English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese,
Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 21/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews21/english.february21.21.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
The Healing Of The Leper Sunday
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 01/35-45/In
the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a
deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for
him. When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ He
answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the
message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout
Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. A
leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you
can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched
him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left
him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,
saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the
priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to
them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word,
so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the
country; and people came to him from every quarter.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 20- 21/2021
Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to
know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Health Ministry: 2323 new Corona cases, 40 deaths
Lebanon Enters Phase 2 of Easing Lockdown Next Week
Lebanon Vaccinates More than 17,000 People
US Lawmakers Urge Biden to Consider Sanctions on Lokman Slim’s Murderers
Lebanese sceptical as new judge named to lead port blast probe
UN Gives Green Light to Fund STL for 2021
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Emphasizes UAE’s Support for Lebanon during Hariri
Meeting
FPM Says Govt Formation, Forensic Audit are ‘Priorities’
“Why was a judge appointed in the port case after previously refusing the
mission?” questions Gemayel
Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 20- 21/2021
Iran is biggest threat to international community, former
Trump adviser Bolton says
Rockets strike military base in Iraq housing US forces: Iraqi military
Clashes between Iraqi forces and Daesh leave 7 dead
Iran says confident US will lift sanctions despite nuclear deal ‘political
wrangling’
Iran to Host UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief Ahead of Sanctions Deadline
US Says it Won't Bow to Pressure from Iran
Biden Calls for Addressing Iran's Destabilizing Activities
IAEA Says Found Uranium Traces at Two Sites Iran Barred It From
Aid Organization: Syria Facing Worst Hunger Crisis to Date
Russian Air Assault Kills 21 IS Jihadists in Syria
Russia Says Registers Third Coronavirus Vaccine
Moscow Appeal Court Upholds Navalny Prison Sentence
Two People Dead in Myanmar Protest Shooting
Yemen Govt Accuses Rebels of Using Civilians as Human Shields
UN Report Finds Trump Ally Violated Libya Arms Embargo, Says US
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 20- 21/2021
The nuanced differences in how Biden, Netanyahu see their
call - analysis/Lahav Harkov/Jerusalem Post/February 20/2021
Biden Cannot Allow the Taliban to Destroy Trump's Peace Legacy/Con Coughlin/Gatestone
Institute/February 20/2021
The real message Netanyahu should take from Biden's phone call/Yaalov
Katz/Jerusalem Post/February 20/2021
As decarbonisation continues, green hydrogen could be key/Omar El-HuniThe Arab
Weekly/February 20/2021
Biden Tells Allies 'America Is Back,' but Macron and Merkel Push Back/David E. Sanger, Steven Erlanger and Roger Cohen/The New York /February 20/ 2021
Putin considers slamming the door on Iran and opening a window for Israel/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/February 20/2021
Iran Just Handed Biden His First Credibility Test/Michael Knights/Politico/February 21/2021
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 20- 21/2021
Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Health Ministry: 2323 new Corona cases, 40 deaths
NNA/Saturday,
20 February/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced, on Saturday, the registration of 2,323
new Corona infections, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases
to-date to 353,371.
It also indicated that 40 deaths were registered during the past 24 hours.
Aircraft with Second Batch of COVID-19 Vaccine Doses to
Arrive Saturday
Naharnet/Saturday,
20 February/2021
Lebanon will reportedly receive a new batch of the COVID-19 vaccine doses from
Brussels on Saturday afternoon, MTV television station reported. It said 31,500
doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will arrive by plane to the Beirut Rafik Hariri
International Airport at 5:00 p.m. On Sunday, Lebanon administered the first
jabs of the vaccine one day after receiving the first batch of 28,500 doses of
the vaccine. More were expected to arrive in the coming weeks. The rollout is
monitored by the World Bank and the International Federation of the Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies to ensure safe handling and fair and equitable access
for all Lebanese. The World Bank offered a $34 million loan to help pay for
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for crisis-hit Lebanon that will inoculate over 2
million people. Nearly 3 million other vaccine doses are expected to be secured
through the U.N.-backed COVAX program. Both are free of charge. The private
sector has been negotiating separately for more vaccines.
Lebanon Enters Phase 2 of Easing Lockdown Next Week
Naharnet/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
Lebanon will enter phase two of easing a four-stage lockdown on Monday, one week
after it launched its vaccination campaign against COVID-19. The full lockdown
in place since January 14 was imposed after a dramatic surge in coronavirus
cases in the wake of the Christmas and New Year holidays. “Lebanon enters phase
2 of easing an unevenly observed lockdown. Opening the commercial sector has
been brought forward by one week. Yet, our Covid indicators show a persistently
high community transmission especially in low compliance regions, and almost
full hospitals,” said Firas Abiad, director general of the state-run Rafik
Hariri University Hospital, which is leading the coronavirus fight. Authorities
in Lebanon adopted a strategy of gradually easing the lockdown aimed at opening
the different sectors in the country in four phases to avoid big gatherings and
transmission of the virus.
Abiad added in tweets that “regions that had low compliance with restrictions,
such as Akkar and Baalbek/Hermel, the upward trend in Covid numbers is clear.
Beirut and Mount Lebanon showed better compliance; their numbers improved
markedly. Will they maintain the gains, or will they witness a surge?”According
to official data, the number of infections have reached 351,065 so far with
4,257 deaths from the virus. On opening education facilities, he said it would
“facilitate community transmission. Meanwhile, the vaccination drive is in its
beginning and the supply of vaccines is still limited at the moment. The
vaccine, therefore, will unlikely have an effect on the Covid numbers till
later.”Abiad urges more people to get the vaccine. “Without financial support,
extending the lockdown or enforcing it in economically devastated areas was a
big ask. Hope now lies on vaccinating as much high-risk individuals as possible,
and relying on personal compliance with safety measures. Let us beware the ides
of March,” he concluded.
Lebanon Vaccinates More than 17,000 People
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
More than 17,000 people have received the COVID-19 vaccine in Lebanon since the
launch of the inoculation campaign less than a week ago, Health Advisor to the
President Dr. Walid Khoury confirmed on Friday. “No complications or side
effects experienced from the vaccine have been registered so far,” the advisor
said, adding that Lebanon is on the right track to implement the national plan
for the vaccination drive. Last weekend, Lebanon received its first batch of
28,500 Pfizer-BioNTech doses of coronavirus vaccines. It started vaccinations on
Sunday. More Pfizer-BioNTech doses are scheduled to arrive to Beirut over the
coming weeks and at a later stage AstraZeneca shots will be brought in. Lebanon
gave its first COVID-19 vaccine doses to health workers and those above 75. The
country had imposed a nationwide lockdown including a curfew as of Jan. 11 to
try to limit the spread of the virus.
The curfew helped decrease the number of daily cases with 2,255 new infections
registered on Friday. In light of hesitation among the Lebanese to get the
vaccine, director of Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) Dr. Firas Abiad
published on his Twitter page a report by The Lancet magazine showing early rate
reductions of COVID-19 infection in Pfizer vaccine recipients. It said the first
dose of the vaccine is 85% effective. The Lancet publication comes a day after
Canadian researchers suggested that the second Pfizer dose be delayed given the
high level of protection from the first shot in order to increase the number of
people getting vaccinated. Lebanon has finalized a deal with Pfizer for 2.1
million doses of the coronavirus vaccine and another 2.7 million doses from the
UN-led program to provide for countries in need.
