LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 01/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each
First Letter to the Corinthians 03/01-11/:”I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on October 01/2019
Hariri’s soap opera is a Hezbollah Broadway show
Presidency Says Reports Attributed to Baabda Sources are ‘Unfounded’
Salameh Seeks to Ease Demand for Dollars
Lebanon central bank chief seeks to ease demand for dollars
Jumblat Proposes Compulsory Military Service, Solution for Unemployment
Lebanon: Poverty Forces Children into Work
French Roadmap to Implement CEDRE Decisions in Lebanon
Lebanon: Salameh Says New Circular to Reduce Pressure on Dollar Demand
Iraq, Syria Reopen Major Border Crossing Retaken from IS
Bteish meets UK Prime Minister's Trade Envoy, Egyptian Investment Minister
Lebanese Army Commander meets American Task Force delegation, Syrian Ambassador
Revisiting a Massacre in Lebanon’s Civil War—(Sabra and Shatila)..Were Lebanese Christians Responsible?
Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Hariri Gave $16 Million to South African Model

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01/2019
Crack in the anti-Iran front: US persuades Saudis to engage Tehran in regional deals
NCRI: ‘Reliable sources’ say Khamenei ordered, Rouhani authorized Aramco attack
Iran Defense Minister: US ‘maximum pressure’ policy turned to ‘maximum begging’
Iranian Opposition Launches ‘Transitional Phase' to Overcome Regime
Iran: Eliminating Israel 'no longer a dream but attainable goal'
Iran's Oil Facilities on 'Full Alert' Amid Fears of Cyber War
Saudi Prince Says War with Iran Would Gut World Economy
US shifts Middle East command center from Qatar to South Carolina after 13 years
Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan to Discuss Different Approach to GERD Issue
Libya: Haftar’s Forces Strike GNA Militias in Sirte for 2nd Day
Egypt: Authorities Return Lost Israeli Tourist
Iraq, Syria Reopen Qaim Border Crossing
France Bids Farewell to Ex-President Chirac

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 01/2019
Hariri’s soap opera is a Hezbollah Broadway show/Blog by Dr Walid Phares on his social media.
موقع د.وليد فارس الإخباري: سوب أوبرا الحريري هي عملياً مسرحية لحزب الله على طريقة عروض برودواي
Revisiting a Massacre in Lebanon’s Civil War—(Sabra and Shatila)..Were Lebanese Christians Responsible?/Franck Salameh/History News Network/November 29, 2011
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Gave $16 Million to South African Model/Ben Hubbard/The New York Times/September 30/2019
Crack in the anti-Iran front: US persuades Saudis to engage Tehran in regional deals/DEBKAfile/September 30/2019
We Assess…Iran Probably Already Has Nuclear Weapons/Dr. Peter Pry/MACKENZIE INSTITUTE/September 30/2019
Impeachment? Bring it on. Trump can put the Dems on trial in the Senate/Jared Peterson, AMERICAN THINKER/September 30/2019
The New York Times Minimizes the Threat of Islamism Again: A Strange Story about Sweden’s Populist Response/ Howard Rotberg/The New York Times/September 30/2019
The US Cannot Neglect Iraqi Kurdistan/by Seth Frantzman and Eric R. Mandel/The Hill/September 30/2019
Time for Europe to Close Ranks Against Iran’s Threats/Bobby Ghosh/Bloomberg/September 30, 2019
Who Opened the Window?/Ghassan Charbel/ Asharq Al-Awsat/September 30/2019
Facebook: Legislation, Regulation, Censor/Adam Minter/Bloomberg View/September 30/2019
Huawei Wants the World's Next Trojan Horse to Be Chinese/by Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/September 30/2019
Turkey, Azerbaijan Ban Chess Champion/ Sezen Şahin/Gatestone Institute/September 30/2019
A reading of US sanctions on Iran/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/September 30/2019
Full transcript of Saudi Crown Prince’s CBS interview, including unaired answers/Al Arabiya English/Monday, 30 September 2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on October 01/2019
Hariri’s soap opera is a Hezbollah Broadway show
موقع د.وليد فارس الإخباري: سوب أوبرا الحريري هي عملياً مسرحية لحزب الله على طريقة عروض برودواي
Blog by Dr Walid Phares on his social media.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/79001/%d8%af-%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%af-%d9%81%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b3-%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%8a-%d8%a3%d9%88-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%af%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%8a-%d8%ad%d8%b2/
As soon as the New York Times published the "bombshell" report that PM Hariri has paid a South African model 18 million dollars, a Tsunami of critics exploded on social media. If Lebanon was a normal functioning democracy, free from terror and occupation, the story would have been stopping time in that small country and deserved a NYT front story. The problem is that the country is not a Monte Carlo buzzing with scandals, it is rather a country living under a Vichy like regime. If M. Hariri's spending was from public budget, there would be a legal questioning. But is it? If it is his own purse, it may frustrate some of his own partisans and be seized by his political enemies, but it is his own private life. So far, it is not hitting world concerns about the threats roaming in the Middle East. It may be a strange story for some, but not a matter of national security.
What is national and international security is Hezbollah jumping on the story to neutralize Hariri and or remove him from office. Knowing that Sheikh Saad is the only non Iranian ally among the three presidencies in official presidencies, since the President and speaker are Hezbollah open allies. What would that lead to? Well of course to pressure PM Hariri to allow Hezbollah to move closer to reform the Central Bank of Lebanon, or eventually move Hariri away and have a flexible Prime Minister, allowing a control over the Central Bank and evasion of US sanctions. Let's remember that since the US escalated sanctions on Iran's Central Bank, Iran's allies in region moved to secure influence over the central banks of Baghdad and Beirut.
Why would the New York Times blast Hariri with an article to draw ire on him in Lebanon and minimize his credibility worldwide? Simply because the NYT is a supporter of the Iran Deal, and not shy about it. The paper raise the issue, and the pro Iran camp descends on Hariri politically. It is not about an old story of a personal relationship by a Lebanese politician.. The story can have its own noise among the public at will, but the real goal behind its publication and the maneuvers of Hezbollah in Lebanon have to do with geopolitics and political control.
In Lebanon this could be a Prime Minister's soap opera. But internationally this is seen as a Hezbollah Broadway show.

Presidency Says Reports Attributed to Baabda Sources are ‘Unfounded’
Naharnet/September 30/2019
The Presidency of the Lebanese Republic on Monday described as “baseless” the quotes attributed to “sources close to Baabda” Presidential Palace, claiming that the solution for Lebanon’s current crisis lies within the resignation of the government. In a statement on Monday, the Presidency said: “Several social media outlets circulated quotes they attributed to sources close to Baabda Palace that the solution for the current crisis lies within the resignation of the government. "The Presidency's press office assures that such information are unfounded, especially that the President of the Republic has more than once highlighted the government's role amid the current phase and the necessity to activate it."The Presidency's press office also denies news on deliberations relevant to the President's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron last Monday in New York, particularly what has been attributed to the President about the relationship with Prime Minister Saad Hariri," it added. The statement said that such news only come within the context of rumors.

Salameh Seeks to Ease Demand for Dollars
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Naharnet/September 30/2019
Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said on Monday that the bank will secure foreign currency for some imports in a move that is expected to ease the demand for hard currency. Salameh said after meeting President Michel Aoun at Baabda that the central bank will secure foreign currency needs of the private and public sectors, according to official prices. Salameh met with Aoun following a day of street protests over Lebanon’s deteriorating economic conditions. He noted that BDL will issue a circular on Tuesday to regulate ways to fund imports of fuel, medicine and wheat. The meeting comes a day after hundreds of Lebanese protested in the country's capital and other areas over an economic crisis that worsened over the past two weeks, with worries over dollar-reliant Lebanon's local currency losing value for the first time in more than two decades. Lebanon is facing a deep-running fiscal crisis as it staggers under one of the highest debt ratios in the world, at $86 billion or more than 150% of the country's gross domestic product. Many of Sunday's protesters in downtown Beirut blamed Lebanese political leaders for the widespread mismanagement and corruption. Lebanese officials, including Aoun and Central Bank Salameh, have tried to play down the risk of an economic collapse. Last week, the local currency reached 1,650 Lebanese pounds to the dollar at exchange shops after it had been stable at 1,500 since 1997. Although the official price is still pegged at 1,500 pounds to the dollar, people find it difficult to get hard currency at this rate from local banks. Salameh however denied last week that Lebanon was facing a dollar crisis. Last week, amid fears that there will be an open-ended strike at gas stations, people waited in long lines to get vehicles filled. Because of the shortage in hard currency, there have been complaints by importers of fuel, medicine and wheat, that they buy the products from abroad paying in U.S. dollars and when they sell in Lebanon they do so in the local currency. Lebanon's central bank is scheduled to issue instructions to regulate ways to fund imports of fuel, medicine and wheat on Tuesday.

Lebanon central bank chief seeks to ease demand for dollars
Associated Press/30 September 2019
Lebanon is facing a deep-running fiscal crisis as it staggers under one of the highest debt ratios in the world, at $86 billion — or more than 150% of the country’s gross domestic product. BEIRUT: Lebanon’s central bank governor said on Monday the bank will secure foreign currency for some imports in a move that is expected to ease the demand for hard currency. Riad Salameh’s comments came a day after hundreds protested in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon over a worsening economic crisis, compounded by worries that Lebanon’s dollar-reliant currency is losing value for the first time in more than two decades. Lebanon is facing a deep-running fiscal crisis as it staggers under one of the highest debt ratios in the world, at $86 billion — or more than 150% of the country’s gross domestic product. Salameh said after meeting President Michel Aoun that the central bank will secure foreign currency needs of the private and public sectors, according to official prices.

Jumblat Proposes Compulsory Military Service, Solution for Unemployment
Naharnet/September 30/2019
Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Monday said that compulsory military service must be restored in Lebanon and called for new government measures compelling contractors to employ more Lebanese workers to fight unemployment. In a tweet Jumblat said: “To face the legitimate public anger as we wait for: serious government measures to control the borders, tax evasion, the adoption of a unified progressive tax, reduction of ruling class privileges, benefit from maritime property, a serious control of corruption and the adoption of transparent tenders to deter dubious capital. I suggest that contractors are pressed to employ %50 Lebanese workers with wages exceeding those for foreign labor in construction and maintenance workshops, to counter unemployment and create regional professional workshops in all fields."Jumblat added: “I have a modest experience on a personal level, whereas I have for months absorbed almost eighty workers.” He said it is "a personal experience that can be generalized," adding that major contractors in all sectors must give priority to the Lebanese worker and “relinquish some of their huge profits while waiting for CEDRE decisions which I consider illusory and far from flimsy growth theories.” Jumblat concluded saying: “We must return to compulsory military service.”

Lebanon: Poverty Forces Children into Work
Beirut - Sanaa el-Jack/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
“He is safer working at my shop then staying on the street in search for a job,” says a grocery shop owner in Beirut about a Syrian boy who earns around four dollars daily to support his mother and two younger sisters. There are more than 100,000 child laborers in Lebanon, 35,000 of them being Lebanese. They work mainly in the industrial sector and agriculture. The Syrian boy who unloads products and cleans the grocery shop tells Asharq Al-Awsat that he dreams of returning to his village and attend school. “I will help my mother to work in agriculture in our land,” said the boy, who lost his father in the Syrian war. But he said that currently he has “no other option” but to earn around 30 dollars a week. The shop owner, who is also Syrian, insists that he is protecting the boy by employing him because otherwise he would be left homeless. His working conditions are no better than girls aged between 11 and 15 who start their shifts at 5:00 am at a chicken slaughterhouse, exposing themselves to sexual exploitation and diseases. The executive head of Beyond Association, Maria Assi, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the rise in the number of child laborers in Lebanon is the direct result of growing poverty. “In order to fight child labor, officials should resolve the problem of poverty, deteriorating economic conditions and the lack of awareness among parents, rather than seeking to resolve their repercussions,” she said. Assi called on the international community to force the Lebanese government to protect child workers. She said her association had a success story in the eastern town of Saadnayel where it agreed with the municipality to ban child labor and return the children to school. “In the eastern Beka Valley and elsewhere, we are carrying out initiatives to stop children from working and proposing alternatives by encouraging their parents to work instead,” she said. Assi added that Beyond also works on rehabilitating such children and reintegrate them into society.

French Roadmap to Implement CEDRE Decisions in Lebanon
Beirut - Khalil FleihanAsharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
A French diplomat said that Paris is expecting from Lebanon to take several measures by the end of this year for the release of soft loans and grants pledged to the country at the CEDRE conference held last year.
A French roadmap is considered “binding” for the delivery of pledges made by Paris during a meeting held ten days ago between French President Emmanuel Macron and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the diplomat told Asharq Al-Awsat in remarks published Monday. The roadmap requires Beirut to approve the 2020 state budget and pass a series of necessary reforms, particularly in the electricity sector. Macron had affirmed that "France will always remain committed to fulfilling its commitments to implementing the resolutions approved at the CEDRE conference,” held in Paris in April 2018. According to the source, there are ongoing contacts between Beirut and Paris to solve a problem on the establishment of a steering committee tasked with drawing up conditions for any project that Lebanon plans to propose before being transferred to Parliament for approval. The diplomatic source said Paris insists on forming a committee represented by France, Britain, Canada, Jordan, the European Investment Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Lebanese premiership and the deputy PM, chairman of the Supreme Commission for Privatization, the Council for Development and Reconstruction and the Central Inspection. The French proposal came after Hariri suggested that the committee includes only him as Prime Minister, the Council for Development and Reconstruction and the Higher Relief Commission, explaining that Lebanon would be quicker in forming the committee with fewer members. However, according to the source, France reiterated that Lebanon should respect the original membership of the committee, which is required to assure transparency. “Paris is well informed that Lebanon has prepared four projects that should be transferred to CEDRE when the zero hour is determined to start implementing the decisions of the donor conference,” the source said, adding that the first phase would kick off in mid-November.

Lebanon: Salameh Says New Circular to Reduce Pressure on Dollar Demand
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said on Monday that a circular is set to be issued on Tuesday to reduce the pressure on US dollar demand at currency exchange offices. Salameh's announcement came after a meeting he held with President Michel Aoun. He said the central bank was securing the foreign currency needs of the private and public sectors and would "continue in that according to the fixed prices that will be announced without any change," Reuters reported. The circular will organize "securing dollars for the banks at the official rate declared by the central bank to secure imports of petrol, medicine and flour", Salameh said. The Lebanese pound has been pegged at the rate of 1,507.5 to the dollar for more than two decades. On Sunday, protesters took to the streets in demonstrations against the deteriorating conditions and the economic and financial crisis. Tires were set ablaze on several major roads in Beirut, paralyzing the capital. “We went down to demand to live with dignity. We want to say to the MPs, the ministers, and all the ruling class that if they don’t want to give back what they stole, they should at least stop stealing so the people can live,” one protester in Beirut said, attacking Lebanese leaders over state corruption, according to Reuters. Lebanon won pledges of $11 billion to finance a major investment program to revive the economy at a Paris conference last year, however, donors first want to see the state implement reforms to put the public finances on a sustainable path. Funds pledged at that have yet to be released.

Iraq, Syria Reopen Major Border Crossing Retaken from IS
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 30/2019
A border crossing on a vital highway linking the capitals of Iraq and Syria, seized by Islamic State group jihadists in 2014, re-opened on Monday, an AFP reporter said. Iraqi security forces had re-taken the border post near the town of Al-Qaim in late 2017 as part of a massive operation backed by an international coalition against the jihadists' self-proclaimed "caliphate".On Monday, an AFP video journalist saw trucks hauling cargo across the terminal, which lies on a major highway connecting Baghdad and Damascus. Close to the Euphrates river in Iraq's restive Anbar province, Al-Qaim faces Albu Kamal in Syria's vast eastern region of Deir Ezzor. It is the only crossing between the two countries controlled by Syrian regime forces on one side and Iraqi federal authorities on the other. Another crossing was destroyed in fighting, while the rest are controlled by Kurdish forces which have a degree of autonomy in both countries. The roughly 600-kilometre (370-mile) frontier runs through both desert and mountains, making it extremely difficult to control. IS launched a shock offensive in the summer of 2014, capturing swathes of Syria and northern Iraq and imposing a brutal version of Islamic rule. Iraqi forces backed by the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance and the anti-IS coalition waged a months-long campaign to reassert control, declaring victory over the jihadists in late 2017.

