English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 31/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.october31.20.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Letter to the Romans 08/28-39:"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Question: "What are the five solas?"
GotQuestions.org/October 30/2020
Answer: The five solas are five Latin phrases popularized during the Protestant Reformation that emphasized the distinctions between the early Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church. The word sola is the Latin word for “only” and was used in relation to five key teachings that defined the biblical pleas of Protestants. They are:
1. Sola scriptura: “Scripture alone”
2. Sola fide: “faith alone”
3. Sola gratia: “grace alone”
4. Solo Christo: “Christ alone”
5. Soli Deo gloria: “to the glory of God alone”
Each of these solas can be seen both as a corrective to the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church at the start of the Reformation and as a positive biblical declaration.
Sola scriptura emphasizes the Bible alone as the source of authority for Christians. By saying, “Scripture alone,” the Reformers rejected both the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Pope and confidence in sacred tradition. Only the Bible was “inspired by God” (2 Peter 1:20-21) and “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Anything taught by the Pope or in tradition that contradicted the Bible was to be rejected. Sola scriptura also fueled the translation of the Bible into German, French, English, and other languages, and prompted Bible teaching in the common languages of the day, rather than in Latin.
Sola fide emphasizes salvation as a free gift. The Roman Catholic Church of the time emphasized the use of indulgences (donating money) to buy status with God. Good works, including baptism, were seen as required for salvation. Sola fide stated that salvation is a free gift to all who accept it by faith (John 3:16). Salvation is not based on human effort or good deeds (Ephesians 2:9).
Sola gratia emphasizes grace as the reason for our salvation. In other words, salvation comes from what God has done rather than what we do. Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”Solo Christo (sometimes listed as Solus Christus, “through Christ alone”) emphasizes the role of Jesus in salvation. The Roman Catholic tradition had placed church leaders such as priests in the role of intercessor between the laity and God. Reformers emphasized Jesus’ role as our “high priest” who intercedes on our behalf before the Father. Hebrews 4:15 teaches, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus is the One who offers access to God, not a human spiritual leader.
Soli Deo gloria emphasizes the glory of God as the goal of life. Rather than striving to please church leaders, keep a list of rules, or guard our own interests, our goal is to glorify the Lord. The idea of soli Deo gloria is found in 1 Corinthians 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” The five solas of the Protestant Reformation offered a strong corrective to the faulty practices and beliefs of the time, and they remain relevant today. We are called to focus on Scripture, accept salvation by grace through faith, magnify Christ, and live for God’s glory.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 30-31/2020

1,751 Virus Cases as Panel Recommends Stricter Measures in Lebanon
Aoun Discusses Maritime Border Talks with Shea, Kubis
Lebanon: Aoun, Hariri ‘Silent’ Over Cabinet Formation Talks
Report: Israel ‘Refuses’ Lebanon Demand to Expand Disputed Maritime Area
Mediators: Israel-Lebanon Maritime Talks Productive
Clashes at Lebanon’s capital Beirut as people protest French cartoons of the Prophet
Hezbollah chief: France dragged itself into battle with Muslims over Prophet cartoons
Nasrallah Vows to Facilitate Govt. Formation, Criticizes France over Cartoons
U.S. Calls Bid to Stop Extradition of 2 in Ghosn's Case 'Meritless'
STL to Hear Submissions on Sentencing in Rafik Hariri Case
Large Stockpile of Diesel Seized in New Tariq al-Jedideh Raid
Strong Lebanon Submits Bill Setting Deadlines for Consultations, Govt. Formation
MP Says FPM Has Right as 'Shiite Duo' to Adhere to Portfolio
Months after Beirut Blast, Cinematic Tributes Stream Online
Lebanon: Gas, Oil and the Axis of Resistance/Nabil Amr/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
From America to Lebanon, Coexistence and Acceptance of Others is a Common Problem/Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Lebanon’s currency recovery since Hariri’s return is a mirage/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/October 30/2020'

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 30-31/2020

France Mourns 3 Killed in Church Attack, Tightens Security/Naharnet
In ‘war against Islamist ideology’, France braces for more attacks
Denmark’s far-right party launches campaign to republish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed
US uses seized Iranian fuel to compensate terror victims
UK summons Iran envoy as detained aid worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces return to jail
Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert moved to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison
Turkey Evacuates Another Military Post in Northwestern Syria
WHO: Pandemic Reaches ‘Alarming Juncture’ in Eastern Mediterranean
Russia Continues to Prepare for Conference on Syrian Refugees
PA President Says Ready to Negotiate on Final Status Issues
Text of Treasury Department press release: Treasury sanctions companies selling, purchasing, and enabling Iranian petrochemical products
Text of Justice Department press release: United States files complaint to forfeit Iranian missiles and sells previously-transferred Iranian petroleum
Six things President Trump will be remembered for regardless of US election outcome
Eight killed, hundreds injured as strong earthquake hits Turkey and Greek islands

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 30-31/2020

Le terrorisme islamiste entre la morbidité et le macabre/Charles Elias Chartouni/October 30/2020
US Elections: The Unasked Questions/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
No Solution But This One for a Conflict of More Than 70 Years/Saleh Al-Qallab/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
The US and Europe Still Don’t See Eye to Eye on Big Tech/Alex Webb/Bloomberg/October 30/2020
American Geostrategy Won’t Change Much/Robert Ford/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
FBI arrests white supremacy leader in extremism crackdown in Michigan/Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News/October 30/2020
Tougher on Turkey: how US Middle East policy might look under Joe Biden/Joce Karam/The National/October 30/2020
China: Existential Threat to America/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/October 30, 2020
Iran puts air defense assets on display/Behnam Ben Taleblu and Maj. Shane “Axl” Praiswater/Military Times/October 30/2020
The Saudi Evolution/Reuel Marc Gerecht/Hoover Institution/October 30/2020
Europe must impose political consequences for Iran’s terrorism/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/October 30/2020
Nice: Not in Our Name/Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/October 30/2020
Israel offers to send IDF search and rescue team to Turkey after deadly quake/TOI staff and Agencies/Arab News/October 30/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 30-31/2020

1,751 Virus Cases as Panel Recommends Stricter Measures in Lebanon
Naharnet/October 30/2020
Lebanon recorded 1,751 new coronavirus cases and 15 deaths in 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Friday. The new cases raise the country’s overall tally since February 21 to 79,529 including 40,352 recoveries. The fatalities take the death toll to 625.The country’s government-linked anti-coronavirus follow-up committee meanwhile recommended a nationwide nighttime curfew that starts at 9pm, the banning of all types of gatherings and lockdowns in Beirut and its suburbs.

Aoun Discusses Maritime Border Talks with Shea, Kubis
Naharnet/October 30/2020
President Michel Aoun held separate meetings with US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea, and the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis where talks focused on the indirect maritime demarcation talks between Lebanon and Israel, the National News Agency reported Friday. The meeting comes one day after the third round of Lebanese-Israeli talks over the demarcation of their maritime border under US and UN auspices. A joint U.N.-U.S. statement described Wednesday and Thursday’s talks as “productive.” “Building on progress from their October 14 meeting, on October 28 and 29 representatives from the governments of Israel and Lebanon held productive talks mediated by the United States and hosted by the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL),” the statement said. “The United States and UNSCOL remain hopeful that these negotiations will lead to a long-awaited resolution. The parties committed to continue negotiations next month,” it added. The delegations met for around four hours Thursday at a base of the U.N. peacekeeping force UNIFIL in the Lebanese border town of Naqoura.
 

Lebanon: Aoun, Hariri ‘Silent’ Over Cabinet Formation Talks
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is maintaining silence in the ongoing talks with President Michel Aoun over the new government lineup. Hariri’s recent meetings with the president are kept confidential and the two officials refrain from disclosing any information to the media until a final agreement is reached. Hariri’s office and the Presidency are swift in denying leaks, by issuing statements that sometimes describe some information as false. In a recent press statement, Hariri said that all information on the formation of the government are inaccurate, reiterating that he and Aoun had pledged not to disclose any news until the lineup is complete. However, Hariri pointed to “progress in the formation process in an atmosphere of understanding and positivity.”Speaker Nabih Berri announced this week that the lineup would be ready within a few days, “if the positive atmosphere was maintained.”
Sources in the Shiite duo - Amal and Hezbollah – have also expressed optimism. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, the sources said that Berri’s statements were based on tangible information.
The sources, however, pointed to an obstacle in former Minister Talal Arslan’s insistence on having a ministerial portfolio despite his rejection to task Hariri in leading the new government. Baabda palace sources told Asharq al-Awsat that the purpose of secrecy was to complete the formation of the government without obstruction or confusion.

Report: Israel ‘Refuses’ Lebanon Demand to Expand Disputed Maritime Area
Naharnet/October 30/2020
Israel reportedly "refuses" to consider the new Lebanese request to expand the disputed area on the maritime borders, the Saudi Asharq el-Awsat daily reported on Friday. The daily quoted an “Israeli source” who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that Lebanon’s request aims to have “full control of two Israeli gas fields” in the Mediterranean, which “does not comply” with the demands raised by Lebanon 10 years ago. He said the Lebanese negotiators in Ras al-Naqoura “surprised the Israeli delegation” during the third meeting that brought the two parties together, by “presenting a new map demanding not only the disputed area of 860 kilometres, but also an additional 1,430 kilometres inside the Israeli zone in economic waters," He reportedly revealed that the above has led to a “heated debate” between the two delegations, and that the Israeli team “informed the Lebanese delegation of their refusal to discuss this request.”Lebanon and Israel held their third round of indirect talks over the demarcation of their maritime border.

Mediators: Israel-Lebanon Maritime Talks Productive
Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Israel and Lebanon held "productive" talks over their maritime border on Thursday and agreed to meet again next month, the United Nations and the United States said. Thursday's meeting was the third this month between the longtime foes, mediated by the US and hosted by the UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) at a base in the southern Lebanese border town of Naqoura. Lebanon’s official delegation, led by the army, had no immediate comment. After nearly four hours of talks Thursday, the delegation went to brief President Michel Aoun. Lebanon has said its talks are strictly limited to their boundary which lies in an area of potentially gas-rich Mediterranean water. On Wednesday the two sides presented contrasting maps outlining proposed borders that actually increased the size of the disputed area, sources said. The Lebanese proposal extended farther south than the border Lebanon previously presented to the UN, according to a Lebanese security source. The Israeli map pushed the boundary farther north than Israel's original position, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The talks are held amid tight security, including patrols by UN peacekeepers, Lebanese army patrols and Israeli navy ships. "Representatives from the governments of Israel and Lebanon held productive talks mediated by the United States and hosted by the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon," the joint US-UN statement said. "The parties committed to continue negotiations next month." “The United States and UNSCOL remain hopeful that these negotiations will lead to a long-awaited resolution,” it added. A senior Lebanese source said the two sides would meet again on Nov. 11.

Clashes at Lebanon’s capital Beirut as people protest French cartoons of the Prophet
AFP /Friday 30 October 2020
Security forces and young men clashed in Lebanon's capital Friday after around two hundred people protested against the French president's defense of the right to publish cartoons seen as offensive to Islam.
Demonstrators marched towards the residence of the French ambassador waving black and white flags with Islamic phrases after Friday prayers, but dozens of riot police on the street outside blocked their path, an AFP photographer said. At the end of the demonstration, a few protesters lobbed stones and bottles at the security forces, who responded with tear gas. Lebanese demonstrators lift Islamic flags at a rally to protest comments by the French President seen as offensive to Islam, near the residence of the French Ambassador in the capital Beirut, on October 30, 2020. (AFP)
Lebanese demonstrators lift Islamic flags at a rally to protest comments by the French President seen as offensive to Islam, near the residence of the French Ambassador in the capital Beirut, on October 30, 2020. (AFP)
The protest comes amid anger in the Islamic world over French President Emmanuel Macron's defense earlier this month of the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Macron made the comment after an extremist on October 16 beheaded history teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb for showing pupils cartoons of the prophet – earlier published repeatedly by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – in a class on free speech. One protester at the demonstration held a cartoon portraying Macron as a snake.
"France is in crisis because of Macron," read his sign in Arabic and French. "Islam is dear" to us. Macron earlier this month described Islam as a religion "in crisis" worldwide. France has been on high alert since a January 2015 massacre at Charlie Hebdo in the wake of its initial publication of caricatures of the prophet. That massacre marked the beginning of a wave of attacks labelled as "jihadist attacks," that have killed more than 250 people. A knife-wielding man killed three people at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday. Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons last month, as the trial opened for 14 suspected accomplices in the 2015 attack against the magazine. Similar cartoons published in Denmark in 2005 triggered a global backlash from Muslims, including in Lebanon.
The Danish consulate building in Beirut was set ablaze in February 2006 in clashes in which at least 28 people were wounded, and Denmark called on its nationals to leave Lebanon.

Hezbollah chief: France dragged itself into battle with Muslims over Prophet cartoons
AFP/Saturday 31 October 2020
The head of Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah on Friday urged France to back down from its defense of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. "Do not allow this mockery, this aggression... to continue, and the whole world will stand with you," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said.
"French authorities instead of fixing the issue... became stubborn about this being freedom of expression," saying "'we want to continue with satirical cartoons'," Nasrallah added. "You need to think about correcting this mistake." Anger has erupted in the Islamic world over French President Emmanuel Macron's defense earlier this month of the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The French leader spoke after an extremist decapitated a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb on October 16. The teacher had shown cartoons of the Prophet published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during a lesson on freedom of expression. Nasrallah urged France to "be fair and just". "No Muslim in the world will accept our dignity... the dignity of our Prophet, being insulted," he said. France has been on high alert since a January 2015 massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo after it published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, with a wave of jihadist attacks killing more than 250 people since. Nasrallah also condemned the killings a day earlier of three people in a church in the French city of Nice. The suspected attacker was a young Tunisian man. "This event is rejected by Islam... which forbids the killing of innocents," he said. "Even if the perpetrator was a Muslim, no one should hold Islam accountable for this crime." He urged France to avoid stoking tensions. "The French authorities have dragged themselves and the whole of France -- they want to drag all of Europe -- into a battle with Islam and Muslims for flimsy and sometimes unknown reasons," Nasrallah said. But, he warned, it was a "losing battle". Iran-backed Hezbollah is the only side not to have disarmed after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and is designated by the United States as a "terrorist" group.
But it is also a key political player in the country and holds seats in parliament.

Nasrallah Vows to Facilitate Govt. Formation, Criticizes France over Cartoons
Naharnet/Saturday 31 October 2020
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday said his group will facilitate the government formation process as much as possible, as he criticized France over its stance on the Prophet Mohammed cartoons. “We hope PM-designate Saad Hariri, in coordination with President Michel Aoun and cooperation with the rest of the parliamentary blocs, will manage to form a government as soon as possible,” said Nasrallah in a televised address marking Prophet Mohammed’s birthday. “The caretaker cabinet cannot continue and according to our information, things are good and reasonable but we don’t want to overstate the positivity,” Nasrallah added. “We will cooperate and facilitate the formation process as much as possible and most of the reports in the media outlets are not accurate,” he went on to say. “The time is for cooperation and openness, not bickering,” he stressed. Nasrallah meanwhile dedicated most of his speech to the controversy in France over Islam and the anti-Mohammed cartoons. While strongly condemning Thursday's deadly stabbing attack in Nice which he said is rejected by Islam, Nasrallah criticized French authorities and President Emmanuel Macron for their insistence on defending the Prophet Mohammed caricatures in the name of freedom of expression. Nasrallah said the concept of the freedom of expression should not include "violating the dignity of 2 billion Muslims." "No Muslim in this world can accept insulting his Prophet," he said. He added: “It is unacceptable for French authorities and others to blame Islam and Muslims for this crime. This is an incorrect, unrealistic and unethical approach.” Addressing France and the West, Nasrallah said: “Instead of blaming Islam and the Islamic nation for these terrorist acts, let's search for your responsibility for these acts and these groups. You in the West protected this (extremist Islamist) ideology ten years ago. You helped them come to Syria and Iraq. You helped equip and finance them.” “The beheadings started in our countries through the people that you supported… The use of these (extremist Islamist) groups as tools must stop or else you will keep paying the price,” Hizbullah’s leader added. Decrying perceived hypocrisy, Nasrallah noted: “When the issue relates to a certain sect or to Israel or the Zionists, freedom of expression stops... Freedom of expression in France and Europe is not ultimate.” “No one in the Islamic world is seeking new rivalries. Muslims want to lower the number of rivalries in the world... France must rectify the mistake and this would not be submission to terrorism,” he added. Nasrallah also called for passing a global law or declaration that criminalizes attacks on the sanctities of the Muslim faith.

U.S. Calls Bid to Stop Extradition of 2 in Ghosn's Case 'Meritless'
Associated Press/October 30/2020
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers urged a judge Friday to deny a bid to block the extradition of two American men wanted in Japan for helping former Nissan Motor Co. boss Carlos Ghosn sneak out of the country in a box. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Hassink described Michael Taylor and Peter Taylor's "eleventh-hour bid to thwart their extradition" as "meritless," and asked the judge to allow the father and son to be handed over to Japan. The U.S. Department of State has agreed to extradite them, but a judge put a hold on it Thursday after their lawyers filed an emergency petition. "Here, the United States has a strong interest in having extradition requests submitted by Japan (and other treaty partners) resolved promptly," Hassink wrote in court documents. The men's lawyers, which include former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb, said Thursday that they are also appealing to officials within the State Department and White House to block the extradition. The lawyers were told in a letter they received this week while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia that Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun had authorized the extradition. The State Department has said it does not comment on pending extradition requests. The Massachusetts men are wanted by Japan so they can be tried on charges that they helped the former Nissan chairman flee the country last year with Ghosn tucked away in a box on a private jet. Ghosn had been out on bail and awaiting trial on financial misconduct allegations, which he has denied.
The flight went first to Turkey, then to Lebanon, where Ghosn has citizenship but which has no extradition treaty with Japan. Ghosn said he fled because he could not expect a fair trial, was subjected to unfair conditions in detention and was barred from meeting his wife under his bail conditions. The Taylors have not denied helping Ghosn flee but insist they can't be extradited because they say what they are accused of isn't a crime under Japan law. They have asked the judge to rule that the Secretary of State's decision to surrender them to Japan violates the law.
Prosecutors have described it as one of the most "brazen and well-orchestrated escape acts in recent history, involving a dizzying array of luxury hotel meetups, fake personas, bullet train travel, and the chartering of a private jet." Authorities say that Peter Taylor arrived in Japan on Dec. 28, 2019, and met with Ghosn at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo for about an hour. Just before 10 a.m. the next day, Michael Taylor flew into Osaka on a chartered jet from Dubai with another man, George-Antoine Zayek, carrying two large black boxes and told airport employees they were musicians carrying audio equipment.
At one point, the group split up and Peter Taylor headed to the airport to hop on a flight to China, authorities say. Meanwhile, the others hopped on a bullet train and went back to a hotel where Taylor and Zayek had booked a room. They all went in; only two were seen walking out.
Michael Taylor is a private security specialist who has been hired by parents to rescue abducted children, gone undercover for the FBI in a sting on a Massachusetts drug gang and worked as a contractor for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

STL to Hear Submissions on Sentencing in Rafik Hariri Case
Naharnet/October 30/2020
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Trial Chamber has issued an order scheduling a public hearing on 10 November 2020 at 10.00 AM (C.E.T.) to hear oral submissions from the Prosecutor, Defence Counsel representing the interests of Salim Jamil Ayyash and the Legal Representatives of Victims (LRV), the STL said on Friday. The parties’ submissions will debate “the appropriate sentence for Mr Ayyash, who was found guilty on all counts in the Ayyash et al. case,” the STL said in a statement. The Ayyash et al. case concerns the attack on former ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s life by explosives equivalent of 2,500 to 3,000 kilograms of TNT in daytime on 14 February 2005 in central Beirut. The explosion killed 22 people, including Hariri, and injured 226 others. Pursuant to the STL Rules of Procedure and Evidence, if the Trial Chamber finds the accused guilty of a crime, the Prosecutor and the Defense may submit any relevant information that may assist the Trial Chamber in determining an appropriate sentence. On the LRV’s application, the Trial Chamber has authorized the participating victims to make submissions relating to the personal impact of the crimes on them. Following the pronouncement of the Judgment on 18 August 2020, the Trial Chamber received written submissions on sentence from the Prosecutor on 1 September and observations from the Ayyash Defense on 25 September 2020. Following the Trial Chamber’s authorization, the LRV filed their submissions on 18 September 2020.

Large Stockpile of Diesel Seized in New Tariq al-Jedideh Raid
Naharnet/October 30/2020
A large quantity of dangerously stored diesel was confiscated Friday in Beirut’s Tariq al-Jedideh district, in a continued crackdown that began after a fuel tank blast killed several people and caused extensive damage.In a statement, Beirut Municipality said a force from the capital’s fire and guard brigades seized 12 metallic barrels, six plastic tanks and four metallic tanks on the rooftop of a building in Tariq al-Jedideh’s Qasqas area. The barrels and tanks contained around 11,900 liters of diesel. The statement said the stockpile belonged to a firm working in the industrial and electric equipment field and that it posed a threat to public safety and the area’s residents.

Strong Lebanon Submits Bill Setting Deadlines for Consultations, Govt. Formation
Naharnet/October 30/2020
The Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc on Friday submitted a draft law aimed at setting deadlines for the president of the republic to call for binding parliamentary consultations to name a new PM and for the PM-designate to form a government.
The bill, presented by MPs George Atallah, Eddy Maalouf and Salim Aoun, calls for amending Article 53 (Clause 3) and Article 64 (Clause 2) of the Constitution. If passed, the bill would grant the president a one-month deadline to call for consultations and the PM-designate a similar deadline to form a government. “This would spare us the futile political debate and the remarks about infringement on jurisdiction and the violation of the constitution,” Atallah said at a press conference. “Most of the time, the formation process protracts, to the extent that a caretaker cabinet would remain in place for a period longer than the one it served as an incumbent cabinet,” the MP noted. He said the proposed amendments aim to make texts a source for finding solutions rather than generating problems. “The second objective is sparing the executive authority long periods of vacuum and sparing presidential tenures long caretaker periods,” the lawmaker added. “It would completely rid us of procrastination… and would push the PM-designate to perform his job seriously and commit to consulting with all the relevant parties,” Atallah went on to say.

MP Says FPM Has Right as 'Shiite Duo' to Adhere to Portfolio
Naharnet/October 30/2020
Strong Republic parliamentary bloc MP Fadi Saad said on Friday that the Free Patriotic Movement has the right to adhere to the Energy Ministry portfolio if Hizbullah and Amal Movement insist on retaining the portfolio of Finance. “It seems we have returned to the same (government) structure. The FPM has the right to hold on to the energy portfolio if the Shiite duo insist on retaining the Finance portfolio,” said Saad in televised remarks during a talk show on LBCI TV station. The MP, of the Lebanese Forces bloc, said all the information leaked about the process of the government formation indicate its resemblance to former governments, "we have returned to the same structure it seems," he said. He said the only hope for Lebanon is to form a government of “independent figures.” Saad believes that during his process to form a new government, the PM-designate is being blackmailed by parliamentary blocs.“Parliamentary blocs planning to give their vote of confidence for the new government, are blackmailing the PM-designate in order to obtain shares in the government,” he said.
 