US Lawmakers Urge Biden to Consider Sanctions on Lokman Slim’s Murderers
Washington - Rana Abtar/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday,
20 February, 2021
Two key US lawmakers called on President Joe Biden to consider using the Global
Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to sanction those responsible for the
murder of Lebanese activist Lokman Slim. “This brazen assassination of an
outspoken activist is likely intended to intimidate and silence others,
particularly in light of Lebanon’s tragic history of political assassinations
without accountability for the perpetrators,” US House Foreign Affairs Committee
Chairman Gregory Meeks and Lead Republican Michael McCaul said in a letter sent
to the US President. The lawmakers added that the Global Magnitsky Human Rights
Accountability Act could serve as an appropriate tool to hold those responsible
accountable for the Feb. 4 extrajudicial killing of Slim in south Lebanon.
Congressional sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that there were contacts between
lawmakers and the State Department for a “suitable response” to the killing.
“Bipartisan leaders are exerting extensive pressure on the State Department to
issue a firm response to the brutal killing,” the sources said. The former
administration of Donald Trump had imposed sanctions on Lebanese officials,
mainly former Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, under the Global Magnitsky Act.
“Slim was a valued member of Lebanon’s civil society, promoting democratic
participation while also holding accountable all members of the Lebanese
government including Hezbollah,” the two lawmakers wrote in their letter to
Biden. The letter said Slim’s murder could constitute a “sanctionable gross
violation of internationally recognized human rights” committed against a
foreign person seeking to exercise and promote basic freedoms and the rule of
law. “We urge you to consider utilizing Magnitsky authorities in calibrating the
appropriate response to Slim’s murder. We similarly urge you to consider any
relevant information, including with respect to officials in the Governments of
Lebanon and Iran, if appropriate in calibrating such a response,” the letter
added.
Lebanese sceptical as new judge named to lead port blast
probe
The Arab Weekly/February 20/2021
BEIRUT – Lebanon Friday named a new judge to lead a probe into Beirut’s
devastating port blast last August, a judicial source said, a day after his
predecessor was removed from the case. “The high judicial council… agreed to
caretaker justice minister Mary-Claude Najm’s suggestion of appointing Judge
Tareq Bitar as lead investigator in the Beirut port blast case,” the source
said. “The council summoned Judge Bitar and informed him of the decision to
appoint him, and he accepted.” Bitar will become the second judge to look into
the explosion of hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser on August 4
that killed more than 200 people, injured thousands and ravaged swathes of the
capital. Bitar steps into the position after a court on Thursday removed Judge
Fadi Sawan from the case, following a complaint from two former ministers
charged with negligence over the explosion. Rights activists condemned the move
as the latest example of an entrenched political class placing itself above the
law. Families of people killed in the explosion protested on Friday for a second
day, in an outcry over a severe setback to their campaign to hold those in power
to account.
Around 70 people gathered in front of Beirut’s Palace of Justice on Friday, some
burning tires to block roads or holding images of their dead relatives. “Even
when the case now goes to another judge, we will not give them our complete
trust…the day that we discover a judge is being too lenient with the
investigation we will stand up to them no matter who they are,” said Rima al-Zahed,
41, whose brother Amin died in the blast. Sawan in December issued charges
against caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers for
“negligence and causing death to hundreds”, sparking two of the latter to file
the complaint. The court on Thursday found in favour of the plaintiffs who had
questioned the judge’s impartiality in view of his home having been damaged in
the explosion.
“No one in the political class wants an investigation like this,” Mohanad Hage
Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Centre said. “That would open up a Pandora’s box
of justice and these are politicians used to getting away with major crimes
since the Lebanese civil war…the judiciary is one of the most distrusted
institutions in the republic.” Lawyer and activist Nizar Saghieh tentatively
welcomed Bitar’s appointment, and said he had a good reputation as being
competent. But after Sawan’s removal, he wondered whether the new judge would be
able to conduct his work “without interference or pressure.”“Will he be able to
cross the red lines?” he asked. For some the judge’s dismissal is a blow, but
Lebanese analyst Sarkis Naoum does not believe a domestic investigation will
ever deliver any real results. “Our state has become a failed state which means
failed security agencies, failed institutions, failed judiciary and failed
everything so I never believed that judge Sawan was going to reach anything,”
Naoum said. The probe into Lebanon’s worst peace-time disaster has led to the
detention of 25 people, from maintenance workers to the port’s customs director,
but not a single politician. Diab resigned after the blast, but the divided
political class has failed to name a new government to replace him and help lift
the country out of the economic crisis. “Those in jail are the small fish,”
Naoum said. With the lead investigator appointed by Lebanon’s executive, and the
use of a court of exception, the investigation does not lend itself to
impartiality, said Lynn Malouf, Amnesty International deputy regional director
for the Middle East and North Africa. “I wouldn’t say this move took us back to
square zero because we were always at square zero from the very beginning,” she
said. The court of exception is a special court set up to have jurisdiction over
cases referred to it by the government such as assassinations of senior
politicians and cases linked to political violence and terrorism. “It was set up
with the view of the politicians being the victims rather than the
perpetrators,” Malouf said. “A domestic-led investigation cannot deliver on
justice.”But so far there has been little interest in an international
investigation into the blast. Hage Ali sees a different kind of search
prevailing. “A search by the Lebanese political class for a scapegoat…no
politician will be indicted unless there is political consensus over a
scapegoat,” he said.
UN Gives Green Light to Fund STL for 2021
Associated Press/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
The U.N. Security Council has given a green light to keep the U.N.-backed
tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister
Rafik Hariri operating and funded for at least this year. U.N. Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres said in a letter to the council circulated Friday that the
president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Ivana Hrdličková, informed
him in November that its work wouldn't be finished by the expiration of its
mandate Feb. 28. The judge asked for a two-year extension "to significantly
advance its work towards completion," Guterres said. Guterres said he intends to
extend the mandate of the tribunal for two years starting March 1, or until its
cases are completed or available funds are exhausted "if sooner."Lebanon, which
is mandated to pay 49 percent of the tribunal's costs, faces a dire financial
situation which has left the tribunal with a serious funding shortfall. The
remaining 51 percent of the tribunal's funding comes from voluntary
contributions. Guterres said he launched an urgent appeal to all 193 U.N. member
states and the international community on Dec. 20 to support the tribunal, but
"unfortunately, the appeal did not generate any new commitments of
funds."Without additional funding, he said, the U.N. was informed that the
tribunal "may not be able to carry out its mandate beyond the first quarter of
2021." "To bring the ongoing judicial proceedings of the Special Tribunal to an
abrupt close in these circumstances would be unprecedented," Guterres wrote. "A
premature closure would have a significant impact on international justice
efforts and would send a negative message to the people of Lebanon and to
victims of terrorism worldwide."After consulting Lebanon's government and
Security Council members, Guterres said he intends to request approximately $25
million from the General Assembly, called a "subvention," to cover the
anticipated shortfall in funding from the Lebanese government and donors in
2021. This would be temporary, while the tribunal seeks additional funds, he
said. Britain's U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, the current council
president, said in a letter to the secretary-general that members approved his
intention to extend the tribunal's mandate and to request about $25 million in
funds from the General Assembly for 2021. She said this was with the
understanding that the money will be reimbursed from voluntary contributions the
tribunal receives, and its voluntary funding arrangements will not be changed.
