowest since 1955. Provided sanctions are not loosened, building the bomb is a luxury Iran cannot afford.
The seventh claim is that Trumps’ sanctions strengthen hardline factions and weaken the “reformists” around President Hassan Rouhani. Since Rouhani and his associates have never said or even hinted, what it is they may want to reform it is hard to speak of a “reformist” faction. Moreover, the extensive purge of the military currently undertaken by “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei does not seem to have affected any “moderates”.
Those affected so far are the more crazy elements like the (Baseej) Mobilization of the Dispossessed) chief General Ghulam Hussein Gahyb-Parvar who promoted a plan to turn the White House in Washington into a Hussayniehs.

US: 2020 ‘Meal’ is Being Prepared
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/July 05/2019
During the last few days, Middle Eastern affairs followers were interested in the Bahrain Economic Conference, which some have associated with the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ that aims to settle the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. On the other hand, those interested in global politics and international relations keenly followed the G 20 Economic Summit in Japan. This is quite normal.
However, the real ‘kitchen’ where Middle Eastern and global politics are ‘cooked’ was opened in the US with the launch of the Democratic Party’s campaign. It will reach its climax by choosing the Democratic presidential candidate who is expected to face President Donald Trump in the Presidential elections in early November 2020.
Until this moment, Trump seems to be assured of being the Republican Party’s candidate; as he has succeeded since his victory in 2016 in reshaping the Party in his own image, and has marginalized all potential rivals.
While it would be wrong to underestimate Trump’s personal achievement here, one must admit that the slogans and stances adopted by Trump, and promoted by him and his backers, have not been limited to the American political scene, as we see them rapidly spreading throughout Europe, Latin America, and even to south Asia and Australia.
The 2020 US Presidential elections may prove to be a landmark in the history of democracy, as well as what it may contribute to redefining globalization, race and inter-faith relations, and the differences between state-controlled and free market economies. However, what will be in the very heart of the American political debate in early 2020 is the ‘program’ of a superpower that is living on the edge of a global confrontation in defense of its unipolar hegemony, as ambitious rising power which are not afraid to challenge it.
The meetings Trump held with his Chinese and Russian counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were pointers to a tacit, but serious confrontation. In fact, if the Mueller Investigation was called to deal with allegations of Russian ‘interference’ – in favor of Trump – in the 2016 Presidential elections, the Huawei Issue and the ‘open war’ against China’s meteoric economic rise, reflect the other side of the Russo-Chinese challenge.
In the meantime, the Middle East gives Washington an important insight as to how to check this Russo-Chinese challenge; more specifically its Russian part since Chinese power is more clearly visible in east and central Africa.
In the Middle East, Moscow has capitalized on Washington’s mistakes since the ‘Cold War’. Then American policies consistently provided the former USSR with opportunities to establish a foothold in the Arab ‘Mashreq’ for the first time since the ‘Moscovite’ Orthodox schools in the 19th century. Today, Putin’s Russia has reclaimed its former strongholds thanks to Washington’s ongoing mistakes, such as: fully supporting Israel’s hard line Likud, retreating from decisively ending the crises in Syria, Yemen and the Gulf, and sending contradictory messages towards the polarizing power struggle between the military and the movements of ‘Political Islam.’
The wise critics of the Bahrain Economic Conference – unattended by Israeli and Palestinian officials – based their argument on Washington’s placing the carriage in front of the horse, by putting economic incentives before political settlement. Those critics argue that any long-term investment requires stability based on a genuine political solution, and agreed upon by parties that are directly-involved in the conflict and enjoy enough credibility. This would be the only way to convince their respective constituents of the benefits of sacrificing some political demands.
As for decisively ending the above-mentioned regional crises, the overall picture as to how far is Washington going to act against Iran in Syria, Yemen, the Gulf, and even in Iraq and Lebanon, is quite unclear. Some are talking about American – Russian - Israeli ‘understandings’ leading to ‘get the Iranians out of Syria’; although these would require a vision of the future of Lebanon, the role of Iraq, let alone how the Syrian map should look like if it is partitioned into ‘de facto’ areas of influence between Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv.
Next comes the issue of the power struggle between military regimes and ‘Political Islam’. Here, Washington does not seem to be studying the serious geo-political complexities thoroughly enough after ‘the Arab Spring’ and its aftershocks and repercussions. This is a serious situation, more so if Tehran escalates its challenges, and if some regional powers continue their spiteful maneuvers on the remains of shattered states.
