LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 07/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.november07.19.htm
News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible Quotations For today
Whoever does not provide for
relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse
than an unbeliever
First Letter to Timothy 05/01-10/:”Do not speak harshly to an older man, but
speak to him as to a father, to younger men as brothers, to older women as
mothers, to younger women as sisters with absolute purity. Honour widows who are
really widows. If a widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn
their religious duty to their own family and make some repayment to their
parents; for this is pleasing in God’s sight. The real widow, left alone, has
set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day;
but the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give these
commands as well, so that they may be above reproach. And whoever does not
provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith
and is worse than an unbeliever. Let a widow be put on the list if she is not
less than sixty years old and has been married only once; she must be well
attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown
hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself
to doing good in every way.”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese
Related News published on November 06-07/2019
World Bank Ready to Support Lebanon, Urges Quick Formation of New Cabinet
World Bank ready to support Lebanon, urges quick formation of new cabinet
World Bank Sounds Alarm about Lebanon amid Protests, Crisis
Aoun Says Corruption Investigations Won't Spare Any Incumbent, Former Official
President to Kumar Jha: Investigations will not exclude anyone, 17 files on
corruption referred to judiciary
Hariri, Bassil Hold 'Positive' Second Meeting
World Bank ready to support Lebanon, urges quick formation of new cabinet
Geagea: We seek a government of experts who are independent of political
majority
Women Stage Pot-Banging Demo as Protesters Scuffle with Police in Ramlet al-Bayda
State Prosecutor Authorizes Financial Prosecution to Sue 13 Public Employees
Financial Prosecutor Summons Saniora for Testimony in $11 Billion Case
STL President Convenes Trial Chamber in Hamadeh, Hawi, Murr Case
Lebanese Students Skip School, Protesters Rally Outside State Institutions to
Press Demands
Jumblat to ABC: Lebanon on Verge of Economic Collapse, Needs Technocratic Govt.
School Principal Threatens to Expel Students over Demos
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
November 06-07/2019
Iran Starts Injecting Uranium Gas into Centrifuges at Fordow
Shtayyeh: Disengagement from Israel Is Not a Slogan
Israel Releases 2 Jordanians after Two-Month Detention
Disputes Emerge over Palestinian President’s Elections Proposal
2 Killed in Karbala as Iraqi Security Forces Try to Disperse Protesters
Sisi Says Sinai Development is ‘National Security’ Issue, Calls for Reassuring
Citizens
Four Tourists among 8 Wounded in Jordan Stabbing
Public Hearings in Trump Impeachment Probe Start Next Week
Lebanon Warned on Default and Recession as Its Reserves Decline
Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on November 06-07/2019
The Majority Of Lebanon’s politicians know
no shame or blush/Elias Bejjani/November 06/2019
The Lebanon Protests: ِAudio-Views from Beirut and Policy Implications/Makram
Rabah, Lokman Slim, Jean Tawile, and Hanin Ghaddar/
Washington Institute for Near East Policy/November 06/ 2019
Presidential Love/Elie Aoun/November 06/2019
“We have Reached the Brink”/Issam Kayssi/Carnegie MECenter/November 06/2019
Iran and the Specter of Political Change in the Middle East/New York
Times/November 06/2019
Protests in Iraq, Lebanon Reveal a Long-Simmering Anger at Iran/Associated
Press/Naharnet/November 06/2019
How Putin Outfoxed Trump, Pence and Erdogan/Malcolm Lowe/Gatestone
Institute/November 06/2019
Should Europe Bring Back the Fighters Who Left for ISIS?/Alain Destexhe/Gatestone
Institute/November 06/2019
‘Iranian attack on Israel is just a matter of time’/Israel Kasnett/JNS/November
06/2019
Riyadh Agreement Delivers Political Gains in Yemen, But Implementation Less
Certain/Elana DeLozier/The Washington Institute/November 06/2019
Recalling the hostage crisis that made Iran forever hostile to the US/Simon
Henderson/The Hill/November 06/2019
Hostage crisis set the tone for Islamic Republic’s rule/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab
News/November 06/2019
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News
published
on November 06-07/2019
The Majority Of Lebanon’s politicians know
no shame or blush
Elias Bejjani/November 06/2019
غالبية الطاقم السياسي لا يعرف لا الحياء ولا الخجل ويحتاج لتوبة وتقديم كفارات
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/80248/80248/
Because human beings remain entangles in traps of covetousness in all times and
ages.
And because their thinking components are always strongly inclined to fall in
earthly temptations.
And because the eternal struggle between good and evil continues on.
And because the Lebanese in general have lost their scale of priorities.
And because many Lebanese citizens, as well as many politician are confused
between what is right and what is wrong, and between what is Godly and what is
evil.
And because the majority of the Lebanese politicians are hostages of corruption,
greed, ingratitude, selfishness and Narcissism.
And because all these above human weaknesses, aberrations from ethical, legal
and faith norm codes are sadly spreading without any accountability in the
Iranian occupied Lebanon we strongly believe that some thing positive and
directive Must be done to put an end to all these divergences.
So, According to all of the above “becauses” We sincerely advice all these
losers being either citizens or politician to repent and offer the required
penances.
And in a bid to purify their souls and put their lives again on the righteous
track we recommend that they willingly and with a through concentration to read
the below Biblical verse.
Hopefully they shall wake up and never ever cross over the inevitable Day Of
Judgment.
Jeremiah 6/10-15/”To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold,
their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, the word of Yahweh
has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. 6:11 Therefore I am
full of the wrath of Yahweh. I am weary with holding in. “Pour it out on the
children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the
husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.
Their houses shall be turned to others, their fields and their wives together;
for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahweh.”
“For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness;
and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have
healed also the hurt of my people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when
there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No,
they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they shall
fall among those who fall; at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast
down,” says Yahweh`.”
The Lebanon Protests: ِAudio-Views from Beirut and Policy
Implications/Makram Rabah, Lokman Slim, Jean Tawile, and Hanin Ghaddar
من موقع معهد واشنطن فيديو لأراء أكاديمية تتناول الثورة الشعبية في لبنان لكل من/
مكرم رباح/لقمان سليم/جان طويلة/حنان غدار
Washington Institute for Near East Policy/November 06/ 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/80271/the-lebanon-protests-%d9%90audio-views-from-beirut-and-policy-implications-makram-rabah-lokman-slim-jean-tawile-and-hanin-ghaddar-%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%85%d9%88%d9%82%d8%b9-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af/
Click Here To Watch the Audio Viewsاضغط هنا لمشاهدة الأراء وهي
باللغة الإنكليزية
https://livestream.com/accounts/428806/events/3228633/videos/198632252/player?width=624&height=351&enableInfo=true&defaultDrawer=&autoPlay=true&mute=false
Watch four Lebanese experts explore the protests and political situation in
Lebanon. Why have street protests continued beyond the resignation of the prime
minister, and how will Hezbollah react if the protests threaten its dominance?
Lebanon’s unprecedented protests have already spurred Prime Minister Hariri to
resign, and although Hezbollah still has the majority of parliament and a
friendly president on its side, the people are intent on staying in the streets
until a new transitional government is formed. How are the demonstrations
developing, and what have they achieved so far?
What is needed to ensure a proper transition at a time of serious economic
crisis? And how will Hezbollah react if the protests threaten its dominance?
To discuss these and other questions, The Washington Institute hosted a Policy
Forum with Makram Rabah, Lokman Slim (who will join from Beirut via video
teleconference), Jean Tawile, and Hanin Ghaddar.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer of history at the American University of Beirut and
lead consultant with Quantum Communications.
*Lokman Slim is director of Hayya Bina and UMAM, a Lebanese organization that
focuses on Shia politics and social dynamics.
*Jean Tawile is president of the Kataeb Economic and Social Council, a board
member with the Lebanese Businessmen Association (RDCL) and the Lebanese
Association for Taxpayers’ Rights (ALDIC), and a former advisor to Lebanon’s
minister of economy and trade (2014-2017).
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Visiting Fellow in The Washington Institute’s
Geduld Program on Arab Politics. A longtime journalist in her native Lebanon,
she has worked as managing editor of the NOW news site and written for a wide
range of Arabic and English media outlets.
The Policy Forum series is made possible through the generosity of the Florence
and Robert Kaufman Family.
World Bank Ready to Support Lebanon, Urges Quick Formation
of New Cabinet
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
The World Bank said on Wednesday it stood ready to back a new Lebanese
government, warning the country had no time to waste to tackle an emerging
economic crisis worsening by the day. The bank called for the rapid formation of
a new cabinet and said it expected a recession in 2019 to be even more
significant than an earlier projection of a 0.2% contraction in the economy. A
wave of massive protests across Lebanon against the ruling elite pushed Prime
Minister Saad al-Hariri to resign last week, toppling his coalition cabinet.
There has been no sign of progress toward agreeing a new government.
The turmoil comes as Lebanon grapples with the worst economic and financial
strains since the 1975-90 civil war. The World Bank is among foreign donors who
pledged billions of dollars in badly needed aid last year, as long as Lebanon’s
government enacts reforms it has long delayed. But with foreign allies not fully
convinced, the money has yet to flow into the economy. “Lebanon does not have
the luxury of time to waste to redress issues that need immediate attention,”
the World Bank said in a statement after its regional director, Saroj Kumar Jha,
met Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Wednesday. “There is an urgent need to
stop the emerging economic crisis.” “We stand ready to extend all possible
support to the new government that commits itself to good governance and
creating opportunities for all Lebanese,” it added, according to Reuters.
The proportion of Lebanese living in poverty could rise to 50% if economic
conditions worsen, from about a third in 2018, the World Bank said.
Unemployment, which already runs at 37% for the under 35s, could rise sharply.
“With every passing day, the situation is becoming more acute and this would
make recovery extremely challenging,” Jha added.Aoun told the World Bank the
next government would have competent ministers “of good reputation and far from
suspicions of corruption”, the president’s office said after the meeting.
Public anger
Unrest erupted across Lebanon some three weeks ago amid a build-up of anger at
rising costs of living, new tax plans and a ruling elite accused of rampant
corruption. Demonstrators blame the political class, many of them sectarian
civil war leaders, for plunging the country toward collapse after milking the
state for decades. Hariri remains in office in a caretaker capacity until
political parties agree a new government. Aoun, an ally of the Iran-backed
Hezbollah party, has yet to begin official talks with MPs to designate a prime
minister who would form the next cabinet.
Crowds protested in front of ministries and state institutions on Wednesday in
the capital Beirut, as well as parts of south and north Lebanon. “We came to
show that we’re in the protest squares no matter what the corrupt (authorities)
do,” Rasha Hijazi, a public school teacher, said at a protest in the southern
city of Sidon, where teachers and students went on strike. “It is not important
to lose our hours, our archaic curriculum...This is the real revolution that we
are teaching.”Lebanon has one of the world’s highest public debt burdens at 150%
of GDP. Political disputes in Lebanon and regional conflict have hit economic
growth. With growth around zero percent, a slowdown in capital inflows has led
to a scarcity of dollars and pressure on the pegged Lebanese pound. Moody’s
Investors Service downgraded Lebanon’s rating to Caa2 on Tuesday, at the lower
end of the “junk” grade bracket, citing the increased likelihood of a debt
rescheduling it would classify as a default. Lebanon’s issuer rating, which was
lowered from Caa1, remained under review for downgrade, Moody’s said. Moody’s
classifies Caa ratings as very high credit risk.
World Bank ready to support Lebanon, urges quick formation
of new cabinet
Reuters, Beirut/Wednesday, 6 November 2019
The World Bank said on Wednesday it stood ready to back a new Lebanese
government and warned that the country had no time to waste to fix economic
troubles that were becoming worse by the day. The bank called for the rapid
formation of a new cabinet and said it expected a recession in 2019 to be even
more significant than an earlier projection of a 0.2% contraction in the
economy. A wave of massive protests against the ruling elite across Lebanon
pushed Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign last week, toppling his coalition
cabinet. There has been no sign of progress towards agreeing a new government.
The political turmoil comes as Lebanon grapples with the worst economic and
financial strains since the 1975-90 civil war. The World Bank is among foreign
donors who pledged billions of dollars in badly needed aid last year, as long as
Lebanon’s government enacts reforms it has long neglected. But with foreign
allies not fully convinced, the money has yet to flow into the economy. “With
every passing day, the situation is becoming more acute and this would make
recovery extremely challenging,” World Bank regional director Saroj Kumar Jha
said in a statement after meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun on
Wednesday. “We stand ready to extend all possible support to the new government
that commits itself to good governance and creating opportunities for all
Lebanese, especially the youth and women,” the World Bank statement said.
World Bank Sounds Alarm about Lebanon amid Protests, Crisis
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 06/2019
The World Bank called on Lebanese authorities Wednesday to urgently form a new
government that can address the country's worsening economic situation, warning
that Lebanon "does not have the luxury of time to waste."The stark warning came
in a statement issued after a meeting between the World Bank's regional director
and President Michel Aoun amid ongoing mass protests and a severe economic and
financial crisis. Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned his government on Oct. 29
in response to the unprecedented protests which have swept Lebanon starting in
the middle of last month. The protesters erupted over proposed new taxes and
have snowballed into calls for the government to resign and for the entire
political elite that has ruled Lebanon since the end of its 1975-90 civil war to
step aside. The protests have paralyzed the country and kept banks shuttered for
two weeks. Lebanon, one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world,
already was dealing with a severe fiscal crisis before the protests began, one
rooted in years of heavy borrowing and expensive patronage networks run by
entrenched political parties. The protesters are calling for the formation of a
technocrat government that would get to work immediately on addressing Lebanon's
economic crisis. They accuse officials of dragging their feet on that. Following
his meeting with Aoun, World Bank Regional Director Saroj Kumar Jha said he
urged swift measures to ensure Lebanon's economic and financial stability. "The
politics has most attention, but economy has the most risks," he said. "With
every passing day, the situation is becoming more acute and this would make
recovery extremely challenging," he added. "Lebanon does not have the luxury of
time to waste to redress issues that need immediate attention."In a statement,
the World Bank also warned "we expect the recession to be even more significant"
than previously, having forecast a contraction of 0.2 percent before the ongoing
political turmoil. Without quick steps to address the crisis, about half of
Lebanon's population could fall into poverty and unemployment could "rise
sharply," the lender said.
On Wednesday, protesters rallied outside state institutions and ministries to
keep up the pressure on officials to form a new government. Dozens of people
gathered outside the justice, education and other ministries as well as the
state-run electricity company and the tax department. In their third week,
protesters have adopted a new tactic of surrounding state institutions to
disrupt their work. The protesters agreed on Tuesday to shift the focus of the
protests and open main roads to ease up traffic and allow people to get back to
work.
Aoun Says Corruption Investigations Won't Spare Any
Incumbent, Former Official
Naharnet/November 06/2019
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday stressed that a fresh anti-corruption
crackdown will not spare any incumbent or former official suspected of
wrongdoing. “The new government will comprise ministers enjoying expertise,
economy and integrity who are not suspected of any corruption,” Aoun told a
World Bank delegation led by Regional Director Saroj Kumar Jha. “The
investigations that will target incumbent and former officials suspected of
misconduct will not spare any of those involved,” the president added. “Lebanon
is at a critical crossroads, especially at the economic level, and it is in dire
need of a harmonious government that can be productive without being obstructed
by political conflicts and bickering,” Aoun went on to say, noting that the new
government should also enjoy “the needed support from the people.” The president
also emphasized that he will not hesitate to “propose any reformist law that
suits the priorities of the coming period,” revealing that “17
corruption-related files have been referred to investigation and will be
addressed.”“Accountability will encompass all the culprits, participators and
facilitators,” Aoun underlined.
