LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 07/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are
First Letter of John 03/01-10:”See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on October 06- 07/2019
Protesters Rally in Central Beirut, Block Road outside BDL
Gas Station Owners Call Off Strike after Solution to Dollar Crisis
Geagea from Canada: Lebanon a Bus without Driver
Lebanon is before two lurking dangers," warns Geagea from Canada
Hariri in UAE for Official Talks, Investment Forum
Al-Rahi denounces sectarian provocations, using them as a tool to attract the masses
Jreissati: Lebanon is going through a major crisis, but the Tannourine Cedars' crisis is strategic
Launching of the 'Nidal Al-Achkar Prize for Best Theatrical Play'
Jarrah holds a luncheon banquet in honor of Mustafa Alloush in West Bekaa
Sleiman meets with Bukhari, Shamsi: It is unacceptable to disturb Lebanon's Arab
Is the Lebanese Pound at Risk of Devaluation?
Hezbollah and its Christian allies are hijacking the Lebanese diaspora
Explainer: How US sanctions are squeezing Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon
The rage in Beirut is a reminder of Lebanon’s toxic politics

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 06- 07/2019
Pope Condemns 'Interests' that Caused Amazon Fires
Israeli Minister Seeks 'Non-Aggression' Pacts with Gulf Arab Nations
Death toll in Iraq protests reaches 104, more than 6,000 wounded
Iraq: Protests Erupt Again in Baghdad
Iran Says to Use Every Mean Possible to Export Its Oil
Calm in Iraqi Capital after Bloody Night of Protests
Egypt Sentences 5 to Prison over Cabinet Attack Incident
Egypt Looks Forward to US Role in Renaissance Dam Tripped Negotiations
Kosovo Votes amid Pressure to Reboot Serbia Talks
Anti-Establishment Parties Battle Political Elite in Tunisia Election
King Salman receives Sudan’s prime minister, sovereign council president

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 06- 07/2019
Is the Lebanese Pound at Risk of Devaluation?/Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 06/2019
Hezbollah and its Christian allies are hijacking the Lebanese diaspora/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/Thursday, 3 October 2019
Explainer: How US sanctions are squeezing Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon/Gulf News/October 06/2019
The rage in Beirut is a reminder of Lebanon’s toxic politics/Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/October 06/2019
Americans Fear Climate Change and the Cost of Fighting It/Noah Smith/Bloomberg/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
Use the Force on China? There's Just One Problem/John Authers/Bloomberg/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
“WORLD TAKE NOTE!”: Genocide of Christians in Nigeria/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/October 6, 2019
Donald Trump and Iranian regime are both in positions of weakness – and that may be a good thing/Raghida Dergham/The National/October 06/2019
Any new deal with Iran must focus on five priorities/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/October 06/2019
Mike Pompeo at the Vatican last week/Oubai Shahbandar/Arab News/October 06/2019
Corruption, Iranian influence force Iraqis into line of fire/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/October 06/2019
As Protests Explode, Iraq Must Get Serious About Reform/Bilal Wahab/The Washington Institute/October 06/2019
Iran’s Supreme Leader Putting ‘Heroic Flexibility’ Aside/Omer Carmi/The Washington Institute/October 06/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on October 06- 07/2019
Protesters Rally in Central Beirut, Block Road outside BDL
Naharnet/October 06/2019
Civil society activists on Sunday staged a new demonstration in central Beirut to protest the country’s dire economic situations. The demo started at Martyrs Square before moving to the nearby Riad al-Solh Square where the government’s headquarters is located. “We Want a Social Justice and Public Freedoms State” and “We’re Here to Regain the Looted State and Hold Accountable the Ruling Mafia”, read two banners carried during the rally. Organizers later announced the end of the demonstration but a group of protesters marched towards Hamra Street where they blocked the road outside Banque du Liban. MP Paula Yacoubian took part in the central Beirut demo, where she lamented that “the government has so far been a failure.” “It has not made any remarkable achievement. We have become in the middle of the presidential tenure. Where is reform and change? Where are the rest of the political forces?” Yacoubian added. Lebanon has witnessed several similar demos in recent weeks, amid fears of a dollar shortage and possible price hikes. Parliament in July passed an austerity budget aimed at rescuing an economy crumbling under massive debt and unlocking billions of dollars in international aid.
In recent weeks, fears of a dollar shortage have sparked anxiety over a possible devaluation of the Lebanese pound and price hikes, with banks and money exchange houses rationing their sales of dollars, which are used alongside the pound in daily transactions. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has denied that the country is facing a currency reserve crisis, but it has become very difficult to withdraw dollars from ATMs in Beirut. Economic growth in Lebanon has plummeted in the wake of repeated political deadlocks in recent years, compounded by eight years of war in neighboring Syria.
Lebanon's public debt stands at around $86 billion -- more than 150 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) -- according to the finance ministry. Eighty percent of that figure is owed to Lebanon's central bank and local banks. The small country has promised donors to slash public spending as part of reforms to unlock $11 billion in aid pledged at a conference in Paris last year.

Gas Station Owners Call Off Strike after Solution to Dollar Crisis
Naharnet/October 06/2019
The syndicates of fuel station owners and fuel tanker owners and a representative of fuel distributors on Sunday called off a strike previously scheduled for Monday after a settlement was reached with fuel importers over the currency that should be used in transactions. At a press conference, the head of the syndicate of fuel station owners, Sami al-Brax, thanked President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Saad Hariri for “their efforts in reaching this solution.”“The importing companies will continue to issue bills in U.S. dollar but they will get paid in Lebanese lira,” he said. Another representative called for devising a “monetary mechanism” for the agreement and announced that Monday will be a normal work day. On Tuesday, the central bank said it will facilitate access to dollars for importers of petroleum products, wheat and medicine, following fears of a dollar shortage and possible currency devaluation. Local media said last month that banks and money exchange shops were rationing dollar sales in the country, where Lebanese pounds and U.S. dollars are used interchangeably in everyday transactions. Petrol station owners staged a strike over a lack of dollars at a fixed exchange rate to pay for imports, while flour producers complained they had to resort to much higher rates from money changers.
"Banks that issue letters of credit for the importation of petroleum products (petrol, fuel oil and gas), wheat and medicine will be able to ask the Banque du Liban to ensure the value of such credits in U.S. dollars," read the decision issued by Banque du Liban. The mechanism requires that a "special account" be opened at the central bank, and at least 15 percent of the value of the credit be deposited in it in U.S. dollars, as well as the full value in Lebanese pounds, it said. The central bank will take 0.5 percent from each transaction. Lebanon has had a fixed exchange rate of around 1,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar in place since 1997. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has denied that the country was facing a currency reserve crisis, but it has become very difficult to withdraw dollars from ATMs. Lebanese economist Jad Chaaban said the central bank measure was a welcome short-term solution to allow key products into the country. "It's a good measure to contain the crisis on importing these commodities and to keep the prices in check," said the associate professor at the American University of Beirut. And it will "ease pressure on the non-bank exchange rate," he said.
But he also called for the broader easing of capital controls keeping dollars in the banks, and "fundamental economic reforms" including to reduce dependency on imports. The finance ministry has said that rating agency Moody's has warned it could lower Lebanon's sovereign credit rating within three months if the country does not redress its economy. Moody's already downgraded the rating from "B3" to "Caa1" at the start of the year, citing debt risks, while fellow agency Fitch followed suit in August. Lebanon's public debt stands at around $86 billion -- more than 150 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) -- according to the finance ministry. Eighty percent of that debt is owed to Lebanon's central bank and local banks. In July, parliament passed an austerity budget as part of conditions to unlock $11 billion in aid pledged at a conference in Paris last year.

Geagea from Canada: Lebanon a Bus without Driver
Naharnet/October 06/2019
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has described Lebanon as “a bus without a driver,” in remarks during a speech in Canada. “There are currently two imminent threats to Lebanon: the first is a security-military-strategic threat, seeing as Lebanon is currently like a bus without a driver, which is being driven by someone other than the one behind the steering wheel, and we don’t know where he’ll take us,” Geagea told the LF’s 23rd North American convention in Canada. “The decision of peace and war is fully in Hizbullah’s hand, and we hope Hizbullah will not drag us into a war in the region with all its dramatic repercussions,” Geagea added. “As for the second threat, it is a very serious financial-economic one, seeing as the state is under a debt of more than $94 billion and growth has nearly touched zero percent over the past years while the state’s revenues are decreasing,” the LF leader went on to say. Geagea also said that he had been “dreaming” of meeting with the LF’s cadres in North America for the past 15 years. “We used to communicate via phone or video conference, and here we are meeting today face to face,” he said.

Lebanon is before two lurking dangers," warns Geagea from Canada
NNA -Sun 06 Oct 2019
Lebanese Forces Party Chief, Samir Geagea, considered Sunday that there are two dangers threatening the Lebanese state at the current stage.
"The first is of a security-military-strategic nature, in the sense that Lebanon is currently similar to a bus with no driver, whereby the person driving it is other than that sitting behind the steering wheel, and we know not the destination to which we are heading," explained Geagea. "The decision of peace and war is entirely in Hezbollah's hands, hoping that the latter will not drag us into a war in the region, with all its dramatic consequences," he added. "The second risk is of a very serious financial-economic nature, for the state owes more than 94 billion dollars, and growth is close to zero percent in recent years, and the state's revenues are decreasing while its expenses are increasing," indicated Geagea. The LF Chief's words came in his address before partisans attending the Lebanese Forces' 23rd Conference in North America, which was held in Canada in the presence of MP Strida Geagea, "Strong Republic" Bloc Secretary Fadi Karam, and a crowd of senior Party members, dignitaries and Lebanese expatriates. The LF Chief pointed to one of the many obstacles facing the country, namely "the presence of around 5,300 illegitimate employees in state administrations who were illegally hired...let alone the illegal crossings that have not been closed because they are a source of benefit to some, while others do not want a regulating body for the tele-communications sector...etc." He added, "So with such a psychic, we will never overcome our crisis. This is why we were against the current budget because it does not take the country out of its crisis."At the regional level, Geagea considered that "there is a huge confrontation in the region between America and its allies on one hand, and Iran and its allies, on the other, manifested by the recent economic sanctions that are not likely to produce any outcome...""Are America and its allies ready to go any further?" he questioned. "All the indications suggest otherwise, which means that Iran will emerge stronger from this crisis, and therefore there is a huge question mark regarding the situation in the Middle East in light of this reality," stated Geagea.
The LF Chief praised the "remarkable organization of the comrades in North America," congratulating partisans on their exerted efforts to hold the conference for the 23rd consecutive year. The encounter concluded with a "question-and-answer" session between Geagea and attending partisans and supporters.

Hariri in UAE for Official Talks, Investment Forum
Naharnet/October 06/2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri arrived Sunday in Abu Dhabi for a two-day official visit to the UAE. During the visit, Hariri will meet with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and will participate Monday in the UAE-Lebanon investment forum, sponsored by the UAE Ministry of Economy and the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, at the St. Regis Hotel, his office said. Hariri was welcomed at the airport by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Saif bin Zayed and the Lebanese Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Fouad Dandan. He is accompanied by a delegation that includes Ministers Wael Abou Faour, Mohammed Choucair, Raya al-Hassan, Elias Bou Saab, Mansour Bteish and Adel Afiouni and former Minister Ghattas Khoury. A large economic and banking delegation comprising the Governor of the Banque du Liban Riad Salameh and many figures will participate in the forum.

Al-Rahi denounces sectarian provocations, using them as a tool to attract the masses
NNA - Sun 06 Oct 2019
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, rejected on Sunday the attempt to create sectarian provocations and use them as a tool in political practices to attract the masses. "This has served to deepen sectarian and confessional divisions and distorted the concept of the participation of various sects in power," al-Rahi said. "Rather than contributing to building a state that preserves its unity and coexistence, and provides security, stability and a decent living for its people, political participation has become a means of sharing influence and gains among politicians, looting public funds, and distributing state capabilities among them in the name of sects...which has led to weakening the state amidst its overwhelming debts," the Patriarch added regretfully. "Therefore, we cannot tolerate this practice which is contrary to the Constitution and the philosophy of the National Charter," he asserted.
The Patriarch's words came in his homily as he presided over Sunday Mass at Saint Joseph Church for the Jesuit Fathers in Ashrafieh, marking the start of the 145th academic year of St. Joseph University in Beirut and the celebration of the centennial of the State of Greater Lebanon, at the invitation of USJ President Salim Daccache and the University Council. The Patriarch reiterated Lebanon's foundation values, symbolized in its independence and being free from any subordination, and being the ultimate homeland for all its citizens within its internationally recognized borders; in addition to its unity in diversity and its public religious, cultural and political liberties, coexistence of its citizens as Christians and Muslims with equal rights and duties, and balanced participation in governance and administration. Al-Rahi stressed, once again, on "Lebanon, the model, and the Arab and international message."
"These values form the philosophy of the Lebanese formula, which is to assimilate the pluralistic societal reality within a unified political entity, in which the sects participate in the exercise of power, with the aim of building a state that achieves justice, security and stability, and provides a decent living for its people," al-Rahi noted. "Consequently, citizens' national affiliation strengthens in wake of their conviction that the state is a guarantee for all, without the need for any other guarantee, and thus, national unity is deepened and coexistence becomes a reality," the Patriarch underlined.

