LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 21/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”So the last will be first, and the first will be last
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 20/01-16/:’‘The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?”They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.”When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.”When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on November 20-21/2019
Protests Continuing in Lebanon as Uprising Enters Day 35
Aoun to Address Nation on Eve of Independence Day
Lebanese minister, two ex-ministers could face corruption trial
Lebanese protesters released by security forces, Aoun discusses oil
Khalaf Helps Release Protesters Held Tuesday in Riad al-Solh
Berri Says ‘Bloodshed Scheme’ Defeated on Tuesday
Ammar Says Security Forces Stood Idly By as MPs were being 'Insulted'
Jumblat Says Presidential Term, Taef Accord Have 'Ended'
Report: Hizbullah, AMAL 'Dismayed' by Security, Military Strategy with Protesters
Protesters in Sidon Close Money Exchange and Transfer Shops
Jarrah to hold press conference Thursday on Ibrahim's lawsuit
Hale: White House Holding Up Lebanon Security Aid
Young Lebanese Protesters Demand Better Future -- at Home
Lebanese Army Rejects Bloodshed in Dealing with Protesters
Lebanon: President’s Conditions Complicate Cabinet Formation Process
Young Lebanese Protesters Demand Better Future -- at Home

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 20-21/2019
23 killed as Israel strikes over 20 Iranian, Syrian regime targets
Ex-Mossad chief: Israel must disrupt Iranian influence in Iraq
Netanyahu Celebrates with Settlers US Decision
With no government in sight, another Israeli election looms
Israel’s Gantz unable to form government as third election looms
EU countries at UN criticize America’s shift on Israeli settlements
Arab League to hold emergency meeting over US support for Israeli settlements
Syria is an increasingly dangerous chessboard for Iran in the Middle East
Vatican says Israeli-Palestinian peace process at risk after US move
Iran’s Rouhani claims victory in ‘historic test,’ blames foreigners
Russia says Turkey told Moscow no new Syria operation planned: Report
France says concerned about reports of many deaths in Iran protests
Khamenei says Iran has ‘repelled’ enemy in recent days
Iran summons Swiss ambassador over US comments about unrest: Report
Iraqi officials: 27 wounded in renewed fighting in Baghdad
Pentagon Report: ISIS Used Turkish Offensive in Syria to Regroup
Turkey Says About 100,000 Syrians Left Istanbul Since Early July
Russia air raids, regime strikes in Syria kill at least 21: Monitor
Turkish drone strike kills, injures civilians in YPG-controlled Syrian area: Media
Halkbank seeks to challenge US jurisdiction before entering plea to charges
Trudeau unveils new cabinet aimed at pushing priorities, soothing tensions
Top Diplomat Implicates Trump in Explosive Impeachment Testimony

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 20-21/2019
A majority of the House of Representatives lawmakers – over 240 from both parties sent a letter to the UN urging the enforcement of the UN resolution 1701./Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Lebanon confusion: Uneasy calm descends on Beirut amid ‘fear of what is to come’/Najia Houssari/November 21/2019
Arts of the Lebanese Revolution build an open historic museum/Salma Yassine/Annahar/November 20/2019
What’s next for Lebanon? Examining the implications of current protests/Jeffrey Feltman/November 20/ 2019
*Israeli air strikes knock over dozens of Iranian Guards and Syrian army targets/DEBKAfile/November 20/2019
23 killed as Israel strikes over 20 Iranian, Syrian regime targets/Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Syria is an increasingly dangerous chessboard for Iran in the Middle East/Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Ex-Mossad chief: Israel must disrupt Iranian influence in Iraq/Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
On Development of Iranian Influence In The Arab Mashreq/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/November 20/2019
Spain: Surge in Support for Conservative Populists/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/November 20/2019
Iran's Crimes against Humanity, 2019/Denis MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/November 20/2019
Iran Protests Reflect Effectiveness of U.S. Maximum Pressure Campaign/Saeed Ghasseminejad/Senior Iran and Financial Economics/Advisor/FDD/November 20/2019
Iran Stepped in to Save Pro-Tehran Government in Baghdad/David Adesnik/Nicholas Wernert/FDD/November 20/2019
Iranian leaders ignoring protesters’ messages/Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri/Arab News/November 20/2019
Syrian outlook uncertain despite Erdogan’s US triumph/Talmiz Ahmad/Arab News/November 20/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on November 20-21/2019
Protests Continuing in Lebanon as Uprising Enters Day 35
Naharnet/November 20/2019
University and school students in several parts in north Lebanon skipped classes on Wednesday in a stand of solidarity with Lebanon’s uprising and the latest arrests of protesters in Beirut's Downtown area. In Akkar’s al-Joumeh area students staged sit-in “in solidarity with the incidents in Riad al-Solh,” in Beirut said the National News Agency. Three protesters were injured and several arrested --released Wednesday-- in scuffles with riot police in Riad al-Solh Square Tuesday evening. Activists invited Lebanon’s schools to suspend classes and partake in a sit-in held Akkar's town of al-Ayoun. Also in Akkar, protesters blocked several major roads protesting the incident. In the city’s major square in Halba and in the town of Rahbeh protesters marched the streets forcing the closure of institutions, banks, private and public schools. Moreover, in al-Koura district a number of students gathered on the campus of Balamand University in solidarity with the demands of the popular movement. Lebanon has since October 17 been rocked by an unprecedented wave of popular street revolt that have cut across sectarian lines. Lebanon's parliament, besieged by angry protesters , for a second time postponed on Tuesday a session to discuss draft laws which critics charge would let corrupt politicians off the hook. After a morning of noisy demonstrations outside the chamber, and after several political parties had said they would boycott the session, parliament official Adnane Daher appeared before TV cameras announcing the news. Tuesday evening, NNA said the Riad al-Solh skirmishes broke out after some protesters tried to cross the barbed wire and enter into Nejmeh Square where parliament building is located.

Aoun to Address Nation on Eve of Independence Day
Naharnet/November 20/2019
President Michel Aoun will make an address to the nation at 8:00 pm Thursday, which will be broadcast on the various Lebanese TV and radio networks, the Presidency said. The speech marks Lebanon’s Independence Day and will tackle the current situations and latest developments, the Presidency added.Separately, the president called newly-elected Beirut Bar Association chief Melhem Khalaf to congratulate him on his election. Khalaf, who is a prominent civil society figure, is backed by the protest movement that has been sweeping Lebanon since October 17.

Lebanese minister, two ex-ministers could face corruption trial
Reuters, Beirut/Thursday, 21 November 2019
Lebanon’s caretaker information minister and two former telecoms ministers could face trial on charges of wasting public funds after their cases were referred to a special judicial panel set up to try top officials. The decision by a prosecutor to refer the cases to the Supreme Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers, according to judicial sources and state news agency NNA, follows protests fueled partly by corruption. The charges are among the first to be brought against high-level officials since the start of the unrest, triggered by dire economic conditions and anger against a ruling class seen as pillaging the state’s resources and driving it into crisis. NNA and the judicial sources said the officials referred to the Supreme Council by financial prosecutor Ali Ibrahim were information minister Jamal al-Jarrah and former telecoms ministers Nicolas Sehnaoui and Boutros Harb.
In remarks to NNA, Jarrah called the proceedings “part of a political campaign” to defame him. He said the financial prosecutor had no legal right to refer the case to the council, a move he said requires a two-thirds vote from parliament.
Posting to Twitter, Sehnaoui said: “I am fully prepared to appear before the competent judiciary, confident in there being no impurity in my practice of public affairs in the service of my country.” Harb declined to comment to Reuters until he had further information about the charges. NNA did not provide further details about the exact nature of the corruption allegations. The protests that have swept the country, and brought down Prime Minister Saad Hariri, were ignited on Oct. 17 by a government proposal to tax WhatsApp calls, a measure that was quickly scrapped. The country has only two mobile service providers, both state owned, and some of the most costly mobile rates in the region, a common grievance among Lebanese

Lebanese protesters released by security forces, Aoun discusses oil
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Protesters who had been detained following scuffles with security forces in central Beirut on Tuesday night have been released, reported Lebanon's National News Agency on Wednesday. On Tuesday, protesters gathered in central Beirut to prevent the Lebanese Parliament from opening for a scheduled legislative session which had been criticized by demonstrators as out of sync with the public mood, as anti-government demonstrations showed no signs of stopping. Lebanon's President Michel Aoun, who has refused to step down, met with the Caretaker Minister of Energy and Water Resources Nada Boustani on Wednesday. According to the NNA, they discussed the oil and gas exploration process, which Lebanese politicians have touted as a potential savior for the country's struggling economy. The unrest has hit an already weak economy, including by limiting international assistance to the country. The White House confirmed that it is holding up security assistance valued at more than $100 million, according to a senior State Department official on Wednesday. Protests have continued across the country, including in the second largest city Tripoli, after Mohammad Safadi withdrew from replacing Saad Hariri as Prime Minister over the weekend. Al Arabiya English spoke to protesters in Tripoli who were mulling the return of Hariri as Prime Minister, amid continued political deadlock.

Khalaf Helps Release Protesters Held Tuesday in Riad al-Solh
Protesters arrested during scuffles with anti-riot police in Raid al-Solh Square on Tuesday evening have all been released, al-Joumhouria daily reported Wednesday. It said the new president of the Beirut Bar Association Melhem Khalaf -a candidate backed by the protest movement that is sweeping the country- followed up closely on their case from al- Helou barracks where they were held. The newspaper said Khalaf headed to the barracks and stayed there until after midnight with members of the syndicate Imad Martinus and Elie Bazerli and other lawyers to follow up the case.
They were released Wednesday morning. Three protesters were injured and several were arrested in scuffles with riot police Tuesday evening at Beirut’s Riad al-Solh Square. Scuffles also broke out when some protesters tried to cross the barbed wire and enter into Nejmeh Square where parliament building is located.Khalaf was elected on Sunday as head of the Bar Association, scoring a precious win for the nascent movement over the country’s established political parties.

Berri Says ‘Bloodshed Scheme’ Defeated on Tuesday
Naharnet/November 20/2019
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday said that the “biggest winners” on Tuesday were “Lebanon and civil peace,” after he was forced to postpone a legislative session due to lack of quorum and road-blocking protests. “Despite what happened yesterday, the important thing is that not a single drop of blood was shed although a bloodshed scheme was being plotted in dark rooms,” Berri said during the weekly meeting with MPs in Ain el-Tineh. “We do not accept this and the priority was and will always be Lebanon and civil peace,” the Speaker added. He also said that “a bet on spreading vacuum” was thwarted. Lebanon's parliament, besieged by angry protesters Tuesday, for a second time postponed a session to discuss draft laws which critics charge would let corrupt politicians off the hook. After a morning of noisy demonstrations outside the chamber, and after several political parties had said they would boycott the session, parliament official Adnan Daher appeared before TV cameras. "The session has been postponed to a date to be determined later," he said, citing "exceptional ... security conditions.""This is a new achievement for the revolution," cheered Mohamed Ataya, a 28-year-old demonstrator, vowing that no session would be held "as long as the people control the street." From early morning, riot police had faced off with hundreds of noisy demonstrators and sporadic scuffles broke out outside the assembly, where activists tried to block MPs' convoys. Warning shots were fired in the air as one convoy passed through the crowd, a broadcast on LBCI television showed. Demonstrators blamed an MP's bodyguard for firing them. Lebanon has since October 17 been rocked by an unprecedented wave of popular street revolt that have cut across sectarian lines. What started with protests against a plan to tax online phone calls made through WhatsApp and other applications has turned into a broader popular revolt against the perceived ineptitude and corruption of the entire ruling class. Amid the crisis the prime minister, Saad Hariri, bowed to street pressure and resigned on October 29, but the parliamentary consultations needed to form a new government have yet to start.

Ammar Says Security Forces Stood Idly By as MPs were being 'Insulted'
Naharnet/November 20/2019
MP Ali Ammar of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc on Wednesday accused security forces of “standing idly by” as lawmakers were being “insulted” at road-blocking protests around parliament building on Tuesday. “We saw officers and soldiers standing idly by as the MPs of the nation were being insulted at roadblocks,” Ammar said from Ain el-Tineh. “The army commander promised that as much as he would protect protesters, he would be keen on protecting the right to movement, but unfortunately what we saw was suspicious,” Ammar added. A military source meanwhile clarified to LBCI television that “yesterday the Lebanese Army was tasked with securing the public roads leading to parliament’s entrances while the Internal Security Forces were in charge of the entrances.”Footage of Ammar riding a scooter near parliament and chanting with protesters besieging the legislature’s building has gone viral on social media in Lebanon. A video shows a smiling Ammar arriving on foot to a road-blocking protest near parliament, where a controversial legislative session was due to be held. Ammar then engages in an apparently friendly chat with protesters before leaving the area. Another video shows Ammar raising his fist in the air and chanting “down with the rule of thugs” with protesters as he arrives to another road-blocking point. And as protesters chant “Hela, Hela, Hela, Hela, Ho, parliament is closed, sweetie!”, Ammar starts clapping.

Jumblat Says Presidential Term, Taef Accord Have 'Ended'
Naharnet/November 20/2019
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Wednesday announced that the presidential tenure of President Michel Aoun and the 1989 Taef Accord have “ended,” as he revealed that he has advised caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri not to lead the new government.
Asked whether caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil will be among the new ministers, Jumblat told MTV: “I believe that some faces have expired.”Revealing that Hizbullah has not “pressured” him to keep the PSP’s ministers in Hariri’s government, Jumblat said: “I showed solidarity with Hariri until he resigned and we all drowned.”“After resignation I advised Hariri several times not to lead the new government and I told him ‘let them rule even with a one-sided government,’” the PSP leader added. Asked about Aoun’s latest TV interview, Jumblat said: “The presidential tenure has ended, on the streets. Ghassan Ayyash wrote it – the second republic has ended. The Taef Accord has ended.”Noting that he had warned Hariri against endorsing Mohammed Safadi for the premiership, Jumblat added that he does not agree with Hizbullah that “most of what’s happening on the streets is a conspiracy.”“The people are honestly expressing their desire for change,” he said.

Report: Hizbullah, AMAL 'Dismayed' by Security, Military Strategy with Protesters
Naharnet/November 20/2019
The “Shiite duo” Hizbullah and AMAL Movement were reportedly dismayed by the technique used by security and military forces when protesters a day earlier blocked routes leading to the parliament, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday. Sources close to the “Shiite duo” told the daily that “security and military forces ensured protesters’ right to protest, but did not ensure the lawmakers’ right to reach the parliament," session that was set to convene. They said the “leniency of official bodies regarding behavior of demonstrators in Downtown Beirut contradicts a decision preventing road blockages that was recently announced by a senior military official.”The source was indirectly referring to remarks of Army Chief Gen. Joseph Aoun. On Sunday, Aoun said that the closure of roads by protesters was "unacceptable." He also said they have the right to protest. “The demonstrators blocked roads to a parliamentary session that would have discussed laws responding to some of their legitimate demands,” deplored the source. Angry protesters besieged the parliament on Tuesday forcing to stop lawmakers from attending a session they deem as "unconstitutional". The session, postponed for a week due to pressure from the street, was due to discuss draft laws which critics charge would let corrupt politicians off the hook.

Protesters in Sidon Close Money Exchange and Transfer Shops
Associated Press/Naharnet/November 20/2019
Protesters in the southern city of Sidon forced the closure of exchange and money transfer houses as Lebanon grapples with a dollar shortage crisis triggering economic woes, the National News Agency reported on Wednesday. Tens of protesters, and school students marched in Riad al-Solh street in Sidon closing exchange and money transfer houses amid tight security measures, said NNA. Fears of a US dollar shortage have raised anxiety over a possible devaluation of the Lebanese pound and price hikes, amid nationwide protests lingering since October 17 demanding an overhaul of the entire political class. Amid the turmoil, banks stayed shut for weeks and restricted withdrawals, foreign currency transactions and access to dollars. The Lebanese pound has been pegged to the dollar at an official rate of 1,507 to the dollar since 1997. Exchange shops are now trading at 1,900 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, a devaluation of more than 25%.

Jarrah to hold press conference Thursday on Ibrahim's lawsuit
NNA/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Caretaker Minister of Information, Jamal Jarrah, is to hold a press conference at 4.00 p.m. Thursday afternoon to respond to the lawsuit filed by Financial Attorney General, Ali Ibrahim, against three former Telecoms ministers.

Hale: White House Holding Up Lebanon Security Aid
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
The White House is holding up security assistance to Lebanon valued at more than $100 million, leaving lawmakers and policymakers in the dark, David Hale, a senior State Department official, publicly confirmed in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Hale, the top career diplomat at the State Department, acknowledged the freeze as he spoke under oath to lawmakers.Asked about the controversial delay in military assistance to Ukraine, Hale said that it was not an isolated case and pointed to Lebanon. "There was information that came to me starting in late June that a hold had been placed on both Ukraine assistance and Lebanon military assistance without any explanation," said Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, according to a transcript released by lawmakers late Monday. "It's still not been released," he said in the November 6 deposition when asked about the status of aid to Lebanon. Asked why the White House was not disbursing money approved by Congress, Hale said there was apparently "a dispute over the efficacy of the assistance," but his full answer was redacted. The Trump administration, which has not explained its decision, has been pressing for the isolation of Lebanon’s Hezbollah that allied with Iran. The aid freeze came before the Oct. 17 outbreak of massive anti-government protests in Lebanon against economic hardship and corruption, which triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Two senior Democrats, in a recent letter to the White House, said that the "indefinite and unexplained hold" affected $105 million in aid to Lebanon including military vehicles, weapons and ammunition. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Ted Deutch, head of its Middle East subcommittee, wrote that Lebanon "continues to face imminent threats to its security forces from a resurgent ISIS, al-Qaeda and its affiliates as well as an increasingly strong Hezbollah.""A more capable (Lebanese Army) is clearly in the interests of the United States and Lebanon," they wrote. Hale said the top State Department and Pentagon officials handling the Middle East wondered if aid freezes by the White House's Office of Management and Budget had become "a new normal." In the case of Ukraine, Trump is facing accusations over charges that he withheld assistance needed to fight Russian-backed separatists as he pressed Ukraine to dig up dirt on domestic rival Joe Biden. Trump denies wrongdoing.

Young Lebanese Protesters Demand Better Future -- at Home
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
At an anti-corruption rally in Lebanon's capital, 16-year-old Mariam Sidani said she had skipped school to protest against politicians who care nothing for her life prospects. "No one's taking care of my future," she said, her face flushed after a day in the sun. "I want to live in my own country, not be forced abroad," she said, her long hazel hair flowing over her backpack straps, AFP reported. At the heart of Lebanon's one-month-old protests, a young generation of activists is coming of age and demanding a country in which they can see themselves thriving and growing old. With humorous songs, satirical art and creative slogans, they are demanding the overhaul of an entire political class they see as inefficient, corrupt and out of touch. Many of the protesters were born in 2000 or later, learning online what life is like overseas, and they say what is on offer in Lebanon is simply not good enough. "All over the world students are fighting for climate justice," said Sidani."But we don't even have a sea," she said of a polluted coastline that is largely privatised and to which access is prohibitively expensive.
'Worse than season 8'
Near the seat of cabinet, students dance to the booming beat of a rapper from the northern Akkar region demanding "the fall of the regime". A young female university student holds up a poster depicting top politicians as sharks. "Let's go hunt," it reads. Another student deplores the country's endless political crises and crumbling economy with a pop culture reference. "It's so bad you made me forget how bad season 8 was," her poster says, referring to TV series Games of Thrones. Like their older counterparts, Lebanon's Generation Z demand 24-hour electricity, clean water, healthcare, better garbage management, more public spaces and an end to corruption. But in a country where more than 30 percent of youth are unemployed, they also just want jobs. Tina, a 17-year-old high school student, said she wanted a future not defined by the ability to pay bribes or call in a favour from someone influential.
"We want to stay here with our families and find jobs without personal connections," she said, clutching a cardboard poster that denounced parents who effectively buy their children good marks in school. Not far off, dancing among the crowd, 19-year-old Sandra Rizk had flown back to Lebanon from her first year at university in Italy to take part in the protests. "We have really intelligent people who are leaving this country to go and fix other ones. It shouldn't be like this," she said. "Those people have to come back and repair Lebanon," said the fashion design student, short curly brown hair framing her face.
'Social justice'
Analyst Nadim Houry said the new generation of demonstrators had surprised people. "Everyone expected them to be too lethargic from all these hours on YouTube and social media," said the executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. "But similar to their cohort in places as far as Hong Kong, they have shown themselves to be more political and articulate than their predecessors," he told AFP. Born a decade after the country's 1975-1990 civil conflict, they never knew some of the country's politicians as warlords, and are not paralyzed by the same fears as their parents or even elder siblings, Houry said.
"They care less about sectarianism and more about social justice," he said. In a multi-confessional country where Lebanese have long voted along sectarian lines, young protesters say they have freed themselves from political affiliations and are putting their country first. "They want to be treated as citizens and not as members of sects," Houry said. Lebanon has been shaken by protests before, including a huge movement that ended Syrian occupation in 2005, and a brief outcry denouncing those responsible for heaps of garbage mounting in and around that capital in 2015. But 26-year-old interior architecture student George said today's cross-sectarian uprising was different. "This is the real revolution that represents all of us," he said, carrying a Lebanese flag. His generation would carry the movement forward, he said, even if those who were employed felt they needed to return to their jobs.
"If older people need to go back to work, we've swapped our university and school timetables for the revolution," he said.