"The members of the council stress that contributions from Lebanon, as well as
from the donors, should remain a major source of funding for the Special
Tribunal and that additional efforts should be made to avoid reliance on the
subvention," Woodward said. Lebanon's economic and financial crisis, which began
in late 2019, is the country's worst in modern history, with the economy
contracting 19% in 2020. Tens of thousands around the country have lost their
jobs, and nearly half the population of more than 6 million is living in
poverty. The crash of the local currency has led to triple-digit inflation. In
early December, the World Bank said Lebanon's economy faces an "arduous and
prolonged depression" because its politicians refuse to implement reforms that
would speed up the country's recovery. The Valentine's Day 2005 truck bombing on
Beirut's seafront that killed former prime minister Hariri and 21 others and
injured 226 sparked huge protests against Syria, which was widely seen as
culpable. Damascus denied involvement but was forced to withdraw its troops from
Lebanon after 29 years there. The U.N. investigation into Hariri's assassination
was broadened to include 14 other Lebanese killings. The Netherlands-based
Special Tribunal sentenced Salim Ayyash, a member of the Hezbollah militant
group, in absentia to life imprisonment in December for his involvement in
Hariri's assassination. Ayyash has never been arrested. Three other Hezbollah
members tried with him were acquitted.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Emphasizes UAE’s Support for Lebanon
during Hariri Meeting
Naharnet/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
The Emirates News Agency (WAM) announced that the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and
Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan received at Qasr Al Shati' Palace Friday Prime Minister-designate Saad
Hariri who is visiting the state.
Hariri’s press office released an English-langauge statement and said: “During
the meeting, discussions focused on the bilateral relations and a number of
regional and international issues of mutual interest, in addition to the
Covid-19 pandemic, its repercussions on all levels and ways to contain them.
Premier Hariri briefed Sheikh Mohammed on the latest developments in Lebanon,
especially those related to the formation of the new government. Abu Dhabi Crown
Prince expressed his sincere wishes for the formation of a Lebanese government
that takes into account the national interest, surpasses differences and is able
to overcome the various challenges surrounding Lebanon. He affirmed the UAE's
support for the Lebanese people to fulfill its aspirations for unity, stability
and development. For his part, Premier Hariri congratulated Sheikh Mohamed bin
Zayed on the success of “Hope Probe” in reaching Mars orbit. He also praised the
UAE's constant stances in support of Lebanon, and its assistance to face the
coronavirus pandemic, wishing the Emirates and its people safety from all harm.”
FPM Says Govt Formation, Forensic Audit are ‘Priorities’
Naharnet/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
The Free Patriotic Movement issued a statement on Saturday saying the formation
of a government in Lebanon and conducting forensic audit into the central bank
accounts are two top “priorities” needed to handle the crisis in Lebanon. The
FPM’s political commission said a government that “meets the expectation of the
people and is capable of shouldering responsibility to face the economic
collapse is a priority.”It considered that priority should also be given at the
national level to conduct a forensic audit of the BDL's accounts to clarify the
truth, determine responsibility, conduct accountability, and work to return
people's deposits and their rights.After its periodic electronic meeting led by
MP Jebran Bassil, the political commission called on the responsible judicial
authorities to expedite investigation into the Beirut port explosion and to
issue an indictment, in preparation for the start of the trial and
accountability for those involved.
“Why was a judge appointed in the port case after
previously refusing the mission?” questions Gemayel
NNA/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
Lebanese Kataeb Party Chief, Sami Gemayel, tweeted today over the Beirut port
blast investigation dossier, asking: “Why has a judge been appointed who had
previously refused the mission? What were his reservations at the time? Why did
he accept the mission today? How and why were his reservations dispelled?
Whoever overthrows an investigator in response to a political decision of the
accused, rather assassinates the judiciary and justice...Accountability is
definitely on its way!"
The
Latest
English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on
February 20- 21/2021
Iran is biggest threat to international community, former
Trump adviser Bolton says
Joseph Haboush, Nadia Bilbassy & Daniel AlAkl/Published:
18 February/2021
Iran continues to pose a threat to the international community, and it would be
a mistake for US President Joe Biden to ease sanctions on Tehran’s regime,
former National Security Adviser John Bolton told Al Arabiya in an interview
aired Thursday. The veteran US diplomat cautioned Biden and his aides against
repeating the Obama administration’s errors that Iran was the region’s great
power. “I’m afraid that the real inclination of the Biden presidency will be to
repeat what Obama thought, which was that it was really Iran that was the great
power in the region, and that it was Iran … that would ultimately be the rock of
stability across the Middle East,” Bolton said in the wide-ranging interview. “I
think that’s entirely the reverse of the truth,” he said, adding that it had
nothing to do with the people of Iran or the country. “So, the idea that somehow
Iran, under its current regime, could be a responsible actor in the Middle East,
is just badly misguided. Biden has made no secret of his intentions to reenter
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed under the Obama
administration in 2015. Bolton was one of the main drivers behind convincing
former President Donald Trump to withdraw from the deal three years later. A
maximum pressure campaign ensued, which entailed hard-hitting economic sanctions
against Iran and those who supported the regime and its proxies globally. And
Bolton defended the Trump administration’s policy which he said imposed “much
more” pain on the Iranian regime than people thought. “We were told that what
multilateral sanctions couldn’t do, unilateral American sanctions couldn’t do
either. But our sanctions turned out to be much more effective than the
multilateral UN Security Council sanctions,” he said. But he believes the US
“didn’t go far enough. We didn’t put enough pressure.”Asked what more could be
done to force a change in the regime’s behavior, Bolton said the objective
should be to split the regime.This doesn’t require outside or military
intervention, he said. As for reentering the JCPOA, Bolton believes Biden and
his team are finding it much harder than initially thought due to shifting
political developments over the years.If Biden reenters the deal and there is
noncompliance from Iran, “it would be total surrender,” Bolton said. “But make
no mistake, his objective remains the same, and that’s getting back into the
deal.”
Biden’s ‘naive’ move to revoke terror designation of Houthis
Bolton launched a diatribe against the Biden administration for removing the
Iran-backed Houthis from the terrorist list. On Tuesday, the terrorist
designations imposed on the Houthis and its leaders, including Abdel Malik al-Houthi,
were removed. “I do think it’s naive,” Bolton told Al Arabiya. He said the real
danger in Yemen was Iran’s funding and providing weapons to the Houthis.
Admitting that negotiating with terrorists was “nearly an impossible
assignment,” Bolton said Iran and the Houthis were exploiting the situation
“very effectively.”And now with the revocation of the designation, the Biden
administration has lost another point of leverage. The former NSA called out
Biden and his team by seeking to get back into the nuclear deal by taking
actions such as eliminating the terrorist designation of the Houthis “and by
threatening to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”These moves would
put all the pressure on Washington’s own friends in the region. “I think the
ayatollah in Tehran understand that and I think they’re just going to continue
doing what they’re doing in Yemen, and elsewhere … to see what additional
concessions Biden may make,” Bolton said.
Rockets strike military base in Iraq housing US forces:
Iraqi military
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya
English/20 February 2021
At least four Katyusha rockets hit the Iraqi air base of Balad north of Baghdad,
which houses US personnel, Iraq’s state media reported on Saturday citing the
military. The Iraqi report did not mention any injuries or deaths and did not
say who was behind the attack.