President to Kumar Jha: Investigations will not exclude
anyone, 17 files on corruption referred to judiciary
NNA -Wed 06 Nov 2019
President Michel Aoun told the World Bank Group's Regional Director for the
Middle East and North Africa, Kumar Jha, whom he welcomed this afternoon at
Baabda Palace, that "the coming government will include experienced, competent
and reputable ministers, free of suspicions of corruption."
He pointed out that "investigations that will be conducted with current and
former officials around whom there are question marks, will exclude nobody."
"Lebanon is at a delicate crossroads, especially in economic terms, and is in
dire need of a harmonious government capable of producing; a government that is
not hampered by political conflicts and rivalries," Aoun said, noting that the
project meant to fight against corruption "are in the hands of the House of
Representatives, the most important of which is the lifting of bank secrecy and
immunity on perpetrators, the recovery of looted funds, and the establishment of
the Special Court for financial crimes." The Head of State stressed that he was
working to address "a legacy of decades of corruption" and "will continue to
work so that I can eradicate it and put an end to waste and chaos in State
administrations and institutions."He noted that 17 corruption-related files have
been referred to the judiciary, and all those involved, whether by participating
or facilitating, will be held accountable. The President thanked Jha for "the
support provided by the World Bank to Lebanon," pointing out that "any delay in
the completion of one or more projects is due either to administrative routines
or to the lack of supplementary funds," promising to "find solutions to such a
delay "once the new government is formed." Jha, in turn, conveyed to Aoun the
views of the World Bank on the latest developments, stressing "the continuation
of assistance to Lebanon in the fields it requests help with."
Hariri, Bassil Hold 'Positive' Second Meeting
Naharnet/November 06/2019
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran
Bassil met anew Wednesday at the Center House. According to media reports,
sources close to Hariri said the caretaker PM will maintain his contacts with
Bassil and the rest of the parties over the coming hours in order to find the
best possible solutions to the economic and financial woes. Describing the
meeting as positive, the sources said the two men discussed ideas that can pull
the country out of its economic crisis and respond to the demands of the
hundreds of thousands of protesters who have taken to Lebanon’s streets since
October 17.FPM sources meanwhile told al-Jadeed TV that Hariri asked Bassil to
give him time to respond to his proposal on forming a techno-political
government led by a figure enjoying consensus and comprising representatives of
the protest movement. “Bassil told Hariri that the FPM has no desire to
represent Bassil or other prominent FPM figures in the new government but will
reject overbidding on forming a government of experts,” the sources said, adding
that “Hariri has reopened channels of communication with Hizbullah.”
World Bank ready to support Lebanon, urges quick formation
of new cabinet
NNA -Wed 06 Nov 2019
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, raised during the Wednesday periodic meeting with
lawmakers at Ain-el-Tineh, the Lebanese doubts backed by information and
international reports about oil exploration led by a Greek company, of which
"Total" owns 40% of shares, near the Lebanese border intertwining with the
exclusive economic zone. These reports also evoked the issue of the delay in the
exploration works by the "Total" Company in the offshore block 9. In this
framework, Speaker Berri held contacts with the concerned official parties, and
dispatched a delegate to France to meet "Total" officials. On the legislations'
issue, Berri stressed the need to endorse project laws on the agenda of the
forthcoming legislative session, deeming such laws as "righteous demands of the
people."Turning to the current economic and governmental situation, Berri
stressed the need to swiftly seek reform, political and economic solutions,
including the formation of a new government. On the other hand, Berri met with
the Head of the Lebanese Banks Association, Dr. Salim Sfeir, with whom he
discussed the current financial and economic situation. Among Berri's itinerant
visitors for today had been former Minister Karim Pakradouni, with the latest
developments featuring high on their talks.
Geagea: We seek a government of experts who are independent
of political majority
NNA -Wed 06 Nov 2019
"Lebanese Forces" Party leader, Samir Geagea, said on Wednesday that his party
favors a government of experts who are independent of the political majority.
"Any attempt to form a government of experts named by this majority is
unacceptable," Geagea said in an interview with the "Free Lebanon" Radio
Station, noting that it was a trap, since the key word in this matter lies in
"independent." Geagea said the LF is in favor of a government that has nothing
to do with politicians and the parliamentary and ministerial majority. The LF
leader also pointed out that his Party has always been in full harmony with its
people and community. Geagea also deemed the current popular movement as
glorious, saying that people proceed with their protests by adopting several
methods.
Women Stage Pot-Banging Demo as Protesters Scuffle with Police in Ramlet al-Bayda
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 06/2019
Thousands of women gathered Wednesday evening near the seat of government in
Beirut’s Riad al-Solh Square, carrying candles as some banged on saucepans."O
patriarchal powers, women's rights are not a footnote," they chanted. Other
pot-banging protests were also held in other parts of the country as some
citizens staged similar expressions of solidarity on their balconies. In the
Ramlet al-Bayda area on the Beirut waterfront, security forces and activists
clashed after protesters tried to enter into the Eden Bay resort, denouncing
what they say is illegal privatization of public property.
State Prosecutor Authorizes Financial Prosecution to Sue 13
Public Employees
Naharnet/November 06/2019
State Prosecutor Ghassan Ouweidat on Wednesday authorized the financial
prosecution to sue 13 employees, including heads of municipalities, “after their
administrations procrastinated in giving prosecution permission,” the National
News Agency said. “This measure is part of the memos issued by Ouweidat to the
regional prosecution offices to enforce the law and secure the good functioning
of justice,” NNA added. The memos have been sent to the financial prosecutor,
the state commissioner to the Military Court and the prosecutors of the
governorates, the agency said.
Financial Prosecutor Summons Saniora for Testimony in $11
Billion Case
Naharnet/November 06/2019
Financial Prosecutor Ali Ibrahim on Wednesday summoned ex-PM Fouad Saniora to a
testimony in the case of the 11 billion dollars spent between 2006 and 2008,
state-run National News Agency said. “Judge Ibrahim has asked ex-PM Saniora to
show up at his office at the Justice Palace on Thursday morning,” NNA added. But
State Prosecutor Ghassan Ouweidat later told NNA that "due to the failure to
inform ex-PM Fouad Saniora of the date of the hearing session... it has been
decided to reschedule the session to Thursday, November 14." Earlier this year,
Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah called for a probe into what he claimed were
missing state funds amounting to $11 billion dollars. He was indirectly pointing
a finger at former PM Saniora. He submitted financial documents to the judiciary
that he claimed could “land many people in jail, including former prime
ministers.” Saniora later described the issue of the “missing” $11 billion as a
“farce,” as he announced that those “setting up mini-states inside the state”
are the real corrupts, in an apparent jab at Hizbullah.Saniora said the 11
billion dollars in question were spent on interest hikes, treasury loans for
Electricite Du Liban, and wage hikes and recruitment expenses for the armed
forces.
STL President Convenes Trial Chamber in Hamadeh, Hawi, Murr
Case
Naharnet/November 06/2019
The President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Judge Ivana Hrdličková on
Wednesday issued an order convening the Trial Chamber in the connected case
related to the attacks against Marwan Hamadeh, Georges Hawi and Elias Murr.
According to the STL’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the Trial Chamber may be
engaged in various judicial matters before the start of trial. This can include
holding an initial appearance with the Accused if one is in custody, deciding
whether a trial should proceed in absentia and ruling on preliminary motions.
The judges of the ‘Trial Chamber II’ are: Judge Walid Akoum of Lebanon; Judge
Nicolas Lettieri of Italy; and Judge Anna Bednarek of Poland. Judge Bednarek was
appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as new international judge.
Judge Akoum and Judge Lettieri currently also serve as alternate judges in the
Trial Chamber of the case against the killers of ex-PM Rafik Hariri. “I
congratulate the Judges on their appointments to Trial Chamber II, and welcome
Judge Anna Bednarek as new STL Judge. I wish them all the best in their judicial
duties,” STL President Hrdličková said. The STL Pre-Trial Judge had on September
16, 2019 lifted the confidentiality of his decision confirming an indictment
against suspected Hizbullah operative Salim Jamil Ayyash. The indictment, dated
June 14, 2019, alleges that Ayyash was involved in the Oct. 1, 2004 bomb attack
against Hamade, the June, 21 2005 bomb attack against Hawi and the July 12, 2005
bomb attack against Murr. These attacks were found by the STL to be “connected”
to the February 14, 2005 attack that killed Hariri. The STL has put Ayyash and
three other suspected Hizbullah operatives on an in-absentia trial and the
judges are holding confidential deliberations prior to the issuance of
sentences.
Hizbullah has denied involvement in the assassination of Hariri, describing the
STL as a hostile scheme against it.
Lebanese Students Skip School, Protesters Rally Outside
State Institutions to Press Demands
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
Hundreds of schoolchildren led anti-government demonstrations across Lebanon on
Wednesday, refusing to return to class before the demands of a nearly
three-week-old protest movement are met. In the capital Beirut, dozens gathered
in front of the education ministry, brandishing Lebanese flags and chanting
slogans demanding the removal of a political class seen as incompetent and
corrupt. "What will I do with a school leaver's certificate if I don't have a
country," one pupil told Lebanese television. In the largest pupil-led protest,
crowds streamed into a central square in the southern city of Sidon, demanding
better public education and more job opportunities for school leavers, the
state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported. In a school in the resort town of
Jounieh, just north of the capital, pupils mobilized against school governors
accusing them of banning participation in the protests. Other pupil-led protests
took place in the southern cities of Tyre and Nabatieh, the eastern city of
Zahleh and the northern city of Byblos, according to NNA and other Lebanese
media reports. But demonstrators, who have kept up their protests since October
17, were not blocking key roads on Wednesday morning.
Banks were open and classes resumed at most schools after a two-week gap. But
demonstrators gathered around key state institutions for a second day in a row,
in what appears to be a new tactic replacing road closures. The most significant
in the capital was around the Palace of Justice, where hundreds demanded an
independent judiciary and an end to political interference, an AFP correspondent
reported. "We don't want judges who receive orders," read one placard held aloft
by the crowd. A smaller group of protesters gathered near the central bank,
accusing it of aggravating the country's economic crisis. Dozens of people also
gathered in front of the state-run electricity company and the tax department.
Pressure from the street prompted Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign last
week. He remains in his post in a caretaker capacity while rival politicians
haggle over the make-up of a new government.
The protesters have expressed mounting frustration with the slow pace of the
coalition talks.
Jumblat to ABC: Lebanon on Verge of Economic Collapse,
Needs Technocratic Govt.
Naharnet/November 06/2019
Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Wednesday said he
hopes that demonstrations in Lebanon succeed in changing the political class,
calling for the formation of a technocratic government in order to salvage the
country. “I am no angel, but at the end of my political life, I must give a
message of hope to the new generation," Jumblatt said in an interview with ABC
News hoping to see the demonstrators in Lebanon succeed. He stated: “During my
40-year career in politics, it is the first time in the history of Lebanon that
such a revolution, stretching from north to south Lebanon, away from
sectarianism has ever taken place." saying the outcome might take a long time
before bearing fruits. "I am optimistic, but it is going to take a long time,"
he said. On the economic situation in Lebanon, which ranks third in terms of
indebtedness in the world, Jumblat said: “Lebanon is on the verge of economic
collapse, we need technocratic, impartial and honest figures to handle
portfolios in key ministries like finance, economy and other.”He encouraged the
new generation of political leaderships to emerge from the political crisis. “It
is up to the new class that will govern Lebanon to implement a policy far from
neoliberalism that ruined us,” he concluded.
School Principal Threatens to Expel Students over Demos
A school principal in Lebanon threatened to expel her pupils shall they
participate in the nationwide protests gripping the country since October 17
demanding to overhaul the country’s political leaders. An audio recording on
Whatsapp sent by Mona Wazen, principal of Collège Notre Dame Des Soeurs
Salvatoriennes - Abra, to her students went viral on Tuesday. She addressed the
pupils “mainly” baccalaureate-level students, saying in a demanding tone: “Each
student who chooses to partake in the movements is considered permanently
expelled from the school.” A prompt reply from the Secretary of Union of Parents
in Private Schools in Lebanon, attorney Sharif Suleiman, denounced in an audio
what he said was an “authoritarian, intimidating rhetoric,” practiced by the
principal. He vowed legal measures. Caretaker Minister of Education, Akram
Shehayyeb, issued a statement condemning the “substance of the voice message,”
vowing that investigations will be run into the matter. In a first since the
beginning of the demonstrations on October 17, Lebanon’s school students turned
to the streets on Wednesday joining the country’s revolution against the
political class. Students from different parts of the country, from north to
south, left their classes some gathering outside the schools’ premises and
others joining protesters near the state's institutions, chanting angry slogans
at an “incompetent authority.”Photos of Wazen with head of the Free Patriotic
Movement, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil and some members of his parliamentary
blocked circulated on social media.
Presidential Love/إيلي عون: الحب الرئاسي
Elie Aoun/November 06/2019
ترى أين وكيف ومتى يمكن صرف قول الرئيس عون للمتظاهرين من حزبه أما قصر بعبدا: “أنا
بحبكون كلكون”
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/80269/elie-aounpresidential-lovel-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d9%84%d9%8a-%d8%b9%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%a6%d8%a7%d8%b3%d9%8a-%d8%aa%d8%b1%d9%89-%d8%a3%d9%8a%d9%86-%d9%88%d9%83%d9%8a/
I did not listen to the President’s speech to the demonstrators in Baabda few
days ago. I do not listen to anything that the three Lebanese presidents say or
to any speech or a press conference held by the leaders of the major political
parties. In my humble opinion, listening to them is a waste of time.
However, I heard from a news reporter that he told the demonstrators: “I Love
you all, and all means all.”
If that is the case, we have the right to ask:
Where is the love to “you all” when the first thing he did as president was to
raise taxes on the “you all, and all means all”?
Where are the job opportunities that he created to “you all”?
Where is the love to those who spent decades supporting him, and what he had
done to achieve what they fought for?
Where is the love to the families of those who died during 1989-1990 believing
in what he said, and what he had done to help them?
And the “love” list goes on…
Also, someone on the social media was commenting on a parliamentarian
(presidential supporter) saying that “the demands of the revolution are the
demands of the president.”
If that is the case, then why would the president ask the revolutionaries to
have a “dialogue” with him and to tell him what they need if their demands are
his? Does not he already know what he needs or what they need?
If the revolutionaries are a “Zionist conspiracy” and cabaret goers (as they had
been accused), why would the president want to lower himself to their level by
having a dialogue with them?
If the revolutionaries are a bunch of fornicators, why would fornicators want an
honest government while the “holy men” who rule that government had never
prosecuted a single corrupt official?
Does the “love you all, and all means all” include the Zionists, cabaret goers,
and fornicators?