Exclusive: Lebanese Army Rejects Bloodshed in Dealing with Protesters
Beirut - Thaer Abbas/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
The Lebanese army leadership rejects bloody clashes with anti-government demonstrators who took to the streets on October 17 to protest rising poverty and ask for better state services, a Lebanese official with knowledge of military affairs said. The army considers bloodshed a red line, the official told Asharq Al-Awsat. Constitutionally, the military institution falls under the authority of the Lebanese government. But since neither the cabinet nor the Higher Defense Council have met since the eruption of protests, the army hasn’t received any political instructions on ways to deal with demonstrators.
It was up to its leadership to decide what action to take to open roads blocked by the protesters while taking into consideration that they are Lebanese citizens and not terrorists or foreign enemies, said the official. The army sought to open roads through dialogue with the protesters and certain decisive measures while avoiding clashes. The military leadership is confident about its decision and will not hesitate to apply similar measures if needed, the official added. There were limited clashes with protesters because the army is not trained to deal with protests, he told Asharq Al-Awsat. He said pressure keeps piling after the leadership decided to put 90 percent of its reservists in service. “But we will continue to carry out our duty.”The official said political parties had no role in the first three days of protests when angry Lebanese took to the streets over proposed new taxes. The masses included the poor as well as the wealthy who wanted to express frustration at the deteriorating economic and financial crisis. He added that the majority of protesters were youth from colleges and universities, who are seen as the biggest constituents in the 2022 parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned his government on Oct. 29 in response to the protests, which snowballed into calls for the entire political elite to step aside.

Lebanon: President’s Conditions Complicate Cabinet Formation Process
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
Lebanese President Michel Aoun has renewed his call for the formation of a government of politicians and technocrats, setting new standards for the process, cabinet ministers close to the president. Aoun said on Tuesday the government must bring together politicians, specialists and activists, while sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the prime minister-designate must approve the new standards to head the next cabinet. Well-informed sources said that caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri did not go back on his position regarding the need to form a technocrat government. “Hariri said what he has to say,” the sources told Asharq Al-Awsat, noting that he would only accept to lead a cabinet of technocrats. The sources added that Hariri had put forward the name of Lebanon’s Ambassador to the UN Nawaf Salam for the premiership, but his proposal was rejected. “We can’t ignore street protests that brought down the previous government… We should have a pragmatic assessment of the situation on the ground … and work to lay a solid foundation for any future government,” the sources underlined. Aoun has yet to call for consultations with parliamentary blocs’ leaders to name a new premier, three weeks after Hariri resigned amid nationwide protests. However, Lebanese ministerial sources said that contacts with Aoun’s rivals, such as the Lebanese Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party and the Kataeb, had reached a standstill. The sources were surprised by Aoun’s recent comments about a government of politicians and technocrats, stressing that Hariri was not in a position to head such a cabinet. Aoun met on Tuesday with the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, at the Baabda Palace. A statement by the presidential office said he was still holding contacts to form a new government that would enjoy “the needed political support and include representatives of the political components and protesters alongside technocrats.”The president added that he would set a date for the binding parliamentary consultations when the talks with the concerned political parties yield results by removing obstacles hindering the cabinet formation process.

Young Lebanese Protesters Demand Better Future -- at Home
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 20/2019
At an anti-corruption rally in Lebanon's capital, 16-year-old Mariam Sidani said she had skipped school to protest against politicians who care nothing for her life prospects. "No one's taking care of my future," she said, her face flushed after a day in the sun. "I want to live in my own country, not be forced abroad," she said, her long hazel hair flowing over her backpack straps. At the heart of Lebanon's one-month-old protests, a young generation of activists is coming of age and demanding a country in which they can see themselves thriving and growing old. With humourous songs, satirical art and creative slogans, they are demanding the overhaul of an entire political class they see as inefficient, corrupt and out of touch. Many of the protesters were born in 2000 or later, learning online what life is like overseas, and they say what is on offer in Lebanon is simply not good enough. "All over the world students are fighting for climate justice," said Sidani. "But we don't even have a sea," she said of a polluted coastline that is largely privatised and to which access is prohibitively expensive.
'Worse than season 8'
Near the seat of cabinet, students dance to the booming beat of a rapper from the northern Akkar region demanding "the fall of the regime". A young female university student holds up a poster depicting top politicians as sharks. "Let's go hunt," it reads. Another student deplores the country's endless political crises and crumbling economy with a pop culture reference. "It's so bad you made me forget how bad season 8 was," her poster says, referring to TV series Games of Thrones. Like their older counterparts, Lebanon's Generation Z demand 24-hour electricity, clean water, healthcare, better garbage management, more public spaces and an end to corruption. But in a country where more than 30 percent of youth are unemployed, they also just want jobs. Tina, a 17-year-old high school student, said she wanted a future not defined by the ability to pay bribes or call in a favour from someone influential. "We want to stay here with our families and find jobs without personal connections," she said, clutching a cardboard poster that denounced parents who effectively buy their children good marks in school. Not far off, dancing among the crowd, 19-year-old Sandra Rizk had flown back to Lebanon from her first year at university in Italy to take part in the protests. "We have really intelligent people who are leaving this country to go and fix other ones. It shouldn't be like this," she said. "Those people have to come back and repair Lebanon," said the fashion design student, short curly brown hair framing her face.
'Social justice'
Analyst Nadim Houry said the new generation of demonstrators had surprised people. "Everyone expected them to be too lethargic from all these hours on YouTube and social media," said the executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. "But similar to their cohort in places as far as Hong Kong, they have shown themselves to be more political and articulate than their predecessors," he told AFP. Born a decade after the country's 1975-1990 civil conflict, they never knew some of the country's politicians as warlords, and are not paralysed by the same fears as their parents or even elder siblings, Houry said. "They care less about sectarianism and more about social justice," he said. In a multi-confessional country where Lebanese have long voted along sectarian lines, young protesters say they have freed themselves from political affiliations and are putting their country first.
"They want to be treated as citizens and not as members of sects," Houry said. Lebanon has been shaken by protests before, including a huge movement that ended Syrian occupation in 2005, and a brief outcry denouncing those responsible for heaps of garbage mounting in and around that capital in 2015. But 26-year-old interior architecture student George said today's cross-sectarian uprising was different. "This is the real revolution that represents all of us," he said, carrying a Lebanese flag. His generation would carry the movement forward, he said, even if those who were employed felt they needed to return to their jobs. "If older people need to go back to work, we've swapped our university and school timetables for the revolution," he said.

240 Congresspeople to UN: Hezbollah threatens Israeli security
A majority of the House of Representatives lawmakers – over 240 from both parties sent a letter to the UN urging the enforcement of the UN resolution 1701.
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
رسالة من 240 نائب أميركي ديموقراطي وجمهوري إلى الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة تطالبه العمل على تنفيذ القرار الدولي الخاص بلبنان رقم 1701
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"As Republicans and Democrats, we are united in our concern about the continuing, serious violations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701."
WASHINGTON – A majority of the House of Representatives lawmakers – over 240 from both parties – sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General on Monday urging him to enforce Security Council resolution 1701. Four Congresspeople from both parties spearheaded the letter: Reps. Elaine Luria, Lee Zeldin, Haley Stevens and Michael Waltz. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) thanked the four publicly on Twitter for “pressing [António Guterres] to address the threat to Israel from the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
The letter calls on Guterres to lead an international effort to limit Hezbollah’s capabilities “and to avoid the devastating but avoidable outcome of which you have previously warned.”“We fear significant civilian costs in Lebanon if Israel must act to defend its citizens because Hezbollah has positioned its massive arsenal in civilian areas – turning much of Lebanon’s population into human shields,” the letter continues. “Hezbollah will bear the responsibility for that, as will the Government of Lebanon and the international community.”
The group mentioned the terror organization’s ongoing efforts to attack Israel, including by digging underground tunnels that the IDF was able to find and destroy last year.
“As Republicans and Democrats, we are united in our concern about the continuing, serious violations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and the resulting threat our ally Israel faces on its northern border,” the letter reads. “After 13 years, Lebanon’s attempts to implement this resolution have been unsuccessful. Instead, under the nose of UNIFIL and the international community, Hezbollah has built a murderous capability aimed at Israel’s civilian population. “The United Nations Security Council spoke out clearly and unanimously by passing UNSCR 1701,” it continues. “In doing so, the international community committed itself to Lebanese sovereignty and Israeli security. Hezbollah’s military build-up threatens both. We believe Beirut must address the Hezbollah challenge on an urgent basis. Continued failure to do so weakens Lebanon’s relationship with the international community and increases the threats to the Lebanese People and Israel’s security.”The group urged Guterres to assist Lebanon’s prime minister to “finally reclaim Lebanese sovereignty and implement all the terms of UNSCR 1701, including allowing UNIFIL to fulfill its mandate in southern Lebanon. “At the same time, we request that you insist that UNIFIL fully implement its mandate despite pressure from Hezbollah. UNIFIL should accurately report on Hezbollah violations of UNSCR 1701 and work with the Government of Lebanon to remove Hezbollah’s weapons from the South,” the letter continues. The Jerusalem Post reported in July that Israel and the United States are jointly working to have the United Nations Security Council upgrade the mandate of the international peacekeeping force based in southern Lebanon, providing it with greater authority to weaken Hezbollah.
Israel Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told the Post that Israel is working with the US to upgrade UNIFIL’s mandate, explicitly to give it the ability to visit and inspect any area in southern Lebanon. Under the existing mandate, UNIFIL cannot enter villages and the urban regions unless it first coordinates such visits with the Lebanese Armed Forces. The lawmakers also addressed the growing threat from Hezbollah’s missile arsenal. “No country can tolerate a terrorist organization on its border, acquiring the capability to endanger its population. Israel has the right to defend itself and will have the full bipartisan support of the United States if it must act to protect its citizens,” it concludes.
https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/240-Congressmen-Hezbollah-threatens-Israeli-security-608390

Lebanon confusion: Uneasy calm descends on Beirut amid ‘fear of what is to come’
Najia Houssari/November 21/2019
BEIRUT: More than a month after bitter demonstrations erupted across the country, Lebanese protesters, just like warriors in battle, appear desperate for a rest. On Wednesday, 35 days after activists took to the streets to demand an end to government corruption and mismanagement, life in Beirut returned to normal. Students went back to their schools and universities, banks opened their doors to unprecedented numbers of customers, roadworks restarted on some streets and TV channels resumed regular schedules. However, behind the appearance of calm, many residents remain nervous and fearful. Taxi driver Abu Omar said: “The roads are no longer blocked by protesters, but people are still in shock. They fear what is to come. There have been no solutions, which means it is not over.”
Madeleine, shopping on Hamra Street with a friend, said: “We have had enough of sitting in front of the TV all day, watching the news. People in the street were right to protest and their demands must be met. Employees were told two days ago that their salaries will be cut in half.”
Another said: “We might lose our jobs at any moment. They told us that last month the company suffered enormous losses and might not be able to continue. I do not think that the protests are the cause, but the economic stagnation that began before the protests has got worse.”
Away from the capital, protesters are still setting up roadblocks, but the Lebanese army’s decision to open major roads between towns has been unopposed.
In the north of Lebanon, roads were blocked in Akkar, while life in Tripoli returned to normal and the main protest squares were closed. In Saida, in the south of the country, public facilities, schools and universities reopened. But protesters called for money exchange and transfer shops to be closed amid anger at the outlets’ high pricing of the US dollar while banks still have strict limits on providing customers with US currency. According to a final review by Lebanon’s Central Bank, more than $3.2 billion was withdrawn from banks at the start of the financial crisis. Alia Abbas, general director of economy and trade at the Lebanese Economy Ministry, said that prices of some products have risen by up to 11 percent. President Michel Aoun, caretaker prime minister Saad Hariri and Speaker Nabih Berri have failed to reach a formula to form a new government since Oct. 29. One activist, who declined to be named, said that he fears Aoun will name someone other than Hariri to form a government of both experts and politicians since the former PM is insisting on a technocrat government.
“Naming Hariri to form a techno-political government is a good thing, as familiar faces will be replaced with experts, but this will not be well received by the protest movement,” he said.

Arts of the Lebanese Revolution build an open historic museum
Salma Yassine/Annahar/November 20/2019
Brushstrokes are taking refuge in what is presented on the streets, and breathing life into it through immortalizing it on canvasses, making the revolution a museum of painted history.
BEIRUT: The Lebanese revolution is rendered a safe harbor for a crescendo of raw arts that revive the defiance within every hue.
A plethora of arts emanates from the Lebanese Revolution, with exuberance earnestly woven within the gravelly voices of the people, who are an indispensable essence to their unity. “The revolutionary arts we are witnessing are endearing, given their creative, sarcastic, and emotional nature. They are a remedy to the Lebanese’s past traumas, the ones lingering within the charcoaled days of the civil war,” Nada Mouzannar, a singer and a member of the Lebanese diaspora, noted.
The spectrum of arts encompasses various forms of paintings, graphic designs, music and written words, some of which are being transcribed on walls, and captured in snapshots. Brushstrokes are taking refuge in what is presented on the streets, and breathing life into it through immortalizing it on canvasses, making the revolution a museum of painted history. “The faces of the revolution inspire me, for they are art in their own sense. One could only drown in a sea of features; those of children on their fathers’ shoulders, young women, men selling flowers, the flags, the scarves, and the enormity of the architecture. Painting the revolution will eternalize it,” Reem Rashash Shaaban, a mixed media artist, told Annahar.  Designs across Lebanese streets feature chants and slogans like “سلميّة، سلميّة – Peaceful, Peaceful,” “تحيّة للطّلّاب – Salutation to the Students,” and “الثّورة أنثى – The Revolution is Female” and reflect the crux of the revolution’s voice. Musical creations are also blooming to iconize the revolution through streaming old songs known to be classics for every revolt, featuring the legendary “شيّد قصورك عالمزارع – Erect your Fortresses on our Farmland.” Protesters are also producing new chants and modern revolutionary songs that speak of the current state of the country.
“I felt that injustice entered people’s homes without permission, and we all had our own stories and sufferings to narrate. I went out to the streets and met artists with whom I decided to compose an anthem for the revolution,” Mahdi Mansour, a poet, noted for Annahar.
A notable outcome of these melodic compositions was the birth of the “Revolution’s Anthem.”“The prominence of having an anthem lies in directing the voices of the people towards a plethora of unified demands that are fuming with love, social justice, political reform, and the abandonment of sectarianism,” he added. Omar Sfeir, a photographer, captured a still moment to represent the Lebanon that the revolution has birthed, by adding a twist to Magritte's surrealist painting, titled "The Lovers."
"My version portrays two people revolting under the name of love, regardless of their gender, religion, and sexual orientation. The kiss concealed with Lebanese flags is a token of defiance, wherein the cedar is complete by the two united lovers, just like my homeland’s people,” he told Annahar.