Bteish meets UK Prime Minister's Trade Envoy, Egyptian Investment Minister
NNA - Mon 30 Sep 2019
Trade and Economy Minister Mansour Bteish, on Monday welcomed in his office at the Ministry UK Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Lebanon, Lord Richard John Grenville Spring, accompanied by British Ambassador to Lebanon, Chris Rampling. Discussions reportedly touched on the current situation in Lebanon. Minister Bteish touched on the country's monetary, financial and economic situation, underlining ongoing work to "improve the national industrial and agricultural productive sectors as stated in the McKinsey report."Bteish also called for strengthening cooperation between the two countries and for further UK involvement in Lebanon. The Minister thanked the United Kingdom for providing surveillance equipment to the Lebanese army to monitor the land border. The British Envoy, in turn, praised the Lebanese government's efforts to strengthen partnership with the United Kingdom, noting that the McKinsey report highlights important sectors of the Lebanese economy to investors.On the other hand, Bteish met this afternoon with Egypt's Minister of Cooperation and Investment, Sahar Nasser, accompanied by Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Nazih al-Naggari, in the presence of the Director General of the Ministry of Economy, Alia Abbas. Both sides followed up on the agreements reached at the meeting of the Joint High Committee.

Lebanese Army Commander meets American Task Force delegation, Syrian Ambassador
Mon 30 Sep 2019
NNA - Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Monday met at his office in Yarzeh a delegation representing the American Task Force for Lebanon, with whom he discussed bilateral relations between the two countries. He also received Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdel Karim Ali, with whom he discussed the general situation in Lebanon and the region. Aoun also received a delegation from the Islamic University, headed by Dr. Dina Al-Mawla..

من الأرشيف/فرانك سلامة يلقي الأضواء التاريخية على مجزرة صبرا وشاتيلا
Revisiting a Massacre in Lebanon’s Civil War—(Sabra and Shatila)..Were Lebanese Christians Responsible?
Franck Salameh/History News Network/November 29, 2011
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/78966/78966/
This past September marked the twenty-ninth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanon’s president-elect Bashir Gemayel. Like its most recent clone, the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, memories of the 1982 crime continue to haunt many Lebanese, some of whom are still persuaded its perpetrators to have been Syrian operatives bent on scuttling end-of-conflict prospects for Lebanon. Today, as Syria’s “Alawite era” teeters on the edge of its twilight, and as the international community prepares to indict it for ongoing crimes against its own people, the regime’s shady gruesome past is coming back to assail its tattered present days.
Although few Westerners today might remember Bashir Gemayel (or his assassination), and fewer still might be tempted to consider the motivations of those who commissioned his murder, rare are those who would not readily recall the massacres at Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, and rarer still are those who would not attribute those crimes to “right-wing” Lebanese Christian militiamen—ostensibly bent on avenging their fallen leader.
Never mind that Gemayel’s elimination and the ensuing massacres of Palestinian civilians hardly served the cause of Lebanon’s Christians. Indeed, the events in question plunged Lebanon into another eight years of bloodshed, tightened Syria’s grip over the country, turned it into a Syrian “satellite state” wholly bound to the whims and will of Damascus, and reduced the status of Lebanon’s Christians to a state of subservience and political insignificance.
Yet, the narrative that attributes Gemayel’s killing to Israeli agents, and the Sabra and Shatila massacres to Israel’s Lebanese Christian allies—getting Syria off scot free—still has its defenders, and still defines a significant chapter in Lebanon’s modern history.
Today, as Syria veers toward civil war, as its military occupation of Lebanon seems to be a thing of the past, and as the international “Special Tribunal for Lebanon” readies to finger Syrian officials (beginning with the recent indictment of their Hezbollah foot-soldiers) for a string of political assassinations that have shook Lebanon since 2005, a revision of the pleasing narrative of an Israeli and (a “rightwing”)Lebanese Christian involvement in Sabra and Shatila seems fitting.
Besides the Kahan Commission’s mention of armed elements dressed in Lebanese Forces uniforms entering Sabra and Shatila between September 16 and the morning of September 18, 1982, there is no hard usable evidence to support the scenario of murderous Lebanese Christians itching to mete out revenge on Palestinian refugees for the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel; that is to say there is no concrete usable evidence besides eyewitness reports of “men dressed in LF uniforms”—knowing full well that “uniforms” of every stripe were a dime a dozen in civil-war-era Lebanon.
Of course a scenario such as this remains tempting, and in the context of Lebanon’s war—and its cycles of tit-for-tat massacres and counter massacres—it would have made plenty of sense for Christian militias to exact revenge on Palestinians for the killing of their leader. However, there is no evidence to bear this out beyond the circumstantial.
Of course, an argument could be made—and indeed one was made—that rogue elements of the Lebanese Forces, without knowledge or express directives from the LF’s leadership, entered the camps with the intent of killing Palestinian civilians. The question that begs being asked in this case would be, “why would LF members commit these crimes, flaunting easily
identifiable insignia and uniforms, incriminating themselves and their community, at a time when Lebanon’s Christians had been hard at work for reconciliation with other constitutive elements of Lebanese society?”
It should be noted here that Bashir Gemayel’s first official act as President-elect of the Lebanese Republic in 1982 was not—as many at that time might have predicted—dismissing Lebanon’s Muslims, suing for partition, or signing a peace treaty with Israel without the endorsement of Lebanon’s Muslims. To the contrary, his first official act was to reach out to Lebanon’s Muslims and attempt to build a national unity government that would have eventually signed a peace treatyreflecting national consensus, not Christian communal interests.’
Incidentally, throughout their troubled twentieth-century history, Lebanon’s Maronites always opted for reconciliation, power-sharing, and a “multi-ethnic,” rather than a purely Maronite or a Maronite-dominated state. To wit, when the French warned the Maronites about the “demographic time bomb” that Grand Liban of 1920 would become in twenty years’ time and advised them to construct a smaller “Christian homeland” instead, the Maronites opted for a “larger Lebanon” as a model of multi-ethnic (Christian-Muslim) coexistence.
When another such opportunity for a smaller, culturally homogenous, Christian Lebanon offered itself in 1926, the Maronites still opted for “coexistence” with Lebanon’s Muslims. They did so time and again in 1936, in 1958, in 1976, and most importantly, at the height of their political and military power, in 1982. What’s more, Bashir Gemayel’s assassination dashed the hopes and snuffed the exuberance of a wide cross-section of Lebanese society—Muslims and Christians alike—and in the aftermath of his death the LF were scrambling to deal with the trauma, the disarray, the mass popular despondency, and the political vacuum that his sudden disappearance had left. It is, therefore, more than dubious that in a moment of national trauma such as this, the LF leadership would be plotting and executing a massacre that not only would have tarnished their image among the Muslims they’d been courting, but one that would have impugned their very legitimacy in the wider Arab world—which Bashir had been visiting for years prior, promoting his presidential platform and his national salvation and reconciliation project, and hawking his intent on hammering out an eventual “end-of-conflict” agreement with Israel.
The missing link in this drama is Elie Hobeika, a former LF member and senior officer long suspected of being a Syrian agent. In January 2002 Hobeika was assassinated in a car bomb plot reminiscent of the one that killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.
Lebanese officials (then still under Syrian occupation) immediately blamed Israel for the Hobeika assassination given that the latter had allegedly been preparing to testify in a Belgian court case believed to be on the verge of implicating then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. However, close Hobeika associates and family members recently revealed that, at that time, Hobeika had been more concerned with clearing his own name than with implicating Sharon in the massacres.
Indeed, a Belgian senator who had met with Hobeika shortly before the latter’s assassination revealed to al-Jazeera on January 26, 2002 (two days after Hobeika’s assassination) that Hobeika had no intention of identifying Sharon (or Israel for that matter) as the responsible party in the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
This leaves (as only remaining “person of interest”) Baathist Syria; a notoriously murderous regime that is showing its mettle in today’s Syria, and that had mastered to the hilt the skills of “arsonist-fireman” in Lebanon these past forty years.
Syria stood to gain most from the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, as well as from the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Among other payoffs reaped, this “cold case” stunted all attempts at Lebanese national reconciliation, it scuttled the prospects of peace with Israel, it extended the Lebanese war for another decade, it maintained Syria’s occupation of the country for another twenty-three years, it tightened its grip over the functioning of the Lebanese state, it continued using Lebanon as a launching pad for Syria’s regional settling of scores, and it provided the Alawites with a bottomless private piggy-bank bankrolling their wars-by-proxy.
Murder, mayhem, arson, and intrigue have indeed defined the Alawite era in the modern Levant, and have kept Syria’s Alawites firmly ensconced in power. The world’s powers that be ignored (or condoned) Syria’s bad behavior.
They did so mainly for fear that what may be lurking in a post-Alawite state might prove much worse than the inconvenient present: “it is us or chaos” went an ominous forewarning that the Assads conveyed to credulous visiting dignitaries—among them America’s seasoned Clintons and Kerrys.
But has the Alawite “Us” been anything but “Chaos” these past forty years? Isn’t it time the world considered the “chaotic” alternative? Isn’t it time inhumed “cold cases” got lain open again?
*Franck Salameh is assistant professor of Slavic and Eastern Languages at Boston College. He received his PhD in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from Brandeis University in 2004.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Gave $16 Million to South African Model
Ben Hubbard/The New York Times/September 30/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/78987/%d9%81%d8%b6%d9%8a%d8%ad%d8%a9-%d9%85%d8%af%d9%88%d9%8a%d8%a9-16-%d9%85%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%af%d9%88%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%8a-%d9%84%d8%b9/
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The prime minister of Lebanon gave more than $16 million to a South African bikini model who said they had a romantic relationship after they met at a luxury resort in the Seychelles, according to South African court documents obtained by The New York Times.
The prime minister, Saad Hariri, was not in office when he sent the money starting in 2013, and the transfer does not appear to have violated any Lebanese or South African laws. But the revelation in a South African court case this year of the extravagant gifts to a younger model comes during a difficult period for Mr. Hariri, the top Sunni Muslim politician in Lebanon and an American ally.
His business and political empires have fallen on hard times, depriving many employees of their pay. His family’s construction conglomerate, Saudi Oger, ceased operations in 2017, and his media outlets have struggled to pay salaries.
A looming financial crisis in Lebanon has set off antigovernment protests. This month, Mr. Hariri said the Lebanese government would declare an “economic state of emergency” and push through austerity measures.
Mr. Hariri did not respond to questions sent to his media team about his relationship with the model, Candice van der Merwe, or any gifts to her.
The gifts have no clear tie to Lebanon’s current economic woes and Mr. Hariri, a married father of three, was sufficiently wealthy to have made the payments himself. Forbes magazine estimated his net worth in 2013 at $1.9 billion, thanks largely to business interests he inherited after his father, Rafik Hariri, who also served as prime minister, was assassinated in Beirut in 2005.
Since then, the younger Hariri has remained one of Lebanon’s best known political figures. He makes frequent state visits to Paris, Washington and Riyadh and favors pro-Western policies, but heads a power-sharing government that includes Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party backed by Iran.
His bank transfers to Ms. van der Merwe were made between his two terms as prime minister, but while he was the head of his political party, the Future Movement. He was 43 at the time of the first transfer, in 2013. He was then running family businesses in construction and other domains and living in France and Saudi Arabia.
Ms. van der Merwe was 20 years old. She had appeared in energy drink promotions and swimwear calendars, but her reported annual income had never exceeded $5,400.
In a promotional interview conducted in conjunction with the publication of a swimsuit calendar in 2011, she said her interests included listening to Jack Johnson and Celine Dion, riding Jet Skis and flying helicopters with her father.
Then in May 2013, her assets suddenly soared, thanks to a transfer of $15,299,965 from a Lebanese bank.
“Lady luck, it would seem, suddenly smiled on the applicant,” a South African judge wrote in 2015.
The transfer would likely have remained secret had the large sum not raised suspicions among the South African financial and tax authorities, who investigated and deemed it taxable income.
Ms. van der Merwe insisted the money was a gift, and not taxable according to South African law. In subsequent court cases, she argued the money had been given to her without conditions and identified her benefactor as Mr. Hariri.
“Love you my Saad :),” Ms. van der Merwe wrote in an email to Mr. Hariri in which she provided her bank account details so he could transfer the money, telling him it was so she could buy property.
The money landed in her account shortly afterward.
The New York Times was unable to reach Ms. van der Merwe, but two of her previous lawyers, her current lawyer, and her father, who has represented her in tax court, declined to comment and to make her available for an interview.
In an affidavit cited in the court documents, Ms. van der Merwe said she had been recruited at age 19 to travel to an exclusive resort in the Seychelles Islands called The Plantation Club that was “frequented by some of the richest private individuals in the world,” including billionaires “for whom money is no object.”
At this “playground of the super wealthy,” she said, “it is the norm for lavish parties and events to be held” and models were flown in “to lend a sense of glamour and exclusivity.” The models’ passports were taken when they arrived and they were forbidden from taking photos.
Ms. van der Merwe spent four days at the resort in 2012, she said, and connected with people she met because of her “healthy lifestyle” and other qualities.
“I have also been told that I have a very engaging personality,” she said.
Other trips followed. On her first two, she flew economy class. Later, she was upgraded to first or business class.
During a trip in March 2013, she said, she told friends that her “dream car” was the Audi R8. After she returned home, she had an accident that totaled her car and cracked her cellphone screen.
A car dealer soon called her to pick up a new Audi R8 Spyder, which had been paid for and registered in her name. She also received two new cellphones, including one with international roaming, and a Land Rover Evoque.
The two vehicles were worth more than $250,000, a sum that was added to her tax bill. Her lawyers wrote in 2015 that they were gifts from the same “extremely well-to-do Middle Eastern gentleman” who sent her the money.
When government investigators asked about the $15 million transfer, a bank official said that “the sender and beneficiary are boyfriend/girlfriend and are currently together in the Seychelles.”
Ms. van der Merwe bought properties worth more than $10 million, including a house in Cape Town’s upscale Fresnaye neighborhood with an outdoor swimming pool and commanding ocean views. She also lent $2.7 million to a real estate company her father was involved with and made other transactions, leaving $537,000 in her account, she said.
The tax authorities considered her claim that the money was a gift implausible and suspected the funds had been for her father, Gary van der Merwe, a businessman who had fought repeated court battles with the tax authorities over his own business dealings. The authorities levied income tax on the sum, froze Ms. van der Merwe’s assets and appointed a curator to oversee them until the matter was settled.
So Mr. Hariri stepped in again, sending Ms. van der Merwe an additional $1 million to help cover her legal and living expenses, according to court documents.
In correspondence with the tax authorities, Ms. van der Merwe’s lawyers acknowledged it was hard to believe that “such largess was bestowed on a young girl” by someone with whom she had “a casual relationship.” But Ms. van der Merwe insisted the money and cars were gifts for her personal use with no conditions.
She reached a settlement with the tax authorities in 2016, which she appealed last year. A judge dismissed that case this month.
In January, she sued government officials for $65 million in damages she attributed to the tax authorities’ pursuit of her. These documents made Mr. Hariri’s role in the case public this year.
In the suit, she argues that she had to sell the house because the asset freeze prevented her from paying for its upkeep. She also says the court cases and related publicity had caused irreparable damage to her career and severed her link to Mr. Hariri.
“The plaintiff’s relationship with Mr. Hariri was terminated, which resulted in the loss of financial benefits that would have accrued to her from the relationship if it had been allowed to persist without outside interference,” the suit says.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/world/middleeast/lebanon-hariri-model.html?searchResultPosition=1

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01/2019
Crack in the anti-Iran front: US persuades Saudis to engage Tehran in regional deals
DEBKAfile/September 30/2019
Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani disclosed on Tuesday, Sept. 30, that he had received “messages from Saudi Arabia,” the day after Crown Prince Muhammed (MbS) warned that war with Iran would “collapse the global economy” by causing crude prices to spike to “unimaginably high numbers.” In a CBS 60 Minutes interview, the prince noted that he “preferred a political solution to a military one.” Rouhani’s spokesman commented, without revealing the messages’ content, “if Saudi Arabia is really pursuing a change of behavior, Iran welcomes that.” This “change of behavior” has taken two forms, DEBKAfile’s sources report. Riyadh was persuaded by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to line up with Washington and abstain from a military response to Iran’s cruise missile-explosive drone attack on Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14. The Saudis also agreed to join US efforts to bring about a meeting between Trump and Rouhani, to which the crown prince might be attached or hold a separate meeting with the Iranian president . Our sources add exclusively that even though the Trump-Rouhani summit at UN Center appeared last week to have fallen through, contacts continue and the two sides appear to be looking for a venue acceptable to both. The main obstacle for now is that the US president has no wish to travel outside America, while Rouhani is reluctant to pay another visit to the US after the US Assembly session. With the summit location still up in the air, the Saudi crown prince’s role is still undecided. However, the comment coming on Tuesday from the Iranian president’s office sounded like a strong signal of positive acceptance of the Saudi feelers for negotiations to center on the topics at issue: the Yemen war and the situation in Syria and Iraq.
These initial Saudi overtures towards Iran under US auspices are ominous tidings for Israel and its diplomatic, military and intelligence strategy with regard to Iran. The anti-Iran axis set up between Washington, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi is now on the line. Its collapse would leave Israel high and dry on its own against the mortal threat posed by Iran. Tehran, despite Israel’s long efforts, is cementing its military grip on Syria and Iraq. Dramatizing the abiding threat to Israel on Tuesday, Sept. 30, Iran’s Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani informed his senior commanders: “The Islamic Republic has prepared the capability to annihilate Israel and this regime must be wiped off the world’s geographic history.”

