LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
September 30/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom
Second Letter to the Corinthians 03/07-17/:"If the ministry of death, chiselled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory! Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on September 29-30/2019
Lebanese Protest in Beirut over Deteriorating Economic Crisis
Protests in Lebanon’s capital over worsening economic crisis
Iran Releases Photo of Khamenei with Nasrallah
Pine Palace opens its doors to the public within the "European Heritage Days" event
Foucher: There will be an important event on September 1, 2020, with the participation of a high-ranking French figure
Hariri bound for Paris to partake in the farewell of Chirac
Mikati hopes that today's events would signal a final warning to the government to proceed with solutions
Al-Hassan advocates freedom to demonstrate, criticizes images of sabotag
Is it time to replace the Governor of the Central Bank?

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 29-30/2019
Iran FM Tells Saudis 'Security Cannot Be Bought'
Dark Skies: UN Meeting Reveals a World in a Really Bad Mood
Netanyahu to Meet Gantz in Last Effort to Form Unity Government
Egypt's Security Forces Kill 15 Militants in Sinai
Netanyahu, Gantz Trade Blame over Breakdown in Israel Coalition Talks
One Year On, Saudi Struggles to Turn Page on Khashoggi Murder

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 29-30/2019
Lebanese Protest in Beirut over Deteriorating Economic Crisis/Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 29 September, 2019
Is it time to replace the Governor of the Central Bank/Dan Azzi/Annahar/September 29/2019
Beyrouth | Beirut: A Project of Reconciliation/Salma Yassine/AnnaharSeptember 29/2019
Iran's leaders think they can continue their provocation without paying a price/Raghida Dergham/The National/September 29/2019
Rouhani Has Exposed the Futility of European Diplomacy/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/September 29/2019
Brexit Can Get Much More Toxic From Here/Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/September 29/2019
The world has failed to confront Iran – so what next/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/September 29/2019
The Iranian regime is the problem, not the solution/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/September 29/2019
Preparations by both sides in the Gulf/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/September 29/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on September 28-29/2019
Lebanese Protest in Beirut over Deteriorating Economic Crisis
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 29 September, 2019
Hundreds of Lebanese protested in Beirut on Sunday against an economic crisis that has worsened over the past two weeks, with a drop in the local currency for the first time in more than two decades. Some of the protesters in the capital’s downtown blasted Lebanese political leaders, blaming them for widespread corruption in the country of four million. Lebanon has one of the highest debt ratios in the world standing at $86 billion or more than 150% of the country's gross domestic product. Last week, the local currency reached 1,650 pounds to the dollar at exchange shops after it had been stable at 1,500 since 1997. The protesters gathered Sunday in the central Martyrs Square then marched toward the government headquarters were riot police were deployed. The National News Agency (NNA) reported scuffles between them and the security forces. "The people want to bring down the regime," some of the protesters chanted as riot police stopped them from marching toward the government headquarters. The slogan echoed that of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. Other protesters chanted "peaceful" and tried to stop the young men who clashed with security forces. The protest was called for by activists from the civil society, as well as individuals. NNA reported that angry protesters briefly closed the road in the eastern town of Masnaa that leads to the Syrian capital of Damascus. The agency also reported road closures in the northeastern regions of Baalbek and Hermel.
Despite tens of billions of dollars spent since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990, Lebanon still has crumbling infrastructure including daily hours-long electricity cuts, trash piles in the streets and often sporadic, limited water supplies from the state-owned water company. Last week, amid fears that there will be an open-ended strike at gas stations, people waited for long hours to get vehicles filled. Because of the shortage in hard currency, there have been complaints by importers of fuel, medicine and wheat, that they buy the products from abroad paying in US dollars and when they sell in Lebanon they do so in the local currency. Lebanon's central bank is scheduled to issue instructions to regulate ways to fund imports of fuel, medicine and wheat on Tuesday.

Protests in Lebanon’s capital over worsening economic crisis
Associated Press/September 29/2019
Lebanon has one of the highest debt ratios in the world standing at $86 billion or more than 150% of the country’s gross domestic product.
BEIRUT: Hundreds of Lebanese protested Sunday in the country’s capital and other areas over an economic crisis that worsened over the past two weeks, with worries over dollar-reliant Lebanon’s local currency losing value for the first time in more than two decades.
Lebanon is facing a deep-running fiscal crisis as it staggers under one of the highest debt ratios in the world, at $86 billion or more than 150% of the country’s gross domestic product. Many of Sunday’s protesters in downtown Beirut blamed Lebanese political leaders for the widespread mismanagement and corruption.The protesters gathered shortly before noon in the central Martyrs Square, then marched toward the government headquarters where riot police were deployed.
“The people want to bring down the regime,” some of the protesters chanted as riot police stopped them from marching toward the government headquarters. The slogan echoed that of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. Other protesters chanted “peaceful” and tried to stop the young men who clashed with security forces. Later in the day, dozens of protesters closed major roads in the capital with burning tires and barriers causing traffic jams. Some of them began dispersing in the afternoon although others remained closing major intersections amid wide army and police deployment.
Despite tens of billions of dollars spent since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990, Lebanon still has crumbling infrastructure including daily hourslong electricity cuts, trash piles in the streets and often sporadic, limited water supplies from the state-owned water company.
Last week, the local currency reached 1,650 Lebanese pounds to the dollar at exchange shops after it had been stable at 1,500 since 1997. Although the official price is still pegged at 1,500 pounds to the dollar, people find it difficult to get hard currency at this rate from local banks.
The protest was called for by activists from the civil society as well as individuals.
Last week, amid fears that there will be an open-ended strike at gas stations, people waited in long lines to get vehicles filled. Because of the shortage in hard currency, there have been complaints by importers of fuel, medicine and wheat, that they buy the products from abroad paying in U.S. dollars and when they sell in Lebanon they do so in the local currency. Lebanon’s central bank is scheduled to issue instructions to regulate ways to fund imports of fuel, medicine and wheat on Tuesday. The state-run National News Agency reported that angry protesters briefly closed the road in the eastern town of Masnaa that leads to the Syrian capital of Damascus. The agency also reported road closures in the northeastern regions of Baalbek and Hermel. There were also protests in the northern city of Tripoli and the southern city of Sidon.

Iran Releases Photo of Khamenei with Nasrallah
Naharnet/September 29/2019
Iran has released a "never before seen" photo of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei alongside Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. The photo published on the supreme leader's official website shows Nasrallah with Khamenei on his right and Qassem Soleimani -- the commander of Iran's elite Qods Force -- on his left. The three men are shown in front of what appears to be a door covered by a curtain and surrounded by shelves stacked with books -- decor associated with Khamenei's Tehran office. Before a 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, Nasrallah often openly visited the Iranian capital, but since then his public appearances have been limited. Iran's support for Hizbullah and Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad are an enduring feature of the Islamic republic's foreign policy. The photo -- first published on Wednesday and still available on Saturday -- has received little coverage in other Iranian media. The picture will make the inaugural cover of a new magazine -- Massir (the Path) -- soon to be launched by khamenei.ir, the supreme leader's website said, while noting that the issue will publish elements of a "five hour interview" with Nasrallah. The text references "a never before seen photo", but does not confirm the date or place where it was taken. An advertisement on the supreme leader's website says that Massir will publish "for the first time... images of meetings" between Nasrallah and Khamenei.
The website also published around a dozen photos of Nasrallah taken "during an exclusive discussion" with officials from the supreme leader's office, again without detailing the place and timing of the pictures. One of the photos shows Nasrallah sitting in an armchair in front of portraits affixed to a wall of the supreme leader and his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Two other pictures show the Hezbollah leader in conversation with two unidentified men.