Balad base hosts US forces and contractors and is located about 80 kilometers
north of Baghdad. The strike comes days after the US Coalition in Iraq said on
Monday a rocket attack at a US-led military base in Kurdish northern Iraq killed
a civilian contractor and injured six other people including a US service
member. Monday’s attack was the deadliest to hit US-led forces for almost a year
in Iraq, where tensions have escalated between US forces, their Iraqi and
Kurdish allies on one side and Iran-aligned militias on the other. The US has
urged Iraq's leaders to work on preventing attacks on foreign targets in the
country, after a rocket attack targeted the American embassy's compound in the
Green Zone in Baghdad in December. The Balad base rocket strike comes after NATO
announced it would dramatically scale up its mission in Iraq from 500 personnel
to 4,000, in order to battle the remnants of the ISIS terrorist group.- With
Agencies
Clashes between Iraqi forces and Daesh leave 7 dead
AFP/February 21, 2021
TARMIYAH: Iraqi security forces clashed with Daesh north of Baghdad on Saturday,
leaving at least five extremists and two security personnel dead. A joint force
of army troops and state-sponsored tribal fighters raided a Daesh hideout in the
leafy plains of Tarmiyah, according to a statement from the military. “We had
learnt that Daesh was holding a meeting there to plan for attacks on the capital
Baghdad,” Ahmad Salim, head of the Baghdad Operations Command, said near the
site of the fighting. Ensuing clashes killed five Daesh terrorists and two
tribal pro-government forces, the military statement said. Prime Minister
Mustafa Al-Kadhimi met with top military commanders as troops combed the fields
and agricultural lands around Tarmiyah. The new raid comes nearly one month to
the day after twin suicide bombers killed more than 30 people in the packed
Tayaran Square, the bloodiest such attack in Baghdad in three years. Security
sources said the two terrorists had infiltrated the city from the north. A few
days later, nearly a dozen fighters from Iraq’s Hashed Al-Shaabi, a powerful
network of state-sponsored groups, were killed in a Daesh ambush — also north of
the capital. Since then, security forces have ramped up their efforts to hunt
Daesh sleeper cells there, with Al-Kadhemi announcing the killing of Abu Yasser
Al-Issawi, identified as the top IS figure in Iraq, on January 28. In early
February, security forces killed another IS leader who they believed helped
transport the twin bombers into Baghdad. Iraq declared Daesh territorially
defeated in late 2017 after a three-year fight aided by US-led coalition air
strikes and military advisers. Daesh attacks in urban areas have dramatically
dropped since then, but Iraqi troops have continued to battle sleeper cells in
the country’s mountainous and desert areas.
Iran says confident US will lift sanctions despite nuclear deal ‘political
wrangling’
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/20 February/2021
Iran is confident the United States will lift its sanctions despite ongoing
“diplomatic wrangling” over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian government
spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Saturday. “We predict with confidence that
diplomatic initiatives will result in a favorable outcome despite the diplomatic
wrangling, which are a natural prelude to the return of the parties to their
commitments, including the lifting of all sanctions in the near future,” state
media quoted Rabiei as saying. US President Joe Biden’s administration has
announced its willingness to return to talks to revive the nuclear deal Former
President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. Biden reversed Trump’s determination
that all UN sanctions against Iran had been restored. And the State Department
eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats in New
York. Yet, Tehran demanded that all Trump-era sanctions on Iran be lifted before
taking any real action to return to the deal. But White House spokeswoman Jen
Psaki stressed on Friday that the US would not take any additional steps on Iran
before diplomatic conversation. Iran has set a deadline of next week for Biden
to lift sanctions reimposed by Trump, or it will halt snap IAEA inspections
under the deal, which lifted sanctions in return for curbs on Iran's nuclear
program. Next week is also when the IAEA is expected to issue a quarterly report
on Iran's nuclear activities. Reuters reported in an exclusive that the IAEA
found uranium particles at two Iranian sites it inspected after months of
stonewalling and is preparing to rebuke Tehran for failing to explain, possibly
complicating US efforts to revive nuclear diplomacy. Iran has long denied
striving to develop nuclear weapons through uranium enrichment, though its
intelligence minister recently said persistent Western pressure could push
Tehran to fight back like a “cornered cat” and seek nuclear weapons. The Iranian
regime is trying to get more concessions from Washington before taking any real
action, especially in light of growing pressure at home due to economic hardship
worsened by the US sanctions.
“Tehran urgently needs sanctions.. Iran also holds its presidential elections in
June 2021 and, for the outgoing Rouhani administration, securing a quick return
to the deal would build back lost economic and political confidence, and perhaps
also impact the election outcome,” according to Sanam Vakil, Senior Research
Fellow at Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House. Iran's Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had said in a speech on Wednesday: “We’ve heard
many promises which were broken and contradicted in practice. Mere words don't
help. This time only action! Action! If the Islamic Republic sees action from
the other side, it will act too.”Some hardliners are already crediting what they
describe as the Iranian regime’s perseverance in the face of US pressure for the
recent Biden administration policy announcements."They have reversed some
measures ... It is a defeat for America ... but we are waiting to see whether
there will be action on lifting sanctions," state media quoted Tabriz city's
Friday prayer leader Mohammadali Ale-Hashem as saying. - With Reuters
Iran to Host UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief Ahead of Sanctions
Deadline
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
UN nuclear watchdog head Rafael Grossi was to open talks Saturday in Iran on the
eve of Tehran's deadline for US sanctions to be lifted, as President Joe Biden
called for "careful diplomacy". The deadline, set by Iranian lawmakers, carries
the threat of a suspension of some nuclear inspections, stoking international
concern about a possible expulsion of UN inspectors. But Iran has stressed it
will not cease working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or
expel its inspectors. Iran and the IAEA have yet to release details on the visit
by the UN body's chief Grossi that runs into Sunday, AFP reported. He will "meet
with senior Iranian officials to find a mutually agreeable solution, compatible
with Iranian law, so that the @iaeaorg can continue essential verification
activities in Iran", Grossi wrote Friday on Twitter. "Looking forward to success
- this is in everybody´s interest," he added. Iran has notified the IAEA that it
will suspend "voluntary transparency measures", notably inspection visits to
non-nuclear sites, including military sites suspected of nuclear-related
activity, if the United States has not lifted the sweeping sanctions former
president Donald Trump reimposed in 2018. The new measures are to go into effect
on Tuesday. Iran's atomic body spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said last week that
talks with Grossi will focus on how to cease "voluntary actions beyond safeguard
(measures) and how to continue cooperation". The visit comes in the wake of
Biden's call on Friday for European powers to work together to curb Iran's
"destabilizing" activities, a day after committing to rejoin talks on Tehran's
nuclear program. Biden told the Munich Security Conference that the United
States would work closely with allies in dealing with Iran after his predecessor
Trump took an aggressive unilateral approach. "The threat of nuclear
proliferation also continues to require careful diplomacy and cooperation among
us," Biden told fellow leaders via teleconference. "That's why we have said
we're prepared to reengage in negotiations with the P5+1 on Iran's nuclear
program," he said, referring to the five UN Security Council permanent members
and Germany. Tehran has repeatedly said it is ready to return to its nuclear
commitments on condition that Washington does so first by lifting the sanctions
reimposed by Trump that have dealt a heavy blow to Iran's economy. Following an
offer for talks by the Biden administration, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif tweeted Friday that Iran would "immediately reverse" its retaliatory
measures if the US lifts "all sanctions imposed, re-imposed or re-labelled by
Trump". The former president withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018, while
Iran started the next year to suspend its compliance with most key nuclear
commitments in response. In an opening gesture, the Biden administration has
dropped a push for more sanctions crafted by Trump, and removed restrictions on
Iranian diplomats accredited to the United Nations in New York. Iran's
government spokesman Ali Rabiei on Saturday stressed that Tehran's latest
nuclear move will not prevent it from responding to any US show of goodwill, and
expressed optimism regarding the ongoing diplomatic process. It is "neither
against our (deal) commitments nor an obstacle for proportionate and appropriate
response to any US action to prove (its) goodwill," he wrote in an op-ed on Iran
daily.