Months after Beirut Blast, Cinematic Tributes Stream Online
Agence France Presse/October 30/2020
A distressed son looks for his father, a lazy beach day ends in tragedy: Lebanese can now stream short films about this summer's devastating port blast -- but some say it's just too soon. Only months after the August 4 explosion killed more than 200 people and ravaged large parts of the capital, the Shahid VIP streaming platform says its aim is to pay tribute to the victims. But some say they do not want to relive the trauma shown in the "Beirut 6:07" pm series, named after the exact time a huge stash of ammonium nitrate detonated in a dockside warehouse after it caught fire.
Mazen Fayed, one of the project's producers and a director of one of the films making their online premiere this month, said the intention was to honour those killed. "We have the responsibility to talk about them and to keep the memory of these people alive," he said. "We didn't have to look very far. the stories were in front of us, we were hearing about them every day." The explosion, which also injured thousands, was the latest blow to Lebanese already reeling from an economic crisis that sparked mass anti-government protests. In the short film Fayed co-directed with Nadia Tabbara, a young man desperately runs around the ravaged port, looking for any trace of his father who works there. Just a few hours earlier they had argued, we learn, as flashbacks recount the story of this Shiite family of modest means. The father, who fought in the 1975-1990 civil war, had despaired to see his son caught up in sectarian politics and taking part in violent counter-protests.
'Too soon?'
In another film, filmmaker Caroline Labaki imagines what could have happened if the explosion had been prevented. It shows Beirut firefighters celebrating a birthday, before rushing out to put out a fire on the docks. A news report announces the blaze has been put out before reaching the massive stockpile of fertiliser, averting disaster. But in real life, the explosion could not be prevented and 10 firefighters were among those who lost their lives in Lebanon's worst peacetime disaster. Directors worked pro-bono to make the 15 films each 10 minutes long, produced by Big Picture Studios and Imagic, Fayad said. The streaming platform covered the production costs including pay for part of the crews. But the concept has received mixed reviews online. Several social media users have questioned its timing, including after the series' action-film-like trailer was released. "I almost had a panic attack just watching this trailer," one Instagram user wrote. "You are making us relive the horror we have been trying to forget." Another wrote: "People haven't been dead three months... people are still traumatised." "You think it's the time to make a show about our tragedies?"Another commented: "Way too soon, very disrespectful." On November 22, Lebanon's Independence Day, Saudi-financed satellite television channel MBC4, which owns Shahid, is to air the films to audiences across the Arabic-speaking region. Until then, viewers can watch 11 of the films already available on Shahid VIP for a fee. The streaming platform refused to give figures but said the series had been "well-received in the Levant region, where it quickly became among the most watched titles".
'Like group therapy'
Among the short films, filmmaker Ingrid Bawab chose to portray a couple at the beach. The camera films seawater gently lapping against the beach, before panning back over the pebbles towards a couple taking in the last rays, then packing up to drive home. Then disaster strikes.
"It's about dreams, hopes and plans that got shattered," Bawab said. It's about "what was before and what was ruined. It's not a film that sears your eyes, it's one that breaks your heart."The director said it was the most emotionally charged project she had ever worked on. "It was like group therapy," she said. "The crew were people who had escaped the blast, lost their home or people they knew," she said. Streaming giant Netflix too has taken an interest in Lebanon. This month, the platform said it and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture had set up a $500,000 emergency relief fund to support struggling workers in its film and television industry. Netflix is also showcasing 34 Lebanese cinematic gems "to give audiences from around the world a glimpse into the struggles, hopes and dreams of Lebanon".

Lebanon: Gas, Oil and the Axis of Resistance
Nabil Amr/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Let us inject ourselves with a magic serum that makes us imagine the UN-sponsored border demarcation negotiations between Lebanon and "the Zionist enemy" will surely be successful.
Since imagining compels further imagination, this success implies Lebanon is going from one situation to another…
Lebanon no longer owes a penny, and it won't be awaiting aid loaded with international and regional agendas to survive between one war and the next. The Port of Beirut will come back to life much, becoming much grander than it had been. The Lebanese, Arab and international banks will prosper as had they before, filling their vaults with all kinds of currencies, euros, dollars and yen, alongside token currencies from various Arab and foreign countries. Those with clean, halal money return, feeling assured and more secure than those with money to launder. The newspapers that had closed after going bankrupt are reestablished. Publishing, printing and libraries prosper. Tourism and swimming in the summer are invigorated. Casino du Liban brims with patrons in the winter. The Lebanese and Arabs go back to saying: "lucky is he who has a goat shed in Lebanon."
Since we are still high on imagination, we inevitably see that an equivalent to Hamra in the west and Antelias and Jounieh in the east has emerged in the southern suburbs, where the Rafic Hariri International Airport is located. These suburbs resemble the areas surrounding the airports in Dubai or Riyadh, and since we are in Lebanon, it would be logical to imagine these suburbs coming to resemble the area surrounding Orly, since the architect Macron is still in business.
In an oil-rich Lebanon, two questions emerge. First: what has become of the Shebaa Farms? Here, our fantasy leads us to imagine that this small patch of land has turned into a massive economic project with oil refineries and petrochemical plants. It is perhaps the point of origin for pipelines that transport oil and liquefied gas. As for the second, more significant question, it is: “What has become of the axis of resistance?” Its Lebanese branch has thousands of regular and precision missiles, hundreds of tons of rifles and thousands of die-hard fighters who won't find jobs that fit their original vocational skills. They will find it difficult to live with the fact that the smell of oil and gas has replaced that of rifles and weapon lubricants. And since imagining compels further imagination, how will Hassan Nasrallah be doing during the oil era? He will not find it difficult to provide an answer, for he has an endless supply of arguments and propositions that can make even the impossible possible. However, he might stop making screened appearances, since there is a problem with him making a live appearance in the new oil-rich era. There will is longer a need to occupy a part of Galilee, or potentially all of it, in the event that Israel persisted with its actions.
In this imagined era of oil-rich Lebanon, old rhetoric might be replaced. Instead of "beyond Haifa," we will hear sober calls to reform OPEC.
After the oil boom, what will become of "all of them means all of them"? Observers believe that this slogan will fizzle out. We will only hear about it when people discuss memories, as the era of speaking about demarcation negotiations in whispers has wilted and withered away. Hariri still symbolizes "all of them" as he did during the revolution, but, in light of the new independence approach that Macron represents, Hariri symbolizes "all of them" in Baabda, the Serail and the southern suburbs. This happened before we saw a liter of gas, or even enough gasoline to fill up a lighter.
On the margins of the oil wells and gas reserves is a situation that demands a question or a few… the camps… For the first time in history, two realities that have never been adjacent to one another will exist side by side: camps and oil. We are not talking about a single UNRWA funded camp that could be moved somewhere. Indeed, we are facing a series of camps that have spread their roots across deep into Lebanese life; geographically, they are scattered across the country's four corners, and they have ties with all segments and classes of society.
The camps' residents consider themselves guests whose stay has gone on for seventy-two years. They have what they have, and they owe what they owe. Their visit has not been exemplary in any sense, and it was shaped by the inevitable return home. Here, whether we like it or not, politics bursts our imagination's bubble. Demarcating the borders with Israel will logically imply a change in the political relationship between the two sides sharing the oil. What will come out of then, given that politics cannot be isolated from the economy, and there can be no economy without permanent political protection?
An imagined state of affairs has occupied most of this strange article, is underpinned to some extent, by logic. In the event that this state of affairs were to play out, the difficulty of answering this question about the camps during the oil boom era will force us to awaken from our fantasy. We have to say what we have been saying over the past century; let destiny run its course, which is known only by god.
Oh, how blissful is fantasy while we are immersed in it, and how painful it is when we awaken.

From America to Lebanon, Coexistence and Acceptance of Others is a Common Problem
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Very beautiful was the speech delivered by Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, after leading the country’s Labor Party to a sweeping General Elections victory that will ensure her a second term in office with a comfortable absolute majority. The speech was an embodiment of common sense and ethical politics; which are two qualities one would hope were globally exportable commodities these days.
During the last few years, the 40-year-old Ardern led New Zealand through two difficult experiences: The March 2019 Christchurch terrorist massacre, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks to a combination of firmness and compassion she has succeeded in quelling the outrage, reassured the people, hit firmly against terror and kept security in a nation most of whose population are immigrants. She then repeated her success in dealing with the pandemic with unmatched impressive efficiency in containing the lethal virus.
In her victory speech, Ardern said: “We are living in an increasingly polarized world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see one another’s point of view. I hope that this election, New Zealand has shown that this is not who we are. That as a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all, we are small to lose sight of other people’s perspectives. Elections aren’t always great at bringing people together, but they also don’t need to tear one another apart”.
The essence of this humble message of tolerance does not differ much from the quote of the great Islamic jurist Al-Shafi’i “my opinion is right, but may also be wrong, and the other’s opinion is wrong, but may also be right”. Furthermore, it was put together in simple sentences and noble positive spirit that encourages rapprochement and consensus rather than incitement to conflict, haughtiness, marginalization, and exclusion; even accusing opponents of treason.
However, such a noble spirit seems to be the exception, not the rule in today’s politics.
We do not see it anymore even in democratic countries that boast free elections and claim the respect of general freedoms; beginning with giants like the USA and India, ending with a small failed state like militia-dominated Lebanon, and in between lie regional powers fiddling with the affairs of the Middle East, such as Iran, Turkey, and Israel.
The USA has lived through a few difficult months, during which it almost lost the ability to protect the integrity of institutions, and respect conflict management against the background of Covid-19 economic and political consequences. In the run-up to the November Presidential, Congressional and State elections, it is more than likely that we are going to see more tension and agitation, along with the fast track appointment of the conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court.
In another place, far away from America’s size and calculations, but yet closely affected by its interests, the Lebanese popular uprising has marked its first full year. However, one year on, the uprising looks in disarray and Lebanon is in a worse shape due to a status quo the uprising, knowingly or unknowingly, has chosen to ignore.
The situation in the USA is open to all possibilities, not just as reflected by opinion polls, but also given the unprecedented polarized and worried public mood.
Personally, I remember no US elections as polarized and tense as the one we are in today between the Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates.
In particular, I remember well two ‘quasi ideological’ contests. The first was in 1964 between the Democratic President Lyndon Johnson and his Republican challenger Senator Barry Goldwater; and the second, in 1972 between the Republican President Richard Nixon and his Democratic challenger Senator George McGovern.
Both contests took place against the background of the Vietnam War. And both were easily won (more than % 60 of the votes) by the more ‘moderate’ candidate. In 1964 Johnson was a traditional semi-conservative Democrat confronting the hawkish and war-mongering Republican Goldwater; while in 1972, a rationalist mainstream Republican (in contrast with the extreme conservative Right-winger Ronald Reagan) confronted McGovern, a radically dovish anti-war Democrat.
Thus, in both cases, American voters went for the candidate who was closer to the center ground, shunning both the extreme Right and extreme Left challengers.
The situation looks – so far - different now, as we notice no clear advantage between the Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent former VP Joe Biden. If the 1964 and 1972 scenarios were to apply today, Biden would be riding high in all polls, being the candidate closer to the center ground.
Well, this is not the case, due to two factors:
1- The USA, as a nation, has radically changed under the influences of demography, advanced technology (specifically in industry and the media), and globalization.
2- What were long regarded as institutional givens respected by the political class, is now shaking violently under the pressures of rampant populism represented by the ‘Trump phenomenon’ and Steve Bannon’s concepts. Thus, the America that we knew until the last four years has gone, regardless of the November 3rd results.
Fragile Lebanon, too, despite the huge difference in size and stature compared to America, is now existentially threatened by structural dynamics.
Yesterday, I watched a TV interview with a retired army brigadier and a serious political analyst, in which he discussed the popular uprising. His analysis was truly impressive; in particular, when he pointed to what has badly harmed the uprising.
Among the leading causes, as he said, were the open threats and brute sectarian attacks, and infiltration and sabotage from within by, or through, certain security agencies. He also criticized its errors of judgment and some of the uprising’s actions and slogans, including, Killon Ya’ni Killon (i.e. ‘All of them, means all of them’), which he regarded as both wrong and unhelpful; adding – and rightly so – that the organizers should have differentiated between, the corrupt, the conspirator, and the inefficient.
In short, as the analyst said, the Lebanese uprising intentionally kept away from core political issues, preferring generalization instead, in a vain attempt to avoid targeting a particular political entity. However, the outcome of the past 12 months, has proven that the regionally-influenced conspiracy against Lebanon, its identity and future, was much greater than its people’s local living demands
It is now obvious that one cannot separate corruption from the current security situation; nor is it possible for this security situation to continue away from the ‘regional projects ’being negotiated by the ‘major players’ at the expense of the Lebanese
Eventually, after the completion of these negotiations, the ‘minor players’ would disarm and abide by the deals reached, but in front of a political entity being killed by hunger, and a deserted homeland that is losing its raison d’être by the day...
Thus, in both cases, American voters went for the candidate who was closer to the center ground, shunning both the extreme Right and extreme Left challengers.

Lebanon’s currency recovery since Hariri’s return is a mirage
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/October 30/2020
مكرم رباح: انتعاش سعر العملة اللبنانية منذ تكليف الحريري هو مجرد سراب
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/91917/makram-rabah-lebanons-currency-recovery-since-hariris-return-is-a-mirage-%d9%85%d9%83%d8%b1%d9%85-%d8%b1%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%ad-%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%aa%d8%b9%d8%a7%d8%b4-%d8%b3%d8%b9%d8%b1/
The news that Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri will form the next Lebanese cabinet prompted mixed feelings. For the majority of the Lebanese, including many of the anti-government protesters that celebrated his resignation last year, Hariri’s reappointment will only worsen the country’s crisis.
But for a small minority, including Hariri’s own Sunni supporters, his return is a step toward Lebanon’s economic and financial recovery. They say that his newly formed cabinet will carry out a series of reforms that will allow for an International Monetary Fund bailout.
Hariri’s reappointment did lead to a small recovery in the Lebanese currency. Hours after his appointment, people trying to unload the US dollars they bought over the last year led to a drop in the exchange rate, from around 9000 Lebanese lira to the dollar to around 6700 lira.
However, the Lebanese market’s small recovery is somewhat of a mirage. It does not reflect Lebanon's dire reality, but instead a knee-jerk reaction to an appointment that is itself based on wishful thinking.
The economy is simply about trust, and the ability of the ruling establishment to reassure their citizens as well as the international community that their investment, be it political or financial, is worth it. This bond of trust, which was established by Saad’s late father former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, was shattered after the successive government opted to transform Lebanon’s banking system into a Ponzi scheme. The government squandered the savings of the Lebanese, while Hezbollah’s hegemony over the state led the Arab Gulf states to abandon their historic support for Lebanon’s economy.
Regardless of Saad Hariri’s own assertion that he is the person for the job, neither the Lebanese nor the international community – including his traditional backers in the Gulf – have demonstrated full support for him.
Once all the jubilation around Hariri’s return is over, and his cabinet fails to carry out the reforms it promises, the currency exchange rate will go back to its soaring heights. Hariri should learn a lesson from early in his father’s premiership that his current drive is doomed to fail.
In 1992, the cabinet of former Prime Minister Omar Karami was forced to resign after nationwide strikes protested against the plummeting of the Lebanese pound to 2,100. This paved the way for Rafik al-Hariri - backed by Saudi Arabia - and his larger than life persona to move in and declare himself as savior. Hariri established the country’s post-war economic system, which his successors failed to develop or sustain. Unfortunately, while Saad claims to be playing his father’s role, without the trust of the Lebanese and the international community, he is instead in the position of Karami – beset by crisis and unpopular.
The recent recovery of the Lebanese pound has nothing to do with a regain of trust but quite the opposite. The frightened Lebanese are being further exploited by the same money exchangers who have been controlling the market and monopolizing the exchange of dollars. This black market is controlled by Hezbollah and other local elements, who have the ability to manipulate the market by coercion. They sometimes use the Lebanese state to arrest uncooperating exchangers, or inject fresh dollars into the market, which leads to the Lebanese dumping their own dollars that Hezbollah then conveniently buys back at a much lower price.
A protester holds the Lebanese flag and shouts slogans denouncing the naming of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri as a potential candidate for prime minister, after Hariri's supporters burned a significant
The decision of the Lebanese Central Bank-BDL to implement a quasi-capital control on Lebanese pound withdrawals is an important factor that pushed many of the Lebanese to either stop purchasing dollars for lack of local currency or to sell dollars for necessity. This BDL capital control has come too late as such a measure should have been implemented more than a year ago when it was clear that the Lebanese financial system was taking a nosedive. If implemented then, it would have protected and mitigated the collapse of the Lebanese pound.
Consequently, the money which Hezbollah has invested in greasing the tracks for Hariri’s return to government will soon fizzle out, and the Lebanese will be left with nothing but more economic hardship. The increase in the inflation will be massive. Hariri and the Lebanese have no way forward but to reestablish their connections with the international community and the Arab Gulf states, something which Hariri’s current political horse-trading and his strategy of appeasing Hezbollah won’t achieve.
The return of Saad Hariri and the accompanying magic tricks and misdirection, including the manipulation of the dollar black market, is nothing but fool’s gold. So too is any hope of reform as long as Hezbollah’s hegemony remains over Lebanon and its ill-fated future
.**Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. His forthcoming book Conflict on Mount Lebanon: The Druze, the Maronites and Collective Memory (Edinburgh University Press) covers collective identities and the Lebanese Civil War.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 30-31/2020

France Mourns 3 Killed in Church Attack, Tightens Security
Naharnet/October 30/2020
Mourners lit candles and prayed silently Friday to honor three people killed in a knife attack at a church, as France heightened security at potential targets at home and abroad amid outrage over its defense of the right to publish cartoons mocking the prophet of Islam. The attacker, who recently arrived in Europe from Tunisia, was hospitalized with life-threatening wounds, and investigators in France and his homeland are looking into his motives and connections, though authorities had previously said he acted alone. Tunisian antiterrorism authorities opened an investigation Friday into an online claim of responsibility by a person who said the attack on the Notre Dame Basilica in the Mediterranean city of Nice was staged by a previously unknown Tunisian extremist group. From Pakistan to Russia and Lebanon, Muslims held more protests Friday to show their anger at caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were recently republished in a French newspaper as well as at French President Emmanuel Macron's staunch defense of that decision and strong stance against political Islam. Macron's government stood firm, and called up thousands of reserve soldiers to protect France and reinforce security at French sites abroad. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the country is "at war" with Islamist extremists, and a conservative lawmaker for the Nice region called for a "French-style Guantanamo" to lock up terrorist suspects.
Many French Muslims denounced the killings, while warning against stigmatizing the country's peaceful Muslim majority. While investigators sought to develop a picture of the attacker, identified as Ibrahim Issaoui, they detained a second suspect, a 47-year-old man believed to have been in contact with Issaoui the night before, according to a judicial official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be named.
Issaoui's mother told Tunisian investigators that her son led a "normal life" for his age, drinking alcohol and dressing casually, and started praying two years ago but showed no suspicious activity, said Mohsen Dali, a spokesman at the Tunisian antiterrorism prosecutor's office. He told The Associated Press that Issaoui was not flagged for radicalism and decided on Sept. 14 to emigrate illegally to Italy - after a failed first attempt - and reached Nice the day before the attack. Before Nice, Issaoui, who was born in 1999, arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sept. 20, France's antiterrorism prosecutor said.
Dali said an online post asserted the attack was staged by a group called Al Mehdi of Southern Tunisia, previously unknown to Tunisian authorities. French authorities are not commenting on the claim.
Issaoui's mother Qamra, who lives in the Tunisian province of Sfax, earlier told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV with tears in her eyes that she was surprised to hear her son was in France when he called upon his arrival and had no idea what he was planning."You don't know the French language, you don't know anyone there, you're going to live alone there, why, why did you go there?" she recounted telling him. His brother told Al-Arabiya that Issaoui had said he would sleep in front of the church, and sent a photograph showing him at the basilica in Nice. A neighbor said he knew the assailant when he was a mechanic and held various odd jobs, and had shown no signs of radicalization.
Tunisians fleeing a virus-battered economy make up the largest contingent of migrants landing in Italy this year. Italian media reported that when he arrived, Issaoui was placed with 800 others on a virus quarantine boat.
Italy's interior minister confirmed Friday that the suspect was ordered to leave on Oct. 9 but did not say if any action was taken to make sure he did. Minister Luciana Lamorgese called Thursday's attack in France "an attack on Europe. Let's not forget that Lampedusa, Italy, is the gateway to Europe."As France entered a new virus lockdown Friday, four soldiers with rifles periodically walked past the church in Nice, and mourners placed flowers, messages and candles at the entrance, crossing themselves and praying silently for the three victims. They included 55-year-old church warden Vincent Loques, a father of two. Arahmi Ihou, owner of an internet café next door, mourned him as someone who was "nice to everyone - people (of) all nationalities.""This is my church where I got married and had my children baptized and where I come and pray," said parishioner Eliane Bacchetta. "Yesterday, my daughter was here with her little one, and she was around when it happened - the 4 year-old is traumatized."Another victim was Brazilian-born Simone Barreto Silva, a 44-year-old mother of three who moved to France to join a dance group led by her sister and worked in elder care, according to Brazilian media portal G1. Silva was playful and dreamed of traveling around the world in a food truck, her friend Ivana Gomes Amorim told G1.
"She was also a fighter, and she died like a warrior. Despite being hurt, she ran and was able to sound the alarm, preventing a bigger tragedy," Anderson Argolo, who knew Silva's family, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. The attack was the third in less than two months that French authorities have attributed to Muslim extremists, including the beheading of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a civics lesson after the images were republished by satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The images deeply offended many Muslims, and protesters burned on French flags, stomped on portraits of Macron or called for boycotts of French products at demonstrations Friday in several countries. Government ministers said Friday that 3,500 reserve soldiers will join thousands of others protecting schools and religious sites. Schools remain open during a nationwide lockdown that started Friday to stem the spread of the virus, but religious services are canceled - except this Sunday for All Saint's Day. Nice imam Otmane Aissaoui decried a "terrible act of terror, of savagery, of human insanity that plunges us into sadness, shock and pain" - and once again puts French Muslims in the spotlight. The attacker "hit brothers and sisters who were praying to their lord," he told The Associated Press. "It's as if a mosque was touched. ... I am deeply Christian today."