One problem with the ruling class is that the people are suffering while they
are reciting “poetry” and trying to be “smart” to diffuse the revolution instead
of pursuing viable solutions to existing problems – viable solutions which they
do not have and refuse to hire anyone who does.
One problem (and there are many) of Lebanese politicians is that they are sick
and detached from reality.
They lie while thinking that they are not lying.
They do everything wrong while thinking that they are not doing anything wrong.
To them, destroying people’s dreams and talents, not listening to them, not
doing anything to help them, is their way of showing “love.”
Maybe “the president is love” slogan should be printed on Lebanese currency
notes, to add more “confidence” and to improve their purchasing power.
“We have Reached the Brink”
Issam Kayssi/Carnegie MECenter/November 06/2019
Young protestors in Lebanon say they will continue until their demands are met.
“It is the first time I feel this involved. It comes from the feeling that, this
time, it is for Lebanon, for all the people,” says Michele, a 24-year-old art
director at an advertising company in Beirut, who has participated in the
protests from day-one on October 17.
Michele echoes the feeling of many young Lebanese from all over the country who
have participated in the protest movement. The protests erupted after the Hariri
government announced that it planned to levy a series of new taxes, a decision
that has now been rescinded.
The tax decision came at the end of a week in which the government had proven
its incompetence in extinguishing fires that had consumed hundreds of acres of
Lebanon’s forests as well as some urban areas. Add to that an economic crisis in
which the provision of necessities such as bread and fuel are in question and
the likely impending devaluation of the Lebanese pound, and you will understand
the reasons for the anger and frustration that finally pushed people to take to
Lebanon’s streets.
The population’s reaction surprised the government, until it finally announced
its resignation on October 29. After the resignation, there was a brief
withdrawal from the streets. People seemed to be waiting to see how the
political elite would act. Would it form an interim rescue government, as
demanded by protesters all over the country?
Lebanon has witnessed mass demonstrations before. In 2005, demonstrations (and
counter-demonstrations) took place in Beirut following the assassination of
former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, which helped lead to the withdrawal of
the Syrian army from Lebanon after a 29-year presence. In 2015, smaller
demonstrations also took place in the capital, targeting the political elite,
following a garbage crisis in which waste filled the streets of the country.
The difference today is that the protests are not only centered in Beirut.
People from the all parts of the country have participated to reject the
sectarian political class. This decentralized and spontaneous aspect of the
protests has so far proven difficult to suppress.
“I have been living in Zouq all my life,” says Michele. “Three minutes away from
the highway.” Zouq Mosbeh is a predominantly Christian town in the Kisirwan
district of Mount Lebanon that is located a few kilometers north of Beirut.
During the past two weeks of protests, protesters occupied the highway
connecting northern Lebanon to the capital. “I was mainly [active] in Zouq, and
I was happy to be there! It was a peaceful atmosphere and the feeling was
amazing.”
Nour, a 27-year-old activist from the southern city of Tyre who had participated
in the 2015 Beirut protests, says people have to be careful about what they say
in southern Lebanon. In a region primarily dominated by Hezbollah and Parliament
Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal Movement, protesters in Tyre have chosen to focus on
their demands in order to avoid a direct confrontation with the two parties,
after early outbursts that had targeted both. “Our priority right now is the
formation of an independent government of experts capable of navigating the
difficult economic situation that Lebanon is in, and holding early parliamentary
elections,” says Nour. If activists like Nour do not get their way, they will
continue to occupy the streets.
Indeed, this is what happened on November 4, when after a few days of respite
protesters again blocked roads throughout the country, angry with what they
considered stalling by the political elite. By then, Lebanon’s president, Michel
Aoun, had yet to schedule consultations to name a new prime minister, even
though time is of the essence given the seriousness of the economic crisis.
However, the president’s party was able to organize a counter-demonstration near
the presidential palace on Sunday.
Maria, a 23-year-old architecture student at Notre Dame University, who has been
participating in the protests in Beirut, says that the streets are the tool. “We
will follow up on every decision and clearly state our disagreement, if any,
through demonstrations.”
In the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest, the protests at Nour
Square never stopped. One of the buildings facing the square is colored like a
Lebanese flag with a banner that reads: “We will continue [in order] to bring
down the president and parliament.” Formerly considered a stronghold of the
Sunni caretaker prime minister, Sa‘d al-Hariri, Tripoli has captivated Lebanon
and the world with its creative chants, light shows, and even a DJ.
‘Obeida, a 29-year-old community organizer in Tripoli says people will not stop
because they have “reached the brink.” He adds that “there is a lot of pain in
the city. All that people are asking for are basic rights and services.” For
‘Obeida and many like him in Tripoli, “It doesn’t matter who the faces in the
new government are as much as their intentions.” Young people like ‘Obeida,
Michele, Nour, and Maria seem to agree on the following: They oppose reproducing
the same political class in the new government.
“In order for us to move forward, this political class must admit that it has
made a mistake,” ‘Obeida says. “People will not go home without fulfilling their
demands for a dignified life. Even if they held elections [in the future] and
new people are elected who did not meet these demands, people will take to the
streets again.”
An interim independent government may face many difficulties in navigating a
political landscape entrenched with civil servants who are faithful to the old
elite. What is clear, however, is that demonstrators will no longer accept
slogans without tangible achievements. Previous mass demonstrations in Lebanon
either failed or were ultimately monopolized by traditional sectarian
politicians. In 2019, the popular movement has thus far rejected electing
leaders to represent it. Its demands are clear, so no leaders are required. In
Lebanon today, it seems like each person who has gone into the streets feels
personally responsible for the success of the protest movement, and will not
back down until its demands are met.
Iran and the Specter of Political Change in the Middle East
New York Times/November 06/2019
The civic revolts raging in Iraq and Lebanon are perceived by the Iranian
Islamic regime as an existential threat which questions not only its regional
power politics but internal rickety equilibriums. It looks at them along
geopolitical and ideological continuums which tendentially undermine Iranian
security and the regime’s legitimacy. The impact of these events is carefully
evaluated, especially at a time when Iran has a hard time dealing with American
sanctions, eroding influence in Yemen after the latest agreement between the
challenged central government in San’a and the Southern secessionist movement,
and it’s circumscribed role in Syria. The contestation of the Iraqi and Lebanese
pillars of Iranian power politics are once again putting at stake its power
projections, at a time when the partial withdrawal of the US from North Eastern
Syria seemed to pave the way for a new tidal wave of Iranian expansionism. What
is mostly worrisome is the demise of the ideological pillars of its conventional
power politics for the sake of civic oriented internal political reformism.
None of the ideological leitmotivs of Iranian power politics seem to matter or
to structure the political agendas of reformist political movements in Iraq and
Lebanon. This blatant political apathy towards Iranian power politics intersects
with the prevailing political mood within the Iranian society itself, where the
priorities of internal political reforms seem totally dismissive of the regime’s
power politics, hollow ideological rhetorics and debased political narrative.
The resumption of uranium enrichment and its military innuendos, the call for
ideological radicalization and repressive politics are part of the conventional
repertoire instrumentalized by the Iranian regime when coerced to deliver on
major political issues, be it internally or externally. The Iranian regime
apprehends international political normalization and its incidence on internal
liberalization and equates it with the demise of the Islamic Revolution
narrative. The deliberate sabotaging of normalization courses, political
waffling and duplicity are part of its survival kit, pervasive sense of
insecurity and enduring bet on complicating scenarios and strategic
imponderables.
Nonetheless, what the Islamic regime seems to miss is the substantive changes in
societal and political cultures, and the dominant tropes of the contemporary
Zeitgeist and its impact on political dynamics. The civic rebellions, in both
Iraq and Lebanon, are quite emblematic of the inter-generational divides that
cannot be harnessed to the customary power games which prevail in the region:
the questioning of power holders, oligarchic corruption, absence of public
accountability, State violence, gender discrimination, environmental
depredation, lifestyle liberalization, are not part of the usual political
agenda and its basic normative framing. Hence, the Iranian regime seems to
pursue its course on the very basis of its “regime of truth “, ideological
blinkers, standard power politics, and ability to subvert social and political
contestation. The contestation movements are bound to pursue their courses
between the interstices of an imploded regional order, the collapse of normative
consensuses and the hazards of colliding power politics.
Protests in Iraq, Lebanon Reveal a Long-Simmering Anger at
Iran
Associated Press/Naharnet/November 06/2019
The shoes are coming off again in Iraq.
In years past, Iraqis have beaten their shoes against portraits of Saddam
Hussein in a sign of anger and insult. In 2008, an Iraqi journalist threw his
shoes at a ducking President George W. Bush during a news conference to vent his
outrage at the U.S.-led invasion.
Now protesters in Baghdad's Tahrir Square are using their shoes again — slapping
them against banners depicting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.
More violent demonstrations of their fury have erupted in southern Iraq, where
protesters have torched the headquarters of parties and militias linked to Iran
and thrown firebombs at an Iranian Consulate.
The anti-government protests that have convulsed Iraq in the past month are
fueled by economic grievances and are mainly directed at Iraq's own political
leaders. But they have also exposed long-simmering resentment at Iran's
influence in the country, with protesters targeting Shiite political parties and
militias with close ties to Tehran.
The uprising in Iraq, and similar anti-government protests underway in Lebanon,
pose a threat to key Iranian allies at a time when Tehran is under mounting
pressure from U.S. sanctions. "There's a lack of respect. They act like they are
the sons of this country and we are beneath them," said Hassanein Ali, 35, who
is from the Shiite holy city of Karbala but came to Baghdad to protest. "I feel
like the Iranian Embassy controls the government and they are the ones
repressing the demonstrators. I want Iran to leave."That the protesters are
mainly from Shiite areas undermines Iran's claim to be a champion of Shiites,
who are a majority in Iraq and Iran but a frequently oppressed minority in the
wider Muslim world. "This has embarrassed Shiite leaders close to Iran," said
Wathiq al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based analyst. "After these demonstrations, Iran
may lose Iraq by losing the Shiite street."
In Tahrir Square, protesters have brandished crossed-out pictures of Khamenei
and Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the architect of Iran's regional military
interventions who has helped direct the response to the rallies. Demonstrators
have beaten the posters with their shoes in a replay of scenes from the ouster
of Saddam 16 years ago. As in many cultures, shoes are regarded as inherently
dirty in Arab countries. Last week in Baghdad, a version of the Iranian flag was
painted on the pavement with a swastika on it so protesters could walk on the
image.
On Sunday night in Karbala, protesters climbed the walls of the Iranian
Consulate by the light of burning tires as the crowd chanted "The people want
the fall of the regime," one of the main slogans from the 2011 Arab Spring.
Security forces dispersed the protest, killing at least three people and
wounding nearly 20. The demonstration came less than a week after masked men
suspected of links to the security forces opened fire on a demonstration in
Karbala, killing at least 18 people.
BLAMING IRAN
Many protesters blame Iran and its allies for deadly violence in the southern
city of Basra last year and during a wave of protests in early October, in which
Iraqi security forces killed nearly 150 people in less than a week, with snipers
shooting protesters in the head and chest. The spontaneous protests resumed on
Oct. 25 and have only grown in recent days, with tens of thousands of people
packing central Baghdad and holding rallies in cities across the Shiite south.
The protesters have blocked roads and ports and have clashed with security
forces on bridges leading to Baghdad's Green Zone, the seat of power. More than
110 people have been killed since the demonstrations resumed. But the grievances
go way back.
Iran, which fought a devastating war with Iraq in the 1980s, emerged as a major
power broker after the American invasion, supporting Shiite Islamist parties and
militias that have dominated the country since then. It also supports many of
the militias that mobilized in 2014 to battle the Islamic State group, gaining
outsized influence as they fought along with security forces and U.S. troops to
defeat the extremists. Those militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces,
have since grown into a powerful political faction with the second-most seats in
parliament. "People make a direct connection between the failure and the
corruption of the Shia political establishment, both politicians and some
clerics, and the Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs," said Maria Fantappie,
an expert on Iraq with the Brussels-based Crisis Group, a global think tank.
There has been a "drastic change" in the perception of the Popular Mobilization
Forces, with many protesters viewing them as an instrument of repression, she
said. A broader crackdown on the protests "would backfire on them in a massive
way."
WAITING IT OUT
Lebanon also has seen huge demonstrations in recent weeks against its ruling
elite and government, which is dominated by allies of the Iran-backed Hizbullah
militant group. They included, for the first time, protests in Shiite-majority
communities seen as Hizbullah strongholds. But there the response has been
different. With the exception of a brief and nonlethal attack on the main
protest site in Beirut last week by supporters of Hizbullah and the Shiite Amal
party, the militant group has refrained from confronting protesters, and
Lebanese security forces have acted with restraint. Hizbullah and its allies
have expressed sympathy for the protesters' demands and have called for the
quick formation of a new government following the resignation of Prime Minister
Saad Hariri last week. But they have also cast aspersions on the protesters,
alleging that the U.S. and other Western powers are manipulating them to try to
drag the country back into civil war. Iran's allies in Iraq appear to have
adopted a similar response. Iraqi President Barham Salih, a member of a Kurdish
party close to Iran, said he will approve early elections once a new electoral
law is enacted. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, another veteran politician, has
expressed support for the protesters but urged them to reopen roads so life can
get back to normal. Qais al-Khazali, the leader of one of Iraq's most powerful
Iranian-backed Shiite militias, said this week that the U.S., Israel, Arab Gulf
nations and unspecified local officials are working to "incite strife and
chaos."
The Trump administration, which has expressed support for the protests in Iraq,
could inadvertently aid that narrative by linking them to its own efforts to
curb Iran's influence. That could provoke a similar backlash against the U.S.,
which still has thousands of troops in Iraq and is also widely seen as having
meddled in the country's affairs. Political leaders in Iraq and Lebanon have yet
to offer concrete proposals to meet protesters' demands. The process of forming
a new government in either country would take months, and without fundamental
change would leave the same political factions in power.