Pine Palace opens its doors to the public within the "European Heritage Days" event
Foucher: There will be an important event on September 1, 2020, with the participation of a high-ranking French figure
NNA -Sun 29 Sep 2019
The Pine Palace opened its doors to the public on Sunday, within the framework of the "European Days of Heritage" event, where visitors toured its large dining hall, the large salon, hallway, and music salon, the office of the Ambassador, the Ottoman Salon, and the space above the entrance staircase and the monument of the dead.
"The doors of the Pine Palace were opened to the Lebanese public for the third year in a row, in celebration of the European Heritage Days," said French Ambassador Bruno Foucher in an interview with reporters during the visit.
"This gesture has been a great success previously, for it was in this Palace that the State of Greater Lebanon was declared on September 1, 1920," he added.
"This Palace is somewhat the home of the Lebanese and part of their history, and we preserve it as it hosts many events, including the celebration of the French National Day on July 14, the largest diplomatic reception in the city...We wished to open the doors of this Palace to anyone who wants to visit it, for it is very beautiful. It is considered as one of the most beautiful houses in Beirut. It was renewed and inaugurated by the late President Jacques Chirac on May 30, 1998, after the civil war which almost completely destroyed it," explained Foucher.
Asked about France's contribution to the celebration of the Centennial of Greater Lebanon and whether celebrations will be held at the Pine Palace, Foucher said: "We will definitely participate. There is a Lebanese Centennial Committee headed by Minister Salim Jreissati, and we will meet with him to see how we will organize the celebrations throughout the year. There will be a significant event in this Palace on the first of September next year, and this is what I wish for, with the participation of a high-ranking French figure."
He added: "There will be important events in Lebanon and in France. We intend to involve a number of Lebanese military units in the military parade on July 14, 2020 in Paris, as it takes place every year and usually one or more countries partake in this event."Regarding his message to the Lebanese people on the eve of this Centenary, the French Ambassador said: "For one hundred years Lebanon has existed, and for a hundred years France has been related to this country, and it has expressed on several occasions this connection...There is a deep relationship in the political, economic and cultural fields, but the deeper and more important links are in the emotional domain, all of which draw on our history that we have built together."
Responding to another question over the Cedar Conference, Foucher considered that it is going as expected, noting that Prime Minister Saad Hariri's recent visit to Paris and what he said to the media prove that things are moving in the right direction. Referring to the reform steps undertaken by the Lebanese government thus far, the French diplomat said: "There are steps taken in response to those who say that nothing has been achieved. In the field of energy, things are going in the right direction. There is a budget for 2019 and if it is not ideal, it atleast exists. The 2020 budget must now be approved and Lebanon must send positive signals abroad."

Hariri bound for Paris to partake in the farewell of Chirac
NNA -Sun 29 Sep 2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri left for Paris on Sunday to represent Lebanon in the farewell ceremony of former French President Jacques Chirac. Hariri will convey to French President Emmanuel Macron, and to Mrs. Bernadette Chirac and the family members of the late former French President, the deepest condolences of the Lebanese on behalf of President Michel Aoun, House Speaker Nabih Berri and the Lebanese government.

Mikati hopes that today's events would signal a final warning to the government to proceed with solutions
NNA -Sun 29 Sep 2019
Former Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in an issued statement this evening that "what is happening in various Lebanese regions, including Tripoli, is exactly what we were warning of and expecting as a result of the suffocating social and economic crisis." He added: "I have always stood by my people in Tripoli, the North and all of Lebanon, in their demands for their rights, and I am ready to take full responsibility before them, but the current crisis is the responsibility of the whole ruling political class." "The government collectively bears the responsibility to address these issues," he corroborated. Mikati hoped that today's events would sound the final alarm bell for the government to proceed in providing the required solutions.

Al-Hassan advocates freedom to demonstrate, criticizes images of sabotage
NNA - Sun 29 Sep 2019
Interior and Municipalities Minister, Raya Al-Hassan, commented on today's protests via her Twitter account, saying: "I understand the people's complaints about the difficult economic and financial situation, and I certainly am with the freedom of demonstration and expression, but what I do not understand are the images of burning, sabotage and cursing that distort any demand movement." "As an Interior Minister, I can only commend the security apparatuses for their long and tiring day, and the efforts of their members that prevented people from taking the demonstrations to other ends far from their actual goal," she added. "At the same time, I do not accept that any security member encroaches on any citizen," Al-Hassan asserted.