What’s next for Lebanon? Examining the implications of current protests
النص الكامل لشهادة السفير الأميركي السابق في لبنان جيفري فلتمان أما لجنة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا والإرهاب الددولي حول الإحتجاجات الشعبية اللبنانية وما ما هو بعدها
Jeffrey Feltman/November 20/ 2019
Editor's Note: Jeffrey Feltman testifies before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism on “What’s Next for Lebanon? Examining the Implications of Current Protests.”
Below is the full testimony .
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I thank the Subcommittee for inviting me to share my analysis on the situation in Lebanon, especially as it relates to U.S. interests.
I must begin by noting that I represent only myself before you today; the Brookings Institution does not take any institutional positions on policy positions. I would also like to emphasize at the outset that Lebanon’s current protests are not about the United States, and we should avoid anything that would change the focus to the United States. But the results of the protests could affect U.S. interests positively or negatively. That is why I very much welcome Congressional attention to Lebanon at what could be a pivotal moment in the country’s history.
LEBANON MATTERS TO THE UNITED STATES
There are two common perceptions of Lebanon in the United States. One view is romantic, seeing a multi-confessional, relatively open democracy and vibrant society, offering incredible culture, cuisine, history and hospitality. According to the alternative view, Lebanon, with a bloody civil war and where U.S. Marines and diplomats have been butchered, is a dangerous outpost of Iran threatening U.S. interests in the region and beyond.
With some truth in each description, I would like to open by reviewing how tiny Lebanon affects U.S. interests in big ways. Most obvious is Iran’s projection of its malign regional role via its most successful export, the terrorist organization Hezbollah with its advanced capabilities to threaten Israel and other U.S. allies. In addition, the risk of Sunni extremist groups and Al-Qaida or ISIS establishing strongholds in Lebanon has largely receded, thanks to impressive, sustained efforts by the Lebanese Armed Forces. But, as happened in Iraq, these gains can quickly erode, with international implications, without continued vigilance.
The history of Hezbollah and of Sunni terrorist groups demonstrate vividly why Lebanon’s overall stability is in our interest: Iran exploited Lebanon’s civil war, the post-2003 internal conflict in Iraq, and the more recent civil wars in Syria and Yemen to establish deep roots that prove difficult to eradicate. Civil wars, in other words, become vehicles for the expansion of Iran’s influence. Chaos is also a fertile breeding ground for Al-Qaida-type terrorists, as in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
Russia also eyes Lebanon as a venue to continue its aggressive expansion of its regional and Mediterranean role. Russia is entrenched in Syria, and Russian mercenaries enabling General Haftar’s assault on Tripoli in Libya gives Moscow a toehold on the southern Mediterranean. Lebanon’s three ports and offshore hydrocarbon reserves, if exploited by Russia, would add to the sense that Russia is winning in the eastern and southern Mediterranean, at our expense. With over 400 Chinese nationals in UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, China, too, may see potential in Lebanon’s ports and location – and the Lebanese may find China’s 5G technology hard to resist, given the sorry state of Lebanon’s current telecommunications networks.
Hezbollah: Revolutionary Iran’s most successful export
Closer to Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad, who for a supposedly strong-man dictator is embarrassingly dependent on Russia, Hezbollah and Iran to reassert his control over most of Syria, would undoubtedly love to posture again as a regional power broker by reversing his 2005 humiliation, when the combination of Lebanese protests and international pressure led by President George W. Bush forced him to end abruptly Syria’s long-time oppressive military occupation of Lebanon. Russia, never happy with President Bush’s focus on Lebanon’s freedom, may be happy to facilitate the restoration of Syrian hegemony over its small neighbor, especially as convenient cover for Russia’s own objectives in Lebanon.
In short, Lebanon is a venue for global strategic competition. Others will happily fill the vacuum if we cede ground.
However dysfunctional Lebanon’s democracy is, we also have interests in seeing an Arab, Mediterranean country with relatively strong civil liberties, democratic traditions, and multi-confessional co-existence succeed. With their strong international connections, most Lebanese aspire to be linked politically, culturally, economically, and financially, to the traditional West – Europe and North America – than with Iran, Russia, or China. There is a natural affinity between most Lebanese and the West that can work to our advantage. But as citizens of a small, vulnerable country in a dangerous region, the Lebanese will also, not irrationally, look for reliable external partners. As frustrating, “needy,” and complicated as Lebanon can be, we need to play the long game and not allow Iran, Syria, China, or Russia to exploit our absence.
LEBANON’S CURRENT PROTESTS COINCIDE WITH U.S. INTERESTS
Over the years, many of us have marveled at the neat theatrical trick Lebanon has perfected: somehow staying politically and economically afloat, amidst conditions and lamentations that suggest imminent collapse. Predictions of Lebanon’s doom have often proved, if not wrong, then at least premature. This time, it appears that the curtain may come down on this gravity-defying act. Not only is the management of Lebanon’s internal and external debt increasingly complicated in a no-growth economy, but the public is by and large weary of, or even enraged by, the sectarian script and excuses that establishment political leaders use to advance their narrow political or financial interests at the expense of the country at large. The confessional patronage spoils that grease the Lebanese economy are now increasingly understood as a system to keep people confined to sectarian prisons. Meanwhile, income equality is on the rise, and job creation in decline. As a result, the entire Lebanese political system is now under hostile public scrutiny, and even Hezbollah has become a target of widespread criticism, a topic I will discuss in more detail below.
As the media reporting indicates, the cross-sectarian nature of the demonstrations that erupted in October (when the government tried to impose a tax on WhatsApp messages in a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s back moment) is refreshing and inspiring in the Lebanese context. Sunnis, Christians, Shia and Druse are all in the streets, describing themselves as Lebanese first rather than falling back on their confessional identity. The significance of these protests outweighs that of the movement that began on March 14, 2005, after the murder of Rafiq Hariri, because, this time, the Shia have joined. Moreover, the 2005 protests were aimed at Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, which a significant part of the population – again, largely Shia – found less intolerable than most of the country. Today, the protestors focus on domestic issues – jobs, garbage collection, utility services and so forth – which can unify rather than divide the Lebanese. There is, in other words, widespread “bottom up” pressure for change in Lebanon.
While, to reiterate, the protests are not about the United States, the demonstrations and the reactions to them by Lebanese leaders and institutions fortunately coincide with U.S. interests. Hezbollah has long strutted as “invincible,” “clean” and “anti-establishment” compared to other Lebanese parties. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s speeches – four and counting – hoping to discredit the demonstrations have undermined Hezbollah’s carefully cultivated narrative more effectively than years of U.S. efforts to do so.
Nasrallah, peddling absurd theories of foreign interference, called for an end to demonstrations; they continue. He told the Shia protestors to go home; some did, but most did not. He said the government should not resign; Prime Minister Hariri did just that. So much for invincibility. Nasrallah’s insistence that President Michel Aoun remain in office and his dismissal of the proposal for early parliamentary elections smear Hezbollah indelibly with the political establishment and the stench of the accompanying corruption that the protesters want eradicated. Hezbollah can no longer claim credibly to be “clean,” and its participation in the now-resigned, despised government damaged its claims to deliver services more effectively than others. In terms of the public perception of its political role, Hezbollah is now relegated to the same rubbish heap as the other discredited Lebanese parties.
In addition, Lebanon’s citizenry is unlikely to forget that Hezbollah and its junior partner Amal sent thugs on motorcycles to beat up the demonstrators. This brutality resurrected memories Hezbollah would prefer remain buried: In May 2008, Hezbollah and Amal seized swaths of Beirut and surrounding areas to block government efforts to dismantle Hezbollah’s parallel secure telecommunications link. Scores were killed before the army took control. While Hezbollah demonstrated no qualms about killing and even starving mass numbers of civilians in Syria, any attempt to repeat the May 2008 offensive at home in Lebanon would evaporate Hezbollah’s already diminished “resistance” pretext entirely. For years, the United States has tried to prompt the Lebanese to face the fact that Hezbollah and its rockets create the danger of war with Israel rather than provide protection from Israel. Hezbollah’s rhetorical and physical reaction to the current demonstrations may wake up more Lebanese – including the Shia, essential to undermining Hezbollah’s popularity — to that grim reality.
The current demonstrations also constructively undermine the partnership between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a Christian party, of President Aoun and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassile. In midwifing an alliance between Hezbollah and FPM in 2006, Bassile is the architect most responsible for Hezbollah’s ability to pretend to represent a national, cross-confessional movement and transcend its narrow Iranian and sectarian agenda. The FPM alliance slapped a veneer of Christian cover onto Hezbollah and thus became the primary vehicle for expanded Hezbollah influence inside government institutions: no longer was Hezbollah restricted by the “Shia quota” in Lebanese sectarian ratios, since Hezbollah could rely on the FPM’s Christian share as well. Bassile has long exploited the sincere concern the United States and other countries have about the status of Christians in the Middle East precisely to divert scrutiny of his personal enabling of Hezbollah and his corruption. Bassile has now become the personification of everything that provokes and enrages the protestors, while his presidential father-in-law’s speeches (including one suggesting that people unhappy with Lebanon’s status quo were free to emigrate) reflect someone seriously out of touch with the national mood. So far, Hezbollah is sticking with its alliance with the FPM. But the value of this asset has dropped considerably and adds to growing public disenchantment with the Hezbollah brand overall.
By contrast, the reputation of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has managed largely to stay out of politics, has, for the most part, headed upwards. There have been some problems and discrepancies in the LAF’s reaction to the protests — the LAF protected demonstrators in Beirut against Hezbollah and Amal thugs, while units in Nabatieh, in the south, looked the other way; LAF fire killed one demonstrator last week. But overall, the LAF has responded with professionalism and restraint to what from both security and political angles must be a most trying situation: what would we Americans think if persistent protests prevented us from reaching our airports, hospitals, schools or jobs? Moreover, the LAF has been forced to operate and take risks with no coherent political guidance – or cover – from Lebanon’s civilian leadership and with veiled threats from Hezbollah to clear the protests. In recent days, to the dismay of the demonstrators, the LAF has moved more forcefully to open streets and roads, to allow schools, businesses and public buildings to re-open.
While its record has not been perfect, in general the LAF’s performance has been admirable in these circumstances. The contrast to the Hezbollah thugs on motorcycles could not be clearer, and the LAF’s behavior compares favorably to the Iraqi, Egyptian or Syrian security forces’ reaction to protestors. The LAF can be an example of how public respect for an independent, capable and credible national institution can start to chip away deference to a sectarian one. This, too, is a phenomenon not about us but certainly in our interest – and one to be nurtured.
Some in Washington may ask if the LAF should now prepare to confront Hezbollah kinetically and disarm Hezbollah by force. That would be a recipe for civil war, and, as noted above, Iran and its proxies as well as Al-Qaida tend to thrive in civil war situations. We need to think more long term. In general, LAF officers, protective of their independence, know how much the army’s capabilities and professionalism have improved thanks to sustained U.S. training and equipment, and the Lebanese public is starting to recognize that, too.
A 2007 counter-terrorism operation compared to the LAF’s more recent CT efforts demonstrate this improvement. In 2007, the LAF labored from May until September to liquidate Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni terrorist organization inspired by Al-Qaida. Through the course of the battle, 158 LAF soldiers and officers were killed (along with 222 Fatah al-Islam terrorists), over 50 civilians died, and the entire Nahr al-Barad Palestinian refugee camp, previously home to over 30,000 people, was destroyed. Now, the LAF conducts rapid and effective counter-terrorism operations including on the Lebanese-Syrian border with minimal civilian or army casualties. A 2017 operation to clean eastern Lebanon of over 700 ISIS fighters took a mere ten combat days, with seven LAF killed. The LAF arrested over 3,000 Sunni extremists in 2017 and several hundred more last year. Proud of their institution and mindful of increased public support, LAF officers already whisper resentment of Hezbollah’s arrogant dismissal of the LAF. It is only a matter of time before this resentment comes out into the open.
However unappealing the occasional tactical accommodation, especially in the Hezbollah-dominated south, we should recognize that the LAF-Hezbollah relationship is not an eternal romance. The United States deserves credit for contributing to the LAF’s professionalism and improved capabilities, and thus its enhanced local respect and independence. I regret that the current review suspending – I hope only briefly — U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the LAF has interrupted a predominantly good news story about LAF-U.S. cooperation, while giving Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran a convenient talking point about U.S. unreliability.
DYSFUNCTIONAL LEBANESE ECONOMY MAY FORCE A CHANGE IN DIRECTION
While the demonstrations have focused on immediate issues of jobs, garbage, and services, they take place against the backdrop of a looming financial crisis. As one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world – exceeding 150 percent – Lebanon has long teetered on the brink of financial disaster. The ability of the banking system to pursue clever financial engineering to prevent a plunge off the cliff seems to have run its course. With a tightening of visa restrictions for Europe and the United States, with a decline in employment possibilities in the Gulf states, the traditional outlet for Lebanon’s youth – jobs (and possibly emigration) abroad – has lost its power to reliably churn large amounts of foreign currency remittances back into the Lebanese economy.
But the real problem is persistent economic stagnation. Debt can be managed in an environment of economic growth. Lebanon’s GDP, even before the current demonstrations, was projected to expand by only 0.02 percent this year in real terms. Privatization of state assets – telecom, electricity – could produce revenues, if the privatization schemes could be trusted, as well as improve services over the longer term. And certainly credible, transparent governance, where the public good rather than personal gain motivates the political leadership, can contribute to economic improvements. A significant difference would derive from new investment and a return of Arab Gulf tourists, companies, and financial deposits.
Yet success in attracting Western and GCC investors will remain elusive without significant changes. Western and GCC investors will look elsewhere for opportunities if the Lebanese remain complacent about being part of what is seen as the Iranian/Syrian axis and if they tolerate an only intermittent commitment to transparency and rule of law. More pointedly, investors and tourists will not return in sufficiently large and predictable numbers as long as Hezbollah can on a whim pull Lebanon into war, with no reference to public opinion or government oversight. The Lebanese themselves will need to choose the path leading either to perpetual poverty or potential prosperity, by determining whether they will continue to accept poor governance combined with the effective veto over government decisions that Hezbollah insists upon (while simultaneously rebuffing any public accountability for Hezbollah’s own often deadly actions). Lebanese voters may not be able to strip Hezbollah of its arsenal overnight, but they can seize the next electoral opportunity to strip Hezbollah of the parliamentary partners it uses as force multipliers to assert its will politically: thus, Nasrallah’s red line against early elections.
THE PROTESTS MAY NOT PRODUCE IMMEDIATE CHANGES, BUT A CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS HAS BEGUN
As of this writing, it is not clear that Lebanon’s besieged political class has any clue what kind of government might satisfy the demands of the street. The candidate currently being discussed for the premiership, businessman and former Finance Minister Mohamed Safadi, does not seem to represent a break from past practices, as initial hostility on the streets indicates.
Arguing that they are concerned about safety in a country where political leaders and social activists have been routinely murdered, the demonstrators have intentionally rejected the idea of promoting leaders out of the protests to negotiate on their behalf. This leaves an inchoate impression about who and what might be acceptable. (One has images of the scenes from the movie and play “Network,” of people shouting from the windows about “not wanting to take it anymore,” but without any clear proposal about what would replace the status quo.) This is an ominous sign that the status quo establishment figures, otherwise so divided, might find common cause in evading accountability and replacement, since the “street” might be less united than the picturesque demonstrations (complete with pots of bougainvillea as decoration) suggest.
Moreover, in contradiction to the carefully nurtured non-sectarian image of the demonstrations, some public frustration in Sunni-majority areas such as Tripoli emerged that “Sunni interests” were damaged when PM Hariri (a Sunni) resigned, when Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (Shia) and President Aoun (Christian) remained in place. Lebanon’s sectarian ghosts will be hard to exorcise.
After the missteps of Nasrallah’s speeches, Hezbollah must be recalculating along with other status quo leaders about how to retain their prerogatives while somehow managing the popular mood. According to one rumor, some traditional sectarian leaders are musing about allowing an authentically technocratic cabinet to emerge – in the belief that the technocrats will “own” the predicted financial collapse, thus paving a way for the traditional leaders to pick their way through the financial rubble in a rush back to power. The preliminary (if temporary) nod to Safadi, however, suggests that the protestors are not going to get the purely technocratic cabinet they appear to want. But the sustained, widespread criticism of Lebanon’s political class, sectarianism, and of Hezbollah have broken significant taboos. Furthermore, Syria’s proxies in Lebanon and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon – once viewed as virtually indistinguishable, singing their “resistance” duet in sinister harmony – show nascent but unprecedented signs of divergence. Even if not all the potential gains are realized immediately, 2019 is a turning point for Lebanon.
THE U.S. CANNOT DETERMINE BUT CAN INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME
The 2005 protests, which successfully forced the entrenched Syrian military and intelligence assets to leave Lebanon, offer an important lesson for today: the value of domestic initiative combined with external support. Had, say, the United States and France pushed 14 years ago for the Syrians to decamp to their side of the border, and had the Lebanese stayed home, the Syrians could have resisted the external pressure to go. Had the United States and France been looking away, uninterested, when the Lebanese took to the streets in such massive numbers, the Syrians would have displayed no qualms in crushing the demonstrations by force. The combination of Lebanese on the streets in massive numbers and the attention by the international community, led by the United States under President George W. Bush and France under President Jacques Chirac, gave the Syrians no viable option except the exit.
As in 2005, sustained attention and interest today – by Congress, by the Administration, by the UN Security Council, by others — can help protect the demonstrators. But the demonstrations cannot continue indefinitely, especially as average citizens tire of interruptions to daily lives and worry about the economic costs of paralysis. Sustained U.S. interest, attention and messaging can make a difference as the Lebanese struggle to decide how to proceed beyond the home-grown protests.
The trick for us is nuance. It would be unwise to interfere directly in Lebanese political decisions, which would make it too easy for Nasrallah (or Syria, Iran or Russia) to cite credible examples in predictable attempts to discredit the protestors and their demands as U.S.-directed. Nor should we be seen to be in the business of picking Lebanon’s next prime minister (Safadi or anyone else) or specific cabinet ministers; those are exclusively Lebanese decisions. But as our own national interests and those of our regional allies will be affected by what happens in Lebanon, we have a responsibility to clarify our own views by our action and by our words. The Lebanese deserve to understand fully what the implications will be of the decisions they make on cabinet appointments and policies.
As a first step, the military assistance now under review should be rapidly released. This would put the U.S. on the side of national, credible institutions. At a time when the LAF’s popularity is trending mostly upwards compared to what appears to be Hezbollah’s reputational decline, we can reinforce what is, for us and for Lebanon, a positive momentum. Release of the assistance would also undermine the ongoing attempts by Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Russia to entice the Lebanese into their orbits by calling into question U.S. reliability. Our military aid is never provided unconditionally; we also benefit from the partnership with the LAF. Our expectation that the LAF would improve its professionalism and readiness has been demonstrated vividly by successful counter-terrorism measures and by the (mostly) appropriate response to the protests. The United States can link the release of the FMF with an insistence that the LAF remain outside of politics and treat peaceful demonstrators with equal respect across the entire country, in Nabatieh as well as Beirut.
I would also recommend that we find ways publicly to reinforce the position that we do not want to see the financial or political collapse of Lebanon (lest chaos and civil war provide further opportunities for Iran, Syria and Russia to interfere) – but that our ability to mobilize financial and economic support depends on decisions from the Lebanese themselves, including the composition and policies of Lebanon’s next government. Yes, we are willing to stand with Lebanon, but on the basis of how the Lebanese wish to proceed. If the Lebanese government finally addresses the questions of governance and accountability, the international community can respond; if the government returns to “business as usual,” we will not be able to mobilize support to prevent collapse. With the demonstrators calling for a technocratic rather than political government, our public messaging can emphasize our expectation that a new Lebanese government, if it seeks international support, should effectively and immediately address the reform aspirations of the Lebanese people.
While the decisions are theirs, the Lebanese, who have long lived complacently with the contradiction of self-identification with the West while harboring an Iranian terrorist subsidiary, need to understand the implications of the path they choose. In previous financial crises in Lebanon, Arab Gulf states shifted foreign currency deposits to the Lebanese Central Bank temporarily to shore up reserves; this could be repeated. The U.S., along with France and others, can lead engagement with the International Financial Institutions regarding support to Lebanon. With the right people and policies in place, a new Lebanese government might finally implement the reforms that could trigger release of a reformulated $11 billion assistance package pledged at an international conference in Paris in 2018. Such measures would offer the Lebanese officials a brief respite, while they enact reforms — long promised, never delivered, and now demanded by the population — to put Lebanon’s finances on a sustainable footing and to promote economic growth. But given past foot-dragging, the burden is on the Lebanese officials to overcome domestic and international skepticism, by choosing credible faces and policies for the incoming cabinet. Continued cronyism, corruption and coddling of Hezbollah will lead ever downward, while reform, accountability, transparency and reliance on national institutions instead of Hezbollah can attract the type of support to lead to a better destination, with the United States and others offering support and partnership. That should be our message.
Over the long term, U.S. interests in Lebanon would be best protected by what the Lebanese people indicate that they want: a prosperous, democratic, independent, fully sovereign, peaceful Lebanon, reliant (including for security) on effective, transparent government institutions subject to public accountability. With the right government in place and with renewed international support, this should not be impossible to achieve. At a bit more than 10,000 square kilometers, Lebanon is smaller than the New York City metropolitan area. The population of greater New York exceeds 20 million, whereas Lebanon, even including Syrian and Palestinian refugees, has a population of well under 7 million. Surely it can’t be that difficult to provide reliable electricity, internet, and garbage collection to a Lebanese citizenry that, in general, is both well-educated and internationally connected. Nor should it be that expensive under the right leadership to attract support to put the financial situation on a better course: to put this in perspective, Lebanon’s entire external debt (around $35 billion) is in line with the estimates of what Saudi Arabia is bleeding every year in pursuing a war in Yemen ($25-40 billion).
By releasing the military assistance now, by demonstrating we are paying close attention, and by making crystal clear the implications, good or bad, of the choices the Lebanese make, we can serve our own interests, contribute to the calculations the Lebanese will make regarding cabinet and policy decisions, and prevent a vacuum that others would fill to our detriment. I again thank Congress and this Subcommittee for focusing on U.S. interests in Lebanon.
https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/whats-next-for-lebanon-examining-the-implications-of-current-protests/