NCRI: ‘Reliable sources’ say Khamenei ordered, Rouhani authorized Aramco attack
Emily Judd, Al Arabiya English/Monday, 30 September 2019
Iran’s top leaders ordered and authorized the September 14 attack on two oil installations in Saudi Arabia, a US-based Iranian opposition coalition announced in a press conference on Monday. The US Representative Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US) shared detailed intelligence purported to show the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched the attack from Iranian territory, and that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the attack and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani approved it. “Supreme leader Khamenei made the decision to make such an attack on Saudi oil installations,” said NCRI-US Deputy Director Alireza Jafarzadeh at the press conference. Jafarzadeh said Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) met in July to discuss the issue and that top commanders of the IRGC were involved in the planning and implementation of the operation. “The decision for this attack was taken in the Supreme National Security Council that is presided over by the regime’s President Hassan Rouhani. The regime’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is also a regular member,” said NCRI-US representative Soona Samsami at the press conference, adding that commander-in-chief of the IRGC Hossein Salami and commander of the IRGC's Quds Force Qassem Soleimani were present. The plan was reportedly approved by the SNSC on July 31. Jafarzadeh said IRGC commanders with expertise in missiles and drones convened at a base in Omidiyeh, Iran, to participate in the operation ahead of September 14. After the attack, the operational officers reported their activities to top Iranian military personnel. The cruise missiles used in the attack were manufactured in the Parchin military complex in Iran, southeast of Iran's capital city of Tehran, according to Jafarzadeh.
Jafarzadeh said the information comes from the MEK [Mujahedin-e Khalq] network inside Iran. “The sources are inside the regime and within the IRGC and they are completely reliable,” said NCRI-US Deputy Director Alireza Jafarzadeh in an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English.
The sources say both Khamenei and Rouhani were briefed on the details of the attack. US intelligence shows the attack originated from Iran. The Arab Coalition investigation found that the 25 drones and cruise missiles that struck the Aramco oil facilities were Iranian-made and were flying from north to south. While the Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility, the international community has rejected the claim, blaming Iran. The American branch is part of the NCRI, an umbrella organization of Iranian opposition groups, which includes the controversial Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The MEK, which has been described by critics as having cult-like attributes, has previously released alleged evidence of Iran’s nuclear violations. MEK dissidents were expelled from Iran following the 1979 revolution as they call for the current regime to be toppled and replaced with a secular government. The current MEK has distanced itself from the group’s actions in the 1970s, when some of its members killed US citizens in Iran. The MEK was designated a terror group by the US State Department until 2012. NCRI-US Deputy Director Alireza Jafarzadeh was the first to expose Iran’s secret nuclear program when he announced its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz at a press conference in Washington in 2002. Last October France froze assets of Iran’s intelligence agency in response to an alleged Iranian terror plot targeting the annual NCRI meeting in Paris.

Iran Defense Minister: US ‘maximum pressure’ policy turned to ‘maximum begging’
Al Arabiya English/Monday, 30 September 2019
Iran has turned the US’ “maximum-pressure” policy against Tehran to “maximum begging,” claimed Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Hatami on Sunday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. “Resistance in our country has made the enemies go from maximum pressure to maximum begging,” said Hatami, adding that “today, there is no route other than the one taken during the Sacred Defense.” The “Sacred Defense” is a term used by Iran to refer to the eight-year-long war with Iraq (1980-1988). US President Donald Trump has pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran to try to force Tehran to change its destabilizing policies and activities in the region. Trump recently announced “the highest sanctions ever imposed on a country,” including sanctions on Iran’s central bank. President Donald Trump on Wednesday took steps to bar senior Iranian officials and their immediate family from entering the US as immigrants or non-immigrants, the White House said in a proclamation. According to Hatami, the US has targeted Iran’s economy “because they think our weakness lies in our economy.” Rejecting the claims that Iran was behind the September 14 attacks on key Saudi oil facilities, he said that “the Saudis imagined that by accusing another country, they could save face. That is why they say Iran did this. Because if they accuse a powerful opponent, it would be less humiliating.” Saudi Arabia announced on September 14 that drone attacks caused fires at two Saudi Aramco facilities. While Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility for the Aramco attacks, multiple reports have cited US intelligence sources as saying the attacks originated from Iran. Last Sunday, The Wall Street Journal quoted two Saudi Arabian officials, who are in talks with the Houthis, as saying the Houthis admitted they had covered for Iran by claiming the attacks. CBS News cited a US official as saying that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei approved the attacks that targeted Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities. The source added that Khamenei approved the attacks on the condition that it be done in a way that Tehran could deny any involvement.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks. On Tuesday Britain, France, and Germany blamed Iran for the attacks.

Iranian Opposition Launches ‘Transitional Phase' to Overcome Regime
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
Iranian opposition groups announced Saturday the launch of a new party to manage the "transitional period” and act as an alternative transitional government for Tehran's political regime. The new party organized a two-day founding conference in central London to adopt a plan for “managing the transitional period.”It is headed by activist opposition politician, Hassan Shariatmadari, who stressed in his opening speech the importance of working to overcome the current regime. He called on Iranians to unify their anti-regime protests, urging them to “break restrictions” and continue to exert efforts to steer away from the current administration. Shariatmadari addressed their concerns over the alternative for the current regime, which he said is responsible for “isolating” the Iranians and depriving them of “progress and democracy.”“We want to be the voice for the Iranian people and help them combat the regime,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat. Shariatmadari said that the option to acknowledge Iranians has been forgotten by international parties, while they were busy choosing between imposing maximum pressure on Iran or waging a war. “This option should be taken into consideration because the people are capable of overthrowing the regime if you support recognizing representatives of the Iranians and their voice,” he stressed, adding that any negotiations that do no lead to regime change will be rejected. He said the transitional administration will manage “civil resistance and communication with the Iranians,” adding that it will also communicate with international parties through the International Contact Group in the administration. “We want to send ambassadors of goodwill and peace to the region,” Shariatmadari revealed, stressing that talks have already begun with European and American parties. Addressing Iran’s neighbors, he said: “There is no animosity between us. We want to coexist with you and reach economic and security cooperation in the Middle East.”The new party is formed of ten working groups and 11 secretaries. Its managing committee is comprised of 35 activists and opposition figures, including 14 who are in Iran. Organizers of the conference revealed the Iranian embassy in Britain had exerted diplomatic pressure on the Royal Institution of Great Britain to change the conference’s location. Separately, the Constitutionalist Party of Iran–Liberal Democrat discussed during its annual conference the situation in Iran and the demands of the next phase, in light of the increasing popular discontent with the regime. Secretary General, Haideh Tavackoli, said the party “seeks the best and least dangerous future for Iran as a basis for constructive cooperation with other forces, whether they agree or oppose the party’s visions and ideas.”

Iran: Eliminating Israel 'no longer a dream but attainable goal'
NNA -Mon 30 Sep 2019
The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Monday that destroying arch-rival Israel was an "achievable goal".
"This sinister regime must be wiped off the map and this is no longer ... a dream [but] it is an achievable goal," Major General Hossein Salami said, quoted by the Guards' Sepahnews site. Four decades on from Iran's Islamic revolution, "we have managed to obtain the capacity to destroythe impostor Zionist regime," he said. The new threat comes as Iran has increased its bellicose rhetorictowards the Jewish state over the past several weeks. The United States, which withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in 2018, has imposed a campaign of "maximum pressure" -- with vocal supportfrom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Salami's comments were given prominent coverage by the Tasnimand Farsnews agencies, close to ultra-conservative political factions. The officialIRNAagency also carried his remarks, but placed more emphasis on his assertion that Iran was growing stronger and would finally beat its foes despite "hostility" towards it. Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), warned over the weekend that "There will be nothing left of Israel" if a conflict breaks out between the two countries.
"If Israel attacks Iran, it will have to collect the scraps of Tel Aviv in the Mediterranean Sea," Nilforoushan added while speaking to the Tasnim News Agency on Sunday.—AFP

Iran's Oil Facilities on 'Full Alert' Amid Fears of Cyber War
London- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
Iran’s oil minister told the petroleum industry on Sunday to be on alert to physical and cyber attacks amid heightened tensions with the United States in the Gulf region. “All companies and facilities of the oil industry should be fully alert to physical and cyber threats as sanctions target the petroleum industry,” Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said in a statement, carried by the Oil Ministry’s news agency SHANA and reported by Reuters. US media reports have said Washington was considering possible cyber attacks against Iran after the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil sites, which US officials blamed on Tehran. Iran, however, has denied the charge. Iran said on Wednesday it was inspecting security at key Gulf oil and gas facilities, including assessing preparedness for cyber attacks. Reports on social media had said there was a cyber-attack on some petrochemical and other companies in Iran on Sept. 21, although a state body in charge of cyber security denied there had been a “successful” attack. Zanganeh explained that these precautions are necessary in light of the US sanctions on Iran and the comprehensive economic war, which Tehran accuses Washington of waging against it. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with NBC that there is an ongoing cyber war between Iran and the United States. He referred to Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm that is widely believed to be have been made by the US and Israel. "There is a cyber war going on. The United States started that cyber war, with attacking our nuclear facilities in a very dangerous, irresponsible way that could've killed millions of people," he said. "There is a cyber war and Iran is engaged in it,” he added, warning the United States from not being able to finish any war it starts against Iran.
Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, for his part, has earlier said that Iran is facing cyber-terrorism such as Stuxnet. Iran has long been on alert for cyber threats after the United States and Israel covertly sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010 with the Stuxnet computer virus, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges that were enriching uranium.

Saudi Prince Says War with Iran Would Gut World Economy
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 30/2019
Saudi Arabia's crown prince said in an interview aired Sunday that war with Iran would devastate the global economy and he prefers a non-military solution to tensions with his regional rival. "If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests," Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the CBS program "60 Minutes." "Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes," the prince said. The prince said a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran would be catastrophic for the world economy. "The region represents about 30 percent of the world’s energy supplies, about 20 percent of global trade passages, about four percent of the world GDP. Imagine all of these three things stop," he said. "This means a total collapse of the global economy, and not just Saudi Arabia or the Middle East countries."He said a September 14 attack on Saudi oil facilities, which his country and the US blamed on Iran, had been senseless. "There is no strategic goal. Only a fool would attack five percent of global supplies. The only strategic goal is to prove that they are stupid and that is what they did," said the prince. Prince Mohammed was asked point-blank if he ordered the killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October last year. "Absolutely not. This was a heinous crime. But I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government," he said."When a crime is committed against a Saudi citizen by officials, working for the Saudi government, as a leader I must take responsibility. This was a mistake."
Body never found
Prince Mohammed, the kingdom's de facto ruler, has come under huge international pressure after the US-based writer was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi's body was never found. The prince has said the killing was carried out without his knowledge. Riyadh has repeatedly denied that Prince Mohammed was behind the murder of Khashoggi -- a royal family insider turned critic and a US resident -- who was killed in what Saudi authorities have described as a rogue operation. A report by a UN human rights expert, who conducted an independent probe, said there was "credible evidence" linking the crown prince to the murder and an attempted cover up. The CIA has also reportedly said the killing was likely ordered by Prince Mohammed. But Saudi prosecutors have absolved the prince and said around two dozen people implicated in the murder are in custody, with death penalties sought against five men.

US shifts Middle East command center from Qatar to South Carolina after 13 years
Staff Writer, Al Arabiya English/Monday, 30 September 2019
The US command and control in the Middle East moved its post in Qatar back to the US on Saturday for the first time in 13 years, according to The Washington Post. Since the 1991 Gulf War, the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar has been used to command fighter jets and other Air Force assets in the Middle East. But over the weekend control over the regional air power of the US and its allies shifted to the Shaw Air Base in South Carolina. The unannounced operation was temporary as Al-Udeid took back control on Sunday. US Air Force officials told The Washington Post that recent incidents involving Iran added urgency to the change, which had been a long-held goal of the military’s, to move functions to a different base. “Iran has indicated multiple times through multiple sources their intent to attack US forces,” said Col. Frederick Coleman, commander of the 609th Air and Space Operations Center, in an interview with The Washington Post. “Frankly, as the war against ISIS winds down and as we continue to work through a potential peace process in Afghanistan, the region is calming down and potentially more stable than it has been in decades,” he said. “Except for Iran.”

Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan to Discuss Different Approach to GERD Issue
cairo- Mohammed Abdo Hasanein/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
After a heated week that witnessed an escalation between Egypt and Ethiopia, an independent scientific group from both countries as well as Sudan will start meeting on Monday in Khartoum hoping to find a consensual way out of the dispute over filling and operating Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The spokesman of Egypt's Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, Mohamed al-Sibai told Asharq Al-Awsat that the scientific committee is made up of five specialized experts from the three countries. The meeting will be crucial in discussing each country's proposals on the rules of filling and operating the dam. It will be followed by a meeting of Irrigation Ministers of the three countries on October 4 and 5 to approve the topics to be agreed upon. The Khartoum meeting comes after the failure of the last round of negotiations, held in Cairo, which included the countries’ Irrigation Ministers. The meeting did not address the technical aspects and was limited to procedural details without discussing substantive issues. Ethiopia refuses to discuss the offer that Egypt has already submitted to the two countries. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan have been negotiating for nearly eight years, without reaching any result. Egypt fears that the dam will damage its limited share of the Nile water, about 55.5 billion cubic meters, which the country needs for more than 90 percent for its supply of drinking water, irrigation for agriculture, and industry. Over the past few days, Egypt and Ethiopia have sought to convince the international community of the validity of their respective positions and blamed the failure of negotiations on the other's intransigence. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, during his UN General Assembly address in New York, called for international intervention in the negotiations over Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam. Sisi said the international community should play a “constructive role” in urging all parties to be flexible in the negotiations over the dam, in order to reach an agreement that achieves a common interest for all. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry held extensive meetings over the month with European, Arab, and African ministers in Cairo to brief them on the recent developments of the negotiations. The Ministry noted that the Egyptian proposal for filling and operating the GERD is fair, balanced, and enables Ethiopia to achieve the purpose of the Renaissance Dam, which is to generate electricity. The proposal further noted that the operation of the Dam should be done without harming the water interests of the downstream countries, especially Egypt, which depends completely on the Nile to meet its water needs. Speaking at the 74th UN General Assembly, Ethiopia’s president Sahle-Work Zewde responded to Egypt’s call for international intervention in the ongoing Nile dam dispute. The President noted that some 65 million Ethiopians do not have access to electricity, cautioning that the River Nile should not be an object of competition and mistrust, adding the dam project offered a unique opportunity for all the countries along the river to co-operate to share the waters. In 2011, Addis Ababa announced the construction of the $4 billion dam to be the centerpiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, generating more than 6,000 megawatts.

Libya: Haftar’s Forces Strike GNA Militias in Sirte for 2nd Day
Monday, 30 September, 2019 - 07:45
Cairo - Khalid Mahmoud/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
The Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, struck for the second day in a row positions held by militias loyal to the Government of National Accord in the coastal city of Sirte.
GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj, who considers himself the military commander, admitted for the first time that there is no army in the country. Sarraj deplored the ugly truth, “there is no army in Libya”, adding that attempts continue to rebuild the military institution as he expressed confidence that the US ally could be helpful in this regard. He accused Haftar of crippling the political process following his offensive on Tripoli on April 4. Victory is a matter of time and Haftar’s wish to enter Tripoli is inconceivable, he affirmed.
LNA’s Karama operations media center announced Sunday that in the past two days, militia positions and headquarters suffered huge material and human losses due to the strikes.
Sirte Protection Force (SPF), which is loyal to Sarraj, admitted that three airstrikes had struck the city. Local media channels quoted SPF Commander Al-Naas Abdullah as saying that gate 17 in the city’s east was targeted by four airstrikes with no human losses.
This is the second attack in a row, following a series of airstrikes on positions belonging to SPF and another civilian facility that left two people dead and five injured.

Egypt: Authorities Return Lost Israeli Tourist
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
The Egyptian authorities have returned the Israeli tourist to his home after he went missing last week in Egypt’s western desert region on the border with Libya. Aviv Slobodkin, 26, had been traveling in Egypt’s western desert region since the beginning of this month, according to his family.
The family announced that their son returned to his home safe, on Sunday, without giving details as to why he disappeared and how he returned. The young man traveled to Egypt early last month and maintained continuous contact with his family, however on Sunday, he said he had arrived in an area called “Farfara” and that he intended to go to Cairo immediately afterward. It was the last time his family heard from him and Israeli police announced Slobodkin as missing and called on citizens to help find him. His sister, Marina, said that the Egyptian authorities found Slobodkin in Sinai and that he lost contact due to a malfunction in phone signals and couldn’t call anyone, however, he is okay and was not hurt. Earlier, anti-terrorism unit in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a warning banning Jewish Israelis from entering Egyptian territory in general and Sinai in particular because of a real danger it posed to their lives.