Back to the American ‘kitchen’; a few days ago I read a piece by Susan E Rice, the former US envoy to the UN, who was one of the pillars of ex-President Barack Obama’s pro-Iran foreign policy team. Like most senior Democrats, Rice’s passionate defense of JCPOA and her whole-hearted advice against ‘starting a war’ with Iran, do not give any thought of Tehran’s victims in the Middle East. She does not give a hoot about the poisonous sectarian atmosphere it has created, nor about genocide, mass displacement and security hegemony perpetrated and imposed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and its sectarian militias.
Democratic presidential candidates who took part in the Miami debates recently showed that their Iran policies do not differ much from Rice’s; which means that we, the Arabs, are unable to clarify any realities – to the American public – let alone change viewpoints.
This pitiful inability looked even worse after I read in ‘The Hill’, the other day, a report about the preparations of the extremist US Evangelist groups for the 2020 US elections. These groups have already begun planning how to bankroll the campaigns of President Trump and other Republican candidates.
Noting that political agendas of any candidate in America are partly decided by his/her financial backers; the powerful ultra-right wing Evangelist groups were major contributors to the rise of Ex-President Ronald Reagan and the conservatives’ takeover of the Republican Party since the early 1980s. Today, the efforts of Evangelists are now allied to conservative currents with white-supremacist rhetoric, as well as radical groups opposed to immigrants, asylum-seekers, Muslims and liberals, not only in the US but also expanding to ‘Catholic’ Latin America! Evangelist support has been a decisive factor in the victory of the extreme right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, in the presidential elections. In Brazil, the world’s most populous Catholic country.
US Evangelists, through their various organizations, are already pouring tens of millions of US dollars in Republican 2020 campaign coffers; targeting ‘battleground state’, in particular.
Thus, as usual, whether the meal being cooked in America 2020’s kitchen comes out Republican or Democrat, it is not expected to be a delicious dish for the Arabs.

Why Iran’s nuclear blackmail gambit will fail
Dr. John C. Hulsman/July 05/2019
International relations so often amount to a dialogue of the deaf, with the contending powers knowing next to nothing about each other. After my decade in Washington, I fully accept foreign criticisms regarding America’s breezy insularity from the rest of the world. But this dangerous ignorance works both ways. In the decades I have lived away from the US, I must admit to finding the leaders of the rest of world equally (and often proudly) ignorant of the history, culture and way of life of the most powerful country in the world.
This ignorance about America can presently be seen in the Iranian government’s ham-fisted efforts at nuclear blackmail. It is abundantly clear that Iran’s recent abrogation of its nuclear deal is at base a power play designed to leverage terrified Europeans into open defiance of the Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure,” and the surprisingly effective sanctions that have disrupted the already-creaking Iranian economy.
On Monday, in announcing its abrogation of the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehran has heaped enormous pressure on a Europe desperate, at almost all costs, to salvage the nuclear deal after the Trump administration walked away from it. Tehran has allowed stocks of low-enriched uranium to exceed the 300-kilogram limit previously agreed. This move amounts to diplomatic signaling, letting London, Paris and Berlin know in no uncertain terms of Tehran’s flagging patience with the tattered agreement, which has yet to deliver it the hoped-for economic benefits that were the reason for the deal (from Iran’s point of view) in the first place.
More ominously, Iran has threatened — around or on July 7 — to increase the level at which it enriches uranium above the 3.7 percent limit agreed in the JCPOA to about 20 percent. While the lower figure is only enough to fuel a commercial nuclear power plant, the higher number halves the time it would take Iran to produce weapons-grade uranium, and amounts to a clear and present danger to the rest of the world.
Ideally, Iran may hope that sustained and severe European pressure will force the US to lessen its draconian sanctions on Tehran, or at the very least force Washington into allowing the EU-3 to trade in a far greater volume with Iran than has been possible, without risking devastating American secondary sanctions. It is not too much to say that Tehran’s ultimate geostrategic goal is to use its efforts at nuclear brinkmanship to prod the Europeans into directly challenging the Trump administration’s Iran policy.
Tehran’s ultimate geostrategic goal is to use its efforts at nuclear brinkmanship to prod the Europeans into directly challenging the Trump administration’s Iran policy.
The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), the European-created investment vehicle, allows goods to be bartered between Iran and European companies without involving direct financial transactions, thereby avoiding American secondary banking sanctions. But, at present, INSTEX simply does not help Iran all that much, as it is not capable of allowing for trade in the key sectors of Iran’s economy that are suffering the greatest pain, particularly the oil industry. Iran’s UN envoy Majid Takht-Ravanchi rightly describes INSTEX as “a very lovely car but without any gasoline.”
Tehran has been pressing the EU-3 to use INSTEX to establish credit lines so Iranian oil exports to Europe can be financed through it. Iran’s vital energy industry has been decimated by new US sanctions, with oil exports tumbling to a mere 400,000 barrels per day. However, at present, INSTEX only allows for trade in humanitarian goods.