Jreissati: Lebanon is going through a major crisis, but the Tannourine Cedars' crisis is strategic
"NNA - Sun 06 Oct 2019
"Lebanon is going through a major crisis...Yet, the crisis of the Tannourine Cedars is of a strategic nature, deemed Environment Minister Fadi Jreissati. "Whenever we raise an issue, they consider that the circumstances are not appropriate to address such topics...But for me, there is no crisis more important than other crises," he said. "What we are fighting for, which is very essential to me and also important to our children and grandchildren, is not shared by everyone in the country," he said regretfully. "For in the end, if we do not have any reserves, we will no longer have a country," he added.
"I likened the Cedar to Lebanon, and it is the symbol on our country's flag. This Cedar is always susceptible to diseases, and so is our country permanently prone to earth shakes...Yet, steady and steadfast it remains, because it is deeply-rooted for 3,000 years back, and we shall remain steadfast for more than 3000 years," vowed Jreissati. The Minister's words came during his patronage of the Tannourine Cedars Forest Reserve's celebration of "Friendship Day" in the forest, with the participation of the Ambassadors of France, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, China, Colombia, Ukraine, Brazil, EU, and the French Development Agency's Representative, as well as Ambassador Rabih Raidy who is the son of Tannourine, and Miss Lebanon 2018 Maya Raidy, alongside the Mayor of Tannourine Sami Youssef, and several dignitaries from the region and a crowd of citizens.
Jreissati promised to extend all possible support and assistance to those responsible for the Cedar Reserve, adding that "the presence of international missions with us today is proof that the world has not lost faith in us, and that there are still those who help us, and there are donations on their way to Lebanon."
"The Tannourine Cedar Reserve will be one of the first reserves I will support, because it well-deserves and is not only an added value to Tannourine, but also belongs to all the Lebanese," pledged Jreissati. "This Reserve, which preserves the country's beautiful image, reflects the wonderful facet of Lebanon and is a source of oxygen that we breathe, while providing many job opportunities," he added, highlighting the importance of ecotourism in stabilizing the Lebanese youth in their land.

Launching of the 'Nidal Al-Achkar Prize for Best Theatrical Play'
NNA - Sun 06 Oct 2019
A ceremony was held in the Choueifat Theater Hall on Sunday, marking the launch of the Nidal Al-Achkar Annual Prize for Best Lebanese Theatrical Play, under the patronage of Culture Minister Mohammad Daoud. "It is a wonderful initiative to re-activate and open a theater outside the capital, Beirut, as part of the strategy of the Ministry of Culture to support and encourage cultural administrative decentralization," said Daoud in his word on the occasion. He added that launching the Nidal Al-Achkar Prize serves as a strong incentive for the theatrical movement in Lebanon. "This cultural event opens a bright page from the founding stage of the modern Lebanese theater in the 1960s," he said. At the end of the ceremony, Minister Daoud awarded Al-Achkar the silver "Order of Merit" on behalf of the President of the Republic, in appreciation for her long cultural career and remarkable achievements in the world of theater and art.

Jarrah holds a luncheon banquet in honor of Mustafa Alloush in West Bekaa
NNA - Sun 06 Oct 2019
Minister of Information Jamal Al-Jarrah held a luncheon banquet in honor of Future Movement's political bureau member, former MP Mustafa Alloush, who visited West Bekaa as a lecturer on Sunday, at the invitation of the Future Movement's coordinating branches in West Bekaa and Rachaya.
Addressing the Information Minister and the attending guests and dignitaries, Alloush thanked Jarrah for the warm welcome he received, praising the relationship between the people of the Bekaa and the North, "which is the main pillar of the national project led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and is at the core essence of the Future Movement's march," he said.

Sleiman meets with Bukhari, Shamsi: It is unacceptable to disturb Lebanon's Arab
NNA - Sun 06 Oct 2019
Former President Michel Sleiman stressed Sunday the "need to pay attention to Lebanon's relations with the Arab countries that have stood by the Lebanese state at all stages." He warned, herein, of the negative aspects of any undermining attempt against these countries, in a bid to serve the axes working to change the face of the region. Sleiman's words came during his meeting this morning with Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Al-Bukhari. The former Lebanese President commended the Saudi Kingdom's role and its continuous support to Lebanon and its army, hoping that its leadership would "reconsider the frozen Saudi gift that the Kingdom pledged to Lebanon prior to the end of Sleiman's presidential mandate in 2014." Sleiman also received today UAE's Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamad Saeed Al Shamsi, with discussions touching on the regional situation.
He praised UAE's positive role towards the Arab brethrens and the Lebanese.

Is the Lebanese Pound at Risk of Devaluation?
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 06/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/79188/%d9%81%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%b3-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%b3-%d9%87%d9%84-%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%ac%d9%87-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%81%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%8b-%d8%ae%d8%b7%d8%b1-%d8%aa%d8%af%d9%87/
Fears of a monetary devaluation in Lebanon, where the exchange rate has been fixed for more than two decades, are on the increase following a dollar shortage and the downgrading of the country's sovereign credit rating.
Why the panic?
Panic has gripped Lebanon in recent weeks when it became nearly impossible to withdraw dollars from ATMs or to change large sums in banks. Since 1997, when the exchange rate was fixed at 1,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, the greenback has been used interchangeably with Lebanese pounds in everyday transactions. That measure was adopted after several rounds of devaluations in the 1980s and after Lebanon 1975-1990 civil war. But on the parallel market, exchange rates reached 1,600 Lebanese pounds to the dollar in September. This depreciation and banking restrictions prompted calls for strikes, notably from gas station owners who receive pounds but would have to pay suppliers in dollars. The action was called off under a deal allowing payments in dollars. After initially denying a dollar shortage, the central bank blamed the fluctuating exchange rate on increased imports, which observers say could be partly due to smuggling to neighboring war-torn Syria. But Lebanese economist Jad Chaaban points to a decision by banking authorities to control the flow of capital, including central bank "oversight to limit anyone exchanging dollars in banks, but also withdrawing large dollar amounts."
Why did agencies downgrade Lebanon?
The original rationale for banking restrictions was worry over revised ratings to Lebanon by the three major international credit agencies. On Tuesday, Moody's announced it had put Lebanon's credit rating "under observation" with the possibility of a downgrade within three months. The agency downgraded Lebanon from "B3" to "Caa1" in January, signalling "a very high credit risk."In August, Fitch downgraded Lebanon from "B-" to "CCC", a category for countries where there is a "real possibility" of default. Standard & Poor's (S&P) kept Lebanon's "B-/B" rating but with a negative outlook, meaning it could slide over the next year, the agency's associate director of sovereign ratings Zahabia Gupta told AFP. The Lebanese economy has suffered for years from low growth and a public debt swelling to around $86 billion. At roughly 150 percent of gross domestic product, this is one of the highest rates worldwide.
In a country where the political class is often accused of corruption and racketeering, analysts say trust in Lebanon's system of governance is being tested. For the past year, Lebanon has been trying to introduce economic reforms in order to unlock pledges of $11.6 billion in loans and grants from the international community. This crucial aid has not been released due to delays in implementing reforms.
Is the risk of devaluation real?
Despite the worry, "there is no real risk today of a devaluation," according to economist Nassib Ghobril. The central bank "has the necessary tools" to maintain monetary stability, said the chief economist at Byblos Bank. These tools include sufficient foreign currency reserves to allow the bank to buy and sell currency to maintain the rate of the Lebanese pound. At the end of September, foreign reserves reached $38.5 billion, an increase of over $2 billion since June, according to official figures, about four times the amount the country had in reserve in 2005. Another positive indicator for analysts are deposit inflows that can replenish foreign currency reserves. The central bank's inflows increased over three consecutive months between June and August, according to Marwan Barakat, chief economist at Bank Audi. But observers remain cautious. The increase in deposit inflows and central bank reserves "are primarily linked to the (central bank's) financial engineering and other one-off transactions and may not be sustained," warned S&P's Gupta.

Hezbollah and its Christian allies are hijacking the Lebanese diaspora
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/Thursday, 3 October 2019
The Lebanese people are notoriously proud of their diaspora around the world. It is common for visitors of Beirut to be reminded that Brazil’s recent president, Michel Temer, is of Lebanese origins, or that prominent US statesmen Ralph Nader and Philip Habib are the descendants of Lebanese immigrants. Shakira is as much a source of pride for the Lebanese in Lebanon as any local star. When the former CEO of Nissan and Renault, Carlos Ghosn, one of the most high profile Lebanese diaspora success stories, was arrested in Japan, his incarceration was met with an outpouring of sympathy and support on the Lebanese street.
This love does not go one way. Lebanese communities around the world, across generations, have kept ties with and supported Lebanon through remittances over the past century and a half. Lebanon received $7.2 billion dollars from the diaspora in 2018 – 12.7 percent of the country’s entire GDP.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia based in Lebanon, has been exploiting this dynamic for decades.
The recent arrest of dual Lebanese-American national Ali Hassan Saab, a 42-year-old IT expert from New Jersey also known as Alexei Saab, is the latest case of Hezbollah using Lebanese diaspora members to enact its dangerous project.
Saab, who originally hails from Hezbollah’s base in the south of Lebanon, is accused of scouting and surveilling possible targets for a terror attack, including the United Nations and Times Square. Saab is allegedly a Hezbollah member who has received “extensive Hezbollah training, including in surveillance, firearms, and the production and use of explosives.”
Saab is the second Hezbollah member to be arrested on suspicion of plotting attacks in the US this year. In May, Ali Kournai was found guilty of carrying out covert activities for Hezbollah. According to the US Department of Justice, “The evidence at trial showed that Kourani searched for suppliers who could provide weapons for … attacks, identified people who could be recruited or targeted for violence, and gathered information about and conducted surveillance of potential targets.”
While it is good that the US is cracking down on Hezbollah operations, numerous reports have detailed a much larger Hezbollah network among the Lebanese diaspora, which the organization uses not just for planning terrorist attacks, but also for money laundering and propaganda campaigns.
In September, 2018, Assad Ahmad Barakat was arrested on the Paraguay-Argentina border, accused of laundering $10m on behalf of Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s drug smuggling and illicit financing in the Tri-Border Area (where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet) is a key part of its global network, identified by the US Drug Enforcement administration’s Cassandra Project. These activities are enabled by the Lebanese diaspora, where Hezbollah often coaxes recruits through offering money and influence.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s Christian allies continue to court the diaspora for political support. The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) - Hezbollah’s main Christian ally since the memorandum of understanding between the two organizations in 2006 - has been extremely active in its appeals to the diaspora. The FPM has used Lebanese embassies around the world as hubs for recruiting Lebanese Christians to its brand of nationalism. The recent trip to the US by Lebanese President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil – the FPM’s two most senior politicians – is a clear example.
As the Saab affair came to light, Aoun was preparing to make the trip to the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York, where he attempted to appeal to the international community to support Lebanon in dealing with its current challenges.
While Aoun spoke to the community of nations, Bassil addressed a convention hall of diaspora members in Washington D.C. Bassil praised the diaspora, appealing to the supposed superiority of the Lebanese race and recounting how their forefathers made the perilous voyage for a better life in the US. He also praised the Lebanese contribution to the American automobile industry in Detroit and the oil business in Texas.
Bassil tied his praise of the diaspora to a political appeal, saying “you have lived as members of the diaspora and transformed your adopted home into a second home, so preserve your first home. Your Lebanon is a blessed one so protect it.” For Bassil, supporting and protecting Lebanon means donating to the FPM and supporting its never-ending quest for more power. His extensive trips abroad and meetings with the diaspora are all tools used by the FPM-Hezbollah axis to expand and identify its network of business associates. They also aim to use these expatriate votes in upcoming parliamentary elections, after the last election law allowed registered expatriates to vote at Lebanese embassies.
The FPM continues to justify its pact with Hezbollah as the organization comes under increasing US sanctions, which are also hitting the Lebanese state. Bassil, speaking to BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur, recently stressed that Hezbollah “has 14 MPs in their parliament, representing a big part of the Lebanese population and so cannot be viewed as terrorists.” The recent arrests of Kournai and Saab undermine this narrative and reveal Hezbollah’s true nature: a terrorist organization which has spread its influence to the Lebanese diaspora.
It remains to be seen whether countries with large Lebanese populations will acknowledge Hezbollah’s influence, and how they will deal with it. Some countries have continued to provide the organization financial and political shelter, such as the regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, whose actions endanger the welfare of his own people. Others, however, are starting to combat Hezbollah’s malign influence. For example, Argentina recently designated Hezbollah as a terrorist entity, providing one example of how countries could potentially turn against elements of the Lebanese diaspora.
As Hezbollah comes under increasing pressure from US sanctions, it is likely to increase its money laundering activities. Both the international and Lebanese communities should be alert to this activity and reject Bassil and Aoun’s roadshow, which whitewashes Hezbollah’s behavior.
If Hezbollah’s influence is not combatted, then it is not just Lebanon, but the legacy of its diaspora, which is at risk.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. He is the author of A Campus at War: Student Politics at the American University of Beirut, 1967-1975. He tweets @makramrabah.