Iraq, Syria Reopen Qaim Border Crossing
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
Iraq and Syria reopened on Monday the al-Qaim border crossing.
Located on a vital highway that connects Baghdad and Damascus, the crossing was seized by the ISIS terrorist group in 2014. The opening of the crossing between the Iraqi town of Qaim and Syria's al-Boukamal is expected to strengthen trade between the two countries. The crossing was closed in 2012 due to the war in Syria. Qaim and al-Boukamal were controlled by ISIS until 2017, when Syrian and Iraqi troops captured the towns from the extremist. The group's territorial defeat was announced in Syria earlier this year.

France Bids Farewell to Ex-President Chirac
Paris- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 30 September, 2019
A coffin bearing the body of former French president Jacques Chirac, who died last week, received a solemn send-off on Monday from a military honor guard and a band playing Chopin's Funeral March. After two days of lying-in-state at the Hotel Des Invalides in central Paris, Chirac's coffin, draped in the French flag, was carried out into the courtyard of the building by 10 members of France's elite Republican Guard. A somber-looking President Emmanuel Macron stood over the casket and bowed his head, before it was loaded onto a hearse for the procession to Saint-Sulpice church, where nearly 2,000 family members and dignitaries were gathered for a funeral service. Scores of current and former foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and former US president Bill Clinton, were due in the church to bid farewell to Chirac, who died last week aged 86. Chirac was feted by many French people for asserting the country's role as a global player and for opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while a conviction after he left office for misusing public funds did little to tarnish his image. Later on Monday, Macron will host the visiting leaders at a lunch at the Elysee Palace, though Putin was expected to fly out before the lunch, according to the Elysee Palace. Other leaders at the funeral included German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker. Prince Edward, youngest son of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, also attended.
HEAVY HEART
Chirac is to be buried at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris, in a plot next to his daughter Laurence, who died in 2016. Over the weekend, thousands of people queued outside the Hotel des Invalides to pay tribute to Chirac. His coffin was on display, draped in the French flag and in front of a large photograph of a smiling Chirac. Chirac was "someone who had a different idea of his role, of France's role in the international community, who showed it in difficult situations," said Paris resident Remu Issons, who was among the crowd at the lying-in. Crowds gathered too at Paris town hall, where Chirac served for 18 years as mayor. "My heart is heavy," said Anne Firmin, who was looking at a display of photographs of Chirac at the height of his political power. "For me, it's my whole youth." Born in Paris, Chirac was from his earliest years a member of the French establishment, but he was also known for his charisma and his knack for connecting with ordinary people outside the urban elite. Serving as president from 1995 to 2007, his defiant opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq put him at odds with then-US President George W. Bush, and with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He earned the nickname "Houdini" for the way he managed to escape a jail term despite the allegations of misuse of funds that dogged him for years. In the last years of his life, he suffered from neurological problems and was rarely seen in public. He lived quietly with his wife, Bernadette, in a Left Bank apartment, and worked on his memoirs. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Chirac's family had barred her from attending the funeral. Chirac had faced off against Marine's father, Jean-Marie, in a runoff in the 2002 presidential election. In his last speech before leaving office in 2007, Chirac had warned against the "poison" of racism, extremism, and anti-Semitism.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 01/2019
We Assess…Iran Probably Already Has Nuclear Weapons
Dr. Peter Pry/MACKENZIE INSTITUTE/September 30/2019
Some in Washington want to bomb Iran for attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. But what if Iran has nuclear missiles?
Intelligence failure can kill thousands, as Washington learned on December 7, 1941, and should have learned again on September 11, 2001. Intelligence failure in the nuclear missile age can destroy entire nations.
Washington officialdom believes Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons based on little more than wishful thinking and blind faith in an Intelligence Community deeply corrupted by the Obama Administration—and still unreformed by President Trump.
Three years ago, senior Reagan and Clinton administration officials warned that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. See “Underestimating Nuclear Missile Threats from North Korea and Iran” National Review February 12, 2016: “Iran is following North Korea’s example — as a strategic partner allied by treaty and pledged to share scientific and military technology. Iran sacrificed its overt civilian nuclear program to deceive the Obama administration, to lift international sanctions, to prevent Western military action, while a clandestine military nuclear program no doubt continues underground. That is why Iran, under the nuclear deal, will not allow inspection of its military facilities and prohibits interviewing scientists — it is concealing the dimensions and status of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.”“We assess, from U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency reports and other sources, that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. Over 13 years ago, prior to 2003, Iran was manufacturing nuclear-weapon components, like bridge-wire detonators and neutron initiators, performing non-fissile explosive experiments of an implosion nuclear device, and working on the design of a nuclear warhead for the Shahab-III missile.”“Thirteen years ago Iran was already a threshold nuclear-missile state. It is implausible that Iran suspended its program for over a decade for a nuclear deal with President Obama.”The above assessment is by Ambassador R. James Woolsey, President Clinton’s Director of Central Intelligence; Dr. William Graham, President Reagan’s White House Science Advisor, leader of NASA, and recently Chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission; Fritz Ermarth, a national security advisor to President Reagan and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council; and Ambassador Henry Cooper, former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
These stellar intelligence officers, strategic thinkers, and scientists played major roles helping win the Cold War. Perhaps we should listen to them now about Iran:
“Iran probably has nuclear warheads for the Shahab-III medium-range missile, which they tested for making EMP attacks…Iran already has the largest medium-range ballistic-missile force in the Middle East.”“Iran could be building a nuclear-capable missile force, partly hidden in tunnels, as suggested by its dramatic revelation of a vast underground missile-basing system last year. Iran is building toward a large, deployable, survivable, war-fighting missile force — to which nuclear weapons can be swiftly added as they are manufactured.” “And at a time of its choosing, Iran could launch a surprise EMP attack against the United States by satellite, as they have apparently practiced with help from North Korea.”
More recently, David Albright, former nuclear inspector for the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, and Ollie Heinonen, former Deputy Director General of IAEA, published an Institute for Science and International Security report based on Iran’s secret nuclear weapon archives clandestinely obtained by Israel’s Mossad: “The archive shows that the AMAD program intended to build five nuclear warhead systems for missile delivery and possible use in preparation for an underground nuclear test; an actual test would require a decision to proceed. The program was also partially designed to have its own independent uranium mining, conversion, and enrichment resources. The documentation indicates that Iran’s nuclear weaponization efforts did not stop after 2003…”
“The United States incorrectly assessed with high confidence in a 2007 declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that ‘in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.’ Based on the information in the archives, Iran’s nuclear weapons program continued after 2003…Moreover, the 2007 NIE also incorrectly asserted that Iran had not re-started its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007…However, there is no evidence that the program was ever fully halted, even up to today.”
“The information in the archive evaluated so far does not answer the question of what the current status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is…”
Assessments that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons assume erroneously: our intelligence is perfect, Iran’s civilian nuclear program is all there is, no clandestine nuclear weapons program exists in Iran’s numerous underground military facilities—including unaccounted uranium and plutonium facilities for fueling nuclear weapons, as in North Korea. Where Iran is concerned, our Intelligence Community appears to have learned nothing from its spectacular failures grossly underestimating the nuclear threat from North Korea. Does the Intelligence Community even want to know the truth about Iran’s Islamic bomb?
Reza Kahlili, the only CIA operative to successfully penetrate the scientific wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, claimed Iran does have nuclear weapons and offered to procure photographs. Obama’s Intelligence Community was not interested, and is still not interested.
President Trump has inherited an Intelligence Community that disagrees with him about almost everything, including his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. According to the Intelligence Community, Iran is in technical compliance with the nuclear deal, officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA). But if Iran already has nuclear weapons, Iran was never in compliance with JCPOA, and the Intelligence Community can chalk-up another major intelligence failure, potentially far more consequential than Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
If Iran has the bomb, why have they not yet attacked “the Great Satan” that is the United States? Radical Islamist cleric Nasir al-Fahd’s May 2003 fatwa “A Treatise On The Legal Status Of Using Weapons Of Mass Destruction Against Infidels” may provide a clue. Although al-Fahd is a Sunni sympathetic to al Qaeda, his rules for a nuclear holocaust against Infidels may well govern the thinking of the Shiite mullahs who run Iran too: –First, under Islam’s “Just War Doctrine” the Infidels have to be given an opportunity to convert to Islam, before they can be destroyed. This Iran’s leaders have done repeatedly, most prominently former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University (September 24, 2007) and at least twice at the United Nations (September 23, 2009 and September 26, 2012) about “the current world order based on injustice” and the virtues of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
–Next, a “final solution” against Infidels cannot be implemented except in a defensive war to protect the Ummah, the community or territory of Islam. So a U.S. bombing campaign, especially one that threatens regime change in Iran, would justify nuclear annihilation of “the Great Satan”.
Is it possible Iran is deliberately trying to provoke the U.S. to attack, so the Mullahs can in “self-defense” come out of the nuclear closet by blasting a U.S. aircraft carrier, or making an EMP attack on North America?
By the way, “political correctness” under the Obama and Bush administrations, unfortunately continuing today, forbids the Intelligence Community from analyzing the ideology of radical Islam (the so-called “religion of peace”) for purposes of strategic warning or waging the Global War on Terrorism. Consequently, the best and brightest counterterrorism and Islamist experts were purged from the Intelligence Community.
We should be treating Iran like a nuclear weapons state, with the same prudent caution used toward North Korea. Let’s not learn the hard way that Iran already has its Islamic Bomb.
Appended to this article is a more comprehensive assessment of evidence Iran already has nuclear weapons that I wrote in 2016, drawing upon my training as a CIA Intelligence Officer and professional lifetime as a national security scholar. Whether from bias or wishful thinking, compelling evidence Iran already has nuclear weapons, and warnings by prominent intelligence and national security experts from the U.S. and Israel, is largely ignored, as if this legitimate opinion is under a news blackout.

Impeachment? Bring it on. Trump can put the Dems on trial in the Senate
Jared Peterson, AMERICAN THINKER/September 30/2019
The entrenched elites of both parties and a large portion of the corrupt upper federal bureaucracy understand the mortal threat President Trump poses to them. This threat has been the driving force behind the continuous efforts to destroy the Trump presidency since (and before) the President’s inauguration.
These forces have no doubt already figured out they can’t beat the President at the ballot box. Impeachment is their last desperate chance to rid themselves of the man who has so effectively exposed their self-enrichment and multiple sell-outs of the American people. And now they think they see their chance — based on a single telephone call in which America’s president, reasonably and with more than good cause, suspecting criminal wrongdoing, may have sought the assistance of a foreign head of state in getting to the bottom of his amply justified suspicions.
They are counting on the now widely and deeply loathed former Republican, Mitt Romney, to round up enough Republican turncoat Trump haters to reach two thirds of the Senate — all without regard to the total absence of anything remotely approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
No occupant of the White House before the current one has faced even a small fraction of the unrelenting groundless accusations, calumnies and outright lies endured by President Trump since well before the first day of his presidency. Through it all he has repelled the attacks, while he produced concrete results for the American economy and American conservatism unseen since President Reagan. The constant, vile, often violent, denunciations of America’s President during the last nearly three years, all by the 2016 losers and their major media mouthpieces, is without any precedent in the nation’s history. The impeachment proceedings President Trump now confronts — for a single telephone call to a head of state raising issues entirely appropriate to the functions of his office — are merely another round in the Democrat/media elites’ continuous efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2016 election.
In short, having utterly failed with their Russia collusion fantasy, the President’s enemies have moved on to an entirely ordinary and appropriate telephone call.
The President’s defense in the Senate, accordingly, must engage, spotlight, scrutinize and expose the entire course of odious conduct by the President’s corrupt attackers, from their first spinning of the Russia collusion hoax, through the latest chapter in their attempted coup.
Everything will be relevant in the Senate trial, and everyone, no exceptions, should be subpoenaed and interrogated under oath. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Comey, Peter Strzok, and the entire gang behind the coup.
That includes Strzok, his girlfriend Lisa Page, Clapper, Brennan, Comey and whatever deep state apparatchiks lied to the FISA judge to enable a spying operation on the Trump campaign and transition team — a crime without precedence and one which massively outweighs anything that could credibly be alleged against President Trump. Here is the most important benefit of this broad and aggressive approach to the President’s defense: In confronting all those who have ceaselessly sought to reverse the 2016 election, President Trump’s legal team this time will have a critical tool thus far denied them — the power to subpoena any and all persons, including all those who were elbow deep in the Russia collusion hoax. Unlike during the feeble and tedious investigation conducted by the Washington elite’s chosen operative, Robert Mueller, every single such person will be sworn and aggressively, publicly interrogated under penalty of perjury, by formidable trial counsel. What the anti-democratic authors of this latest putsch attempt failed to realize — in their fury of blind hatred — is that the Republican Senate majority will be in command of the scope and duration of the trial; and that the truth-revealing power of the subpoena, followed by public testimony under oath, is the surest route to exposing lies and crimes. Now that America has seen the Russia collusion lie exposed as a fraud, after more than two years of continuous harassment of the constitutionally elected President, both Senate leadership and the American public will be sympathetic to the President’s claimed entitlement to lay before the Senate and full electorate all the details of the groundless campaign to drive him from office, a campaign of which “the telephone call” is merely the latest episode.
After Robert Mueller’s two and a half year Russia collusion goose egg, it would be seen as an outrage to deny the President the right to tell the full story that lies behind this latest chapter in the Democrats’ three-year attempted putsch.
President Trump needs to promptly assemble a highly professional team of tough, seasoned lawyers, who will all have to be well compensated for the huge professional and personal risk they will be taking — we have seen time and again what the deep state tries to do to the President’s prominent supporters. A defense fund for the President would be oversubscribed in two weeks.Giuliani, as loyal as he has been, may or may not be the right person to assemble this team. The team needs to be put together quickly, and to promptly announce to the world that the Senate trial, if there is one, will focus on, and expose, the entirety of the Democrat/corrupt federal bureaucracy’s anti-constitutional efforts to bring this President down. Many who breathed deep sighs of relief when Robert Mueller threw in the towel are going to be sweating again. When McConnell announces the scope of the allowable defense and how long the process will go on as Democrat dirt emerges, Ms. Pelosi may become concerned about how many of her party could be destroyed by the process. She may go so far as to as to think better of going forward. If so, fine — the Dems, once again, as in the Russia hoax, will look like fools. If, on the other hand (and much more likely), she proceeds (into the moving blades of this propeller) so much the better for the President.
At a minimum, a Senate trial would destroy the Bidens. Even with an inadvisably narrow defense approach, evidence of Biden’s use of his office to extort a lucrative Ukrainian sinecure for his substantively unqualified son is centrally relevant to Trump’s defense. Certainly, an American prosecutor, e.g., the U.S. Attorney General, would be entitled to seek evidence of criminal activity from a foreign head of state, where an American’s criminal activity involving and centered in that foreign state is reasonably suspected. If so, why not his boss, the President? Biden’s pursuit of the presidency obviously should not shield him or his son from aggressive scrutiny for probable criminal activity. Concurrently, outside the circle of the President’s immediate defense, it is much to be hoped that the investigations of the Make-Bill-and-Hillary-Rich scam, laughably known as The Clinton Foundation, will soon produce indictments.
In their apparent decision to impeach President Trump, the Democrats have taken the final step in the cold civil war they have been waging for nearly three years against a constitutionally elected president and his 63 million+ voters. The President’s response should be withering, broad, and uncompromising. It should be one that turns his attackers into the hunted, a fate their lies and crimes have more than earned them. In the end, President Trump will be seen for three years to have performed two almost impossible full-time jobs simultaneously and supremely well: President of the United States, and defender of the Constitution’s electoral processes against those bent on destroying them.