US Says it Won't Bow to Pressure from Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
The United States plans to take no additional actions in response to pressure
from Iran before talks with Tehran and major powers about returning to the 2015
Iran nuclear deal, the White House said on Friday. Tehran and Washington have
been at odds over who should make the first step to revive the accord. Iran says
the United States must first lift former President Donald Trump’s sanctions
while Washington says Tehran must first return to compliance with the deal. The
United States said on Thursday it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations
returning to the deal that aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear
weapons, which Trump, a Republican, abandoned nearly three years ago. US acting
Ambassador Richard Mills told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday
that the United States was rescinding a Trump administration assertion that all
UN sanctions had been reimposed on Iran in September. Iran reacted coolly, with
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif saying Tehran will “immediately reverse” actions in
its nuclear program once US sanctions are lifted. But White House spokeswoman
Jen Psaki, speaking to reporters on Air Force One as Democratic President Joe
Biden flew to Michigan, said "there is no plan to take additional steps" on Iran
in advance of having a "diplomatic conversation."Under the deal, Iran accepted
curbs to its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international
sanctions. Washington reimposed sanctions after Trump quit the deal, and Iran
responded by violating some of the deal's nuclear limits. Asked if the Biden
administration was considering an executive order about reviving the agreement,
Psaki noted the European Union has floated the idea of a conversation among Iran
and the six major powers that struck the agreement: Britain, China, France,
Germany, Russia and the United States.
"The Europeans have invited us and ... it is simply an invitation to have a
conversation, a diplomatic conversation. We don’t need additional administrative
steps to participate in that conversation," she said.
Biden Calls for Addressing Iran's Destabilizing Activities
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
President Joe Biden used his first address before a global audience Friday to
say that the West should address Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle
East. Speaking to the annual Munich Security Conference virtually, Biden said
the US and its allies must “address Iran's destabilizing activities across the
Middle East, and we're going to work in close cooperation with our European and
other partners as we proceed.”But he said that the US stands ready to rejoin
talks about reentering the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal abandoned by the
Trump administration. Allies were listening closely to what Biden had to say
about a looming crisis with Iran. Tehran informed the International Atomic
Energy Agency this week that it would suspend voluntary implementation next week
of a provision in the deal that allowed UN nuclear monitors to conduct
inspections of undeclared sites in Iran at short notice unless the US rolled
back sanctions by Feb. 23."We must now make sure that a problem doesn’t arise of
who takes the first step,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters. “If
everyone is convinced that we should give this agreement a chance again, then
ways should be found to get this agreement moving again.”
IAEA Says Found Uranium Traces at Two Sites Iran Barred It
From
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
The UN nuclear watchdog found uranium particles at two Iranian sites it
inspected after months of stonewalling, diplomats said, and it is preparing to
rebuke Tehran for failing to explain, possibly complicating US efforts to revive
nuclear diplomacy. The find and Iran’s response risk hurting efforts by the new
US administration to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which President Joe
Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump abandoned. Although the sites where the
material was found are believed to have been inactive for nearly two decades,
opponents of the nuclear deal, such as Israel, said evidence of undeclared
nuclear activities shows that Iran has not been acting in good faith. Iran’s
ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Kazem Gharibabadi,
declined to comment, as did the IAEA itself, Reuters reported. A senior Iranian
official said: “We have nothing to hide. That is why we allowed the inspectors
to visit those sites.”Iran has set a deadline of next week for Biden to lift
sanctions reimposed by Trump, or it will halt snap IAEA inspections under the
deal, which lifted sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. Next
week is also when the IAEA is expected to issue a quarterly report on Iran’s
nuclear activities. Seven diplomats told Reuters the agency will use that
opportunity to rebuke Iran for failing to explain to its satisfaction how the
uranium particles wound up at two undeclared sites. The rebuke could come either
in the quarterly report or in an additional report released the same day. US
intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe Iran had a secret, coordinated
nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003, which Iran denies. The 2015
nuclear deal effectively drew a line under that past, but Iran is still required
to explain evidence of undeclared past activities or material to the IAEA. The
material was found during snap IAEA inspections that were carried out at the two
sites in August and September of last year, after Iran barred access for seven
months. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that radioactive
material was found in the samples taken by inspectors at the two sites, although
the newspaper did not specify what the material was. Four diplomats who follow
the agency’s work closely told Reuters the material found in those samples was
uranium. Identifying the material as uranium creates a burden on Iran to explain
it, as enriched uranium can be used in the core of a nuclear weapon. Iran is
obliged to account for all uranium so the IAEA can verify it is not diverting
any to a weapons program. Two of the sources said the uranium found last year
was not enriched. But nevertheless, its presence suggests undisclosed nuclear
material or activities at the sites, which Iran would have had to declare.
The IAEA’s full findings are a closely guarded secret within the agency and only
a small number of countries have been informed of the specifics. Five diplomats
said that after the IAEA confronted Iran with the findings it gave
unsatisfactory answers. Two of them said Iran told the agency the traces were
the result of contamination by radioactive equipment moved there from another
site, but the IAEA checked and the particles at the sites did not match. One
diplomat briefed on the exchanges but not the detailed findings said Iran had
given “implausible answers”, describing Iran’s response as “typical delaying
tactics”. The agency has said it suspects one of the sites hosted uranium
conversion work, a step in processing the material before enrichment, and the
other was used for explosive testing. The seven diplomats said they expect the
agency to call Iran out for having failed to explain the traces found at the two
sites, as well as over its continued failure to explain material found
previously at another site in Tehran, Turqazabad. Diplomats said it remained
unclear whether the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors, which meets the week
after the quarterly report, would take action condemning Iran. Several said the
focus was on efforts to salvage the 2015 deal by bringing Washington back into
it. “Everyone is waiting on the Americans,” one diplomat said.
Aid Organization: Syria Facing Worst Hunger Crisis to Date
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
After 10 years of civil war, Syria is suffering from its worst hunger crisis to
date, according to the German aid organization Welthungerhilfe. An "alarming
record" of 12 million people do not have enough to eat - almost 60 per cent of
the population - the non-government group's Syria coordinator Konstantin
Witschel told dpa. The humanitarian situation in general deteriorated over the
past year with refugees particularly affected. "The situation in camps is
terrible," Witschel said, after visiting the northern Syrian city of Asas. He
said nearly all supplies in refugee camps were lacking and the winter
temperatures and heavy rain were further affecting people's conditions. "During
our visit, we met 30 children who only wore sweaters and sandals in six or seven
degrees Celsius," he said. The decline in the Syrian lira had tripled food
prices, Witschel added.