Is it time to replace the Governor of the Central Bank?
Dan Azzi/Annahar/September 29/2019
Some people have misconstrued my critique of the financial engineering transactions, for criticism of the Governor.
Recently, it has become fashionable to attack the Governor of the Central Bank. He went from being the most admired man in the country to someone highly criticized, as if somehow the current crisis erases his legacy for a quarter of a century. Many people seem intent on holding him accountable for the ugly times ahead, because we are now in the ‘assignment of blame’ stage, with each group trying to pawn it off on the next. This is not only unfair, but also inaccurate. Whatever he did, rightly or wrongly, he did with the acquiescence of the ruling elite — all of them — and with the approval of the vast majority of the Lebanese public. The crisis we’re in is not because of Riad Salameh nor the “3ahd el Qawi” nor Hizb, nor a foreign conspiracy — it is because of the cumulative sins of everyone, over many decades.
Some people have misconstrued my critique of the financial engineering transactions, for criticism of the Governor. So I’ll start by saying that I’ve had one-on-one meetings with the Governor on a dozen occasions, and most Lebanese bankers consider him a mentor. In many ways, I am in awe of what he has achieved in a country which requires cat herding skills to manage.
I’ll cut to the chase. There is nobody better suited than Dr. Riad Salameh to be at the helm, and lead this fine institution, BDL, in these precarious times — you don’t change generals in the middle of battle, unless there’s a compelling reason to do so. I’ll be honest — if I were him, I would have ridden off into the sunset in 2017, with a pristine reputation, and left it to the next guy to receive the flack and stress of the last couple of years. So nobody was more surprised than me, when he agreed to have his appointment renewed for another six years, arguably his most difficult term in the last 27 years.
I also believe that the stated policy of the central bank is not his sole responsibility and is a joint responsibility with the executive and legislative branches, and his policies have been repeatedly endorsed by successive governments since 1993. In fact, I know for a fact that he ran every financial engineering transaction (which, as you know from previous articles, I abhor) by the top echelon of our political leadership, who blessed it (albeit some did not understand it).
It’s almost certain that any leadership change at the BDL now would tip us over the edge, which means we need to seriously question a system that’s so fragile, that its viability depends on one man, any man, for its survival. Perhaps it’s time to design a system of institutions, not personalities, that’s immune to key-man risk. Do people have to worry about the viability of America’s monetary stability if Jerome Powell were to leave?
That does not mean that we cannot have a respectful and blunt discussion on whether the policy that was implemented in the 1990’s still makes sense today. It is not only legitimate, but also wise, to question a course of action if there are indicators that circumstances have changed. The legendary economist Maynard Keynes reputedly once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
One of the justifications of the current policy is that it is part of the central bank mandate to “protect the stability of the currency” and people assume that maintaining the peg is the same thing. It is not. For example, when the euro rose from 85 cents in 2002 to almost $1.60 in 2008, that meant that our currency lost half its value (through no action of ours), as people who tried to buy a BMW or Renault in those days would have experienced. In fact, the stability of the currency is better defined as maintaining price stability, in other words, low inflation. Pretty clearly, the country has become so expensive today that it is questionable if this policy is working in practical terms — in fact, the opposite — it is cheaper today to convert our Lira salaries to dollars, and fly to Greece or Turkey for our vacations, i.e. export dollars to other countries. Thus, maintaining price stability is not equivalent to the simplistic policy of tracking someone else’s currency. Furthermore, because of recent geopolitical realities, we have injected a large amount of risk and potential instability by pegging to the dollar, because that gives another country a lot of intrusive power in ours. There’s nothing wrong with that normally, unless you have a large chunk of your population and government which is being targeted by that country, as was proven with the demise of Jammal Trust Bank. Therefore, we need to choose to either peg to their currency or appoint ministers and deputies from a party they’re targeting ... but we can’t have both.
In one recent article, the policy of the peg was defended on the basis that “750,000 employees are paid in Lira” and any change would affect their standard of living. Therein lies the problem. The Lebanese population is 4.5 million. Assuming half are adults, this implies that only 33% are benefiting from their artificially inflated salaries, thereby encouraging more people, especially our youth, to emigrate. That’s the main cost of this policy — an unemployment level higher than the Great Depression of 1929. That means that out of every three people, two of whom earn $1,000 per month each, the third is unemployed, i.e. with an income of zero. So, effectively, we’re protecting the income of the other two through a subsidy by the unemployed guy, instead of, say, all three being employed at $666 per month each. The third guy is totally ignored in our math, because those of us still employed are perfectly happy that he ends up emigrating, as long as he keeps sending remittances. I’m not advocating a socialist system where everyone earns the same, but at this calamitous level of unemployment, it’s time to ask ourselves whether it’s still worth it, especially if the current policy keeps decimating businesses and raising the unemployment rate.
The first years of the peg were necessary to restore confidence in the currency. In the next few years, from 1997 to 2010, the peg provided every employed Lebanese citizen a standard of living higher than our productivity and higher than all our Arab neighbors. This was subsidized by remittances, tourism, and Foreign Direct Investment, which was a perfectly legitimate transfer of wealth policy. In those years, when our balance of payments was flat or positive, this policy was sustainable. However, we’ve had a balance of payment deficit since 2011, and in the last year, it has gotten out of control, which means we are now living on our collective credit card. The longer we maintain this policy, the worse it gets, because the composition of our debt is now changing from mostly Lira to mostly dollars.
In case you don't understand what this means, think of a bathtub. You’re sitting in it with the faucet open and the bathtub unplugged. No matter how much water pours in, the level keeps going down because of the huge leak. Sooner or later, the tub will be empty and people will see you naked.
Some politicians today have realized where we’re headed and have focused on Dr. Salameh as the scapegoat. A better strategy to save the country would be for everyone to work together as a team, to come up with a way to minimize the impact of the coming day of reckoning. I won’t lie to you — there’s no magic pill that will make the problem go away — we have to take some painful and courageous decisions, centered on an equitable distribution of losses, and a hard slog for many years, as we shake off the dust and repair the economic carnage.
But one thing is certain, we can’t talk our way out of the problem with a media blitz assuring everyone that the bathtub is not leaking.
*Dan Azzi is a regular contributor to Annahar. He has recently been invited to be an Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow at Harvard University, a program for senior executives to leverage their experience and apply it to a problem with social impact. Dan’s research focus at Harvard will be economic and political reform in a hypothetical small country riddled with corruption and negligence. Previously, he was the Chairman and CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Lebanon.

Beyrouth | Beirut: A Project of Reconciliation
Salma Yassine/AnnaharSeptember 29/2019
This exhibition is a documentation of Beirut that provides you with a space of memory vital for the flourishment of a society.
BEIRUT: “Beyrouth | Beirut” unravels an exuberant rawness embedded within picturesque details of mundane scenes in Beirut.
The exhibition was launched alongside a book on the 19th of September and will remain on display until the 20th of October at Beit Beirut.
It consists of 7 separate sections that portray fractions of the city – an urban geography, the train station or the time stopped, past & present confronted architectures, the communities, neighborhood life, the fishermen, the seashore and the corniche.
“I was born in 1975 when the Lebanese civil war broke. I was raised in Alicante, Spain and came back home in 1991. I lived with the guilt of not being able to stand by my agonized people in my own country when suffering,” Fadia Ahmad, the photographer, noted for Annahar.
The Fishermen of Ras Beirut: Reviving the fishing culture in Beirut and honoring its fishermen
When she came back in 1991, she wanted to embrace the home that she always yearned for. However, she did not fathom the immense suffering woven within people’s forlorn features, those who lost limbs and families. Thus, she decided to marginalize herself and become an artist.
“Beyrouth | Beirut” is a project that started 7 years ago. It emanated from a daily consistent walk of a 10,452-meter route starting from Mar Mikhael and ending in Raouche, symbolizing the surface area of Lebanon.
She took pictures of buildings that have collapsed and realms that have been obliterated. All one can see is fragments of these homes and stories, even if they are perpetual within an abandoned doll house belonging to a child that is no longer there.
“Artists like Fadia Ahmad revive Beirut despite its ruin. She grasps onto a forgotten piece of memory. Her exhibition is portrayed in Beit Beirut, which is a memoir of war. This reality wrenches my heart, yet it is a necessity to display it to the youth who are not informed enough about our retrieved history,” Lina Abi Rashed, a visitor, noted for Annahar.
Through an emotional lens, Fadia Ahmad captures a perplexed diversity curated within the lives of ordinary people, hues of graffiti on neglected walls, pasts laced within pieces of metal, and the different architectural styles that Beirut adopted throughout historical eras.
Layla Salhab, a mediator, noted: “Beit Beirut holds such a painful history in Lebanon, it being a visual reminder of the civil war. It is important to learn from it through a different perspective than that of your parents and politics, residing by art and culture as the foreboding teacher. This exhibition is a documentation of Beirut that provides you with a space of memory vital for the flourishment of a society.”
A book, curated by Pascale Le Thorel, which encompasses 120 photographs was launched alongside the exhibition. The exhibition is a resume of the book. It will travel the world, yet the book will remain the memory for future generations as an evidence of survival – a birth certificate.
“Fadia Ahmad spoke poetry through her pictures, rendering them paintings that evoke a crescendo of feelings and nostalgic memories within the visitors. Her portrayal of Beirut in this way shows its resilience, defying the stereotypical stigmas imposed by international media,” Marie-Joelle Courcon, another mediator, noted.
Her aim is to showcase the imperfect present softened by hope alongside the painful past. Her greatest achievement was to see visitors – may they be Lebanese or not, Beirutis or not, lived in Beirut or not – leave with tears in their eyes.
“A plethora of professional critics from the art scene visited the exhibition and they were overwhelmed with emotions. My aim is not to make people witness an art piece, but rather to make them feel it. This is a project of reconciliation with my roots and myself,” Fadia Ahmad, the photographer, said.
“Beirut is in every vein in my body. I became Beirut and Beirut became me. I am madly in love with Beirut.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 29-30/2019
Iran FM Tells Saudis 'Security Cannot Be Bought'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 29/2019
Iran's foreign minister has urged arch-rival Saudi Arabia to accept that "security cannot be bought", saying an end to the war in Yemen would quell regional tensions. In an interview with Tehran's official IRNA news agency on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the Saudi leadership of stirring up strife. "They think that, in the same way that they have so far bought everything with money and have managed to buy weapons, friendship and support, they can buy security with money as well," he said, urging Riyadh to "put aside this illusion". Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a decades-long struggle for regional dominance and back opposing sides in a bitter war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. Those tensions have spiked in recent months, particularly since a devastating attack on Saudi oil installations earlier this month. Iran has denied responsibility and the Huthi rebels it backs in Yemen said they were behind the attack, which knocked out half of the OPEC kingpin's oil production. But Riyadh's ally Washington and European powers have blamed the drone and cruise missile strike on Tehran. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's war in 2015 to prop up the government after the Huthi insurgents ousted it from the capital Sanaa the previous year. Iran denies that it arms the Huthis but has consistently slammed Riyadh's involvement. Zarif told IRNA that Riyadh was stirring tensions in order to "open (the way) for foreigners to enter the region". The US has several major military bases in the Gulf and has threatened strikes in retaliation for attacks it has blamed on the Islamic republic. Zarif said the solution "is absolutely clear and that is an end to the Yemen war". "Tension in the region will end and it will stop Saudi Arabia's prestige being further damaged," he said. Tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, have been killed since Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in March 2015. The fighting has displaced millions and left more than two-thirds of the population in need of aid.