The New York Times Minimizes the Threat of Islamism Again: A Strange Story about Sweden’s Populist Response
 Howard Rotberg/The New York Times/September 30/2019
Is there much doubt that many Muslims, even those who migrate to the West, agree that Sharia Law is preferred to western constitutional law? Do we tolerate the risks from those who advocate really barbaric practices anathema to Western civilization, such as beating wives who are disobedient , female genital mutilation, honour killings, polygamy, marrying underage females, taking sexual slaves, and raping non-Muslims? In my book, Tolerism: The Ideology Revealed, I discuss the essence of western toleration of conduct which is said to be protected by freedom of religion, but which stems from an ideology using a religion, which ideology is simply evil and barbaric and threatens our constitutionally enshrined freedoms. The Islamists prevent the reform of the religion that must occur to make it compatible with western values.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about, and writing about, why our culture, in tolerating behaviours that ought not to be tolerated, risks through self-hatred, masochism, a cultural Stockholm Syndrome, anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity, and a general hatred of the good for being good, and an embrace of evil, seems bent on self-destruction. Why do gays ally themselves with Islamists, who if they take power, might kill all gays and lesbians? Why do feminists ally themselves with Islamists who would reverse all the gains made by feminism?
In my next book, The Ideological Path to Submission… and what we can do about it, I sought to examine all current ideologies, including post-modernism, Islamophilia, Trumpophobia, denialism, and worship of supposed “diversity” which have taken us down the path, readily seen in Europe, of submitting to Islamist illiberals. I suggest in that book how we can avoid submission, short of deporting all Muslims. That book studied in some detail, cultural submission in France and other western European nations. It examined the tragic situation in Sweden, and why that country opened its doors wide to Islamist young men, who have helped populate “no-go” zones, raised Sweden’s rate of rapes to the second highest in the world after Lesotho, and caused Swedish Jews to have to leave many cities.
However, in the age of Trump, most leftists blame American conservatives and their election of Donald Trump, for being intolerant and racist. They allege that he and his supporters are xenophobic and soft on white supremacism or white nationalism, which are among the terms used for populist reaction to the loss of cultural identity and civilizational advancements. An example of this was Trump’s overly relativist comments on the demonstrations in Charlottesville where groups demonstrated for and against the removal of a statue in honor of Civil War leader Robert E. Lee. When Trump said there were “fine people” on both sides of that debate, the anti-Trump media reported that he was referring to white supremacists, sometimes termed “alt-right” who were arguing with members of the far Left group Antifa. Anti-Trump commentators say there were not very many non-supremacists there just to preserve a historic statue; but pro-Trump commentators say he has been clear in his dislike of racists and while his comment could have been clearer, he has adequately addressed his intention not to insult people who might have been there just to support a piece of American heritage without being in support of slavery. The same media routinely reports that Trump is anti-Muslim when what they refer to as a “ban” of Muslim immigrants was in fact a “pause” in Muslim immigration from Muslim majority countries that have no functioning government with criminal records for the migrants. It is surely not racist to seek to vet immigrants to see if they are Muslims who will assimilate into American liberalism or whether they are Islamist, seeking to “conquer” the infidels as part of the Islamist ideological defeat of America and create a “world-wide caliphate.
In the Left’s haste to reverse the results of the last American election, it ignores American corruption and embrace of Islamism, during the Obama administration. Very few seem to have been bothered that Hillary Clinton, for a time Secretary of State, had, as her chief aide and close friend, a young lady named Huma Abedin, with clear links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Instead, urged on by American media, such as CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and countless others, American opinion-shapers have all but ignored Muslim immigration and infiltration by Islamists and the tolerance of the Islamists by other Muslims, and instead focused on the so-called white supremacists; The left-wing media, of course, seek to portray the nationalists as much worse than Islamists, even though the populist-nationalists have no organized powerful illiberal political movements akin to international Islamism – with Isalmism’s financial and cultural and religious support of mosques and organizations which are tainted by the Muslim Brotherhood operatives who run them. I do not like white supremacists, but populists who support American values and its constitution and are in fact mainstream conservatives are okay with me.
On August 17th, 2019, The New York Times International Weekly, carried a frontpage story, entit led “Deception Fuels Tilt to Nativism in Sweden” by Jo Becker. I was surprised to see a frontpage story implying that Swedish concerns over the effects of it open-door immigration policies, are not based on facts, but on deception. With its focus on international deception, this story doesn’t use the word “Islamist” or “Islam” and barely mentions the facts about Islamist crime, especially sexual assaults and other criminal behaviour, and “no-go zones” with police reluctance to enter such enclaves – all of which are detailed in my book, The Ideological Path to Submission. Instead it leads with Trump’s misstatement about the nature of one violent attack in Sweden and who was behind it. However, it does acknowledge that for nationalists, “Sweden has become a cautionary tale. What is even more striking is how many people in Sweden – progressive, welcoming Sweden – seem to be warming to the nationalists’ view: that immigration has brought crime, chaos and a fraying of the cherished social safety net, not to mention a withering away of national culture and tradition.”
So what is the problem? After starting off with standard anti-Trump nonsense, and paying lip service to the problems of immigration, the author avoids the topic of Islamism. There is no mention of Islam and its compatibility with Swedish values. The author, it seems does not really believe that Swedish populism and support for political parties that support it can be a valid response to Islamism. Instead the story switches to how this support is not really a Swedish response to Islamism, but is a result of international “deception” – a real conspiracy theory if I have heard one. She writes” “To dig beneath the surface of what is happening in Sweden, though, is to uncover the workings of an international disinformation machine, devoted to the cultivation and amplification of far-right, anti-immigrant passions and political forces.”
The author alleges that this deceit comes primarily from Russia and far-right Americans. Russian collusion, no doubt! She quotes Daniel Stenling, the Swedish Security Service counterintelligence chief: “Russia’s goal is to weaken Western countries by polarizing the debate.”
It seems leftists love Globalism when it spreads their views, but not when it spreads opposing views. Becker calls what worries her “the globalization of nationalism”. Does this term make any sense? Isn’t globalization almost the opposite of nationalism? It makes no sense to me, as I see that the Left, what I call the “leftist-Islamist alliance” seeks to take our eyes off Islamist mischief and instead focus on the “alt-right” and other small, relatively powerless groups. While it may be true that Russia is funding digital sites that are considered far-right, might it also be funding digital sites that are far-left? Nothing new and dramatic here. Does the Left in the West really believe that people in liberal democracies are more likely to vote for the far right because of Russian disinformation than because they hate the latest rape statistics and also the special privileges given to Islamists?
In conclusion, it seems that The New York Times, in this crisis caused by Islamism and its support for Sharia Law and a world-wide Caliphate, promotes conspiracy theories that the problems are caused by Russia and by Trump. It thinks that the actual threats from Islamism are not worth mentioning. You see, the story doesn’t even use the words “Islamism” or “Islam” or “Muslim”. That would be politically incorrect.
*Howard Rotberg writes on political culture, values and ideologies. His two latest books are The Ideological Path to Submission… and what we can do about it and Tolerism: The Ideology Revealed. He is president of Canada’s sole conservative publishing house, Mantua Books – www.mantuabooks.com.-

The US Cannot Neglect Iraqi Kurdistan
by Seth Frantzman and Eric R. Mandel/The Hill/September 30/2019
Originally published under the title "The US Cannot Neglect Kurdistan, a Pillar of Its Middle East Strategy and Stability."
Iraqi Kurdistan is an oasis of stability, political moderation, and economic vitality.
Amid tensions with Iran and challenges facing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the Kurdistan autonomous region of northern Iraq stands out as a reliable partner that is increasingly vital for U.S. national security interests. It has a successful record of working with the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS and serves as a bulwark against extremist groups and Iranian influence.
However, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is imperiled if it is ignored in U.S. strategic goals in Iraq and neighboring states. Since September 2017, when the region held an independence referendum, there have been concerns in the KRG capital of Erbil that U.S. support is lacking at crucial moments. For example, after the referendum, which Washington opposed, Iranian-supported militias exploited the absence of U.S. policy to prod Baghdad into an attack on Kirkuk. Kurdish Peshmerga who had held the city and defended it from ISIS were pushed aside, souring relations between Erbil and Baghdad, and giving Iran a victory in Iraq as its political allies celebrated. Iraqi Kurds hold sad face emojis in front the UN Office in Erbil, the capital of their autonomous region, to protest the world's silence after Iran-backed forces seized Kirkuk in 2017.
When the dust settled, the new reality on the ground was another step forward for an Iranian land bridge to Lebanon that stretches through Iraq and Syria.
Iraq is a complicated country and the U.S. role there today is primarily aimed at defeating ISIS remnants. Over a multi-day visit this month, we saw firsthand how Kurdish Peshmerga are securing areas against an ISIS resurgence and working closely with the U.S., as well as coordinating with the Iraqi Security Forces. The KRG's forces say they need more support, including arms and a consistent budget. The Ministry of Peshmerga in Erbil says Baghdad should fulfill its obligations under Iraq's constitution and finance the Peshmerga. This includes basic resources such as salaries and proper barracks.
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have worked closely with the U.S. military for years to fight Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Washington can play a role here because it has helped train, advise and equip the Peshmerga under various programs. A strong Peshmerga strengthen the stability of northern Iraq.
Understanding the wider challenges and benefits of this stability means understanding the position of the KRG. Smaller than the state of West Virginia, with a population similar to Massachusetts, the KRG is very different than the Kurdish region of eastern Syria, where the U.S. also has important interests today.
The KRG in northern Iraq is a high-functioning autonomous region with two international airports and safe, large cities that are growing in economic importance in Iraq. Investments in infrastructure enable the region to outpace other areas of the country, such as Basra.
The Kurdish suffering under Saddam Hussein's regime began a long process of allying with the U.S. during the 1990s and through the 2003 invasion. Because it shares a border with Turkey, a U.S. ally, the Kurdistan region has proved to be a significant economic, military and political corridor for Washington's multi-decade involvement in Iraq. The U.S. also should admire the Kurdistan region as a positive contribution to the diversity and cultural revival of Iraq after the ISIS war. The KRG's minister of transport, Ano Jawhar Abdulmaseeh Abdoka, a member of the Christian minority, believes the region gives Christians and other minorities a place to thrive. The region is now home to the majority of Iraq's minority Christian population, Abdulmaseeh says.
The KRG provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of minority Yazidis who fled the advance of ISIS in 2014. Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis also sought shelter in the KRG when fleeing ISIS. Many still live in displaced persons camps that dot the landscape. A visit to camp found the residents still living in tents that haven't been changed since 2015. This is another place the U.S. can play a role, partnering to support minority groups in an area where they have sought safety from religious extremism. During the current tensions with Iran, it is essential to foresee the Kurdistan region as a way to stymie Iranian regime threats. U.S. forces in Iraq have been threatened in recent months by Iranian-backed political parties in Baghdad and also by Shi'ite militias, many affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces that are an official part of Iraq's security forces. This puts Washington in the unenviable position of working with the Iraqi army while guarding against possible threats from other Iraqi paramilitary forces. Iraq is encumbered by these Shiite militias and their backers in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), making Kurdistan's sovereignty and military independence even more crucial for American security interests in the future. When President Trump decided to withdraw from Syria in December 2018, he indicated that Iraq would be used to "watch Iran." With Iran's growing control of the Iraqi government and military — evidenced by pro-Iranian parties performing well in elections and the role of Iranian-backed paramilitaries — Kurdistan acts as a fortification to prevent Iranian control of northern Iraq.Support for Erbil doesn't undermine the U.S. relationship with Baghdad. Direct engagement between Washington and Erbil doesn't undermine the U.S. relationship with Baghdad. It can balance those voices in the rest of Iraq that are critical of the U.S., encouraging Baghdad to do more to foster relations with the U.S., while ensuring the Kurdistan region gets its share of the resources needed to help stabilize part of Iraq.
*Seth Frantzman, a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, is the author of After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East (2019), op-ed editor of The Jerusalem Post, and founder of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. Eric R. Mandel is director of the Middle East Political and Information Network.

Time for Europe to Close Ranks Against Iran’s Threats
Bobby Ghosh/Bloomberg/September 30, 2019
The scales are finally falling from European eyes on Iran. In a joint statement on Monday, Germany, France and Britain held the Islamic Republic responsible for the recent attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities, adding that “no other explanation is plausible.”, At the United Nations General Assembly in New York, European leaders used their meetings with President Hassan Rouhani to pile on pressure. France’s President Emmanuel Macron urged him to meet with US President Donald Trump; Rouhani, under strict instructions from his boss, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, demurred. He trotted out the usual preconditions for talks with the US — a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and an end to sanctions — even though these were already a dead letter. To make matters worse for Tehran, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson endorsed Trump’s view that Iran should make a new deal with world powers, covering not only its nuclear ambitions — the remit of the JCPOA — but also other threats that it poses. In response, Iran professed to be upset with the Europeans, accusing them of lacking the “strength or willpower to counter US bullying.”
This reaction is, to say the least, uncharitable. Since Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA last year, the European signatories have given every appearance of wanting to honor their end of the bargain with Iran. First, they urged Europe-based companies to keep investing in Iran, even invoking a European Union statute forbidding them “from complying with the extraterritorial effects of US sanctions.” When that failed, they created a workaround, a “special purpose vehicle” to protect trade with Iran from the sanctions.
The Europeans also haven’t stopped pressing Trump to ease his “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic. In recent weeks, Macron has taken the lead, proposing a package that includes a $15 billion line of credit.
Meanwhile, the Europeans have adopted an indulgent attitude toward Iran’s atrocious behavior — its attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, its defiance of EU sanctions against giving material assistance to the genocidal regime in Syria, even its brazen capture of European nationals for use as hostages. They expressed only mild reproach at the regime’s breach of uranium-enrichment limits imposed by the JCPOA. But given the regime’s penchant for escalating provocation, it was bound to test the limits of European sympathy, and then to go a step too far. That happened with the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s most important oil installations — which were in effect an assault on the world economy. Trump may have helped the European change of heart by his repeated offers of talks with Rouhani — without preconditions. His firing of Iran hawk John Bolton as national security adviser also eased any lingering suspicions that the president was looking for an excuse to go to war with the Islamic Republic.
What next for the Europeans? France’s president remains keen to play intermediary, but Khamenei’s treatment of the last world leader to try — Japan’s Shinzo Abe — should temper Macron’s optimism. Even as Abe was visiting Tehran with hopes of opening discussions, the Iranians engineered an attack on a Japanese-flagged oil tanker. To rub it in, Khamenei embarrassed his guest by claiming, in a tweet, that Abe agreed with the Iranian view of the US. The supreme leader is not man for subtlety, and he will need a more forceful demonstration that the Europeans will no longer tolerate his hostile behavior. The quickest way to do this is to join the US effort to protect the sea lanes and oil infrastructure in and around the Persian Gulf. Britain is already signed up for some of the naval duties, and Johnson has said he’s open to helping Saudi Arabia guard its infrastructure from Iranian attack.
The other Europeans should follow suit and close the Western ranks against the Iranian threat to commerce and trade. They should also signal an end to their tolerance for the regime’s nuclear brinkmanship. Iran’s breach of enrichment limits gives the JCPOA’s signatories cause enough to impose their own economic sanctions. These may not add much bite to the American sanctions, but the symbolism would be useful.
For Iran, the loss of European indulgence leaves only the two other JCPOA signatories, China and Russia. But the regime in Tehran has long known not to expect too much material support from those quarters: That is why Iran has never pressured them to try to save the nuclear deal with the urgency it has brought to bear on the Europeans. It cannot have escaped Iranian attention that neither Beijing nor Moscow has bent over to create a special purpose vehicle to circumvent American sanctions.
If the loss of Western sympathy now compels a desperate regime to demand more of its eastern and northern friends, it will almost certainly meet with more disappointment. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin may criticize Trump’s abrogation of the nuclear deal, but Chinese and Russian companies have little enthusiasm to run the gamut of American — and hopefully, European — economic sanctions on Iran.