Greek FM to discuss military ties with Saudi Arabia
Arab News/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
ATHENS: Greece is eyeing the possibility of stationing a Patriot anti-missile
battery on Saudi soil to help the Kingdom boost its air defenses against missile
attacks on its critical infrastructure, mainly from Iran-backed Houthi militias
in Yemen. Speaking in front of the Foreign Relations and Defense Committee in
the Greek Parliament, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said the two countries may
be close to signing a Status of Forces Agreement that will allow Greek military
personnel to be stationed in Saudi Arabia for as long as the Patriot battery
remains in the Kingdom. He insisted that the Patriot is a defensive system, not
an offensive one, and expressed his willingness to visit Riyadh soon in order to
conclude the agreement. Dendias had discussed the Patriot’s transport and the
enhancement of bilateral defense ties with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal
bin Farhan in January 2020 when the latter visited Athens. The transport was
delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the two men discussed ways to speed
up the delivery on the margins of the Philia Forum in Athens earlier this month,
Dendias said. Turkey’s assertive policies in the eastern Mediterranean have
forced Greece to engage actively with Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and
the UAE, diplomatically and militarily. In November, Greece and the UAE signed a
mutual defense treaty to protect against common threats, while the two countries
have held joint military drills. Discussions between Riyadh and Athens on the
delivery of a Patriot battery started during the last days of the previous Greek
government. The plan is for the Patriot to be accompanied by around 40 Greek
officers. Riyadh will cover the cost of transport and of upgrading the battery.
The Patriot is considered one of the best anti-missile systems in the world. Its
radar can cover an area of up to 170 km, while it can engage targets in a range
of up to 150 km.
Russian Air Assault Kills 21 IS Jihadists in Syria
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
A wave of Russian air strikes killed at least 21 Islamic State group jihadists
in the Syrian desert over the past 24 hours, a war monitor said on Saturday. The
21 were killed in at least 130 air strikes "carried out over the past 24 hours
by the Russian air force targeting the 'Islamic State' group in an area on the
edge of the provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Raqa", the Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said.
Russia Says Registers Third Coronavirus Vaccine
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
Moscow announced Saturday it had registered its third vaccine against the
coronavirus and promised to introduce the jab to the Russian population by
March. Russia was the first country to register a vaccine against Covid-19 in
August ahead of clinical trials, and the Sputnik V jab has been authorised in
more than two dozen countries around the world. "Today we note that a third
vaccine, CoviVac, has been registered," Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at
a government meeting broadcast on state television. "And already in mid-March,
the first 120,000 doses will be distributed within the civilian circulation," he
told the cabinet. First greeted with scepticism, the effectiveness of Sputnik V
was confirmed by the Lancet medical journal earlier this month. Moscow relied on
the nationwide rollout of the vaccine to stave off the impact of a second wave
of infections that battered the country late last year.
But mortality data released recently revealed that Russia's death rate was still
one of the highest in the world. President Vladimir Putin announced in October
that the country had registered its second vaccine, EpiVacCorona, which health
officials had said would enter mass production this month.
Mishustin said Saturday that Russia had produced 10 million doses of Sputnik and
80,000 batches of the EpiVacCorona vaccine developed by the Siberian Vektor
laboratory. With the introduction of the third jab Saturday, the prime minister
said that: "Today Russia is the only country in which there are already three
vaccines for the prevention of Covid infection." CoviVac was produced by the
state-run Chumakov Centre based in Moscow, which employed a different method of
development from Sputnik and EpiVacCorona, using an inactive virus. The vaccine
is due to complete final stage clinical trial with 3,000 participants in March
and has so far been recommended for people below the age of 60.
Moscow Appeal Court Upholds Navalny Prison Sentence
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
A Moscow appeal court on Saturday upheld a prison sentence imposed on chief
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny after he returned to Russia from Germany last
month. Judge Dmitry Balashov rejected Navalny's appeal of the February 2 ruling,
which turned a 2014 suspended sentence on embezzlement charges into real jail
time. The judge decided to count six weeks Navalny was under house arrest as
part of the time served, so he will now be imprisoned for just over
two-and-a-half years in a penal colony. Navalny, a 44-year-old anti-corruption
campaigner who has emerged as President Vladimir Putin's most prominent
opponent, was arrested in January when he returned to Russia after months in
Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. He was
detained for violating parole conditions of the 2014 suspended sentence and it
was then turned into a custodial sentence. Navalny and his supporters say the
rulings and several other cases against him are a pretext to silence his
corruption exposes and quash his political ambitions. He was due in court again
later Saturday in a another trial where he is accused of defamation for calling
a World War II veteran a "traitor" after he appeared in a pro-Kremlin video.
Prosecutors have called for Navalny to be fined the equivalent of $13,000 in
that case. They also want his 2014 sentence turned into real jail time because
the alleged defamation took place while he was serving the suspended term.
Two People Dead in Myanmar Protest Shooting
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
Two people have died from gunshot wounds after security forces opened fire at
protesters in Myanmar's second largest city on Saturday, emergency workers told
AFP. "Two people were killed and about 30 others injured," said Hlaing Min Oo,
the head of a Mandalay-based volunteer emergency rescue team. "Half of the
injured people were shot with live rounds."One of the victims was a boy who was
shot in the head, he added. Another emergency worker confirmed the two deaths.
Yemen Govt Accuses Rebels of Using Civilians as Human
Shields
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
Yemen's Saudi-backed government accused Huthi rebels Saturday of using civilians
as human shields in their renewed offensive against its last major toehold in
the north. Earlier this month, the Iran-backed rebels resumed a push to capture
the city of Marib, 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the rebel-held capital
Sanaa. The city lies close to some of Yemen's richest oil fields and its capture
would be major prize for the rebels. But the fighting has raised fears for the
hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians sheltering in camps in the
surrounding desert that extends to the Saudi border. Loyalist military officials
told AFP the rebels had been using residents of Al-Zor camp in the province's
Sirwah district as "human shields" since their capture of the area last week.
The officials said there had been no let-up in the fighting. Over the past 24
hours, at least 12 loyalist and 20 rebel fighters had been killed in clashes
north and west of Marib, they said. There was no way to independently verify the
death toll but it is clear that both sides have suffered heavy casualties in the
renewed battle for the city. Until early last year, Marib had been spared the
worst of the civil war that erupted in 2014. The International Committee of the
Red Cross has said it is "extremely concerned" by the recent fighting. "The ICRC
urges all parties to the conflict to take every possible measure to protect the
civilians, their properties and all civilian essential infrastructures," it said
on Twitter. The UN has warned of the potential for a humanitarian disaster. "It
puts millions of civilians at risk, especially with the fighting reaching camps
for internally displaced persons," envoy Martin Griffiths told the UN Security
Council. The Huthi offensive came as the new US administration removed the
rebels from Washington's blacklist of terrorist organisations in a bid to
facilitate aid deliveries to rebel-held areas and pave the way for renewed peace
talks.President Joe Biden has also announced an end to US backing for Saudi
offensive operations in Yemen, which he said had created a "humanitarian and
strategic catastrophe." Observers say the Huthis want to capture Marib to
strengthen their hand in eventual peace negotiations.
UN Report Finds Trump Ally Violated Libya Arms Embargo, Says US
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 20 February, 2021
Private security contractor and ally of former US President Trump Erik Prince
violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya, UN investigators have found in
a report detailed by US media on Friday. The confidential report to the Security
Council, obtained by the New York Times and the Washington Post, said that
Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries and weapons to strongman Khalifa
Haftar, who has fought to overthrow the UN-backed Libyan government, in 2019.
The $80 million operation included plans to form a hit squad to track and kill
Libyan commanders opposed to Haftar -- including some who were also European
Union citizens, the New York Times said. Prince, a former Navy SEAL and
the brother of Trump's education secretary Betsy Devos, drew infamy as the head
of the Blackwater private security firm, whose contractors were accused of
killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. Four who were convicted were
pardoned by Trump last year. The accusation exposes Prince to possible UN
sanctions, including a travel ban, the Times said. Prince did not cooperate with
the UN inquiry and his lawyer declined to comment to the New York Times, it
added.