Explainer: How US sanctions are squeezing Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon
Gulf News/October 06/2019
Sanctions have stepped up to target lawmakers for the first time
Beirut: The conflict between Iran and the U.S. that has created tensions throughout much of the Middle East is now also being felt in Lebanon, where Washington has slapped sanctions on the Iran-backed Hezbollah and warned they could soon expand to its allies, further deepening the tiny Arab country’s economic crisis.
The Trump administration has intensified sanctions on the Lebanese militant group and institutions linked to it to unprecedented levels, targeting lawmakers for the first time as well as a local bank that Washington claims has ties to the group.
Two U.S. officials visited Beirut in September and warned the sanctions will increase to deprive Hezbollah of its sources of income.
The push is further adding to Lebanon’s severe financial and economic crisis, with Lebanese officials warning the country’s economy and banking sector can’t take the pressure.
“We have taken more actions recently against Hezbollah than in the history of our counterterrorism program,” Sigal P. Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the U.S. Treasury, said last month.
Mandelker said Washington is confident the Lebanese government and the central bank will ``do the right thing here in making sure that Hezbollah can no longer have access to funds at the bank.”
What is Hezbollah?
Hezbollah, whose Arabic name translates into “Party of God,” was established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
The group, which enjoys wide support among Lebanon’s Shiite community, runs institutions such as hospitals, clinics and schools.
Today, it is among the most effective armed groups in the Middle East with an arsenal more powerful than that of the Lebanese army, and has sent thousands of its fighters to Syria to back President Bashar Assad’s forces in that country’s civil war.
Hezbollah and its allies have more power than ever in parliament and government and President Michel Aoun is a strong ally of the group.
MPs targeted for first time
In July, the Treasury Department targeted two Hezbollah legislators, Amin Sherri and Mohammad Raad, in the first such move against lawmakers currently seated in Lebanon’s parliament.
A month later, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Jammal Trust Bank for what it called ``knowingly facilitating banking activities.”
The bank, which denied the charges, was forced to close afterward.
So far, all the figures who have come under sanctions have been either Hezbollah officials or Shiite Muslim individuals who Washington says are aiding the group.
During a visit to Beirut, David Schenker, the U.S.’s assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, said Washington will designate in the future “individuals in Lebanon who are aiding and assisting Hezbollah, regardless of their sect or religion.”
Schenker did not elaborate in his interview with local LBC TV but local TV stations said Washington could start targeting Christian allies of the militant group, which has 14 members in parliament and three Cabinet ministers, including the Health Ministry.
Health Minister Jamil Jabbak, who is not a member of Hezbollah but is believed to be close to the group’s leader, was not granted a U.S. visa to attend the U.N. General Assembly in late September.
$10 million reward
Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea visited Lebanon last week and a U.S. Embassy statement said he would “encourage Lebanon to take the necessary steps to maintain distance from Hezbollah and other malign actors attempting to destabilize Lebanon and its institutions.”
At the end of his visit, Billingslea met a group of journalists representing local media and told them that the U.S. Treasury was posting a $10 million reward for anyone who provides “valuable information on Hezbollah’s finances,” according to the Daily Star.
He said the main goal of the U.S. Treasury “was to deprive Hezbollah of all financial support, whether from Iran or through any other means.” Billingslea said Iran used to send the group $700 million a year, adding that U.S. sanctions on Iran have “diminished considerably” the cash inflow.
https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/explainer-how-us-sanctions-are-squeezing-iran-backed-hezbollah-in-lebanon-1.66900343

The rage in Beirut is a reminder of Lebanon’s toxic politics
Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/October 06/2019
The streets of downtown Beirut were momentarily transformed into a war zone when an anti-government demonstration turned into a riot that involved protesters burning tyres and closing main streets leading to the heart of the Lebanese capital.
Despite a small turnout and the petering out of the crowds, the September 29 protest spread fear across the country as an omen of what might come if Lebanon’s economic downturn goes into full meltdown.
It was not the voices of the protesters demanding the overthrow of the corrupt political establishment but rather the message the vandalism and rioting carried to both Lebanon and the international community and what would come if the United States’ maximum pressure campaign and the sanctions on Iran and its main auxiliary Hezbollah continue.
The protest was triggered by a crisis that erupted after a high demand on dollars led to the currency’s scarcity, forcing the Lebanese Central Bank and the banking sector to take measures that caused havoc and a currency stampede.
While the prime reason for the economic meltdown is to be found in unethical and corrupt policies — or lack of policy — of successive Lebanese governments, the immediate reason is the US sanctions against Hezbollah and the latter’s reactions and actions to avoid them.
It was not only the Syrian regime’s and Hezbollah’s need for hard currency that sparked this crisis but equally that many of Lebanon’s merchant class have been importing key commodities for the Syrian regime, which they “legally” export to Syria.
Such supplies include petroleum products and medicine, which is priced and paid for in dollars, forcing Lebanese merchants to go to the black market in search for dollars as demand increases.
Consequently, the rioting was a pre-emptive move on the part of Hezbollah and its Syrian allies to protect their racketeering business and to ensure that no obstacles disrupt the channels, which they intend to continue using.
One of the most vivid threats that was issued to the international community, and to the US government in particular, is that Hezbollah can threaten Lebanon’s stability and security through these ostensibly disgruntled young men and does not need to use its armed militia, like it did in May 2008 when it led a failed coup against the government of former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Depicted as an attack on its main Christian ally President Michel Aoun and, by extension, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Hezbollah’s violent message allows the two factions to justify their inability to implement economic sanctions against Hezbollah.
Consequently, under the pretext that tighter sanctions would lead to full-scale civil war, the Lebanese state can appeal to the Trump administration to delay or reconsider measures that could be counterproductive to the initial goal of the sanctions — the containment and weakening of Iran.
The riots, equally, will perhaps give Hariri enough ammunition to hammer through the pledges of the CEDRE economic conference by appealing to its French patrons and stressing the urgency of dispensing the funds to prevent the economic collapse of Lebanon.
Faced with a gloomy and somewhat unavoidable fate, the Lebanese are trying to envision the day after their economic doomsday and what will basically happen to their savings and their livelihoods.
While true that the Lebanese are renowned for their great resilience and strength against the odds, the current political and economic meltdown is one of unprecedented magnitude and long-lasting effects.
Yet, what is more alarming is that the Lebanese political class and the public have not realised that while the crisis might appear as financial, in fact, it rests in the toxicity of the Lebanese political system and the ruling establishment that refuse to abandon its 18th-century practices and adopt modern governance methods, ones that would pave the way for a deep state capable of standing up to any challenge, including any Hezbollah-like hostile takeover such as the present one.
The violence on the streets of Beirut is another rude reminder of what awaits Lebanon if a drastic emergency economic plan is not immediately and fully implemented. Hoping for Hezbollah to abandon its violent world outlook is clearly a losing bet on which only compulsive gamblers would consider a wager.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. He is the author of A Campus at War: Student Politics at the American University of Beirut, 1967-1975.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 06- 07/2019
Pope Condemns 'Interests' that Caused Amazon Fires
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 06/2019
Pope Francis Sunday deplored the fires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest, which were "set by interests that destroy", in a homily at a synod on the region's isolated indigenous communities. "The fire set by interests that destroy, like the fire that recently devastated Amazonia, is not the fire of the Gospel. The fire of God is warmth that attracts and gathers into unity," he said. "It is fed by sharing, not by profits. The fire that destroys, on the other hand, blazes up when people want to promote only their own ideas, form their own group, wipe out differences in the attempt to make everyone and everything uniform."

Israeli Minister Seeks 'Non-Aggression' Pacts with Gulf Arab Nations
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 06/2019
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Sunday he was seeking "non-aggression" agreements with Gulf Arab nations that do not formally recognize the country as a prelude to possible future peace deals. Details of the proposal were not made public, but it was the latest sign of Israel's push to improve ties with Gulf Arab nations with whom it has no formal diplomatic relations. Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory has long served as a major factor preventing peace deals with Arab countries, but common concerns over Iran are widely seen as having brought them closer in recent years. "Recently, I have been promoting, under the backing of the United States, a political initiative to sign 'non-aggression agreements' with the Arab Gulf states," Katz wrote on Twitter. "The historic move will put an end to the conflict and allow civilian cooperation until peace agreements are signed."Katz said he discussed the initiative with unnamed Arab foreign ministers and U.S. President Donald Trump's outgoing envoy Jason Greenblatt while attending the U.N. General Assembly in late September. A spokesman for Katz declined to provide further details for now, and it was not clear how much progress he has made in the endeavor. Only two Arab countries -- Jordan and Egypt -- have peace treaties with Israel, but there have been overt signs in recent months of improved relations with Gulf nations. A year ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held surprise talks with Oman's Sultan Qaboos in Muscat. Katz in July said he had met his Bahraini counterpart publicly for the first time during a visit to Washington. In late June, a group of Israeli journalists attended the U.S.-led economic conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace in Bahrain. All did not go well, however, when a group of invitees from Arab states visited Israel in July. Palestinians hurled abuse and chairs at a member of the delegation -- a Saudi blogger -- as he visited east Jerusalem's Old City. East Jerusalem was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognized by the international community. Israel sees the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

Death toll in Iraq protests reaches 104, more than 6,000 wounded
Arab News/Reuters/October 06/2019
BAGHDAD: At least 104 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded in less than a week of unrest in Iraq, Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Saad Maan said on Sunday on state TV. Maan said eight members of the security forces were among those killed and 51 public buildings and eight political party headquarters had been torched by protesters. At least 18 people were killed in clashes between anti-government protesters and police in Baghdad on Saturday night, according to police and medical sources. Protests, the scale of which has taken authorities by surprise, have come as the cabinet has tried to appease public anger over corruption and unemployment with a new reform plan. Two years after the defeat of Daesh, security is better than it has been in years, but corruption is rampant, wrecked infrastructure has not been rebuilt and jobs remain scarce. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s 17-point plan was the result of an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday night and comes after days of offering only vague reform promises. It includes increased subsidized housing for the poor, stipends for the unemployed as well as training programs and small loans initiatives for unemployed youth. The families of those killed during demonstrations this week will also get payouts and care usually granted to members of the security forces killed during war. “Amid all of this, I swear to God that my only concern is for the casualties,” Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said during the cabinet meeting, according to state TV.
The streets of the capital were quiet so far on Sunday. Protests have tended to gather steam later in the day. The clashes shattered a day of relative calm on Saturday after authorities lifted a curfew and traffic moved normally in the center of Baghdad. Hundreds of security personnel were deployed in the streets. The demonstrations began in Baghdad on Tuesday but have spread quickly spread to other cities mainly in the south. In the city of Nasiriya, where at least 18 people were killed during the week, police fired live rounds at demonstrators on Saturday. Twenty-four people were wounded in the clashes overnight, including seven policemen, according to security, hospital and morgue sources. Protesters also torched the headquarters of several political parties in Nasiriya, police said. These included the headquarters of the powerful Dawa party that dominated Iraq’s government from 2003 until 2018 elections.
Violence also broke out again in Diwaniya, another city south of Baghdad killing at least one person, police said. The cabinet’s new plan may not be enough to placate protesters and the politicians who’ve sided with them. Opposition to the government among parliamentary blocs who have begun boycotting legislative meetings is already brewing, adding pressure on Abdul Mahdi and his cabinet to step down.
Influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, who has a mass popular following and controls a large chunk of parliament, demanded on Friday that the government resign and snap elections be held. At least one other major parliamentary grouping allied itself with Sadr against the government.
But powerful political parties which have dominated Iraqi politics since the 2003 US-led invasion and toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein have not indicated they are willing to relinquish the institutions they control. In eastern Baghdad on Friday and Saturday, police snipers shot at demonstrators and several people were wounded, Reuters reporters said. Security services said the violence killed 8 members of the security forces and wounded more than 1,000, state television reported. At least 95 demonstrators have died across Iraq, according to a Reuters tally based on police and medical sources. Iraq’s semi-official High Commission for Human Rights had put the toll at 99 dead since protests broke out on Tuesday. The unrest is the deadliest Iraq has seen since the declared defeat of Daesh in 2017 and has shaken Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s year-old government. Iraqis fear the violence will continue to escalate.
The violence continued as people began journeying across southern Iraq for the Shiite pilgrimage of Arbaeen, which is expected to attract 20 million worshipers.