Who Opened the Window?
Ghassan Charbel/ Asharq Al-Awsat/September 30/2019
It isn’t everyday that a country is ruled by a strong man who has a dream for his nation. This ruler enjoys complete legitimacy and the ability to predict future changes. This ruler believes that becoming embroiled in the battle for modernity will act as a guarantee for the interests of the people and protect the country, its heritage and history. The dream transforms into a national project when it attracts people, especially the young generations that want to come to terms with this age and its scientific and technological wealth in order to provide appropriate job opportunities and promising education. The ruler breaks the wall of fear because he has confidence in his people and dream. This took place in Chin and Singapore and is taking place in Saudi Arabia.
China will celebrate its national day on Tuesday. President Xi Jinping will preside over a military parade at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. It is the same place where Mao Zedong stood 70 years ago to announce the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The world would not have batted an eyelid had the country been full of poor people or been begging for aid. But today we are talking about the world’s second largest economy and the belief in the imminent rise of the Chinese age. We can understand the Chinese authorities’ need to remind the world of its military might. A new world is taking shape and China is currently engaged in a trade war with the United States, the world’s greatest power. More important, however, than missiles and tanks is the message that the Chinese dream is ongoing and so is its massive global economic onslaught in the shape of its Belt and Road initiative.
Tomorrow’s celebration is also significant because China is currently ruled by the strongest ruler since Mao as Xi is now allowed by the constitution to remain in power indefinitely. The truth is Xi would not have reaped such power if it were not for Deng Xiaoping, who left his mark on China’s future when he kicked off a massive transformation that paved the way for prosperity, while maintaining stability. Deng deviated from Mao’s path. He may have preserved the great leader’s mausoleum, but he took the decision to reconcile with the times. He made the choice to become part of the world and progress away from stiff ideology and policies. Deng did not burn the Red Book, but he steered the country towards a market economy, technological progress, competition and openness to others.
Deng’s journey was not at all easy. Major transformations strike major fears. He had to persuade the majority and confront the old guard, who were still clinging on to Mao from beyond the grave. He had to assure those who feared that opening the window would pave the way for collapse, not change. He had to change mentalities and methods. He had to respond to doubters with achievements and let the numbers confirm the fulfillment of dreams, especially since major transformations always bring about the danger of errors and setbacks.
Had Deng only ruled to maintain continuity and stability, China would not be where it is today and Xi would not be able to address the world tomorrow in his capacity as a major player. Major transformations demand exceptional figures. Deng is the man who opened the window.
Another similar pioneering experience was witnessed in Singapore. The small island could have been mired in poverty and ethnic tensions. But Lee Kuan Yew was no ordinary prime minister. He had a piercing vision and iron will when he assumed his post. When he came to power at the age of 35, he ruled over a poor country devoid of hope. He realized that changing the fate of his country demands difficult, bold and sometimes painful decisions. Shaping the future cannot be achieved without introducing the dream of modernity into homes, schools and the people’s daily lives. The transformation needs a plan, stages, patience and amendments. Lee Kuan Yew kicked off the project, waging a relentless war against corruption and bureaucracy. He opened the door to foreign investors and provided the necessary legal environment. He was extremely keen on preserving stability as without it, everything would fall apart. When he later recalled his journey, he said that countries are built on education. He explained that he came to power in a poor country and showed more attention to the economy than politics. He focused on education, built schools and universities, sent students abroad to learn and then used their experience to develop Singapore. The project ended with a prosperous and stable Singapore. The island transformed into a global modern financial hub. Lee Kuan Yew was the man who opened the window.
After the experience in China and Singapore, we are now witnessing a unique one in an Arab and Islamic country. It is the major transformation taking place in Saudi Arabia. Vision 2030 is no longer the dream dreamed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman alone and with encouragement of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz. It is now a comprehensive Saudi dream. It has seeped into every home, school and university. Whoever visits the country would not be exaggerating in saying that he was visiting a new Saudi Arabia. It is a Saudi Arabia that adheres to its principles and beliefs, but also realizes the importance of joining the battle for modernity. It is a Saudi Arabia that is confident of its ability to open up to the world and partner with it in building the future.
Experience has shown that awakening hope in the regular citizen is a form of enrichment that is added to a country’s already existing wealth. They hope that the coming days will be better in providing job opportunities, education and living conditions and empowering women. This is no easy feat in a region where despair eats away at the people and incompetence paralyzes governments. Within this context, we can understand the march towards modernization and reform, diversifying sources of income for the post-oil period, attracting investments, combating corruption and bureaucracy and investing in local wealth and tourism. This is a solid project that is forging forward undeterred by attempts to obstruct it, the last of which was the attack against the Aramco oil facilities. Perhaps maintaining the project according to plan is the best response to increasingly hostile anti-Saudi policies that stem from concerns that the country will become a major modern economic power to add to is significant Arab, Islamic and international standing. The transformation and success in Saudi Arabia may become an example and inspire others. Mohammed bin Salman is the man who opened the window.

Facebook: Legislation, Regulation, Censor
Adam Minter/Bloomberg View/September 30/2019
Governments around the world are exploring ways to break Facebook Inc.'s grip on their citizens. Some legislate. Some regulate. Some censor. And then there's Vietnam, which has funded or otherwise supported more than 450 locally based social networks in recent years, almost all of which have failed. The most recent, called Lotus, launched last week, with $30 million in backing and a government promotion campaign.
Mark Zuckerberg probably isn't losing sleep over this upstart. But perhaps he should be. If and when Lotus and its peers fail, Vietnam won't simply concede the battle. Instead, like other authoritarian governments, it'll look for alternative tools to blunt Facebook's influence – which could one day have graver effects on its bottom line. Facebook is as influential in developing regions as it in rich ones, perhaps more so. India is home to more Facebook users than any other country, largely thanks to WhatsApp, while authoritarian Vietnam is number seven, with 64 million users out of a population of 96 million. Users in these regions tend to be more avid than their counterparts in developed countries: In 2017, 41 percent of Vietnamese checked social media for news at least once a day and 55 percent said they preferred social networks to traditional e-commerce platforms when shopping.
But the downsides to this enthusiasm can be steep. In developing regions where Facebook is effectively the internet, its algorithmic newsfeed is often the sole source of information, and rumors and hate speech can quickly lead to real violence, as has occurred in recent years in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In authoritarian countries that limit information flow, Facebook is also seen as a threat: a de facto alternative to the official narrative.
One tempting response for such regimes is to block Facebook entirely, while regulating local alternatives. China pioneered this approach in July 2009, and within a few years WeChat grew into a locally made giant. Vietnam, following China's lead, imposed a more porous Facebook block in late 2009, while encouraging local upstarts. But its savvy social-media users weren't about to jump to inferior platforms clearly designed to spread propaganda. By the time the government figured out that its approach wasn't working, Facebook was already too important to the social and economic life of the country to shut down.
In recent years, Vietnam has tried a new tack: intimidating users and imposing costs and risks on the company itself. The government hasn’t been shy about jailing users who challenge its authority and is following the lead of China and Russia in deploying an army of moderators to counter and censor "wrongful views.” It has also passed a data-localization law that requires global tech companies to store personal information on Vietnamese users in-country, thereby giving officials another way to keep tabs on what locals do and say online.
Lotus, Vietnam's latest government-backed social network, would seem to be a sideshow in this clampdown. But the authorities are suggesting otherwise. In July, the information minister explicitly called for a "new social network to replace Facebook" and targeted a 60-70 percent market share for homegrown services by 2022. Lotus has some innovative features – for example, it replaces Facebook's “likes” with tokens earned from consuming content – but these are unlikely to lure users away from communities of friends and family already on Facebook. Instead, in all likelihood, Lotus will eventually be unplugged like its predecessors and the government will be left looking for other ways to reduce Facebook's influence. That won't be good for Facebook or its users. Vietnam, an emerging economy keen to attract investment, probably won’t bring antitrust actions against Facebook, as regulators in Europe and the US are contemplating. But as an authoritarian government it can employ other, less subtle methods of influence. In June, the government asked companies to pull advertisements from YouTube videos thought to contain "anti-state propaganda." A similar order directed at Facebook could degrade the site's quality and damage its reputation locally, while clearing the way for the kind of competition Facebook has so ruthlessly fought off over the years.

Huawei Wants the World's Next Trojan Horse to Be Chinese
by Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/September 30/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14936/huawei-china-trojan-horse
A refusal to grant a third waiver to Huawei, the world's largest telecom networking equipment manufacturer and second-largest smartphone maker, would be the right move for the United States. After all, why should President Trump allow our companies to help Beijing steal the world's data and remotely control devices connected to the internet?
On Tuesday, China's Communist Party will celebrate the 70th anniversary of its coming to power. This is not a happy time for the communists, however, as their economy, the primary basis of their legitimacy, is crumbling.
In addition, the thought of licensing technology from Huawei is nothing short of hideous. The Chinese company, founded in 1987, was built on stolen Cisco Systems technology, and from all indications has never stopped stealing. Why should we pay China for tech it criminally took — and is still taking — from us?
Unfortunately, these two companies [ZTE and Huawei] despite Trump's reprieves, have continued to engage in unacceptable behavior. ZTE has almost certainly violated its settlement agreement with the U.S, by installing Dell equipment in Venezuela, and Huawei is currently under investigation for additional instances of intellectual property theft. It is, therefore, time to impose "death sentences" on the pair of Chinese giants, in other words, cut both of them off from U.S. technology.
More fundamentally, why should we have any contact with Huawei? Trump's instincts are to cut off all dealings. "We are not going to do business with Huawei," the president said on August 9, "It's much simpler not doing any business with Huawei."
So, let's not do business with Huawei.
"For China, trade with the United States is viewed as a bonanza to acquire — steal — American technology and bilk our people out of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Any compromise with Beijing would, in the long-run, be to America's disadvantage." — Brandon Weichert, tech expert, publisher of The Weichert Report.
We did not win the Cold War by enriching the Soviet Union. We should not try to enrich China now.
China's Huawei Technologies, founded in 1987, was built on stolen Cisco Systems technology, and from all indications Huawei has never stopped stealing. Why should we pay China for technology it criminally took — and is still taking — from us? Pictured: Huawei's Bantian campus in Shenzhen, China.
Rob Strayer, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications Policy, told reporters in Brussels on September 26 that the Trump administration is unlikely to grant another 90-day blanket waiver for transactions with China's Huawei Technologies.
A 90-day waiver from Commerce Department prohibitions, the second granted, will expire November 19.
A refusal to grant a third waiver to the Chinese company, the world's largest telecom networking equipment manufacturer and second-largest smartphone maker, would be the right move for the United States. After all, why should President Trump allow our companies to help Beijing steal the world's data and remotely control devices connected to the internet? In May, the Commerce Department, effective the 16th of that month, added Huawei to its "Entity List." The designation meant no American company, without prior approval from Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, could sell or license to Huawei products and technology covered by the U.S. Export Administration Regulations.
Beijing has continually demanded the withdrawal of the designation and has made such a climbdown one of its preconditions to a comprehensive trade deal with the U.S.
Since then, the Chinese have, in addition to threats, also tried to get off the Entity List with sugar. This month, in a conversation with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said he was "open to sharing our 5G technologies and techniques with U.S. companies, so that they can build up their own 5G industry." Thursday, the 74-year-old repeated the proposal during a live-streamed conversation with Stanford University academics Jerry Kaplan and Peter Cochrane. "We would like to offer an exclusive license to one company from the West so that it's able to achieve economies of scale to support a business," Ren said. "With this one company, I think it should be a U.S. company." Bloomberg reported the license would cover chip designs, hardware, and source code.
The catch? As Ren told Friedman, "the U.S. side has to accept us at some level for that to happen."Acceptance certainly means the dropping of Huawei from the Entity List and, in all probability, the repeal of prohibitions on the installment of Huawei equipment in U.S. networks.
Ren's generous-sounding offer should, of course, be rejected out of hand. There are many reasons why we should not import a Trojan Horse made in China. Moreover, America has no interest in helping Huawei become the global standard for equipment.
In addition, the thought of licensing tech from Huawei is nothing short of hideous. The Chinese company, founded in 1987, was built on stolen Cisco Systems technology, and from all indications has never stopped stealing. Why should we pay China for technology it criminally took — and is still taking — from us?
More fundamentally, why should we have any contact with Huawei? Trump's instincts are to cut off all dealings. "We are not going to do business with Huawei," the president said on August 9, "It's much simpler not doing any business with Huawei."
So let's not do business with Huawei. Despite the comments from Strayer on Thursday, there is concern the Trump administration is merely engaging in tough talk to get a better trade deal with Beijing. Chinese negotiators are scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C. next month for the 13th round of discussions. Their goal, in addition to the removal of Trump's tariffs, imposed to stop intellectual property theft, is to rescue Huawei.
In the run-up to the discussions, the Chinese are buying boatloads of soybeans — ten boatloads to be exact — as a means of creating a favorable atmosphere. So, could there be a bargain in the offing?
Many think so. "For the president, the tariffs and tough talk are part of a maximum pressure campaign on China to force Beijing into trading fairly with the United States," said tech expert Brandon Weichert to Gatestone.
"For China, trade with the United States is viewed as a bonanza to acquire — steal — American technology and bilk our people out of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Any compromise with Beijing would, in the long-run, be to America's disadvantage."
It is hard to know what is on the president's mind, but Weichert, the publisher of The Weichert Report, is certainly correct when he suggests America should not sign a deal with China, especially now.
On Tuesday, China's Communist Party will celebrate the 70th anniversary of its coming to power. This is not a happy time for the communists, however, as their economy, the primary basis of their legitimacy, is crumbling.
China, in a sense, did not have an "economic miracle." It achieved growth by maintenance of a predatory business model. That model, as Trump said during his U.N. General Assembly speech on Tuesday, has been based on, among other things, the taking of intellectual property. Huawei is proof that crime does in fact pay. Unfortunately, a China ruled by communists will not relent on theft and related criminal behavior. Trump tried to create good will by, among other things, granting exemptions from U.S. tech-transfer prohibitions to Huawei this year and to ZTE Corp., the other large Chinese telecom-equipment maker, a year ago. Unfortunately, these two companies, despite Trump's reprieves, have continued to engage in unacceptable behavior. ZTE has almost certainly violated its settlement agreement with the U.S, by installing Dell equipment in Venezuela, and Huawei is currently under investigation for additional instances of intellectual property theft. It is, therefore, time to impose "death sentences" on the pair of Chinese giants, in other words, cut both of them off from U.S. technology.
Friedman, in relaying Ren's offer to grant a license to a U.S. company, wrote "we're heading for a two-technology world, with a Chinese zone and an American zone, and a digital Berlin Wall running right down the middle."
The New York Times columnist is right about what could happen, but such a divide would be a good thing. We did not win the Cold War by enriching the Soviet Union. We should not try to enrich China now.
ordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Turkey, Azerbaijan Ban Chess Champion
 Sezen Şahin/Gatestone Institute/September 30/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14934/turkey-ban-armenian-chess-champion
The tournament that three-time Armenian chess champion, Maria Gevorgyan, was invited to attend -- and from which her invitation was subsequently withdrawn -- was the 2019 Sivas Buruciye Chess Open, which was held August 19-24.
In a letter of complaint to the Lausanne, Switzerland-based International Chess Federation (FIDE), MP Mkhitar Hayrapetyan... demanded that FIDE take action.... The investigation is still ongoing.
The solution to the persecution of Armenians in Turkey and Azerbaijan lies in the victory of critical thinking and human rights over dogma and political corruption in those countries.
For there to be a chance of this happening, however, Turkey and Azerbaijan should be governed not by dictatorships that spread hate-filled propaganda, but by people who participate in a true democracy with equal human rights for all.
The banning of three-time Armenian chess champion, Maria Gevorgyan, from an international tournament in Turkey -- due to pressure by the Azerbaijani delegation -- highlights the discrimination and persecution that Armenians continue suffer in Turkey and Azerbaijan.
The tournament that Gevorgyan was invited to attend -- and from which her invitation was subsequently withdrawn -- was the 2019 Sivas Buruciye Chess Open, which was held August 19-24.
In a recent interview with Gatestone, Gevorgyan recalled how she learned, ten days before the event, that she was no longer welcome to attend:
"While I was talking about the tickets and other arrangements with a Turkish organizer, he sent me a WhatsApp message informing me that he had been told by Azerbaijani players that they would not participate if an Armenian player was there. He then announced that my tickets and accommodation were being canceled."
As if this were not enough, after Gevorgyan wrote about her ordeal on social media -- and included a screenshot of the WhatsApp conversation -- the Turkish tournament organizers threatened to sue her for "violating the confidentiality of the correspondence, by posting it on Facebook."
In a letter of complaint to the Lausanne, Switzerland-based International Chess Federation (FIDE), Armenian MP Mkhitar Hayrapetyan -- chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport -- decried the "racism and anti-Armenianism" that prevented Gevorgyan from playing in the tournament, and demanded that FIDE take action. Hayrapetyan wrote:
"Since ancient times, the mission of sport has been to unite people of all nations and to advocate for solidarity and peace. Yet in the 21st century, which is rightly proclaimed as the era of the re-awakening of human rights and freedoms, we continue to face a backbiting phenomenon such as racism."
FIDE responded on August 24 by releasing the following statement:
"The International Chess Federation confirms that we are investigating an incident involving the player Maria Gevorgyan. She is a Woman International Master and a three-time Armenian Women Chess Champion.
"According to the player, she was invited to the Buruciye International Chess Tournament in Sivas (Turkey), and her travel arrangements had already been made. But in her complaint, Gevorgyan claims that the invitation was withdrawn on the grounds of her nationality.
"As it is customary in these cases, FIDE initiated an inquiry ex-officio as soon as this incident came to our knowledge, and a formal complaint was received shortly after from the Armenian Chess Federation. We will ensure that this situation is promptly investigated, and we will hear the explanations from all the parties involved.
"FIDE was founded under the motto 'Gens Una Sumus': we are one family. Discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity or nationality goes not only against FIDE policy but also against the most basic sportive principles, and will not be tolerated. If the investigation confirms that the player's rights have been violated, or she has been discriminated by her nationality, the most strict measures will be taken in accordance with the FIDE Statute."
The investigation is still ongoing.
The issue of anti-Armenian discrimination goes well beyond sports in general and chess in particular, however. As Yerevan State University's Professor Arthur Atanesyan told Gatestone:
"Armenophobia is a historical fact, as well as an element of social psychology in some societies.
"The genocide committed against the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire is still denied by Turkey. And Azerbaijan, which claims to be another state of the same nation as Turkey, instrumentalized Armenophobia as a tool of propaganda against Armenia in international information space, in order to sustain its own narrative in the Karabakh conflict.
"My own perception is that Turks and Azerbaijanis who use slogans against Armenia and Armenians -- and spend energy and resources on anti-Armenian propaganda -- do not [even] believe in their own statements. But they [do] believe in their aim to take over Armenia by any means necessary. Turkey has a global agenda, but Azerbaijan seems to be completely poisoned by its own anti-Armenianism. Azerbaijanis wake up in the morning with Armenophobia, teach Armenophobia at schools and universities, and express hatred towards Armenians even during official celebrations, which normally start with a statement by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on a future when there will be no Armenia."
Atanesyan continued: "But in order to reduce the tension, direct communication, critical thinking and prevalence of human rights and humanity over political monopoly of corrupt elites might help."
Professor Atanesyan is correct. The solution to the persecution of Armenians in Turkey and Azerbaijan lies in the victory of critical thinking and human rights over dogma and political corruption in those countries.
For there to be a chance of this happening, however, Turkey and Azerbaijan should be governed not by dictatorships that spread hate-filled propaganda, but by people who participate in a true democracy with equal human rights for all. Currently, sadly, the situation is far from that.
*Sezen Şahin is based in the United Kingdom.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