Dark Skies: UN Meeting Reveals a World in a Really Bad Mood
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 29/2019
The planet is heating. Island nations are slipping away. A Pakistan-India nuclear war could be a "bloodbath." Governments aren't working together like they used to. Polarization is tearing us apart. Killing. Migration. Poverty. Corruption. Inequality. Sovereignty violations. Helplessness. Hopelessness. "The problems of our times are extraordinary," Ibraham Mohamed Solih, president of the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation threatened by the rising waters of climate change, said at the U.N. General Assembly a few days ago. There are those mornings when you come into work and everyone seems cranky. That's how it felt at the United Nations this past week during the annual gathering of world leaders. Speech after gloomy speech by leaders from all corners of the planet pointed toward one bleaker-than-thou conclusion: Humanity clearly needs a spa day. The United Nations was founded in an optimistic fervor after World War II's devastation, on the notion that a cooperative body of countries could construct a brighter future by learning to get along. Though that hope remains a fundamental underpinning, the actual tenor these days seems to set a lower bar: Try to mitigate climate Armageddon, and prevent some of its 193 member nations' diligent attempts to undermine and sometimes destroy each other. So words like "existential threat" were as much a part of the leader-speech landscape this past week as the usual references to "this august body.""We are living in times when the magnitude and number of lasting crises is constantly increasing," said Igor Dodon, Moldova's president. "We have had enough wars. We don't want new wars," said Iraqi President Barham Salih, who would certainly know. And from Roch Marc Christian Kabore, president of Burkina Faso, came this understatement: "International news has been marked by tension."
Some of this is pure rhetoric. If you're a nation of the world and you want something — money, troops, action, understanding — you must lay out a problem so you can propose the solution or, at least, persuade your compatriots that a solution is necessary. So leaders and diplomats bring a lot of problems to the U.N. this time of year, hoping to leverage a global stage — and a rare one, if you're a smaller member of the community of nations. Climate change was a central part of that. A U.N. decision to really place the topic front and center produced both a youth climate summit and a full-on event the day before leaders' addresses started. Many nations answered the call to sound an alarm potent enough to get collectively noticed. "The challenges of planet and people are colliding with far-reaching consequences," said Belize's foreign minister, Wilfred Elrington. Yet even given that context, it felt as if a lot more hopelessness than usual was kicking around. The U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, kicked it off Tuesday in opening the proceedings, painting a bleak picture of this micromoment in human history.
"We are living in a world of disquiet," Guterres said. "A great many people fear getting trampled, thwarted, left behind," he said. "Machines take their jobs. Traffickers take their dignity. Demagogues take their rights. Warlords take their lives. Fossil fuels take their future." Yet is this all that different from before? There have been many moments during the United Nations' 74-year history when we've been on the brink with politics, brinkmanship, displaced people, epidemics, possible nuclear war. Chaos has always reigned, right? Not quite like this. The speakers' agenda Saturday was stocked with island nations from around the world who are, as so many of them said, on the front lines of climate change. To them, it's not merely melting glaciers or species dieoffs; it's amped-up hurricanes that could wipe them away and rising ocean waters that could slowly turn them into underwater ghosts. So that mood? They're feeling it particularly acutely. "There is only one common homeland and one human race. There is no Planet B or viable alternative planet on which to live," said Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, an island nation in the Caribbean. But other nations addressing the U.N. General Assembly were hardly sanguine about where we are as a civilization. Two of the biggest, China and Russia, were just as blunt about assessing the global landscape they saw before them. "The world today is not a peaceful place," declared Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
"The number of conflicts on the planet has not declined and enmity has not weakened," said his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. "It is getting harder to address these and many other challenges from year to year. The fragmentation of international community is only increasing."
As is tradition with the U.N., leaders did bring solutions to propose, from the thematic (reduce the "deficit of trust") to highly specific (overhaul the Security Council to increase Africa's permanent representation). Perhaps the most common was a renewed call for a full-throated embrace of multilateralism, which many nations — particularly smaller ones with less global oomph — see as their only salvation. This is particularly true in an era where a growing number of high-profile leaders — prime examples include U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — are pivoting toward more unilateral approaches to the world. "The 2020s could be remembered in history as a turning point, or as the moment when multilateralism lost its way," Rwandan President Paul Kagame said. The United Nations is often criticized for talking a lot and not getting much done. But when it comes to eloquent talk, particularly about the future, it has always been one of the strongest players on the field. So of course there were gems of optimism that shone among the muck — about the U.N.'s ability to shape that brighter future, about the potential for sublimating conflict in projects and agreements and resolutions and peacekeeping. "I do not believe any more in pessimism. It's too easy," French President Emmanuel Macron said. Good words, and that's where ideas begin. Still, coming off a week of oratorical despondency from some of the smartest, most informed, most powerful people on Earth, you have to wonder: If the United Nations isn't the place for optimism about a prosperous shared future, maybe it's time to really start worrying.

Netanyahu to Meet Gantz in Last Effort to Form Unity Government
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 29 September, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he will make a final effort this week to salvage a deal from talks to form a unity government with his centrist election rival. Netanyahu, facing corruption allegations he denies, has failed to secure a clear election victory twice in six months.
His right-wing Likud party came second with 32 seats in the 120-member parliament, against 33 for former military chief Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party, Reuters reported.
Israel’s president on Wednesday tasked Netanyahu with forming the next government. If Netanyahu fails to clinch a deal, President Reuven Rivlin is then likely to ask Gantz to try to form a government. The parties’ negotiators met on Friday without success, with both side exchanging the blame for the stalemate.
Likud said Netanyahu then telephoned Gantz and the two men would probably meet on Wednesday after another round of talks. “Prime Minister Netanyahu is making a last effort to bring about a breakthrough in the talks for a unity government,” Likud’s spokesman said. According to Reuters, the Blue and White party said it would spare no effort to form “a broad, liberal, unity government.”

Egypt's Security Forces Kill 15 Militants in Sinai
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 29 September, 2019
Egyptian police forces have killed 15 suspected militants in a raid in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. Forces exchanged fire with the militants as they stormed their hideout in the Mediterranean coastal city of el-Arish, the statement said. No casualties were reported among the police. The statement did not say when the raid took place, the Associated Press reported. The announcement came three days after an ISIS attack on a checkpoint in the town of Bir el-Abd killed eight troops and a civilian.
Security forces killed at least 15 militants in that attack.