However, for all Tehran’s diplomatic subtlety, this is a gambit doomed to failure due to a fundamental lack of understanding of how the present transatlantic relationship, Trump’s America, and even modern capitalism, actually work.
It is certainly an understatement to say that the Trump administration would win no popularity contests in any European capital. Saying that, for all the friction, very few European leaders see any real alternative — given their obvious relative decline — to a continued alliance with the US.
Even in the highly unlikely event the Europeans managed to create a unified stance to challenge Trump over his Iran policy, it is astronomically unlikely that the White House would blink. Trump’s fervent Jacksonian posture places a premium on retaining America’s right to independent diplomatic action above all else.
Finally, Tehran is pressuring the wrong people. European governments do not determine the rate of trade with Iran, European businesses do. The mere threat of American secondary sanctions if they dare to do business with Iran, and the fear that they might be excluded from the vital American market, has deterred almost all large European companies, including banks, from trading with the relatively unimportant Iranian market.
So Iran’s nuclear blackmail plan is surely doomed to fail, as the country’s leaders do not begin to understand the workings of the transatlantic relationship, the Trump White House, or modern capitalism itself. The only question is whether, in its brinkmanship, Tehran will go ahead with enriching to the 20 percent level. Far from breaking up the transatlantic alliance, such a move will unify it, as the EU-3 will then find it almost impossible to sustain the JCPOA. As ever, cultural ignorance has its price.
*Dr. John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via www.chartwellspeakers.com.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

How Assad will prosecute peace in Syria
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arab News/July 05/2019
The Syrian civil war is, to all intents and purposes, over. While there remains an area in the north of the country which continues to be occupied and administered by Turkey and another larger chunk of the northeast of the country administered by a de facto autonomous Kurdish authority, none of these major remaining parties is actively waging war with another. And the main forces opposing Bashar Assad — Daesh and the non-Daesh Sunni opposition — have already been comprehensively defeated.
But the war is far from over for the civilians in areas previously hostile to the regime in Damascus. The atrocities and war crimes committed by the regime in the war include indiscriminate shelling of civilian urban areas, casual deployment of illegal weapons such as chemicals and cluster munitions, deliberate bombing of hospitals, targeted killing of UN aid workers, and starvation sieges against entire cities. Now new evidence is emerging of large-scale sexual abuse against civilians in areas recaptured by the Damascus regime, including numerous cases of child rape.
What is more, many of these actions do not and cannot have immediate tactical aims on the battlefield. Much of this was not “heat of battle” or “necessary evil” territory. Rather, it was part of a wider, calculated strategy for the long-term assertion of absolute dominion over the civilian population by the Assad regime. It is a strategy to crush into submission by sheer brute force the entire population of the country, and certainly those parts of the country that have had any kind of anti-regime sympathies. The people of Syria will now understand that they should have no expectation of human rights, no pretense to human dignity, and no ambition for political expression. They are to bow down to Assad. And to hope that by the grace of the state, they may be allowed to live.
Slowly, a dark cloud is descending over Syria. The cries of those who will continue to die there will increasingly be muffled and lost, as the world is leaving them to their fate.
It has also emerged recently that when Syrian refugees do return to the country, they have a tendency to be disappeared — presumably on the assumption that people who fled the country as the regime was dropping bombs on their block of flats would likely be harboring negative sentiments toward Damascus. But really, that is what awaits anyone who is suspected of being hostile to the regime.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. One of the least appreciated facts about the Syrian regime is that it is a Ba’athist entity, much like Saddam Hussain’s regime in Iraq, and indeed, much like an Arab version of Europe’s communist regimes in the former Warsaw Pact. And just like those states, the entire state apparatus is built on a system of repression, intimidation, arbitrary detention, lengthy trips to the local “re-education” center and the occasional case of missing persons. Those are some of the main reasons why the civil war began back in 2011. There is every indication that the Syrian state fully intends to return to that norm even after the civil war has officially finished.
So what are the Syrian people to do? Remarkably, many continue to resist. The organized groups and militias which fought the regime in the past have all, more or less, been decimated, yes. But on the local level, individuals and communities continue to hold their heads up high in defiance, even as they do so in the full expectation that they are inviting their death.
Every indication seems to suggest that death is the inevitable outcome for their courage and dignified stance. Assad now has full impunity. Russia and Iran will shield him from any Western censure. There is no appetite for humanitarian intervention anywhere in the West. Even the little censure that had been coming from the West has, in recent times, faded away. Slowly, a dark cloud is descending over Syria. The cries of those who will continue to die there will increasingly be muffled and lost, as the world is leaving them to their fate.
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, and director at the Center for Global Policy in Washington, DC.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view