A reading of US sanctions on Iran
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/September 30/2019
Following the drone and missile attacks on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia, the US announced a new package of sanctions on Tehran as part of Washington’s policy of maximum economic pressure to address Iranian threats.
The attacks emanated from the north or northwest, according to Saudi experts and copious evidence. The economic sanctions imposed by the US mainly target three financial institutions: The Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the National Development Fund of Iran (NDFI) and Etemad Tejarate Pars Co.
The sanctions imposed on the CBI are not the first of their kind. It faced stringent US, European and international sanctions in 2012, which were lifted in 2015 following the signing of the ill-fated nuclear deal. Various US sanctions have been imposed on the CBI over the past two decades, most recently in May 2018. The sanctions included a ban on the CBI trading in the US dollar.
The new set of sanctions imposed on Sept. 20 this year include the freezing of any assets belonging to the three aforementioned Iranian institutions in the US, and the cessation of any financial transactions between these entities and any American citizen, bank or company.
Even more serious is that any company or financial institution worldwide found to be dealing with these institutions risks facing sanctions that could extend to them being prevented from operating in the US, the largest market and economy in the world.
These sanctions are aimed at curbing the ability of the aforementioned Iranian institutions to finance the activities of the infamous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates. This is the first time that the CBI has faced accusations of financing terrorism.
Results will be seen in the medium term so long as there is regional and global monitoring of Tehran’s efforts to circumvent the sanctions.
These sanctions are expected to severely impact some of the CBI’s important external roles, such as banking the funds generated from the export of Iranian oil, gas and petrochemicals, or any other products sold by Iranian state-owned firms.
It is also responsible for covering the costs of imports, meeting the Iranian government’s financial requirements, and receiving instalments of foreign loans agreed with any other country or financial institution. The new US sanctions will severely affect Iran’s overseas economic dealings as the CBI acts as Tehran’s intermediary in this regard.
They could impact Iran’s economic relations with Europe in particular. The sanctions will also affect Iran’s relations with China, as the latter is unwilling to exacerbate its current trade war with the US. The sanctions will also affect Iran’s joint investment projects with Chinese and Russian firms, and may make it difficult for the CBI to issue treasury bonds on international stock markets, which it has done in the past to finance Iran’s budget deficit.
It is the first time that US sanctions have been imposed on the NDFI, a sovereign wealth fund established in 2010 that has total holdings of approximately $100 billion. Part of this amount is distributed in international banks worldwide.
Placing the NDFI on the sanctions list obliges these banks to freeze those funds or be subjected to major fines and possibly even a ban on working in the US market — a major blow that all large financial institutions, especially European ones, would rather avoid.
The Iranian regime has withdrawn billions of dollars from the NDFI on several occasions to meets its budget requirements. This in addition to funds from the NDFI being used to develop the defense and armament capabilities of the IRGC and the Quds Force. They have even been used to finance Iran’s nuclear program.
Etemad Tejarate Pars Co. is a state-controlled firm that is believed to be the regime’s arm in purchasing military hardware from Russia.
It is highly improbable that this package of US sanctions will force Iran to change its destructive behavior in the region, cease its subversive operations against maritime navigation and the flow of energy throughout the Arabian Gulf, or abandon its proxy militias. But these sanctions will contribute significantly to weakening Iran’s economic power.
Results will be seen in the medium term so long as there is regional and global monitoring of Tehran’s efforts to circumvent the sanctions, a reconsidering of the exemptions granted to Iraq in its trade with Iran, and pressure on Turkey to curb its financial and economic dealings with Tehran.
These steps, as well as the political pressure faced by Iran over its targeting of Aramco’s oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and hindering the flow of energy, may result in these issues being raised at the UN Security Council to seek a Chapter VII resolution. This could force Tehran to finally reverse its hostile behavior in the region.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is head of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). Twitter: @mohalsulami