Netanyahu, Gantz Trade Blame over Breakdown in Israel Coalition Talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 29 September, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz traded blame Sunday over the failure so far of efforts to reach a unity government deal following deadlocked elections. A new round of negotiations between Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and Gantz's centrist Blue and White broke down Sunday and the two sides appeared far from reaching a compromise. Likud said Netanyahu would make a "last effort" to reach a deal before informing President Reuven Rivlin he is unable to form a government. That would leave Rivlin to decide whether to ask Gantz to try to do so or call on parliament to agree on a candidate for prime minister by a vote of at least 61 out of 120 members. Netanyahu "will make a last effort to realize the possibility of forming a government at this stage, before returning the mandate to the president," Likud said in a statement, according to AFP.
It called the latest round of negotiations a "big disappointment."Blue and White accused Likud of "throwing around slogans with the sole aim of generating support in preparation for dragging Israel into another round of elections at the behest of Netanyahu."This month's poll was the second this year, after Netanyahu failed to form a coalition following April polls. Israel marks the two-day Rosh Hashanah holiday beginning Sunday night and serious negotiations are not expected during that time. Likud wants to negotiate on the basis of a compromise set out by Rivlin to form a unity government, which takes into account the possibility of Netanyahu being indicted for corruption in the weeks ahead. The proposal could see Netanyahu remain prime minister for now, but step aside if indicted. Gantz would step in as acting premier under such a scenario.
Netanyahu also says he will not abandon the smaller right-wing and religious parties supporting him in parliament, giving him a total of 55 seats backing him for prime minister. Blue and White says Gantz must be prime minister first under any rotation arrangement, since it finished with the most seats in September 17 elections. Blue and White won 33 seats, just ahead of Likud's 32, but neither have a clear path to a majority coalition. Gantz has 54 parliament members backing him for prime minister, but 10 are from Arab parties who say they will not serve in the ex-military chief's government. Rivlin tasked Netanyahu with trying to form a government Wednesday and he has 28 days to do so, with a two-week extension possible. The deadlocked vote has threatened Netanyahu's reign as Israel's longest-serving prime minister. If another election is called due to the standoff, it would be Israel's third in a year.

One Year On, Saudi Struggles to Turn Page on Khashoggi Murder
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 29/2019
Saudi Arabia is attempting a comeback on the global stage one year after journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder, but the crisis has weakened it and undermined its de facto leader's ambitious reforms, analysts say. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a self-styled moderniser shaking up the conservative petro-state, was feted by global leaders and business titans before the gruesome murder in Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate on October 2 last year. But the global fallout over the killing rendered the heir to the Arab world's most powerful throne a pariah, casting a shadow on his reforms, putting the kingdom's human rights record under the microscope and testing old alliances with Western powers. The prince has since sought to shore up his tarnished reputation, launching slick PR campaigns to win back foreign investment while accelerating what analysts call the kingdom's "eastward tilt" towards less critical allies such as China and India. But that has only had limited success. "The spectre of Jamal Khashoggi hangs over the kingdom of Saudi Arabia," said Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and author of a book on Saudi Arabia entitled "Kings and Presidents". "The murdered journalist and commentator has not been forgotten, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hoped." The crown prince tells PBS in a forthcoming documentary that he accepted responsibility for the killing, because it happened "under my watch" -- but he denied having prior knowledge.
'Globally isolated'
The CIA has reportedly concluded that the prince, who controls all major levers of power in the Saudi government, likely ordered the killing. A report by United Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard also said there was "credible evidence" linking him to the murder and an attempted cover up. Her revelations, including audio transcripts showing the Saudi agents involved referring to Khashoggi as a "sacrificial animal", have piled pressure on Western allies to suspend arms sales to the kingdom. That has come as a blow to Saudi Arabia amid heightened tensions with arch-rival Iran following major September 14 attacks on the heart of the kingdom's oil infrastructure, which Washington has blamed on Iran. The US, a key ally of Riyadh, has announced the deployment of 200 troops as well as Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia to bolster its defences in the wake of the attacks. President Donald Trump has emphasised Saudi Arabia's importance as a buyer of American arms and a bulwark against common foe Iran, but American lawmakers appear in no mood to give the prince a free pass over the murder.  "To a degree, Khashoggi's murder has left Saudi Arabia globally isolated," said Quentin de Pimodan, a Saudi expert at the Greece-based Research Institute for European and American Studies. "On the surface Trump has offered support to Riyadh but America insists it is not as reliant on Saudi oil as before," he told AFP.  "Saudi is on its own in dealing with the threat of Iran and the conflict in neighbouring Yemen." US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has cited Khashoggi's murder in opposing a potential strike on Iran in retaliation to the attacks on Saudi facilities. "I don't see any responsibility for us to protect and defend Saudi Arabia," she told American radio network NPR.
'Murder stain'
The murder has increased the reputational risk for Western firms doing business in Saudi Arabia, even as global bankers and executives have once again been seen attending glitzy investor conferences. The scandal also appears to have impeded Prince Mohammed's economic reforms, which seek to reduce the kingdom's reliance on oil revenues and boost private sector investment.  "Before the murder, Saudi Arabia was stepping on the accelerator of foreign business partnerships," said Ellen Wald, author of the book "Saudi Inc.". "But the Khashoggi murder was like hitting a hill. The momentum has slowed even if progress is still in the right direction." On Friday, Saudi Arabia announced the launch of tourism visas as part of its push to diversify the economy -- but that was an announcement that many had expected more than a year ago. Also mired in delays is the planned stock market listing of state oil giant Aramco, a cornerstone of Prince Mohammed's reform agenda that was initially scheduled for 2018. Despite all this, the murder has not threatened to unseat the prince. Instead, he has tightened his grip on military and security agencies and launched a crackdown on political rivals as well as conservative clerics and women activists. "Saudi has been hiring Western social media influencers to promote the kingdom and improve its reputation since Khashoggi's murder," de Pimodan said. "But the murder stain will be hard to wash off."