An AFP request for comment to the Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group, for
which Prince is a board member and deputy chairman, went unanswered. Oil-rich
Libya has been torn by civil war since a NATO-backed uprising led to the
toppling and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
The country has in recent years been split between a Government of National
Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, and an eastern-based administration, backed by Haftar,
who has faced charges of war crimes. Then-President Trump in 2019 praised the
strongman for his role in "fighting terrorism" in Libya.
A new interim executive for the country was chosen on February 5 by the Libyan
Political Dialogue Forum in Switzerland, comprising 75 participants selected by
the UN to represent a broad cross-section of society. Haftar has pledged his
support for the initiative.
The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 20- 21/2021
The nuanced differences in how Biden, Netanyahu see their
call - analysis
Lahav Harkov/Jerusalem Post/February 20/2021
This difference apparently reflects a desire by Biden to not be perceived as
supporting Netanyahu 34 days before the Knesset election.
Every day that passed with US President Joe Biden not calling Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu came with speculation about the region, and this intensified
over time.
Now that the bets on when the call would come are closed – after Biden called on
Wednesday evening – the time has come for Talmudic parsing of the readouts of
the conversation.
The statements from the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office are similar
in many ways, but the differences are telling.
Both mentioned strengthening the steadfast US-Israel relationship, and said the
leaders discussed Iran and other regional issues. They both said they would work
to expand the Abraham Accords to include more countries, but did not use that
Trump-era name.
But there is a key difference at the beginning of the statement: “The
conversation was very warm and friendly and lasted for approximately one hour,”
the Prime Minister’s Office statement read. The White House readout said nothing
about the atmosphere or the duration of the call.
“The two leaders noted their longstanding personal connection, and said that
they would work together to continue strengthening the steadfast alliance
between Israel and the US,” the PMO readout continued.
But the White House said that Biden “affirmed his personal history of steadfast
commitment to Israel’s security, and conveyed his intent to strengthen all
aspects of the US-Israel partnership, including our strong defense cooperation.”
Latest articles from Jpost
Netanyahu sought to emphasize that he and Biden go back 40 years. Biden did the
opposite: the White House statement focused on Biden’s history with Israel, as
opposed to the individual leading it.
The prime minister constantly emphasizes his experience and his stature on the
world stage, even more so during an election season. He and Biden really have
known each other for around 40 years – since Netanyahu was deputy chief of
mission at the Israel Embassy in Washington and Biden was a senator – and the
prime minister emphasizes that point whenever asked about the US-Israel
relationship under the new administration. Netanyahu is trying to broadcast that
he is uniquely qualified to handle that relationship, as opposed to his rivals.
He also tried to portray a business-as-usual situation, even as more and more
media outlets asked him why Biden hadn’t called yet. Of course, Biden had not
called any other leader in the Middle East but Israel is used to getting special
attention, and to many, the delay seemed suspicious. Netanyahu used his
decades-long relationship with Biden to say that he’s not worried.
The less personal message from Biden apparently reflects a desire to not be seen
as supporting Netanyahu 33 days before the Knesset election, as well as a
broader move by the Biden administration to return to the more usual channels or
communication and diplomacy in the US, as opposed to former president Donald
Trump’s very informal style.
The Biden administration is also thought to be peeved at Netanyahu for what is
seen as open partisanship in favor of the Republicans, and open cheerleading for
Trump, even after Biden won the election.
Netanyahu said earlier this week that he doesn’t care if a president is
Republican or Democrat – he only thinks about policies. But old habits die hard,
and he continued acting like a Republican. The morning after his call with
Biden, Netanyahu tweeted his condolences to the family of controversial
right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, whom he said “was a great friend of Israel
and... stood by us through thick and thin... We shall miss him dearly.”
Another notable difference between the readouts is that the White House said
Biden “underscored the importance of working to advance peace throughout the
region, including between Israelis and Palestinians.” The Prime Minister’s
Office did not mention the Palestinians at all.
At the same time, Biden’s name-check of the Palestinians seems like an
afterthought. It came almost at the end of the statement, and did not qualify
for its own sentence. That is a far cry from former president Barack Obama, who
called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before then-prime minister
Ehud Olmert, emphasizing his focus on the peace process.
At the end of the day, the conversation was routine, a courtesy call. The
tension that preceded it could easily become yesterday’s news and generally
forgotten, if the leaders want it so. What matters is how the administration
communicates on actual matters of policy with Netanyahu or whomever replaces him
after the election. Then the Talmudic parsing will truly be warranted.
Biden Cannot Allow the Taliban to Destroy Trump's Peace
Legacy
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/February 20/2021
Under the terms of that agreement with the US, the Taliban agreed to negotiate a
peaceful resolution of this benighted country's long-running civil war in return
for Washington agreeing to withdraw all its remaining forces. In addition, they
agreed to cut their ties with Islamist terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda.
While Mr Trump kept his side of the bargain, reducing US forces from around
13,000 at the time the deal was signed last February to just 2,500 when he left
office, there has been little evidence of the Taliban fulfilling their
commitments under the terms of the agreement.
Consequently, Afghanistan finds itself in the midst of a major security crisis,
with militants concentrating their attacks on a broad cross-section of Afghan
society, with judges, activists, journalists, moderate clerics, students and
other professionals all being targeted.
Afghan officials believe the Taliban never had any intention of fulfilling their
side of the deal, and just drew out the negotiations with the Trump
administration so that they could secure the release of the estimated 5,000
militants being held by Afghan security forces, who were eventually released by
the Afghan authorities last autumn.
"The only thing the Taliban have taken out of this agreement is to get their
prisoners, then launch an offensive against the Afghan forces and government.
That was, it seems, their plan from the beginning." — Hamdullah Mohib,
Afghanistan's National Security Advisor, The Times, February 17, 2021.
Of major concern is the prospect that, if the Taliban are allowed to seize
control of the country they governed prior to the September 11 attacks, they
will once again allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorist groups
such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which will then use the country as a base to launch
devastating attacks against the West.
Thus, in making his decision about the future of American forces in Afghanistan,
Mr Biden needs to take care that he is not responsible for causing a new wave of
terror attacks against the US and its allies.
In Afghanistan, there has been a marked upsurge in violence since the start of
the year. The Taliban have been accused of intensifying their terrorist campaign
in their bid to retake control of the country. Pictured: Afghan soldiers fire on
Taliban positions in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan on February 9, 2021. (Photo
by Noorullah Shirzada/AFP via Getty Images)
With former US President Donald J. Trump no longer able to dictate US policy on
Afghanistan, the Taliban are exploiting the opportunity to increase their
efforts to seize control of the country in spite of the peace accord they signed
with the Trump administration last year.
Under the terms of that agreement with the US, the Taliban agreed to negotiate a
peaceful resolution of this benighted country's long-running civil war in return
for Washington agreeing to withdraw all its remaining forces. In addition, they
agreed to cut their ties with Islamist terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda.
Yet, to judge by recent events in Afghanistan, the Taliban are showing little
inclination to abide by the terms of the deal.
While Mr Trump kept his side of the bargain, reducing US forces from around
13,000 at the time the deal was signed last February to just 2,500 when he left
office, there has been little evidence of the Taliban fulfilling their
commitments under the terms of the agreement.