In ‘war against Islamist ideology’, France braces for more attacks
Agencies/The Arab Weekly/October 30/2020
PARIS--Tensions have not abated in France since the killing of three people at a church in southern France in what President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist attack.”France’s interior minister said on Friday more terrorist attacks on its soil were likely and the country was engaged in “a war against Islamist ideology” following the second deadly knife attack in its cities in two weeks. “We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside,” Damarnin told RTL radio. “We need to understand that there have been and there will be other events such as these terrible attacks.”
A Tunisian security source and a French police source named the suspect as Brahim Aouissaoui. A judicial source said on Friday that a 47-year-old man had been also taken into custody on Thursday evening on suspicion of having been in contact with the perpetrator of the attack.
Thursday’s frenzy
In a near half-hour frenzy in the Notre-Dame basilica in the centre of Nice, the assailant used a knife of 30 centimetres to kill a 60-year-old woman, a 55-year-old church employee and a 44-year-old. Two of the terror victims had their throats slit.The 21-year-old Tunisian illegal migrant shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) when approached by police who shot and seriously wounded him, France’s anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told a press conference. The victims were “people targeted for the sole reason that they were present in this church at that moment,” said Ricard.
The attack, he added, was a reminder that “the deadly ideology of Islamist terrorism is very much alive”.Ricard said the attacker was a Tunisian, born in 1999, who had arrived in Italy on September 20, and then in France on October 9. In a bag he had left at the scene, investigators found two unused knives, and the prosecutor said police who shot him had “without any doubt prevented an even higher toll.”The killings, which occurred ahead of the Catholic holy day of All Saints Day on Sunday, prompted the government to raise the terror alert level to the maximum “emergency” level nationwide. The attack also coincided with Muslims’ celebration of Prophet Mohammed’s birthday.
Tighter security
Macron, who quickly travelled to Nice, announced increased surveillance of churches by France’s Sentinelle military patrols, to be bolstered to 7,000 troops from 3,000. Security at schools would also be boosted, he said. “Quite clearly, it is France that is being attacked,” the president added, vowing the country “will not give up on our values”. In Nice, painful memories remain fresh of terror attack during Bastille Day celebrations on July 14, 2016, when a man rammed his truck into a crowded promenade, killing 86 people. France has been on high alert since the January 2015 massacre at the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo marked the beginning of a wave of Islamic extremist attacks that have killed more than 250 people. Tensions have heightened since last month, when the trial opened for 14 suspected accomplices in that attack. The paper marked the start of the court proceedings by republishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that infuriated Muslims worldwide — the same caricatures that teacher Samuel Paty used as lesson material. Days after the trial opened, an 18-year-old man from Pakistan seriously injured two people with a meat cleaver outside Charlie Hebdo’s former offices in Paris.
Muslim reactions
France has been the target of widespread anger in the Islamic world after Macron vowed to take the fight to Islamism in France and talked of “a crisis within Islam,” after the October 16 beheading of a history teacher by an extremist for having shown pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a free speech lesson. Several groups in Muslim-majority countries have launched campaigns to boycott French products, while protesters burnt the French flag and posters of Macron as demonstrations were held in Syria, Libya, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories. Macron on Thursday urged people of all religions to unite and not “give in to the spirit of division”.After Thursday’s attack, Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad tweeted that “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”. Twitter later deleted his post.
Thursday also saw a Saudi citizen wound a guard in a knife attack at the French consulate in Jeddah while police in the French city of Lyon said they had arrested an Afghan spotted carrying a knife while trying to board a tram. French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian proffered “a message of peace to the Muslim world” Thursday, insisting France was a “country of tolerance.”Abdallah Zekri, director general of the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM) denounced Thursday’s attack and urged French Muslims to cancel festivities to mark the Mawlid, or the Prophet’s birthday, which ends Thursday, “in solidarity with the victims and their loved ones.” The domestic fury over the attacks is however seen by analysts as pressuring France’s estimated five to six million Muslims — the largest community in Europe.

Denmark’s far-right party launches campaign to republish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed
AFP/Friday 30 October 2020
A Danish far-right party on Friday announced a campaign to republish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed that a French teacher showed students before being killed, but local media were hesitant. "The killing of Samuel Paty triggered the campaign, we want to show our support for his family and for freedom of speech," Pernille Vermund, leader of Nye Borgerlige (The New Right), told AFP. The anti-immigration party holds four out of the 179 seats in the Danish parliament. On its website, the party launched a fundraiser to "publish advertisements with the drawings of Charlie Hebdo in Danish newspapers."
In Danish media circles the initiative was greeted with mixed responses. Poul Madsen, editor of tabloid Extrabladet said they would only decide on the advertisements when they saw them and "not before." "We condemn Muslim terrorism and 100 percent support France, the murdered and freedom of speech but always with careful regard to our employees and those especially vulnerable," Madsen posted on Twitter.Vermund said she was "not at all certain it will be possible" to publish the drawings. "But as a politician my obligation is that the development of society goes towards more freedom of speech not less," she  said. Cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed were published by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005, leading to widespread protests and anger among many Muslim communities, to whom depictions of the prophet are forbidden. The French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, like other European newspapers, then republished them in 2006 in defence of freedom of speech. In 2015, the newspaper was the target of a jihadist attack that killed 12 people, among them journalists and cartoonists.

US uses seized Iranian fuel to compensate terror victims
Agencies/The Arab Weekly/October 30/2020
WASHINGTON– The United States revealed on Thursday it had seized Iranian missiles shipped to Yemen and sold 1.1 million barrels of previously seized Iranian oil that was bound for Venezuela, in the Trump administration’s latest move to increase pressure on Tehran less than a week before Nov. 3 election. The unsealing of the forfeiture complaints, by the Justice Department, came at the same time that the Treasury Department and State Department jointly slapped sanctions on a combined 11 different entities and individuals for their involvement in the purchase and sale of Iranian petrochemicals. The latest actions against Iran come after US intelligence officials earlier this month alleged that Iranian hackers sought to threaten some US voters by sending them spoofed emails that were made to appear as though they were from the pro-Trump Proud Boys group. Michael Sherwin, the acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, said on Thursday that the unsealing of the Justice Department’s complaints was “divorced from politics.”“These actions started last summer. And these are fluid, organic situations,” he said.
Weapons and fuel
The Justice Department’s forfeiture civil cases involve alleged schemes by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to secretly ship weapons to Yemen and fuel to Venezuela. Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division John Demers said on Thursday that the US government had sold and delivered 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel that had been destined for Venezuela, which it had seized earlier this year. According to the complaint, the fuel originated with firms tied to the IRGC, and shippers took steps to mask ownership. The two vessels carrying the fuel, the Liberia-flagged Euroforce and Singapore-flagged Maersk Progress, had struggled to discharge and shifted course multiple times over the past several weeks. The US government in August seized the 1.1 million barrels of fuel from four Iranian tankers that were en route to Venezuela. The fuel has since been sold, and officials say the proceeds will go to a special fund for victims of state-sponsored terrorism. The money “will now go to a far better use than either regime, Iran or Venezuela, could have envisioned because it will provide relief for victims of terrorism rather than the perpetrators of such acts,” said Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special representative for Iran and Venezuela. “So that is both poetic and tangible justice,” he added. The US estimates that it will be able to recoup some $40 million from the sale, and a “great portion” of that sum will be directed to the terrorism fund, said Michael Sherwin, acting US attorney for the District of Columbia
“Expanding toolbox”
A separate forfeiture complaint from the Justice Department centers on Iranian guided missile parts that the US Navy seized over the last year from flagless vessels in the Arabian Sea. Officials say the cargo was intended for militant groups in Yemen. The US has consistently accused Iran of illegally smuggling arms to Houthi rebels battling the Yemeni government. In addition to the forfeiture complaints, the administration also announced sanctions against multiple entities tied to the petroleum industry in Iran. Last week, US officials accused Iran of election interference through the distribution of threatening emails to Democratic voters in multiple states. “With these seizure actions, we are expanding our toolbox to combat Iran’s bad behavior,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official. The unsealing of the complaints was “divorced from politics,” Sherwin said, noting that the actions began months ago and took time to wind through the courts.

UK summons Iran envoy as detained aid worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces return to jail
AFP/Friday 30 October 2020
Britain on Friday warned Iran against throwing detained woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe back in jail, after hauling in Tehran's envoy for a dressing-down over her emotive case. The Foreign Office summoned Ambassador Hamid Baeidinejad on Thursday to hear renewed demands from a senior official for an end to the British-Iranian captive's "arbitrary detention". Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC radio Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in a "horrific position", after her husband said Iran had ordered her to report to court for a new trial on Monday and then back to jail.
Britain has made clear to Iran "that is entirely unjustified and totally unacceptable and must not happen", Raab said. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who will turn 42 on Boxing Day, has been on temporary release from Tehran's Evin prison and under house arrest since earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. She has spent more than four years in jail or under house arrest since being detained in the Iranian capital in April 2016 while visiting relatives with her young daughter. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation -- the media organisation's philanthropic arm -- denied charges of sedition but was convicted and jailed for five years. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said this week that the Foreign Office's handling of the case "seems disastrous", and that "the UK is dancing to Iran's tune". Raab told the BBC: "We've made it very clear we want to try to put the relationship between the UK and Iran on a better footing. "If Nazanin is returned to prison, that will of course put our discussions and the basis of those discussions in a totally different place. It is entirely unacceptable."Richard Ratcliffe linked the latest development to the postponement of a hearing that was due to take place on Tuesday in London to address Iran's longstanding demand for the repayment by Britain of hundreds of millions from an old military equipment order. "As Nazanin's husband, I do think that if she's not home for Christmas, there's every chance this could run for years," he said, accusing Iran of "hostage diplomacy".

Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert moved to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison
AFP, Sydney/Friday 30 October 2020
An Australian academic held in Iran for more than two years has been returned to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, friends said Friday, prompting fresh concern about her wellbeing. Kylie Moore-Gilbert – who is serving a 10-year sentence on charges of espionage – had disappeared inside Iran’s prison system a week ago, sparking frantic efforts to learn her whereabouts. “I’m relieved that the Australian government has finally managed to locate Kylie six days after she went missing,” friend and fellow Middle East expert Dara Conduit told AFP. “But make no mistake: this is not a win for Kylie.”Conditions at Evin are believed to be marginally better than Moore-Gilbert’s previous jail at Qarchak – a women’s facility that has been blacklisted under UN human rights sanctions and is notorious for the ill-treatment of political prisoners. During a previous stint at Evin, Moore-Gilbert reported being held in restrictive conditions and needing psychiatric medications for “gravely damaged” mental health. Friends believe she is now being held at the same ward as before, a facility controlled by Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Release a 'priority'
Australia’s foreign ministry has said securing her release is an “absolute priority”, but was forced to admit this week that her whereabouts were unknown. “We do not accept the charges upon which Dr Moore-Gilbert was convicted, and want to see her returned to Australia as soon as possible,” the ministry said after ambassador Lyndall Sachs was able to visit her in Qarchak Prison on October 19. Throughout Moore-Gilbert’s internment, friends and family have become increasingly critical of what they say is Australia’s ineffective diplomatic approach. According to Conduit: “Not one iota of progress has been made in her case, despite the government’s assurances that Kylie’s case is under control.”She called Moore-Gilbert’s transfer back to Evin “an utter indictment of the Australian government’s failure on Kylie’s case”. “After 778 days, she is back at square one in the prison in which she was originally held.”Moore-Gilbert was reportedly arrested at Tehran airport by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in September 2018 after attending a conference in Qoms. It is believed she was reported by a conference delegate or someone interviewed for her research, which focused on the Gulf – in particular Bahrain, a crucible for competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia. She is just one of several Westerners being held in Iran on national security grounds. Negotiations with Tehran are notoriously difficult, with governments and families forced to decide if quiet discussions are less likely to antagonize captors, often against a fraught geopolitical backdrop. Iran’s complex political and judicial system can make things more complex still.

Turkey Evacuates Another Military Post in Northwestern Syria
Ankara, Moscow - Saeed Abdul Razzak, Raed Jaber/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Turkey on Thursday has officially evacuated another military post in northern Hama, a city in west-central Syria. Carried out in accordance with understandings reached with Russia, the move was preceded by a similar withdrawal on Oct. 19. “Turkish forces stationed in the eleventh observation post in Shir Mghar village in Jabal Shashaboo, north-west of Hama province, are getting ready to evacuate it, like in Morek where Turkish forces started evacuating their post 10 days ago,” reliable sources told the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It is worth noting that Turkish forces had been stationed in Shir Mghar on June 14, 2018.Soldiers and military equipment at Shir Mghar were moved to a new military base located on a strategic hill in southern Idlib. Sources cited five convoys packing logistics equipment alongside three military vehicles being transported to Qoqfin. As for the ongoing evacuation at Morek, where the ninth Turkey military outpost was stationed, sources confirmed Turkish forces having demolished the cement barrier they erected at the location. Turkish forces are rearranging deployment across observation posts in regime-held areas in Syria. This came to avoid the threat of being within the shooting range of regime operations and follows tight besiegement imposed by Syrian regime forces. It is also to prevent clashes between Syrian and Turkish forces in case of developments. In other news, Moscow has expedited its efforts to prepare for holding an international conference on refugees in Damascus in November. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Thursday met with a high-level Russian delegation advocating for jointly hosting the international conference on refugees. The proposed dates for the Russia-sponsored conference are Nov. 11-12. The Russian delegation, led by President Vladimir Putin's special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, met with Assad, according to state news agency SANA. The two sides discussed efforts to ensure the conference achieves positive results that contribute to “alleviating the suffering of Syrian refugees and allowing them to return to their homeland and their normal life,” particularly after restoring stability and security in most of Syria, SANA said after the meeting. Despite the official delegation pushing to hold the conference, many Russian circles have expressed pessimism towards it being a successful effort. Many are convinced that the appropriate conditions for the meeting are not yet met.

WHO: Pandemic Reaches ‘Alarming Juncture’ in Eastern Mediterranean
Cairo/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
The World Health Organization said Thursday that the COVID-19 pandemic has reached “an alarming juncture” in eastern Mediterranean countries. Speaking at a virtual news conference in Cairo on Thursday, Rana Hajjeh, WHO director of program management, said eastern Mediterranean countries have recorded more than 3 million confirmed cases and over 75,000 deaths. “Case numbers are expected to grow at an increasing rate during the winter season,” said Hajjeh. The WHO's eastern Mediterranean office covers 21 states and the Palestinian territories, with a total population of over 580 million. Like Europe, these countries are bracing for a tough winter season where health care systems are expected to grapple with the compounded burden of the seasonal flu. “Our first and foremost line of defense in the battle against COVID-19 remains preventive public health and social measures,” said Hajjeh. She deplored the public negligence in wearing masks and social distancing in the region.

Russia Continues to Prepare for Conference on Syrian Refugees
Moscow - Raed Jaber/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Moscow has continued to prepare for the international conference on displaced Syrians despite lack of international support and a belief among Russian political circles that it has slim chances of success. However, the Kremlin will have the final stance on the fate of the conference after the return of a high-ranking Russian delegation from a tour to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Moscow has set a preliminary date for the two-day conference on November 11 in Damascus. The Russian delegation, headed by the Special Envoy of the Russian President for Syrian Affairs, Alexander Lavrentiev, first visited Jordan and held a lengthy round of talks with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, and a virtual meeting with King Abdullah II. During the meeting, Safadi stressed the importance of reaching a solution that is accepted by the Syrian people, guarantee the unity of their country, restore its security and stability, and lead to the departure of all foreign forces from the country, as well as creating circumstances for the voluntary return of refugees. In Lebanon, Lavrentiev conveyed to President Michel Aoun, the greetings of President Vladimir Putin, stressing that Russia stands by Lebanon, especially in the current difficult circumstances, noting the capabilities of the Lebanese to overcome all adversities. The delegation concluded its tour in Damascus, where it met with President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian presidency issued a statement following the meeting, saying the officials discussed the conference hoping to achieve positive results that could “alleviate the suffering of the Syrian refugees abroad and open the way for them to return to Syria and live a normal life.” The Russian initiative faced many difficulties, including choosing a location for the conference, as a number of countries, including Turkey, opposed holding it in Damascus.
During bilateral talks, Ankara expressed dissatisfaction that Moscow did not discuss the idea, given that Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees. Russia also had issues in convincing Western countries to attend and the conference sparked widespread controversy among European circles, according to media outlets. Observers believe that it is difficult to achieve the desired results from the conference without the participation of the United States, especially that it imposed sanctions on the Syrian government under the Caesar Act. A Russian diplomatic source familiar with the ongoing preparations, believes that the conference doesn’t have great chances of success and it is difficult to expect any tangible results. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that Turkey, which hosts over seven million Syrian refugees, was not consulted about the conference, and its absence means that no progress can be expected. He also believes that the conference will be impacted by the lack of the UN representation and the international boycott. The source explained that the refugee problem cannot be tackled without a prominent and essential role for the international community and the United Nations, adding that the return of Syrians after 10 years of war requires extensive work and special arrangements. The source concluded that this conference “will not be supported by anyone,” warning that if it was held despite all the complications, it will face problems similar to the Sochi conference.

PA President Says Ready to Negotiate on Final Status Issues
Ramallah - Kifah Zaboun/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he is ready to negotiate the final status issues within a specified timeframe and based on the principle of the international law and the UN resolutions. In a message sent to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Abbas called for the launch of an international conference for Middle East peace. He indicated that holding such a conference would “pave the way to engage in a serious peace process based on international law, UN resolutions and relevant references.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Palestinian UN Mission in New York were assigned to conduct consultations and coordinate closely with the office of the Secretary-General to achieve this goal. Abbas urged the Sec-Gen to hold urgent consultations in coordination with the Middle East Quartet and the UN Security Council (UNSC) on convening an international conference for Middle East peace with full powers and with the participation of all concerned parties. The Quartet, comprised of the EU, Russia, the US, and the UN was established in 2002 to facilitate the Middle East Peace Process negotiations. The conference “has to lead to an end to the Israeli occupation and help the Palestinian people achieve their freedom and independence within the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the 1967 borders, and resolving all final status issues, particularly the refugees' issue, based on the UNGA Resolution 194,” Abbas was quoted by Wafa news agency. He underscored the importance of launching a peace process to achieve the two-state solution, stressing the need to formulate a multilateral approach to end the conflict through the conference. The majority of the superpowers called for supporting Palestine's proposal presented during Abbas' speech before the UN General Assembly’s session, according to the President. The superpowers called on the Sec-Gen to start preparing at the beginning of next year for an international conference for peace in the Middle East based on international law and UN resolutions in order to resume negotiations based on the adopted international terms of reference.
Abbas sent his message to Guterres, after his initiative to launch an international peace conference was supported at the Security Council’s meeting held Monday. The Security Council's approval presents the support Palestinians need to hold an international conference as an alternative to President Donald Trump's so-called “peace plan.” Abbas tried to persuade multiple countries to adopt his position and call for an international peace conference. The Palestinians want to launch an international conference attended by the Quartet and other countries to launch a multilateral mechanism to sponsor negotiations with the Israelis, based on Security Council Resolution 1515, which states that the Palestinian land was occupied in 1967. In August, the PA informed the Quartet of its intention to return to negotiations with the Arab peace plan as a reference.

In a letter addressed to the Quartet, the PA reiterated “we are ready to have our state with a limited number of weapons and a powerful police force to uphold law and order.”
The PA also indicated that it would accept an international force mandated by the UN to monitor compliance with any eventual peace treaty, hinting at NATO.

Text of Treasury Department press release: Treasury sanctions companies selling, purchasing, and enabling Iranian petrochemical products
Press Releases
USA Treasury Sanctions Companies Selling, Purchasing, and Enabling Iranian Petrochemical Products
October 29, 2020
Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated eight entities for their involvement in the sale and purchase of Iranian petrochemical products brokered by Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Triliance), an entity designated by Treasury in January 2020. These entities, based in Iran, China, and Singapore, engaged in transactions facilitated by Triliance or otherwise assisted Triliance’s efforts to process and move funds generated by the sale of those petrochemical products. Iranian petrochemical sales remain a key revenue source for the Iranian regime, which is used to finance the regime’s destabilizing agenda of support to corrupt regimes and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and, more recently, Venezuela.
“The Iranian regime benefits from a global network of entities facilitating the Iranian petrochemical sector,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “The United States remains committed to targeting any revenue source the Iranian regime uses to fund terrorist groups and oppress the Iranian people.” All eight entities are being designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13846.
BACKGROUND
In January 2020, OFAC sanctioned Triliance and three other petrochemical and petroleum companies that collectively transferred the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of exports from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), which provides financial support or services to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its terrorist proxies.
In September 2020, OFAC took further steps to degrade Triliance’s network, sanctioning six entities for their support to Triliance’s continued involvement in the sale of Iranian petrochemical products, including efforts by Triliance to hide or otherwise obscure its involvement in sales contracts.
Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical industries are major sources of revenue for the Iranian regime and fund its malign activities throughout the Middle East. Triliance has used, and continues to use, various front companies to purchase, or facilitate the purchase and movement of, petrochemical products from Iran to foreign buyers, and some of the entities targeted today help facilitate Iran’s petrochemical and petroleum exports in contravention of U.S. economic sanctions.
THE SALE AND PURCHASE OF IRANIAN PETROCHEMICAL PRODUCTS
Iranian petrochemical firms Morvarid Petrochemical (Morvarid) and Arya Sasol Polymer Company (Arya Sasol) hold a substantial presence in the Iranian petrochemicals market. Morvarid has used the services of Triliance to broker the sale of tens of thousands of metric tons of petrochemicals, valued at tens of millions of dollars, to foreign buyers. Likewise, since 2019, Triliance has brokered sales of petrochemicals valued at several million dollars from Arya Sasol. As a customer of Arya Sasol, Singapore-based Jiaxiang Energy Holding PTE. LTD (Jiaxiang Energy), has purchased the equivalent of millions of dollars in petrochemicals from Arya Sasol, sales which were brokered by Triliance.
Meanwhile, Morvarid, Arya Sasol, Triliance, and Jiaxiang Energy have used multiple Chinese companies to enable and hide the sale and purchase of Iranian petrochemical products. Since 2019, Arya Sasol has used Binrin Limited (Binrin) to collect the proceeds of its foreign petrochemical sales, while Elfo Energy Holding Limited (Elfo Energy), Glory Advanced Limited (Glory Advanced), Jane Shang Co. Limited (Jane Shang), and Sibshur Limited (Sibshur) have been used by Triliance to help settle, process, and transfer millions of dollars in proceeds from petrochemical product sales.
Morvarid, Arya Sasol, Jiaxiang Energy, Elfo Energy, Glory Advanced, Jane Shang, and Sibshur are being designated, pursuant to E.O. 13846, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Triliance. Binrin Limited is being designated, pursuant to E.O. 13846, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Arya Sasol.
Today, OFAC also updated the SDN listing of the Iraq-based Al Bilad Islamic Bank with additional aliases including al Atta Islamic Bank for Investment and Finance. Al Bilad Islamic Bank was designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, a counterterrorism authority, on May 15, 2018 for being owned or controlled by Aras Habib who was involved in the exploitation of Iraq’s banking sector to move funds from Tehran to Hizballah. Al-Bilad Islamic Bank was used by Iran’s Central Bank Governor to covertly funnel millions of dollars on behalf of the IRGC-QF to support Hizballah.
SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS
All property and interests in property of these persons designated today subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. In addition, foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the persons designated today risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the U.S. financial system or block their property and interests in property under U.S. jurisdiction.