Iraq: Protests Erupt Again in Baghdad
Baghdad – Hamza Mustapha/Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
Protests renewed in Iraq after the curfew was lifted despite continued Internet blackout, four days after rallies and clashes that have left nearly 100 dead in the capital and the southern provinces. Hours after a curfew in Baghdad was lifted on Saturday morning, dozens of protesters marched in Baghdad, facing live rounds fired in their direction, AFP photographer reported. Police and medical sources confirmed that five people were killed in Saturday clashes, and earlier that day, the Human Rights Commission announced the death of a protester by live ammunition. The Commission also announced that five protesters were killed Saturday in Baghdad raising the death toll since Tuesday to 100, while 4,000 were injured. It explained that the death toll included at least six police officers, who died during the clashes that erupted between anti-government demonstrators and security forces in Baghdad and several areas in the south of the country. Al-Arabiya channel reported that hundreds of protesters demonstrated near Palm Mall in Baghdad and Palestine Street, while Iraqi security forces fired tear gas to disperse them. Meanwhile, recent announcement by Leader of the Sadrist movement, Sayyid Muqtada Sadr is expected to turn the tables after he called for the government’s full and complete resignation. This will either increase the protests demanding the toppling of power, or will divert the confrontation from the popular arena to the political arena, that is, the parliament.
Political leaders sought to persuade Sadr to stop calling for the dismissal of the government, but he insisted, raising fears that his followers will join the demonstrations, a possibility that was behind the urgent security alert in Baghdad. In addition, the Iraqi parliament was supposed to hold a session to consider the demands of the demonstrators, but that was not possible due to lack of quorum, following the decision of Sadr bloc to boycott. With 54 deputies, Sadr's bloc represents the largest parliamentary bloc. Parliamentary speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi met with representatives of the demonstrators who handed him their demands, which he promised to meet. He told protesters “your voice is being heard", and he had been hoping to discuss job creation and social welfare schemes with lawmakers in the session. He even said he was willing to join the rallies if the promises were not fulfilled as soon as possible. Authorities demanded demonstrators a period of time to implement reforms and improve the living conditions of 40 million people in a country worn out by war, unemployment and corruption. However, Sadr called for “early elections under UN supervision.”On the street, the protesters' targets have been clear since Tuesday, stressing that no one represents them. Protesters have insisted their movement is not linked to any party or religious establishment and have scoffed at the recent overtures by politicians. "These men don't represent us. We don't want parties anymore. We don't want anyone to speak in our name," one protester told AFP. Expert on Iraqi affairs Fanar Haddad noted that the politicians are now faced by an unprecedented movement, asserting that these protests are unlike traditional summer protests."This is the first time we hear people saying they want the downfall of the regime," Haddad said. Iraqi security analyst Sarmad al-Bayati noted that protests now want decisive changes, like the sacking of leading politicians accused of corruption.
The shops reopened in several neighborhoods of the capital on Saturday, with cafe goers returning to their daily routines, while sweepers began cleaning the streets after the protests. In the center of Baghdad, home to about 9 million people, the roads leading to Tahrir Square, where the demonstrations began Tuesday, witnessed heavy security deployment, with armored vehicles. Residents believe the clashes are still possible, until Iraqis see real change in their conditions and country. “If living conditions don't improve, the protests will come back even worse,” Abu Salah,70, told AFP.

Iran Says to Use Every Mean Possible to Export Its Oil
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
Iran will not succumb to US pressure and will use every possible way to export its oil, Iranian Oil Ministry’s website SHANA quoted Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying on Sunday. Iran’s crude oil exports were reduced by more than 80% when the US re-imposed sanctions on the country last November after President Donald Trump pulled out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “We will use every possible way to export our oil and we will not succumb to America’s pressure because exporting oil is Iran’s legitimate right,” Zanganeh said, Reuters reported. In response, Iran has gradually scaled back its commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal, under which Tehran accepted to curb its nuclear activities in return for lifting most international sanctions. The increasing US pressure on Iran has scared away foreign investors from doing business in the country. Meanwhile, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI) reiterated on Sunday that the country would reduce its commitments under the deal further if the European parties to the pact did not meet promises to shield Iran’s economy from US sanctions. “We will go ahead with our plans to decrease our commitments to the nuclear deal if other parties fail to keep their promises,” the Students News Agency ISNA quoted AEOI’s spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi as saying.

Calm in Iraqi Capital after Bloody Night of Protests
Associated Press/Naharnet/October 06/2019
Calm has prevailed in the Iraqi capital following a bloody night when at least 19 people were killed as security forces opened fire to break up anti-government protests. Students made it to schools at the start of the working week early Sunday and government employees returned to work. But the capital's streets were mostly quiet and traffic thin. Burnt tires and debris littered thoroughfares while security remained heavily deployed in many neighborhoods. Armored vehicles blocked access to Tahrir square from as far as four kilometers (2.5 miles.) Protesters have been trying to converge on the central square.
At least 84 protesters were killed, most of them in Baghdad, since Tuesday when demonstrators initiated rallies to demand jobs, improvements to services and an end to corruption in the oil-rich nation.

Egypt Sentences 5 to Prison over Cabinet Attack Incident
Cairo- Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
The Giza Criminal Court sentenced on Saturday five defendants to 10 years in prison in the case dubbed “Cabinet clashes” of 2011. The court also ordered the defendants to pay EGP 17.6 million in compensation for vandalism. One of the defendants was sentenced to five years in prison.
The defendants were accused of possessing weapons and drugs and committing acts of vandalism by setting public and private properties on fire and rioting in the premises of state facilities. In December 2011, security forces dispersed a three-week sit-in at the cabinet building, which resulted in clashes in the area surrounding the Cabinet and Shura Council and led to burning the Scientific Institute. Some 269 defendants were implicated in the case. According to the probe, the defendants gathered outside the cabinet building, violating public security and peace, resisted the authorities by using force and violence to prevent them from securing and protecting government facilities, deliberately burned and destroyed government buildings and installations and destroyed, stormed, vandalized and destructed public and private property. In this context, the same court decided to postpone the retrial proceedings of four defendants in the case of burning Kafr Hakim Church in the Kerdasa region in Giza, to November 10 hearing session. Defendants, in this case, were accused of being involved in a church burning in 2013 in conjunction with the killing of 11 officers and soldiers, including the Sheriff of Kerdasa Center. The prosecution accused the defendants of joining an illegal group, the Muslim Brotherhood which is officially classified as a terrorist organization. They were also accused of possessing unlicensed firearms and ammunition, deliberately setting fire to a church and looting it, blocking the road and disturbing the public order and resisting authorities.

Egypt Looks Forward to US Role in Renaissance Dam Tripped Negotiations
Cairo - Mohammed Nabil Helmi/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
The Egyptian Presidency said it was looking forward to a US role in the negotiations over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam, underlining the need for an international mediation into the matter. Egypt’s position came at the end of talks with Sudan and Ethiopia, in Khartoum, between the water ministers of the three countries. Cairo said that the representatives of Addis Ababa at the Khartoum meeting “rejected all proposals that take into account Egypt’s water interests and avoid causing serious harm.” Immediately after the meeting reached a deadlock, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued a statement about the recent developments. “I have followed closely on the results of the tripartite meeting between irrigation ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to discuss the file of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which has not resulted in any positive development,” Sisi said.
“I affirm that the Egyptian state, with all its institutions, is committed to protecting Egypt’s water rights in the River Nile,” he underlined. “Egypt will continue to take the necessary political measures within the framework of the International Law to protect these rights. The Eternal Nile will continue to strongly stream, connecting the South and the North with the bond of history and geography,” Sisi added. Egypt fears that the Ethiopian dam could damage its share of the Nile's water, estimated at 55.5 billion cubic meters. The country said on Saturday that Ethiopia refused to discuss the rules of operation of the dam, and insisted on limiting the negotiation of the filling phase and the rules of operation during the filling phase, contrary to Article 5 of the text of the Declaration of Principles signed in Khartoum on March 23, 2015 and to international norms for cooperation in building and managing dams on common rivers. The Egyptian presidential spokesman said Egypt “looks forward to the United States playing an active role in this regard.”Last month, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry raised the issue of the Renaissance Dam with his counterparts from four countries, including Russia, in separate bilateral meetings in New York, on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the United Nations. Ethiopian Minister of Resources and Irrigation Seleshi Bekele told a press conference on Saturday that negotiations between the irrigation ministers have not reached a dead end. He explained that Egypt submitted a proposal demanding 40 billion cubic meters per year, while Ethiopia's stock is 20 billion cubic meters, adding that the Egyptian delegation rejected a proposal from Sudan for 35 billion cubic meters. The Ethiopian minister expressed his country’s rejection of any mediation from any side, and said: “Negotiations will continue between the three countries until an agreement is reached.”

Kosovo Votes amid Pressure to Reboot Serbia Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 06/2019
Kosovo went to the polls Sunday in an election that could usher in new leadership at a time when stalled talks with former war foe Serbia are a source of instability in Europe. Whoever takes the reins will be under heavy pressure from the West to renew dialogue with Belgrade, which still rejects the independence its former province declared in 2008. However, for many of Kosovo's 1.8 million citizens, high unemployment, widespread corruption and poor healthcare are more pressing concerns than the talks. "We need freedom, a state governed by the rule of law, prosperity, economic development," voter Mentor Nimani, 47, told AFP in the capital Pristina shortly after polling began at 0500 GMT. For the past decade Kosovo has been dominated by members of the guerrilla forces who waged an insurgency against Serbian repression in the late 1990s -- a war that cost 13,000 lives, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Sunday's snap poll was called after then prime minister Ramush Haradinaj resigned in July to face questioning by a special court in The Hague investigating war crimes from that era. Opposition parties hope to block him and other ex-fighters from regaining power by harnessing public frustration with the graft and poverty that have blighted Kosovo's first decade of independence. Brussels and Washington will be watching closely to see whether a change of power can thaw the frozen dialogue and ease tensions. Kosovo needs Serbia -- and its allies Russia and China -- to accept its statehood so it can get a seat in the United Nations. Serbia is also under pressure to make peace with Kosovo, so it can move forward with its EU accession process.But the EU-led talks have been at a standstill for nearly two years, with frequent diplomatic provocations souring efforts to build goodwill. Ahead of the vote, the U.S. and four European countries made clear the poll offered an important "chance to urgently restart talks".
'Fed up' with dialogue
Polls will close at 1700 GMT, with official results not expected until Monday. "I am fed up with this story of the dialogue" with Serbia, shop owner Salih Mehana, 39, told AFP in Pristina. But analyst Krenar Shala expects the issue to top the agenda of any new government. "It is clear that the future government will focus almost its entire energy on the dialogue with Serbia and very little on the issues discussed with the citizens during this election campaign," he said. One of the core obstacles to resuming talks is the 100-percent tariff that Haradinaj slapped on Serbian goods a year ago. Having resisted heavy Western pressure to remove the tariff, the former commander is hoping voters will reward his tough stance with re-election. All the other top candidates, however, have shown a willingness to reconsider the tariff for the sake of dialogue. Kadri Veseli, leader of the PDK, which was part of the outgoing coalition with now-rival Haradinaj, has condemned the tariff move as "amateur", and said he would honour Washington's calls to remove it. Opposition party candidates Vjosa Osmani, from the centre-right LDK, and Albin Kurti, from the left-wing and nationalist Vetevendosje, also seem willing to lift the trade barrier to resume talks. This pair has also left open the possibility of joining forces after the poll, an alliance that could oust the so-called "war parties". Yet with no camp expected to take home an absolute majority, coalition talks could drag on for weeks.
Sensitive power issue
If the dialogue with Belgrade does resume, one of the most sensitive issues will be settling what powers to grant administrations in Serb-majority parts of Kosovo. There are approximately 40,000 Serbs living in the north and 80,000 scattered in and around a dozen enclaves in other parts of Kosovo, whose population is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian. The Serbs have 10 reserved seats in parliament, a bloc that could be decisive in coalition-building. Dominating their scene is the Srpska Lista party, which considers itself an extension of Belgrade. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has been urging Kosovo Serbs to vote for the party, leading critics to decry an atmosphere of intimidation.