In the meantime, Iran has sought to keep its alliances intact. Soleimani
traveled to Najaf over the weekend to meet with top Shiite clerics, according to
three Shiite political officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss
the talks. Iran's allies appear to be betting that as the weeks and months go
by, the public will grow frustrated at the road closures and other disruptions
to daily life, and that the protests will gradually fizzle out. There are
already signs of frustration. Saddam Mohsen, a Baghdad resident, said the
closure of three central bridges after clashes between protesters and security
forces has worsened the city's already terrible traffic, causing "huge
problems." "Shutting down three bridges means shutting down half of Baghdad," he
said.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports
And News published on November 06-07/2019
Iran Starts Injecting Uranium Gas into Centrifuges at Fordow
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
Iran has started to inject uranium gas into centrifuges at its underground
Fordow nuclear facility, state TV reported on Wednesday, further distancing
itself from a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that curbed its
atomic work. The deal bans nuclear material from Fordow and, with the injection
of uranium gas into its centrifuges, the facility will move from its permitted
status of research plant to become an active nuclear site. “With the presence of
inspectors from International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran started injecting
(uranium) gas into centrifuges in Fordow,” TV reported. Iran agreed in 2015 to
turn Fordow into a “nuclear, physics and technology center” where 1,044
centrifuges are used for purposes other than enrichment, such as producing
stable isotopes, which have a variety of civil uses. Last year, US President
Donald Trump exited the deal and said it was flawed in Iran’s favor. Washington
has since renewed and intensified its sanctions, slashing Iran’s economically
vital crude oil sales by more than 80%. Responding to Washington’s “maximum
pressure” policy, Iran has bypassed the restrictions of the deal step-by-step -
including by breaching both its cap on stockpiled enriched uranium and on the
level of enrichment. “Iran has taken its fourth step to decrease its nuclear
commitments to the deal in reaction to the increased US pressure and inactivity
of European parties to the deal to save it,” state TV added. In Vienna, the IAEA,
the UN nuclear watchdog, said its inspectors are on the ground in Iran and will
report back on relevant activities. Iranian authorities also said on Tuesday
that Tehran will enrich uranium to 5% at Fordow, which will further complicate
the chances of saving the accord, which European powers, Russia and the European
Union have urged Iran to respect. The agreement capped the level of purity to
which Iran can enrich uranium at 3.67 percent - suitable for civilian power
generation and far below the 90% threshold of nuclear weapons grade. Iran denies
ever having aimed to develop a nuclear bomb.Iran said on Monday it had
accelerated enrichment by doubling the number of advanced IR-6 centrifuges in
operation, adding that it was working on “a prototype called the IR-9, which
works 50-times faster than the IR-1 centrifuges”. The nuclear deal, under which
international sanctions against Iran were lifted, was tailored to extend the
time Iran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb -
sometimes referred to as the “breakout time” - to about a year from 2-3 months.
Iran, which flatly denies seeking a nuclear bomb, has given another two-month
deadline to Britain, France and Germany to salvage the deal. Leaving room for
diplomacy, Tehran says talks are possible if Washington lifts all the sanctions
and itself returns to the nuclear deal. On Monday, European Union spokeswoman
Maja Kocijancic described the bloc as "concerned" by Iran's latest breaches.
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus decried the move, saying Iran
originally built Fordow as a "fortified, underground bunker in which to conduct
secret uranium enrichment work.""Iran has no credible reason to expand its
uranium enrichment program, at the Fordow facility or elsewhere, other than a
clear attempt at nuclear extortion that will only deepen its political and
economic isolation," Ortagus said. Fordow sits some 25 kilometers northeast of
Qom, the site of a former ammunition dump. Shielded by the mountains, the
facility also is ringed by anti-aircraft guns and other fortifications. It is
about the size of a football field, large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges, but
small and hardened enough to lead US officials to suspect it had a military
purpose. Iran acknowledged Fordow's existence in 2009 amid a major pressure
campaign by Western powers over Tehran's nuclear program.
Shtayyeh: Disengagement from Israel Is Not a Slogan
Ramallah – Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said that breaking
away from the occupation is not a slogan, but a push for the Palestinian
national product and openness to the world. Shtayyeh, speaking at the opening of
the Palestinian Industries Exhibition 2019, added that the government has
designated a day for the national product with the goal of helping disengagement
from the Israeli economy and as a step closer to total independence. He pointed
to the importance of economic openness to the world, applauding the visits made
by the government to Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, in addition to preparations for
government delegations and businessmen to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Russia
to discuss the prospects of economic cooperation. Shtayyeh also noted that
imports from countries other than Israel have gone up 16%, signaling the
Palestinian market’s openness increasing. He saluted the Chambers of Commerce
and Industry, representative bodies of the private sector, banks,
telecommunications companies, and other security agencies for bringing security
to the economy and helping in creating jobs. Shtayyeh insisted that
disconnecting from the Israeli economy is the way despite all the threats
received by the Palestinian Authority on the matter. There have been conflicting
reports on Israel revoking permits that allow Palestinian merchants to move
freely in Israel as part of the sanctions it began against the PA in response to
the freeze on the import of calves from Israel. Israel has threatened to take a
series of measures against the Palestinian Authority because of its continued
boycott of Israeli cows. The Israeli authorities are considering barring the
Palestinian Authority from importing goods.
Israel Releases 2 Jordanians after Two-Month Detention
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
Israel released on Wednesday two Jordanian citizens following two months of
administrative detention. Hiba Labadi and Abdul Rahman Miri crossed the King
Hussein Bridge back into Jordan on Wednesday. Labadi, 24, was arrested in August
after crossing to the West Bank to attend a family wedding. She subsequently
went on a hunger strike and was hospitalized after her health deteriorated. Miri,
29, was arrested last September after he also crossed into the West Bank to
visit relatives. He has been battling cancer since 2010 and he requires frequent
medical checkups. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi had said on Monday that
the two citizens would return home “before the end of the week”. Israel mainly
uses “administrative detention”, or imprisonment without trial, against
Palestinians suspected of anti-Israeli activities. It says the measure, which
human rights groups have condemned, is aimed at preventing further violence in
cases where there is insufficient evidence to prosecute or where court
proceedings could expose the identity of secret informants. Last week, Jordan
recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultation to protest the detentions.
Disputes Emerge over Palestinian President’s Elections
Proposal
Ramallah – Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November,
2019
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has informed factions that he refuses to
hold any leadership meeting before issuing a decree calling for general
elections, informed Palestinian sources said. This stance was submitted in
writing to Chairman of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) Dr.
Hanna Nasser, who will review it and pass it to all the factions in the Gaza
Strip for their written responses. The move has however, sparked disputes. Abbas
agreed to hold the meeting after issuing the electoral decree and on condition
that he first set the general elections date, the sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The presidential elections will be set at a later date. They added that he also
demanded that the polls be held according to the proportional representation
electoral law. The sources stressed that the factions rejected Abbas’ demands,
relaying to Nasser their insistence to hold a national meeting before the
president issues his decree. The meeting will be aimed at tackling pending
disputes, such as the electoral system. Hamas politburo chief Ismail Hanieyh had
met with Nasser on Sunday. He called for holding an “all-inclusive national
meeting,” saying parliamentary and presidential elections must be held. This
will lead to national assembly elections. The national meeting would be
dedicated to discussing “all the details”, he explained. Sources noted that
Nasser had requested that factions send him separate responses to Abbas'
proposal. They will later be reviewed with the president in an attempt to
overcome differences. Fatah wants to hold elections to ensure the end of the
division between the West Bank and Gaza. It says that the victor will rule both
sectors. Hamas, however, wants elections to be held as part of general consensus
and to include the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
2 Killed in Karbala as Iraqi Security Forces Try to Disperse Protesters
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
Two more Iraqi protesters have been killed in renewed clashes in the city of
Karbala, a flashpoint in weeks of anti-government demonstrations, a protester
and a medic said Wednesday. They said the two were killed in overnight clashes
near the provincial headquarters in the city. They spoke to The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions. Tens of thousands of people
have taken to the streets in recent weeks in the capital, Baghdad, and across
the south, demanding sweeping political change. The protesters complain of
widespread corruption, a lack of job opportunities and poor basic services, with
regular power cuts despite the country's vast oil reserves. The protesters have
focused their anger on Shiite political parties and militias, many of which have
close ties to Iran. Across the south, they have attacked party and militia
headquarters, setting some of them ablaze.
In Karbala, protesters attacked the Iranian Consulate earlier this week, hurling
firebombs over its walls. Security forces killed at least three people and
wounded several others as they dispersed the protest.
Days earlier, masked men suspected of links to the security forces opened fire
on a demonstration in Karbala, killing at least 18 people. In Baghdad, security
forces opened fire to disperse protesters gathered on a bridge, shooting live
bullets in the air, a Reuters witness said. There appeared to be no casualties.
Protesters had blocked the Shuhada bridge since Tuesday afternoon as part of
efforts to bring the country to a standstill. The demonstrators have been trying
to reach the Green Zone that is located on the other side, which houses
government offices and foreign embassies. Security forces shot dead at least 13
protesters in the 24 hours to late Tuesday, dispensing with weeks of relative
restraint in favor of trying to stamp out dissent. In the southern oil-rich
province of Basra, security forces forcibly dispersed a sit-in overnight but
there were no deaths reported, security sources said. Protesters had camped out
in front the provincial government building. The US embassy in Baghdad on
Wednesday condemned the deadly violence against unarmed demonstrators, and urged
Iraq's leaders to engage urgently with the thousands who have been protesting.
"We deplore the killing and kidnapping (of) unarmed protesters, threats to
freedom of expression, and the cycle of violence taking place. Iraqis must be
free to make their own choices about the future of the nation," it said in a
statement. Security forces have killed at least 269 protesters in two major
waves of demonstrations since early October. Iraq's leaders have promised
reforms and early elections, but the process they have laid out could take
months, and the protests have only grown in recent days.
Sisi Says Sinai Development is ‘National Security’ Issue,
Calls for Reassuring Citizens
Cairo - Mohamed Nabil Helmy/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 6 November, 2019
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the massive investments in the Sinai
province are an issue of national security his country. He called on officials
to “reassure” citizens to avoid falling for “attempts to spread rumors and
lies.”“During the past five years, Egypt has invested heavily in Sinai. The
investment cost of the projects implemented has amounted to 800 billion pounds,”
Sisi said during an event to inaugurate of a number of projects in the Suez
region and in southern and northern Sinai. The Egyptian military has for years
been waging operations against terrorist groups in the Sinai Peninsula. The
security forces launched in February 2018 a massive couter-terrorism operation
aimed at ridding the region of the groups. Addressing ministers and senior state
officials at the ceremony, Sisi said they needed to “talk more” and prevent
Egyptians from being deceived by parties that are distorting the truth. “We are
all responsible, and the state, with its institutions and media, is the
protector of the Egyptian people.”Egypt is seeking to develop the Canal Zone
governorates of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez and southern and northern Sinai to
transform them into an economic hub. This would help turn North Sinai into an
attractive location for investment. The projects inaugurated by Sisi on Tuesday
included two desalination plants with a capacity of 36,000 cubic meters per day
for the phosphate and compound fertilizers complex, a 1,000 cubic meters per day
plant for the Suez Canal Economic Zone Authority and a Red Sea desalination
complex with a total capacity of 512,000 cubic meters per day, as well as other
projects.
Four Tourists among 8 Wounded in Jordan Stabbing
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 06/2019
Eight people, including four tourists, were wounded in a knife attack on
Wednesday at the famed archeological site of Jerash in northern Jordan, a
security spokesman told AFP. Four tourists -- three Mexicans and a Swiss woman
-- were wounded, along with a Jordanian tour guide and a security officer who
tried to stop the assailant, public security directorate spokesman Amer Sartawi
said. The attack took place around noon (1000 GMT) at the Roman ruins of Jerash,
a popular attraction 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the capital Amman. The health
ministry confirmed that eight people had been wounded, with Sartawi saying
earlier that they had "been transported to hospital for treatment."He said the
assailant had been arrested but did not specify his nationality, noting that the
motive was as yet unknown. Jordanian tour guide Zouheir Zreiqat was at the scene
and told AFP that the attack happened "just before midday when around 100
foreign tourists" were at the site. "A bearded man in his twenties wearing black
and brandishing a knife started to stab tourists," according to Zreiqat. He said
others started to shout for help and he, along with three other tour guides and
three tourists managed to stop the assailant. "We chased him until we could grab
him and get him on the ground," Zreiqat said. "We took the knife from him. He
stayed silent, without saying a word until the police arrived and arrested him."
- Violent attacks -
It was not the first time tourist sites have been targeted by attacks in Jordan.
In December 2016, in Karak, home to one of the region's biggest Crusader
castles, 10 people were killed in an attack that also left 30 wounded.
Seven police officers, two Jordanian civilians and a Canadian tourist were
killed in the attack. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group (IS) and
sparked concern over its impact on tourism, a mainstay of the Jordanian economy.
Ten people were convicted of carrying out the attack, with two sentenced to
death. Several violent incidents struck the country the same year, including a
suicide attack in June claimed by IS that killed seven Jordanian border guards
near the frontier with Syria. Amman has played a significant role in the United
States-led coalition fight against IS in Syria and Iraq, both neighboring
Jordan.
- Economic troubles -
Lacking in natural resources, the country of nearly 10 million depends on
tourism and the kingdom has been working to pull the key sector out of a crisis
caused by regional unrest in recent years. Jordan's economy as a whole was hit
hard by the combined impact of the international financial crisis, the Arab
Spring uprisings that convulsed the Middle East in 2011 and the conflict in
Syria. Tourism accounts for 10 to 12 percent of gross domestic product and the
government aims to double this by 2022, former tourism minister Lina Annab told
AFP in an interview last year. The country boasts 21,000 archaeological and
historical sites that span millennia, according to the tourism board. They
include the Roman ruins of Jerash, the ancient city of Petra, the Dead Sea and
Wadi al-Kharrar, or Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where some believe Jesus was
baptized. Jordan welcomed seven million tourists in 2010, but arrivals plunged
to around three million in each of the following two years, tourism board head
Abed Al Razzaq Arabiyat said in April. Numbers have rebounded as spillover from
the war in neighboring Syria has abated, officials have said, with the
government working to bring annual tourist arrivals back up to 7 million by
2020.
Public Hearings in Trump Impeachment Probe Start Next Week
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 06/2019
The first open hearings in the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald
Trump will occur over two days next week, the congressman overseeing the process
said Wednesday, as the investigation heads into a much-anticipated public phase.
Two US officials including William Taylor, the current top U.S. diplomat to
Ukraine who has bolstered the accusation that Trump sought to pressure Kiev to
launch investigations that could help the president politically, will testify
next Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said in a
statement. The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who told
investigators she was ousted from her post over "false claims" spread by Trump
allies, is scheduled to testify on Friday, November 15, Schiff said.
Lebanon Warned on Default and Recession as Its Reserves
Decline
Justin Villamil and Dana Khraiche/Bloomberg/November 06/2019,
Explore what’s moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics
podcast. Subscribe via Pocket Cast or iTunes.
Lebanon received some of the starkest warnings yet that a default and a deeper
recession are increasingly a possibility as protests rock the nation.
Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded Lebanon deeper into junk for a
second time this year, reflecting “the increased likelihood” of what may
constitute a default under its definition. The World Bank, which earlier
projected a small recession in 2019, now expects it “to be even more significant
due to increasing economic and financial pressures.”
Lebanon is in dire financial straits just as it succumbs to political paralysis
and protests grip the country for a third week. The outcry already prompted the
resignation last month of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. But the president has yet
to set a date for the start of binding parliamentary consultations to name a new
premier, raising concerns the country will be unable to implement measures
urgently needed to avert economic meltdown
“The politics has the most attention, but economy has the most risks,” Saroj
Kumar Jha, the World Bank’s regional director, said after a meeting with
Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Wednesday. “With every passing day, the
situation is becoming more acute and this would make recovery extremely
challenging.”
Lebanon has never defaulted on its obligations despite straining under one of
the world’s biggest debt burdens, but the country has seen its credit risk soar
as confidence crumbles in the government’s ability to cope with distress.
Investors have turned away from Lebanon’s debt despite a package of emergency
measures rolled out in October. Its Eurobonds are the world’s worst performers
this year after those of Argentina. Their average yield has doubled to 21% since
the start of 2019, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index.