Text of Justice Department press release: United States files complaint to forfeit Iranian missiles and sells previously-transferred Iranian petroleum
USA Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 29, 2020
United States Files Complaint to Forfeit Iranian Missiles and Sells Previously-Transferred Iranian Petroleum
The Iranian Missiles Were Confiscated and the Iranian Petroleum Was Transferred From Ships in International Waters
The Justice Department today announced the filing of a complaint to forfeit two shipments of Iranian missiles that the U.S. Navy seized in transit from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to militant groups in Yemen, as well as the sale of approximately 1.1 million barrels of Iranian petroleum that the United States previously obtained from four foreign-flagged oil tankers bound for Venezuela.
These actions represent the government’s largest-ever forfeitures actions for fuel and weapons shipments from Iran.
“The two forfeiture complaints allege sophisticated schemes by the IRGC to secretly ship weapons to Yemen and fuel to Venezuela, countries that pose grave threats to the security and stability of their respective regions,” said John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “Iran continues to be a leading state sponsor of terrorism and a worldwide destabilizing force. It is with great satisfaction that I can announce that our intentions are to take the funds successfully forfeited from the fuel sales and provide them to the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund after the conclusion of the case.”
“These actions demonstrate our commitment to working with all of our law enforcement partners to stem the flow of illicit weapons, oil, and money from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other organizations that would do harm to the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin for the District of Columbia. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia will use all available tools, including our jurisdiction to seize and forfeit assets located abroad, to counter terrorist funding and weapons proliferation.”
“This case exemplifies the remarkable collaboration across government toward our shared goal of protecting the homeland from regimes that threaten our national security. This investigation sends a message that the attempted circumvention of U.S. sanctions and the avoidance of export conventions will not be tolerated,” said Derek Benner, Executive Associate Director for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). “HSI will continue to use the full scope of its authorities and stand besides its partners in the U.S. and around the world keep weapons and assets out of the hands of adversarial regimes.”
“The FBI places a high priority on national security investigations targeting state sponsored foreign terrorist organizations like the IRGC,” said FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Michael Paul. “We recognize and appreciate the hard work and dedication of the agents and prosecutors who secured forfeiture of the petroleum and prevented its proceeds from funding Iran’s campaign of violence and unrest throughout the Middle East.” “The illegal exportation of sensitive technology to prohibited countries poses a significant threat to our national security,” said Dermot F. O'Reilly, Director, Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS). “The complaint announced today is the direct result of joint investigative and analytical efforts with close partners in law enforcement and the Department of Defense. DCIS will continue to identify, disrupt, and bring to justice those who threaten U.S. military technology.”
U.S. Navy Central Command (NAVCENT) seized the weapons from two flagless vessels in the Arabian Sea on Nov. 25, 2019 and Feb. 9, 2020, respectively. The weapons included 171 guided anti-tank missiles, eight surface-to-air missiles, land attack cruise missile components, anti-ship cruise missile components, thermal weapons optics, and other components for missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. On Aug. 20, 2020, the Justice Department filed a complaint seeking to forfeit the seized weapons in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The forfeiture action is part of a larger investigation of an Iranian weapons smuggling network responsible for the arms shipments. The network was involved in the illicit trafficking of advanced conventional weapons systems and components, including systems that contain U.S.-origin components, by sanctioned Iranian entities that directly support military action by the Houthis movement in Yemen and the Iranian regime’s campaign of terrorist activities throughout the region. Two black and tan surface to air missiles that were part of the seizure. One is one display on top of a wooden box and the other is in parts on a different box.
On Feb. 9, 2020, U.S. authorities seized three type “358” surface-to-air missiles (above) and 150 “Dhelaveih” anti-tank guided missiles (below).
“Dhelaveih” anti-tank guided missiles laying on the deck of a ship.
On July 2, 2020, the United States also filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to forfeit all petroleum-product cargo aboard four foreign-flagged oil tankers. The petroleum originated in Iran, and the sale of that petroleum benefitted the IRGC, a sanctioned Iranian entity. In August 2020, the district court issued a warrant for arrest in rem and the United States subsequently transferred approximately 1.1 million barrels of refined petroleum from the four vessels. The United States has now sold and delivered that petroleum.
The two forfeiture complaints allege sophisticated schemes by the IRGC to clandestinely ship weapons and fuel to sanctioned entities that pose grave threats to U.S. national security. Forfeiture complaints are merely allegations. The burden to prove forfeitability in both civil forfeiture proceedings is upon the government. Funds successfully forfeited with a connection to a state sponsor of terrorism may in whole or in part be directed to the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund (http://www.usvsst.com/) after the conclusion of the case.
These seizures and forfeiture actions are a product of the U.S. government’s coordinated efforts to enforce U.S. sanctions against the IRGC and the Iranian regime. HSI’s Washington Field Office and DCIS’s Mid-Atlantic Field Office are leading the investigation of the Iranian weapons smuggling network, with substantial assistance from NAVCENT in conducting the seizures. The weapons case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael P. Grady and Stuart D. Allen are handing the case on behalf of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with support from Paralegal Specialist Elizabeth Swienc and Legal Assistant Jessica McCormick. HSI Denver and FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office are investigating the shipments of Iranian petroleum, again with substantial assistance from NAVCENT during the seizure. The petroleum case is being prosecuted by the National Security Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian P. Hudak, Michael P. Grady, and Stuart D. Allen and National Security Division Trial Attorney David Lim are litigating the case, with support from Paralegal Specialist Elizabeth Swienc and Legal Assistant Jessica McCormick. The Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice provided extensive assistance in the forfeiture and sale of the seized petroleum.

Six things President Trump will be remembered for regardless of US election outcome
Reuters/Friday 30 October 2020
Saying he knew best what ailed America and often governing by executive order, President Donald Trump dismantled or disrupted multilateral pacts, overhauled tax and immigration systems and, with the help of Senate Republicans, reshaped the judiciary. Trump’s actions may be undone in many areas over time, but win or lose, his legacy will endure in the federal courts where his conservative lifetime appointees will influence every aspect of American life for decades. His record will be put to the test on Tuesday, Election Day, when Democrat Joe Biden challenges him for the White House.
The Judiciary
Working in lockstep with the Republican-controlled Senate, Trump may have the longest-lasting impact on the federal courts with judicial appointees who tilt to the right. In less than four years, Trump has appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, a feat last achieved by President Richard Nixon, who appointed four in his first four years. The nation’s highest court now has a solid 6-3 conservative majority. Trump has appointed 53 judges to federal appeals courts, just under a third of the total. By comparison, former President Barack Obama appointed 55 in his two four-year terms. Trump has appointed about a quarter of district court judges, the lowest rung on the federal judicial ladder. The appointments, all for life, have led to the ideological “flip” of three of the country’s 13 federal appeals courts, one level below the Supreme Court. The Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit and the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit all had Democratic-appointed majorities when Trump became president in 2017. Trump’s success on judges would not have been possible without Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who made judicial nominations a priority as majority leader of the Senate, which confirms such appointments. Cases before the courts span from divisive social issues including abortion, gay rights and the death penalty to voting rights, regulatory and business disputes, employment law and environmental concerns.
Climate
Trump entered the White House promising to reverse Obama-era efforts to fight climate change as part of a broader strategy to slash environmental red tape that he viewed as an obstacle to business and to the US fossil fuel industry in particular. He initiated the US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the international accord to fight global warming, ceding Washington’s historic role as a leader in coordinated efforts to counter climate change. The retreat meant the United States abandoned its pledge to slash emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
Trump later rescinded or weakened the two main domestic policy efforts initiated by Obama that would have helped Washington hit its Paris targets: the Clean Power Plan (CPP) to cut emissions from the electricity sector and national vehicle fuel efficiency targets aimed at reducing the pollution and climate impact from cars and trucks. The power and transport sectors make up the bulk of US greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The CPP, which had been tied up in litigation by Republican states since it was launched, was replaced by the weaker Affordable Clean Energy rule which had no hard targets for emissions cuts, while vehicle efficiency targets were softened. The Trump administration also altered the National Environmental Policy Act governing environmental reviews of big infrastructure projects to reduce the weight climate considerations can have in permitting. A new administration could reverse course on these policies, and could also quickly rejoin the Paris accords, as withdrawal will not be complete until shortly after the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Immigration
An overhaul of the US immigration system was a central plank of Trump’s 2016 election campaign. He tightened borders, reduced refugee admissions and access to asylum, and instituted a sweeping ban that mostly targeted travelers from majority-Muslim and African nations. He imposed bureaucratic hurdles to curb legal immigration. Trump used tough diplomacy to pressure Mexico and Central American countries to make it more difficult for migrants to travel north to the United States and, in one widely condemned move, separated parents from their children at the southwest border.
While he eventually reversed this so-called “zero tolerance” policy, some separations continued and some parents of separated children have not been located. Under a later policy, almost all migrants seeking refuge at the US border were denied entry and forced to wait in Mexico, pending the outcome of asylum applications that could take months or years. He diverted billions of dollars in military funds to pay for a wall on the southern border that he had vowed during his campaign to have Mexico pay for. Nearly four years on, the wall remains incomplete.
Trade
Trump promised to bring jobs back to the United States and shrink the trade deficit with other countries, particularly China, by introducing new taxes and other hurdles on imports, including steel and Chinese-made industrial components, and by challenging multilateral alliances and World Trade Organization rules. On his third day in office in 2017, Trump quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country Pacific Rim trade deal negotiated under Obama. His “America First” trade policies sparked a tit-for-tat tariff war with China that left American companies and consumers paying sharply higher duties on about $370 billion in annual Chinese imports, while US farmers and other exporters watched sales to China crumble. Tensions eased with a “Phase 1” trade deal signed in January, but Chinese companies have fallen far short of their commitments to boost US goods purchases under the deal, and no “Phase 2” has materialized.
Trump’s administration re-negotiated the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which he blamed for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, adding digital trade rules and stronger environmental and labor standards.
Tax cuts
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed by Trump in December 2017, was the most significant restructuring of the US tax system since the 1980s. It slashed the rate companies pay in the United States from 35 percent to 21 percent, cut minimum, estate and gift taxes for the very wealthy and eliminated some deductions for homeowners, especially in high-tax Democratic states. It also lowered federal income tax rates for individuals and raised the standard deduction, provisions that expire after 2025. The $1.5 trillion tax cut prompted US corporations to bring home billions of dollars in cash from abroad. Many boosted stock buybacks instead of increasing capital investment or hiring, however, sparking criticism from Trump. Even before the federal government spent trillions on fiscal stimulus to counter the impact of the coronavirus this year, the US deficit was expected to swell to over $1 trillion in 2020, in part because of lower tax revenues after the reform, despite Republican promises that the cuts would “pay for themselves” through higher economic growth. If elected, Biden has pledged to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, and raise taxes on Americans earning over $400,000.
Foreign policy
Trump has upended some basic tenets of America’s post-World War Two foreign policy by questioning the NATO alliance, alienating European allies and indulging autocrats. His disdain for multilateralism prompted a series of withdrawals from accords and bodies where the United States had played a leading role, including the Iran nuclear deal, the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as the Paris climate accord. The relationship with China deteriorated to levels not seen in decades, raising fears of a new Cold War, especially after Washington accused Beijing of hiding the coronavirus threat from the world. The administration has ended the special status of Hong Kong, sanctioned top officials on human rights abuses and seeks to ban Chinese technology companies. Trump delivered on his 2016 campaign promise to relocate the US Embassy in Israel to divided Jerusalem. Late in his term, his administration also helped broker historic deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan to normalize relations, which even Trump’s critics applauded. His hard line on Iran has had less success. The administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has put sanctions on everything from oil revenue to minerals and Iran’s central bank, but has not forced a change of behavior by Tehran or brought it back to negotiations on the nuclear deal that Trump quit in 2018. Instead, tensions continue to escalate. Trump partially delivered on a campaign promise to bring troops home from “endless wars,” particularly in Afghanistan where numbers are dropping to the low thousands. But his relationship with military top brass soured as the generals’ advice ran against his wishes, including his order for an abrupt pullout from Syria. Despite Trump’s historic engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he has made no progress in persuading Kim to give up his nuclear weapons.

Eight killed, hundreds injured as strong earthquake hits Turkey and Greek islands
Reuters/Friday 30 October 2020
Eight people were killed in Turkey and Greece after a strong earthquake struck the Aegean Sea on Friday, bringing buildings crashing down and setting off tidal waves which slammed into coastal areas and islands. People ran onto streets in panic in the Turkish city of Izmir, witnesses said, after the quake struck with a magnitude of up to 7.0. Neighborhoods were deluged with surging seawater which swept debris inland and left fish stranded as it receded. Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) said six people died, one due to drowning, while 321 people were injured. On the Greek island of Samos two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were found dead in an area where a wall had collapsed. There were various reports of collapsed buildings with people stuck in the rubble in some of districts of Izmir, one of Turkey's main tourist regions, and partial damage to property in other provinces, Turkish officials said. Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer said around 20 buildings came down in the province. Izmir's governor said 70 people had been rescued from under the rubble. Ilke Cide, a doctoral student who was in Izmir's Guzelbahce region during the earthquake, said he went inland after waters rose after the earthquake. "I am very used to earthquakes... so I didn't take it very seriously at first but this time it was really scary," he said, adding the earthquake had lasted for at least 25-30 seconds. Crisscrossed by major fault lines, Turkey is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. More than 17,000 people were killed in August 1999 when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck Izmit, a city southeast of Istanbul. In 2011, a quake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500.
Flooding
Ismail Yetiskin, mayor of Izmir's Seferihisar, said sea levels rose as a result of the quake. "There seems to be a small tsunami," he told broadcaster NTV. Footage on social media showed debris including refrigerators, chairs and tables floating through streets on the deluge. TRT Haber showed cars in Izmir's Seferihisar district had been dragged by the water and piled on top of each other. Idil Gungor, who runs a hotel in Izmir's Seferihisar district, told broadcaster NTV that people were cleaning the debris after the floodwaters receded. She said fish had washed up on the garden of the hotel, around 50 meters from the shore. Residents of the Greek island of Samos, which has a population of about 45,000, were urged to stay away from coastal areas, Eftyhmios Lekkas, head of Greece's organization for anti-seismic planning, told Greece's Skai TV. "It was a very big earthquake, it's difficult to have a bigger one," said Lekkas.
High tidal wave warnings were in place in Samos, where eight people were lightly injured, according to a Greek official. "We have never experienced anything like it," said George Dionysiou, the local vice-mayor. "People are panicking." A Greek police spokesman said there was damage to some old buildings on the island. The leaders of Turkey and Greece - caught up in a bitter dispute over exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean - spoke by phone and expressed hopes that both countries would see a speedy recovery from the quake, Turkey's presidency said.
President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was ready to help Greece if necessary, it added. Earlier, their foreign ministers spoke and said they were ready to help one another, Ankara said. Cooperation between the two countries after the devastating 1999 earthquake led to a period of warmer ties between them. AFAD put the magnitude of the earthquake at 6.6, while the US Geological Survey said it was 7.0. It was felt along Turkey's Aegean coast and the northwestern Marmara region, media said.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 30-31/2020

Le terrorisme islamiste entre la morbidité et le macabre
Charles Elias Chartouni/October 30/2020
شارل الياس شرتوني: الإرهاب الإسلامي بين المرض والترويع
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/91909/charles-elias-chartouni-le-terrorisme-islamiste-entre-la-morbidite-et-le-macabre-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b1/

Le caractère profondément morbide du terrrorisme islamiste est étroitement associé à l’instrumentalisation de l’islam au profit des politiques de subversion qui suscitent des adhésions dans le monde musulman, comme si le pathos de l’islam contemporain n’a plus que le morbide et le macabre comme figures rhétoriques . Le comble du ridicule tient à la simulation victimaire alors que la terreur islamiste fait appel, sans vergogne, au meurtre doublé d’argumentaires aussi ridicules que mensongers. Le leitmotiv de l’islamophobie sorti, sans cesse, comme une mantra qu’on évoque pour brouiller des enjeux, interdir tout débat rationnel, et s’en servir comme butoir pour justifier des régimes d’extraterritorialité, et fournir des prétextes à des pratiques terroristes ouvertement assumées.
La série d’attentats exécutés et déjoués depuis 2015, et le répertoire des justifications déroulé par les instances islamiques et les mouvances de l’islam sauvage, ne font que répercuter les registres pathogènes d’une modernité islamique entièrement faillie, les dislocations systémiques des sociétés musulmanes, et l’instrumentalisation d’un corpus islamique réifié, decontextualisé et réduit à n’être que la syntaxe d’une psychose en acte et d’une frénésie nihiliste, à partir de laquelle se construit le rapport à soi et au reste du monde. Il est sûr que ces attaques sont conçues par des États et des mouvances terroristes et exécutées par une panoplie d’acteurs qui se sont réunis, autour d’un récit politico-religieux qui se structure autour de l’idéologie coranique des conquêtes ( الفتوحات ), des élucubrations d’une islamisation de la planète-terre, et des verrouillages d’une psyché qui s’ordonne autour de la haine de l’autre comme revers de la haine de soi. Ce rapport difficile à l’autre tient aux prédicats anthropologiques d’une " grande religion qui se fonde moins sur l’évidence d’une révélation que sur l’impuissance à nouer des liens au dehors. En face de la bienveillance universelle du bouddhisme, le désir chrétien du dialogue, l’intolérance musulmane adopte une forme inconsciente chez ceux qui s’en rendent coupables. S’ils ne cherchent pas toujours, de façon brutale, à amener autrui à partager leur vérité, ils sont incapables de supporter l’existence d’autrui comme autrui. Le seul moyen de se mettre à l’abri du doute et de l’humiliation, consiste dans une néantisation d’autrui, considéré comme témoin d’une autre foi et d’une autre conduite ....,. La fraternité islamique est la converse d’une exclusive contre les infidèles qui ne peut pas s’avouer, puisqu’en se reconnaissant comme telle, elle équivaudrait à les reconnaître eux mêmes comme existants" ( Claude Lévi Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, Plon, 466-467, 1955 ).
Suite à ce bref détour réflexif, il faudrait que le débat public pose les arêtes d’une politique qui s’articule autour des axes suivants:
1/ l’annihilation du terrorisme passe par une déclaration de guerre qui mette fin à ce nihilisme qui se drape de légitimité religieuse et qui en excipe. L’action guerrière, policière et des services de renseignement doit s’employer à détruire les plateformes multiples de cette terreur organisée.
2/ La culture politique française est le fruit d’une tradition politique vieille d’un millénaire de vie nationale, de consensus normatifs, et de compétences civiques qui en font un détour obligé à tous ceux et celles qui veulent faire partie de cette communauté nationale sur laquelle on ne peut pas transiger, à moins de mettre en péril son existence.
3/ La question migratoire est préjudicielle au règlement de ce problème qui n’est plus celui d’une minorité de terroristes mais celui de l’islam qui a du mal, voire, après des décennies de débat sur ses enjeux statutaires à s’arrimer aux conditions de fonctionnement d’une démocratie libérale qui s’articulent autour de, la séparation du religieux et du politique, du pluralisme des valeurs, et des normes de l’État de droit. Par ailleurs, la révision de la politique migratoire devrait reprendre les questions de la diversification du pool migratoire, la mise en application du principe de déchéance de nationalité à l’endroit des terroristes et leurs associés, la remise en question des politiques de recomposition familiale ( polygamie en premier ), la dépolitisation des enjeux cultuel et des régimes alimentaire et d’hygiène, le démantèlement des ghettos islamiques et des enfermements idéologiques qui en découlent à travers le travail d’acculturation formelle, juridique et institutionnelle qu’assurent l’école de la république et les associations civiques homologuées. Il faudrait se rappeler que l’acte atroce de terreur qui a été perpétré à Nice est celui d’un jeune tunisien, sans statut légal,et qui n’a même pas bouclé un mois de séjour en France.
4/ La ferme opposition aux politiques d’intervention des États de tutelle
et de contrôle des diasporas via les mosquées, les centres islamiques,
l’enseignement religieux, les clubs sportifs et les réseaux souterrains de
criminalité et de terrorisme. La vague terroriste en cours est à corréler
avec les différends stratégiques majeurs qui opposent la Turquie
islamiste à la France.
La France ne peut plus s’accommoder des travestissements de la notion d’État de droit, de la prolifération des zones de non droit qu’on a, à juste titre, qualifiées de territoires perdus par la République et gagnés par l’islamisme, comme l’a si bien montré, Bernard Rougier et son équipe de chercheurs issus de la migration ( les territoires conquis de l’islamisme, PUF, 2020 ). Cet enchaînement ininterrompu depuis 2015, est symptomatique de difficultés de positionnement politico-religieux, de compromissions de tous ordres qui remettent en cause la souveraineté nationale, l’effectivité et la viabilité de l’État de droit, les équivoques du religieux en islam, et les ambiguïtés d’une politique, tant française qu’européenne, faite de non dits, d’incompréhension des enjeux, ou tout simplement de complicités idéologiques ou d’intérêt qui opèrent à l’insu des considérations de sécurité nationale ou de bien commun. Cet enjeu, loin d’être exclusivement sécuritaire, renvoie à des choix de société, des valeurs de base, et de récit national et leurs incidences sur la paix civile, la viabilité des institutions républicaines et de démocratie libérale, et l’avenir de la France.