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 20-21/2019
23 killed as Israel strikes over 20 Iranian, Syrian regime targets
جيرازلم بوست: مقتل 23 شخص في سوريا منهم 20 من الإيرانيين جراء غارات إسرائيلية على اهداف داخل سورية
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett to Iran: You are no longer immune. Wherever you stretch your tentacles-we will hack them off.
Israel warned Iran from carrying out further attacks against the Jewish State after Israeli Air Force fighter jets carried out a wave of retaliatory air strikes against dozens of military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force (IRGC) and the Syrian army on Tuesday night in Syria.
Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said following the strikes that "the rules have changed: Anyone who shoots at the State of Israel during the day will not sleep at night. Like last week and now this week. Our message to Iran's leaders is simple: You are no longer immune. Wherever you stretch your tentacles-we will hack them off. The IDF will continue to protect Israeli citizens According to a senior official in Israel’s Defense Establishment, the “head of the Iranian octopus” sits in Tehran but continues to attempt to surround Israel with proxy groups-Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian militias in Syria, Islamic Jihad and to some extent Hamas.“We have not yet threatened the head of the octopus - Tehran. But it is possible to start approaching the head of the Iranian octopus,” he warned. IDF Spokesperson Brig.Gen. Hidai Zilberman told reporters on Wednesday the tens of targets struck in Damascus, west of Damascus and the Syrian Golan Heights overnight belonging both to the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Quds Force were carried out within minutes and were all located within 80 kilometers of Israel’s border.
While the launchers which fired the rockets on Tuesday morning were not struck, some 20 other targets struck included advanced air defense systems (not the Russian-made S-300 missile defense batteries), surface-to-air missiles, reconnaissance sites and warehouses, the National Defense Building at the Damascus International Airport which houses the Quds Force headquarters and other military positions.
According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 23 people, including 16 non-Syrians who are most likely Iranians, were killed in the Israeli airstrikes. The senior Israel defense official acknowledged that there were injuries and a number of Iranian fatalities.
Numerous others were injured, including a young woman who was wounded by shrapnel that hit the suburb of Qudsaya, west of Damascus.
“We express the wish for a speedy recovery for them,” the Assad government said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.
According to the senior Israeli defense official, the strikes were one of the largest which struck Iranian targets in Syria and was finalized Tuesday night by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi at the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.
“Iran struck Israel, we can’t forget that. Iran attacked Israel and that’s not acceptable,” he continued, saying that Israel will strike harshly without giving any warning if attacked in the future.
“We are changing the rules. Even when it comes to almost negligible attacks, whose impact is small, we are changing the equation and our retaliatory attack will be widespread. When I looked at the South when a small number of rockets are fired and we respond with a small retaliatory strike, then that sort of situation gets to be acceptable. We have to strike harshly to all attacks,” the official said, noting the link of the assassination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Bahaa abu al-Ata in Gaza and the rockets of yesterday.
According to the senior officer in the defense establishment, the National Defense Building, which used to be a hotel, was a center for the Quds force.
“We will not let Iran entrench in Syria,” Zilberman said, adding that the IDF “is prepared to respond harshly to further attacks if necessary. We will not accept an Iranian force near our borders and will continue to work against it.”
Local Syrian media reported that two residential buildings were also struck from shrapnel from a Syrian air defense missile fired towards Israeli jets, sending one family including two children to hospital.
Syria responded quickly to the airstrikes, publishing numerous photos and According to SANA, Damascus promised to provide assistance to those who suffered the “brutal Israeli aggression” by repairing the homes of those affected.
It said that help would arrive immediately to those areas struck, with rescue teams sent to clear rubble in the village of Beit Saber in the Sasa district south of Damascus where a house was destroyed. According to SOHR, a man along with his wife and son were pulled from the rubble of the home Ambulances and fire engines were sent to other areas.
"During the attack, Syrian air missiles were fired, despite a clear warning that was ignored. As a result, several Syrian aerial defense batteries were destroyed," the IDF said.
While the main goal were Iranian targets, the official said, the secondary goal were six air-to-ground missile batteries belonging to the Syrian regime “to maintain freedom of action and protect our pilots."
While the IDF Spokesperson stressed that no special instructions for the North have been given, the military was prepared for three possible scenarios: no response, a minor response, and a more significant response.
"The IDF is highly prepared for a variety of scenarios and will continue to operate as required for the security of the citizens of the State of Israel. The Home Front Command instructions should be obeyed if required."
The strike which began around 1AM on Wednesday morning was carried out in response to four rockets which the IDF said were launched by an Iranian force from Syrian territory towards northern Israeli territory in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
All rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, causing no damage or injuries.
"The Iranian attack against Israeli territory yesterday is further proof of the current Iranian purpose in Syria. Their presence in the region is a danger to Israel's security, regional stability and to the Syrian regime,” the military said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement following the attack, saying in it that "I made it clear that whoever harms us - we will harm them."
"That is what we did tonight in Syria against Iranian Quds Force targets and Syrian military targets, after rockets were fired from its territory towards Israel. We will continue to aggressively guard the security of Israel."
Syrian news agency Sana reported that Syrian regime air defense systems were able to intercept some of the 11 of the 18 missiles fired by a total of 6 jets before they were able to reach their targets.
According to SANA, regime defenses came under “a heavy attack” by Israeli fighter jets that targeted the Damascus area from the Israeli Golan Heights and Lebanese airspace near the town of Marjayoun.
Israel has been carrying out a war-between-wars campaign since 2013 in an attempt to prevent Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah from obtaining advanced weapons to use against the Jewish state and from entrenching itself in Syria.
Thousands of strikes have been carried out over the years in Syria and according to foreign reports has seen strikes in neighboring Iraq.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned in recent weeks of the increased threat posed by the Islamic Republic which they say is getting bolder and more willing to respond to Israeli attacks on Iranian and Iranian-backed militias and infrastructure.
*Seth Frantzman contributed to this report.
https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Syrian-air-defenses-intercept-missiles-over-Damascus-reports-608381

Ex-Mossad chief: Israel must disrupt Iranian influence in Iraq
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Yatom was responding to hundreds of newly leaked Iranian documents that offered a detailed portrait of how aggressively and successfully Tehran has penetrated Baghdad.
Israeli intelligence must work to disrupt Iranian influence and its natural advantages in Iraq that could endanger Israeli security and Western interests, former Mossad chief Danny Yatom told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
Reflecting over Monday’s reports in The Intercept and The New York Times regarding hundreds of newly leaked Iranian documents that offered a detailed portrait of how aggressively and successfully Tehran has penetrated Baghdad, Yatom said that the challenge was considerable, but that Israel could rise to the moment.
“Iran has a big advantage,” the former Mossad chief said. “There are many Iranians in Iraq,” highlighting that this home-field advantage makes it much easier “to build large facilities from which they can fire missiles” on Israel.
Yatom noted that both Israeli intelligence and the country’s aerial power might be in play, with Israel already having suspecting Iran-loyal militias that were building new capacities to potentially attack Israel from within Iraq.
“Iran wants to influence Iraq’s prime minister who often acts as if he is acting for them,” Yatom explained. “He is Shi’ite. Also, the prime minister before him was Shi’ite, but the newest one seems to lean even more toward” the Islamic Republic. Noting that the current Iraqi prime minister “is not stopping Iran from sending militias into Iraq or building facilities there,” Yatom said that another issue raised by the report was the enhanced opportunity Iran has in Iraq to try to turn CIA, US State Department and other Western officials to start working for them.
“Iran is exploiting all of its options, not just in Iraq itself,” but using its penetration of Iraq to “recruit spies who will spy on Israel, the US and NATO states.”Tehran’s goal continues to be using Iraqi territory “to train, to prepare attacks, to fire rockets that can reach Israel, and to spread out” its capabilities for attacking Israel and adversaries like the Saudis to as many places as possible, including Yemen, “so that it is harder for Israel, the US” and others to manage.
Despite all of the freedom that Iraq is giving Iran to operate in its territory and the potential cover that this gives the Islamic Republic, Yatom said that he did not think Iraq itself “has any interest in clashing with Israel directly. It is enough to give Iran lots of freedom.”Yatom lamented that “until the US withdrew from Iraq, US influence was strong enough that Iran did very little there besides work with Shi’ite groups like that of Muqtada al-Sadr,” which, though problematic, was not nearly as threatening to Israel and the West as current groups directly controlled by Iran.
However, Yatom was still confident that Israeli intelligence has the capacity to penetrate Iraq to perform surveillance regarding Iranian forces and militias. “Israel always needs an intelligence presence in every place that endangers us and any place where there are Iranians,” he said, adding that although there were always challenges, it was easier to collect intelligence in Iraq than in Iran. This was a strong statement given that in January 2018, dozens of Mossad agents penetrated the heart of Tehran to make off with the Iranian’s secret nuclear files. The Iranian intelligence documents that were revealed on Monday went into great detail about their work, especially regarding al-Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani, to embed themselves into every area of Iraqi affairs.
Documents from the leaked cables detail years of painstaking work by Iranian spies to co-opt the country’s leaders, buy-off Iraqi agents working for the US to switch sides, and infiltrate Iraq’s political, economic, and religious life. Mainly, the documents portray Iran as broadly outplaying the US within the Iraqi arena, especially when the CIA started to cut back its investment in Iraq. One Iraqi nicknamed in the cables as “Donnie Brasco” turned to Iran for protection when the CIA started cutting many of its Iraqi agents loose. He promised to tell Iran everything he knew about American intelligence gathering in Iraq – it was all for sale. Monday’s report said that the documents indicate that he revealed “the locations of CIA safe houses; the names of hotels where CIA operatives met with agents; details of his weapons and surveillance training; and the names of other Iraqis working as spies for the Americans.”
Yatom made it clear that unlike the US, Israel would need to play the same longer-term game that the Iranians are playing, without dropping out of the game prematurely. Some of the Iranian intelligence cables describe real-life espionage capers in dark alleyways and shopping malls, or under the cover of a hunting excursion or a birthday party. These documents describe informants lurking at the Baghdad airport, copiously photographing American soldiers and performing surveillance of coalition military flights. The archive even contains expense reports from Iraq’s intelligence ministry going deep into minutia, like €87.50 spent on gifts for a Kurdish commander.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Ex-Mossad-chief-Israel-must-disrupt-Iranian-influence-in-Iraq-608353

Netanyahu Celebrates with Settlers US Decision
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the West Bank on Tuesday to celebrate Washington’s announcement that it does not consider Israeli settlements to violate international law. Speaking at a gathering of ecstatic supporters and settler leaders in Alon Shvut, a settlement outside of Jerusalem, Netanyahu called the Trump administration’s declaration a “huge achievement” that “fixed a historic wrong.” “I think it is a great day for the state of Israel and an achievement that will remain for decades,” he said. Later Tuesday, Netanyahu said the US decision “gives us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to annex the Jordan Valley, an area in the West Bank seen as the breadbasket of a Palestinian state. In a video, he called on his political rivals, with whom he is currently in coalition talks, to form a unity government and make annexing the area its first priority. The Palestinians, who claim the West Bank as part of a future state, condemned the US decision. They and other countries said the move undercuts any chances of a broader peace deal. Over 400,000 settlers now live in the West Bank, in addition to more than 200,000 settlers in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian’s hoped-for capital. The Palestinians and the international community say that settlements are illegal and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

With no government in sight, another Israeli election looms
Reuters, Jerusalem/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Israel moved closer toward a new election on Wednesday after Avigdor Lieberman declined to back either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or challenger Benny Gantz with a deadline on forming a government about to expire. Neither Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing Likud party, nor ex-general Gantz of the centrist Blue and White secured a ruling majority in parliament in elections in April and September. The resulting deadlock is unprecedented for the country. It has shaken Israelis’ confidence as conflicts with Iran and Syria deepen, and vexed a usually friendly White House.
Netanyahu, in office for the past decade, failed to put together a coalition after the inconclusive September election. Gantz was handed the task by President Reuven Rivlin next but his 28 days to form a government expire at midnight (2200 GMT). There was no sign of progress towards a Rivlin-proposed deal for a national unity government that would include Likud and Blue and White after weeks of talks. Among issues in dispute was the timeline of a proposed power-share between the two leaders. While they are largely aligned on national security, Gantz has signaled more openness than Netanyahu to a resumption of long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has sought to cast Gantz as a dovish novice who is not up to the task of running Israel’s economy and statecraft alone. Lieberman, who heads the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party told a news conference on Wednesday that “both (Netanyahu and Gantz) were guilty” in failing to agree on a Likud-Blue and White alliance, which he had strongly advocated. With no unity government in sight, Lieberman said, he would deny both men the support of his party’s eight legislators, effectively meaning that neither Netanyahu nor Gantz would have sufficient backing to form more narrow administrations.“As things stand now, we are on the way to another election,” Lieberman said.
Crisis no joke
Netanyahu issued a last-gasp appeal on Gantz to compromise, telling rightist factions that, even among its closest allies, Israel was “becoming a joke” due to its political deadlock. A third election in a year would be “institutional insanity,” he said. Lieberman, a former defense minister, has said he would not join any alternative to a Likud-Blue and White coalition. He reiterated opposition to a Likud-led government that included ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties with religious influence over life in Israel, or to an administration headed by Blue and White that would be dependent on support from Arab parties he described as a “fifth column.”Ahmed Tibi, a senior politician from Israel’s 20 percent Arab minority, tweeted that Lieberman’s rhetoric constituted “incitement” and “straight-up racism and anti-Semitism.”Rivlin had proposed a “rotation” agreement between Netanyahu and Gantz in which the Likud leader would take a leave of absence as prime minister should he be indicted on corruption charges. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing in the three cases. Gantz has balked at ultra-Orthodox participation in a unity government, saying he wanted to establish a “liberal” administration more in tune with Israel’s secular Jewish majority.
Netanyahu had insisted on preserving what he has described as a right-wing bloc - whose support he would need should he seek parliamentary immunity from prosecution if he is indicted. Israel’s attorney-general is widely expected to announce within days whether he will accept police recommendations to charge Netanyahu. Netanyahu faces no legal requirement to leave government if indicted. He could face fraud and breach of trust charges in all three probes, and bribery charges in one. Should Wednesday’s deadline expire without a coalition deal, a 21-day period will begin in which legislators can nominate any lawmaker, subject to the agreement of at least 61 of parliament’s 120 members and a formal mandate from Rivlin, to try to establish a coalition. Failure to do so automatically triggers an election in 90 days.Whoever emerges as Israel’s prime minister will need to rein in a growing budget deficit quickly, as Netanyahu’s caretaker cabinet has been unable to plug a gaping hole in government finances. The deficit has swelled over the past year as Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon cut taxes while spending heavily on cost-of-living subsidies and pay rises.

Israel’s Gantz unable to form government as third election looms
The National/November 20/2019
Blue and White leader accuses Benjamin Netanyahu of ruling to serve his personal interests
Israel’s opposition leader, Benny Gantz, has failed to form a government, increasing the likelihood of a third election in a year to try to break a political deadlock. The former military chief had a month to form a government after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed. Mr Gantz told Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday that he could not form a governing coalition. In a televised address, he said he was “willing to make far-reaching concessions” to form a broad-based government uniting his Blue and White party and Mr Netanyahu’s Likud. But Mr Gantz said he was confronted by “a bloc that insisted on putting the interests of one man before the interests of the country". He said Mr Netanyahu was taking Israel down "a dangerous path", accusing him of leading the nation for his own personal interests rather than for the good of the country. The incumbent has been mired in allegations around his private life and is being investigated for corruption and fraud. Mr Netanyahu has called it a political witch hunt. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is still contemplating whether to charge the incumbent leader with bribery, in the most serious of the three corruption cases against the premier. Mr Gantz said he “overturned every stone” in his efforts to form a national unity government based on “respect, morals and values", but the 55-seat right-religious bloc led by Mr Netanyahu stood in his way. Now the government's fate is held by Parliament. If a majority of Israel’s 120 politicians can support a member of parliament, including Mr Netanyahu or Mr Gantz, they can ask Mr Rivlin to give that person 21 days to try again to form a government. But that appears to be a long shot, possibly paving the way for another vote early next year. “Short of one or both of the leaders coming down a little bit further from their tree, or perhaps a game-changing decision from the attorney general, we’re going to third elections,” political strategist Ashley Perry said. Experts believe that a caretaker government could hurt the country’s economy. “If you don’t have a government for a long period of time, like about a year, you feel substantially the impact of this on investment and infrastructure in many industries," said Alex Zabezhinsky, chief economist for Meitav Dash Investments. The political deadlock has frustrated the Trump administration’s attempts to implement its long-delayed plan for peace between Palestine and Israel.

EU countries at UN criticize America’s shift on Israeli settlements
AFP, United Nations/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
European members of the UN Security Council hit out on Wednesday at the US decision to no longer consider Israeli settlements illegal, but stopped short of naming the United States. “Our position on Israeli settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, is clear and remains unchanged,” Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Poland said in a joint statement. “All settlement activity is illegal under international law and it erodes the viability of the two-state solution and the prospects for a lasting peace. “We call on Israel to end all settlement activity in line with its obligations as an occupying power,” they added before a Security Council meeting on the Middle East. On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the Israeli settlements were “not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” breaking with UN Security Council resolutions declaring the settlements to be illegal as they are built on occupied Palestinian land. The policy shift was welcomed by Israel but it puts the US at odds with virtually the whole of the rest of the international community. Courts in Israel have declared most major settlements legal. More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, alongside more than three million Palestinians. The settlements remain one of the thorniest issues in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Arab League to hold emergency meeting over US support for Israeli settlements
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
The Arab League will hold an emergency meeting of foreign ministers on Monday to discuss Washington’s change of position on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Egypt’s state news agency MENA said on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday abandoned the United States’ four-decade position that the settlements were “inconsistent with international law.”US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech at the State Department on Monday that the Trump administration, after carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, concluded the “establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law.”The Arab League, of which Saudi Arabia is a member, condemned Pompeo’s statement as “a very negative development.” Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Tuesday the decision would result in “more violence and cruelty” against the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli settlers and “undermines any possibility” of achieving peace. In a related development, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it completely rejects the Trump administration’s statement that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are no longer considered illegal under international law. with Reuters

Syria is an increasingly dangerous chessboard for Iran in the Middle East
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Iran has so many forces in Syria that in 2018 the US included in its official policy the “removal of all Iranian-led forces and proxies from the country.”
Iran has spent many years exploiting the weakness of the Syrian regime to entrench its forces in the country, hoping to come out of the Syrian civil war in a much stronger position in the Middle East. It is part of Iran’s grand strategy through which it has also sought to take over parts of Iraq’s government and lever unprecedented influence over Lebanon’s political system. There isn’t much standing in Iran’s way, as the US has indicated its long-term objective is to leave Syria and its role in Iraq is tailored only to fighting ISIS. Iran’s role in Syria increasingly threatens Israel, as revealed through recent tensions and numerous air strikes on Iranian targets that Israel has said it carried out over the years.
Iran’s role in Iraq has a new spotlight on it after 700 pages of documents were leaked from Iran’s intelligence services to The Intercept and The New York Times. In Syria Iran’s role is more murky but it is also well known. Iran has so many forces in Syria that in 2018 the US included in its official policy the “removal of all Iranian-led forces and proxies from the country.” US recent studies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, include classified information on Iran’s presence, but a recent Inspector General report about the US-led operations against ISIS noted that “the bulk of Iranian-commander forces were concentrated in the western half of Syria prior to the USS withdrawal.” Iranian-backed militias are in close proximity to US forces “as part of the Iranian goal of forging ground lines of communications from the Iraqi border.”
We also know that satellite images from ImageSat International show Iran continues construction of its Imam Ali base near Albukamal on the Iraqi border. Other reports indicated that Iran had up to 19 bases in Syria in 2018.
From Iran’s perspective, Syria has been a key ally and a conduit for arms shipments to Hezbollah. This has gone back decades. But Iran knew in the early 200s that the Assad regime was flirting with the West and that if it could balance Iran’s role it would like to. The uprising in 2011 led the regime deeper into the hands of Iran, making it more dependent on Iran and Russia. Increasingly the regime was hollowed out, losing tens of thousands of casualties that it couldn’t replace and inviting in more of the IRGC and IRGC allies such as Hezbollah and Shi’ites recruited from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Syria became a modern version of what Germany looked like during the Thirty Years War, a kind of massive black hole of suffering upon which was built a chess board for foreign powers.
The Syrian civil war began as one between Syrians. It looked like Syria had fallen into brief chaos, like Libya in 2011, but in fact the regime’s crackdown and the arming of the rebellion led to years of strife and destruction. Little by little, foreign actors moved in. Hezbollah in 2012-2013, ISIS and 50,000 of its foreign fighters in 2014, Russia in 2015, Turkey in 2016, and of course the US and Iran. The US, backing the Syrian Democratic Forces, came to control a third of Syria. Turkey took over another twenty percent. The regime eventually defeated the rebels in the south in the summer of 2018. But the regime then watched as Russia gave the approval for Turkish operation against Kurdish fighters in Afrin in January 2018 and also signed an Idlib ceasefire in September 2018. Russia was now the guarantor of Turkey’s role, because Russia was selling Turkey the S-400 air defense system. Russia, the ally of the Syrian regime, was also a kind of enabler of Turkey’s role. Russia could turn over more areas or not. It signed another deal on October 22 enabling Turkey to grab areas it had taken from the SDF and the Americans in October.
Now Syria appears partitioned, between Turkey in the north, a fading US influence in the east and south, and a growing Iranian influence in the south. Russia plays the big grandmaster watching all of this take place. But Russia is not interested in confronting the US or Iran or Turkey. Russia’s goal is to use Sochi and Astana, and even Geneva, to bring Iran and Turkey to the table again and again. The US is cut-out from this process and the US anyway sought to exclude its own SDF partners from Geneva. So long term, the US role in Syria is likely going to be deeply reduced or end.
But Iran’s role will grow. The problem for Iran is it has too many missions in Syria. It wants to cement its bases. It wants to build its “land bridge” to the sea and Hezbollah with an off-ramp toward the Golan. It wants to sign deals with Assad. And it wants to project influence along the Euphrates river valley towards Deir Ezzor.
Iran is struggling economically though. Protests at home harm its abilities abroad. It has an uphill struggle in Syria to maintain and expand its role. Iran has the technology that it wants to transfer, the precision guidance for instance that it hopes to put in Hezbollah’s hands. But it must be careful because protests in Iraq have also targeted Iran’s presence. Protests in Lebanon have also led to uncertainty there. Iran faces now what all great powers face as they become too powerful. They must manage their power. Iran says it is the “resistance.” But people are now “resisting” Iran throughout the region and at home. It’s bases are open targets, it has difficult conducting truly clandestine affairs. It’s main power is in human resources and deepening its human ties to places in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. This is how it gets its power, through its network of Shi’ite allies, and places like the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus where pro-Iranian fighters gather.Now Iran must determine what its next step is in Syria. The role of its IRGC Quds Force has been key to supporting the Assad regime while also benefiting on the side. But Iran understands that its role is entangled with the regime and also with the Russian role. Its presence must not undermine either of the others. In addition the Syrian regime and Russians are focused more on the north today, while there are questions about what the US is doing in the east. In the south and west therefore Iran’s forces have tended to be targeted by Israel over the last years. Iran boasts that it its IRGC believes the destruction of Israel is no longer just a dream. Towards that end it invested in new missiles, drones and other technology. It even transferred that technology to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Those transfers have made Iran’s role in Syria even more dangerous.