“Moody’s is right to be concerned. A number of indicators, especially in the
banking system, are flashing red. The downgrade reduces any possibility of
Lebanon accessing financial markets. It has to rely on reserves to meet its
external financing needs.”
The nation’s currency peg, in place for more than two decades, is also coming
under pressure as local businesses struggle to access dollars from banks at the
official rate. After reopening last Friday following two weeks of closures,
banks tightened informal restrictions on money transfers that were in place
prior to the unrest, in an effort to curtail capital flight.
Moody’s lowered Lebanon’s credit rating one level to Caa2 -- the fourth-lowest
junk grade -- and said it remains on review for downgrade. Lebanon’s central
bank retains a “usable foreign exchange buffer” of only about $5 billion to $10
billion, according to Moody’s. Just over a month ago, the rating company said
its usable holdings were no less than $6 billion. Without new net inflows, the
stockpile is now likely to be depleted by the government’s looming payments on
external debt, estimated at $6.5 billion this year and next, Moody’s said.
In an effort to boost liquidity and stave off possible downgrades, Lebanon’s
central bank this week instructed local lenders to raise their capital by 20% by
next June.
Earlier, it also agreed to slash $2.9 billion in interest payments on its
holdings of local currency-denominated government debt by waiving coupon
payments. The proposal was part of a sweeping package of reforms that aimed to
lower the budget deficit to 0.6% of gross domestic product
Protesters are meanwhile keeping up the pressure on government officials as
students led the demonstrations Wednesday, especially in the capital and outside
state entities including the Education Ministry, the Judicial Palace and the
electricity company. Thousands have been on the streets, demanding the
resignation of a political class that they say has left the country on the verge
of bankruptcy. The World Bank warned of the steep cost the crisis could inflict,
saying poverty could rise to 50% should there be no immediate solution and if
the economic predicament worsens. A third of the Lebanese were estimated to have
been in poverty in 2018. “In the absence of rapid and significant policy change,
a rapidly deteriorating balance of payments and deposit outflows will bring GDP
growth to or below zero, further stoking social discontent, undermining debt
sustainability and increasingly threatening the viability of the peg,” Moody’s
analyst Elisa Parisi-Capone said.
— With assistance by Paul Wallace, and Dana El Baltaji
The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on November 06-07/2019
How Putin Outfoxed Trump, Pence and Erdogan
Malcolm Lowe/Gatestone Institute/November 06/2019
President Donald Trump claimed the entire credit for this outcome. But in
reality it was the culmination of a scheme that Russian President Vladimir Putin
had been planning since at least January 2019.
The drama of recent weeks began with joint Turkish-US patrols along the Syrian
side of the border and ended with joint Russian-Turkish patrols. This switch
already indicates who intimidates Erdogan and who does not.
Above all, the "Joint U.S.-Turkish Statement" nowhere defined the length or even
the depth of the "safe zone," allowing Erdogan to understand it to mean – as in
the various Turkish statements at the UN – the entire length of the border and a
variable depth enabling the settlement of one or two or three million Islamist
Syrian refugees.
Assad and Putin may be scheming to recapture Afrin in same style as they have
used to regain most of western Syria, namely, Assad regime infantry backed by
heavy Russian bombing. Only this time the SDF will be available to serve as
infantry.
Note the opinion of Robert Pearson, a former US Ambassador to Turkey, speaking
on Middle East Forum Radio on October 23, that "Sooner or Later, Putin Will
Force Turkey out of Syria."
On October 17, brandishing President Donald Trump's threat to destroy the
Turkish economy, US Vice President Mike Pence visited Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. Feigning a spirit of compromise, Erdogan agreed on a memorandum
with Pence that effectively gave Erdogan the green light to complete his ethnic
cleansing of the Syrian Kurds.
On October 22, Erdogan went to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin. This
time, Erdogan feigned full satisfaction with a joint memorandum that limited his
ethnic cleansing to an Arab-majority stretch of Syrian territory adjacent to the
Turkish border, where few Kurds live anyway, while conceding the protection of
all other Syrian Kurds to Putin.
Trump claimed the entire credit for this outcome. But in reality it was the
culmination of a scheme that Putin had been planning since at least January
2019, when he promoted a meeting between representatives of the Syrian Kurds and
of the Assad regime.
In short, the two meetings ended with the US administration claiming its
strategic wisdom precisely as it surrendered its former substantial influence in
Syria and established Russian supremacy in Syria. Before we examine the details,
however, a brief geography lesson is needed.
It Began with a Railway
The idea of building a Berlin-Baghdad Railway originated in the late nineteenth
century when Syria and Iraq were parts of the Ottoman Empire. The project gained
impetus from German-Turkish cooperation in the years leading up to World War I,
when work began on various stretches of the route. Although the stretches were
not all linked up until 1940, by World War I a stretch did run from Çobanbey in
the west to Nusaybin (the classical Nisibis) in the east.
After the war, Turkey was deprived of all its Arab territories. Most of the
west-to-east border between the new Republic of Turkey and the French Mandate
for Syria was determined to run along the Syrian side of that stretch of
railway. One result was that the towns that grew up around the railway stations
were now split into twin towns. Nusaybin matches Qamishli, one of the biggest
Syrian Kurdish centers. Çobanbey matches Al-Ra'i, where Kurds were largely
driven out by Erdogan's so-called Operation Euphrates Shield (from August 2016
to March 2017). Thereafter, Turkish forces sought to capture Manbij, further
south, from the majority Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF
responded by inviting Assad regime forces (with Russian backing) first to the
outskirts of Manbij in December 2018 and now, in late October 2019, to take over
the town in order to frustrate Erdogan's current so-called Operation Peace
Spring (as we shall see).
The Kurdish towns in Syria consist mainly of various points where the Kurdish
population that dominates southeastern Turkey spills over into the Syrian side
of the frontier between the two states. Only in the triangle of territory at the
northeastern end of Syria, lying between Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan, is there a
considerable Kurdish population more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the
Turkish frontier. So when Erdogan announced that Operation Peace Spring was
intended to establish a "safe zone" extending 32 kilometers into Syria from
which the SDF would be expelled in order to resettle millions of Syrian Arab
refugees, he was plainly planning an ethnic cleansing of Kurds. As explained in
an earlier article, Erdogan disguised his intentions by undertaking the ethnic
cleansing in a piecemeal fashion, first with Operation Euphrates Shield and
then, starting in January 2018, with Operation Olive Branch (the ethnic
cleansing of the Kurds in the Afrin area – the westernmost Kurdish spillover
into Syria). But he intended a total ethnic cleansing of Kurds all along.
Operation Peace Spring was meant to do east of the Euphrates river what he had
already accomplished west of the river with the two earlier operations.
Prelude to Turkish Aggression
The drama of recent weeks began with joint Turkish-US patrols along the Syrian
side of the border and ended with joint Russian-Turkish patrols. This switch
already indicates who intimidates Erdogan and who does not.
In a speech at the United Nations on September 24, Erdogan set off the drama by
presenting "a map of Syria with a red line drawn across the top" and declaring:
"We intend to establish a peace corridor with a depth of 30 kilometres and a
length of 480 kilometres in Syria and enable the settlement of two million
Syrians there with the support of the international community." Three days
later, details of the plan were published by Rudaw (an Iraqi Kurdish network),
gleaned from a Turkish newspaper:
Unnamed sources told Turkish media Haberturk on Friday that 140 villages, each
to house 5,000 Syrian refugees, and 10 districts, each accommodating 30,000
Syrian refugees, will be built in the so-called safe zone Turkey wants to see
established some 30-40 kilometres deep into Syrian territory. In total, 200,000
residences will be built to house about a million Syrians who have fled to
Turkey since the civil conflict erupted in 2011 and the subsequent rise of the
brutal extremist Islamic State (ISIS). The construction plans also include sport
halls, schools, youth centres, mosques, and medical clinics. The whole project
is estimated to cost about $27 billion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
shared this plan with American officials during his visit to the United Nations
General Assembly this week, according to Turkish media reports.
As Rudaw recalled, Erdogan, in his speech to the UN, spoke of even larger
numbers, while euphemistically dubbing this scheme a "peace corridor":
"We want to be able to resettle two million Syrians into the peace corridor with
the support of the international community. If we can extend this corridor to
the Deir ez-Zor-Raqqa line, we can increase the number of Syrians to return home
from Turkey, Europe, and other countries to up to three million."
The line mentioned is more than 100 kilometers south of the Syrian border with
Turkey. Rudaw also recalled that "Turkey and the US agreed in early August to
set up a safe zone in some parts of northern Syria to address Ankara's security
concerns about the Kurdish forces in northern Syria" and "discussed relocating
some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey." Only what the US
wanted to talk about – in agreement with the Syrian Kurds - was merely
resettling in this area refugees that had fled from it, not the vastly greater
number intended by Erdogan (let alone $27 billion). Rudaw concluded:
Turkish and US troops have begun aerial and ground patrols in the proposed safe
zone, but Erdogan says this is not enough. He has threatened to go it alone,
establishing the safe zone by the end of September if the US does not act more
quickly.
Pence Proposes
It was against such a background that Erdogan, in a phone call on October 6,
told Trump that he was going ahead with his plans, whereupon Trump decided on
the spot to withdraw the US personnel from the joint patrols. Trump was fully
informed of the scale of the population transfer envisaged by Erdogan and
thought that he could deter Erdogan with a pair of tweets on Twitter:
"As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does
anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I
will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!).
They must, with Europe and others, watch over...
"... the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than
anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS
Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to
protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!"
When Erdogan showed indifference to threats of obliteration, Trump proceeded to
send him a yet more hyperbolic letter on October 9:
Dear Mr. President,
Let's work out a good deal! You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering
thousands of people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the
Turkish economy—and I will. I've already given you a little sample with respect
to Pastor Brunson.
I have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don't let the world down. You
can make a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he
is willing to make concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am
confidentially enclosing a copy of his letter to me, just received.
History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane
way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen.
Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool!
I will call you later.
Upon receiving it, according to Turkish officials, Erdogan "threw Trump's 'don't
be a fool' letter in the trash and considered it 'the final straw' before
launching his offensive in Syria." The assault stretched all the way from Kobani
in the west to Qamishli and Derik (both of which include numerous Christians) in
the east. Turkey contributed aerial bombing, artillery and tanks, but assigned
the role of infantry to the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), a militia created
out of Islamist Arab refugees from the Syrian Civil War. As the Trump
administration should have anticipated – forewarned by the example of Afrin –
wherever the militia arrived it committed atrocities that have been described by
Amnesty International and summarized by Seth Frantzman. Videos have surfaced in
which the militia summarily executed captured civilians and boasted that it
would decapitate any "infidel Kurds" that it came across.
The history of Kobani to date in the Syrian Civil War illustrates the bitter
paradox. It began in late 2014, when American planes arrived to bomb the
positions taken up in the town by the Islamic State (ISIS), in order to
facilitate a counterattack by Kurdish forces after most of the population had
fled. On the ground, the Syrian Kurds were reinforced with artillery supplied by
Iraqi Kurds. Last year, after the SDF captured the ISIS "capital" Raqqa,
Kobani's residents told the reporter that they were living in peace and
rebuilding. After the American withdrawal early in October, Turkish
American-made planes came to bomb the villages around Kobani in order to
facilitate its capture by another Islamist force, provoking a fresh flight of
the population. Today it is Assad's troops, but especially the Russian military
police that accompany them, who protect Kobani.
After both parties in both Houses of Congress united to propose sanctions on
Turkey, Trump on September 17 sent Vice President Pence to Ankara. The same day,
the White House announced "an historic agreement," according to which:
Turkey is implementing an immediate ceasefire.
The two governments committed to safeguard religious and ethnic minorities.
Both governments are increasing cooperation to help detain ISIS fighters.
Relations between the United States and long-standing NATO ally Turkey have been
bolstered.
This agreement is the result of President Donald Trump's forthright leadership
over the past week and the successful negotiations in Ankara led by Vice
President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security
Advisor Robert O'Brien, backed by a team of skilled and dedicated diplomats and
military officers.
Turkey has agreed to pause its offensive for 120 hours to allow the United
States to facilitate the withdrawal of YPG forces from the Turkish-controlled
safe zone. Turkey has agreed to a permanent ceasefire upon completion of the YPG
withdrawal. The U.S. has already begun to facilitate the YPG withdrawal from the
safe zone area.
The Administration laud's [sic] President Erdogan's willingness to step forward,
agree to a ceasefire, and take this opportunity for resolution. The two
governments are committed to a peaceful safe zone in northeast Syria.
The text of a "Joint U.S.-Turkish Statement on Northeast Syria" completed the
White House statement.
In a subsequent press conference, Trump switched from threats to the warmest of
compliments for Erdogan: "I just want to thank and congratulate President
Erdogan. He's a friend of mine and I'm glad we didn't have a problem because,
frankly, he is a hell of a leader and a tough man, a strong man." Trump also
tweeted triumphantly:
"This deal could NEVER have been made three days ago. There needed to be some
'tough' love in order to get it done. Great for everybody. Proud of all!
"This is a great day for civilization. I am proud of the United States for
sticking by me in following a necessary, but somewhat unconventional, path.
People have been trying to make this 'deal' for many years. Millions of lives
will be saved. Congratulations to ALL!"
Unfortunately, the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu gave a very
different account of what had been agreed:
"We will suspend the Peace Spring operation for 120 hours for the PKK/YPG to
withdraw. This is not a ceasefire. A pause of Turkey's operation in Syria is not
a ceasefire, ceasefire can only be declared between two legitimate parties."
The American media were also not impressed. Among many examples, Fox Media's
Chris Wallace questioned "whether the US-brokered deal in Syria is a cease-fire
or a surrender."
The natural reading of the 13 points of the "Joint U.S.-Turkish Statement on
Northeast Syria" reinforces Wallace's doubts.
Point 9: "The two sides agreed on the continued importance and functionality of
a safe zone in order to address the national security concerns of Turkey, to
include the re-collection of YPG heavy weapons and the disablement of their
fortifications and all other fighting positions."
Point 10: "The safe zone will be primarily enforced by the Turkish Armed
Forces..."
Point 11: "The Turkish side will pause Operation Peace Spring in order to allow
the withdrawal of YPG from the safe zone within 120 hours. Operation Peace
Spring will be halted upon completion of this withdrawal."
Point 12: "Once Operation Peace Spring is paused, the US agrees not to pursue
further imposition of sanctions..."
Above all, the "Joint U.S.-Turkish Statement" nowhere defined the length or even
the depth of the "safe zone," allowing Erdogan to understand it to mean – as in
the various Turkish statements at the UN – the entire length of the border and a
variable depth enabling the settlement of one or two or three million Islamist
Syrian refugees. On the other hand, the Trump administration assured the SDF –
and the SDF thankfully agreed – that the depth of the "safe zone" would be 30
kilometers (19 miles) and that it would extend from Tel Abyad in the west to Ras
al-Ayn in the east. Their twins on the Turkish side of the border are
respectively Akçakale and Ceylanpinar.
Out of the 440 kilometers from Kobani to Derik, the distance between the two
towns is merely 120 kilometers. This is a stretch in which the Kurdish
population is relatively small because here the Arab population of Syria spills
over into Turkey. At the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, the FSA – the
militia now sponsored by Turkey – seized the area from the Assad regime. Then
ISIS took over until it was driven out by the SDF. At various stages, part of
the Arab population fled into Turkey. In Turkey's current attack upon the Syrian
Kurds, this was the only area where the FSA pushed back the SDF, although the
latter fought to hold positions in Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn themselves.