Anti-Establishment Parties Battle Political Elite in Tunisia Election
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 06/2019
Tunisians headed to the polls Sunday for the third round of legislative elections since the country's 2011 revolution, weeks after a presidential vote swept aside the post-Arab Spring political establishment. Polling stations for the seven-million electorate were set to remain open until 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), with preliminary official results scheduled for Wednesday although exit polls will be released from late Sunday. The vote comes two weeks after the first round of a presidential election that eclipsed traditional political parties in favour of independent candidates, a trend likely to be repeated in the ballot for MPs. More than 15,000 candidates on 1,500 lists are contesting 217 seats in a parliament dominated by the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha in alliance with centrist party Nidaa Tounes that has been decimated by infighting. At a polling station in central Tunis, voter Ribeh Hamdi, in her sixties, said she hoped the polls would bring "security and stability".
Informal surveys, in the absence of opinion polls, predict Ennahdha will lose ground to the new Qalb Tounes (Heart of Tunisia) party of jailed business tycoon Nabil Karoui, who has reached an October 13 two-way runoff in Tunisia's presidential contest. The sidelining of the ruling political class in the first round on September 15 was rooted in frustration over a stagnant economy, high unemployment, failing public services and rising prices. Karoui, a media mogul held since August on money-laundering charges, came second behind Kais Saied, an independent law professor. Courts have rejected several appeals for his release during the campaign election. Interim president Mohammed Ennaceur -- filling in since the death of Beji Caid Essebsi in July brought forward the vote for head of state -- warned Friday that Karoui's detention could have "serious and dangerous repercussions on the electoral process."
While the presidential race may have overshadowed the legislative contest, parliament is responsible for tackling the main challenges facing Tunisian society. A strong showing for Qalb Tounes could bolster Karoui's campaign and supporters say it could make a case for him to take over as prime minister if he loses to Saied. The socially conservative professor has not come out in support of any party.
New movements vie for vote
With the electorate fed up with political manoeuvring and failure to improve living conditions since the ouster of late longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, new movements have been vying for votes. Aich Tounsi, which calls itself an "anti-party", has emerged from the civil society movement, while Islamist populist lawyer Seifeddine Makhlouf's Karama aims to take seats from Ennahdha, which has been weakened by past alliances with political elites. With the plethora of parties and movements in contention, the stage is set for complex and rowdy negotiations before any side emerges with the minimum 109 seats needed to head Tunisia's next government. In the runup to the vote, Qalb Tounes and Ennahdha have officially ruled out forming an alliance. Parliament will have two months to agree on the formation of a new government in a country hailed as the Arab Spring's sole democratic success story but straining to meet the revolution's other demands of "work and dignity." While it has succeeded in curbing terrorist attacks that rocked the key tourist sector in 2015, Tunisia's economy remains hampered by austere International Monetary Fund-backed reforms.

King Salman receives Sudan’s prime minister, sovereign council president
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 6 October 2019
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman received on Sunday Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and the President of Sudan’s sovereign council General Abdul Fattah al-Burhan in Riyadh, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. The Kingdom is working on removing Sudan from the US State Sponsors of Terror list, as well as establishing ambitious investment projects, and improving existing projects, the foreign ministry said in a tweet. Meanwhile, Sudan said it seeks to support the Kingdom in its international forums, create an investment environment in the country, and expand its agricultural sector, as well as remove its name from the US State Sponsors of Terror list. King Salman wished Sudan “continued stability and prosperity,” according to the Kingdom’s foreign ministry. Al-Burhan expressed his country’s appreciation of the Kingdom’s support and well wishes.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 06- 07/2019
Americans Fear Climate Change and the Cost of Fighting It
Noah Smith/Bloomberg/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
More people are coming around to the idea that climate change is really bad news. A recent Washington Post poll found that 38% of Americans now consider climate change a crisis, with another 38% calling it a major problem. And denialism is in retreat -- an overwhelming majority, and even 60% of Republicans, admit that the problem is manmade.
The question is what Americans would be willing to do to tackle the problem. The same poll found that only 37% believed that major sacrifices would be necessary, with 48% saying they would be minor. As for what sort of sacrifices people are willing to make, the poll found majorities opposing even minor financial burdens on the middle class.
If Americans are unwilling to pay even $2 more per month for electricity, or see gasoline prices rise by even 10 cents a gallon, the prospect for really dramatic action on climate change seems low. Although the wealthy can and should be expected to make larger sacrifices than the middle class, it’s vanishingly unlikely that any plan serious enough to slow global warming will leave the bulk of Americans financially untouched.
But if Americans are going to be asked to engage in a war on climate change, they should understand the material and economic sacrifices that will be required of them. The best way to do this is to look at an ambitious, well-crafted climate plan like the one put forward by Washington Governor Jay Inslee.
Inslee’s plan calls for carbon-free power production by 2035. That means that coal and natural gas will be phased out, and replaced with sources like solar, wind, and nuclear. This will require extensive construction of new power plants, energy-storage facilities and electrical grids to dispatch power from where it’s produced to where it’s needed. Buildings will also have to be retrofitted to use electricity rather than gas for heating and cooking. And a switch from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles will require the construction of a nationwide network of charging stations.
Much of this could be financed with taxes on the rich, but it will take a huge amount of labor and other resources to carry out. Those resources will have to be diverted from producing other goods and services, which means prices for consumer items throughout the economy probably will rise. Those higher prices mean that most Americans will become poorer in the short term, though government redistribution can cushion the blow.
The rise in prices will be temporary; after the transition is complete, workers will be able to go back to doing other things, and energy will be cheaper than before. But for one or two decades, the economy will have to shift its focus from satisfying current desires to building for the future. That’s the kind of sacrifice that people make in developing countries, during periods of rapid growth. When a country like South Korea or Taiwan undergoes rapid industrialization, everyone works hard and tightens their belt so that their children can enjoy a higher standard of living; the transition to a low-emission economy will be similar.
Eliminating fossil-fuels will also mean labor reallocation. Switching to green energy will create more jobs than it destroys. But many of the people employed in the oil and gas sector will need to find new jobs, and the skills they’ve spent their careers building up will suddenly be less valuable. The US will have to help these people transition to the new economy, and it will have to do a better job than it did when American manufacturing workers were displaced by Chinese competition in the 2000s.
Switching to green energy will also probably require changes in land use and living patterns. A new electrical grid can help dispatch power from sunny and windy places to people’s houses and offices. But often it makes more sense for people to move near to where the power is. Additionally, urban sprawl makes it harder and more expensive to decarbonize, so a comprehensive climate plan will probably involve measures to promote density and public transit. Some Americans will have to get used to living closer to each other. And unless cheap next-generation biofuels allow aviation to become carbon-neutral, Americans are going to have to get used to flying less.
Then there’s the problem of steel and cement. Producing these common building materials generates a lot of carbon dioxide. A good climate plan will pour money into researching new technologies to make carbon-free steel and cement cheap. But in the meantime the economy will have to use less of these materials. That will make houses, office buildings and cars more expensive.
These changes will require that the average American sacrifice more material comfort than a 10 cent gas tax or a $2 monthly electricity fee would entail. Even if the rich pay their fair share, a great many middle-class Americans own houses, drive cars, cook with gas, work in the fossil-fuel industry or related sectors and live in sprawling metro areas. Ultimately, a post-carbon economy will replace most of what gets sacrificed during the transition, but it will require decades of hard work and many small inconveniences. The struggle against climate change is effectively a war, and wars require sacrifice, determination, and patience in order to win.

Use the Force on China? There's Just One Problem
John Authers/Bloomberg/Sunday, 6 October, 2019
President Trump believes that trade wars are good, and easy to win. Many disagree. But what about capital wars?
Friday brought the revelation by Bloomberg News that the White House was considering measures to limit portfolio capital flows into China. We’ve since had a clarification that this wouldn’t mean blocking Chinese companies from listing in the US, while Chinese authorities have vowed to continue opening their markets to foreign capital.
This is plainly an important development, which provoked an immediate response. The main index of Chinese American depositary receipts, kept by Bank of New York Mellon Corp., dropped sharply on the news, as did a broad index of emerging market currencies.
Still, the reaction was restricted to markets that would be directly affected. There was no big move toward “risk-off” allocation, as seen after previous escalations in the US-China conflict, and little move in Asian markets Monday morning. Initial reactions from Wall Streeters suggest nobody quite knows what to think about it.
Here is what I think, at least for now:
The threat is serious. It has already been trailed by senators from both parties, after all. And as I have pointed out in the past, the dominance of indexing and the popularity of ESG strategies, which exclude particular companies or sectors, make it very easy to do.
It would be painless for American investors – initially. Investment in mainland Chinese assets is in its infancy. Mainstream institutions take their cues from broader benchmarks. MSCI added mainland A shares to its emerging markets index only in 2018, after years of concerns over whether investors had sufficient protections against issues such as arbitrary trading halts. As a result, exposure is not great.
It can be done easily. As the rest of the emerging world tends to correlate with China, switching from one benchmark to another would make little difference. This is how the iShares exchange-traded fund that tracks emerging markets excluding China has fared compared to the main emerging markets ETF since inception in 2017.
It can readily be justified. This can be couched as defending investors from opaque markets with inadequate protections. It took MSCI long enough to include Chinese stocks in benchmarks. US authorities could easily reverse this. Writing a year ago, John Paul Smith, veteran emerging markets analysis at Ecstrat Ltd., an equity strategy consultancy in the U.K., said:
US institutional investors especially state pension funds and major endowments will increasingly have to take the geopolitical dimension into account when setting their international allocations. The very high levels of moral hazard present in China’s local markets increase the onus on the US authorities to set the appropriate parameters to prevent a potentially massive misallocation of resources leading to very high levels of impairment.
This now looks prophetic. In the current political climate, trustees might come under pressure from members to exclude China, without direct rulings from the US government.
Any action would have serious consequences for China: Chinese regulators’ lobbying of MSCI, and the recent move to lift restrictions on foreign investment in equities, show that authorities want to attract portfolio flows. According to the Institute for International Finance, the MSCI decision triggered massive movement last year, with $60.7 billion flowing into China while $43.7 billion exited all other emerging markets. A reversal would damage confidence, and lead more Chinese to try to get capital out.
Potential retaliation would be horrendous. As is often pointed out, China is sitting on a pile of treasury bonds. Should it sell them, yields would rise. Chinese entities are also enthusiastic buyers of US equities. Retaliation would hurt the value of the US securities that they still held, so it would inflict pain on China as well. But it could be done, and quickly.
Even without retaliation, longer term effects would be horrendous. China’s manufacturing difficulties have affected the entire global industrial sector. Limiting capital to China would thereby hurt the rest of the emerging world. The developed world also responds with alarm when China starts using up its reserves. The last time China hit difficulties and spent a fifth of its foreign exchange reserves, it triggered a global equity sell-off that reached a trough in early 2016.
That incident was followed by a weakening of the dollar, which relieved the pressure on China, and which appeared orchestrated by central banks in the so-called “Shanghai Accord.” Would central banks be able to react in the same way again?
In short, if you liked the idea of a trade conflict with China, then you should like this even more. And if you disliked the trade war, then the notion of a capital war should be even scarier. The safest bet is that this proposal will amp up volatility and nervousness still further, across the globe.