Vatican says Israeli-Palestinian peace process at risk after US move
Emily Judd, Al Arabiya EnglishWednesday, 20 November 2019
The Vatican said on Wednesday the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians had been put at risk after the US administration said it no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. “In the context of recent decisions that risk undermining further the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the already fragile regional stability, the Holy See reiterates its position of a two-state solution for two peoples,” the Vatican said in a statement. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announced Monday that the Trump administration no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank “inconsistent with international law.”The Vatican said it supported the right of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace within the borders recognized by the international community, and that the right “must be recognized, respected and implemented.” It urged compliance with UN resolutions. The Vatican, the government of the Roman Catholic Church, and its leader Pope Francis, have expressed disagreement with previous Trump administration decisions relating to Israeli-Palestinian issues. When US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December 2017, Pope Francis stated his concern over the decision and called for respect for the “status quo of the city, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations.”

Iran’s Rouhani claims victory in ‘historic test,’ blames foreigners
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani claimed victory for the government over unrest and said Iran had passed a “historic test,” referring to the Iranian government’s crackdown on protests in the country, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday. “The Iranian people have again succeeded at an historic test and shown that they will not let enemies benefit from the situation, even though they might have complaints about the country’s management,” Rouhani said in remarks carried by the state broadcaster IRIB on its website. Rouhani also blamed foreigners for the unrest, in which up to 200 protesters have reportedly been killed. His comments come after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said late Tuesday that the enemy had been “repelled” in Iran, where violent demonstrations over a petrol price hike have killed dozens.
With Reuters.

Russia says Turkey told Moscow no new Syria operation planned: Report
Reuters, Moscow/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Ankara had assured Moscow that it did not plan to launch a new military operation in Syria despite earlier comments, the TASS news agency reported. Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu agency on Monday cited Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying Ankara would launch a new military operation in northeast Syria if the area was not cleared of what he called terrorists. Lavrov also said that the withdrawal of Kurdish militants in northern Syria was almost complete, RIA reported.

France says concerned about reports of many deaths in Iran protests
Reuters, Paris/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
The French government said on Wednesday it was deeply concerned about reports of many deaths during protests in Iran and called on Tehran to respect its international human rights duties. France “expresses its deep concern over reports of the deaths of many demonstrators in recent days,” Foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told reporters in a daily online briefing. “France calls on Iran to respect its international human rights obligations,” she added. On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador in Tehran over US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s support for protesters demonstrating about fuel price hikes, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iran told the Swiss envoy, who represents US interests in the Islamic Republic because Iran and the US do not have formal diplomatic ties, that the official US statements were an interference in Iran’s internal affairs.

Khamenei says Iran has ‘repelled’ enemy in recent days
AFP, Tehran/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said late Tuesday that the enemy had been “repelled” in Iran, where violent demonstrations over a petrol price hike have killed dozens. Demonstrations broke out in the sanctions-hit country on Friday after it was announced the price of petrol would be raised by as much as 200 percent. “We have pushed back the enemy in the military arena. We have pushed back the enemy in the political war,” Khamenei said in a speech aired on state television late Tuesday. “We have repelled the enemy in the arena of security warfare... in recent days,” he said, adding that the unrest had not been the result of a popular movement. “The recent actions were security issues, not from the people,” he said. “We have repelled the enemy.”State television, which rarely shows any signs of dissent in Iran, has aired footage of masked young men appearing to clash with security forces.
The United Nations called for restraint on Tuesday and voiced alarm at reports dozens may have been killed in the violence. London-based rights group Amnesty International said more than 100 demonstrators were believed to have been killed across Iran since security forces were ordered to “crush” the protests. Iran’s economy has been battered since May last year when the US unilaterally withdrew from a 2015 nuclear agreement and re-imposed crippling sanctions.

Iran summons Swiss ambassador over US comments about unrest: Report
Reuters, Geneva/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador in Tehran on Wednesday over US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s support for protesters demonstrating about fuel price hikes, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iran told the Swiss envoy, who represents US interests in the Islamic Republic because Iran and the US do not have formal diplomatic ties, that the official US statements were an interference in Iran’s internal affairs. Pompeo reaffirmed on Saturday the US’s support for the Iranian people following countrywide protests that erupted on Friday causing at least 29 deaths following the Iranian government’s decision to hike the price of gas.Pompeo referenced a tweet he had posted in 2018 in a direct message to Iranians, saying: “The United Stated hears you. The United States supports you. The United States is with you.”

Iraqi officials: 27 wounded in renewed fighting in Baghdad
The Associated Press, Baghdad/Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Iraqi security officials say at least 27 protesters have been wounded in renewed clashes overnight in central Baghdad. The officials say the clashes occurred between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday near the Ahrar Bridge in the center of the capital. They spoke on condition of anonymity under regulations. Iraqi security forces used tear gas to repel demonstrators from advancing to the fortified Green Zone, the seat of government. There were no fatalities. The protesters had occupied one side of the bridge, with security forces deployed on the other.At least 320 protesters have been killed and thousands wounded since the unrest began on October 1, when tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets outraged by government corruption and poor basic services despite Iraq’s vast oil wealth.

Pentagon Report: ISIS Used Turkish Offensive in Syria to Regroup
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
ISIS took advantage of both the drawdown of US troops from northeastern Syria and the Turkish incursion to regroup and could prepare new attacks on the West, a report from the Pentagon said. "ISIS exploited the Turkish incursion and subsequent drawdown of US troops to reconstitute capabilities and resources within Syria and strengthen its ability to plan attacks abroad," the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General said in a report released Tuesday. President Donald Trump said on October 6 around 1,000 US troops were leaving northeast Syria, where they had kept an uneasy peace between neighboring Turkey and Syrian Kurdish fighters. Trump's move allowed an incursion by Turkey dubbed Operation Peace Spring aimed at destroying Kurdish fighters, who had led the fight against ISIS and run jails for captured extremists in their effectively autonomous area in northern Syria. Trump, who faced a backlash from Congress, including among key Republicans, has changed course several times, eventually announcing that a residual force would remain in Syria to protect oil fields. The Office of Inspector General, which is an independent investigative arm, said that ISIS "will likely have the 'time and space' to target the West and provide support to its 19 global branches and networks. In the long run, it "will probably seek to regain control of some Syrian population centers and expand its global footprint," the inspector general added, citing information provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
Meanwhile, the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed during a raid conducted by US special operations forces in Syria on October 26 "would likely have little effect on ISIS's ability to reconstitute," the DIA said, according to the report. Already the terrorist group has "has activated sleeper cells to increase attacks" against the Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, whom the United States relied upon in the fight against ISIS. The report states that US forces in Syria continue to arm SDF fighters but have stopped training them. By the end of the third quarter, the SDF had 100,000 fighters, according to the document.

Turkey Says About 100,000 Syrians Left Istanbul Since Early July
Istanbul- Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 November, 2019
Turkey’s Interior Minister said on Wednesday that around 100,000 Syrians living without approval in Istanbul had left it since early July, when the government set a deadline for Syrians not registered in the city to leave for other provinces. As sentiment towards Syrian refugees among Turks began to sour in recent years, authorities said Syrians not registered in Turkey’s largest city should return to the provinces in which they are registered by Oct. 30, or face forced removal. Turkey hosts some 3.6 million refugees who fled the eight-year-old civil war, more than any other country. The Syrian population in Istanbul, home to some 15 million people, had swollen to more than half a million, more than those in any other Turkish city. Syrians registered in other cities came to Istanbul, leading to an accumulation in the city, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told parliament.
“Around 100,000 Syrian have returned to provinces in which they are registered since July 12,” he said, adding that a total of 200,000 migrants had left the city. Turkey also houses migrants from other Middle Eastern and African nations. On Friday, the Istanbul governor’s office said more than 6,000 Syrian migrants in Istanbul were sent to temporary housing centers in other provinces since early July. Ankara wants to settle some Syrian refugees in a swathe of land it now controls in northeast Syria, after it launched an offensive last month against the Kurdish YPG militia. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch last month published reports saying Turkey is forcibly sending Syrian refugees to northern Syria. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called the claims in the reports “false and imaginary.”Turkey has deported 86,625 illegal migrants so far this year, compared to 56,000 in all of 2018, Soylu said.

Russia air raids, regime strikes in Syria kill at least 21: Monitor
AFP, Beirut/Thursday, 21 November 2019
Attacks by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and air raids by his ally Russia killed at least 21 civilians including 10 children in opposition-held Idlib province on Wednesday, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in an updated toll, said a ground-to-ground missile fired by regime forces that hit a makeshift camp for the displaced near Qah village close to the border with Turkey killed 15 civilians, including six children, and wounded around 40 others. The missile crashed near a maternity facility in the camp, it said. Elsewhere, “Russian military aircraft” targeted the town of Maaret al-Numan in the south of the province, the Observatory said, and “six civilians were killed, among them four children.”A number of people were wounded in the raid, some “in a critical state,” and the toll there was likely to rise, the Britain-based monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman reported. A photographer who works with AFP saw rescue workers retrieve the dust-covered body of a girl from debris and place her in an ambulance. The northwestern Idlib region is dominated by extremists of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS), formerly the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
Most of Idlib province remains out of the control of the Syrian regime, as do adjacent areas of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. These areas are also home to other extremist groups and militants. The Observatory has a wide network of sources on the ground and determines those responsible for such raids by the type of aircraft and weaponry used, as well as their flight plan. Between the end of April and the end of August, Idlib was pounded ceaselessly by Syrian soldiers backed by Russian air power. The Observatory estimates that nearly 1,000 civilians were killed in that period, and the UN says that more than 400,000 people were displaced. Moscow announced a ceasefire at the end of August, but the Observatory says there have been sporadic attacks since then, and that dozens of civilians have been killed. On October 22, in his first visit to the embattled northwestern region since 2011, Assad said defeating extremists there was the key to ending the country’s eight-year-old civil war. The war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions.

Turkish drone strike kills, injures civilians in YPG-controlled Syrian area: Media
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Thursday, 21 November 2019
A Turkish drone strike killed and injured several civilians in the People’s Protection Units (YPG) Syrian area of Ayn al-Arab, according to local media websites. The number of casualties was not immediately determined. Rudaw Media Network, an Iraqi-Kurdish publication, reported on the strike saying that two children were among the injured. “Due to an attack by Turkish drones on a civilian vehicle, two citizens were killed and several were injured,” the website’s correspondent reported. Videos and pictures of the injured lying on medical beds were posted on Twitter by Mohammed Hassan, a journalist and producer in northern Syria, as he describes himself in his Twitter biography. One video Hassan posted shows graphic scenes of two burnt bodies. Al Arabiya English could not independently confirm the accuracy of the video.

Halkbank seeks to challenge US jurisdiction before entering plea to charges
Reuters, New York/Thursday, 21 November 2019
Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank, which US prosecutors have criminally charged with helping Iran evade sanctions, said it should be able to challenge whether US courts can hear the case at all before it entered a formal plea, according to a courtfiling made public on Wednesday. The bank also rejected prosecutors’ claim that it was a “fugitive” for refusing to appear in federal court in Manhattan to enter a plea, and said that appearing there might be construed as accepting the court’s jurisdiction. “As a corporation, Halkbank cannot be a ‘fugitive’ since it has no physical body to present,” the bank said. Halkbank also said it will ask US District Judge Richard Berman, who has overseen related litigation, to remove himself from the case. A spokesman for US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan, who is not related to the judge, declined to comment. The US Department of Justice brought the criminal case on Oct. 16, in what the bank called an escalation of Washington’s sanctions on Ankara for Turkey’s military incursion in Syria. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called the case an “unlawful, ugly” step. It is unclear why Halkbank is seeking the judge’s recusal. Judge Berman previously presided over a criminal case against Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab and Halkbank director Mehmet Hakan Atilla. Zarrab had moved for Berman’s recusal on the grounds that he criticized Turkey’s government while attending a 2014 symposium in Istanbul. Zarrab pleaded guilty before testifying against Atilla, who was convicted and sentenced to 32 months in prison. Atilla returned to Turkey this year after leaving prison, and was named general manager of the Istanbul stock exchange. US prosecutors have said that Zarrab, Atilla, Halkbank and other Turkish officials schemed between 2012 and 2016 to help Iran spend revenue from oil and gas sales abroad using sham food and gold transactions, in violation of US sanctions. Erdogan condemned the case at the time as a political attack on his government.

Trudeau unveils new cabinet aimed at pushing priorities, soothing tensions
The Canadian Press/November 20/2019
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled Wednesday a larger cabinet that aims to advance Liberal campaign promises to tackle climate change and promote middle-class prosperity, while attempting to soothe regional tensions exacerbated by last month's election outcome.
The pivotal role in his new cabinet for a minority-government era went to Chrystia Freeland, who moved from the prestigious Global Affairs portfolio to become deputy prime minister and minister in charge of intergovernmental affairs. Freeland, whom Trudeau tapped to deal with mercurial U.S. President Donald Trump during the tense renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, will now be in charge of dealing with hostile conservative premiers across the country.
That will be particularly important in Canada's oil and gas heartland, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the Liberals were shut out on Oct. 21.
The Toronto MP, who has family roots in Alberta, won praise as a tough, canny negotiator during the trade talks. Her diplomatic and negotiating skills will be put to the test in dealing with Alberta's Jason Kenney, Saskatchewan's Scott Moe and Ontario's Doug Ford.
In a further sign of outreach to the West, Trudeau tapped Jonathan Wilkinson, formerly fisheries minister, to take on the environment portfolio.
The post will be central to the government's aim to take stronger measures to combat climate change while attempting to ensure Canada's transition off fossil fuels does not tank the economy, particularly in the oil-producing western provinces where separatist talk has escalated in the wake of the election. Although Wilkinson represents a British Columbia riding, he was born and raised in Saskatchewan and worked for the province's former NDP government.
Winnipeg MP Jim Carr, one of Trudeau's most reliable ministers who received a diagnosis of cancer the day after the election, is no longer in cabinet. But Trudeau has appointed him to be his "special representative for the Prairies ... (to) ensure that the people of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have a strong voice in Ottawa."Another of his most reliable ministers who is also battling cancer, New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc, remains in cabinet in a reduced role as president of the Queen's Privy Council. A bald LeBlanc, who recently received a stem cell transplant after rounds of chemotherapy, showed up for Wednesday's swearing-in ceremony wearing a face mask, which he removed briefly while taking the oath.
Seamus O'Regan was moved from Indigenous Services to take on Natural Resources, a crucial file as the government attempts to square the circle of tackling climate change while simultaneously expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline to carry Alberta crude to the B.C. coast for export overseas.
He hails from Newfoundland and Labrador, the only other oil-producing province. Trudeau's new lineup also includes outreach to Quebec, in response to a resurgence of the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the election.
Montreal MP Pablo Rodriguez, formerly Canadian Heritage minister, takes on the crucial role of government House leader. He will be responsible for charting a path for the Liberals, who hold only a minority of seats, to get their legislation through the House of Commons. Passage of legislation will require the support of at least one opposition party.Rodriguez has also been named political minister for Quebec — a position Trudeau had resisted creating until now. In all, Trudeau's new team includes 36 ministers — an increase of two — including 17 from Ontario, the province that ensured the Liberals' re-election, and 10 from Quebec. It maintains Trudeau's insistence on an equal number of men and women, adds two newly elected MPs and elevates five experienced MPs from the backbench. In addition to Carr, Trudeau has dropped two others from cabinet — former health minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, who will serve as deputy whip, and former science minister Kirsty Duncan, who will serve as deputy House leader.Only eight ministers were not moved, the most important being Bill Morneau who remains finance minister. But he will now be bolstered by Ottawa MP Mona Fortier, who takes on the newly created post of minister of middle-class prosperity and associate finance minister.