It made sense, therefore, for the SDF to withdraw from this area alone, in
accordance with its stance that refugees should be allowed to return only to
where they had originally come from. Of course, it will be no fun for Arabs to
live under the regime of head-chopping and subjugation of women practiced by the
FSA Islamists. The SDF, by contrast, set up a system of decentralized
administration (also described here) whereby each town was governed by a council
reflecting the local ethnic mix and the council was headed jointly by a man and
a woman.
Yet Turkey had unleashed its assault along the full 440 kilometers. On October
20, as the "ceasefire" (US version) or "pause" (Turkish version) was breaking
down, Erdogan reiterated that his "safe zone" must be 440 kilometers long,
destroying the assurances (of 120 kilometers by 30 in depth) that the Trump
administration had given to the SDF. As an issue of the Yetkin Report remarked,
this was one of the "13 unsafe questions about the Safe Zone in Syria."
Putin Disposes
In those three days between October 17 and 20, however, the SDF and the Assad
regime activated an agreement that they had been quietly negotiating since
January and intensively since July, by when the SDF realized that they would
indeed be abandoned by the Trump administration and exposed to a devastating
invasion by Trump's "friend," that "hell of a leader" Erdogan. Forces of the
Assad regime, accompanied by Russian military personnel, rushed to all the
frontier areas where the SDF had stemmed the attacks of the FSA. The Russian
contribution was 300 extra military police and 20 armored vehicles, somewhat
more than the 50 or so US troops that Trump pulled out, precipitating the
Turkish invasion.
The guiding genius of this development, acting behind the scenes for months, was
Putin. Already on January 23, Putin had praised the Syrian Kurds for opening a
dialogue with the Assad regime under Russian auspices. This was reported by the
Voice of America, adding:
Earlier this month, White House national security adviser John Bolton appealed
to the YPG to refrain from dialogue with Damascus. "I think they know who their
friends are," Bolton said, referring to the Kurds.
Bolton was truly their friend and was still trying to persuade Trump to be one.
On September 10, Bolton gave up trying and resigned. (Trump claimed to have
fired him.) The Syrian Kurds were proved to have had a shrewder estimation of
whom they could trust.
What the Syrian Kurds want from Assad is at a minimum the end of the policy of
Arabization imposed by Assad's father in the 1970s, whereby Kurdish towns and
villages were given new Arabic names (Derik is officially "Al-Malikiyah") and
Kurdish was banned from public life. To this end, they have started Kurdish
schools that they want to retain in any deal with Assad. They would like further
autonomy, but would settle for the system of decentralized administration
described above.
From the early months of the Syrian Civil War, incidentally, there was an
ambiguous relationship between the Kurdish YPG and the Assad regime. Sometimes
they were struggling against each other, but sometimes they were fighting in
parallel against Islamists, until Assad removed his forces in August 2012 to
areas in western Syrian where they were desperately needed. Such a relationship
has now been renewed.
The situation immediately after the arrival of Assad's military was described in
a report by El Pais. Natalia Sancha in Qamishli told of seeing SDF and Assad
regime positions stationed one alongside the other, from which both were jointly
fighting back against the FSA. Andrés Mourenza on the Turkish side of the
frontier in Ceylanpinar recounted that most of its 87,000 residents had fled
because of shells fired back against the FSA by the SDF from Ras al-Ayn.
Also on October 20, Erdogan demanded that Assad's forces should withdraw from
the entire frontier so that he could realize his dream of resettling millions of
refugees. This, he said, would be on the agenda when he met Putin on October 22.
But the outcome of the meeting, a memorandum of understanding comprising ten
points, was to dash Erdogan's dreams maybe forever. It is enough to cite points
3 and 5:
3. In this framework, the established status quo in the current Operation Peace
Spring area covering Tel Abyad and [Ras al-Ain] with a depth of 32km (20 miles)
will be preserved.
5. Starting 12.00 noon of October 23, 2019, Russian military police and Syrian
border guards will enter the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border, outside
the area of Operation Peace Spring, to facilitate the removal of YPG elements
and their weapons to the depth of 30km (19 miles) from the Turkish-Syrian
border, which should be finalized in 150 hours. At that moment, joint
Russian-Turkish patrols will start in the west and the east of the area of
Operation Peace Spring with a depth of 10km (six miles), except Qamishli city.
Comparing these two points with the points quoted from Pence's agreement with
Erdogan, note firstly that (unlike the wording of Pence's "U.S.-Turkish
Statement") Turkey's presence in Syria is expressly restricted to the area that
it had captured, contradicting Erdogan's expectations of the meeting. Second,
this area is described as a "status quo," not as an area to which Turkey has any
rights. Third, elsewhere Turkish forces are restricted to joint patrols with
Russians and to a mere 10 kilometers from the frontier, while they will not
enter Qamishli – the largest Kurdish population center – at all. Thus fourth,
there is only a small area where Erdogan can resettle refugees and it is an area
whose existing population is Arab and not Kurdish. Fifth, while Pence agreed
that the heavy arms of the Kurds would be re-collected, now the Kurdish forces
can take them along when they withdraw.
How could Putin crush Erdogan so quickly? Partly because Erdogan had alienated
all his NATO allies, first by ordering anti-aircraft missiles from Russia, which
obliged the USA to stop selling aircraft to Turkey, and then by his assault upon
the Syrian Kurds, which prompted European NATO members to impose arms embargos.
But also because Putin is able at any time – and is merely biding his time – to
initiate a fresh bombardment of Turkey's proxies (the FSA and others) in
northwestern Syria. That threat could work to intimidate Erdogan where Trump's
tweets failed.
What seems to have generally been overlooked here is that no disarmament of the
SDF is so far envisaged, unlike what happened when the Assad regime regained
control elsewhere in Syria. The answer to this puzzle is to be found in remarks
by Assad on this occasion:
Syrian President Bashar Assad has vowed to reunite all the territory under
Damascus' rule. On Tuesday, Assad called Erdogan "a thief" and said he was ready
to support any "popular resistance" against Turkey's invasion. "We are in the
middle of a battle and the right thing to do is to rally efforts to lessen the
damages from the invasion and to expel the invader sooner or later," he told
troops during a visit to the northwestern province of Idlib...
Assad called Erdogan "a thief, he stole the factories and the wheat and the oil
in cooperation with Daesh (the Islamic State group) and now is stealing the
land." He said his government had offered a clemency to Kurdish fighters - whom
it considers separatists - to "ensure that everyone is ready to resist the
aggression" and fight the Turkish assault.
Indeed, what better tool could Assad have for this purpose than the
well-trained, heavily armed and battle-hardened 100,000 members of the SDF?
Moreover, although Erdogan falsely claims that the YPG (the Kurdish component
making up some 60% of the SDF alongside allied Arab and Christian militias) is
merely an extension of the PKK (the Kurdish terrorists who have been fighting
against the regime in Turkey), there is one place where the YPG is sponsoring an
insurgency against Turkey and its FSA, namely, in order to regain the Afrin
area. So Assad and Putin may be scheming to recapture Afrin in same style as
they have used to regain most of western Syria, namely, Assad regime infantry
backed by heavy Russian bombing. Only this time the SDF will be available to
serve as infantry.
Note the opinion of Robert Pearson, a former US Ambassador to Turkey, speaking
on Middle East Forum Radio on October 23, that "Sooner or Later, Putin Will
Force Turkey out of Syria." He also predicted that the Trump administration
would frustrate efforts in Congress to sanction Turkey:
To be honest with you, Erdoğan doesn't care what the U.S. does because [it has]
now completely abdicated any influence or control in Syria. [It has] nothing on
the table with Turkey that Turkey would find appealing to bargain about. So the
real question is whether the Senate will pass a veto-proof heavy sanctions bill
that would punish Turkey economically as a result of the incursion. I think that
President Trump and his allies are working strenuously to let the heat about
this issue out without allowing any of the substantive reaction that the
Senate's been talking about.
Returning to the area of Syria granted to Erdogan by Putin, what is meant by
"30" or "32 kilometers south of the border between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn"?
The media repeat this formula without explanation. Apparently, the reference is
to Highway M4, which runs approximately parallel to the border at more or less
that distance from it. The question, then, is whether this stretch of the road
will be controlled the Assad regime or by the invaders. After the SDF withdrew
from Ras al-Ayn, Turkey's FSA proxy advanced south to Tel Tamr on Highway M4,
where it was repulsed by Assad's forces on October 24. Tel Tamr, however, is not
south but slightly southeast of Ras al-Ayn, therefore definitely outside the
so-called "safe zone" as defined by Putin. Nevertheless, Assad will surely want
the strategic road to be entirely in his own hands, he may claim the right to
use the SDF – now his ally – to defend it, and Putin is likely to back Assad
(with Russian airpower if necessary).
On October 23, with Putin's scheme accomplished, Trump held a briefing at the
White House in which he claimed for his administration total and exclusive merit
for the outcome.
"This was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else, no other
nation. Very simple... In any event, by the moves that we've made, we are
achieving a much more peaceful and stable area between Turkey and Syria,
including a 20-mile-wide safe zone.... Thousands and thousands of people have
been killed in that zone over the years. But it's been sought for many, many
decades, and I think we have something that's going to be strong and hold up...
I want to thank Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo for leading
the American delegation so successfully to Turkey several days ago, along with
National Security Advisor O'Brien."
These claims bear no relation to the truth. The outcome was achieved by Putin
"and nobody else." Far from being "successful," the delegation sent by Trump to
Turkey was hoodwinked by Erdogan in the same way as Erdogan had been hoodwinking
the Trump administration for two years about his real aims in Syria. As for
"many, many decades," it is indeed a matter of hardly two years since Erdogan
concocted his scheme and the Syrian Civil War itself began only in March 2011.
The irrelevance of the Trump administration was also asserted by Robert Pearson
in the interview cited above. The small US military presence on the ground
should have been kept, he said, in order to "ensure that the Kurds made the best
deal possible with the Damascus and with Turkey regarding their future in
Syria."
"By fleeing as we did, we made it impossible for them to do that, and they had
to jump into the arms of the Russians and the Syrians just for survival
purposes. That's where we are today."
Indeed, once Trump decided to withdraw from Syria, all of his efforts to
influence the situation – documented in the tweets and briefings quoted above
and his peculiarly undiplomatic letter to Erdogan – were in vain. We wonder
whether, nevertheless, Trump does believe all those illusory claims. Since John
Bolton left his administration, there is nobody left to advise him otherwise but
only adulators like Stephanie Grisham ("the genius of our great President").
More generally, we wonder how Trump habitually decries the "fake news" of the US
media, when all those statements about Syria, Turkey and the Kurds conspicuously
lack a factual basis and so are themselves eminent candidates for being fake
news. For his statements up to October 19, a useful summary – with links to more
detailed analysis – is available here. And there are more examples since then,
as we shall now see.
Belittling the Kurds
Ever since he abandoned the Syrian Kurds to annihilation, Trump has sought to
belittle their contribution to the fight against ISIS and to US interests in
general. To put things in proper perspective, there is a Wikipedia article on
"Casualties of the Syrian Civil War" that makes a brief mention of the United
States:
8 servicemen killed
A U.S. pilot was killed on 30 November 2014, when his F-16 fighter aircraft
crashed in Jordan following a combat mission against the Islamic State jihadist
group. Also, a U.S. special forces member died due to a bomb explosion while
supporting Kurdish-led forces during the Wrath of Euphrates offensive against
ISIL-held Raqqa. Two other service members died due to non-combat causes in
northern Syria in 2017. A US servicemen died on 30 March 2018 by an IED
explosion in Manbij. Four Americans, including two soldiers, were killed by a
bombing in Manbij city on 16 January 2019. One American soldier was killed on 28
April 2019, possibly due to a Turkish shelling.
On the other hand, around 12,000 Kurdish fighters died fighting Islamists and
many thousands more were injured. The American contribution consisted mostly of
air power, but also a small contingent of special forces and trainers; hence the
tiny number of casualties.
Yet this is how Trump described the Kurdish role in the defeat of ISIS during a
cabinet meeting on October 21, in the middle of the current crisis:
"Now, as far as ISIS is concerned, when I took over – November, 2016 – ISIS was
all over the place. I'm the one – meaning it was me and this administration,
working with others, including the Kurds – that captured all of these people
that we're talking about right now.
"Because President Obama – it was a mess...
"As you know, most of the ISIS fighters that we captured – 'we.' We. Not Obama.
We. We captured them. Me. Our country captured them, working with others,
including the Kurds. And we helped them, don't forget. We helped the Kurds.
Everyone said the Kurds helped us; that's true. But we helped the Kurds. They're
no angels, but we helped the Kurds..."
The reality, as usual, is other than Trump believes or maintains. Not "We" but
the SDF did all the capturing and SDF holds the ISIS captives in separate camps
for the 11,000 males and tens of thousands of dependents. In the biggest camp,
holding 68,000 dependents, one problem is that the women hold secret trials in
which women and even children are convicted of "apostasy" and killed. Formerly,
the SDF guards sought to frustrate this phenomenon, but afterwards many of them
were withdrawn to combat the Turkish invasion and they can barely guard the
perimeter; some inmates already escaped. The locations of the camps form one of
four maps available in an excellent BBC guide.
As for the comparisons with Obama, the Kurdish YPG began its expulsion of ISIS
and other Islamists on its own in July 2013. Then, from September 2014 on, the
Obama administration provided the airpower that enabled the SDF to recover all
the Kurdish home towns, expand to broader areas of northeastern Syria, and begin
the advance southwest toward Raqqa, the so-called ISIS capital. Only the actual
conquest of Raqqa, where the SDF took heavy casualties over an area that it did
not need for its homeland, took place under the Trump administration. To claim
that it was all "We... we" and belittle Obama and the Kurds in this regard
qualifies as fake news. Also Trump "took over" not in November 2016 but in
January 2017.
Trump originally motivated his abandonment of the Syrian Kurds by the need to
bring American troops home and spare them further casualties. As noted above,
precisely in Syria the US military had suffered only eight deaths, compared with
thousands in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Second, the Defense Department decided
instead that the withdrawn troops should go to Iraq to assist in mopping-up
operations against ISIS remnants (where the troops would be seriously exposed to
injuries and deaths, unlike in Syria). The Iraqi government, when it heard about
that, protested that its permission had not been given and the troops could only
pass in transit on their way home. Then Trump had a third idea: he would use
some of them to secure Syrian oil fields.
After Trump abandoned the Syrian Kurds on October 6, he received two visits from
retired General Jack Keane, now a Fox News analyst, on October 8 and 14, the
second time accompanied by Senator Lindsey Graham. They showed him maps
displaying oil fields in the SDF-controlled areas. Keane and Graham spoke of the
oil fields falling into the hands of Iran, an unlikely prospect, but apparently
because they guessed that Trump would react only to the word "Iran." Trump
thereupon decided to send thirty tanks to the area along with support personnel
(a total numerically comparable with the troops that Trump was intending to
withdraw in the first place).