US Elections: The Unasked Questions
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
As millions of Americans prepare to go to the polls next Tuesday, joining the estimated 50 million who have already cast their ballots, they might take a few moments to ask themselves a simple question: What are we voting for?
Going by the narrative peddled by a good chunk of the US media the election is all about one man: President Donald J Trump.
This is all well and good; all elections at such levels include a dose of personal consideration of the candidates. Visiting several cities across the states in 2008 many voters told us that they were casting their ballots for Barack Obama because they thought it was time the US had a black president. The fact that he had no record to present didn’t matter. In 2016 it was Trump’s turn to benefit from his status as the outsider. In both cases, however, Obama and Trump appeared like blank slates on which voters could draw cherished expectations.
This time, however, both candidates, Trump and Joe Biden, are known candidates. Trump has had almost four years in which to make himself known as a political leader. For his part, Biden boasts a CV that covers almost half a century of involvement with politics, albeit mostly on the sidelines as Senator and Vice President. That fact alone should have helped focus attention on the policy records of both men, offering the American voter a richer and deeper choice beyond personal sympathies and antipathies. Sadly, that didn’t happen.
From the start this year’s presidential campaign was transformed into a shouting match that owed nothing to the jeerings of fishwives in the old Covent Garden. The hope some of us had was for the campaign to be propelled into some higher ground through the presidential debates where, we wrongly expected, the two men would expose and compare their respective policies. As you know, that didn’t happen. One debate was reduced to a punch and judy show in bad taste. Another debate was wasted on an exchange of inanities about Covid-19, something about which neither candidate, like the rest of us knows anything useful. While Trump is a known quantity, albeit often unpredicted in his own idiosyncratic way, Biden, who may well win the presidency, cannot be pinned down on key issues, notably on economy and foreign
policy. For the first time in an American presidential election the challenger was unable or unwilling to offer clear alternatives to the incumbent’s signature policies.
Thus one could not rule out the possibility, abhorrent to many anti-Trumpists, that a President Biden might not undo some of Trump’s signature economic and foreign policy choices.
The initial success of Trump’s economic policy was based on three factors: a substantial tax cut, energy independence more level playing field in foreign trade. It is not all clear what Biden would do in those fields. Will he come out with a high tax scenario at a time the economy is grappling with the crippling effect of Covid-19? Will he stop or curtail fracking and lose the status of number one global energy producer that the US has won for the first time since the 1960s? Will he undo the new trade deals reached with Canada, Mexico and the European Union that tipped the balance, albeit gingerly,
in favor of the US? As far as foreign policy is concerned the whole topic was dropped from the debates’ agenda, perhaps because Trump has a rather successful record. Thus, many questions remain. For example
will Biden simply re-join the so-called Paris Accord on climate change even though none of the remaining signatories has complied with it?
Will Biden simply apologize and resume signing cheques for UNESCO and the World Health Organisation (WHO) without insisting on reforms that most member nations regard as urgently
needed? On NATO, will Biden rollback the Trump footage and allow member states to reduce defense expenditure leaving the US to shoulder more of the burden of common security? Will Biden dismantle the build-up of troops and materiel that has bolstered the allies in Central and Eastern Europe?
On strategic arms limitation schemes, will Biden abandon Trump’s demand to expand any agreement to include China or will he insist on a Cold War style cheek with Vladimir Putin? Will Biden give the two fingers to Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi, instead, hug Nicolas Maduro as Obama did with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro?
And what about fixing some red lines to curb China’ hubris translated into aggressive behavior across the globe? Would Biden stop calling for greater accountability by China with regard to the Covid-19 catastrophe. Biden has been running with Covid-19 while Trump in his gauche way has tried to run against it.
On the Middle East, will Biden simply revive the Obama “nuke deal” with the Islamic Republic in Iran, lift sanctions and help the mullahs feed the monsters they have created across the globe in the name of exporting revolution? Will he resume smuggling crisp greenbacks to Tehran to help “the moderate faction” smile more tooth-fully while “the radical faction” massacres Iranian protesters in the

streets?
Will Biden bring back the US Embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and call Senator George Mitchel to resume the one-year mission Obama gave him in 2008 to create a Palestinian state? Will a President Biden pressure the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan to renege on their normalization accord with Israel and re-join the Rejection Front? Will President Biden stab the long-term allies of the US in the back in the hope of turning deadly foes into friends as Obama tried to do with his infamous speech at Cairo University?
What about Trump’s ambitious though problematic plan to wind down US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, thus closing the 30-year long chapter of war with a sustainable peace? Will Biden revert to Obama’s policy of talking peace but waging war or will he, as his ally Bernie Sanders demands, simply cut and run? And has Biden of 2020 abandoned the obsession that the Biden of 2008 had with carving Iraq into three or four mini-states? All this may sound irrelevant to many, including some media colleagues intoxicated by the hatred of Trump. But they would be wise to take a moment and ponder that: maybe whatever Trump did wasn’t all bad. Just, maybe. Think about it!

No Solution But This One for a Conflict of More Than 70 Years
Saleh Al-Qallab/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
Let us presume, and this is no longer an unlikely or bizarre hypothetical, Arab League summit with full attendance ended with recognizing the state of Israel along the pre-June 1967 borders. This state would become a Middle Eastern entity without expansionist claims or aspirations. The question here is: would the West in Europe and the Americas deal with this state as it deals with the Arab countries, that is, as a typical Middle Eastern state without any of the special privileges it has been granted as their pampered child since 1948?
Of course, it should be kept in mind that not a single Arab state, including those described as the "confrontation states," has not become convinced, seventy years and more late, that this state's existence has become a fait accompli. The condition that was imposed on this region through brute force after the Holocaust crimes has become a fact of life. Even after three successive wars and a conflict that was more costly for Arabs than it was for Israel, given that it was and is spending from European and, of course, US pockets.
This is the case. Despite that, even after everything that happened since the Allies conducted the 1945-1946 Nurenberg Trials, which lifted the lid on the Nazis' monstrous crimes against the Jews of Germany and other European countries, some Western circles begun to doubt the facts of the Holocaust. This skepticism is not justified in any sense and is driven by racist motives. However, an American poll revealed how widespread such views, certainly compelled by an abhorrent racism, truly are. According to the poll, a quarter of US adults believe that the Holocaust is a myth and did not happen. In fact, this denial is offensive to Jews and Arabs because it is driven by hostility to "Semites.”
Beyond a doubt, these Americans hostile to "Semites," Arab and Jewish, are akin to those who like those who maligned the former head of the Muslim World League for visiting, with a few colleagues, the Polish concentration camp Auschwitz, where a "Monument" was erected to symbolize the historical crime committed by the Nazis against innocent Jews. It is a crime against humanity. They must all be condemned and must be denounced; indeed, those who objected to him fulfilling humanitarian and Islamic duty have sided with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis who committed those well-documented crimes against innocents. Their only sin was following one of the monotheistic religions ... like Islam and Christianity.
What is meant by this long introduction is that the time has undoubtedly come to move in the direction of "normalizing" relations with Israel, after a conflict has been ongoing uninterruptedly all this time. However, it should not continue to be the Israel that has been teaching its children that our Palestinian brothers and we still hear: "It is your land Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates"... It also cannot be the Israel that continues to occupy the entire West Bank, from the 1948 borders to the Jordan River in the east, occupies the Syrian Golan Heights and continues to build settlements in the areas it occupied during the June War of 1967… Nor can it be the Israel whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, clings to the Deal of the Century, which would maintain Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories in its current form, as well as allowing it to keep the Syrian Golan Heights.
It is clear that the time has indeed come for a "historic compromise" between the Arabs and Israelis. It has come after more than seven decades of conflict, during which three grinding wars were fought. The political struggle did not pause for even for a single moment. Bloody violence erupted out of the confrontations in the Middle East, the European West and the entire world.
Nonetheless, such a bargain requires that concessions be made by both Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinian people should have an independent state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Israeli state should have the boundaries it did in 1948, while the so-called "internal Arabs'" conditions should also be taken into account. They have become a major force and have more than a dozen deputies representing them, and they should enjoy the same rights as those of the Jews (Israelis) who had come to this country from the four corners of the globe... It is well known that the Palestinians and the Arabs have accepted this, and, even before the desired peace agreements are concluded, there is no negotiation on this issue.
Moreover, since the desired peace process is being discussed earnestly, and the Arabs, if not all of them, then most of them, and the Israelis as well of course, are convinced, convincing the West, far and near, ought to be stressed. It must be convinced to make it understood to Israel that the latter, from now on, is to be a Middle Eastern country like that all Arab countries. The framework of "the West's pampered child" must come to an end politically, financially, militarily and with regard to security and all other matters. In truth, some Europeans, as well as some Americans, are awaiting, on pins and needles as they say, for the conclusion of this conflict, which has gone on for more than seventy years. For their part, most of the Israelis are fed up and "bored" with this conflict, and they are now anticipating this historical moment's arrival. All these long years, they have been waiting to become part of this Middle Eastern region and have a share of its current and future blessings.
Obviously, the Jews of the West, those of the US and Europe, have become fed up with the Middle Eastern conflict as well. They, too, the majority of them, are no longer capable of continuing to be Israel's "taxpayers." Indeed, many of them continued to strive, over a long period of time, to get rid of this burden, for the Europeans among them to become genuinely European and that the Americans become exclusively American. Thus, both the former and the latter are most anxious for this desired "historic solution" and for the Israeli state to become a Middle Eastern state. This, in fact, is what the majority of Israelis are awaiting. They are also fed up with this seemingly endless conflict.
The desire for this "normalization", which is being called for reciprocally, has opened many doors that had been closed. It seems that the Israelis were waiting for them to open not to "make money" and merely to establish joint economic projects. Rather, they were waiting to be freed from the burdens of the "Torahtic dreams" and their European and American loyalties, to become a central part of a promising Middle East. This means that if these rosy dreams were to come true, if Israel became a Middle Eastern country along the 1948 borders and the Palestinian people were granted their independent state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as their capital. Then, this Middle East would become a new East. The other requisite, which cannot be done without, is getting rid of the tyrannical and backward Iranian regime, that it joins the civilized path if it is indeed taken and everyone got their due. This Middle East would be a thousand times better off than that European and American West.

The US and Europe Still Don’t See Eye to Eye on Big Tech
Alex Webb/Bloomberg/October 30/2020
It’s tempting to imagine that the US is finally catching up with Europe when it comes to skepticism — and regulation — of Big Tech.
The reality is different. While the Department of Justice is now pursuing a lawsuit against Google parent Alphabet Inc., and a House panel has proposed reforms to curb the power of Silicon Valley’s biggest firms, the European Union’s tackling of Big Tech is at a very different stage in its evolution. But ploughing too far ahead of the US may be risky. It’s useful to consider tech antitrust regulation in two acts. In the first, authorities seek to use tools already at their disposal to correct companies’ worst excesses. Should this prove ineffective, lawmakers can then move to the second act and seek to strengthen these tools by updating antitrust laws. In the EU, the first act has played out over the past decade, as the region’s antitrust police have leaned on existing tools to impose so-called behavioral remedies, which aim to stop discrete anti-competitive practices: fines totaling 8.2 billion euros ($9.7 billion) on Google for monopolistic misbehavior in e-commerce, search and mobile operating systems; and an injunction seeking back taxes from Apple Inc. Further probes into Apple, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. are well underway.
Despite those efforts, Big Tech’s dominance of online advertising and e-commerce continues seemingly unabated. It is perhaps too early to say that behavioral remedies have failed to keep the firms in check. But the European Commission, the bloc’s civil service, is pulling together a set of proposals which, if approved by the European Parliament, would give it expanded regulatory powers to tackle so-called “gate-keeping” platforms and may include the ability to force company breakups. They could arrive by the end of the year and be considered by parliament in 2021. In short, Europe is nearing the end of the first act and is about to embark upon the second.
The US has meanwhile only just lifted the curtain on Act I. The Justice Department’s case against Google and the Federal Trade Commission’s impending decision on whether to bring a lawsuit against Facebook have, admittedly, the potential to be more blockbuster than anything the EU has managed to achieve. The DOJ has already intimated that it is open to considering so-called structural remedies, which can be further-reaching than behavioral ones. An extreme example would be precipitating Google to separate or divest part of its business.
Even so, the Google and Facebook cases (should the latter materialize) are both likely to take years. And proposals from the House subcommittee to update antitrust laws seem a long way from graduating to a bill, let alone an act. While the DOJ case may have bipartisan support, changing antitrust laws does not, unlike in Europe. If the cases prove successful in reining in the tech giants, it’d be easy to argue that the current tools are adequate, and therefore new laws aren’t required. Indeed, the cases might be an effort to preempt the need for new legislation, according to Nicolas Petit, a professor of competition law at the European University Institute and the author of “Big Tech and the Digital Economy: The Moligopoly Scenario.”
As the EU proceeds irrespectively with plans for a new antitrust toolbox, antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and her cohort will have to make difficult choices about whether and how to use those new powers. Don’t get me wrong: Strengthening European regulators may well be desirable and prompt the tech giants to think more carefully about their actions. Although it may appear that Europe and the US are now singing from the same hymn sheet, there is a subtle discord. Any perceived European overreach could set the two regions on a collision course.

American Geostrategy Won’t Change Much
Robert Ford/Asharq Al Awsat/October 30/2020
The two American presidential candidates have very different personalities, but we should remember that the United States as a country has long-term interests. If Biden beats Trump, his administration will use some new tactics for its foreign policy, but American geo-strategic policies won’t change very much.
Most importantly, the Republican and Democratic parties agree that China is now America’s biggest long-term national security challenge. According to a Pew Research organization opinion survey earlier this year, 73 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion about China, the highest number since the beginning of the survey in 2005. Trump is proud of his unilateral trade war against China. Trump insists that a trade settlement requires China buy 140 billion dollars more agricultural, energy and industrial products from America this year to benefit American businesses.
Biden will use a different approach. He won’t work on deals about corn or pork or airplane parts like Trump. Instead, a Biden administration will try to coordinate with other major economies like Japan and Europe to build a global trade coalition against China to compel it to accept laws of the trading system. Biden also sees common interests among democratic states that use technology to promote liberty compared to dictatorships that use technology for surveillance and censorship. At the same time, his administration will likely increase financial support to American companies in the technology and medical sectors, and perhaps others, to move production sources back to the United States. In fact, such financial subsidies also could violate trade system rules and increase trade disputes.
Biden and Trump agree that China is a bigger military challenge. Biden would aim for stronger relations with economic competitor countries like Japan and South Korea in order to confront a shared China adversary. It is interesting to note that despite Trump’s distrust of alliances and foreign commitments, the American foreign and defense ministers visited India last week to strengthen intelligence and defense cooperation against China. The tone of Trump’s statements about American military policy towards China may be tough and unilateral, but Biden and Trump want help from other countries to contain China’s influence. A big question for the Biden administration will be how to cooperate with China on issues like global warming and treating the pandemic- at the same time there is geo-strategic competition between the two states. Trump’s only priority with China now is competition and so he blames China for the pandemic while at the same time he ignores climate change.
Similarly, there won’t be a huge change on American relations with Russia. The Trump administration’s policy appears incoherent. Trump criticizes the Atlantic alliance and leaders from Germany and Canada but he carefully avoids criticizing Russian president Putin. Trump this year pressured for Russia’s return to the summit of major economies (G-7) after the seven countries had ejected Russia for its actions in Crimea in 2014.
But Trump’s statements and actions contradict his administration’s imposing new sanctions on Russian officials and companies, its efforts to impede Russian gas projects in Europe and American arms sales to eastern European countries, including Ukraine. Biden’s policy on Russia will be also tough. When as vice president he visited Moscow in 2011 he said Putin should not be a candidate for president again, a major diplomatic statement in the country’s capital. If Biden wins, his administration will assure European allies of its military commitment to the Atlantic alliance and collective security.
Biden will have to manage the problems with human rights in countries like Hungary and Poland with his goal of uniting Europeans with America against Russia. In any case, relations between Washington and Moscow will become more difficult no matter who wins the American election. Perhaps the only hope is that Moscow and Washington will agree on renewal of the key nuclear arms treaty.
Biden will differ from Trump in another tactical manner. Under his supervision, there will be more coordination between the White House and the Defense and Foreign Ministries. Often actions from Trump’s Oval Office surprise the two ministries. A Biden administration will make policy in an organized manner that will include officials from the two ministries.
In addition, Democratic Party experts defend dialog and diplomacy even with adversaries. For example, we should expect that a Biden administration would speak more with Chinese officials about disputes over Taiwan and the South China Sea, or speak with Russian officials about Ukraine and eastern Europe.
Trump doesn’t trust the Foreign Ministry; he said the Oval Office is the only decider. Biden wants to rebuild the foreign ministry. This difference between the two men about all the institutions of government is the reason that this election is so important.

FBI arrests white supremacy leader in extremism crackdown in Michigan
Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News/October 30/2020
Federal agents on Thursday arrested two men, including the self-proclaimed leader of the Base, a white supremacist group, as part of a continuing crackdown on extremism in Michigan three weeks after the FBI said it thwarted a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
A team of FBI agents arrested Justen Watkins, 25, of Bad Axe, the self-proclaimed leader of the Base, and Alfred Gorman, 35, of Taylor, during a pair of raids Thursday, including at a rural farmhouse in Bad Axe, 100 miles north of Detroit.
According to Michigan Attorney General Dana N, the 3 1/2-acre farm was being converted into a “hate camp” for members of the group to prepare to overthrow the government, according to the criminal case, which also accused Base leaders of encouraging others to harass a Washtenaw County family online.
A law enforcement official walks into a building in rural Bad Axe on Thursday. The 3 1/2-acre farm was allegedly being converted into a “hate camp.”Watkins and Gorman are linked to a December incident in Dexter in which a local family was terrorized by the men, who tried to intimidate a husband and wife and shared their address with members of the Base, Nessel said in a statement. The developments continue a string of arrests, raids and operations targeting far-right, anti-government extremists and white supremacists this month. That includes accused members of the Whitmer kidnapping plot and a shootout in suburban Detroit between FBI agents and a Madison Heights man who died 28 years after his family became embroiled in the infamous Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho.
“I think this shows the range of bad actors that are operating in the United States, which should be a cause of concern,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
Nessel's office charged the men with several felonies, including gang membership, a 20-year felony, using a computer to commit a crime and unlawful posting of a message. The charges were filed in Washtenaw County District Court, the location of the alleged Dexter incident.
Both suspects were lodged in the Washtenaw County Jail pending arraignment.
“Using tactics of intimidation to incite fear and violence constitutes criminal behavior,” Nessel said. “We cannot allow dangerous activities to reach their goal of inflicting violence and harm on the public. I am proud to work alongside law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal levels to safeguard the public’s safety from these serious threats.”
'Doesn't even have a car'
Interviews and court records describe Watkins as a white supremacist who was trying to build a hub on a shoestring budget in an isolated farmhouse decorated with Nazi flags and a photo of Adolf Hitler.
"He's a tool," said farmhouse owner Eric Webb, 47, an optometrist who lives in Metro Detroit and owns the Bad Axe farmhouse. "He doesn't even have a car." The Bad Axe raid and arrests follow a series of operations this year against members of the Base, a small Neo-Nazi network that started to emerge in mid-2018, Lewis said.
Three men linked to the Base were charged with conspiring to kill members of a militant anti-fascist group, police in Georgia announced in mid-January, a day after three other members were arrested on federal charges in Maryland and Delaware. “While law enforcement has really disrupted their ability to commit acts of domestic terror, these arrests still show a significant threat to the homeland,” Lewis said.
The Base, operating as a paramilitary organization, has proclaimed war against minority communities within the United States and abroad, the FBI has said. Unlike other extremist groups, it’s not focused on promulgating propaganda — instead, the group aims to bring together highly skilled members to train them for acts of violence, Nessel said.
“Members are alleged to have engaged in firearms training at camps similar to what we saw in the Whitmer kidnapping case,” Lewis said. Law enforcement officials investigate the scene on Sullivan Road in rural Bad Axe on Thursday. “These guys want societal collapse. They don’t just want to target government folks,” Lewis said. “They want the race war.”
The arrests come three weeks after prosecutors said the FBI thwarted a plot to violently overthrow the government as well as kidnap and harm Whitmer. In all, 14 people have been charged with crimes in state and federal courts, including members and associates of an obscure militia, the Wolverine Watchmen.
The conspiracy was led by anti-government extremists angered by state restrictions on travel and business imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the government. Members of the alleged conspiracy conducted surveillance visits to Whitmer's cottage in northern Michigan, trained with firearms and explosive devices and discussed attacking other politicians, including President Donald Trump and the governors of Virginia and South Carolina.
The arrests Thursday are not part of the Whitmer kidnapping plot.
Law enforcement officials walk down the Sullivan Road driveway during their investigation on Thursday.
Couple threatened
The arrests came 13 months after unexpected visitors arrived at a home in Dexter owned by Dawn and husband Rich Shea, who had moved into the home in August. At the time, the couple was unaware their new home address was being shared on a white supremacy message board. That's because white supremacists wrongly believed the address belonged to Daniel Harper, host of an Antifa podcast "I Don’t Speak German,” according to an article in the Informant newsletter.
Threats followed, including in a letter mailed to the home. In December, the couple found two figures dressed in black outside and taking photographs. The photos were uploaded to a social media platform with the message, "The Base sends greetings to Daniel Harper of the Antifa podcast 'I Don't Speak German.'" Rich Shea was notified of the arrests Thursday.
“Right now, I’m not looking to say too much,” Shea, 45, told The Detroit News. “I want to see how things play out. All of this has been pretty sudden after things had died down for a while.”
Gorman's mother and grandmother were not aware of the charges when contacted by The News on Thursday. They declined to comment.
The Base, according to Nessel's office, is a white supremacy organization that encourages acts of violence against the U.S. and claims to be training for a race war "to establish White ethnonationalist rule in areas of the U.S., including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula." "The group also traffics in Nazi ideology and extreme anti-Semitism, at one point requiring its members to read neo-Nazi books that urge the collapse of Western civilization," Nessel's office said in a statement. The group encourages members to train for "insurgency against the U.S. government" and ran a "hate camp" for members where tactical and firearms training was conducted, Nessel's statement said. Webb, who owns the Bad Axe property, says the isolated farmhouse was built by his great-great grandfather, and his 17-year-old son, Tristan Webb, moved into the property this spring with plans to create a homestead with like-minded people.
"It was going to be a homestead-type thing," Eric Webb said. "It wasn't militant." At some point, Tristan Webb met Watkins online, and the plans changed, Eric Webb said. "He was online, falling for this white nationalism garbage on the internet," he said. "That's how he got hooked up with Justen." Eric Webb described Watkins as a negative person who spent time recruiting people online. In June, organizers held a protest against social injustice despite threats and the presence of three armed counter-protesters, including Tristan Webb and Watkins. The armed display drew the attention of FBI agents and local law enforcement.
Eric Webb visited the home in recent months and saw Nazi flags and the Hitler photo. "They were a bunch of white kids running around with guns," Webb said. "I’m trying to tell my son 'look, I understand you're a man and you want to protect your country, but this is nonsense. You can't go to war with him.'" Tristan Webb came to a realization three weeks ago, his father said, after the FBI disrupted what it called a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor. "I think that woke him up. (Tristan) saw what happened and moved out," Eric Webb said. The Webb family has cooperated with investigators, he said, and were in touch with the FBI on Thursday after the raid."This is a happy ending," Eric Webb said. "My son realized he is going to live his life, not die for some stupid cause."
rsnell@detroitnews.com
Associated Press contributed.