Top Diplomat Implicates Trump in Explosive Impeachment Testimony
Naharnet/November 20/2019
A senior U.S. diplomat directly implicated President Donald Trump Wednesday in a scheme to force Ukraine to probe a political rival, in bombshell testimony to a televised impeachment hearing. Gordon Sondland, the U.S. envoy to the European Union and a Trump ally, told lawmakers he followed Trump's orders in seeking a "quid pro quo" deal for Ukraine to probe Democrat Joe Biden in exchange for a White House summit. The US leader, Sondland said, directed him and other diplomats to work with his personal lawyer Giuliani, who he said mounted a pressure campaign on the government of Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Giuliani's demands, he said, were for Kiev to investigate Biden and to probe a conspiracy theory, espoused by Trump, that Ukraine helped Democrats against him in 2016. "Mr Giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky," Sondland said. Far from being a "rogue" operation outside normal US diplomatic channels, Sondland told the hearing top officials in the White House and State Department -- including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- were kept constantly informed. "We followed the president's orders," in working with Giuliani, he testified before the House Intelligence Committee.
'Witch Hunt must end NOW'
Democrats said Sondland's testimony strongly supported allegations of abuse of power that would justify Trump's impeachment. "Today's testimony is among the most significant evidence to date," said Adam Schiff, the committee chairman leading the inquiry. "It goes right to the heart of the issue of bribery as well as other potential high crimes or misdemeanors," he said. Tweeting as he headed to Texas on board Air Force One, Trump asserted on the contrary that Sondland had exonerated him, and demanded an immediate end to the impeachment probe. "Impeachment Witch Hunt is now OVER!" Trump wrote. "This Witch Hunt must end NOW. So bad for our Country!"Addressing reporters earlier at the White House, Trump reenacted segments of the day's testimony to hammer home his point. "'What do you want from Ukraine?'" the president quoted Sondland as asking him, reading from large-print notes. "Here is my answer: 'I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing,'" added the president. "I would say that means it's all over."Trump also sought to distance himself from Sondland -- whose testimony was closely watched as a political appointee -- saying he did "not know him very well."Top officials knew of policy
A hotel developer named ambassador after donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration, Sondland was at the center of efforts to convince Zelensky to do the U.S. bidding on the investigations in order to obtain a meeting with Trump, and also to unlock $391 million on aid put on hold in July.
Sondland told lawmakers a White House summit was explicitly tied to the investigations, meant to target Burisma, an Ukrainian energy company on which former vice president Biden's son Hunter had held a paid board position. But he said he figured out himself that the unexplained, White House-ordered hold on security aid was also tied to the investigations -- although he never discussed the issue with Trump. "In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 election and Burisma, as Mr Giuliani had demanded," he said. "I never heard from President Trump that aid was conditioned on an announcement" of the investigations, he added.
Pressed on how much he knew of Trump's motivations and his discussions with other officials, Sondland frequently said he "could not remember" certain details. But he stressed that all the top foreign affairs-related officials in the Trump administration were "in the loop" on his Ukraine activities.
He said Pompeo had directed the U.S. pointman on Ukraine, Ambassador Kurt Volker, to also work with Giuliani. Asked if Pompeo had been made aware that Trump wanted a Ukrainian investigation of Biden in exchange for a meeting and aid, Sondland replied: "Yes."Pompeo has repeatedly denounced the impeachment inquiry and has drawn fire for failing to defend career employees caught up in the scandal. Sondland's testimony firmed up the possibility the investigation could wrap up this week, with evidence then sent to the House Judiciary Committee to draw up articles of impeachment -- formal charges against the president.Trump's impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House would place him on trial in the Senate, where a Republican majority could protect him from removal.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 20-21/2019
Israeli air strikes knock over dozens of Iranian Guards and Syrian army targets
DEBKAfile/November 20/2019
Israel fighter jets early Wednesday, Nov. 20 smashed dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Syrian military targets in Syria – payback for the four-rocket volley against the Golan. They included ground-to-air missile batteries, command centers, weapons stores and bases. The IDF reported that Syrian anti-air batteries were destroyed after opening fire on the Israeli jets, although a warning was relayed to Damascus to abstain. Syrian military sources describe the Israeli fighters as shooting missiles from airspace over the Golan and Lebanon. At the end of the attack, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a brief statement: “I have said clearly that if anyone harms us, we will harm them. That is what we did tonight to the Iranian Al Qods Brigades and Syrian military targets, after rockets were aimed from Syria against Israel. We shall continue to vigorously safeguard Israel’s security.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources: Israel and Iran have recently embarked on an extraordinary duel, conducted between Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi for the IDF and and the Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian general is determined to draw Israel into a drawn-out war of attrition on multiple fronts, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, whereas the Israeli general’s tactics center on cutting short a potentially slow, debilitating conflict by sharp strikes against Iranian targets and those of its allies. Iran never knows when these surprise attacks are coming or where. Last week, Iran challenged Israel from the Gaza Strip with 450 Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets. This week, the site of the duel moved to Syria.

23 killed as Israel strikes over 20 Iranian, Syrian regime targets
جيرازلم بوست: مقتل 23 شخص في سوريا منهم 20 من الإيرانيين جراء غارات إسرائيلية على اهداف داخل سورية
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett to Iran: You are no longer immune. Wherever you stretch your tentacles-we will hack them off.
Israel warned Iran from carrying out further attacks against the Jewish State after Israeli Air Force fighter jets carried out a wave of retaliatory air strikes against dozens of military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force (IRGC) and the Syrian army on Tuesday night in Syria.
Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said following the strikes that "the rules have changed: Anyone who shoots at the State of Israel during the day will not sleep at night. Like last week and now this week. Our message to Iran's leaders is simple: You are no longer immune. Wherever you stretch your tentacles-we will hack them off. The IDF will continue to protect Israeli citizens According to a senior official in Israel’s Defense Establishment, the “head of the Iranian octopus” sits in Tehran but continues to attempt to surround Israel with proxy groups-Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian militias in Syria, Islamic Jihad and to some extent Hamas.“We have not yet threatened the head of the octopus - Tehran. But it is possible to start approaching the head of the Iranian octopus,” he warned.
IDF Spokesperson Brig.Gen. Hidai Zilberman told reporters on Wednesday the tens of targets struck in Damascus, west of Damascus and the Syrian Golan Heights overnight belonging both to the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Quds Force were carried out within minutes and were all located within 80 kilometers of Israel’s border. While the launchers which fired the rockets on Tuesday morning were not struck, some 20 other targets struck included advanced air defense systems (not the Russian-made S-300 missile defense batteries), surface-to-air missiles, reconnaissance sites and warehouses, the National Defense Building at the Damascus International Airport which houses the Quds Force headquarters and other military positions. According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 23 people, including 16 non-Syrians who are most likely Iranians, were killed in the Israeli airstrikes. The senior Israel defense official acknowledged that there were injuries and a number of Iranian fatalities. Numerous others were injured, including a young woman who was wounded by shrapnel that hit the suburb of Qudsaya, west of Damascus.
“We express the wish for a speedy recovery for them,” the Assad government said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA. According to the senior Israeli defense official, the strikes were one of the largest which struck Iranian targets in Syria and was finalized Tuesday night by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi at the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv. “Iran struck Israel, we can’t forget that. Iran attacked Israel and that’s not acceptable,” he continued, saying that Israel will strike harshly without giving any warning if attacked in the future. “We are changing the rules. Even when it comes to almost negligible attacks, whose impact is small, we are changing the equation and our retaliatory attack will be widespread. When I looked at the South when a small number of rockets are fired and we respond with a small retaliatory strike, then that sort of situation gets to be acceptable. We have to strike harshly to all attacks,” the official said, noting the link of the assassination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Bahaa abu al-Ata in Gaza and the rockets of yesterday.
According to the senior officer in the defense establishment, the National Defense Building, which used to be a hotel, was a center for the Quds force.
“We will not let Iran entrench in Syria,” Zilberman said, adding that the IDF “is prepared to respond harshly to further attacks if necessary. We will not accept an Iranian force near our borders and will continue to work against it.”
Local Syrian media reported that two residential buildings were also struck from shrapnel from a Syrian air defense missile fired towards Israeli jets, sending one family including two children to hospital.
Syria responded quickly to the airstrikes, publishing numerous photos and According to SANA, Damascus promised to provide assistance to those who suffered the “brutal Israeli aggression” by repairing the homes of those affected.
It said that help would arrive immediately to those areas struck, with rescue teams sent to clear rubble in the village of Beit Saber in the Sasa district south of Damascus where a house was destroyed. According to SOHR, a man along with his wife and son were pulled from the rubble of the home Ambulances and fire engines were sent to other areas.
"During the attack, Syrian air missiles were fired, despite a clear warning that was ignored. As a result, several Syrian aerial defense batteries were destroyed," the IDF said.
While the main goal were Iranian targets, the official said, the secondary goal were six air-to-ground missile batteries belonging to the Syrian regime “to maintain freedom of action and protect our pilots."
While the IDF Spokesperson stressed that no special instructions for the North have been given, the military was prepared for three possible scenarios: no response, a minor response, and a more significant response.
"The IDF is highly prepared for a variety of scenarios and will continue to operate as required for the security of the citizens of the State of Israel. The Home Front Command instructions should be obeyed if required."
The strike which began around 1AM on Wednesday morning was carried out in response to four rockets which the IDF said were launched by an Iranian force from Syrian territory towards northern Israeli territory in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
All rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, causing no damage or injuries.
"The Iranian attack against Israeli territory yesterday is further proof of the current Iranian purpose in Syria. Their presence in the region is a danger to Israel's security, regional stability and to the Syrian regime,” the military said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement following the attack, saying in it that "I made it clear that whoever harms us - we will harm them."
"That is what we did tonight in Syria against Iranian Quds Force targets and Syrian military targets, after rockets were fired from its territory towards Israel. We will continue to aggressively guard the security of Israel."
Syrian news agency Sana reported that Syrian regime air defense systems were able to intercept some of the 11 of the 18 missiles fired by a total of 6 jets before they were able to reach their targets.
According to SANA, regime defenses came under “a heavy attack” by Israeli fighter jets that targeted the Damascus area from the Israeli Golan Heights and Lebanese airspace near the town of Marjayoun.
Israel has been carrying out a war-between-wars campaign since 2013 in an attempt to prevent Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah from obtaining advanced weapons to use against the Jewish state and from entrenching itself in Syria.
Thousands of strikes have been carried out over the years in Syria and according to foreign reports has seen strikes in neighboring Iraq.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned in recent weeks of the increased threat posed by the Islamic Republic which they say is getting bolder and more willing to respond to Israeli attacks on Iranian and Iranian-backed militias and infrastructure.
*Seth Frantzman contributed to this report.
https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Syrian-air-defenses-intercept-missiles-over-Damascus-reports-608381

Syria is an increasingly dangerous chessboard for Iran in the Middle East
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Iran has so many forces in Syria that in 2018 the US included in its official policy the “removal of all Iranian-led forces and proxies from the country.”
Iran has spent many years exploiting the weakness of the Syrian regime to entrench its forces in the country, hoping to come out of the Syrian civil war in a much stronger position in the Middle East. It is part of Iran’s grand strategy through which it has also sought to take over parts of Iraq’s government and lever unprecedented influence over Lebanon’s political system. There isn’t much standing in Iran’s way, as the US has indicated its long-term objective is to leave Syria and its role in Iraq is tailored only to fighting ISIS. Iran’s role in Syria increasingly threatens Israel, as revealed through recent tensions and numerous air strikes on Iranian targets that Israel has said it carried out over the years.
Iran’s role in Iraq has a new spotlight on it after 700 pages of documents were leaked from Iran’s intelligence services to The Intercept and The New York Times. In Syria Iran’s role is more murky but it is also well known. Iran has so many forces in Syria that in 2018 the US included in its official policy the “removal of all Iranian-led forces and proxies from the country.” US recent studies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, include classified information on Iran’s presence, but a recent Inspector General report about the US-led operations against ISIS noted that “the bulk of Iranian-commander forces were concentrated in the western half of Syria prior to the USS withdrawal.” Iranian-backed militias are in close proximity to US forces “as part of the Iranian goal of forging ground lines of communications from the Iraqi border.”
We also know that satellite images from ImageSat International show Iran continues construction of its Imam Ali base near Albukamal on the Iraqi border. Other reports indicated that Iran had up to 19 bases in Syria in 2018.
From Iran’s perspective, Syria has been a key ally and a conduit for arms shipments to Hezbollah. This has gone back decades. But Iran knew in the early 200s that the Assad regime was flirting with the West and that if it could balance Iran’s role it would like to. The uprising in 2011 led the regime deeper into the hands of Iran, making it more dependent on Iran and Russia. Increasingly the regime was hollowed out, losing tens of thousands of casualties that it couldn’t replace and inviting in more of the IRGC and IRGC allies such as Hezbollah and Shi’ites recruited from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Syria became a modern version of what Germany looked like during the Thirty Years War, a kind of massive black hole of suffering upon which was built a chess board for foreign powers.
The Syrian civil war began as one between Syrians. It looked like Syria had fallen into brief chaos, like Libya in 2011, but in fact the regime’s crackdown and the arming of the rebellion led to years of strife and destruction. Little by little, foreign actors moved in. Hezbollah in 2012-2013, ISIS and 50,000 of its foreign fighters in 2014, Russia in 2015, Turkey in 2016, and of course the US and Iran. The US, backing the Syrian Democratic Forces, came to control a third of Syria. Turkey took over another twenty percent. The regime eventually defeated the rebels in the south in the summer of 2018. But the regime then watched as Russia gave the approval for Turkish operation against Kurdish fighters in Afrin in January 2018 and also signed an Idlib ceasefire in September 2018. Russia was now the guarantor of Turkey’s role, because Russia was selling Turkey the S-400 air defense system. Russia, the ally of the Syrian regime, was also a kind of enabler of Turkey’s role. Russia could turn over more areas or not. It signed another deal on October 22 enabling Turkey to grab areas it had taken from the SDF and the Americans in October.
Now Syria appears partitioned, between Turkey in the north, a fading US influence in the east and south, and a growing Iranian influence in the south. Russia plays the big grandmaster watching all of this take place. But Russia is not interested in confronting the US or Iran or Turkey. Russia’s goal is to use Sochi and Astana, and even Geneva, to bring Iran and Turkey to the table again and again. The US is cut-out from this process and the US anyway sought to exclude its own SDF partners from Geneva. So long term, the US role in Syria is likely going to be deeply reduced or end.
But Iran’s role will grow. The problem for Iran is it has too many missions in Syria. It wants to cement its bases. It wants to build its “land bridge” to the sea and Hezbollah with an off-ramp toward the Golan. It wants to sign deals with Assad. And it wants to project influence along the Euphrates river valley towards Deir Ezzor.
Iran is struggling economically though. Protests at home harm its abilities abroad. It has an uphill struggle in Syria to maintain and expand its role. Iran has the technology that it wants to transfer, the precision guidance for instance that it hopes to put in Hezbollah’s hands. But it must be careful because protests in Iraq have also targeted Iran’s presence. Protests in Lebanon have also led to uncertainty there. Iran faces now what all great powers face as they become too powerful. They must manage their power. Iran says it is the “resistance.” But people are now “resisting” Iran throughout the region and at home. It’s bases are open targets, it has difficult conducting truly clandestine affairs. It’s main power is in human resources and deepening its human ties to places in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. This is how it gets its power, through its network of Shi’ite allies, and places like the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus where pro-Iranian fighters gather.
Now Iran must determine what its next step is in Syria. The role of its IRGC Quds Force has been key to supporting the Assad regime while also benefiting on the side. But Iran understands that its role is entangled with the regime and also with the Russian role. Its presence must not undermine either of the others. In addition the Syrian regime and Russians are focused more on the north today, while there are questions about what the US is doing in the east. In the south and west therefore Iran’s forces have tended to be targeted by Israel over the last years. Iran boasts that it its IRGC believes the destruction of Israel is no longer just a dream. Towards that end it invested in new missiles, drones and other technology. It even transferred that technology to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Those transfers have made Iran’s role in Syria even more dangerous.

Ex-Mossad chief: Israel must disrupt Iranian influence in Iraq
Jerusalem Post/November 20/2019
Yatom was responding to hundreds of newly leaked Iranian documents that offered a detailed portrait of how aggressively and successfully Tehran has penetrated Baghdad.
Israeli intelligence must work to disrupt Iranian influence and its natural advantages in Iraq that could endanger Israeli security and Western interests, former Mossad chief Danny Yatom told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
Reflecting over Monday’s reports in The Intercept and The New York Times regarding hundreds of newly leaked Iranian documents that offered a detailed portrait of how aggressively and successfully Tehran has penetrated Baghdad, Yatom said that the challenge was considerable, but that Israel could rise to the moment.
“Iran has a big advantage,” the former Mossad chief said. “There are many Iranians in Iraq,” highlighting that this home-field advantage makes it much easier “to build large facilities from which they can fire missiles” on Israel.
Yatom noted that both Israeli intelligence and the country’s aerial power might be in play, with Israel already having suspecting Iran-loyal militias that were building new capacities to potentially attack Israel from within Iraq.
“Iran wants to influence Iraq’s prime minister who often acts as if he is acting for them,” Yatom explained. “He is Shi’ite. Also, the prime minister before him was Shi’ite, but the newest one seems to lean even more toward” the Islamic Republic.
Noting that the current Iraqi prime minister “is not stopping Iran from sending militias into Iraq or building facilities there,” Yatom said that another issue raised by the report was the enhanced opportunity Iran has in Iraq to try to turn CIA, US State Department and other Western officials to start working for them.
“Iran is exploiting all of its options, not just in Iraq itself,” but using its penetration of Iraq to “recruit spies who will spy on Israel, the US and NATO states.”
Tehran’s goal continues to be using Iraqi territory “to train, to prepare attacks, to fire rockets that can reach Israel, and to spread out” its capabilities for attacking Israel and adversaries like the Saudis to as many places as possible, including Yemen, “so that it is harder for Israel, the US” and others to manage.
Despite all of the freedom that Iraq is giving Iran to operate in its territory and the potential cover that this gives the Islamic Republic, Yatom said that he did not think Iraq itself “has any interest in clashing with Israel directly. It is enough to give Iran lots of freedom.”
Yatom lamented that “until the US withdrew from Iraq, US influence was strong enough that Iran did very little there besides work with Shi’ite groups like that of Muqtada al-Sadr,” which, though problematic, was not nearly as threatening to Israel and the West as current groups directly controlled by Iran.
However, Yatom was still confident that Israeli intelligence has the capacity to penetrate Iraq to perform surveillance regarding Iranian forces and militias. “Israel always needs an intelligence presence in every place that endangers us and any place where there are Iranians,” he said, adding that although there were always challenges, it was easier to collect intelligence in Iraq than in Iran.
This was a strong statement given that in January 2018, dozens of Mossad agents penetrated the heart of Tehran to make off with the Iranian’s secret nuclear files.
The Iranian intelligence documents that were revealed on Monday went into great detail about their work, especially regarding al-Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani, to embed themselves into every area of Iraqi affairs.
Documents from the leaked cables detail years of painstaking work by Iranian spies to co-opt the country’s leaders, buy-off Iraqi agents working for the US to switch sides, and infiltrate Iraq’s political, economic, and religious life. Mainly, the documents portray Iran as broadly outplaying the US within the Iraqi arena, especially when the CIA started to cut back its investment in Iraq.
One Iraqi nicknamed in the cables as “Donnie Brasco” turned to Iran for protection when the CIA started cutting many of its Iraqi agents loose.
He promised to tell Iran everything he knew about American intelligence gathering in Iraq – it was all for sale.
Monday’s report said that the documents indicate that he revealed “the locations of CIA safe houses; the names of hotels where CIA operatives met with agents; details of his weapons and surveillance training; and the names of other Iraqis working as spies for the Americans.”
Yatom made it clear that unlike the US, Israel would need to play the same longer-term game that the Iranians are playing, without dropping out of the game prematurely.
Some of the Iranian intelligence cables describe real-life espionage capers in dark alleyways and shopping malls, or under the cover of a hunting excursion or a birthday party.
These documents describe informants lurking at the Baghdad airport, copiously photographing American soldiers and performing surveillance of coalition military flights.
The archive even contains expense reports from Iraq’s intelligence ministry going deep into minutia, like €87.50 spent on gifts for a Kurdish commander.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Ex-Mossad-chief-Israel-must-disrupt-Iranian-influence-in-Iraq-608353

On Development of Iranian Influence In The Arab Mashreq
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/November 20/2019
Forty years ago, in 1979, the story that deserves to be recounted over and over again, began with the expansion of Iranian influence in the Arab Mashreq. Let us be harsh to ourselves and admit that our illusions had the upper hand in that expansion - our illusions that found what feeds them in authoritarian and despotic ambitions that are far from being fictional.
The Iranian Revolution took place that year. A very large majority in the Arab world supported it and was enthusiastic about it. The reasons were many, but the most important of all was the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
In 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser died without fulfilling his promise to liberate Palestine. Instead, the longed-for liberation diminished and was replaced by the demand to regain the territories occupied in 1967.
In the same year, the Palestinian resistance suffered a major defeat in Jordan. For those who consider the regional situation was limited to this issue, things seemed to be going from bad to worse. The “victory” of the 1973 war resulted in an Egyptian-Syrian conflict, and then an Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation in 1978-79.
Meanwhile, in 1976, Hafez al-Assad sent his forces to Lebanon, supporting the “Christian Right,” and terminating the Palestinian revolution. Khomeini’s revolution came to many as rain in the desert. The ally of Israel and America’s agent, the Shah of Iran, has fallen. The ayatollah severed relations with the Hebrew state and turned its embassy in Tehran into the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The US Embassy itself was stormed and its citizens abducted. Some young Iranians, who received military training in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, have become symbols of the new era.
Thus, we started to recite: They have their Sadat, who reconciled with Israel, and we have our Khomeini, who will pray in Jerusalem. At that time, Tehran was talking about an “Islamic unity” that transcended sects and groups.
But we failed to notice, or some of us missed that the Constitution issued by the revolution says in Article 12 of its first chapter that the “official religion of Iran is Islam and the Jaafari doctrine… could never be changed. The other Islamic sects, which include the Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, Hanbali and Zaidi doctrines, are fully respected and their followers are free to perform their religious rites according to their jurisprudence.”
Soon many things began to change. It was indeed Saddam Hussein who started the foolish war hoping to stop Iran’s export of its revolution, but it was Khomeini who decided to continue with it. The human and material costs on both sides did not stop Khomeini. In the meantime, sectarian tension throughout the region has been intensifying. The two warring parties contaminated the Middle East with sectarian and racist feelings.
This policy was accompanied by adherence to the three Gulf islands that the Shah had occupied in 1971. Some have concluded that the new system was not the opposite of the former and that, contrary to its claim, it practices sectarian and national discrimination. The PLO attempted to withdraw the Palestine card from the grip of the Iranian system, by standing in Baghdad’s ranks. But Assad’s Damascus kept that card with the Iranian hand after organizing its revenue sharing.
In the first three years of the Gulf War, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were founded in the Syrian capital. But shouting about Palestine, Israel and the resistance did not prevent the exposure of the Iran Gate scandal or the Contra affair in the mid-1980s. Under Ronald Reagan’s second presidential term, the United States facilitated the sale of arms to Iran to finance Nicaraguan contra-fighters - which US law prevents them from funding - as well as to release Western abductees in Lebanon who were kidnapped by Iran’s allies. Through Assad’s Syria and in the name of Palestine, the greatest ploy was founded in the history of the Arab Mashreq. Throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the new century, the efforts of the Israeli right combined with those of Tehran and Damascus, through their Palestinian followers, to destroy any progress that peace in the region might make.
Peace was also forbidden in Lebanon after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, but turning the ploy into an imperial project required the removal of the Iraqi buffer. The 2003 US war that overthrew the Baathist tyranny has also destroyed that buffer. This was preceded by the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which reassured Tehran’s western front.
Tehran and Damascus have turned their staunch hostility toward Iraq.
Since then, there has been no national home in any of the Levant countries. Iran has become an active player in every region, always under the pretext of fighting Israel. When the Syrian revolution exploded, and it was practically the greatest challenge to the Iranian system of deception and control, Tehran crushed it with the help of its Arab arms. We remember these facts as we watch the developments of the Iraqi and Lebanese revolutions, and hear protesters in Iran reciting the chants of their “green” revolution in 2009: “Not for Gaza, not for Lebanon, my soul is for Iran.”