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 29-30/2019
Iran's leaders think they can continue their provocation without paying a price
Raghida Dergham/The National/September 29/2019
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Tehran has only managed to increase its isolation and frustrated its allies.
This week the world will see how Tehran responds to the messages received at the UN General Assembly summit in New York. It was made clear that the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf nations do not want war but a diplomatic process that would induce Iran to change its behaviour in return for a progressive adjustment in sanctions.
So far, sources say the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps see this message as an opportunity to further unshackle their hands by contemplating more attacks against vital installations in Saudi Arabia. In their view, countries seeking to avoid war will not respond while in Washington, the US president has made it clear that his policy is to respond to Iranian escalation solely by stepping up sanctions, unless the IRGC crosses a red line and targets US soldiers. For now, the IRGC will veer clear of this line, given the cost and that its main goal is a show of strength to the Gulf countries and not weakness where Washington is concerned.
It is likely, therefore, that the IRGC will engage in new provocations that could go beyond Saudi Arabia. The sources said IRGC commanders want to provoke a response but also want to be certain it will not be a serious one. In other words, as long as the US refrains from responding militarily, the Iranian leadership feels it can continue its bullying without paying a price.
Regime leaders are viewing Mr Trump's position through the prism of the Carter Doctrine, offering US protection of Arab Gulf countries since the time of former president Jimmy Carter. The current US president is not as willing to defend allies from aggression from their neighbours, as former president George Bush did following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In Tehran's view, Mr Trump's position exposes a structural weakness in the security alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia in particular. Regime leaders thinks he is unlikely to go to war with Iran to defend Gulf allies.
Betting on continued US reluctance to engage in a military confrontation is precarious and costly
While Mr Trump has made it clear that he will not be lured into war, it is also true that sanctions remain a powerful weapon and the cornerstone of the US administration's strategy. While economic strangulation has not yet reined in the IRGC and might have initially even prodded it into vengeful strategic recklessness, the consistency of the sanctions will eventually force Tehran to pursue one of two options: either to adjust its behaviour to protect the supreme interests of Iran and her people, or risk self-destruction. Betting on continued US reluctance to engage in a military confrontation is precarious and costly and Mr Trump has proven to be a man of surprises.
The attack on Saudi Aramco oil facilities has produced the opposite of what Iranian diplomacy was seeking to achieve, especially with regards to European powers. For a long period now, Iran has been trying to drive a wedge between Nato member states, hoping EU nations would be able to find a mechanism for Iran to sell its oil and circumvent US sanctions.
Following the attacks on Saudi Aramco, European reactions have caused a real setback for Tehran's grand designs. A statement was issued by France, Britain and Germany last week, blaming Iran for the attacks and urging Tehran to engage in dialogue and refrain from provocation and escalation. The attacks also prompted Britain to break away from the European consensus on maintaining the existing 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying the time had come to negotiate a new deal, all but endorsing Mr Trump's position.
What is more, the attacks have invited new US sanctions on Iran's central bank and other entities, making it very difficult to execute any European mechanism to circumvent sanctions through a financial vessel, since no European bank would risk being hit by US sanctions.
The IRGC has effectively shot itself in the foot by deciding to expand its escalation to oil facilities. And if it sustains this path and carries out new major attacks, it will only make matter worse for Iran.
Iran has ended up increasing its isolation and appeared to its Russian and Chinese partners, and its European friends, as a reckless state, especially after it targeted oil facilities
There are still those in Tehran who are invested in the Europeans' supposed ability to influence the US to reduce sanctions. Some in Tehran think brinkmanship could force Mr Trump to back down. But the opposite has happened so far. Iran has ended up increasing its isolation and appeared to its Russian and Chinese partners, and its European friends, as a reckless state, especially after it targeted oil facilities. Ultimately, Mr Trump is benefiting because he appears to be the one refusing to take military action as long as his maximum pressure policy is working.
Iran's leaders could benefit from the US self-restraint, which should not be confused for cowardice. Rather, it is a cunning policy that Tehran would be unwise to dismiss, because each escalation will invite further devastating sanctions and bring Europeans ever closer to the US.
Iran's leaders must admit to their people that all talk of preserving the nuclear deal is a fallacy. There is division between European powers about the merits of the deal and now, there is little choice but to negotiate a new agreement with Mr Trump that addresses the flaws in his predecessor Barack Obama's deal with Iran.
Iran's leaders must tell their people frankly that all European efforts and initiatives are dead in the water, with no other options but to engage in new negotiations, which cannot realistically be held under Iran's preconditions of lifting sanctions first. If Iran really wants to avoid war and internal collapse, it has to reconsider its position and be ready for dialogue.
This brings us back to the logic of the regime born in Tehran four decades ago. This regime engaged in regional, sectarian and religious wars and today is in dire need of reform. Iran is the only state in the world that wants the world to respect and accept its founding, funding and training of extraterritorial, irregular armies and proxies in sovereign countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria, believing this to be a legitimate right.
To succeed, any collective diplomatic effort seeking to avoid war and step out of the failed nuclear deal must include international and European confrontation of this terrible flaw in the regime's logic, and demand reform to uphold the sovereignty of states as per the UN charter. It is futile to continue turning a blind eye to this problem in the name of realpolitik and the present situation affords an opportunity to end devastating wars and impose much-needed legitimate reform.
The decision is in the hands of both the leaders and the people of Iran. The indications coming from the IRGC are not reassuring, perhaps because reform poses an existential risk to its raison d’etre. The fear remains that Tehran's leaders, especially the supreme leader and IRGC, think the only way to save their regime from having to reform is war.

Rouhani Has Exposed the Futility of European Diplomacy
كون كوغلين/معهد كايتستون: روحاني يكشف عبثية الدبلوماسيةالأوربية
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/September 29/2019
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14937/iran-europe-diplomacy
The reality of the delusional approach adopted by Mr Macron and other European leaders was, though, brutally exposed the moment Mr Rouhani arrived in New York. Instead of showing any sign of seeking to repair Tehran's strained relationship with the West and its allies, he instead indulged in an orgy of self-justification in which he sought to portray his country as an innocent victim of Western aggression rather than accepting, as is really the case, that Iran was the primary instigator of the latest escalation in tensions.
"The security of our region shall be provided when American troops pull out." — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, UN General Assembly, September 25, 2019.
This will have made for uncomfortable listening for all those European leaders who still believe that the best way to resolve the global crisis with Iran is by trying to save the nuclear deal.
The reality is that, so long as Tehran remains committed to its hostile stance towards the West, there is little prospect of having a constructive relationship with Iran.
The utter futility of European attempts to keep faith with the flawed Iranian nuclear deal has been brutally exposed in the wake of the uncompromising approach adopted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the United Nations General Assembly.
In the build-up to the UN's annual jamboree of global networkers, there had been much speculation that, against a background of mounting tensions in the Gulf over Tehran's aggressive conduct, the forum might provide an opportunity to re-establish a dialogue with the ayatollahs.
To this end French President Emmanuel Macron has, in particular, been actively trying to broker a diplomatic rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, to the extent it was even suggested that a bilateral meeting might be possible between US President Donald Trump and Mr Rouhani.
The reality of the delusional approach adopted by Mr Macron and other European leaders was, though, brutally exposed the moment Mr Rouhani arrived in New York. Instead of showing any sign of seeking to repair Tehran's strained relationship with the West and its allies, he instead indulged in an orgy of self-justification in which he sought to portray his country as an innocent victim of Western aggression rather than accepting, as is really the case, that Iran was the primary instigator of the latest escalation in tensions.
Not even the charm offensive applied by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose presence in New York was no doubt a welcome distraction from his domestic political woes, was able to make much impression on Mr Rouhani's demeanour. Mr Johnson briefly raised a laugh from the Iranian leader when he suggested he make a return visit to Glasgow -- a city Mr Rouhani knows well from the time he studied there in the 1990s -- while remarking, "As you know, Glasgow is lovely in November" -- a reference to the city's notoriously cold and wet climate at that time of year.
The atmospherics -- to use the diplomatic jargon -- might have appeared promising during Mr Johnson's one-to-one with the Iranian leader, but reality soon set in the moment Mr Rouhani took to the UN podium and embarked upon an extraordinary exercise in self-justification, one in which the US and its allies were the villains and Iran was portrayed as a nation wronged.
The prime target of his attack was, unsurprisingly, the US, which he accused of engaging in "merciless economic terrorism" following the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and impose a new round of economic sanctions against Tehran.
Washington's policies, Mr Rouhani contended, were designed to "deprive Iran from participating in the global economy" by resorting to tactics that amounted to "international piracy."
He also made it clear that, despite the concerted efforts of European leaders to persuade Tehran to renew negotiations with Washington, there was no possibility of talks taking place until the sanctions had been lifted -- a policy no one in the Trump administration is prepared to support.
Nor was Mr Rouhani's outburst confined to the sanctions. In his view, the US was responsible for the recent escalation in tensions in the Gulf after Washington increased American military deployments in the region following a series of aggressive acts undertaken by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "The security of our region shall be provided when American troops pull out," he said.
Perhaps the most eye-catching claim the Iranian leader made came during his appearance on Fox News, when he sought to defend Iran's support for terror groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah. Mr Rouhani insisted that these groups were freedom fighters, not terrorists, and went on to make the laughable claim that "Iran during the last four decades fought against terrorism unequivocally" -- a claim that will no doubt provoke few wry smiles in Jerusalem.
In short, the tone of Mr Rouhani's address to the UN was that of a politician who wants to maintain his confrontational stance against the West, rather than of a man who genuinely seeks peace.
This will have made for uncomfortable listening for all those European leaders who still believe that the best way to resolve the global crisis with Iran is by trying to save the nuclear deal.
The reality is that, so long as Tehran remains committed to its hostile stance towards the West, there is little prospect of having a constructive relationship with Iran.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14937/iran-europe-diplomacy