Tougher on Turkey: how US Middle East policy might look under Joe Biden
Joce Karam/The National/October 30/2020
Democratic presidential candidate might also re-enter a wider-ranging Iran nuclear deal and reinforce US engagement on Syria
The Middle East, where the US military is currently deployed in three conflicts, barely got any mention in the two presidential debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but is likely to see a policy pivot if the Democrats win the White House on Tuesday.
Mr Biden, 77, if elected, would bring the longest foreign policy experience for any sitting US president in recent history. Having been a member and then chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than two decades, and later in charge of critical foreign policy portfolios as vice president to Barack Obama, Mr Biden is no stranger to international affairs.
In the Middle East, Mr Biden is known for his controversial proposal as senator to divide Iraq among its three major sects in 2006, and for having close relations with regional leaders. But if elected, experts say, the former vice president would bring changes to three critical foreign policy arenas in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey and Syria.
Return to Iran nuclear deal
Mr Biden has made it clear that he would return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that the Trump administration withdrew from in 2018. But such return is contingent on Iran’s compliance.
“If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations,” Mr Biden wrote in a column published by CNN last month.
Ariane Tabatabai, a Middle East fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, described an Iran policy under Mr Biden as one that turns the page on Mr Trump’s but does not necessarily return to Mr Obama’s.
“The most significant difference [between Mr Trump and Mr Biden] in my view is one where a potential Biden administration would be in line with the Obama administration, and would seek to rebuild international consensus on Iran and work with US allies,” Ms Tabatabai told The National.
But where Mr Biden might differ with the Obama years would be in addressing the regional issues that come with the Iran challenge. “A Biden administration would inherit a much different regional file and frankly, where it begins on that largely depends on what will happen between now and January 20” when the new presidential term begins, she said.
“By the time the JCPOA was reached, it was understood that the regional issues would have to wait for the next administration. Now, as the former vice president has put it, he would be looking to build on the deal by addressing the regional activities too,” said Ms Tabatabai, author of No Conquest, No Defeat, a historical overview of the Islamic Republic's national security strategy.
In his column, Mr Biden said he had “no illusions about the challenges the regime in Iran poses to America's security interests, to our friends and partners and to its own people”. But it is not clear whether any US president can force regional issues to the negotiating table with Iran on its nuclear programme. The country is growing more defiant in its nuclear capabilities and has begun construction at its Natanz nuclear facility, according to satellite images.
Bigger rift with Turkey
Another challenge for a Biden presidency would be dealing with a more hostile and hawkish Turkey. In the past six months alone, President Recep Tayip Erdogan’s government has tested the Russian S-400 missile defence system, increased Turkish involvement in the Libyan and Syrian wars, challenged the EU in the East Mediterranean, and involved Ankara in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
But throughout, Turkey’s president has had a warm personal relation with Mr Trump, who called him “a friend”, “an ally”, and “hell of a leader”. According to the New York Times, Mr Erdogan recruited Trump officials to quash a lawsuit in New York against Turkey’s Halkbank. The state-owned bank is now charged with embezzlement, conspiracy, money laundering, fraud and helping Iran evade sanctions.
This warm relationship is unlikely to carry on into a Biden presidency, said Aaron Stein, director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
“I anticipate some tough words for Turkey from a Biden administration,” Mr Stein told The National. He said a Biden presidency would start enforcing sanctions on Ankara under CAATSA, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, for its acquisition of the S-400 system. These are mandated by Congress but Mr Trump has delayed their application for 16 months.
Mr Stein did not foresee a return to the Obama years under Mr Biden. The former US president visited Istanbul during his first 100 days and maintained a good working relationship with Mr Erdogan on issues related to the Arab uprisings, Iraq, and the situation in Gaza.
But Mr Stein saw a tilt away from Turkey for Mr Biden. “He would continue to tilt towards Greece in crisis spots like the East Med, and show even more scepticism about US involvement in Syria.”
The former vice president has had a good rapport with the Kurdish leadership and minority over the years. Turkish officials were furious at Mr Biden for saying in January that he was “very concerned” about Mr Erdogan’s policy toward the Kurds in Turkey.
Calling Mr Erdogan an “autocrat”, the former vice president encouraged support to the Turkish opposition.
“What I think we should be doing is taking a very different approach to him [Erdogan] now, making it clear that we support opposition leadership … to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, not by a coup, but by the electoral process,” Mr Biden told the New York Times.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden closes his umbrella as he boards his campaign plane at New Castle Airport in New Castle, Delaware, to travel to Florida for drive-in rallies. AP Photo
Re-engagement in Syria
Another area where Mr Biden could challenge Turkey is Syria, said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
“A Biden administration would remain engaged in Syria, sustain and potentially re-empower the counter-ISIS mission, protect our local Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) partners and challenge Turkey more determinedly,” he told The National.
At the same time, there would be a shift from the Obama years where the Syrian conflict sprouted into a humanitarian and counterterrorism disaster. “Ultimately, I think many of the folks around the former vice president realise that under Mr Obama, the crisis in Syria was allowed to get out of hand and the effects of that have been profound – most if not all of them costly to US interests,” Mr Lister said. In a primary debate, Mr Biden did not commit to withdrawal US forces from Syria.
On the question of talking to the Assad regime, after Mr Trump sent his adviser Kash Patel to Syria over the summer to discuss the issue of hostages, Mr Lister expected a diplomatic push from Mr Biden but not engagement with Damascus. “The campaign has made it very clear that re-engagement with the regime is off the table, at least not without a UN-backed political process and a meaningful negotiated outcome,” he said.
Mr Biden's regional policy will also hinge on who he appoints to top cabinet posts. Key contenders for the secretary of state job such as former national security adviser Susan Rice, Senator Chris Murphy, Mr Biden’s aide Tony Blinken or former undersecretary of state Bill Burns, see regional priorities differently.
The former vice president is also expected, if elected, to continue Mr Trump’s Arab-Israeli normalisation push, take a tougher stance on human rights in the region, review arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and push harder stance to end the Yemen war.