Full transcript of Saudi Crown Prince’s CBS interview, including unaired answers
Al Arabiya English/Monday, 30 September 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/78991/%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d8%b5-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%84-%d9%84%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%84%d8%a9-%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d8%b9%d9%88%d8%af%d9%8a/
This is the unofficial transcript, translated by Al Arabiya English, of the full CBS interview with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which includes segments unaired by CBS. CBS News correspondent Norah O’Donnell interviewed the Crown Prince earlier this month.
INTERVIEWER: You are ready? Your highness, I know your time is limited so we have a lot to cover but I would like to get started with a question that so many people would like an answer to. Did you order the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?
CROWN PRINCE: Without a doubt, no. The incident is very painful one, but I take full responsibility as a leader in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, especially that it was done by Saudi officials. There is no doubt that justice must take its course. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken all necessary measures in this regard and now the case is in court and every individual responsible will be held accountable.
INTERVIEWER: What does that mean that you take responsibility?
CROWN PRINCE: When an incident happens against a Saudi citizen by employees of the Saudi government, as a leader, I must take responsibility. This was a shortcoming which took place. I must take responsibility to ensure that this does not happen again. I have to make sure what the flaw is in our system in Saudi Arabia and we must take all high measures to avoid anything like this in the future.
INTERVIEWER: Your highness you invited us here and the world wants the answer to this question. How did you not know about this operation?
CROWN PRINCE: I’m surprised when some expect that I can know what three million government employees are doing in Saudi Arabia. The government in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has three million employees. So it is impossible for three million employees to file reports to the commander in Saudi Arabia or to the second man in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There are ministries and institutions operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and shortcomings happen. What is required is that when these shortcomings happen, all the procedures required to avoid this shortcoming in the future are implemented.
INTERVIEWER: Two of your closest advisers, who are accused of orchestrating this plot, were fired by the King, removed from your inner circle. The question is, how could you not know, if this was carried out by people who are close to you?
CROWN PRINCE: Today, all investigations are ongoing and when charges are proven against anyone, regardless of their level, they will be referred to the court without any exception.
INTERVIEWER: The CIA has concluded with medium to high confidence that you personally targeted Khashoggi and you probably ordered his death.
CROWN PRINCE: I hope this information is released. If there is any information accusing me of doing any action, I urge that it be released.
INTERVIEWER: Brought forward by who?
CROWN PRINCE: The person who has the information. Personally, I do not know about any information about me, but if they know something about me personally, I hope it is released.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of threat is a newspaper columnist to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that he would deserve to be brutally murdered?
CROWN PRINCE: There is no threat from a journalist. There are many journalists around the world, be they Saudi or non-Saudi, who speak every day about their opinions and their inclinations. There are also many journalists inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who speak their opinions inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia so there is no threat in this regard. The threat to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and what Saudi Arabia is doing, is someone who treats a Saudi journalist, whom I know personally in this way, and for this painful event to happen to him in embassies – in one of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s consulates.
INTERVIEWER: I have read what the Saudi prosecutor has said about those who are charged in this murder and it’s gruesome, the details. When you heard that people close to you and in your government carried out such a grisly murder and that the American government thinks that you ordered it, what did you think?
CROWN PRINCE: I think there are inaccurate words in what you mentioned. There is no official statement from the US government in this regard. I have no clear information or evidence of someone close to me who has ordered something like this. There are some charges that are under investigation for some people, but it is undoubtedly terrible and very painful. You cannot imagine how much pain we are experiencing, especially as the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from such an incident.
INTERVIEWER: Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi citizen and he was critical of yours, did you not like the criticism?
I knew Jamal personally and met him many times. He is a person with many ideas. He might have disagreed with me on some ideas but, according to my observations, I believe that he was supportive of many of the actions that are being undertaken under Vision 2030.
INTERVIEWER: Are you sorry to hear about his death and the way he was killed?
CROWN PRINCE: I am greatly pained that we lost someone like Jamal. And I am more pained because it happened in a Saudi consulate and even more pained because it was done by Saudi officials and because the world thinks that the Saudi government has a role — as a government — in something like this.
INTERVIEWER: Final question on this and again, this alleged by the Saudi prosecutor, that Jamal Khashoggi’s body was dismembered, it’s sickening and people in your government who serve this government and carry out your orders and other things. When you heard that he was dismembered by member of this government?
CROWN PRINCE: I request of our friends in the Turkish government to sign…through the Turkish Public Prosecution and the Saudi Public Prosecution, in order to complete the investigations in Turkey and come up with full information in this regard. To this day, from a year, the Turkish prosecutor, as far as I know, refused to sign agreements with the Saudi prosecutor to cooperate in the bilateral investigations.
INTERVIEWER: I am sorry I don’t understand what is that means forgive me.
CROWN PRINCE: Before any cooperation between a prosecutor of a state and another, they sign an agreement to exchange information and cooperation in the investigation. We asked for that from the Turkish government through the Saudi Public Prosecutor and it has not happened until today. So, it is difficult for us to produce information that happened inside Turkey without the cooperation of the Turkish prosecutor.
INTERVIEWER: This murder was condemned globally, how much has it hurt the US-Saudi relationship?
CROWN PRINCE: The Saudi-American relationship is a very strong and solid one that goes back decades and built upon many economic, political, military and security interests for the benefit of both countries and the world. Any negative incident, it is our role as a US and Saudi government to deal with it and ensure that it does not happen again and move forward toward a beneficial future for our countries and for the world at large.
INTERVIEWER: What about Jamal Khashoggi’s family, what about what they want?
CROWN PRINCE: As far as I know, I believe that the family is satisfied with the actions taken by the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, both from the investigations and the referral to a trial. Today, the family is involved in all the measures taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and my understanding is that they are satisfied with these measures.
INTERVIEWER: I spoke with a prominent US senator before I came here and he said because of what happened for Jamal Khashoggi and what happened in Yemen that in his words, “there is not a lot of good will around here in Congress for Saudi Arabia, how much is it hurt the relationship?
CROWN PRINCE: As I mentioned, the relationship is much bigger and this matter is heinous and painful for all of us. Our role is to work day and night to overcome this and ensuring that our future is much better than any past incidents.
INTERVIEWER: Let’s turn now to the attack on your oil fields. An unprecedented attack on Saudi Arabia, that most of the world believes was carried out by Iran, this attack hit the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, were you blindsided?
CROWN PRINCE: I may disagree with you a little. This strike hit the heart of the global energy supply and not just the heart of the Kingdom’s energy supply. It has disrupted nearly five and a half percent of the world’s need – for America, China and the entire world – for energy. This horrible development underscores how Iran does things and when it doesn’t see a strong reaction from the international community, it dares and takes even bigger actions. It started from stopping ships, to hijacking ships, to shooting down planes until it dared and did this recently. So today, the international community must stand firmly and decisively to put a clear and strong end to Iran and so it does not evolve and threaten the global energy sources and the global economy. Everyone will suffer if energy supplies are damaged.
INTERVIEWER: How did you find out, where were you, what did you think when you heard this had been carried out?
CROWN PRINCE: When I heard this horrible thing, it came as a surprise and I did not expect that the Iranian regime would reach such stupidity, and I thought it was much smarter than this, especially its attempts to hide the launch sites of the missiles and from where they came from. We have taken all necessary measures both at the Ministry of Defense and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and most importantly at the Ministry of Energy and Aramco. Aramco has proved very strongly that it is capable of dealing with the issue and its commitment to energy supplies with countries and its suppliers and solving the issue in very big way without any effects to the global power supply.
INTERVIEWER: You know the source? Do you know with 100 percent certainty that this attack came from Iran?
CROWN PRINCE: I think the conviction is clear but we need the investigation to conclude for it to be very solid.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have a sense of where they came from?
CROWN PRINCE: I think a lot of people know where it came from, but we are waiting until the investigations are completed.
INTERVIEWER: This is the first time that Iran has directly hit Saudi Arabia, the fight has now come home. How vulnerable is Saudi Arabia?
CROWN PRINCE: The last thing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wants is war. We have Vision 2030 and we have a brilliant and great future and the region has a great and brilliant future, I think Saudi Arabia does not want war but without a doubt the Iranians must know that all our options are on the table and that we are offering peace before everything else. For it to turn to peace, it must stop all hostilities and be serious about negotiating, sitting at the table and discussing.
INTERVIEWER: The kingdom is the world’s number one importer of arms of military equipment, billions of dollars spent on equipment, how could it not prevent an attack like this?
CROWN PRINCE: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a continent in size, meaning almost a whole continent larger than the whole of Western Europe and covering this continent is very difficult especially in the presence of threats from all sides, in the south we have the terrorist militia Hezbollah number two, the Houthis, in the north we have Hezbollah, we have ISIS, we have al-Qaeda, we have outlawed militias and in the east we have Iran. The threats exist from 360 degrees and all these are difficult to cover completely. Not to mention that in the past four years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been hit by more than 200 ballistic missiles and more than 200 drones and it managed to deal with them by not allowing them to reach its targets. This number has not been faced by any country in the world, even the United States of America, in dealing with a threat of this magnitude with great success.
INTERVIEWER: If you do not respond to an attack like this by Iran will Iran become emboldened?
CROWN PRINCE: For sure, if the world does not take a strong and firm position that would deter Iran, we will see a large escalation, and it will threaten the world’s interest and the supply of energy will be disrupted, and the price of oil will reach figures we have never seen before in our lives.
INTERVIEWER: Does it have to be a military response?
CROWN PRINCE: I hope not
INTERVIEWER: Because a political and peaceful solution is much better than a military solution.
INTERVIEWER: Would you be willing to negotiate directly with the Iranians?
CROWN PRINCE: If they can sit and negotiate directly. They do not want to negotiate except with regards to lifting sanctions, and this is one of their games that they work on regularly. President Trump gave them a chance all of 2017 to negotiate before he imposed sanctions on them and they never sat on the negotiating table, and now when he imposed sanctions on Iran they demand lifting of these sanctions to sit on the negotiating table. What logic are they talking about?
INTERVIEWER: Do you think that President Trump should sit down with president Rouhani and craft a new deal?
CROWN PRINCE: For sure this is what President Trump is asking for, and this is what we are all asking for. The ones that do not want to sit on the table are the Iranians.
INTERVIEWER: What will make that happen?
CROWN PRINCE: Change their convictions or they will continue to face the same pressure that is on them today.
INTERVIEWER: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called what Iran did, in his words, “an act of war.” Was it an act of war?
CROWN PRINCE: Definitely yes.
INTERVIEWER: How can you let an act of war go unanswered?
CROWN PRINCE: No, the answer needs to be the right one. The issue is not merely one of morale, there are economic interests, and there are global interests, we need to do our calculations properly, and we should give a chance to the Iranian regime to prove its seriousness if it wants to prove that, or it will face the necessary measures.
INTERVIEWER: I understand what you are saying. What if Iran strikes again?
CROWN PRINCE: That would mean that they are disregarding the global interests and the interests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the global supplies of oil, then the situation will be very different than today.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of effect would a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran have on the region?
CROWN PRINCE: The region forms nearly 30 percent of the world’s supply of oil, and nearly 20 percent of the global trade corridors, and nearly 4 percent of the world’s GDP. Imagine, all these three things stopping means the collapse of the world economy and not just Saudi Arabia or the Middle East.
INTERVIEWER: Let’s turn to the war in Iran , oh excuse me, let’s turn to the war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has been fighting in Yemen for 5 years, it is called the worst humanitarian crises in the world, is it time to end the war in Yemen?
CROWN PRINCE: Just as a reminder, the Iranian backed militias did a coup on the legitimate [government] that was elected by the Yemeni people and recognized internationally. They raised slogans that threatened many countries chiefly the United States with “Death to America” on their flags. They threatened the waterways in the Red Sea which forms 13 percent of the international trade. They were going to push Yemen into becoming the new Iraq, after eliminating ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria they will find a new location to grow in inside of Yemen. All of these factors drove us to respond to the call of the Yemeni government and drove the Security Council to respond as well and back the Yemeni government’s right to defend their nation, and the campaign started. Since five years the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the country that provides the most humanitarian aid in Yemen from hospitals to building roads or schools, et cetera, of aid inside of Yemen. Even the hospitals that are in Saada in the Houthi controlled areas were built using money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and operate, until today, with money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and they treat the Houthi wounded…. This all proves the seriousness of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to humanitarian aid. We notice that most humanitarian crises are in Houthi-controlled areas because they use the supplies from the United Nations and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries and sell them in the black market so they can finance a destructive war in the region, while the areas until the control of the legitimate [government] are much better off than the areas under the control of the Houthi. Those that try to exploit and place the human and children’s rights to pressure the world through dirty means, it’s the Houthis and this is with the admission of the United Nations and many of our allies around the world.
INTERVIEWER: What is the solution?
CROWN PRINCE: First, if Iran stops its support for the Houthi militias the political solution would be much easier. Today we open all initiatives for a political solution in Yemen, and we hope that this happens today before tomorrow, and we hope that the Houthi comes out of being a militia supported by or subordinate to Iran, to being a Yemeni political component that can be in harmony with its brethren inside of Yemen. Today we are working with the UN Special Envoy to find the best solutions possible and implement them on the ground for a political solution in Yemen.
INTERVIEWER: You are saying tonight that you want a negotiation to end the war in Yemen?
CROWN PRINCE: We are doing that every day, but we are trying to reflect this dialogue to be implemented on the ground, and the announcement of a cease fire by the Houthi a few days ago, we consider a positive gesture for taking a serious step forward towards a more effective political dialogue.
INTERVIEWER: Will you announce a ceasefire?
CROWN PRINCE: If they proved their seriousness, then undoubtedly we will.
INTERVIEWER: How long will that take for them to prove their commitments?
CROWN PRINCE: I believe a few days.
INTERVIEWER: You are saying that if the Houthis hold with their ceasefire that Saudi Arabia will respond in kind with a ceasefire?
CROWN PRINCE: Undoubtedly, it is not logical that we continue to attack while they stop attacking.
INTERVIEWER: What do you place the chance of this happening?
CROWN PRINCE: Very high I believe, I hope they are very high, and I believe that it is very high, and we will try as much as possible to make this work.
INTERVIEWER: So concrete steps that Saudi Arabia can take to help end the war in Yemen, you are saying you are willing to lead a ceasefire of coalition airstrikes and end the blockade?
CROWN PRINCE: The issue of goods entering, is permitted. Today Hodeidah port receives goods in full, but accepting goods with complete freedom to allow Iranian weapons to enter Yemen is not accepted for sure.
INTERVIEWER: So if I would come back here next year, do you think the war in Yemen will be over?
CROWN PRINCE: I hope it would end before this interview ends, but this matter is out of the control of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or the will of some. There are many factors that affect this, chiefly the Iranian support for the coup militia, and the situation inside of Yemen, the region, the position of the international community, the position of the United Nations, and the position of the United States. All of these are factors that will help end the war quickly or prolong the war, and whenever the right measures are taken to pressure or push towards a political solution, that will shorten the war.
INTERVIEWER: Why after 5 years are you optimistic tonight that ceasefire could hold that could lead to an end to the war in Yemen?
CROWN PRINCE: As a leader, you must be optimistic every day. I cannot be pessimistic. If I was pessimistic I should leave my seat and work in another place.
INTERVIEWER: Let me ask you about issues here at home, women’s rights, since we last spoke women are driving in Saudi Arabia and have received more rights in general but there are about a dozen female activists that have been detained for more than a year, why were they put in jail?
CROWN PRINCE: In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia there are many laws, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a state governed by laws. There are three branches of authority in government, and they refer to the King. Anyone who violates these laws will undoubtedly face legal action.The laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia do not criminalize the defense of women’s rights or human rights, but there may be a difference between our concept and that of the United States or other countries, some of these laws I may not personally agree with, or some Saudis disagree with, Americans disagree with them or other people in the world [may not agree with them], but as long as they are laws that exist today, regardless of whether or not we agree with them, they must be respected in order to be reformed through the reform work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
INTERVIEWER: One of the female activists who fought for the right for women to be able to drive here in Saudi Arabia, her name is Loujain al-Hathloul she is in prison today. Is it time to let her go?
CROWN PRINCE: The decision is not up to me. It goes back to the Attorney General. We have an independent Attorney General and Saudi Arabia has a very strong history of the King and the Crown Prince not interfering in the work of the judiciary. In the last hundred years, there has not been any interference by the King or the Crown Prince in this regard, until the end of the investigations and trial according to the laws of the Kingdom. So we respect this right for the Saudis as well as the prosecutor.
INTERVIEWER: Let me ask you a personal opinion, do you think she should be set free?
CROWN PRINCE: I do not have the complete information on her case but according to my understanding, I do not think that her case stops at a human rights issue. According to the information I received, there were other violations that were far from the human rights and women’s rights committed by Loujain.
INTERVIEWER: You understand the criticism, why give women the freedom to drive and then imprison one of the most high-profile women who fought for the right to drive?
CROWN PRINCE: The issue has nothing to do with this, as I mentioned from the beginning, there are laws in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that must be respected regardless of whether we agree them or not, regardless if I personally agree or disagree on them. I mean, for example, I’ll give an example, there is a cybercrime law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, if someone came and expected tomorrow will be a rainy day, the prosecutor will directly charge him under the cybercrime Law and fine him. For me, I look at this law as a very stupid law but it is the law nonetheless. Today, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we have tens of thousands of reforms, we are focusing on the most important reforms before we get to fix the tweet about a rainy day in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But until we reach this reform, as long as it is a law, no one can even tell the prosecutor, not even the King, whether the law is good, or apply the ones he’s convinced of but not apply the ones he’s not convinced of and are not good. This will cause chaos and the world must understand and everyone must understand that as long as there is a law, it must be respected until this law is changed.
INTERVIEWER: You understand what is said about you that publicly you have pledged to change Saudi Arabia; to transform the economy; to talk about a moderate Islam; to allow women to have more rights, and so the criticism is yet there is crackdown and a jailing of women who raise issues about things that needs to change in Saudi Arabia, that is the perception that you don’t support women’s rights and human rights and these concrete examples of women who have been jailed?
CROWN PRINCE: This impression hurts me and it hurts that some look at the picture narrowly. I hope that everyone comes to Saudi Arabia, looks at the reality and meet Saudi women and citizens and judge by themselves.
INTERVIEWER: In the case of Loujain who fought for women’s rights to drive, her family says she has been tortured in prison, is that right?
CROWN PRINCE: If this is true then it is heinous. Islam prohibits torture, Saudi Arabia’s laws prohibit torture, the human soul forbids torture. According to my understanding, the prosecutor has opened an investigation into this regard and if it’s proven that anyone tortured anyone in Saudi Arabia, no doubt the person will be held strongly accountable and I will follow this up myself.
INTERVIEWER: You will personally follow up on it?
CROWN PRINCE: Without a doubt.
INTERVIEWER: You are viewed as all-powerful in this country. Can you issue a royal decree, can you issue new guidelines about how these female detainees are treated?
CROWN PRINCE: First, I don’t have the power of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My strength is derived from the power of the Saudi people, I cannot be strong if I am not supported by the Saudi people. Also, I return to the point that some believe that in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the King is sitting in his office and issues any order he wants the next day. The king has powers that are based on the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia, we have a constitution, we have laws, the king works within these laws. We have hundreds of laws and hundreds of regulation. We have three bodies: the executive, legislative and judicial authority. The work is fully institutionalized in all these actions. So, the work is not based on mood in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For the king to make a decision whether he thinks it’s right or wrong, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is required to have the decision stemming from the three institutions according to their specialties.
INTERVIEWER: How does Saudi Arabia still need to change?
CROWN PRINCE: We’ve come a long way. I think if we asked any analysts in 2014, whether economic, rights, legal or political analysts, were asked whether Saudi Arabia after 100 years will enact the reforms that it has undertaken in the last five years, they would say no, and that it would be impossible for these reforms to happen in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Today we have come a long way. It is very historic for Saudi Arabia on several fronts, economic and social, et cetera…We do not think that is enough…Our ambition is much greater so that we can become a nation that competes in the ranks of the developed countries of the world and a leading country in the world, we have a very long way for reforms in all areas.
INTERVIEWER: What are some of the reforms that you are planning to make in the coming years, in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia?
CROWN PRINCE: I think the biggest event is the tourism announcement and that it will be the biggest event in 2020. For the first time, Saudi Arabia opens its doors for tourism. By only booking a room in a hotel or apartment or any place of lodging, a tourist may receive their visa from the airport for a very affordable price and come to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This will be a very significant event that will contribute to the growth of the economy of Saudi Arabia in the next ten years by more than 10 percent, creating millions of jobs for Saudis and non-Saudis from the region and around the world, and creating huge opportunities for the Saudi private sector and the private sector in the world, and it will attract investments for Saudi Arabia. Today, in the tourism announcement, approximately USD $30 billion worth of investments were signed and it is only the first day. We have a huge tourism strategy, and this will be the largest event of 2020 and the end of 2019 in Saudi Arabia. And on this occasion, I call on all Americans to come to Saudi Arabia to make their own judgments about this country and its beauty.
The Kingdom will become the new destination for tourism for the next 50 years, for 50 years tourist destinations have been recurrent. Today, there is new terrain, new nature, new cuisine, new arts, and a new culture that the world has not seen and that will be opened for the first time to the world.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think Americans would want to see here in Saudi Arabia?
CROWN PRINCE: It’s very hard to be able to analyze what 300 million Americans would want to see but I can say is that we have something new, be it from culture, from nature, from arts, or people, et cetera. Come and judge for yourself. I hope they will be impressed with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
INTERVIEWER: I am going out of order but I just remembered a question about the attacks on the oil facilities so if you don’t mind I just want to ask a question about that, the attack took out half of your oil production and oil industry analysts are saying it will take months to get back up on-line the repairs will take that long. How long will it take?
CROWN PRINCE: Aramco has restored half or almost 40 percent of what has been cut over 2 days – approximately 2 million barrels. And they will reach a production capacity of 11 million barrels at the end of September or the beginning of October, and at the end of October they will return to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s full production capacity. This means we can cover the demand required of us in the past. And at the current time, we will cover the supplies forgone due to deficits in production via the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s huge reserves inside the Saudi Arabia or in other countries where we store oil. This proves Aramco’s credibility and ability to keep its commitments and also its ability to fix flaws. And at the end, whoever is analyzing will see if what we are saying is correct or not within the next two weeks or within the coming month and a half.
INTERVIEWER: Sure I understand that the reserves could meet the demand but how long will the production facility be off-line?
CROWN PRINCE: As I had said earlier, we will reach 11 million by the end of September and 12 million by the end of October, which is the normal production capacity of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
INTERVIEWER: You are not worried?
CROWN PRINCE: Not at all, we have high competencies which are great in Aramco, and I am proud of them and all Saudis are proud of them, and all our clients in the world are proud of them.
INTERVIEWER: Even when I was here a year and half ago the discussion was about an IPO for Aramco, taking part of it public, what do you think was the strategic reason that Iran struck Aramco?
CROWN PRINCE: I believe that it is foolish, there is no strategic target. Is there anyone foolish enough to attack 5 percent of the global oil supplies? The strategic target is only…what they did only, is that they are fools that is what they did. They have proven that they are a regime that only cares about their ideology to control the world and to control Muslims and spreading extremism and terrorism and their primary slogan is “Death to America” and death to many in the region and other in the world. Those that want this do not care about the development of Iran. They received USD $150 billion because of the agreement, I want one person to name a street that was built in Iran, or an industrial or residential or entertainment area. Nothing, where did the 150 billion go? It went to the Houthi and Hezbollah and the other extremist militias in the region and aggressive acts. Immediately after the agreement, we saw an increase in tensions and an increase in Iran’s aggressive acts in the region and an increase in its danger.
INTERVIEWER: Given that, that why President Trump pulled out of the deal that struck by Obama and other western countries and now this effort of maximum pressure, maximum sanctions, has that led Iran to strike out?
CROWN PRINCE: I do not want to say that one way or the other. What led them to attack is their underestimation of the seriousness of the international community and the seriousness of the allies of the countries of the Middle East in the world, and the seriousness of the countries of the Middle East because of many actions they have taken in the past and no one stopped them from doing them.
INTERVIEWER: How often do you talk with President Trump?
CROWN PRINCE: We are constantly coordinating with all of our allies, whether in the region of the world, and at a high level. It is our duty to coordinate with our allies including President Trump.
INTERVIEWER: And I know you spoke after this attack, what promises or assurances did President Trump make in terms of the defense of Saudi Arabia?
CROWN PRINCE: As everyone knows, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia depends greatly on the United States of America for its arms for many reasons. Most importantly is the strategic alliance and partnership between us to protect America and protect the region and protect the world from terrorism and extremism, and to protect the world oil supplies that interests America and the stability of the price of oil and protect the global economy. Many objectives that are important to both countries. I believe America knows the dangers of leaving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be unsafe or exposed. That will lead to greatly threatening the interests of America not after 10 years, but after a few months from now.
INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else that I did not ask you about that you would like to discuss?
CROWN PRINCE: I just hope that our friends in the United States of America, whether those we agree or disagree with, come to see for themselves before they judge anything, and verify, then judge whatever they want to judge.
INTERVIEWER: To come here and judge for themselves?
CROWN PRINCE: Definitely, that is the best way. Judging from afar, is not a good thing, I believe.
INTERVIEWER: You give very few interviews?
CROWN PRINCE: For sure, but you are able to get me always.
INTERVIEWER: This is our second interview…
CROWN PRINCE: True.
INTERVIEWER: With tough questions…
CROWN PRINCE: I hope the questions are far away from all these things.
INTERVIEWER: So let me ask you I know you’re like your father the king, you are student of history.
CROWN PRINCE: Correct
INTERVIEWER: How will history remember and judge your first few years? One day-to-day operations here?
CROWN PRINCE: I hope history will document the current generation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because it was able to take the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from a great generation in the past, that handed over one of the top 20 economies in the world, a state which has huge political depth, and a state with huge social dimension and high culture, security and stability to a much better state. We will handover to our future generations and will overcome the challenges with the least amount of losses and greatest gains and we will be proud at the end of our lives of the achievements that we, as a whole generation, have done either myself or those of my age in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
INTERVIEWER: What lessons have you learned? And have you made mistakes?
CROWN PRINCE: Prophets have made mistakes so how can we expect as humans not to be wrong, but what is important is that we learn from our mistakes and make sure that they will not be repeated and be smarter to avoid other mistakes that may not have been in our experience in the past. And as you mentioned in the beginning, reading history makes a person learn from his mistakes so one doesn’t make the same mistakes himself.
INTERVIEWER: What have you learned from the five years in Yemen?
CROWN PRINCE: That war must be a last resort.
INTERVIEWER: And what have you learned from one year later what happened to Jamal Khashoggi?
CROWN PRINCE: There should be continued reforms in all sectors, and we must reach our goals. We should not reach on any day to a conclusion that the sector is operating well, since once we reach the conclusion that the sector is operating well, that means the faults will start.
INTERVIEWER: Are you committed to ending the crackdown on dissidents, critics, journalists?
CROWN PRINCE: This is a loaded question, I have no information about who you mean so I can answer clearly. As per my understanding with regards to what is going on in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, no one will be jailed and investigated by the public prosecutor and sent to trial except for charges related to breaking clear laws. However, we sometimes see people who we classify as terrorists, and who intelligence agencies around the world classify as terrorists and extremists, while some claim that they carry a positive message to humanity. I wish that if any country believes that these terrorists and extremists are correct and safe, I am ready to work personally to deliver these people to those countries so they can be set free and they can bear full responsibility for these terrorists and extremists being set completely free in their countries.
However, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wages a serious war against terrorism and extremism that is based on our laws, the other side accuses us of suppressing some political activists. This does not make sense, I wish that they could go back to those people’s clips and letters and what they promote and judge based on that. I hope that any person that faced any jail time or has been investigated by the public prosecutor, and they believe that they are not extremists or terrorists or accused of extremism or terrorism, that they refer back to that person’s clips and letters and what they promote and judge through that.
INTERVIEWER: Final question, if we were to come back a year from now, what will have changed here in Saudi Arabia?
CROWN PRINCE: We discussed some things in our last interview and I came today, I believe that we are saying is being implemented and today we discussed a few things, and I hope that you come to me next year and see that what we have said has been implemented on the ground.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, thank you.