Spain: Surge in Support for Conservative Populists
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/November 20/2019
Spain's media establishment has prohibited representatives of Vox from appearing on national television — apparently in an effort to prevent Spanish voters from knowing more about the Vox platform.
Vox received a major boost after Spanish television was required to allow Abascal to participate, for the first time, in a nationally televised presidential debate, on November 4. More than eight million voters tuned in to the debate, in which Abascal was confident, relaxed, looked his opponents directly in the eye and exuded common sense. Millions of Spaniards who had never before seen the Vox leader speak learned first-hand that the party is patriotic, not the fascist threat portrayed by its detractors in the media.
Vox says that it is "a movement created to put the institutions of government at the service of Spaniards, in contrast to the current model that puts Spaniards at the service of the politicians."
"Vox is the common-sense party, which gives voice to what millions of Spaniards think in their homes; the only party that fights against suffocating political correctness. Vox does not tell Spaniards how they should think, speak or feel. We tell the media and the parties to stop imposing their beliefs on society." — From the Vox mission statement.
Spain's conservative populist party, Vox, more than doubled its seats in parliament after winning 3.6 million votes in general elections held on November 10. It is now the third-largest party in Spain. Pictured: Vox leader Santiago Abascal speaks at an election rally, on October 31, 2019.
Spain's populist party, Vox, more than doubled its seats in parliament after winning 3.6 million votes in general elections held on November 10. The fast-rising conservative party, which entered parliament for the first time only eight months ago, is now the third-largest party in Spain.
Vox leaders campaigned on a "traditional values" platform of law and order, love of country and a hardline approach to anti-constitutional separatists in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia.
Vox's meteoric rise is a direct result of the political vacuum created by the mainstream center-right Popular Party, which in recent years has drifted to the left on a raft of domestic and foreign policy issues, including that of uncontrolled mass migration.
The Socialist Party won the election with 28% of the vote — far short of an outright majority. The Popular Party won 20.8% and Vox won 15.1%. The rest of the votes went to a dozen other parties ranging from the far-left party Podemos (9.8%), the centrist libertarian party Ciudadanos (6.8%), Basque and Catalan nationalist parties and a hodge-podge of regional parties from Aragón, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Galicia, Melilla and Navarra. In all, more than a dozen political parties are now represented in parliament.
Spain has had a multi-party system since the country emerged from dictatorship in 1975, but two parties, the Socialist Party and the Popular Party, predominated until the financial crisis in 2008. After it, both parties underwent ideological splits that resulted in the establishment of breakaway parties.
The fragmentation of Spanish politics has made it difficult to form a coalition government: the November election was the fourth in four years. In the election held in April 2019, Vox won 2.6 million votes, or 10.3%, and entered Parliament for the first time with 24 seats. In the November vote, Vox won nearly a million additional votes and will now have 52 seats in Parliament.
Vox was established in 2013 in response to concerns that mainstream politicians in the Popular Party were failing to stop the Catalan independence movement, halt mass migration and combat the "cultural hegemony" of the left.
Vox's rise has been fueled by its uncompromising stance after Catalan separatists in 2017 declared independence from Spain. Mainstream politicians, fearful of fueling the independence movement, have appeared weak and wavering. Vox leader Santiago Abascal, by contrast, has called for a state of emergency to be imposed in Catalonia, and for Catalan separatist parties to be outlawed.
Politicians on both the left and the right have sought to undermine Vox by branding the party, among other terms, as fascist, racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, reactionary, homophobic and anti-democratic.
Vox, however, does not fit the traditional left-right paradigm: an estimated 300,000 voters who normally vote for the Socialist Party are believed to have voted for Vox in this election.
After Vox entered Parliament in April, prosecutors in Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain, said that they were investigating Javier Ortega Smith, the second-ranking leader of Vox, for an alleged hate crime after they received a complaint from a Muslim group called "Muslims Against Islamophobia" (Musulmanes Contra la Islamofobia).
At a rally in Valencia on September 16, 2018, Ortega Smith had declared that Europe's "common enemy" is the "Islamist invasion":
"Our common enemy, the enemy of Europe, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of progress, the enemy of democracy, the enemy of the family, the enemy of life, the enemy of the future is called the Islamist invasion.
"What is at stake is what we understand or know as civilization. It is under serious threat. We are not alone. More and more Europeans are standing up because they are suffering in their cities, on their streets and in their neighborhoods due to the application of Sharia law. They are not willing to have their cathedrals torn down and forcibly replaced with mosques.
"They are not willing to have their women cover their faces with a black cloth and be forced to walk ten steps behind — to be treated worse than camels. They are not willing to extinguish what we understand as civilization and a respect for rights and freedom."
The criminal inquiry appeared aimed at silencing critical discussion of Islam ahead of national elections.
Spain's media establishment has also prohibited representatives of Vox from appearing on national television — apparently in an effort to prevent Spanish voters from knowing more about the Vox platform.
After Vox entered Parliament in April 2019, however, Abascal and other Vox leaders were granted more media exposure. Vox received a major boost after Spanish television was required to allow Abascal to participate, for the first time, in a nationally televised presidential debate, on November 4. More than eight million voters tuned in to the debate, in which Abascal was confident, relaxed, looked his opponents directly in the eye and exuded common sense. Millions of Spaniards who had never before seen the Vox leader speak learned first-hand that the party is patriotic, not the fascist threat portrayed by its detractors in the media.
Vox (based on the Latin word for voice) describes itself as a socially conservative political project aimed at defending traditional Spanish values from the challenges posed by mass migration, multiculturalism and globalism. Vox's foundational mission statement affirms that the party is dedicated to constitutional democracy, free-market capitalism and the rule of law. In foreign policy, Vox is pro-Israel, pro-American and pro-NATO. Party leaders have called for Spain to double its defense spending to meet its commitments to the transatlantic alliance. In domestic policy, Vox's stated priority is to enact constitutional reforms aimed at preventing the territorial disintegration of Spain from threats by Basque nationalism and Catalan separatism.
Vox says that it is "a movement created to put the institutions of government at the service of Spaniards, in contrast to the current model that puts Spaniards at the service of the politicians." Its mission statement says:
"Vox is the common-sense party, which gives voice to what millions of Spaniards think in their homes; the only party that fights against suffocating political correctness. Vox does not tell Spaniards how they should think, speak or feel. We tell the media and the parties to stop imposing their beliefs on society.
"Our project is summed up in the defense of Spain, of the family and of life; in reducing the size of the state, guaranteeing equality between Spaniards and expelling the government from your private life.... Our discourse stems from our convictions, regardless of whether they are more or less popular. In short, Vox is the party of a living Spain, free and brave.
A 100-point electoral program shows that Vox is not "far right" or "extreme right" but rather a traditional conservative party. Vox's electoral program includes the following policy proposals:
Spanish Unity and Sovereignty: Implement a series of legal measures aimed at ending Catalan separatism; provide "maximum legal protection" to national symbols and emblems, especially the flag, the national anthem and the Spanish Monarchy; create a comprehensive plan for the education, dissemination and protection of national identity and Spain's contribution to civilization and universal history, "with special attention to the deeds and feats of our national heroes."
Immigration: Deport illegal immigrants; deport legal immigrants who commit serious crimes in Spain; increase the legal penalties for those involved in people smuggling; increase the language and integration requirements for the acquisition of Spanish nationality; and adapt immigration quotas to the needs of the Spanish economy.
Defense, Security and Borders: Close all mosques that adhere to Wahhabism, Salafism of other fundamentalist interpretation of Islam; require Islamic leaders in Spain to collaborate with Spanish authorities to detect Islamic radicals; prohibit the teaching of Islam in public schools; include in national crime statistics data about the nationality and countries of origin of offenders.
Economy and Resources: Reduce public spending; eliminate redundant government positions or organizations; reduce income taxes; introduce a flat tax; eliminate inheritance taxes; improve the tax situation for families with one or more children; promote the reindustrialization of Spain; make it easier to open new businesses by reducing red tape.
Healthcare: Eliminate free healthcare for illegal immigrants and require co-payments for anyone who has lived in Spain for less than ten years.
Europe and Abroad: Promote a new European treaty along the lines defended by the Visegrad Group of countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) in terms of borders, national sovereignty and respect for the values of European culture; increase the weight of Spain in EU decision-making; reduce the EU budget; promote bilateralism in international relations; withdraw from supranational organizations if they are contrary to the interests of Spain; creation of an agency to help threatened Christian minorities, imitating the initiative of Hungary.
Vox's growing appeal also rests on the fact that it is the only political party in Spain fundamentally to reject political correctness. Vox leaders speak with a frankness and clarity of conviction long unheard of in multicultural Spain.
"We are neither a fascist party, nor the extreme right, nor do we eat children, nor are we totalitarians," Ortega Smith recently said in an interview with the Espejo Público television program. "We are the only party that is defending the constitution and democracy [against Catalan separatists]."
Vox could best be described as "civilizationist," a term coined by historian Daniel Pipes to describe parties that "cherish Europe's and the West's traditional culture and want to defend it from assault by immigrants aided by the left." In an essay titled, "Europe's Civilizationist Parties," Pipes wrote:
"Civilizationalist parties are populist, anti-immigration, and anti-Islamization. Populist means nursing grievances against the system and a suspicion of an elite that ignores or denigrates those concerns....
"Civilizationist parties, led by Italy's League, are anti-immigration, seeking to control, reduce, and even reverse the immigration of recent decades, especially that of Muslims and Africans. These two groups stand out not because of prejudice ('Islamophobia' or racism) but due to their being the least assimilable of foreigners, an array of problems associated with them, such as not working and criminal activity, and a fear that they will impose their ways on Europe.
"Finally, the parties are anti-Islamization. As Europeans learn about Islamic law (the Shari'a), they increasingly focus on its role concerning women's issues, such as niqabs and burqas, polygamy, taharrush (sexual assault), honor killings, and female genital mutilation. Other concerns deal with Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims, including Christophobia and Judeophobia, jihadi violence, and the insistence that Islam enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis other religions."
Addressing voters after the November 10 election results, Abascal said:
"For us, the main urgency today, beyond debates about electoral acts, is to demand from the government the complete restoration of the constitutional order in Catalonia and the return of freedom to millions of Catalans who feel kidnapped by a separatist coup that acts with impunity....
"We estimate that approximately 300,000 Spaniards who voted for the Socialist Party on April 28 have now opted for Vox. These results make Vox a true containment dike and a hope for millions of Spaniards. The containment dike is against Catalan separatism and against the totalitarian legislation of the progressives who, for the first time in a long time, will have a firm opposition and close vigilance."
A Spanish political commentator called "Elentir" wrote about the significance of Vox's electoral success:
"Some thought that the progressive dictatorship had no turning back, that little or nothing could be done in the face of the imposition of gender ideology and the culture of death, in the face of the efforts of the big parties to impose a social-democratic consensus that puts an increasing share of our wealth in the hands of politicians, in the face of multiculturalism and illegal immigration, in the face of a leftist feminism that criminalizes males, and in the face of an absurd territorial model that has put the necessary resources in the hands of separatists to break our national unity. A handful of brave men, however, kept the flame of hope burning and refused to surrender. They decided to do what until then was a taboo in public life: to engage in a battle of ideas against this progressive dictatorship....
"The rise of Vox began with the 12 deputies elected in the Andalusian elections in December 2018. In April 2019, Vox won 24 seats in Parliament becoming the fifth-largest political force in all of Spain. Today Vox has achieved what only a year ago seemed impossible: to become the third-largest force. And it does so by overcoming the barrier of the 50 deputies.
"This number is not trivial. According to Article 162 of the Constitution, the number of 50 deputies enables a party to present resources for unconstitutional actions. If with 24 deputies Vox already made themselves felt considerably in the Congress of Deputies, with their current strength they will have a very important role in Spain's national life. Thanks to those resources, Vox will be able to start acting before the Constitutional Court against the laws that threaten our rights and freedoms.
"Long live Spain!"
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
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Iran's Crimes against Humanity, 2019
Denis MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/November 20/2019
"As Iranian, Saudi and other Muslim women around the globe struggled for freedom from the hijab, which they consider a political symbol that has nothing to do with piety, the reaction among the liberal circles in the West was confounding. Here an increasing number of feminists, leftists and the liberal media glorified the hijab as some exotic symbol of women's liberation that had to be embraced." — Tarek Fatah, The Toronto Sun, August 29, 2019
"The Guards are gathering to remove reformists from power." — Najmeh Bozorgmehr, Iranian journalist, Financial Times, October 13, 2019.
The anti-corruption campaign is led by none other than the hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi.... Raisi is widely considered the most likely cleric to succeed to the role of Supreme Leader when Khamenei retires or dies. But Raisi also carries with him a disturbing reputation for judicial violence.
One of the Western hostages that Iran is holding is an innocent British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Her five-year-old daughter, Gabriella, was also being held hostage in Iran until the regime released her last month. Pictured: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard Ratcliffe in 2011.
On October 10 this year, when an aeroplane flew from Tehran and arrived late that night in London, among those on board was a five-year-old girl named Gabriella. Despite her name, Gabriella was not Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Her father, Richard, is English and her mother, Nazanin, is Iranian with British nationality.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among the best known of the multitude of individuals locked up in Iran's prisons. Her status as a woman with dual nationality, and imprisoned for five years on a charge of espionage without a scrap of evidence, combined with the ongoing campaign for her release by her husband in conjunction with the UK Foreign Office, has given her case repeated publicity in the British press and other media.
A likely reason the Iranian authorities have not responded to the numerous official and unofficial requests for her release, or even an open and fair trial, seems to be a standoff between the UK and Iran over payment of a British debt for £450 million. The debt was incurred when Britain refused to send tanks originally ordered under the late Shah's regime and not delivered for more than 40 years. Senior government sources have said they believe Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe may be being held as "collateral" to secure the debt repayment.
One source said in November 2017: Treasury and Foreign Office officials are plotting how the situation can be resolved without breaking UN sanctions on military equipment, overseen by the EU, that would currently halt the payment.
They add that the money is being held by the High Court on behalf of the Government, after the European Court of Arbitration ruled in favour of Iran in 2001. By the end of 2019, the debt still has not been paid. Richard Ratcliffe's sole hope at present is that the decision to allow his daughter to return to the UK in order to start school there might signal a willingness to let her mother go back there as well.
Even if that unlikely release were to happen, it will take years for Nazanin herself to reach partial recovery from her ordeal. Reports of her untreated health issues, including mental health show that her unjust confinement has marked her for life.
Although Nazanin's plight continues to draw the attention of campaigners and some politicians, the natural focus on it tends to obscure countless other cases of abuse carried out by the ruthless theocratic regime on its own people and some foreigners. Nor is Nazanin's case the only thing that distracts the public from other domestic injustices inside Iran.
This year alone, Iran has been in the news internationally for its aggressive behaviour across the Middle East regarding the United States and the UK. Captures of oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, drone attacks claimed by Iran-financed Houthis in Yemen on Saudi oil installations, increased levels of uranium enrichment in a standoff between the US and Europe, continued build-ups of Hezbollah troops in Lebanon and Syria along the border with Israel, who issue bloodcurdling threats to kill all the Jews in the world and destroy the state of Israel, as well as renewed threats to wipe Israel off the map whether the Twelfth Imam returns to earth or not. Much of this, of course, creates the threat of a war between Iran and Israel that may inflame the Middle East yet further:
"Taken all together, the Israeli strikes in Lebanon last month and in Syria and possibly Iraq as well, the attack in Saudi Arabia, and the statements from Iranian and Hezbollah officials form part of a larger pattern in which Israel and Iran are locked in an escalating conflict playing out across the region. In the long term, Iran's land bridge strategy connecting Tehran to the Mediterranean coast through a chain of contiguous client states in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, points directly at Israel."
Such threats and activities have drawn the eyes of the world, thus allowing Tehran to continue its excesses at home with only muted rebuke abroad.
Not that these excesses should surprise us. The Iranian regime's 40-year reputation as the country that executes more people per capita than even China, executes more women than any other country, has executed 97 women during the incumbency of "reformist" Prime Minister Rouhani, most recently in September this year.
In general, Iran treats its women harshly. The law of enforced wearing of hijabs has led to many protests, but in August this year, a 20-year-old woman, Saba Kord-Afshari, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for refusing to wear one. According to Tarek Fatah in the Toronto Sun, her trial began on August 19 when she was charged with "spreading corruption and prostitution by taking off her hijab and walking without a veil [hijab]." After a century and more of women's rights achievements in the West, the harshness of this sentence stands out for its cruelty, yet, as Fatah points out:
"As Iranian, Saudi and other Muslim women around the globe struggled for freedom from the hijab, which they consider a political symbol that has nothing to do with piety, the reaction among the liberal circles in the West was confounding. Here an increasing number of feminists, leftists and the liberal media glorified the hijab as some exotic symbol of women's liberation that had to be embraced."
On September 10 this year, Amnesty International stated that Iran is the only country in the world that bans women from attending football matches. It did so as part of a larger announcement condemning the death of a 29-year-old Iranian woman, Sahar Khodayari. Khodayari was a confirmed football fan (like a great many other Iranian women forced to watch games on their televisions or computers) who dressed as a man by wearing a wig and beard and going to matches thus disguised. Last March she attended a match between her favourite team, Esteqlal, and a UAE rival al-'Ayn. Security guards stopped her from entering and identified her as a woman. She was then held for two days in Shar-e Rey or Qarchak prison, the largest women's gaol in the country. Qarchak is described by the Human Rights Activists News Agency as follows: "The conditions of this prison are unbearable for prisoners... conditions that include the "outbreak of dangerous diseases". These conditions are caused by the geographical location, small space, and high population, shortage of water and sanitation facilities, violence and lack of segregation of prisoners."
According to Amnesty International: "Khodayari - who had been released on bail - was summoned to a Revolutionary Court in Tehran last week (2 September) to face charges over the stadium incident. She was charged with 'openly committing a sinful act by ... appearing in public without a hijab' and 'insulting officials'. The case was adjourned and, after she left the court, she poured petrol over herself and set herself on fire outside the courthouse. According to hospital officials, she received burns on 90% of her body and died yesterday [9 September]."
Khodayari apparently suffered from bipolar illness, and it seems the thought of being returned to the same prison for six months terrified her and impelled her to take her life in that ghastly way. In a more humane system, her disability would have been cared for.
In the grand scheme of things, the fates of these women may not seem to count for much. Yet they are not accidents or cases of bad luck, insofar as injustices and disproportionate judicial rulings are far from uncommon. It is not women alone who are subject to egregious ill treatment. Writers, artists, film makers are others are often arrested on the grounds that their work challenges the pieties of the regime.
Om October 13, a film maker, writer and satirist, Kiumars Marzban had his prison term of 23 years and 9 months confirmed by an appeal court.
"He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for 'cooperating with a hostile state', seven years and six months in prison for blasphemy, a year and half imprisonment for 'propaganda against the state', three years in prison for 'insulting the Supreme Leader and the Founder of the Revolution', and nine months imprisonment for 'insulting authorities.'"
According to Radio Free Europe: "Marzban is among the recent victims of an intensified state crackdown in Iran that has resulted in unusually harsh prison sentences for journalists, human rights lawyers, women protesting the compulsory hijab rule, labor rights activists, and others."
The same source adds: "Just within the past month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has listed the cases of 13 activists who were sentenced to a total of more than 100 years in prison for their peaceful activities. They include journalist and labor activist Sepideh Gholian, who is facing a 19-year prison sentence, and prominent labor rights activist Esmail Bakhshi, who received a 14-year sentence.
"Analysts believe the crackdown and the increased intolerance towards any kind of dissent is Iran's response to perceived internal and external threats, including potential unrest over a deteriorating economy and a campaign of 'maximum pressure' by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump."
Radio Free Europe is, in fact, being lenient to the point of spinelessness. Domestic injustices ever since the Khomeinist Revolution of 1979, have been far wider than that; to claim that atrocities are committed in response to "perceived threats" is, at best, supine nonsense. In January this year, Amnesty International issued a report on affairs in Iran in 2018, which it described as "a year of shame": Over the course of the year, more than 7,000 protesters, students, journalists, environmental activists, workers and human rights defenders, including lawyers, women's rights activists, minority rights activists and trade unionists, were arrested, many arbitrarily. Hundreds were sentenced to prison terms or flogging and at least 26 protesters were killed. Nine people arrested in connection with protests died in custody under suspicious circumstances.
"2018 will go down in history as a 'year of shame' for Iran. Throughout the year Iran's authorities sought to stifle any sign of dissent by stepping up their crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, and carrying out mass arrests of protesters," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director.
Iran's atrocities have apparently become "normalized".
Writing on October 13 in the Financial Times, the Iranian journalist Najmeh Bozorgmehr explains at length that there is also a current crackdown on Iran's political and business elite. The main thrust of her article is that, following a supposed shift towards "reform" under Prime Minister Rouhani, the hardliners are regaining strength and that their anti-graft drive is merely masking "wider goals". The chief one is described by Bozormehr in the following terms:
... for those driving the campaign the benefits outweigh any downside. "Sanctions have created the opportunity for the [Revolutionary] Guards to prepare the ground for an internal metamorphosis in alliance with the judiciary," says one regime insider close to the hardliners. "The Guards are gathering to remove reformists from power."
The ultimate goal for those involved in the power struggle is to influence the succession race to replace Mr Khamenei, the 80-year-old supreme leader.
The anti-corruption campaign is led by none other than the hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, a presidential candidate defeated in 2017 by the incumbent Rouhani, who was made chief of the judiciary in March 2019 and deputy head of the Council of Experts, the body responsible for any appointment of the next Supreme Leader. Raisi himself is widely considered the most likely cleric to succeed to the role of Supreme Leader when Khamenei retires or dies.
But Raisi also carries with him a disturbing reputation for judicial violence. In his early thirties, he was made prosecutor of three provincial towns, but in 1985 named as a deputy prosecutor for the capital, Tehran. Three years after that, he was a member of the four-person "Death Commission" responsible for a series of mass executions, when leftists, dissidents, and members of the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq were massacred within a matter of weeks. Amnesty International published last year a 201-page report on the executions. Some 30,000 individuals were shot or hanged during that brief period. Tragically, the regime was for a long time successful in imposing a total silence on the affair.
With so much blood on his hands, it is not surprising that Raisi, soon after his elevation to Chief Prosecutor, appointed none other than Ali Al-Qasi Mehr as the new Prosecutor of Tehran. Al-Qasi Mehr's own reputation is that of a hardliner who has long favoured public executions and amputations as a means of maintaining control in both capital and minor cases.
As pressure grows on the often-despairing Iranian public from its own tyrants, the hardest advocates of internal repression to match international expansion and military preparations are reclaiming their right to rule without pity. It is just as important to keep an eye on these internal developments as it is to monitor the comings and goings of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), or Hezbollah or the expanding chaos in Syria.
"Last June", according to Reuters, "Raisi said 'internal threats to the Islamic Republic are more dangerous than external threats', a clear signal that he would not tolerate dissent."
High pressure leads to explosive responses. The crimes against humanity and the pettiness of the regime, whether regarding women's rights, artists' rights, gay rights, or the rights of religious minorities such as the Baha'is, must surely lead to the downfall of this most persistent totalitarian despotism.
*Dr. Denis MacEoin (PhD Cambridge) has specialized in Iranian studies for more than 50 years and has a particular knowledge of the Shi'ite form of Islam practised in Iran.
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Iran Protests Reflect Effectiveness of U.S. Maximum Pressure Campaign
Saeed Ghasseminejad/Senior Iran and Financial Economics Advisor/FDD/November 20/2019
Facing a serious budget deficit caused by U.S. sanctions and regime mismanagement, Tehran raised the price of gasoline sharply last week, resulting in widespread protests. Tehran’s decision to risk public backlash indicates that Washington’s economic pressure is forcing the regime to risk its political stability in order to prevent a financial collapse.
Ignited by the issue of gasoline prices, the protests quickly turned to demands for an end to dictatorship, religious rule, and the bankrolling of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Bashar al-Assad. State-run Fars News reported 1,000 arrests in the first two days of protests, while human rights organizations counted at least 106 deaths at the hands of security forces.
The administration of President Hassan Rouhani increased the price of rationed gasoline by 50 percent, while tripling the price for purchases in excess of the rationed amount. It sought to dampen the response to price hikes by announcing them late Thursday night, just before the weekend, which begins on Friday in Iran. The administration also pledged to use all revenue from higher prices to fund direct subsidies to the people.
Tehran heavily subsidizes gasoline, which cost about 13 cents per liter (or 50 cents per gallon) before Thursday’s increase. The primary objective of the price hikes is to reduce consumption. Iran now consumes 97 million liters of gasoline per day, up from 73.4 million in 2016. In 2018, consumption grew at an annual rate of 14.2 percent. Growth is driven by artificially low prices and the illicit trafficking of gasoline to neighboring countries where it commands a higher price.
If consumption continues rising at the current rate, by mid-2020 it will surpass Iran’s daily production of 105 million liters. In response to previous sanctions, Tehran invested heavily in domestic refining capacity, so it is not currently dependent on imports, but this independence is not sustainable if consumption rises much further.
Facing a serious budget deficit, Iran can no longer afford its fuel subsidies. “Without money, we cannot run the affairs of the state,” Rouhani said last week, “Although we have some other incomes, the only revenue that can keep the country going is the oil money.” The IMF estimates Tehran needs to sell its oil at $155 per barrel to balance its budget; the price is currently around $60.
If consumption falls, Tehran could potentially raise revenue by exporting gasoline, albeit in defiance of U.S. sanctions. This may reduce the deficit even if the government keeps its promise to spend its earnings from higher gasoline prices on direct subsidies to the people. A shift to direct subsidies makes political sense for Rouhani, with parliamentary elections scheduled for 2020. The direct subsidies can help his allies gain the support of less affluent sections of society, especially in smaller cities and rural areas. There is a risk, however, as rising gas prices will spur additional inflation, which is already at 42 percent.
Despite the price hikes, Iranian gasoline remains comparatively cheap, so fuel traffickers still have a strong incentive to continue their illicit exports. As the dominant player in Iran’s underground economy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) may benefit if narrower profit margins drive out of business smaller competitors with less political influence.
The price hike and subsequent protests are a testament to the effectiveness of Washington’s maximum pressure campaign. Accordingly, the U.S. should double down on its pressure, especially with tougher enforcement of sanctions already on the books, like those on petrochemicals. Finally, Washington should combine maximum pressure with maximum support for the people of Iran. The U.S. should help restore their access to the internet and impose sanctions on human rights violators.
*Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). Follow Saeed on Twitter @SGhasseminejad. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Iran Stepped in to Save Pro-Tehran Government in Baghdad
David Adesnik/Nicholas Wernert/FDD/November 20/2019
Amidst a growing backlash against Iranian influence, Tehran compelled its allies in Baghdad to support Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose resignation is one of the protesters’ top demands. Tehran’s intervention demonstrates the pivotal role it now plays in protecting a corrupt system from popular demands for reform. Tehran’s point man in Baghdad is Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the external operations branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). After protests first broke out in early October, Soleimani flew to Baghdad, where he chaired a meeting of top security officials in place of the Iraqi prime minister. Iranian-backed militias then launched a violent crackdown, which entailed snipers using live ammunition to kill protesters.
These heavy-handed tactics had the unintended effect of stoking widespread anger that ensured the continuation and growth of the protests. Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the largest bloc in parliament, called for the prime minister’s resignation and pressured other Shiite party leaders to do the same. Iraqi President Barham Salih, a Kurd, announced at the end of October that Abdul-Mahdi was prepared to step down, pending selection of an acceptable successor. Salih also backed early elections.
To ensure the prime minister remained in office, Soleimani returned to Baghdad to meet with key political figures. The meetings resulted in a plan to keep Abdul-Mahdi’s government in place until elections some time in 2020, in part by offering reforms to address the demonstrators’ concerns. In practice, however, Soleimani appears to calculate that targeted killings and kidnappings, along with colder weather, will eventually break the protests.
Reportedly, the prime minister himself was ready to step down and even prepared a resignation speech, yet changed his plans under pressure from pro-Tehran officials. Meanwhile, Sadr travelled to Iran for a week in early November, presaging a new emphasis on criticism of the U.S., rather than denouncing Iraqi politicians. Sadr’s new line echoes that of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iran-backed militias in Iraq. On Twitter, Khamenei blamed the U.S. and Israel for the “insecurity and turmoil in Iraq.” Qais al-Khazali, commander of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia, dismissed early elections as an “essentially American project.” In contrast, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most respected religious authority, used his Friday sermon to both express support for the protesters and call on parliament to pass a new electoral law.
At least thus far, the Iranian intervention has proven unsuccessful in defusing public anger directed at Tehran. Last week, protesters celebrated the Iraqi national team’s victory over Iran in a World Cup qualifying match, with some at the game cursing Soleimani by name.
In the streets, security forces continued to employ lethal violence against protesters, with the estimated death toll now reaching 320. Government ministries have not cooperated with independent efforts to document casualties; thus the actual toll may be higher. In addition to live ammunition, a prominent cause of death is the use of oversized Iranian-made tear gas grenades to pierce protesters’ skulls and cause other lethal injuries.
In a November 12 phone call with the Iraqi prime minister, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the clearest statement so far of support for the protesters and condemnation of the government’s violence. Previously, Pompeo called “on all sides to reject violence.”
U.S. leaders should continue to speak out clearly on behalf of human rights and democratic reform, including the disarming of militias that do not respect the rule of law. The administration should also employ Global Magnitsky and related authorities to sanction the individuals and armed groups responsible for atrocities.
**David Adesnik is director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Nicholas Wernert is an intern. They both contribute to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). Follow them on Twitter @adesnik and @Nickydubz21. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Iranian leaders ignoring protesters’ messages
Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri/Arab News/November 20/2019
The protests in Iran, which started due to a hike in the price of fuel, are continuing and have now taken a political turn. The number of protesters has increased, as have their demands for the regime’s overthrow.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, voiced support for the decision to raise fuel prices. He also blamed the wave of protests on the “enemies of the revolution,” while President Hassan Rouhani said the state “should not allow lawlessness” in the face of “riots.”
In a parallel development, the security authorities announced they would respond firmly to “acts of sabotage” and, according to Iranian news agency Fars, more than 1,000 people have already been arrested. Iranian sources estimated the death toll at between 36 and 75 after security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas in an effort to disperse protesters in Tehran’s Khomeini Square. There was also unrest in other cities, where the protests were called “gasoline uprisings.” A policeman in Kermanshah died of his wounds following a confrontation with protesters.
The ongoing unrest is not the first time Iranians have taken to the streets to express their anger and dissatisfaction. Iran witnessed protests in 2017, but they were suppressed, with the protesters being dispersed and their demands left unaddressed. Before that, Iran witnessed the “Green Movement” in 2009 after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a second term as president; repressive measures were also used to quell those protests.
The current state of affairs is that Iran is enduring its worst economic situation since the 1979 revolution. The country’s difficulties are due to the US sanctions that were put in place after Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal. That withdrawal was, of course, quick to arouse European concern.
It is clear that the regime, which has refused to understand the underlying messages of the protests in Iraq and Lebanon, is also categorically refusing to understand similar messages sent by the Iranian protests. Officials were quick to talk of sabotage directed from outside the country in order to justify the suppression of protests. The difficulties experienced by Iran are very serious and very real. They threaten the country’s economy and its ability to play its role in the region.
It has been 40 years since the birth of the Khomeinist regime and its bitter harvest of millions of deaths in public wars: The Iran-Iraq War, the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, and other clandestine wars waged by it creating, embracing, supporting and facilitating Iranian involvement with international terrorist organizations. Included here is Al-Qaeda, whose relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is no secret, nor is the involvement of the sons of Osama bin Laden, Saif Al-Adel, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and Saleh Al-Qaraawi, Abu Hafs Al-Mauritani, and dozens of others who were hosted by the IRGC on Iranian territory.
Not only that, but Iran has formed Shiite gangs to undermine the structure of the national states in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. It has spread a poisonous sectarian atmosphere and used a consistent approach to plunder the wealth of these countries in order to serve its own aggressive policies.
The kingdom of terrorism — which goes by the name of the Islamic Republic — is also responsible for much evil in Western countries. We note the operations of the IRGC in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the US and, of course, Latin America. Iran’s activities in those countries have stretched from political assassinations to the drug trade to espionage and the penetration of digital systems, i.e., cyberwarfare.
Officials were quick to talk of sabotage directed from outside the country in order to justify the suppression of protests.
Today the people of Iraq have revolted against Iranian agents and so far they have paid with more than 300 lives. The people of Lebanon are also rebelling against their government, but the problem there is that the political structure is controlled by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah.
What will be the future of the Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese revolutions? We do not know, but there is no doubt that the position of Western countries in all these areas is shameful and dishonest. The West apparently believes that the intervention of Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, would spring from sectarian or nationalist motives, yet at the same time the regime in Tehran is allowed to kill hundreds of thousands and completely change the demographics of the affected countries.
Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri is a political analyst and international relations scholar. Twitter: @DrHamsheri