“WORLD TAKE NOTE!”: Genocide of Christians in Nigeria
ريموند إبراهيم: اين هو العالم من جريمة ابادة المسيحيين في نيجيريا
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/October 6, 2019
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“It’s tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn’t a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black, chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and screaming ‘Death to Christians.'” — Sister Monica Chikwe, reported by John. L. Allen Jr., Crux, August 4, 2019.
“Hundreds of indigenous Numan Christians in Adamawa state were attacked and killed by jihadist Fulani herdsmen. When they tried to defend themselves the Buhari govt. sent in the Airforce to bomb hundreds of them and protect the Fulani aggressors. Is this fair?!” — Femi Fani-Kayode, former Minister of Aviation, Daily Post (Nigeria), December 6, 2017.
Such is the current state of affairs: a jihad of genocidal proportions has been declared on the Christian population of Nigeria — and according to Nigerian Christian leaders, spearheaded by that nation’s president and his fellow Fulani tribesmen — even as Western media and analysts present Nigeria’s problems as products of economics — or “inequality” and “poverty,” to quote former US President Bill Clinton on the supposedly true source that is “fueling all this stuff.”
According to Bosun Emmanuel, the secretary of Nigeria’s National Christian Elders Forum, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (pictured) “is openly pursuing an anti-Christian agenda that has resulted in countless murders of Christians all over the nation and destruction of vulnerable Christian communities.”
Muhammadu Buhari, the Muslim president of Nigeria — who reached that position in part thanks to former US President Barack H. Obama — continues to fuel the “genocide” of Christians in his nation, according to Nigerian Christian leaders.
Most recently, Father Valentine Obinna, a priest of the Aba diocese of Nigeria, attributed the ongoing slaughter of Christians to the planned “Islamization of Nigeria”:
“People read the handwriting on the wall. It’s obvious. It’s underground. It’s trying to make the whole country a Muslim country. But they are trying to do that in a context with a strong presence of Christians, and that’s why it becomes very difficult for him [Buhari].”
Nigeria is roughly half Muslim, half Christian. A 2011 ABC News report offers context on when and why Muslim anger reached a boiling point:
The current wave of [Muslim] riots was triggered by the Independent National Election Commission’s (INEC) announcement on Monday [April 18, 2011] that the incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan [a Christian], won in the initial round of ballot counts. That there were riots in the largely Muslim inhabited northern states where the defeat of the Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari was intolerable, was unsurprising. Northerners [Muslims] felt they were entitled to the presidency for the declared winner, President Jonathan, [who] assumed leadership after the Muslim president, Umaru Yar’Adua died in office last year and radical groups in the north [Boko Haram] had seen his [Jonathan’s] ascent as a temporary matter to be corrected at this year’s election. Now they are angry despite experts and observers concurring that this is the fairest and most independent election in recent Nigerian history.
Between 2011 and 2015, Boko Haram — a jihadi group that committed ISIS-types of atrocities even before ISIS came into being — terrorized and slaughtered thousands of Christians, particularly those living in the Muslim-majority north. In 2015, Nigeria’s Muslims finally got what they wanted: a Muslim president in the person of Muhammadu Buhari. The violence, however, only got worse. Muslim Fulani herdsmen — the ethnic tribe from which Buhari hails — joined and even surpassed Boko Haram in their slaughter of Christians.
Between June 2017 and June 2018 alone, Muslim Fulani slaughtered approximately 9,000 Christians and destroyed at least a thousand churches. (It took three times longer for the Fulani to kill a fraction [1,484] of Christians under Jonathan’s presidency.) In just the first six months of this year, 52 lethal terror attacks targeting Christian villages occurred. “Nearly every single day, I wake up with text messages from partners in Nigeria, such as this morning: ‘Herdsmen stab 49-year-old farmer to death in Ogan,'” human rights lawyer Ann Buwalda said in July.
Whenever the mainstream media touches on the violence wracking Nigeria, it repeats what Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, claimed after a church was bombed, leaving nearly 40 Christian worshippers dead on Easter Sunday, 2012. “I want to take this opportunity,” Carson said, “to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria.
As Sister Monica Chikwe recently explained, however, “It’s tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn’t a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black, chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and screaming ‘Death to Christians.'”
Similarly, the Christian Association of Nigeria asked: “How can it be a [secular or economic] clash when one group [Muslims] is persistently attacking, killing, maiming, destroying, and the other group [Christians] is persistently being killed, maimed and their places of worship destroyed?”
In short, Christians are being targeted by Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen because, to quote Fr. Valentine Obinna, President Buhari and his Muslim cabinet “want to make sure the whole country becomes a Muslim country,”
As the following quotes make clear, Fr. Obinna is not alone in accusing President Buhari of clandestinely fueling his Fulani clansmen’s jihad against Christians:
“[T]he Muslim president [Buhari] has only awarded the murderers with impunity rather than justice and has staffed his government with Islamic officials, while doing essentially nothing to give the nation’s Christians, who make up half the population, due representation….. Hundreds of indigenous Numan Christians in Adamawa state were attacked and killed by jihadist Fulani herdsmen. When they tried to defend themselves the Buhari govt. sent in the Airforce to bomb hundreds of them and protect the Fulani aggressors. Is this fair? WORLD TAKE NOTE!” — former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, 2017 (caps in original; see here too).
“Under President Buhari, the murderous Fulani herdsmen enjoyed unprecedented protection and favoritism… Rather than arrest and prosecute the Fulani herdsmen, security forces usually manned by Muslims from the North offer them protection as they unleash terror with impunity on the Nigerian people.” — Rev. Musa Asake, the General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria, 2018.
Buhari “is himself from the jihadists’ Fulani tribe, so what can you expect?” — Emmanuel Ogebe, Washington DC-based human rights lawyer, in conversation with Gatestone, 2018.
“They want to strike Christians, and the government does nothing to stop them, because President Buhari is also of the Fulani ethnic group.” — Bishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Lafia, 2018.
Buhari “is openly pursuing an anti-Christian agenda that has resulted in countless murders of Christians all over the nation and destruction of vulnerable Christian communities.” — Bosun Emmanuel, the secretary of the National Christian Elders Forum, 2018.
While acknowledging President Buhari’s role, the National Christian Elders Forum has been more direct concerning the ultimate source of violence in Nigeria:
“JIHAD has been launched in Nigeria by the Islamists of northern Nigeria led by the Fulani ethnic group. This Jihad is based on the Doctrine of Hate taught in Mosques and Islamic Madrasas in northern Nigeria as well as the supremacist ideology of the Fulani. Using both conventional (violent) Jihad, and stealth (civilization) Jihad, the Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. … We want a Nigeria, where citizens are treated equally before the law at all levels….”
Although Christians were only recently the majority of Nigeria’s population, the ongoing genocide against them has caused their population to drop — to the point that Christianity in Nigeria is, according to the National Christian Elders Forum, “on the brink of extinction,” thanks to “the ascendancy of Sharia ideology in Nigeria [which] rings the death toll for the Nigerian Church.”
Such is the current state of affairs: a jihad of genocidal proportions has been declared on the Christian population of Nigeria — and according to Nigerian Christian leaders, spearheaded by that nation’s president and his fellow Fulani tribesmen — even as Western media and analysts present Nigeria’s problems as products of economics — or “inequality” and “poverty,” to quote former US President Bill Clinton on the supposedly true source that is “fueling all this stuff.”
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 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.

Donald Trump and Iranian regime are both in positions of weakness – and that may be a good thing
Raghida Dergham/The National/October 06/2019
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Faced with domestic challenges at home, both parties may be forced to accept a series of small but meaningful deals.
Heads of governments around the world will be watching closely as Donald Trump prepares for what could be the toughest domestic challenge of his presidency. Such is the influence of his office, there is a strong possibility that the impeachment investigation under way against the US leader will be forcing friends and foes abroad to recalibrate their approaches to dealing with his administration.
The US House of Representatives has launched a probe against Mr Trump after evidence mounted in recent days that he illicitly used his office to enlist the help of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in order to damage Joe Biden, a Democratic Party presidential rival, in exchange for military aid. As a result, questions abound with regard to the fate of Mr Trump’s presidency, including whether he will be re-elected in 2020 even if he manages to evade impeachment.
There is every chance, of course, that Mr Trump will overcome this challenge – as he has others during the past three years in power. And while there may be concerns over how he conducts foreign policy during the next few weeks and months, it is likely that adversaries and enemies of the United States will have sensed a golden opportunity to extract concessions from a president currently under severe duress. For instance, the trade war between the US and China continues unabated and, even as Mr Trump has proved effective in getting the Asian superpower to the table, the question is whether Xi Jinping’s administration can apply pressure on the American trade negotiation team while its president is distracted by the impeachment proceedings.
Ironically, though, the timing of the inquiry could prove fortuitous in bringing peace to the Middle East.
How to solve a problem like Iran has been, perhaps, the foremost question on the minds of foreign policy experts over the past four decades – but especially since Mr Trump cancelled the nuclear deal his predecessor Barack Obama had signed with Tehran in 2015. Under Mr Trump’s leadership, the US has taken a more hardline stance against Iran, stating that the nuclear deal was not comprehensive enough and that it did little to curb Tehran’s ambitions to grow its influence in the region with the help of its proxies. Sanctions applied by the Trump administration have also crippled Iran’s economy. But rather than returning to the negotiating table, Iran has gone on the offensive in the Strait of Hormuz by seizing tankers, while Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen claimed to have launched drone attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
Given the position world leaders find Mr Trump in at the moment, however, some of those vested in the idea of a rapprochement between the two countries have stepped into the breach, seeing an opportunity to continue down the path of dialogue and diplomacy. President Emmanuel Macron of France, backed by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, is said to be pushing for a new agreement to be drafted between Iran on one side and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, on the other. Details of the deal remain under wraps but, in principle, it is likely to be based on mutual concessions by the US and Iran. The latter would agree to negotiating a new deal in return for the US agreeing to a financial mechanism that would allow Iran to sell its oil and legally circumvent some US sanctions, which would not be lifted entirely. Iran would also be urged to take another look at its controversial ballistic missile programme while curbing its incursions in the region.
There were setbacks in this regard in recent times, either due to what was perceived as US intransigence or Iranian recklessness in the Middle East. Attacks on Saudi oil installations, allegedly with the use of Iran-made drones, forced European powers to distance themselves from Tehran while the US imposed more sanctions – including on the Central Bank of Iran.
However, Mr Putin has reportedly asked Mr Macron to step up his efforts, while the Russian leader urged Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani to avoid further escalations in the region. According to sources, Mr Putin gave Mr Rouhani a guarantee to increase bilateral trade as well as Iran’s possible inclusion in the Eurasian Economic Union in return for peace. Meanwhile, there have also been suggestions that the US would gauge the situation in Yemen, where there is a bloody war under way, as a litmus test by which to judge Iranian behaviour in the region – in return for facilitating Mr Macron’s initiative. According to sources, Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi travelled to Saudi Arabia last month to explore the prospect of a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement in the Arabian peninsula.
What we may be witnessing, as a result of the initiatives taken by Mr Macron and Mr Putin, is a period of relative calm in the region – at least for the time being – with sources close to the Iranian leadership suggesting that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would relent until late November before resuming its attempts to escalate tensions in the area. The domestic scene in Iran is reaching a boiling point and the regime fears that this could turn into an uprising unless it rescues its economy. The IRGC’s assessment is that the regime has two months for sanctions to be lifted, at least partially, before the economy collapses – which might force Tehran into a military confrontation abroad in order to garner public support.
The relative calm among Iran’s leaders suggests that a breakthrough, being brokered by the European powers, could be made with regard to facilitating Iranian oil exports as part of a deal with the Trump administration. And while there is little chance that the US will lift all its sanctions on Iran, the possibility of smaller deals being made shows that the power of diplomacy is very much alive even when one or both parties concerned are in a position of weakness. Remember, just as Mr Trump has his challenges at home, so does the regime in Tehran – given the state of the economy. Whether this will indeed translate to peace and stability in the Middle East, we will have to wait and see.