China: Existential Threat to America
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/October 30, 2020
We can, of course, cooperate with a China that is a partner or a friend. We can even cooperate with a China that is a competitor; all nations to some degree compete. The question is this: Is China merely just a competitor? Can we, for instance, cooperate with a China that is an opponent or an enemy?
Multilateralism, the core ideology of the UN, is failing. Countries are bypassing the UN because they realize it cannot provide security. Countries are defending themselves.
China's unrestricted warfare -- a term Beijing has been using for at least 21 years -- now includes biological attack.
In late January, US Customs and Border Patrol agents seized 900,000 counterfeit one‑dollar bills from China at the International Port of Entry in Minnesota.... By the way, counterfeiting another country's currency is more than just subversion. That is an act of war.
Xi has always believed that China should rule the world. He has always believed he had to get the United States out of the way, especially because Americans promote ideals that are anathema to totalitarianism.
Beijing leaders know they are running out of time. It is really no mystery why they may feel this way. China's demography is in the initial stages of accelerated decline. We know that China's environment is exhausted. Think scarcity of water, despite all the flooding.
Up to now, the primary basis of legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party has been the continual delivery of prosperity. Without the assurance of prosperity, the only remaining basis of legitimacy is nationalism. Nationalism, as a practical matter, means military misadventure abroad.
A Chinese enterprise is now pouring about three billion dollars into Freeport in the Bahamas, 87 miles east of Palm Beach. I think that we are going to see, unless the US stops it, the People's Liberation Army with a naval base 87 miles east of Palm Beach.
We cannot afford to have these consulates not only engaging in espionage but also trying to bring down the government of the United States.... Everyone wants to maintain friendly relations with every country, but we cannot maintain friendly relations with a country that is trying to subvert us in the way China's been doing.
We cannot afford to lose any time giving grace periods to a regime that is relentlessly attacking us. We have to be concerned that an incoming president will do what every president has tried to do. That is the impossible: to attempt to develop cooperative relations with a militant Chinese state.
It is up to the President of the United States to change companies' incentives. He can do that with the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Trump used that on TikTok. A US federal judge in the District of Columbia overturned, or at least stayed, his order, which means President Trump needs, first of all, to start thinking about not only the '77 act but also the 1917 act, which is the "Trading with the Enemy Act " because judges would have less scope for overturning a designation of that sort.... We need to do much more because China is not going to let us alone in our own hemisphere.
Because China killed 20 Indian soldiers on June 15, India has gone in a good direction, cutting off Huawei, cutting off TikTok, cutting off Chinese companies. We need to do the same thing. Remember, China declared a "people's war" on the United States in May of last year. They told us we're the enemy, so we might as well take them at their word.
In the Atlantic, there are two other places that China would like military bases. One of them is Walvis Bay in Namibia, and the other is Terceira, in the Azores. Terceira is home to the Lajes US Air Force base. The US Air Force has redeployed, basically making it a ghost base. From there, China could control the mouth of the Mediterranean, control the North Atlantic, put Washington, DC and New York at risk. I think it is up to the US Air Force to start putting people in Lajes, so the Chinese realize that they cannot take over the airfield. Its runway is almost 11,000 feet long. It can accommodate any aircraft and can threaten the United States. The Atlantic, which we have seen as a preserve, could very well become a Chinese lake.
In terms of whether there might be another biological attack or not, you have to remember that China has been sending seeds, unsolicited, to Americans, to people in Britain, to people in Taiwan. That could very well be an attempt to cause havoc in the United States.
The point here is, we have to be prepared for anything. We need to make a clear declaration in public that the United States will defend Taiwan because Taiwan is crucial to maintaining our Western defense perimeter.... Taiwan is absolutely critical because it protects us from a surging Chinese air force and Chinese navy, trying to get to Hawaii.
A Chinese enterprise is now pouring about three billion dollars into Freeport in the Bahamas, 87 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. That container port in Freeport never made economic sense, but it certainly does not make economic sense now that we have COVID‑19 and global trade volumes are declining. We might see, unless the US stops it, the People's Liberation Army with a naval base 87 miles east of Palm Beach. Pictured: The Port of Freeport, Bahamas. (Image source: jonworth/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons)
This is a crucial time in the history of our republic.
UN Secretary‑General Antonio Guterres, speaking to the General Assembly on September 22, said the world must do everything to prevent a new Cold War. "We are headed in a very dangerous direction," he said.
We can agree with that dangerous-direction assessment, but we might not agree with his recommendation. Guterres recommended that the world embrace multilateral cooperation.
We can, of course, cooperate with a China that is a partner or a friend. We can even cooperate with a China that is a competitor; all nations to some degree compete. The question is this: Is China just a competitor? Can we, for instance, cooperate with a China that is an opponent or an enemy?
We have to remember that Guterres was speaking at the event marking the 75th anniversary of the formation of the United Nations. It was a rather somber event, because multilateralism, the core ideology of the UN, is failing. Countries are bypassing the UN because they realize it cannot provide security. Countries are defending themselves.
The same thing happened in the 1930s. Countries then bypassed the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations. They realized it was ineffective. Countries could not, in a multilateral setting, cooperate with that era's aggressors: Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany.
So is China merely a competitor, or is it an enemy? To answer that, I would like to look at four things ‑‑ China's spreading of disease, China's meddling in US elections, China's subversion of the United States, and China's militarism.
First, disease. The People's Republic of China has attacked us with a microbe. This attack shows how, and to what lengths, China will go to injure other societies.
Everyone talks about how Chinese generals and admirals are changing the definition of war. Unfortunately, we now have an example of how they are doing so. China's unrestricted warfare -- a term Beijing has been using for at least 21 years -- now includes biological attack.
China's leaders knew for at least five weeks, maybe as much as five months, that the coronavirus was highly contagious, but during this period they propagated the narrative they knew was false.
They were telling the world that this was not readily transmissible from one human to the next. Chinese leader Xi Jinping enlisted the World Health Organization in propagating that narrative, which by the way, senior doctors at WHO knew was false. They knew this virus was highly contagious.
That is why it was right for President Donald Trump to defund and withdraw from WHO.
To make matters worse, Xi Jinping pressured countries not to impose travel restrictions and quarantines on arrivals from China. WHO helped him in this regard.
At the same time as Xi Jinping was leaning on other countries, he was imposing those same travel restrictions and quarantines internally. That means he thought these measures were effective. That means he thought his efforts regarding other countries were going to spread the disease.
Fortunately, President Trump imposed travel restrictions and quarantines on arrivals from China quickly, on January 31. He took a lot of heat, not only from Beijing, but also somebody called Joseph Biden. Biden called the president "xenophobic" for those travel restrictions, which saved tens of thousands of lives.
Now, President Trump is making China pay. We must make China pay. We must make China pay because we need to establish deterrence. As of this morning, more than 200,000 Americans have been killed by this disease and more will be killed later on.
Worldwide, we recently passed the one million death mark. We cannot allow Beijing to think they can maliciously spread another pathogen ever again.
Trump was cruising to reelection before the disease, but this reversal of fortune -- the result of China's actions -- shows the lengths to which they will go.
Beijing is working hard to unseat President Trump. They are doing so not only with their social media feeds but also with their public pronouncements and other efforts. These efforts are much greater in scope than Russia's in 2016 or Russia's this year. It is not "Russia, Russia, Russia." It really is "China, China, China!"
As an initial matter, Chinese state media and Communist Party media have gone on a bender with unprecedented numbers of news stories, pronouncements, articles, all the rest of it. As a part of this campaign, Beijing has unleashed its trolls and its bots against Trump. The New York Times reported in March that Beijing propagated, through social media feeds and text messages, the rumor that President Trump was going to invoke the Stafford Act and lock down the entire United States. Of course, Beijing knew that was false.
Beijing has also been running operations and networks, including the one called Spamouflage Dragon, which relentlessly attacked the president. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have since taken down that network.
China's effort is massive. We have seen periodically American social media companies take down fake Chinese accounts. In June alone, Twitter took down 174,000 fake Chinese accounts. That is just one month, one social media platform, 174,000 accounts.
This blends into the third topic, which is subversion. TikTok, the wildly popular video sharing app, employs the world's most sophisticated commercially available artificial intelligence. It uses that artificial intelligence to pick videos to send to people.
TikTok, because of its artificial intelligence, knows what you like, so it sends you more of it. It knows what you do not like. It does not send you videos you do not want. This gives Beijing an opportunity to change American public opinion.
The Chinese Communist Party probably changed public opinion in connection with this spring's riots. Some observers think TikTok got college-attending white women to believe they were oppressed and therefore motivated them to demonstrate.
As Paul Dabrowa, an Australian national security expert told me, "Because of TikTok's artificial intelligence and because of its sophistication, it can get people to do things which could end up, for instance, triggering wars, economic collapse, insurrection."
This weaponized propaganda can turn people against one another and also ruin the credibility of their governments. Engineers working for Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China, develop the algorithms for TikTok's use. That is the reason China does not want TikTok sold to an American company: it wants to keep control of that algorithm.
The algorithm curates content and can motivate people to do things they otherwise might not do. People believe Beijing "boosted the signal" this June to help a "prank" against President Trump. Teens were using TikTok to spread videos to encourage people to reserve seats at his June rally in Tulsa but not go. That is exactly, in fact, what happened.
While on the subject of TikTok, we should talk about China's Houston consulate. The question is: Why did the State Department, in July, out of all China's five consulates in the US, pick the one in Houston to close?
The State Department said Houston was being used for espionage. I think State picked Houston -- although there are a lot of other consulates involved in espionage, especially the one in New York and the one in San Francisco -- because in Houston it was providing financial and logistical support to violent protesters in the United States.
Radio Free Asia reports that an intelligence unit of the People's Liberation Army actually based themselves in the Houston consulate. Using big data and artificial intelligence, they identified Americans who were likely to participate in Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests.
The PLA unit then created videos and sent them out through TikTok. Those videos instructed people how to riot.
There are also other indications China has been involved in these protests. For instance, on the night of May 31st, one block north of the White House on 16th Street, there were demonstrations. This was the burning, for instance, of St. John's Church.
At that time, there were Chinese demonstrators in the streets. A number of people observed that protesters were not only speaking Mandarin but also seemed to be acting in a coordinated fashion. Some of them were actually overheard talking about how the Chinese government had organized them to do this.
These reports are unconfirmed, but they mirror what people saw of Chinese protesters in Los Angeles, as well as other southern California locations. This month we have also read reports linking Chinese Communist Party front organizations with Black Lives Matters affiliated people.
Further, there have been a number of reports of suspicious activity. In late January, for example, US Customs and Border Patrol agents seized 900,000 counterfeit one‑dollar bills from China at the International Falls Port of Entry in Minnesota.
In China's total surveillance state, no one can counterfeit American currency without Beijing's knowledge, so it appears that this operation had at least the tacit support of the Chinese government. The question is, who counterfeits one‑dollar bills? People certainly do not do that for profit: the cost of counterfeiting those bills and getting them across the Pacific is higher than one dollar.
What probably happened in this case was that China was trying to support violent protesters financially. It is just a guess, but it is the only explanation that makes sense.
By the way, counterfeiting another country's currency is more than just subversion. That is an act of war. If you want another act of war, that is indeed what the PLA did at the Houston consulate.
We just covered subversion. Let us go on to the fourth topic: China's militarism. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ambitions that span the world and are greater than we have seen since Mao Zedong or the dictators of the Axis in the 1930s and 1940s.
Xi has always believed that China should rule the world. He has also always believed he had to get the United States out of the way -- especially because Americans promote ideals that are anathema to totalitarianism.
Xi Jinping has targeted America from the beginning. This is what makes the situation so dangerous. At the same time, Xi's political position seems to be fragile. To bolster his position, Xi has looked to certain flag officers, generals and admirals, to be the core of his political support.
Many now say that, after his purge of "corrupt officers" and after his top-to-bottom reorganization of the military a half‑decade ago, Xi is in control of the military. One can say this, but one can also say Chinese military officers are now so powerful that they can effectively tell him what to do. To put it another way, maybe Xi Jinping realizes that to survive politically he has to let Chinese officers do what they want. We know that the Chinese military, the most cohesive faction in the Communist Party, and other hardliners in Beijing are now setting the tone.
China's military officers are making their "military diplomacy" the diplomacy of the country. We now know that in Beijing, only hostile answers are considered to be politically acceptable.
Xi Jinping is under pressure, things are not going his way. Chinese leaders, civilians and perhaps military officers as well -- know that there is a closing window of opportunity. This became clear in January when the Xinhua News Agency, the official media outlet, ran a story titled: "Xi Stresses Racing Against Time to Reach Chinese Dream."
This is a clear indication that senior Beijing leaders know they are running out of time. It is really no mystery why they may feel this way. China's demography is in the initial stages of accelerated decline. We know that China's environment is exhausted. Think scarcity of water, despite all the flooding. Also, China's people are restive. China is losing support around the world. The Chinese economy is in distress. That was true even before COVID‑19.
The reason this is important is because, up to now, the primary basis of legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party has been the continual delivery of prosperity. Without the assurance of prosperity, the only remaining basis of legitimacy is nationalism. Nationalism, as a practical matter, means military misadventure abroad.
To understand military misadventure abroad, think what is going on in India and what China is doing to threaten Taiwan at this moment -- and not just India and Taiwan. The whole periphery of China has now become a danger zone.
Let's put this hostility in the context of what is occurring inside Beijing. Xi Jinping, since he became general secretary of the Communist Party at the end of 2012, has accumulated almost unprecedented power -- and with it, unprecedented accountability. Unfortunately for him, there is no one else to blame.
At the same time, Xi Jinping has raised the cost of political failure in Communist Party circles. This means Xi knows that should he fail, he could lose everything. He could lose not just power. He could lose assets, his freedom, maybe even his life.
China's ruler right now has a low threshold of risk, meaning there is very little stopping him from engaging in especially dangerous conduct. The concern, of course, is if he thinks he is going to lose everything, he may believe that one way out of his problems is to cause history's next great conflict.
We may think that Xi Jinping should be cautious. Unfortunately, he now has incentives to cause a crisis -- one that for us would be unimaginable.
Question & Answer
Question: On the economic front, here was a deficit primer report from Bloomberg News indicating that Chinese ownership of US Treasuries is down to a little over a trillion dollars. In the Obama years, Chinese ownership was approaching three trillion when total debt was a fraction of what it is today. This suggests the Chinese now have no more power to disrupt the Treasury than a fly on an elephant unless, of course, that fly is carrying the Wuhan flu. Where has China spent or invested that money? There is not another government debt market that could have absorbed two trillion dollars without raising a lot of noise. If it has gone to the Bridges, Roads, and Ports Initiative, isn't that going to end up as one of the worst economic decisions ever?
Chang: First of all, we do not know exactly the full extent of China's Treasury holdings. We have not known that for a very long time. The reason is that China holds a number of its Treasuries through nominees, especially in London.
Those numbers seem roughly correct, especially the one about one trillion dollars now. I am not exactly sure what the number was in the Obama years. Obviously, it was a big number. The reasons there was a fall in their Treasury holdings... two come to mind.
First, since the middle of 2014, China has actually dumped about a trillion dollars or so of Treasuries. They have done that to defend their currency, the renminbi, because the fall in their own currency's value is, perhaps, the most critical problem they face. They have got to defend their currency. They use Treasuries to do that. They use the dollars they receive when they sell Treasuries to buy their own currency, thereby supporting their own currency's value.
The other reason is because Xi Jinping, as we know, has announced his Belt and Road Initiative: a huge infrastructure development plan spanning the world. They spend a lot of money on that.
This spending has resulted in a decrease in their foreign reserves.
These reserves, by the way, although they put out a number every month, that number is probably inflated. China is counting assets that do not meet the definition -- the IMF's definition -- of what may be counted as a reserve asset.
China actually may not have as much money as it says it does. All of this is critically important because of the question of the sustainability of China's initiatives. We may be seeing some very interesting developments. Their Belt and Road investments were may be the worst ever because a number of countries around the world are not paying back China on their loans. These loans were extended under terms that were onerous. Countries nevertheless accepted them.
The point is, these projects are not economically viable. China's ability to achieve its ambitions is very much dependent on the amount of money it has, specifically the amount of Treasuries.
Even China does not have enough to affect markets, at least for more than a month or so. The reason is the world is awash with liquid assets. It still is.
Although China's holdings are big, they probably cannot use them to permanently to undermine the ability of the US Treasury to borrow. The US should not borrow as it is doing, but if it wants to, it does not need China's permission.
Xi Jinping, as mentioned, had two separate initiatives. One was the Belt. The other was the Road, the road being the sea routes between China and Europe, the Belt through central Asia. Basically railroads and highways.
The idea was to be able to get Chinese goods from its east coast over to Europe. These two initiatives have now been amalgamated into the Belt and Road and now span the world. There's a Polar Belt and Road, a Latin American Belt and Road, a Caribbean Belt and Road, and so on. China wants countries to build infrastructure. This is infrastructure generally the private sector would not build. These projects, in general, are not economic. The loans that China extended actually have high interest rates.
The reason leaders in countries accepted these loans was because China just bribed them. Countries took on very high interest loans, and countries cannot now pay them back, including, maybe most importantly, Pakistan, where China's Belt and Road Initiative contemplates something like $60 billion in loans.
Pakistan has now gone to the IMF to get relief on a portion of its indebtedness.
What we are seeing right now is a number of countries, including African countries, that are not able to pay back. People ask, "Why is China's only military base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa?"
One reason is that Djibouti owed China a lot of money and could not pay back. So, China was able to get a concession on a former US military base and now has turned it into China's first offshore base for the People's Liberation Army.
If we want to understand why this is important to us, it is because a Chinese enterprise is now pouring about three billion dollars into Freeport in the Bahamas, 87 miles east of Palm Beach. That container port in Freeport never made economic sense, but it certainly does not make economic sense now that we have COVID‑19 and global trade volumes are declining.
I think that we are going to see, unless the US stops it, the People's Liberation Army with a naval base 87 miles east of Palm Beach.
Question: Dr. Li-Meng Yan has said the COVID-19 virus was released intentionally. Have you please any information on that? [Dr. Yan escaped to the US, but her mother, who had nothing to do with the virus, was arrested in China on October 3. Ed.]
Chang: Dr. Yan released a non‑peer reviewed paper, which looks at this strain and analyzes the splicing of protein into it. When we first heard of the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, my wife said to me, "All diseases in China come from southern China, either Guangdong or Yunan. How come this outbreak is in central China, in Wuhan? There's something suspicious about this."
Of course, China's only P‑4 biosafety lab, that is the highest level of biosafety, is located in Wuhan, about 20 miles away from the seafood market that everyone originally suspected was the origin of the disease. There is certainly a lot of reason to be suspicious.
Also, we know that the State Department sent a team to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, this P‑4 lab, in 2018. They reported a shocking disregard of safety protocols there.
Indeed, China Daily, an official newspaper for China, actually published photos on their website trying to convince the world how safe this lab was, but people who looked at the photos noticed that the seals on refrigerators where vials of coronavirus were being stored were broken.
There is another reason to be concerned. The Chinese themselves have admitted they stored more than 1,500 strains of coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute.
Also, they have, in Nature in November 2015, published a paper about gain-of-function experiments. In other words, artificial manipulation of coronaviruses to make them more deadly.
You put all of these things together and you have to be suspicious. There is also some physical evidence that something went on in that lab in October.
We have been monitoring their cell phone traffic. All of a sudden, there is a big two‑week period where there are no cell phone transmissions from the lab. Something may well have gone on there in October or maybe earlier.
Also, in late January, China sent its top bioweapons expert, General Chen Wei, to the Wuhan Institute. She was possibly sent to clean up the lab.
The question is, why did they send their bioweapons expert to head the lab after the outbreak?
I do not have any proof that Dr. Yan is correct in her assertion, but it does not matter how this started because we know what Xi Jinping did after it crippled his country. He took steps he knew or had to know would lead to the spread of the disease beyond his borders. This is a deliberate spread. That is why this is mass murder. There is no other way to term it. China deliberately spread this disease, causing infections and deaths around the world. One million deaths and counting.
Question: Do you think Xi might try any aggression before November 3rd to derail the presidential election and derail Trump?
Chang: Xi Jinping does not want President Donald J. Trump to be reelected. Whether Xi would do anything or not, I do not know. With a president who is behind in the polls, Xi may decide he doesn't want to disrupt anything. If you listen to what domestic political experts are saying, Xi Jinping looks as if he is going to get the result he wants.
Question: What is going on in the other consulates? What should the US do with China? Decouple? If so, partially? Totally?
Chang: Just a couple of days ago, a former CIA director of Counterintelligence, James Olson, said there are more than a hundred Chinese spies in the City of New York and that many of them report and get directions from the New York consulate.
The remaining ones probably get direction from China's UN mission. Some of them must be directly monitored from China itself. We do not know.
This was brought to light because of the Tibetan who was a NYPD Community Outreach Officer and who is alleged now to be a spy for Beijing. This highlighted China's intelligence operations in Manhattan. Beijing has basically overwhelmed the city with spies.
We can also say the same thing about San Francisco. About two months ago, a Chinese researcher at the University of California Davis failed to disclose her relationship with the People's Liberation Army on her visa application and was questioned by the FBI.
She immediately ran to the San Francisco consulate, where she held up for about two weeks or so while trying to evade capture by the United States. Eventually, China surrendered her.
It is not just a question of the consulates. It is also the embassy itself. China's ambassador, Cui Tiankai, was revealed in FBI transcripts to have been trying to recruit a US scientist in Connecticut as a spy for China. By the way, Ambassador Cui did that in connection with somebody from the New York consulate.
One other thing that happens out of the New York consulate, and happens out of the other consulates, as well. That is, China monitors universities in the United States. A good friend at the City University of New York talks about being visited by Chinese consular officials whenever he gets in their face. He is very much a pro‑democracy guy. He gets sat on by the Chinese consulate.
They are very much involved in trying to manipulate American public opinion and engage in activities that are inconsistent with their status as diplomats.
In terms of what to do about it? I think these consulates should be closed when we find they've been involved in inappropriate activities. I think we should also close much of the embassy because there is so much inappropriate activity.
I would leave the Chinese ambassador in place because we need someone to talk to, but I would expel the current ambassador because of his attempt to recruit a spy. I would tell China, "Look, we would be happy if you want to send a replacement, but in the Chinese embassy itself the only people that will be allowed are the ambassador, his family, a secretary or two, and a bodyguard."
To maintain diplomatic relations with China, the only thing that we need is a phone. Unfortunately, we may get to that point because we cannot afford to have these consulates not only engaging in espionage but also trying to bring down the government of the United States.
I know people are going to say, "We close their consulates. They close our consulates in China." People are going to make the reasonable argument that because China's a closed society, we need our consulates there more than China needs consulates in the United States.
That is a perfectly reasonable argument. It has a lot of validity, but because what China's doing is so dangerous, we have to make a political point to China that we are willing to take a hit to stop their attempts to bring down our government.
No one really wants to do this, everyone wants to maintain friendly relations with every country, but we cannot maintain friendly relations with a country that is trying to subvert us in the way China's been doing.
Question: What changes in China's behavior do you expect, based on your analysis, if there is a new administration?
Chang: Beijing will always test a new American president. And so, for instance, George W. Bush was tested with the Hainan incident on April 1st, 2001, when a Chinese jet clipped the wing of a US Navy EP‑3 reconnaissance plane. The Bush administration was certainly found wanting as it allowed China to strip the plane. The administration even offered China a ransom to get our aviators out of China -- a low point in American history.
We know what they did to Obama. After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that human rights was not important -- in February 2009, the second month of the Obama administration -- the following month, China interfered with the operation of two US Navy vessels, the Impeccable and the Victorious.
The interference with the Impeccable was so serious that it actually constituted an attack on the United States. The US let it slide.
Ultimately the issue of Biden's China policy is not so much a question of what Biden thinks or what his advisors think. It is a question of what Beijing will force America to do. No one know what that will be.
We know one thing. Every new president will give China a grace period. President Trump did that for about 15 months to try to develop cooperative relationships with Beijing, to see if they could work something out. We know that Xi Jinping did not reciprocate Trump's generous overtures. That is why Trump, starting around the spring of 2018, actually started to impose severe costs on China.
The problem right now with a new president -- this is not just Biden himself, what he thinks -- is that we cannot afford to lose any time giving grace periods to a regime that is relentlessly attacking us. We have to be concerned that an incoming president will do what every president has tried to do. That is the impossible: to attempt to develop cooperative relations with a militant Chinese state.
Question: Would you think that one of the key lessons companies have learned from having their supply chain in China, that replacing that manufacturing capacity outside China may potentially reduce employment and create greater security for those very companies?
If the US encouraged companies to replace Chinese labor in Central America, for example, would that take care of enhancing employment there and reduce the pressure of people wanting to enter the US?
Chang: I think the Trump administration clearly wants to decouple. It wants to reduce American vulnerability to China. We have seen that, of course, in the coronavirus epidemic where China actually nationalized an American factory making N95 masks and also turned around ships on the high seas because they were taking to the US personal protective equipment that China felt it needed for itself.
Companies are reluctant to move out of China because they do not set US foreign policy. They do not consider issues of national vulnerability. They go where they think they can make the biggest profit. That is business.
It is up to the President of the United States to change companies' incentives. He can do that with the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
Trump used that on TikTok. A US federal judge in the District of Columbia overturned, or at least stayed, his order, which means President Trump needs, first of all, to start thinking about not only the '77 act but also the 1917 act, which is the "Trading with the Enemy Act," because judges would have less scope for overturning a designation of that sort.
On the question of Central America, that is important. These societies started to experience real problems after China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 because factories not only left the United States but they also left Central America. That shift destabilized those societies.
It's important to bring manufacturing back, not only to the United States but also to our neighbors to the south because with employment, with factories, with prosperity, that would stabilize those societies. That would mean much less pressure on our southern border.
We Americans -- this goes back, president after president after president -- just ignore our own hemisphere when it comes to security. It is important for us to refocus.
Trump has made some initiatives in this regard. They are good ones. Not only with regard to Mexico, the USMCA, the replacement for NAFTA, but also with his Caribbean initiative. We need to do much more because China is not going to let us alone in our own hemisphere.
Question: Do you think we should treat China as we are treating Iran: imposing sanctions and cutting off countries that do business with China? Also, have thoughts on China's attempt at overtaking globalization of communications with 5G?
Chang: On 5G, go back to the beginning of this year. It looked as if Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer, was going to take over the world's 5G networks.
The Trump administration -- and this is a triumph -- Huawei is dependent on American chips, semiconductors. President Trump, through various actions, has restricted and cut off the sale of chips to China and to Huawei.
That means Huawei may not have a future. You have to see how dramatic this is. Huawei is the world's number one supplier of telecom networking equipment. As of the last quarter, it is also the world's number one maker of smartphones.
Now, Huawei's future is in doubt. If Trump's policies in this regard are continued, we are probably not going to see Huawei as a challenger.
There are other developments that I think will undercut Huawei, as it will undercut Ericsson and Nokia, the other two suppliers of 5G equipment. We are going to go away from these one-company telecom networks. We are going to go to a diversified plug-and-play model where many companies supply 5G equipment and software for a network. This is what happened in the computer industry, for instance.
That model has certainly created a lot more innovation and lowered costs. The Lego model, as it is sometimes called, is certainly going to help the US because we have the companies that can actually compete. This model will undercut China's position.
Other countries have made it clear that they are cutting off Huawei, as well. Perhaps the best example is India. Because China killed 20 Indian soldiers on June 15, India has gone in a good direction, cutting off Huawei, cutting off TikTok, cutting off Chinese companies.
I believe we need to do the same thing. You've got to remember, China declared a "people's war" on the United States in May of last year. They told us we're the enemy, so we might as well take them at their word and start defending ourselves with the vigor that is needed.
There is a lot that we can do. I know the president wants to do that. Right now is not a time for him to do that, of course, because of the sensitivity of the election.
If he is not reelected, others, I hope, will work to make sure that the new president does the same things as Trump would do.
We have a lot to learn from India. China is trying to dismember that country. That has been clear from the writings of Chinese security analysts and goes back to the first decade of this century.
China has been increasing its territorial claims on India and would break the country apart because it has claims not only on Ladakh, which is the area of the fighting since the first week in May, but it also wants the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh.
There would not be much left of India if China gets its way. That is why India, right now, has a very resolute stance. We have seen some extremely important developments.
The first week of May, China invaded India, essentially, in Ladakh, in the Himalayas. The Chinese, in a premeditated act, killed 20 Indian soldiers on June 15. India actually responded. They counterattacked. They took back territory that the Chinese grabbed from them.
What we have found is really interesting: That is China's Ground Force, which is the army portion of the People's Liberation Army, has been incapable of fighting Indians in an area where they had initial success.
In addition to India actually engaging in successful military operations against the Chinese, more importantly, India banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps, which was a crippling blow. It also has cut off Chinese contracts in India. It is also, as mentioned, going after Huawei. If India can do it, the question is why can't the United States?
Question: What are the places near the United States besides Freeport is China trying to encircle?
Chang: In the Atlantic, there are two other places that China would like military bases. One of them is Walvis Bay in Namibia, and the other is Terceira, in the Azores. Terceira is home to the Lajes US Air Force base. The US Air Force has redeployed, basically making it, as they say, a ghost base.
China has been eyeing Lajes. Lajes is actually not far from Washington, DC. From there, China could control the mouth of the Mediterranean, control the North Atlantic, put Washington, DC and New York at risk.
I think it's up to the US Air Force to start putting people in Lajes, so the Chinese realize that they cannot take over the airfield. Its runway is almost 11,000 feet long. It can accommodate any aircraft and can threaten the United States. The Atlantic, which we have seen as a preserve, could very well become a Chinese lake.
Question: There is talk that China owns the presidential challenger because of $1.5 billion that China paid his son. Have you thoughts on that?
Chang: Most China analysts believe Beijing favors Trump. I don't buy it -- for two reasons. First, in the Democratic primaries, Chinese propaganda favored Biden over Sanders. Then we have seen Communist Party media, Chinese state, government media, overwhelmingly done its best to tar President Trump.
Chinese media has also said some nice things about Biden recently, so I think that's a real indication of where Beijing is going.
Also, if you look at their troll activities, their bots and things, we do not know the full extent of it, at least people who do not have security clearances. What we have seen, however, is that this underground Chinese social media activity is overwhelmingly directed against President Trump.
This is different than Russia. Russia in 2016 was going after everyone. They were just totally trying to create chaos. China has been much more thoughtful in the way it has been doing it. It is directing its activities against the president. That is an indication of what it wants.
Further, Biden's son, Hunter, has had unusual business dealings with China. Now, there are a lot of Americans who have been entrusted with a billion, $2 billion in Chinese money to invest. If Hunter Biden got a billion and a half, that by itself does not say anything.
What says a lot, however, is that Hunter Biden did not have experience as a fund manager. He still got a billion and a half to manage. This is extremely suspicious, along with all the other facts that are now out in the public. It is evidence of a bargain that certainly looks corrupt.
Question: Should the US ban TikTok if China keeps the algorithm?
Chang: I think we should ban TikTok this very moment. I would not wait. If I were President Trump, I would do everything possible, including the designation under the 1917 Act. I would say that TikTok's operations in the US are over.
Part of the reason the district judge overturned President Trump's 1977 act designation to stop downloads is because it looks like an attempt to permit a US company to buy, to grab TikTok. Now, I think there is nothing wrong with that, but it does not look good.
The president would be on stronger legal grounds if he just said, "Look, we're banning all of TikTok's operations this very moment, and then we will let the chips fall where they may." This would mean that Oracle could still buy it.
The terms of the deal that we know about, Oracle/Walmart, on one hand, and ByteDance, the owner of TikTok on the other, are completely unacceptable. They leave the algorithm in the hands of China.
Oracle with its cloud-providing services could deal with the issue of China using TikTok to surveil Americans. China has been using TikTok to get metadata from Americans, and then use it to power their artificial intelligence back home.
They have also been inserting malicious software on the devices of users that allows China to spy. They have been doing some other stuff like grabbing the data of minors, which is illegal. All of those things could be taken care of if Oracle hosts the data. That is not the problem. What is the problem is the control of the algorithm because that allows China to manipulate US public opinion.
The Radio Free Asia report shows how dangerous this can be. This is an act of war. I do not see why we allow a company that has committed an act of war against the United States to continue to operate here.
Question: If China purposefully released or spread the virus as an act of war, do you think they predicted the economic damage lockdowns would do to the Western economies? And would they continue to propagate data supporting lockdowns to do further damage? Would they release an additional pathogen, or intensify support of domestic groups like Black Lives Matter destabilizing US society?
Chang: I guess all of the above. The thing about what their next step would be, well, we know they are propagating the narrative that China's response to the coronavirus was superior to that of the United States and superior response shows China's form of government is superior to America's.
They had been continually attacking democracy before the coronavirus, but they are especially doing that now. They are going to use their vaccine, which I think will be out first. It might not be reliable, it might even be dangerous, but it will be out first, and they will tout that.
They are going to tout their vaccine in a massive public relations campaign against the United States. In terms of the initial part of the question, whether there might be another biological attack or not, you have to remember that China has been sending seeds, unsolicited, to Americans, to people in Britain, to people in Taiwan. That could very well be an attempt to cause havoc in the United States.
All of these things indicate a real maliciousness. In going back to that earlier question of what we can do about it, we first need to talk about these things in a realistic, blunt way. These go to the core of China's attack on the United States.
Question: Why wouldn't Trump or Pompeo get on the media and announce this, since our media refuses to report on it? Also, didn't we know about this virus in 2016 from the CDC. If not, why was our CDC not prepared?
Chang: The CDC was not prepared. Not only did China lie about the disease, not only did it pressure countries to accept arrivals from China, thereby spreading the pathogen around the world, China did something else. China, on January 20, finally admitted the coronavirus was contagious. On January 21, one day after that, they started a campaign to convince the world that the coronavirus was no big deal. Their line was that the coronavirus would be no more deadly than SARS, which is the 2002, 2003 epidemic that infected, according to the WHO, 8,400 people worldwide, killed 810.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Task Force Coordinator on Coronavirus, at her March 31 press briefing actually said, when she looked at the data from China, she thought this was not going to be a big deal. She first thought this was going to be another SARS‑like event. She also said it was only after she saw the devastation in Italy and Spain did she realize that the Chinese had misled her. Because they misled her, we did not take precautions that we otherwise would have adopted. By the way, Dr. Anthony Fauci has also publicly talked about being deceived by China.
That is probably one of the reasons the response in the US was not as fast as it could have been. Remember, President Trump acted on his gut on January 31, really fast, cutting off arrivals from China. The administration then became lax on this. The Democrats say it is because of the failure of Trump's governance.
A large reason why, if that is true, is because China told the Trump administration, "Don't worry about this."
Question: Would it not be best for Trump to create an alliance to contain China? He has not, it seems, made efforts to create a multiple-country front. Had China not killed the Indian soldiers, India would also not be pushing China back. Do you think there could be an alliance of more countries to counter China?
Chang:: Actually, this is one criticism that a lot of people make about the Trump administration, that it does not work well with allies. I think that is wrong. For instance, here are two examples from recent headlines. One, of course, is the Bahrain, UAE deal with Israel, which is going to be expanded when perhaps Sudan joins, and maybe even Morocco.
You are going to see a Sunni Arab coalition in the Middle East -- a really important development. It is historic. It is important from so many different aspects, and part of it is, it is the real beginning of a US‑led initiative in the region. We have been working with the Gulf States and Israel. They have been happy on their own, to cooperate below the surface. The Trump administration brought this out into the light and is sheparding really important developments.
Of course, the other thing is the Quad: India, Japan, Australia, and the United States. The Quad is actually becoming an effective grouping, and we are going to see other countries join that as well.
US relationships in Asia are actually stronger now than they were under Obama, with the exception of South Korea.
South Korea is not Trump's fault. That is because the South has a communist as a president. Moon Jae‑in is very happy with what China is doing, and very happy with North Korea, and he wants to merge South Korea out of existence.
That is not Trump's fault. As a matter of fact, Trump's South Korea diplomacy has actually been the best under the circumstances.
The administration has worked hard with other countries around the world. The question is, could Trump have done more? One always could do more, but also, let us give the president a lot of credit for some really historic accomplishments that will be remembered, not just during his administration, not just next year, not just next decade. We will be talking about his accomplishments for a very long time.
Question: If after November 3rd, there is no definitive result for a month, would China risk attacking Taiwan with US leadership unknown?
Chang: Yes, I think so. I think that if Trump looked as if he was going to win the election, they might even attack before then. Now, the attack very well may not be a full‑on military attack. They might grab some of the outlying islands, which are just one or two miles away from the Chinese coast.
They could also do something to destabilize Taiwan, which could have consequences that would lead to a full‑on military conflict.
China right now knows the US eventually could win a full‑scale war, so they are reluctant to start one. The point, however, is that China is engaging in conduct that risks accidental military encounters, which could spiral down into history's next great conflict.
We cannot control these things. Especially with Chinese generals and admirals out of control, anything can happen.
So we have to be concerned about China provoking an incident. China has regularly been sending its planes into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone. They have also been initiating especially provocative island-encirclement missions with their nuclear‑capable H‑6 bombers. They have been doing a lot of stuff.
The point here is, we have to be prepared for anything. We need to make a clear declaration in public that the United States will defend Taiwan because Taiwan is crucial to maintaining our western defense perimeter.
Since the end of the 19th century, we Americans have drawn our western defense perimeter off the coast of East Asia. Taiwan is at the center of that crucial line. It is where the East China Sea and South China Sea meet.
Taiwan is absolutely critical because it protects us from a surging Chinese air force and Chinese navy, trying to get to Hawaii. We need to be very clear about this. If we are not clear, China may try to do something that leads to tragedy.
**The above are from a briefing to Gatestone Institute on September 30, 2020.
© 2020 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.