On October 24, Trump proclaimed his reasoning with typical factually conflicted
tweets:
"The Oil Fields discussed in my speech on Turkey/Kurds yesterday were held by
ISIS until the United States took them over with the help of the Kurds. We will
NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!"
"I really enjoyed my conversation with General @MazloumAbdi. He appreciates what
we have done, and I appreciate what the Kurds have done. Perhaps it is time for
the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!"
Brett McGurk responded: "The President of the United States of America appears
to be calling for a mass migration of Kurds to the desert where they can
resettle atop a tiny oil field." (We recall that McGurk was Trump's own envoy to
the anti-ISIS coalition until he resigned in 2018 over Trump's announcements
about leaving Syria.) The main oil fields are in the Deir ez-Zor region,
captured by the SDF in October 2017, but more than 100 kilometers south of the
Kurdish homeland, so it would require a mass migration of all the Kurds to find
safety there.
But Keane rather was considering the Karatchok and Rumeilan oil fields, which
lie some 20 kilometers south of the Turkish frontier between Qamishli and Derik
(thus within Erdogan's version of the "safe zone," but which Putin forced
Erdogan to renounce). The Kurds can hardly "head to" this "Oil Region" because
they are already there, unless Trump meant an evacuation from the rest of their
homeland to this one spot. The Kurds freed this area from ISIS already in
October 2013, three years before Trump was elected and eleven months before the
US intervention in northeastern Syria began in September 2014. So Trump's tweet
that these oil fields "were held by ISIS until the United States took them over
with the help of the Kurds" was therefore more fake news.
Trump has gone on to speculate about bringing in an American oil company to
exploit the oil fields and letting the Syrian Kurds have some of the proceeds to
help them economically. This means that he did not think about the oil fields
until just weeks ago. And he still does not know that the Kurds captured them
from ISIS on their own, that they began to supply oil from them to the Assad
regime among others, and that the proceeds have already been the main source of
revenue for the confederation of self-governing towns set up by the SDP. Also,
if a US firm instead of locals operates the oil fields, it is technically a war
crime (pillaging foreign territory).
On October 31, Assad gave his own reaction to Trump's oil scheme. After
acknowledging the deal arranged by Putin:
Assad also said Trump's decision to keep a small number of U.S. troops in the
Kurdish-held areas of Syria "where they have the oil" showed that Washington was
a colonial power that was doomed to leave once Syrians resist their occupation
as in Iraq.
But he said his country could not stand up to a great power such as the United
States and that ending the presence of American troops on Syrian soil was not
achievable soon
Assad also confirmed that even after Putin's deal the SDF need not yet disarm:
The Kurds would not be asked to immediately hand over their weapons when the
Syrian army enters their areas in a final deal with them that brings back state
control to the large swathe of territory they now control, Assad said in the
interview.
"There are armed groups that we cannot expect they would hand over weapons
immediately but the final goal is to return to the previous situation, which is
the complete control of the state," he said.
There is a possibility, moreover, that the Trump administration has not
considered. What if Assad offers the Syrian Kurds this deal: "You can keep your
decentralized administration and your Kurdish schools as they are, just hand
over the oil fields to us and split the revenues with us." Trump would need more
than thirty tanks to face a coalition of the SDF, the Assad regime and Russian
air power. Also internationally, even among its closest allies, the USA would
hardly find support for clinging on to the oil fields in those circumstances,
The killing of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic
State, provided another opportunity to belittle the Syrian Kurds. Here are
extracts from Trump's briefing:
"The United States has been searching for Baghdadi for many years. Capturing or
killing Baghdadi has been the top national security priority of my
administration. U.S. Special Operations Forces executed a dangerous and daring
nighttime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand
style. The U.S. personnel were incredible. I got to watch much of it...
"Baghdadi has been on the run for many years, long before I took office. But at
my direction, as Commander-in-Chief of the United States, we obliterated his
caliphate, 100 percent, in March of this year...
"I want to thank the nations of Russia, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. And I also want
to thank the Syrian Kurds for certain support they were able to give us. This
was a very, very dangerous mission."
Remember, again, that the US military lost only one soldier when "we obliterated
his caliphate"; here the Syrian Kurds, who bore the brunt of the casualties, are
not even mentioned. It was they who set Al-Baghdadi "on the run." They are also
mentioned only last of those whom Trump thanked in regard of al-Baghdadi's
death, although they should have been first and foremost.
Shortly after Trump's remarks, it emerged that all the vital intelligence on
al-Baghdadi had come from Kurds. And the Syrian Kurds continued to supply the
intelligence even after Trump has abandoned them. According to a senior official
at the US Special Forces Command: "I don't think we could have done this without
the help we got from the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, which continued after we began
the troop pullout." On the other hand, other senior military officials indicated
that the operation "occurred largely in spite of Mr. Trump's actions" because
Trump's decision to remove troops from Syria "disrupted the meticulous planning
and forced Pentagon officials to press ahead with a risky, night raid before
their ability to control troops and spies and reconnaissance aircraft
disappeared."
Before their ability disappeared? Al-Baghdadi was about to move to Jarabulus –
in the zone captured by the FSA during Turkey's Operation Euphrates Shield! So
Trump's repeated claims that after evacuating Syria he could rely upon Erdogan
to take care of ISIS turned out to be true, only literally rather than
figuratively. What is the surprise? The FSA today includes former ISIS fighters
and it was the Turkish frontier that ISIS volunteers generally crossed – without
interference – to swell the ranks.
Through interrogating one of his wives, the Iraqi Kurds found the general
location of al-Baghdadi in an unexpected corner of northwestern Syria that was
thought to be ruled by Islamists hostile to ISIS. But the main intelligence came
from a disaffected follower of al-Baghdadi who supplied information to the SDF
repeatedly over a considerable time at great personal risk. Whenever the
informant was summoned to meetings held by al-Baghdadi, he sought to remember
everything that he saw, including the layout of buildings. He also managed to
steal underpants belonging to al-Baghdadi and even a blood sample, providing DNA
material that checked with other DNA information about al-Baghdadi. And he
learned about the planned move to Jarabulus.
Without such information, the Special Forces obviously could not have found and
pursued their target, both quickly and without taking casualties. They evacuated
the informant as they left.
*Malcolm Lowe is a Welsh scholar specialized in Greek Philosophy, the New
Testament and Christian-Jewish Relations.
© 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.
Should Europe Bring Back the Fighters Who Left for ISIS?
Alain Destexhe/Gatestone Institute/November 06/2019
This debate about repatriation is another example of how confused the West has
become when trying to apply its moral principles. The real victims here are the
people who were murdered, injured, raped, tortured or displaced by ISIS. Their
children, if still alive, will have to live with the consequences of ISIS
terror.
If European governments have to choose between supporting a Yazidi rape survivor
and her unwanted child or a woman who willingly left Europe to spit in the face
of Western societies and the values of her country of origin to join ISIS, they
should choose the former. Sorry, do-gooders. These deserters should not be
allowed back to Europe.
European governments are confronted with the thorny problem of what to do with
their citizens who were "foreign fighters" for ISIS. Most of the surviving
fighters are being held in Iraqi or Kurdish jails. There is currently growing
pressure to bring them back to Europe.
After the Turkish offensive into Syria, European governments are confronted
again with the thorny problem of what to do with the "foreign fighters".
Foreign fighters are Muslim extremists who left their countries of residence to
join ISIS and fight against Western civilization and values. Most of them are
men, but many women joined them to support the Caliphate. Many of these women
later became pregnant with the children of ISIS terrorists.
Since the fall of Mosul and Raqqa, most of the surviving fighters are currently
being detained in Iraqi or Kurdish jails. Some are also in detention in northern
Syria, a territory whose future is uncertain. Most women (and their children)
live in refugee camps, often in miserable conditions.
Up to now, Europeans governments have remained reluctant to bring their
nationals back, and have merely organized the repatriation of women and children
on a case-by-case basis. There is currently, however, growing pressure to bring
all of them, jailed or not, back to Europe.
In Belgium, a group of 300 academics launched a petition in late October, asking
for the "urgent return of the Belgians from Syria". In an op-ed published in a
major Belgian daily, De Standaard, two senior fellows of Belgium's Royal
Institute for International Relations advocated that the repatriation of Belgian
fighters is "the right choice". The European Council of Foreign Affairs
supported a similar idea in its report "Beyond Good and Evil: Why Europe should
bring foreign fighters home?" Even Frederic van Leeuw, the Belgian Federal
Prosecutor (in charge of fighting terrorism) pleaded for organizing the
repatriation of jailed terrorists and holding their trials in Belgium.
Their arguments may vary but are, in substance, that as Iraqi (or Syrian) courts
and prisons do not meet international standards, the return of ISIS supporters
to Europe would be the best way to ensure they remain under control and that
they can go through programs of de-radicalization and become moderate Muslims.
Women are often portrayed as innocent victims and children at risk of
radicalization if they remain in the region's camps.
A common pattern of these calls for repatriation is that they never mention the
immense suffering imposed on Europe, the Middle East, and the world by the
Islamic State.
All those appeals fail to address the main issue. By joining ISIS, these men and
women made a choice. They decided to leave behind their European citizenship and
join a "state," the fundamental values of which are totally incompatible with
those of Western societies. These men and women decided to join a terrorist
group whose objective was mercilessly to murder people of their home countries,
as they did in Nice, Berlin, Brussels, Paris and many others places; a group
that burned alive in a cage a captured Jordanian fighter pilot and raped
hundreds of Yazidi women, to mention just some of their atrocities. At the time
they joined ISIS, they knew what they were doing and could not ignore the nature
and the acts of this terrorist group. They should be stripped of their Western
nationalities because they themselves renounced them by joining a terror
organization.
Almost all the persons concerned are first -- and more often, second or third --
generation immigrants to the West. In most instances, they also retain the
nationality of the country their families hailed from: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia
or Pakistan. So, by losing their Western nationalities, they would not become
stateless.
From a legal point of view, it is a principle of international law that crimes
committed in a country should be tried in the country where these crimes were
committed. There is no reason to show mercy to people who tried to kill their
fellow citizens and destroy their societies. Women and their children born in
Iraq or Syria should also not be allowed to return to Europe. Their other
countries of citizenship are free to take them back, but there is neither any
duty nor responsibility for European governments to do so.
Advocates for repatriation usually raise the "moral argument". Children born in
the Caliphate, they say, are not responsible for the crimes of their parents and
should be taken care of. That is certainly true. But why would they deserve
better treatment than other children born in Iraq or Syria? What about the
children of Yazidi women raped by ISIS fighters? What about the Syrian, Kurdish
and Iraqi orphans whose parents were murdered by ISIS? Don't these mothers and
children deserve our help and support more than the women who were already
living in Europe and, now, pretend to have "made a mistake" by joining ISIS? A
bloody mistake, indeed: they are, at the very minimum, accomplices in the crimes
and atrocities committed by ISIS. As the British commentator Piers Morgan wrote:
"These are the women who leave their homes, families, friends and countries to
go and marry the world's worst terrorists. They have sex with them, they breed
with them, they cook for them, they clean for them, they love them and they
worship them. And while they're doing all this, their husbands are busy raping,
torturing, stoning, beheading and murdering people."
This debate about repatriation is another example of how confused the West has
become when trying to apply its moral principles. The real victims here are the
people who were murdered, wounded, raped, tortured or displaced by ISIS. Their
children, if still alive, will have to live with the consequences of ISIS
terror. In Iraq alone, after the fall of the Caliphate, more than 200 ISIS mass
graves were discovered. ISIS victims worldwide probably number in the millions.
If European governments have to choose between supporting a Yazidi rape survivor
and her unwanted child or a woman who willingly left Europe to spit in the face
of Western societies and the values of her country of origin to join ISIS, they
should choose the former. Sorry, do-gooders. These deserters should not be
allowed back to Europe.
*Alain Destexhe is an honorary Senator from Belgium and former President of
International Crisis Group.
© 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
‘Iranian attack on Israel is just a matter of time’
Israel Kasnett/JNS/November 06/2019
And if the Islamic Republic does attack, there will have to be a massive
retaliation against its interests by the Jewish state, ideally with reassurances
of backup from the United States.
'Iranian attack on Israel is just a matter of time'
As Iranians took to the streets this week to commemorate 40 years since the US
embassy takeover in 1979, Iran announced new violations of the nuclear deal it
signed in 2015. The rogue Islamic Republic admitted that it now operates 60
advanced IR-6 centrifuges and is working on a new type of centrifuge that will
work 50 times faster than what is currently permitted under the deal.
This announcement comes after Iran has engaged in attacks on oil tankers and
Saudi oil facilities, shooting down an American drone, and, of course, its
ongoing and aggressive efforts to build a war machine against Israel in Syria
and elsewhere.
For its part, on Monday the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions
against nine Iranian military commanders and officials. US President Donald
Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran in May 2018 and reimposed tough
sanctions in an effort to curb the regime’s destabilizing behavior in the Middle
East and around the globe.
Regardless, Tehran has continued to engage in destabilization efforts and
heavily supports terror activity and weapons buildup in the Middle East.
Yaakov Amidror, a former national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and currently an analyst at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and
Security and a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America,
told JNS that the Iranians want to remain far away from the Jewish state, but at
the same time build “a ring of fire” around it. Iran supports Hezbollah in
Lebanon and the terror organization is estimated to have as many as 100,000
missiles. Iran is also trying hard to create an independent war machine in
Syria, which Israel has been working to dismantle. According to foreign and some
Israeli reports, Israel has struck 300 targets in Syria so far.
According to Amidror, Iran realized that Israel has been succeeding in Syria, so
it began to build a branch of its independent war machine in Iraq, taking
advantage of the fact that the Iraqis don’t have total control of some parts of
their land. For Iran, the idea is to have a military capability close to Israel,
while it itself remains at a distance.
“An interesting question,” Amidror said, “is what should Israel’s reaction be in
such a situation? We know the head of the snake is in Iran. Will Israel go after
targets in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or Yemen? Or will we go directly to the head of
the snake?”Iran has the capability to attack Israel from multiple locations,
including Lebanon and Syria – and now Iraq and possibly Yemen – as Netanyahu
mentioned recently.
‘This will be complicated’
Eytan Gilboa, professor and director of the Center for International
Communication at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan and a senior research
associate at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, told JNS that a number of
elements have changed recently that impact Israel’s preparedness and
decision-making.
First, Iran attacked the Saudi oil fields. Second, the United States withdrew
from Syria. And third, Iranian provocations in the Persian Gulf were not met
with any aggressive American answer.
“We also see Islamic Jihad in Gaza, on orders from Iran, trying to sabotage and
undermine the situation there,” he said.
Like Amidror, Gilboa noted that Israel has been trying to prevent Iran from
building another front in Syria, saying “this strategy has been extended to
Iraq.”He laid out the current state of affairs from Israel’s perspective.
According to Gilboa, “it is obvious, for all kinds of reasons, that Iran would
not attack Israel directly from its own territory. Iran lost some of the
surprise that could have been inflicted on Israel had it not used cruise
missiles against Saudi Arabia.”Israel is preparing adequate answers to this kind
of threat as it expects Iran to attack it with precision-guided cruise missiles
and drones.