Any new deal with Iran must focus on five priorities
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/October 06/2019
European powers have been pushing to chart a path toward a new deal that would de-escalate tensions between the Islamic Republic and the US, which have reached their highest level since 1979.
Iran has been implicated in harassing and attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the attempted assassination of dissidents on European soil, bomb plots, and directly or indirectly launching missile and drone attacks, while the Trump administration is carrying out its “maximum pressure” policy by imposing crippling sanctions on the theocratic establishment.
To reach any new and effective deal, the US has to be involved because of its influence in the global financial system and its geopolitical power. That is why European leaders have been attempting to bring the American and Iranian leaders back to the negotiating table.
This begs the question that, if a new deal was to be struck with Tehran, what terms should it include? Any new deal with the Iranian leaders must be built around five core pillars.
First of all, the priority ought to be halting the Iranian regime’s ability to manufacture a nuclear weapon — permanently. This would eliminate the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the region and remove the strategic threat that a nuclear-armed Iran might pose, thus shifting the balance of power and creating new alliances.
One of the deficiencies of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aka the Iran nuclear deal, was that it had a time limit. In the world of geopolitics, 10 or 15-year agreements are considered very brief. World leaders should be aware that the Iranian leaders will be pushing for temporary deals, which would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium while having the sanctions against it lifted.
Therefore, a new nuclear deal should have no expiration date. The sunset clause was the most crucial victory that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Rouhani administration scored in the 2015 nuclear agreement. It allowed the Islamic Republic to — on the day the deal lapsed — resume enriching uranium to any level it desires, spin as many advanced centrifuges as it wants, make its reactors fully operational, build new heavy water reactors, produce as much fuel for its reactors as it desires, and maintain higher uranium enrichment capability. In other words, after the agreement expired, Iran was to be rewarded with an unrestricted, industrialized, high-level nuclear program.
One of the deficiencies of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was that it had a time limit. The US should also not make the mistake that the Obama administration made by showing that it was extremely eager to strike a “historic” nuclear deal in order to add to its Middle Eastern achievements, even though the deal was strategically flawed.
The second priority of any new Iran deal should be the inspection of Iran’s military sites. The weaponization dimension of Iran’s nuclear program, about which the JCPOA said almost nothing, should be fully addressed. This means there is a need for an enforcement or monitoring mechanism. For example, the Parchin military site, which is reportedly the main location where Iran conducts nuclear research and development, is out of the reach of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors under the 2015 deal.
The third pillar is that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is a crucial part of its foreign policy and appears to be linked to the nuclear program, should be restricted. The deal must dictate that the UN Security Council will impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it continues to test ballistic missiles. The deal can invoke UN resolution 2231, which calls on Iran not to “undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”
Fourth, the nuclear agreement must positively contribute to Middle East peace and security by containing Iran’s pursuit of regional supremacy. The JCPOA increased Iran’s military influence, expansion and interventions across the region, including in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Finally, if the US is going to strike a new deal with Tehran, it should not forget the Iranian people. Any deals with the Iranian leaders must be contingent on the improvement of the human rights situation, freedoms of speech, press and assembly, as well as a full moratorium on the death penalty, including the execution of children.
In summary, any new deal with the Iranian regime must permanently limit its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, address its military adventurism in the region, and hold the Iranian leaders accountable for human rights violations inside the country and abroad.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Mike Pompeo at the Vatican last week
Oubai Shahbandar/Arab News/October 06/2019
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) may be the year’s single largest gathering of heads of state and diplomats, but the event isn’t typically remembered as an occasion in which major policy breakthroughs are achieved. However, during last month’s three-day diplo-palooza, the push for global religious freedom — and support for Muslims struggling for liberty and human dignity — came almost exclusively from one corner: The Trump administration.
It is a fight that brings together all the Abrahamic faiths. And it speaks volumes that it was in the Vatican last week, in the presence of Pope Francis, that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once again called for international action against the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to erase Uighur Muslims from existence in Xinjiang province (also known as East Turkestan by the Uighur).
At the spiritual center for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Pompeo put a spotlight on the case of one Uighur, Zumuret Dawut, who was detained by the Chinese communists and forced to renounce her faith as a condition for her release. “When the state rules absolutely, it demands its citizens worship government, not God,” he said.
Maintaining momentum on this issue has shown how serious the administration is. The US co-hosted an event on the sidelines of the UNGA on China’s treatment of Muslim minorities, including the Uighurs. These efforts could not have been timelier, as recent credible reports indicate that Beijing has significantly enhanced its persecution and mass imprisonment of Muslims. As per UN data, approximately 1 million Uighurs languish in a string of detention camps for “re-education.”
The voice that senior administration officials have offered is invaluable for raising awareness and organizing a global pushback against Beijing’s cleansing campaign.
But it is not just China. Muslims in Syria and Myanmar are on also the receiving end of brutal, government-backed systemic cleansing campaigns. The Trump administration has been actively engaged on both fronts.
Special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey and senior State Department official Joel Rayburn sat down with the Syrian community and members of the Syrian opposition last week to discuss implementing measures to pursue justice and accountability for the war crimes that have been committed — and continue to be committed — by the Iranian-backed Assad regime. Having US government buy-in at such a high level sends a clear message to Assad and Iran: The documentation of some of the worst war crimes since the Second World War will not simply be swept under the proverbial rug.
On Myanmar, more US humanitarian assistance has been ordered for the Rohingya Muslim minority that has faced what by all definitions can be described as a genocidal campaign. More than 1 million Rohingya have been forced out of their homes by the army, with thousands more slaughtered by death squads.
Fighting for religious freedom worldwide is a foreign policy objective that should be commended and remain a priority for the White House. Christians worldwide are also facing persecution and displacement at unprecedented levels — often at the hands of the same despotic regimes that have persecuted and killed Muslims.
Only the US has the reach, power and influence to prevent and counter such oppression.
The Chinese Communist Party, Iranian-backed death squads and Islamist extremists in the Middle East have targeted Christians just as they target Muslims. As it stands, only the US has the reach, power and influence to prevent and counter such oppression and to ameliorate the suffering of the victims.
Raising the Uighur issue in particular on a prominent platform such as the UNGA is a major irritant for China, and doubly so when that platform is leveraged to bring a human face to the suffering of the Uighur Muslims. One event that stood out for me during the UNGA was the live stream interview held by the State Department’s Morgan Ortagus with the daughter of imprisoned Uighur human rights activist Ilham Tohti. Uighur dissidents like Tohti are feared by Beijing more than anything because they have preached civil disobedience and religious harmony between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese.
Shortly after the discussion with Tohti’s daughter, he was awarded the 2019 Vaclav Havel Human Rights prize. He continues to languish in a Chinese prison following his 2014 arrest. Showing the world that Uighurs are not forgotten is crucial — it offers the White House additional points of leverage over Beijing and signals that America is willing to do the right thing, no matter how difficult.
There is no human dignity without religious freedom. It is a powerful moving force that can change the direction of history and topple tyrannical, mass-murdering regimes.
In the Vatican, Pompeo rightly underscored the power of religious freedom as a tool for positive change when he remarked: “Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan combined the moral authority of the Holy See and the prosperity and example of the US to fight the evil empire... through unity of purpose they prevailed and left the Soviet leviathan on the ash heap of history.”
The proliferation of evil empires today can be countered with a similar sentiment. Standing by men like Tohti, helping to broadcast their voice to the world, and pressuring regimes that persist in religious persecution — against Muslims and Christians alike — is something that the Trump administration has done across the board better than its predecessor.
That Tohti was the recipient of a prize named after Vaclav Havel — a Czech anti-communist dissident who was famously close to the late Pope John Paul II — was fitting. Havel was one man who kept the faith and helped bring down a communist empire. Individuals like Tohti have the same power to alter the course of world history.
Keeping religious freedom at the forefront of policy formulation and helping those who are most vulnerable to ethnic cleansing is arguably in the national security interests of the US. And, while cynical critics will ask why the US should trouble itself with persecuted Christians and Muslims in faraway lands, history has shown that there is value in lending the powerful hand of the US to those trying to shine a light on the dignity of human life and those trying to survive extermination.
President Donald Trump and his administration should be praised for not shying away from the herculean task ahead. God bless them for it.
*Oubai Shahbandar is a Syrian-American former Pentagon official. He is currently working on a documentary on Syria. Twitter: @os26

Corruption, Iranian influence force Iraqis into line of fire
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/October 06/2019
Is cutting access to the Internet, imposing curfews and violently breaking up protests supposed to calm the anger felt by Iraqis in all corners of this traumatized nation? Clumsy, aggressive responses to the unrest appear calculated to exacerbate the anger.
Iraqi cities have erupted into war zones, with dozens of fatalities from pitched battles between demonstrators and paramilitaries. Messages circulated from Iraqis warning that Najaf and Karbala were in a state of war and urging Shiite pilgrims in the Gulf to stay away. With youth unemployment exceeding 25 percent, almost unlimited numbers of desperate young people are anxious to vent their anger.
There is a lot to be angry about: A country with among the world’s largest oil reserves is failing to provide reliable supplies of electricity and drinkable water. Iraq routinely tops lists of the most corrupt nations — its Board of Supreme Audit in 2015 estimated that about $40 billion of illicit funds were smuggled out of the country annually. One survey found that 89 percent of businesses in Karbala reported having to bribe public officials to “get things done” — it was 100 percent in Basra.
Clientelism and corruption are the norm. When an official extorts a substantial cut from a real estate deal, he is considered “shatir” (clever). The rare official who plays by the rules and fails to enrich his family and associates is “ahbal” (an idiot). Powerful factions compete to dominate government departments, which they flood with hundreds of their foot soldiers. Officials aren’t expected to be competent, qualified or even to show up for work, unless for lucrative remunerative opportunities.
Iraqis relate how children of ministers are awarded diplomatic status overseas, enjoying millionaire lifestyles — luxury cars, drugs, glitzy parties and copious spending — while not exercising diplomatic responsibilities. Iraq is carved up among mafia fiefdoms belonging to Iran-backed paramilitary factions, which devour profits from local businesses, take their cut from construction deals, extort money from locals, and syphon off oil supplies and other resources.
This is not Sunni against Shiite. The demonstrators are primarily Shiites, protesting about Shiite leaders who have failed to even favor their own immediate communities. The chants of “Iran get out” show that everybody knows who pulls the strings.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s warning that Iraqis have a choice between “a state or a non-state” misses the point that this state is a colossal parasite, sucking out the nation’s wealth and extinguishing fundamental rights. One can forgive Iraqis for believing they would be better off without shouldering the burden of this criminal, dysfunctional state. Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani was correct in holding all segments of this state accountable and demanding rigorous action against corruption; not just mid-ranking officials, but all the way to the top.
A new BBC investigation has revealed how Iraq’s glaring clash of desperate poverty and extreme wealth has fueled the phenomenon of temporary marriage. Underage girls are repeatedly sold into “marriages,” which may last as little as half an hour. Clerics allow clients to choose from large photo albums of potential “wives.” Although this religiously sanctioned prostitution is technically illegal, powerful Shiite leaders allow it to flourish.
This state is a colossal parasite, sucking out the nation’s wealth and extinguishing fundamental rights.
It scarcely matters whether the ongoing eruption of public anger forces the resignation of Abdul Mahdi. He has achieved nothing for citizens and any successor would be equally ineffective. Iraq’s problems are deep and systemic. Decisions are the product of corrupt brinkmanship between allies of cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr and Iran-backed factions. For all Al-Sadr’s posturing about addressing citizens’ aspirations, what has he achieved? He called for the government to resign, yet his faction is the government. He must take ownership of this crisis. In the post-2005 phase, Sadrist politicians were among the most corrupt and abusive whenever they were put in charge of institutions, so why is Al-Sadr still portrayed as a national savior? His recent appearance in Iran sitting between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Gen. Qassem Soleimani raised questions among Iraqis about where his affiliations lie.
Iran has always favored weak, malleable prime ministers, blocking the appointment of uncorrupted Iraqi nationalists to senior roles. Iraq’s political cancer is horribly familiar to Lebanese, who have seen their own nation increasingly fall under the stranglehold of Hezbollah and other corrupt factions. Wealthy and flourishing nations have been brought to their knees by powerful vested interests and, ultimately, the ayatollahs of Tehran. In recent days, Syrian demonstrators in Deir Ezzor were chanting for the “downfall of Iranian militias.” Having helped cause the Iraq protests, Iran’s immediate response was to close its own borders, fearing the contagion of unrest.
There was a time, under previous US administrations and a functioning EU and UN, when states like Iraq would have come under intense moral pressure to avoid excessive force. Today — whether in China, Russia, Egypt or Iran — protests can be ruthlessly suppressed with the world scarcely noticing. US President Donald Trump’s leaked conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which he offered to ignore the unrest in Hong Kong in exchange for progress on trade, tells us exactly what kind of world we live in. Iraqi demonstrators facing down live ammunition are living the consequences of this age of impunity. Thus, although many citizens are on the streets over prosaic issues like jobs, rubbish collection and clean water, these protests represent an existential battle for Iraq’s survival. Success cannot be measured in the token sackings of mid-ranking officials or more empty promises. Change will only be possible through the exclusion of Iran’s malign influence, a no-holds-barred war against corruption, and a fundamental recalibration of Iraq’s political system. Above all, Iraq needs to regain its independence and sovereignty under strong, uncorrupted and nationalist leaders who put their citizens first.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