Brexit Can Get Much More Toxic From Here
Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/September 29/2019
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on the ropes, with his political authority crumbling after the country’s Supreme Court nixed his bid to suspend Parliament just weeks before the Oct. 31 deadline for Brexit to finally take place. It’s the latest in a string of defeats for Johnson, whose self-styled image as the Incredible Hulk of Brexit is detached from the reality in Westminster, where he has no majority, and in Brussels, where he has no allies.
While this might look like a golden chance for the European Union to nudge the UK into a softer approach on Brexit, a compromise still looks incredibly distant.
If the Supreme Court verdict tips the scales at all in the standoff, it’s in making it more likely that Johnson respects the will of his parliament and asks for an extension to next month’s UK withdrawal date, despite having said he would rather “be dead in a ditch” than do such a thing. Humiliation in the courts at home is a taste of what awaits Johnson in Brussels if he tries to weasel out of his commitments to request an extension. That will comfort European officials, who would most probably agree to it. Mainly because taking more time to find a solution reduces the threat of a no-deal Brexit, which would be economically harmful to both sides.
Yet European diplomats can also see that the political bedlam in the UK lends itself to delay without decisions. Lawmakers in Parliament were able to set aside their differences to tie Johnson’s hands and seek an extension, but that’s about all they can agree on. This is the same parliament that rejected the former prime minister Theresa May’s hard-fought Brexit deal with the EU three times. Unless there’s an election — another decision on which MPs have a final say — that won’t change.
But even an election is a grim prospect for European capitals hoping for a friendly resolution to the Brexit mess. The opposition Labour Party’s Brexit policy is a painful contortion act that’s almost impossible to understand; the centrist Liberal Democrats’ idea to cancel Brexit altogether is seen as extreme. The longer this drags on, the more it eats away at the smooth functioning of the EU.
There might be more optimism in Brussels if the outline of a workable deal was already sitting on a desk somewhere in the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters. But it isn’t. Johnson’s regular bashing of his predecessor’s “backstop” proposal to avoid a return to a hard border in Ireland and protect the EU single market hasn’t led to any convincing alternatives. Officials say the proposals sent in by the UK on alternative arrangements aren’t concrete enough to be considered operational in time for an Oct. 31 exit. And Johnson’s weakness will give the 27 leaders facing him even less incentive to erase crucial red lines, despite the claim by Michael Gove, the UK minister in charge of a no-deal Brexit, that they’re “shifting” on the backstop.
In an ideal world, a series of blows landing on Johnson would bring the match closer to an end. Europe should still try to extract maximum concessions from the UK, given it has no choice but to negotiate with the current Westminster government while trying to preserve unity among the rest of its member states — which is going to get harder the longer this drags on. If there’s a window to try yet again to put a deal before the UK parliament, the EU should grab it.
But this is more like a soccer match with 27 players on one side lining up to defend while the player in the opposite team tries to pick up the ball and go home. The EU is good at setting rules and red lines and sticking to them; it’s less good at unilaterally imposing its will. The UK is hemmed in by its own internal contradictions, at least until an election or a second referendum breaks the impasse. Brexit can get plenty more toxic from here.

The world has failed to confront Iran – so what next?
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/September 29/2019
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Iran can strike the oil installations of its neighbors, but its own infrastructure would be perilously vulnerable if those it has repeatedly attacked were finally provoked to retaliate.
Iran is often discussed in hyperbolic language, as if it possessed spectacular military capabilities that commanded fear and respect. Iran’s leaders play up to this propaganda. Hardly a day goes by without bloodcurdling threats of “all-out war” against anyone thinking to challenge them.
Yet Iran attracts attention only because it sinks to tactics that civilized, law-abiding nations would never consider: Attacking infrastructure crucial to the global economy, paying paramilitary thugs to fire rockets into the cities of peaceful nations, enriching itself through transnational criminal networks, and sponsoring terrorism. Paramilitary mercenaries, cyberwarfare and explosive-laden drones are relatively cheap and require limited expertise and resources. In its rush to develop a nuclear bomb, Iran depends upon technology cribbed from North Korean and Pakistani rogue elements. Normal states deploy their wealth to improve standards of living; Iran cannibalizes its resources and starves its citizens in the cause of overseas aggression.
Regional states waited in vain for America and the West to take a stand against Iran’s latest acts of terrorism and sabotage. Trump dismissively retorted: “We don’t need Middle Eastern oil,” as if America would not be the principal casualty of an economic meltdown triggered by a crunch in oil availability. Let’s not forget the president’s 2018 Twitter tantrums, demanding that GCC states increase oil output to avoid harming the US economy. The Ukraine leaks reveal the leader of the free world to be blindly obsessed with damaging rivals and enhancing his personal prestige, whatever the cost to US allies menaced by bellicose neighbors.
The Western world is increasingly paralyzed by dysfunction and polarization: Impeachment measures against Trump will suck all the oxygen out of America’s capacity to grapple with global challenges. The Republican Party’s interventionist wing has been gutted, and the administration’s foreign policy apparatus brutally hollowed out; there was no permanent defense secretary for seven months until July, and there is now a nobody in the role of national security adviser. Democrat presidential candidates are narrowly fixated on domestic issues and instinctively lean toward engaging with Iran, while the fallout from investigations into the president’s conduct will fuel partisan warfare for decades.
British politics have descended into a similarly introverted and bitter conflict over Brexit, with moderate MPs purged from both principal parties. Post-Merkel German politics is set to be messy and fragmented. Amid widespread unrest in France, President Macron has been one of the few centrist holdouts, although he sought to nudge Trump into talks with Iran by offering $15bn in sanctions relief.
After decades of centrist consensus, centrifugal forces are polarizing Western politics toward the extremes. Continued mass migration from disintegrating states (a consequence of Western overseas negligence) will endlessly stoke far-right grievances, while the breakdown in public trust of elites means sustained political volatility. UN institutions such as the International Court of Justice are toothless relics of a bygone era.
As long as global powers fail to shoulder their responsibilities, the Arab world must act to halt Iranian aggression in its tracks.
It is easy to argue that Western isolationism will be catastrophically self-defeating, with fateful implications for the international rule of law, human rights, terrorism, climate change, regionalized conflicts, migration and energy security. Yet such arguments fall on deaf ears, because moderate multilateralists are an embattled minority, confronted on all sides by all-pervading far-left and far-right populists whose common denominator is their inward-looking, nativist world view. In Trump’s blunt words at the UN: “The future does not belong to the globalists. The future belongs to patriots.”
The upshot is that, for the foreseeable future, the Arab world is largely on its own. Regional states cannot expect committed, engaged policymaking from Western powers until too late in the day, when crises become so destructive of core Western interests that intervention becomes inevitable. In the meantime, oil-dependent nations such as China and India will perhaps become more engaged, if only to protect their own interests. Russia, having opportunistically increased its regional exposure, may be forced to behave more responsibly; for example, in curbing paramilitary and terrorist elements.
GCC states are encircled by Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, with paramilitary proxies and the Revolutionary Guard firing rockets with impunity into sovereign states. As long as global powers fail to shoulder their responsibilities, the Arab world must act to halt Iranian aggression in its tracks.
This does not mean descending to Iran’s own terrorist tactics, or being drawn into an open-ended conflict; that would only serve Iran’s goal of engulfing the region in flames. However, meaningful deterrents are required against attacks on critical infrastructure and civilian targets.
Muscular diplomacy must be pursued to draw states such as Iraq and Lebanon away from Tehran’s lethal embrace. The outcry this summer after rockets were fired from inside Iraq apparently caused an angry Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi to temporarily rein in paramilitary factions, compelling Iran to launch the latest attacks from its own soil. These are baby steps, but the Iraqi leadership must be vigorously encouraged to go much further in decisively curbing sectarian militias.
Iran is lashing out because it is hurting. We should therefore not write off the strategy of maximum economic pressure. Even while Trump is distracted, GCC powers can wean China and India away from their dependence on Iranian oil.
Just as Israel’s aggressive expansionism reaped seven decades of conflict, there can never be peace under the long shadow of the ayatollahs of Tehran. With or without foreign support, the Arab world must act together, doing whatever it takes to neutralize an enemy resolved upon dominating and destroying the region.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