Syrian outlook uncertain despite Erdogan’s US triumph
Talmiz Ahmad/Arab News/November 20/2019
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has every reason to be pleased with his visit to Washington last week. His host, US President Donald Trump, described himself as a “big fan” of Erdogan and called him a “great president.” Trump even took into his stride Erdogan’s public criticism of the presidential invitation to the Syrian Kurd leader Mazloum Kobani, whom Erdogan describes as a terrorist, and the Turkish president’s revelation that he had returned Trump’s “insulting” letter calling on him to desist from attacking the Kurds in Syria.
Erdogan’s sojourn in the US capital has been described as a “diplomatic triumph” largely because it took place in the most unpropitious of circumstances. Trump’s officials and several influential Congress members did not even want it to take place. A month earlier, the House of Representatives had passed by 354 votes to 60 a resolution condemning Turkey’s invasion of Syria. Some representatives noted that Turkey’s Arab allies might have committed war crimes during the invasion.
On Oct. 29, the House also passed a nonbinding resolution describing the killings of Armenians by Turkish forces in 1915 to 1923 as genocide, though after Erdogan’s visit Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would block it in the Senate.
Within the administration, the Pentagon was incensed with its NATO partner: Not only had Turkey purchased the Russian S-400 missile system, it was also discussing with Moscow the possibility of buying the Su-35 fighter plane to make up for its expulsion from the F-35 aircraft project. Congress has been calling for sanctions on Turkey to punish these blossoming relations with Russia, which Trump has robustly resisted.
The Washington success marks the culmination of much that has been going right for Erdogan. After Trump directed US troops to withdraw from a section of the Turkey-Syria border on Oct. 6, Turkish forces took just two weeks to expel the Kurds and create a “safe zone” that was 120 kilometers long and 30 kilometers deep, covering the territory from Tal Abyad to Ras Al-Ayn.
Later, Turkey was backed by Russia. At the Vladimir Putin-Erdogan summit at Sochi on Oct. 22, the “Sochi Memorandum” endorsed the “status quo” in this enclave. This affirmed Russian backing for the Turkish military occupation and the removal of militants of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). This enclave will enable Turkey to begin relocating a large proportion of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees it currently hosts. Turkey has also said that it will send home the hundreds of foreign Daesh fighters who are now in its custody.
All this reflects the success of “Operation Peace Spring” from the Turkish perspective. Turkey’s military operation liquidated several hundred Kurdish fighters, while ensuring that this zone will be jointly patrolled by Russian and Turkish forces to keep the Kurds from returning. Russia also agreed that YPG militants would be removed from the region currently under joint Syrian-Russian control, including the towns of Manbij and Tal Rifaat.
However, Ankara must be wary of pushing its luck, as Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s suggestion this week of a further military action against the YPG brought a withering response from the Kremlin.
The Turkish military’s recent success also brought Trump on to Erdogan’s side, since it enabled the US president to proclaim that the cease-fire from Oct. 23 was entirely the result of Washington’s efforts. However, the State and Defense Departments were able to get their president to agree to retain some 500 to 600 US troops to guard the oil fields in Deir Ezzor to ensure that their revenues did not go to the Syrian government. Despite this, most observers still believe that Trump’s priority is to get all US troops out of Syria.
The outlook relating to the Syrian scenario remains uncertain. Divisions at the heart of the US administration did not allow Erdogan and Trump to address the important outstanding issues relating to Syria: Turkey-US differences relating to burgeoning Turkish-Russian relations, the US’ own ties with the Kurds, and its future presence in Syria.
The Washington success marks the culmination of much that has been going right for Erdogan.
Erdogan told Parliament on Tuesday that he insisted to Trump that Turkey would not back down from its purchase of the S-400 missile system. And the Pentagon is aware that it will not be easy to remove Turkey from the F-35 project: No replacements have been found for at least 12 crucial components being developed by Turkish companies.
The US president’s green light to the Turkish invasion has already dealt a body-blow to US credibility among the Kurds and has encouraged them to turn to the Russians. Moscow is encouraging them to cooperate with the Syrian government — a joint Syrian-Russian military presence in Kurdish areas outside the Turkish enclave will boost their confidence.
Russia’s principal effort now will be to promote engagement between Turkey and the Syrian government. The Sochi Memorandum gave considerable importance to the Turkey-Syria Adana agreement of October 1998 and the Agreement on Joint Cooperation against Terrorism of December 2010 as the bases for their future rapprochement.
While they have a long way to go and their interactions will meet several obstacles, over the long-term the three states — Syria, Turkey and Russia — will be brought together by their shared interests in reconstruction projects in Syria and joint development of the energy potential of the Eastern Mediterranean. The US does not have a place in this scenario.
*Talmiz Ahmad is an author and former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. He holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.