As Protests Explode, Iraq Must Get Serious About Reform
Bilal Wahab/The Washington Institute/October 06/2019
The public’s demands are just and their patience is all but gone, so Baghdad needs to get on with the hard work of opening up the economy and providing critical services before the violence spirals out of control.
While Washington focuses on getting Baghdad to rein in militias and end its dependency on Iranian energy, Iraqi citizens have been seething about other matters. Fueled by anger at the government’s rampant corruption and failure to deliver services or jobs, a series of spontaneous, leaderless protests erupted in Baghdad on October 1 and spread to a number of towns in central and southern Iraq. Initially nonviolent, the demonstrations quickly drew lethal fire from security forces, which only enraged the protestors and increased their numbers. By week’s end, casualties had reached sixty-five dead and over a thousand wounded, including security personnel. The government crackdown also included an Internet blackout and curfews, which protestors promptly defied. The unrest could escalate further unless Baghdad presents credible pathways to providing employment and cleaning up corruption, areas that the United States can help with.
SYSTEM FAILURE
Iraq seemingly cannot deliver good governance. With post-Saddam leaders putting a premium on ethnosectarian representation and leaving state institutions to wither, the government has become a fractured entity with as many as 263 registered political parties. Its revenue-sharing/patronage system is too rife with abuses to drive effective economic policy, creating a vicious cycle: parties who made it into government via early elections have used their power to grant jobs and contracts to their supporters, aiming to secure votes in the next election. Meanwhile, wealth remains concentrated within the government—Iraq’s sole major export is oil, which accounts for 92 percent of the budget.
Such a system, while good at doling out transactional perks to party elites, has failed to provide the rest of the population with services, infrastructure, or jobs. Take the 2019 budget of $111.8 billion, which represents a 45 percent increase over 2018—more than half of it will go to public wages and pensions, eating away at the non-oil investment spending needed to develop a private sector. After a parade of such governments since 2003, the system seems to have run its course. There are only so many government jobs, and Iraq’s public sector is already among the world’s most bloated. Hence the bleak cry of one protestor this week: “We don’t want parties, we want a country to live in.”
Iraq’s democratic system may be failing as well. Many citizens believe that the isolated political elites are rigging the electoral system to stay in power, using their media outlets, business interests, and foreign connections to ensure their indistinguishable candidates keep winning. One poll indicated that only one in five Iraqis believe their country is still a democracy. As a result, voter turnout has steadily decreased, from 80 percent in 2005 to 44.5 percent in 2018, while protests have become seasonal affairs.
The latest outburst of public outrage was also triggered by the nationalist sentiment that has grown since the defeat of the Islamic State. The younger post-Saddam generation is proud of the army’s victory over the terrorists and the subsequent return of calm to most cities. Thus, when Prime Minister Adil Abdulmahdi announced earlier this week that he had removed the war’s most popular military figure, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, this sentiment boiled over. A fearless commander who spearheaded the battle for Mosul’s liberation and stayed on to help lead the elite Counter Terrorism Service, Saadi is the epitome of Iraqi national pride: he is Shia, but popular with Sunnis, and he rose through the ranks without relying on political patronage. His demotion brought all of the public’s simmering anger about the rigged system to the surface.
In addition, the younger, web-connected generation knows that it makes little sense for such a rich country to have so many poor people, shabby roads, dilapidated hospitals, and broken schools. Thus, when security personnel use water cannons to forcibly disperse a peaceful protest by jobseekers with graduate degrees, the resultant rage is hardly surprising. Many are also uneasy about the rise of certain militias within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which played a laudable role in saving the country from the Islamic State but are now becoming part of a new, more dangerous network that has accelerated corruption and openly challenged state authority.
Like his predecessors, the prime minister is more focused on pinpointing who to blame for the protests rather than fixing the problems that sparked them. Because the demonstrators are mainly young Shia fed up with the Shia representatives who failed them, Abdulmahdi seems inclined to fall back on contradictory conspiracy theories: one accusing Saudi Arabia and the United States of fomenting the protests, another blaming Iran and its local proxies. Such paranoia will only cripple his efforts to carry out the serious reforms his public is demanding.
HIGH STAKES
Unless the government reverses its heavy-handed approach, the protests will intensify, with potentially disquieting ramifications at home and abroad. For one thing, the domestic unrest could make it more difficult for Baghdad to do its part in warding off regional flare-ups that could draw Iraq into war. Keenly aware that Iran’s recent actions might spark conflict with Saudi Arabia, Israel, and/or the United States, Iraqi leaders have deployed energetic diplomacy to reassure the international community that they will do more to bring Iranian-backed Shia militias under control.
Also troubling is the fact that Iraq’s history offers ample precedent for a strongman or cabal to mount a coup in the face of public disorder. One theory is that Saadi was demoted in part to stymie such a possibility, given his outsize popularity. Yet much of the officer corps is still politicized and far from united. Moreover, potential coup leaders would either have to confront the PMF or partner with them, both of which would be problematic—the former option would cause a civil war, while the latter would further empower the militias. Many Iraqis yearn for decisive leadership even at the expense of democracy, but such a leader might revert to foreign adventurism in order to divert attention from domestic problems.
The PMF have stayed on the sidelines of the protests so far, leaving the riot police and SWAT teams to battle with protesters. The government’s response is causing it to lose hearts and minds with brutal efficiency. Some PMF factions might consider facing off against these security forces and presenting themselves as saviors. Traditionally, Iraq’s militias were armed wings of established political parties, but today’s most influential militias (e.g., Asaib Ahl al-Haq; Kataib Hezbollah) are free-floating entities that aspire for greater political and economic power of their own.
If the militias manage to woo the protest movement, they would notch a big win for Tehran’s goal of deepening Iranian influence and forcing the United States out of the country. This in turn would heighten the risks for Iraq’s neighbors. Iran has lost much of the Iraqi street, but it still has sway with the country’s political elite. Clearly, though, its proxies would have to grapple with Iraqi public discontent and politics at some point down the road.
THE NEED FOR REFORM
Even if the current protests fizzle, they are almost certain to return given the terrible state of Iraq’s governance and economy. Prime Minister Abdulmahdi’s task is obvious: to undertake serious reform efforts toward a clean, accountable government that delivers services and jobs. Iraqis are literally ready to die for good governance. Yet violence begets violence, and the situation could spiral beyond the government’s ability to remedy the crisis through reform. The current protests already appear to be the most serious since 2003.
So far, the prime minister has chosen to band-aid the problems with government benefits. Soon, however, he will need to channel the public’s demands, stand up to entrenched political interests, and take credible action on reforms. His cabinet is perhaps the best equipped yet to deliver on this front given its technocratic background. Shia leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani bought him some time earlier today by calling for reform rather than the government’s resignation. Muqtada al-Sadr, however, called for new elections.
Washington has limited means to shape events at this point, but it can still play a useful part by quietly advising the prime minister and other key leaders. Public messaging would be less useful. Instead, U.S. officials should privately but forcefully press Baghdad to exercise strict control over the security forces. The high number of casualties this week will only add to the government’s enormous trust deficit. One firm step in the right direction would be to announce punishments for any security personnel who ignore the prime minister’s orders for restraint, and to investigate the murders of activists involved in the Basra protests of summer 2018.
Iraq has received years of sound foreign advice on economic reform. The failure of successive governments to follow through stems not from a lack of good counsel, but from a lack of political will—and, often as not, corruption. The protestors’ demands are just, and their patience is all but gone. Iraq’s leadership needs to say, loud and clear, “We hear you,” and then get on with the hard work of assembling a viable agenda for opening up the economy, fostering a real private sector to generate job growth, and prioritizing critical services.
*Bilal Wahab is the Wagner Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Putting ‘Heroic Flexibility’ Aside
Omer Carmi/The Washington Institute/October 06/2019
Khamenei’s latest high-profile speech may indicate his growing confidence that Iran can cope with U.S. pressure and set a high bar for resuming talks.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s annual speech at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership gathering is closely analyzed by Iran watchers for good reason. As with his yearly Nowruz speech, he often uses the IRGC event as an occasion to signal domestic and foreign audiences about his approach to international affairs. Most famously, his 2013 speech—delivered just weeks before Tehran reached an interim nuclear agreement with the P5+1—noted that he was not against “proper and reasonable moves in diplomacy,” declaring that this type of “heroic flexibility” is “necessary and good in certain circumstances.” After months of inconsistent messages from the Supreme Leader, many in Iran and abroad saw this as his implicit thumbs-up for the government to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Six years have passed since that compromise, and the Supreme Leader had a more aggressive message to deliver this time around. Most of his October 2 speech focused on recounting the IRGC’s achievements and offering old and new ideas for increasing its potential—an ominous subject given the degree to which IRGC elements and their proxies have helped destabilize the Middle East so far. And when talking about the ongoing crisis with the United States and the prospects for new talks, Khamenei reiterated the view he has expressed in recent months—namely, that Washington’s “maximum pressure” policy is destined to fail. Far from bringing Iran to its knees, he argued, U.S. policy is only inflicting “problems” on America.
SCUTTLING ROUHANI AND MACRON’S UN INITIATIVE
The night before the Supreme Leader’s IRGC address, Politico reported that French president Emmanuel Macron had nearly brokered a compromise agreement between President Trump and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani during the recent UN General Assembly meetings, only for Tehran to pull out and refuse the offer. Rouhani referred to Macron’s plan in a cabinet meeting held shortly before Khamenei’s speech, explaining that the French proposal—which allegedly included the removal of all U.S. sanctions imposed since 2017—“was based on our principles,” which he described as eliminating U.S. sanctions and allowing “Iran’s commercial activities to happen freely.” He blamed Washington for the proposal’s failure, saying it fell apart because of inconsistencies in U.S. positions. He then promised he would be ready for “any kind of self-sacrifice” in order to preserve the nation’s rights—his version of Khamenei’s “heroic flexibility.”
During his own speech a few hours later, Khamenei claimed that Europe’s attempts to arrange a meeting between the presidents were part of a U.S. plot to create a “symbolic image of an Iranian surrender.” Indeed, despite their mutual criticism of Washington, it is not clear if Khamenei and Rouhani are on the same page regarding the timetable or terms for new talks. Ever since the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA last year, the Supreme Leader has repeatedly lashed out at Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, accusing them of being fooled by the Americans during the original nuclear talks and arguing that Iran should not have negotiated with the Obama administration in the first place. If Khamenei did order the government to reject Macron’s proposal, it would hardly be the first time—for example, witness his scuttling of a deal that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bargained with the United States, France, and Russia in 2009, which would have shipped out most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium in exchange for reactor fuel.
RESISTANCE AS A NEGOTIATION STRATEGY
One thing Rouhani and Khamenei do seem to agree on is that Iranian “resistance” against the United States and Europe has improved the country’s leverage in negotiating the framework of future negotiations. As Rouhani recently put it, “nobody would have come to meet us in New York” if Iran had not taken confrontational measures such as shooting down a U.S. drone earlier this year and advancing the nuclear program.
Likewise, recent editorials in the weekly magazine published by Khamenei’s office have highlighted the need to further improve Tehran’s position before recommencing talks, explaining that it must not negotiate from a position of weakness. Accordingly, they argue, “today is not the time” to go back to the table.
Following this line of thought, Khamenei addressed the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran during his October 2 speech, ordering AEOI officials to continue reducing the country’s commitment to the nuclear deal until “we reach the desired results.” Iran has already taken three steps that either threaten or violate the JCPOA: exceeding the amount of low-enriched uranium it is permitted to store; increasing its level of enrichment beyond 3.67 percent; and restarting some of its advanced centrifuge R&D. According to the AEOI, the regime will take a fourth step in early November, which may include resuming enrichment at the heavily protected Fordow mountain facility.
A similar mindset has been evident in the regime’s rhetoric about regional “resistance.” Earlier this week, Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani appeared on Khamenei’s website for his first-ever one-on-one video interview, where he glorified the “victories” Iran and its allies have achieved against Israel and the United States over the years. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was interviewed as well, and expounded the same themes. For their part, IRGC leaders used their annual gathering to emphasize the power of resistance and warn that any attack on Iran would be met with a fierce response, with no limit in magnitude or targets. Khamenei then urged them to carry resistance beyond the boundaries of the Middle East. “Sometimes the country’s strategic depth is even more important than the most urgent needs,” he said, lashing out at Iranians who chant “no to Gaza, no to Lebanon” when criticizing the regime’s foreign interventions.
A “NORMAL” COUNTRY OR A REVOLUTIONARY ONE?
As in the past, Khamenei’s greatest concern about engaging with the United States seems to lie in the implications that such outreach might hold for Iran’s identity and the nature of “the revolution.” According to his IRGC speech, Washington is adamant that Iran give up its revolutionary character and become a “normal state” that conforms with the American global order.
Perhaps aware of what it may take to keep resisting such change, Khamenei finished his speech on an optimistic note, seemingly hoping to convince the public that all will be well if they can just keep enduring U.S. pressure for a while longer. After claiming the economy is growing in a way that “will gradually impact the people’s lives,” he stated that Washington’s current policy is only a short-term tactical problem. He even argued that U.S. pressure will strategically help Iran in the end by breaking the country’s reliance on oil revenues—a goal that the government has never been able to meet on its own.
Tehran’s biggest source for optimism may be its belief that Washington and Europe are eager to resume negotiations. Rouhani highlighted this point in his cabinet speech, and Khamenei’s website has emphasized how President Trump keeps asking to open talks only to be rejected again and again by the Supreme Leader. This perception may lead Tehran to set a higher bar for reentering talks, and further convince it that the resistance strategy is working.
*Omer Carmi is vice president of intelligence at the Israeli cybersecurity firm Sixgill. Previously, he was a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute and led IDF analytical and research efforts pertaining to the Middle East.