Gilboa suggested that the components of Israeli strategy must first be to reveal
Iran’s plan. Then, Israel must threaten direct and severe retaliation. Finally,
Israel must make it clear that Syria and Lebanon will pay the price if attacks
on Israel originate on their soil.
“If Iran orders Nasrallah to attack Israel, this will be complicated,” said
Gilboa. “In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel distinguished between the
Lebanese Army and Hezbollah. This is no longer the case. If Israel comes under
attack, it will attack Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The same is true for Syria.
Israel is trying to persuade [Syrian President] Basher Assad and Russia that if
Israel comes under attack from Syria, it is Assad who will pay the
price.”Additionally, continued Gilboa, Israel must inform Russia of potential
Israeli action after any attack by Iran. “These exchanges of fire between Israel
and Iranian attempts to build a base in Syria is completely not in Russia’s
interest, and this is why Russia is not protesting Israeli military actions in
Syria,” he said. Israel should work to procure an American statement of support
and must coordinate with the United States to announce that attacks on Israel
will trigger American action.
“On the face of it,” Gilboa said, “these components should create some level of
deterrence. Israel’s main strategy is to create deterrence or at least limit any
potential Iranian attack.”If Iran does indeed attack, there will have to be a
massive retaliation against Iranian interests. According to Gilboa, Europe
should not be expected to join in the fight against Iran’s hegemonic ambitions
and support of global terrorism. They are “stupid and deaf,” he charged, and
only trying to appease Iran.
Both Amidror and Gilboa agree that Iran is certainly bent on Israel in its
crosshairs.
“Confrontation between Iran and Israel is unavoidable,” said Gilboa. “There is
great probability for some Iranian military action; this is something Israel is
preparing for.”
“Our assumption,” said Amidror, “is not a question of if, but when.”
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
Riyadh Agreement Delivers Political Gains in Yemen, But Implementation Less
Certain
Elana DeLozier/The Washington Institute/November 06/2019
The new agreement will score a win if it brings the most important players to
the table for wider talks, but implementing its often-vague provisions so
quickly will prove challenging.
After numerous delays, the Hadi government and the Southern Transitional Council
(STC) have signed a power-sharing agreement in Riyadh that provides the
legitimacy that each of them craved, while perhaps temporarily halting their
hostilities in Yemen. Yet the vague language of the November 5 document portends
difficulties in implementation.
An even more worrisome obstacle is the utter lack of trust between the two
parties, who did not negotiate the agreement face to face. Instead, Saudi
negotiators have been going back and forth between them since August 20, and the
signing ceremony may be the first time the parties have been in the same room
since violence erupted this summer. This level of distrust may limit their
ability to meet the document’s call for organizing under a single political and
military chain of command, even with Saudi mediation.
POLITICAL WINS
The four-page agreement cites the common objective of defeating the Houthi
rebels, then lays out a series of general mandates that grants each party the
legitimacy it seeks. For the Hadi government, the document states that all
military and security forces, including those aligned with the STC, are to fall
under the Ministry of Defense. This is a win for President Abdu Rabu Mansour
Hadi, who demanded that the STC explicitly recognize his role as the leader of
Yemen’s only internationally legitimate government.
For the STC, the agreement says they will participate on the government’s side
in final peace negotiations with the Houthis. This is a compromise, since their
ultimate goal remains for south Yemen to secede from the north. Yet without
international support for secession at present, and having lost a battle to Hadi-backed
forces in the critical province of Shabwa on August 26, the STC decided it was
best to secure a seat at the table for final talks. In their view, this grants
them legitimacy as a representative of southern desires and will ensure those
desires are not marginalized. Having the southern issue on the table in final
talks will in turn allow them to fight another day for a referendum on
secession.
IMPLEMENTATION DIFFICULTIES
The arrangements laid out in the document are designed to stop the fighting and
integrate the STC’s political, security, and military forces under a single
Yemeni command. Yet these measures fall under exceptionally tight thirty-,
sixty-, or ninety-day timetables and are couched in vague language—echoing the
lack of specificity that has dogged the stalemated Stockholm accord that Hadi
and the Houthis agreed to in December 2018.
For example, today’s agreement stipulates that Hadi appoint a new technocratic
government with up to twenty-four ministers in the next thirty days. Half must
be from the south, but the agreement does not explicitly say they must be STC-aligned,
nor does it make clear who will fill the most important roles such as prime
minister, interior minister, and defense minister. Since a misstep on those
appointments could undermine the entire accord, it is likely that negotiations
on these details are under way or already agreed upon.
Moreover, the document indicates that individuals involved in the fighting in
Aden since August are not eligible for ministerial appointments. Although this
clause was meant as a confidence-building measure, it excludes some powerful
figures and may have the unintended effect of steering them toward the role of
spoilers in the future. On a related note, the agreement calls for all medium
and heavy weapons to be put in military depots under the supervision of the
coalition in Aden within fifteen days, but it is unclear how the government or
STC will collect such weapons, especially from those parties who feel excluded.
The agreement also fails to deal with other issues that will inevitably arise
when trying to unify rival forces. For example, it states that the Facility
Protection Forces, who are responsible for securing key installations such as
the Central Bank, ports, and refineries, will be chosen either from their
current ranks, Hadi’s forces, or the STC’s forces. This kind of inexact
language, which is littered throughout the document, kicks the can of tough,
tactical decisionmaking down the road—a road that is only thirty days long.
Adding to the confusion, the sequencing of various components is unclear and is
widely believed to be one of the factors behind the agreement’s delay, along
with concerns over major ministerial appointments. One can only hope that the
Saudis already began negotiating such tactical decisions behind the scenes well
before this week.
THE BURDEN IS ON THE SAUDIS
Indeed, implementation will likely fall entirely on Riyadh’s shoulders. To
demonstrate unity of purpose, Emirati crown prince Muhammad bin Zayed had a
front-and-center seat next to Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman at the
signing ceremony. Yet the UAE is not mentioned in the agreement, its forces have
continued to draw down in Yemen, and its leaders appear to have left management
of the Hadi-STC negotiations to the Saudis.
Meanwhile, Hadi-STC discussions about implementation seem far off. During
today’s ceremony, President Hadi and STC head Aidarous al-Zubaidi left the
signing to lower-level officials and do not appear to have shaken hands.
Afterward, they met with the Saudi crown prince separately, suggesting they may
continue relying on Saudi-led shuttle diplomacy going forward. It is difficult
to fathom Hadi and STC forces mixing nicely together—let alone cooperating
effectively to counter the Houthis—if their leadership will not even shake
hands. Indeed, the Houthis will be closely monitoring Saudi efforts at
implementation over the next few weeks to see if a unified, capable coalition
arises.
BRINGING FIVE PARTIES TO THE TABLE
On a positive note, if the agreement is implemented even partially, it has the
potential to create better conditions for UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths,
since any comprehensive peace talks he is able to convene would now include
parties that might otherwise act as spoilers. For example, the Hadi delegation
to such talks could plausibly include representatives from the Islah Party
(assuming they retain some ministerial positions) and the STC, while the Houthi
delegation would continue to include representatives from the General People’s
Congress Party. Although Yemen’s increasing fragmentation lends itself to
additional spoilers, their impact would be greatly mitigated if the above key
players are similarly invested in successful rather than failed talks. Thus,
even if the Riyadh agreement suffers the same halting implementation as the
Stockholm agreement, it may still be a political win that moves the Yemen war
closer to some kind of resolution.
*Elana DeLozier is a research fellow in The Washington Institute’s Bernstein
Program on Gulf and Energy Policy.
Recalling the hostage crisis that made Iran forever hostile
to the US
Simon Henderson/The Hill/November 06/2019
Forty years ago this week, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized by
revolutionaries apparently angered by diplomatic contacts between the
nine-month-old, post-Shah Islamic regime and U.S. officials. This motive,
seeking to make the new Iran implacably and permanently hostile to the United
States, has been very successful, in the judgment of most of us. The elusive
question has been whether the people of Iran share their government’s view so
that by changing their leadership, a new relationship could be created.
On the positive side, there is a persistent belief that Iranians actually like
individual Americans, although not successive U.S. administrations. The
foundations for this, being largely anecdotal, are commensurately weak. I was
the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran for six months after the embassy
seizure and on Nov. 23, 1979, I reported: “A westerner walking in the street
meets fewer jibes of ‘Yankee go home’ than at the time of the revolution,” which
I also had covered earlier that year. On the negative side, there is the danger
that sanctions will hurt these Iranians more than the regime, a case of U.S.
policy shooting itself in the foot.
But there are things happening that might give cause for optimism. Last weekend,
Iraqi Shia protestors in the holy city of Karbala attacked the local Iranian
consulate — an outrageous action! Are diplomatic premises not sacrosanct? I
doubt whether Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appreciates irony, but many of the
rest of us do. The protests in Karbala, as well as in the major Iraqi cities of
Baghdad and Basra, seem to be part of “Arab Spring 2.0” sweeping portions of the
Middle East, to protest government corruption and incompetence. In Iraq, they
seem to have an anti-Iran angle, which may seem strange because both countries
are majority Shia Muslim, and Iraq was the first domino that fell to Iran after
the disastrous American invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein.
My album of newspaper clippings prompts a considerable sense of déjà vu. “Carter
warns Iran of grave consequences” was one headline. In another story, I wrote
that the “students” who took over the embassy “show a confidence born of
religious conviction and a belief that they hold most of the cards. … At times
they appear a rag-tag collection of poorly-trained guerrilla fighters hardly
capable of organizing a press conference, but some are very sophisticated.” In
one story, I wrote that the foreign minister at the time was “very much a man of
many faces.”
Those early months of the revolution showed the fragility of the Islamic regime.
In December 1979, there was an open disagreement between Turkish-speaking Azeris
in the northwestern city of Tabriz supporting a clerical rival of the
revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A radio station was seized and
there were clashes that killed and injured people. In Tehran, a senior clerical
aide of Khomeini was shot dead by unidentified gunmen. The chaos occasionally
was ridiculous: Two correspondents of Time magazine were expelled, victims of
bureaucratic muddle, after successfully winning an interview with Khomeini
himself, who was going to be “Man of the Year.”
On a professional level, the job was challenging. I wrote: “Deciding on how much
store to put on the statements of Iranian officials … is just as much a problem
for diplomats as it is for journalists.”
In retrospect, the hostage crisis established the regime. Hardliners were given
the powers to assert their authority and they seized the opportunity. Picking a
fight with the United States made it an enemy, boosting Iranian nationalist
pride. Similar ingredients underlined the impact of the eight-year war with Iraq
after Saddam’s invasion in 1980. Israel, always diplomatically unrecognizable,
is now the enemy du jour.
Could Washington do anything to change this? President Obama tried but failed.
The Iran of Ayatollah Khamenei did not want to be friends, and with President
Trump has even less reason to try. The restraint on U.S. pressure used to be
that it was trying to avoid backing Tehran into a corner and prompting it to
lash out. But then in September, Iran launched a wave of cruise missiles at the
Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia’s greatest concentration of oil processing infrastructure.
To the astonishment of allies, there was essentially no response from the U.S.
Perhaps it is grasping at straws, but might it be that the lack of a forceful
response could change the way that Tehran defines its antipathy to America?
*Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on
Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Follow
him on Twitter @shendersongulf.
Hostage crisis set the tone for Islamic Republic’s rule
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/November 06/2019
Iranian politicians and state-controlled Persian media outlets this week
celebrated the 40th anniversary of the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran. The
Islamic Republic broke international laws by instigating the 1979 hostage
crisis, in which the Iranian regime detained and humiliated 52 Americans and did
not release them for 444 days — the longest hostage-taking in modern history.
The crisis ought not to be viewed as an isolated or aberrant incident when
examining the four-decade history of the Islamic Republic, its foreign policy
and US-Iranian relations. It gave Iran’s hard-liners, ultra-conservatives and
Principlists the platform to consolidate their power. By taking 52 Americans
hostage, the Islamic Republic declared to the international community its core
revolutionary principles, which include anti-Americanism, the pursuit of
hegemonic ambitions and the willingness to break international laws and norms in
order to advance the regime’s parochial interests.
The then-newly established theocratic government evidently desired to project
the power it had recently acquired. From the Iranian leaders’ perspective, their
hostage-taking policy was successful, as they had scored a victory against their
new enemy, which it called the “Great Satan.” Minutes after President Ronald
Reagan’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, Iran releasedthe hostages. It was
obvious that Iran’s move to engineer the hostage crisis and President Jimmy
Carter’s inability to bring the American citizens home was one of the reasons
for his defeat in the presidential election of 1980.
Several factors demonstrate that hostage-taking remains an indispensable part of
Iran’s political establishment. Not only has the regime never offered an apology
for the 1979 hostage crisis or any of its subsequent hostage-taking efforts, but
those behind the crisis now hold senior positions after being promoted by both
the hard-liners and the so-called moderates. They include Masoumeh Ebtekar,
known as “Sister Mary,” who was the spokeswoman for the hostage-takers and is
now Iran’s vice president for women and family affairs; Hamid Abutalebi, the
political adviser to President Hassan Rouhani and who was the president’s
candidate to be Iran’s representative to the UN; Hossein Sheikholislam, who is
adviser to Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif; Mohammad-Ali “Aziz” Jafari,
who was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and is now in
charge of the Baqiollah Cultural and Social Headquarters; and IRGC Brig. Gen.
Hossein Dehqan, who was defense minister in Rouhani’s first term from 2013 to
2017 and is currently adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on defense
industries and army support.
While, four decades ago, the Iranian regime took hostages mainly for political
gain and to consolidate its power, it now takes foreign hostages as pawns to
extract economic concessions and obtain geopolitical and financial gain. Tehran
also uses hostages as a tool to silence the opposition, as well as to pressure
the West into ignoring its military adventurism, violations of international
law, nuclear proliferation and testing of ballistic missiles.
The Iranian regime now takes foreign hostages as pawns to extract economic
concessions and obtain geopolitical and financial gain.
International diplomacy and appeasement have not changed this core character of
the Islamic Republic. For example, the Obama administration reached out to the
theocratic establishment and sealed the 2015 nuclear deal, lifting US sanctions
and helping to remove four rounds of UN sanctions against Tehran. The argument
for these concessions was that they would inspirethe Islamic Republic to change
its malignant behavior, and that the resulting freedoms would trickle down to
the ordinary people. But Tehran only proceeded to take more Americans and
Europeans as hostages. For instance, in 2016, it seized two US Navy boatsand
their crews. Iran currently holds several foreign citizens as hostages in its
prisons.
The response to such belligerence cannot simply be further appeasement. That
route has been tried and has failed. The international community can see
first-hand the consequences of this approach.
This pattern of hostage-taking and disregard for diplomacy and international
standards has continued and escalated in the last four decades, as it has become
a core pillar of this rogue state’s foreign policy and a crucial tool for the
ruling mullahs to strengthen their hold on power and ensure the regime’s
survival.
Over the last four decades, the taking of hostages, blackmail, and defiance of
international laws have come to be the key underlying characteristics of Iran’s
political establishment. As long as the ruling mullahs are in power, Tehran will
not alter its character. If the international community submits to Tehran’s
blackmailing and hostage-taking game by accepting its terms, it will only
embolden and empower the regime’s hard-liners.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and
president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
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