Iran puts air defense assets on display
Behnam Ben Taleblu and Maj. Shane “Axl” Praiswater/Military Times/October 30/2020
The Islamic Republic has concluded a massive air defense drill showcasing select surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), launchers, radars, and command-and-control equipment. While analysts and policymakers have long focused on Tehran’s offensive capabilities, what enables the regime to strike abroad with confidence is the perception of security at home, a perception abetted in part by evolving air and missile defense aptitudes.
The recent drill — codenamed “Defenders of the Velayat’s Skies-99,” with “Velayat” being a reference to Iran’s Supreme Leader and “99” being the abbreviated Iranian calendar year — is part of a regular series of joint drills by the air defense branches of Iran’s dual military: the Artesh and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In recent years, Tehran has prioritized the readiness and integration of its air defense assets through such drills. The lethality of these forces was on full display when Tehran shot down an American drone over international waters in June 2019, and accidentally downed a Ukrainian airliner in January 2020.
Tehran’s decision to continue these large-scale drills while beset by tough sanctions and the coronavirus should come as no surprise. Highly public military exercises are a pillar of Iranian deterrence, as they showcase capabilities that can signal a high-cost to any would be aggressor. While ballistic missiles are often seen as Tehran’s main tool of deterrence, they are more specifically tools of deterrence by punishment, meaning weapons that could be used to retaliate against or punish an attacker. Conversely, it is Iran’s air-defense systems and SAMs that constitute the regime’s tools of deterrence by denial — meaning tools that can (ideally, for Iranian security planners) prevent an adversary’s attack from being successfully carried out in the first place. As such, Iran’s SAMs are the first line of homeland defense.
Iran boasts a wide-array of domestically produced and foreign procured air defense systems, most of which are road-mobile, enabling the regime to oscillate in the protection of high-value targets around the country.
While all eyes are on Tehran to see if it will procure the S-400 SAM from Russia — a platform which Russian officials have stressed a willingness to sell — the recent drills highlighted a domestic Iranian system that should not be overlooked when it comes to “the detection, tracking, and destruction of targets,” according to one IRGC official. The Bavar-373 SAM system is Iran’s answer to the S-300 platform (which it, too, received from Russia). According to Iranian press reports, while the Bavar was allegedly tested in 2018, this is the first (and successful test) of the SAM system as part of a joint Artesh-IRGC air defense drill.
Formally unveiled last year, the Bavar’s level of interoperability, if any, with its Russian progenitor remains unknown. Nonetheless, if it can really engage targets out to 300 kilometers, U.S. aircraft operating out of American bases in Qatar or Kuwait would immediately be within range of Iran’s Sayyad-4 interceptor missiles. It is no wonder then, that Iran’s hardline media hails the Bavar as the “Jewel in [Iran’s] defense ring.”
Unfortunately, for Iran, these air defense systems are hardly a problem for the U.S. Air Force, should the takedown of Iranian systems ever be required. Iranian systems, even on their best day, pale in comparison to the Russian and Chinese assets that Washington prepares to defeat in training and via its acquisition programs. Using a barrage of cruise missiles, a handful of long-range bombers would make short work of Iran’s defenses. Syria learned this lesson in 2018, when two B-1B bombers launched 19 JASSM cruise missiles as part of a 105-weapon strike against Assad’s infrastructure. Taking down Iran’s air defenses, either through a suppression or destruction of enemy air defenses operation, would require more weapons and sorties to accomplish, but would still be possible. The more pressing issue in such a scenario would be defending American bases from Iranian ballistic missile retaliation, although if Iran were able to save or reconstitute even a single Bavar-373 system, any aircraft in the region (to include Western-operated airlines) would be at risk.
This latter point underscores the danger in a conflict with Iran. While technically excluded by the now-lapsed U.N. arms embargo on Iran — but prohibited under an expansive U.S. executive order from this September — the Russian S-400 would allow Iran to target aircraft out to 400 kilometers with the appropriate missiles. Under such a scenario, there is little the United States or its allies could do stop Iran from using them without resorting to a near total air war, similar to when it set up no-fly zones over Iraq.
Stopping such attacks would require constant tracking and targeting of Iranian air defense systems and radars as they reemerge, no small task in such a large country. As it stands, the fact that Iran has produced its own version of the S-300 in the Bavar-373 implies they are capable, perhaps with some Chinese or Russian components, to eventually extend the system’s range or modify other systems. Unmanned aircraft attempting to conduct surveillance on Iran — which are already exposed — will face more obstacles as Iran increases its SAM capabilities.
The more confident Iran becomes in its deterrence-by-denial tools, the more dangerous the regime is likely to become in the region. Moreover, Tehran knows that the better its air defenses get, the more unlikely the United States or its allies will be willing to risk air traffic over the Persian Gulf. S-300 and S-400 systems are essentially a more effective deterrent than impeding maritime traffic near the Strait of Hormuz through mining, as Iran has previously threatened to do.
In order to impede Iranian military modernization and procurement, it will be important to enforce existing sanctions, especially the new broad executive order against Iranian arms transfers. It will also be imperative to continue joint-exercises and the building-up of partner capacity. While the United States and Israel have conducted limited training with the F-35, future exercises could work in long-range bombers executing contested strikes against notional Iranian targets. This would send the message that if so inclined, the United States would easily find, fix, track and destroy Iranian defenses. Bombers can easily be postured in such an exercise to show that they are executing from ranges well outside of the Bavar-373′s capabilities. Increasing training with other partners, such as the UAE, would send an even stronger message, particularly if Israel is involved.
Iran’s massive exercise, even amidst a devastating pandemic and crippling sanctions, proves that the Islamic Republic is serious about developing its deterrence-by-denial capabilities, with or without foreign assistance. The United States and its allies must be ready to prevent Iran from solidifying its ability to further destabilize the region.
*Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to its Iran Program and Center for Military and Political Power (CMPP).
*Maj. Shane “Axl” Praiswater is a visiting military analyst with CMPP at FDD. Views expressed or implied in this commentary are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Air Force, the Defense Department, or any other government agency. FDD is a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Saudi Evolution
Reuel Marc Gerecht/Hoover Institution/October 30/2020
Fouad Ajami had an odd fondness for Saudi Arabia. He was an Americanized, secular Shiite with European sensibilities who, truth be told, had pretty much burned out on the ugliness of the modern Arab world. He once smiled knowingly at the comment of the late, great Middle Eastern historian Charles Issawi: “Thank God it’s Friday: I can stop reading Arabic, Persian, and Turkish and go home and read Jane Austen.”
And yet even after the secular Arab world had devolved into pitiless tyrannies, after his homeland had become a feeding ground for the Lebanese Hizbollah, after 9/11, the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the hideousness of the Islamic State, Ajami retained a curiosity about and affection for Saudi Arabia. Perhaps because the country was a work in progress (Ajami died in 2014) where he wasn’t certain that everything would end in despair. Professors can get extraordinary entrée into foreign lands through their students; students can excite affection for peoples who seem unappealing in the headlines. Great scholars are often granted special dispensation to observe what others are denied. Ajami had a lot of access in a land that, despite its bedouin roots, doesn’t really have an open, gracious reflex towards strangers, let alone Shiite ones.
While reading Crosswinds, the Ways of Saudi Arabia, which he wrote more than a decade ago and then shelved after the turbulence of the Arab Spring, I thought of two books: The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967, published in 1981, which made Ajami famous among scholars, and its more literary sequel, Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation’s Odyssey, published in 1998. Though the books differ greatly (Crosswinds is smaller in scope, more eclectic and personal), they are complementary: under Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince, the Saudi Arabia that Ajami knew well is disappearing and becoming a modernizing Arab dictatorship. Until the coming of the Islamic State, this kind of “progress” was the most brutal part of the modern Arab predicament. With the continuing retrenchment of America, the country’s “splendid isolation” is closing.
Ajami would have been surprised by the energetic rashness of MBS: in just a few years, he’s waged war against his own extended family, rounding them up, stripping them of assets, even torturing them. He’s cast aside the old Saudi tolerance for dissent and sentiment for forgiveness, and even engaged in what had been the hallmarks of the Middle East’s nastiest regimes: kidnapping and assassination. For the very first time in Saudi history, MBS has created the foundations of a police state.
And the crown prince’s war against his own family inevitably involves religion. Part of the Saudi genius in ruling over a vast, conservative land, whose central highlands have produced some of the most extreme versions of Islam, has been to have brothers in the ruling family back different currents: one prince could push for reform while another could protect Najdi traditionalism and support the powers of the religious police to “command the good and forbid the wrong.” Or as Ajami put it: “The royals were skilled traffic cops: they held back the religious enforcers when their excesses grew particularly burdensome or notorious. But they gave into them as well.” The Saudi family was a big tent, where the most devout and debauched could find a home. There was a constant balancing act, where the royal family never placed all of its chips on any bet. To quote Ajami again:
It is a big royal clan, and there are princes for all kinds of seasons and casting calls. No outsider fully knew the play among the brothers [the children of Ibn Saud]. Those who talk don’t know, those who know don’t talk…all hopes are invested in them—the religious reactionaries’ determination to keep the orthodoxy intact and supreme, the liberals’ expectations that the old way could yet crack and be challenged.
The religious establishment often bends with the wind—in truth, it yields to royal prerogative when it has to, when the will of wali al-amr, the custodian of power, is at stake. This introduces a good deal of uncertainty and skepticism….Things forbidden and haram are suddenly given a waiver, the gates that had been bolted are thrown wide open.
MBS has put the wali al-amr on speed.
The old consensual, somewhat hypocritical, dispensation did allow for the rise of Usama bin Ladin and the kind of millenarian jihadism that Saudi Arabia’s founder, Ibn Saud, had used and crushed after it became a threat to his rule. Fifty years after Ibn Saud’s death, an organically conservative monarchy still saw its legitimacy inextricably tied to the faith. From the 1950s forward, Saudi Arabia became a laboratory of “conservative” religious militancy. Ideas from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood—the royal family in its efforts to combat the radical Arabism of Gamal Abdel Nasser and communism had given generous support to the Brotherhood abroad and within Arabia—mixed with the native Wahhabism. These ideas were later fertilized by the shocking success of the revolutionary Iranian and Lebanese Shia (it’s both galling and inspiring for Sunnis to see Shiites succeed). A particularly toxic brew in the peninsula took shape.
The royal family put an end to Saudi Arabia’s militant ecumenicalism in the 2000s, when Al-Qa’ida started to target the state. MBS has gone even further and humbled both the princes and the religious establishment that had been equivocal about or sympathetic to such religious ardor. With MBS, what we might call a laissez-faire approach to conservative Islam has ended. No dissent, familial, political, or religio-political, would henceforth be tolerated.
I am certain that Ajami would be no fan of MBS, despite his sincere effort to advance the country and grant women a bit more maneuvering room. (Ajami’s concern for women, his view that Islamic civilization was crippled, intellectually and spiritually, by its failure to allow women more freedom, runs through much of his work.) Ajami’s skepticism of Arabia’s boldest prince would likely have little to do with the harshness that MBS has shown to the Shia of the Eastern Province. The prince has been more brutal towards them than any ruler since Ibn Saud. Ajami would view that as a black mark, an example of cruel short-sightedness that can turn understandable dissent into insurrection.
But his primary concern about MBS would surely be this: his modernizing hubris and the contempt for his family and the religious establishment could sink the entire Saudi enterprise. And Ajami would view the survival of Saudi Arabia as a consensual monarchy as a good thing, no matter its manifest faults, because the alternatives would likely be worse.
The modern Arab world is strewn with the wreckage, physical and spiritual, of oh-so-modern men who wanted to make their lands competitive with the West and platforms for greater personal ambition. MBS’s attempt to play up nationalism, a fairly fresh idea in a country named for a family, and play down religion would have wryly struck Ajami’s sensibilities—it is a well-trodden path for the region’s many fascists since the 1930s. Always looking beyond the Arabs to more powerful forces within Islam and the West, Ajami would have highlighted the cultural and religious forces that made Atatürk a success and all of his Arab imitators cruel, sometimes bloody, failures. He would likely have recalled the Western apologists who’ve always been there, cheering on the modernizers even as they took Arabs over the cliff.
Today, Ajami would probably caution those who have cheered MBS’s more secular, nationalist approach. He certainly knew that Saudi Arabia whether alone, or in conjunction with the United Arab Emirates, could never serve as a counterweight to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which just has a vastly more solid identity, cultural purpose, and sense of accomplishment to throw around. As troubled as the clerical regime is, it can still send young men to die by the hundreds in Syria, and celebrate their deaths. A holy warrior such as Qasem Suleimani, who’d seen hell in the Iran–Iraq War [1980–1988] and later became a (rather self-conscious) paladin for the Shiite downtrodden, could have hundreds of thousands turn out for his funeral procession. There is simply no Saudi, or Emirati, counterpart to this identity, commitment, and pride.
And yet, even with MBS, Ajami might qualify his judgment. What former secretary of state George Shultz said to Ajami about the Saudi royals could still apply to the crown prince, who backed down when the Iranians directly attacked Saudi oil facilities in Khurais and Abqaiq in 2019 and temporarily knocked offline half of the country’s oil production. “The Saudis are second-guessers” observed Schultz. “It was as sure as anything that the Saudis lamenting American passivity in the face of Iran,” Ajami observes, “would find fault were America to take on the Iranians. There is a congenital Saudi dread of big decisions. In a perfect world, powers beyond Saudi Arabia would not disturb the peace of the realm. The Americans would offer protection, but discreetly; they would not want Saudi Arabia to identify itself, out in the open, with major American initiatives in the Persian Gulf or on Arab–Israeli peace.”
Those days are gone. Seeking America’s retreat, Donald Trump wanted the kingdom to step up. If Joe Biden wins, U.S. retrenchment will likely accelerate as defense budgets are cut and the Democratic Party’s distaste for MBS and his country, which transcends the ghastly murder of Jamal Khashoggi, expresses itself more efficaciously.
The Saudis can no longer hide behind U.S. aircraft carriers and statesmen who knew that with Riyadh doing less is sometimes more. America’s downsizing has encouraged Israeli–Gulf Arab ties to grow. Unintentionally, American hegemony provided a safe space for anti-Zionism and the Palestinian cause. With the clerical regime set to get an injection of tens of billions of dollars through a Biden administration’s efforts to seduce Iran back into nuclear negotiations, with restrictions on arms’ sales to the Islamic Republic sunsetting in the United Nations, MBS will discover, however, that Israel simply can’t offer much protection from hostile Shiites and members of his own family. Ajami would certainly have some sympathy for this Saudi predicament. Much of the imbroglio has nothing to do with the crown prince. Change in the Middle East is so often so unkind.
*Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @ReuelMGerecht.

Europe must impose political consequences for Iran’s terrorism
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/October 30/2020
The Iranian regime’s terrorism threat against Western interests has dramatically increased. Therefore, we should not allow the entire debate on the Iranian menace to be eclipsed by the nuclear issue.
The West’s Iran policies should put a healthy degree of focus on Tehran’s terrorism, which by all accounts is becoming more dangerous and unruly. In the most infamous example of this, in June 2018, Tehran tried to bomb an international gathering organized by the opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) near Paris. The plot was foiled at the last minute, but it was a daring attempt that was different from previous incidents.
Tehran has carried out numerous acts of terrorism on foreign soil in the past. Thirty-seven years ago this month, for example, its agents drove a truck carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives into a US Marine compound in Beirut, killing 241 American service personnel. US courts ruled that the Iranian regime was behind the attack and ordered it to pay compensation.
However, close to nothing was done politically to hold the regime accountable for the 1983 blast. Naturally, regime officials became emboldened and, in July 1987, then-Minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Mohsen Rafiqdoost had the audacity to boast: “Both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marines headquarters were provided by Iran.”
The 2018 terrorist plot had some major differences compared to previous plots. First of all, the domestic context was different and the regime carried out such an operation out of extreme fear and vulnerability in the face of growing protests. Secondly, the event that was targeted had in attendance tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of high-profile Western lawmakers and former officials from the US, Europe and Arab countries. And, thirdly, an official diplomat, not a low-ranking intelligence operative or terrorist agent, was implicated in the plot.
The last point is perhaps the most important politically. That diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, will next month go on trial in Belgium. This will be the first time in modern history that an active diplomat has been tried for terrorism in Europe. Assadi is accused of personally delivering explosives and a detonator to two agents in a bid to blow up the NCRI rally. During his interrogation, much like Rafiqdoost, Assadi reportedly had the audacity to threaten Europe with more terrorist acts if the courts convict him.
What does all this mean? When faced with appeasement and inaction by the West, the Iranian regime becomes emboldened. Every time the regime has conducted terrorist acts, it seems to have done so with impunity. The West has done little or nothing to counteract it.
So, what should be done in regard to the 2018 bomb plot in France? First, it is important to understand that the regime is terrified of popular uprisings, such as the November 2019 protests that saw an enormous groundswell of public anger directed toward its corruption and destructive policies. In a harrowing response, Tehran killed 1,500 protesters in little more than a week and arrested and tortured thousands more. This fear of being overthrown is most likely what drove it to attempt to bomb the Paris demonstration.
In addition, while trying to respond to a more aggressive and fearful Iranian regime, Europe now stands at a crossroads. It can either continue with the same unproductive policies or it can avoid innocent deaths on its soil by adopting a firm policy vis-a-vis Tehran’s terrorism.
When faced with appeasement and inaction by the West, the Iranian regime becomes emboldened.
The courts could prosecute not just an Iranian agent, Assadi, but the state itself, as the NCRI’s lawyers and high-profile civil complainants stressed during a virtual conference on the matter last week. There is reported to be evidence that the order to carry out the bombing was given by the highest authorities through the Supreme National Security Council. However, a judicial prosecution is simply not enough, as the Beirut bombing showed us. The more impactful response would be in a change in political stance.
Is Europe prepared to adopt meaningful political measures that send a rational message to Tehran that acts of terrorism on its soil will not be tolerated? If so, then it should perhaps heed the advice of NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi, which was outlined during last week’s conference. She called for the European authorities to blacklist the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC, both of which are responsible for numerous acts of terror in Europe; prosecute and expel agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Quds Force; and shut down the regime’s embassies and so-called religious outfits, which serve as logistical hubs for Tehran’s terrorism.
A lot hangs in the balance. If Europe were to shirk its responsibility, it would do a great disservice to its citizens and to the stability and security of the region and the broader international community.
**Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Nice: Not in Our Name
Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/October 30/2020
There are no words too harsh to condemn the horrific attack in the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice, and the stabbing at the French consulate in Jeddah. Yes, mockery of the Prophet Muhammad, indeed of any religious symbol, is unacceptable. But so is violence against innocent people — and it certainly must not be carried out in our name as Muslims.
There is blood on the hands of those who claim to be defending Islam, but who in reality seek only political gain. Thanks to the malevolent tentacles of Turkey and Qatar, the latest campaign against France has gone beyond politics, and is now costing lives.
The misuse of religion to score points has always been a favored tactic of malign regimes. Iran is a master player; its so-called Quds Force should be renamed the “Anywhere BUT Al-Quds” force, since Iran seems more keen on occupying Arab capitals — Sanaa, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus — than liberating Jerusalem. When Saddam Hussein was cornered, the Iraqi dictator also pretended to turn to religion and added the words “Allahu Akbar” to the national flag (which was ironic, since the Ba’ath regime was known for its atheism).
Thus, spearheading the campaign to boycott France fits Recep Tayyip Erdogan like a glove. The Turkish president is on the rack as a result of his aggressive meddling in Libya, Armenia, Greece and Cyprus, leading to issues with Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the EU and the US. The grassroots campaign in several countries to boycott Turkish goods is therefore understandable, while the campaign to boycott French products is not. Neither President Emmanuel Macron nor anyone in his government is responsible for the ill-conceived caricatures that have caused so much offense, but Erdogan and his government are directly responsible for bloodshed in the countries where Turkey has interfered.
Turkey under Erdogan has gone from a policy of having zero problems with its neighbors to having nearly zero friends
As an analysis in Arab News this week made clear, Turkey under Erdogan has gone from a policy of having zero problems with its neighbors to having nearly zero friends. Zero, that is, apart from Qatar — which financially supports Turkey, funds terrorism, and offers prime-time air space on Al Jazeera Arabic for the Doha-based extremist cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to spew his murderous venom against Christians and Jews. “Oh God, take the treacherous Jewish aggressors … Oh God, count their numbers, slay them one by one and spare none,” he has said.
What is particularly idiotic about the current anti-French rhetoric propagated by Turkey and Qatar is that not only does it make every French citizen a target, it also puts French Muslims — and their businesses — at risk of personal and financial harm.
Those who use religion for political gain, who whip up hatred and incite revenge, would do well to learn a little about the faith they claim to profess. The Muslim Hadith on Mercy recounts that when the Prophet Muhammad tried to bring Islam to the people of Taif, they responded by hurling stones at him until he bled. The angel Gabriel and the “angel of the mountains” offered to make the mountains fall and crush those who had hurt him, but the prophet declined and chose instead to forgive.
Such forbearance is at the heart of Christianity, too. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly rejected the notion of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” He told his followers: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
We live in grave and perilous times. If ever these lessons in tolerance were needed, it is now.
• Faisal J. Abbas is the editor in chief of Arab News
Twitter: @FaisalJAbbas

Israel offers to send IDF search and rescue team to Turkey after deadly quake
TOI staff and Agencies/Arab News/October 30/2020
Israel offered to immediately send an IDF search and rescue team to Turkey on Friday, after a deadly earthquake toppled buildings in the city of Izmir, killing at least 12 people. Two teens also died in a wall collapse on the Greek Island of Samos. A strong earthquake struck Friday between the Turkish coast and Samos, collapsing buildings in Turkey’s western Izmir province. Dozens more were injured.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered the Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command to prepare to send a team and assistance to Turkey, the defense ministry said. IDF representatives spoke with Turkey’s military attache in Israel, telling him that Israel was ready to immediately dispatch a search and rescue team to the area, and also set up a field hospital to treat the wounded. It was not immediately clear if Turkey had accepted.
Israel’s Magen David Adom also reached out to the Red Crescent in Turkey and the Red Cross in Greece offering assistance, the group said.
Israel has sent rescue missions to Turkey in the past, with teams assisting after the devastating 1999 earthquake in the country.
Israel’s once-close relations with Turkey have deteriorated in recent years amid tensions with Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Israeli disaster relief delegations provided rescue and medical services after a dam collapse in Brazil last year, an earthquake in Mexico in 2017, an earthquake Nepal in 2015, a typhoon in the Philippines in 2013 and an earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Recently, the United Nations’ World Health Organization identified Israel as having the world’s top emergency medical team. Illustrative: IDF soldiers search for survivors in a building that collapsed during an earthquake that struck Mexico on September 24, 2017. (Israel Defense Forces)
At least 12 people were killed in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, including one who drowned, and 419 were injured, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD. On Samos, where a tsunami warning was issued, two teenagers died after being struck by a wall that collapsed. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted condolences, saying “Words are too poor to describe what one feels before the loss of children.” Another eight people were reportedly treated at the local hospital for light injuries. Izmir Gov. Yavuz Selim Kosger said at least 70 people were rescued from wrecked buildings, with four destroyed and more than 10 collapsed. Others suffered less severe damage, he said, but did not give an exact number.
Search and rescue efforts were underway in at least 17 buildings, AFAD said. Turkish media showed rescuers pulling people from the rubble. Smoke rose from several spots.
The earthquake, which the Kandilli institute said had a magnitude of 6.9, struck at 2:51 p.m. local time (1151 GMT) in Turkey and was centered was centered in the Aegean northeast of Samos at a depth of 16.5 kilometers (10.3 miles).
It was felt across the eastern Greek islands and as far as the Greek capital, Athens, and in Bulgaria. In Turkey, it was also felt across the regions of Aegean and Marmara, including Istanbul. Istanbul’s governor said there were no reports of damage in the city, Turkey’s largest. Videos on Twitter showed flooding in the Seferihisar district, and Turkish officials and broadcasters called on people to stay off the streets after reports of traffic congestion.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that 38 ambulances, two ambulance helicopters and 35 medical rescue teams were working in the city of Izmir. AFAD and Turkish Red Crescent were in Izmir, while Istanbul and other cities sent in rescue teams.
Greek seismologist Akis Tselentis told Greek state broadcaster ERT that due to the shallow depth of its epicenter — roughly 10 kilometers — potentially powerful aftershocks could be expected for several weeks.
He said residents of affected areas must be careful not to enter buildings that might have been damaged in the initial quake, as they could collapse in a strong aftershock. On Samos, damage was reported to buildings and roads, and residents were warned to stay away from the coast for fear of a tsunami. Water rose above the dock in the main harbor of Samos and flooded the street. Residents also were told to stay away from buildings amid aftershocks. The Greek minister responsible for civil protection and crisis management, Nikos Hardalias, headed to Samos, as were a search and rescue team, paramedics and engineers. In a show of solidarity rare in recent months of tense bilateral relations, Greek and Turkish government officials issued mutual messages of solidarity. “We pray that there is no further loss of live in Turkey or Greece and we send our best wishes to all those affected on both sides of the earthquake,” Turkey’s Communications Director Fahrettin Altun tweeted. “This tragedy reminds us once again how close we are despite our differences over policy. We’re ready to help if Greece needs it.”
Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, tweeted that he had phoned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to offer my condolences for the tragic loss of life from the earthquake that struck both our countries. Whatever our differences, these are times when our people need to stand together.”
Relations between Turkey and Greece have been particularly tense, with warships from both facing off in the eastern Mediterranean in a dispute over maritime boundaries and energy exploration rights. The ongoing tension has led to fears of open conflict between the two neighbors and NATO allies.