The Iranian regime is the problem, not the solution
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/September 29/2019
Since the rise of the clerics in 1979, the Iranian regime has relied on a two-pronged strategy to advance its revolutionary ideals and achieve its hegemonic ambitions in the region.
The first part of the strategy is to incite instability, conflict or a civil war in another country. This is achieved through Tehran’s sectarian agenda of pitting the Shiite communities against the Sunnis, and through sponsoring, financing and arming militia, rebel, and terror groups in a foreign nation.
After this objective of creating instability and chaos has been accomplished, the second prong of the mullahs’ strategy comes into play: offering to be part of the “solution” through a “peace plan” and leading such an initiative to stabilize the conflict-affected nation.
Generally, the targeted country sees no alternative to surrendering to Iran’s plan, because it if doesn’t Tehran will continue to wreak havoc on that nation.
It is through the second process that Iran ingrains itself in the security, political and economic system of the targeted nation and becomes an integral part of its decision-making process.
The Islamic Republic first implemented this two-pronged strategy in Lebanon in early 1980s. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite branch, the Quds Force, infiltrated Lebanon and consolidated the Shiite militia.
This resulted in the creation of Hezbollah as Tehran poured billions of dollars into Lebanon and provided advanced weapons to its militants. Soon, the Arab country was dragged into a decade-long civil war. After the Lebanese government was significantly weakened and after tens of thousands of people lost their lives, Iranian leaders offered to be part of resolving the Lebanese crisis.
What was the outcome? Iran’s powerful proxy and force, Hezbollah, became an officially recognized political party in Lebanon and became part of the government after the civil war ended. In 1992, Hezbollah participated in Lebanon’s election and won several seats in the parliament. This meant that Iran has a say in Lebanon’s domestic and foreign policy through its proxy.
The same process occurred in Iraq. Iran sponsored a conglomerate of militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. These militias ratcheted up the conflict in Iraq by engaging in various crimes against civilians, including summary executions, disappearances, torture, the use of child soldiers, indiscriminate attacks, and unlawful restrictions on the movement of people fleeing the fighting. The militias became skilled at exploiting religion and using sectarianism as a tool to gain power and further Iran’s parochial, religious and political ambitions.
In the second step, the Iranian regime pushed the Iraqi government into recognizing these militias as “legitimate” groups, incorporating them into the state apparatuses and making the Iraqi government allocate wages and ammunition for them. Currently, the Iraqi government pays for the PMF.
Tehran first attempted to destabilize the region by harassing and sabotaging ships, as well as launching missile and drone attacks
In Syria, the Iranian regime again assembled a coalition of Shiite forces and militias which came to Syria from Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Tehran spent approximately $100 billion, roughly between $15 and $20 billion a year, further destabilizing the country. Then Iran offered to be part of the solution to resolve the Syrian civil war. After several years of bloody civil war, many of the Shiite militias in Syria have become the bedrock of Syria’s socio-political and socio-economic infrastructures. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Quds Force are also enjoying a military presence in Syria and the IRGC has established permanent military bases across Syria.
Another country that has become the target of Iran’s opportunistic two-pronged and hypocritical strategy is Yemen. Iran’s goal here was anchored in creating a political reality out of the Houthis, as it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Through its delivery of advanced weapons and financial assistance it emboldened and empowered the Houthis. Now Iran exploits its ties with the Houthis as additional leverage against Saudi Arabia and its allies. This leverage can be used by the Iranian regime as a strategic bargaining chip in future negotiations or to pressure Riyadh to change direction.
Iran’s theocratic establishment is pursuing the same dual strategy in the Arabian Gulf. Tehran first attempted to destabilize the region by harassing and sabotaging ships, as well as launching missile and drone attacks.
Now the Iranian leaders are offering to be part of the solution again. At the United Nations General Assembly, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on the regional countries to join his government’s “peace plan,” which is labeled as the “Coalition of Hope.” Rouhani said that with such a maritime group, “the free flow of oil and other energy resources could be guaranteed, provided that we consider security as an umbrella in all areas for all the countries.”
But what is the catch? Tehran’s maritime security initiative excludes other powerful countries, including the United States. In other words, the regime is seeking to be an unrestrained overlord in the Gulf.
The Iranian regime is the problem, not the solution. For almost four decades, Iran’s ruling mullahs have sowed the seeds of war in other nations.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Preparations by both sides in the Gulf
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/September 29/2019
The Gulf is facing two unresolved battles: Preventing Iran from exporting most of its oil, and attacking Saudi oil facilities.
As for the US, with the exception of tougher economic sanctions, its decisions on Iran are symbolic. They include preventing its Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif from moving in New York outside a six-street perimeter around the UN building, and barring the sons of Iran’s ruling elite from studying or visiting the US. These decisions are inconsequential and actually serve the propaganda of Tehran, which always complains about the targeting of Iranians by the Trump administration.
All this at a time when Tehran is instilling fear among transport and navigation companies in Gulf waters, pushing up insurance costs for friend and foe alike. Iran has also targeted oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and shelled the vicinity of the US Embassy in Baghdad.
Tehran has also explicitly threatened, through its ambassador in Baghdad, to target the American military presence in Iraq. Iran has arrested people holding US, British, Australian and other Western passports, and has not shied away from using them as bargaining chips.
Iran’s aggressive actions, such as kidnapping, using militias and now bombing Saudi oil facilities, have been confronted by US economic sanctions that are certainly painful for the regime in Tehran, costing it billions of dollars each month
Iran’s aggressive actions, such as kidnapping, using militias and now bombing Saudi oil facilities, have been confronted by US economic sanctions that are certainly painful for the regime in Tehran, costing it billions of dollars each month.
But it does not look like the confrontations have stopped. There are preparations on both sides for all to see, including the creation of an international naval military alliance to protect shipping lines against Iranian attacks in Gulf waters. The US has secured the participation of a number of regional and Western countries in the proposed naval fleet. Tehran has called for a counter-alliance, but we do not yet know details about it.
It was unsurprising that Iran would escalate militarily, taking advantage of American politicians’ preoccupation with the next presidential election. US economic sanctions have been gradually applied for about a year and a half, but Tehran appears to have deliberately delayed its retaliation, awaiting the US election season to potentially resort to military escalation and increased hostilities.
Why has the Iranian regime become bolder? Sanctions have harmed it domestically and hurt its militarism abroad. It needs money to finance its foreign militias, except for allied Iraqi militias because the Iraqi treasury covers their expenses and activities.
Tehran’s boldness partly reflects gradual but significant changes in the power dynamics in Iran’s government. The generals are gaining more clout and seats in the senior leadership, while the role of so-called moderates has receded.
This forced Zarif to announce his resignation on social media last February in protest at interference by Gen. Qassem Soleimani, although Zarif resumed his work later. This is part of the ongoing internal power struggle. As Iran’s supreme leader grows older, competition for power and influence will definitely increase.
• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat. Twitter: @aalrashed