On the contrary, since the start of the year there has been a marked upsurge in
violence as the Taliban, rather than seeking to achieve a peaceful solution to
the Afghan conflict, have been accused of intensifying their terrorist campaign
in their bid to retake control of the country. In addition, the Taliban
leadership is maintaining its ties with terror groups such as Al-Qaeda.
Consequently, Afghanistan finds itself in the midst of a major security crisis,
with militants concentrating their attacks on a broad cross-section of Afghan
society, with judges, activists, journalists, moderate clerics, students and
other professionals all being targeted.
One of the more depressing features of this upsurge in violence is that it has
resulted in young educated Afghans, who have enjoyed a more liberal lifestyle in
recent years and once heralded a bright future for their country, opting to
abandon their country in order to escape the worsening violence.
Afghan officials believe the Taliban never had any intention of fulfilling their
side of the deal, and just drew out the negotiations with the Trump
administration so that they could secure the release of the estimated 5,000
militants being held by Afghan security forces, who were eventually released by
the Afghan authorities last autumn.
Interviewed by The Times of London earlier this week, Hamdullah Mohib,
Afghanistan's National Security Advisor, accused the Taliban of simply
exploiting the deal to secure the release of Taliban fighters from Afghan
prisons:
"The only thing the Taliban have taken out of this agreement is to get their
prisoners, then launch an offensive against the Afghan forces and government.
That was, it seems, their plan from the beginning."
The rapidly deteriorating security situation has now prompted NATO leaders to
order a review of whether all the remaining US-led coalition troops based in
Afghanistan should be withdrawn by May 1 this year, as was originally envisaged
in Mr Trump's deal.
A two-day virtual conference convened this week of NATO defence ministers -- the
first time that officials from the new Biden administration have participated in
a NATO summit -- discussed in detail whether the withdrawal should continue, but
decided to postpone a decision while US President Joe Biden undertakes a
thorough review of Mr Trump's deal.
Even though the Biden administration has yet to decide whether to support Mr
Trump's deal, there is growing resistance within the NATO alliance to
withdrawing forces while the Taliban are still maintaining their campaign of
violence against the Afghan people.
Speaking at the end of the NATO meeting, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said
the alliance remained committed to the agreement, but wanted the Taliban to
demonstrate that it was serious about pursuing peace.
"The peace process is the best chance to end years of suffering and violence,
and bring lasting peace," he said. "It is important for the Afghan people, for
the security of the region and for our own security.
Of major concern is the prospect that, if the Taliban are allowed to seize
control of the country they governed prior to the September 11 attacks, they
will once again allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorist groups
such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which will then use the country as a base to launch
devastating attacks against the West.
Thus, in making his decision about the future of American forces in Afghanistan,
Mr Biden needs to take care that he is not responsible for causing a new wave of
terror attacks against the US and its allies.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a
Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2021 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.
The real message Netanyahu should take from Biden's phone call
Yaalov Katz/Jerusalem Post/February 20/2021
On the surface, the phone call was not really that important.
There were any number of ways it could have gone.
In 2001, George W. Bush called Ehud Barak seven days after the inauguration for
what was described as an “introductory conversation” that lasted a mere seven
minutes. Bush knew that Barak was up for reelection in a matter of weeks and was
predicted to lose. Nevertheless, the call was made.
In 2009, Barack Obama called Ehud Olmert the day after the inauguration, a sign
of how important the Middle East was to his foreign policy agenda.
In 2017, Donald Trump called Benjamin Netanyahu two days after the inauguration,
a sign of how important the relationship with Israel was and would become for
his administration.
Joe Biden surpassed them all. He took his time and waited almost a month – until
Wednesday night – to place his first phone call to Jerusalem.
To some supporters of the Israeli-American relationship, this was disturbing.
Israel is one of America’s closest allies in the world, definitely the closest
in the Middle East. Based on tradition and the moves of the last three
presidents, Biden’s phone call should have taken place within a matter of days.
But it didn’t, which is why there was little doubt that something else was
behind the delay, and why the lack of said phone call not only made headlines
around the world, but also became an ongoing near daily question for Jen Psaki
in the White House Briefing Room.
On the surface, the phone call was not really that important.
As is already known, every other level of government has been working with its
US counterpart, despite there being no direct contact between the White House
and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi has spoken a number of times with Secretary of
State Antony Blinken; Defense Minister Benny Gantz has had conversations with
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin; National Security Council chief Meir
Ben-Shabbat has talked frequently with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan;
and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of CENTCOM, was in Israel just a few weeks
ago for high-level talks.
Moreover, Israel’s newly installed ambassador to the US, Gilad Erdan, just this
past week downplayed the importance of the call, noting that while the media was
focused on the Israeli-US switchboards, he was already in touch daily with
senior members of the Biden administration.
The White House claimed that the delay was not a substantive delay but rather
illustrated a new systematic approach to foreign affairs. Biden, US officials
said, made calls based on regions, and that when the time came to reach out to
the Middle East, Netanyahu would be – as he was on Wednesday night – first on
the line.
But as the days dragged on and the call didn’t come, it was clear that a message
was being sent, and that it was personal. This wasn’t about a change in policy,
like when the White House intentionally sought to create daylight with Israel
during the Obama era, but rather something simpler: the Biden administration
wanted to show that it won’t play according to Netanyahu’s beat.
Israeli officials in contact with members of the Biden administration spoke of
what diplomatic correspondent Lahav Harkov wrote in Wednesday’s Jerusalem Post:
Biden waited to make the call not because he was distancing himself from Israel,
but rather because he wanted to distance himself from Netanyahu.
WHICH IS why as upsetting as the delay of the phone call might have been, it
should not be viewed as a slight of Israel. That was not the point. Rather, it
was being done to achieve three objectives.
First, after four years in which Donald Trump seemingly gave Netanyahu whatever
he wanted, Biden and his aides wanted to put the Israeli politician back in his
right place. He does not control Washington anymore.
The second objective was to show that the US-Israel relationship is not
dependent on a single individual like Netanyahu. Israel is heading to an
election in 33 days and no matter who wins, the White House was almost saying,
we will learn to work with him. Making Netanyahu – who took his time
congratulating Biden after the November election – wait was added benefit.
Finally, the administration did not want to give Netanyahu a pre-election gift
of a quick phone call, something that would have immediately been used by
Netanyahu for political gain.
Nevertheless, that was done anyhow late on Wednesday night, when Netanyahu
released a photo of him sitting in his home office grinning ear to ear as he
spoke with Biden. Was there a photo released from the White House? Of course
not. It was just a phone call. Not for Netanyahu though. Heading toward an
election, he needed to show the Israeli public that everything is seemingly okay
on the US front. He needed to put on a show.
What can’t be forgotten is Netanyahu’s role in bringing Israel to this point.
While he will claim that his fight with Obama and against the 2015 Iran deal was
of existential importance, the fact is, he failed. The Iran deal passed through
Congress despite Netanyahu’s controversial speech, but it created a wound in
Israel’s relations with the Democratic Party that has yet to heal six years
later.
Biden was Obama’s vice president, and many of the advisers who surround the new
president now were the same advisers who surrounded Obama and worked on the
deal, known as the JCPOA. Netanyahu was repeatedly warned at the time that this
would happen, and that his chances at stopping the deal with a speech – no
matter how passionate and animated – were anyway almost non-existent.
A look at where Iran is today – with increased stockpiles of uranium and
centrifuges – raises questions whether the speech or pushing Trump to quit the
JCPOA was even worth it.
He was also warned in 2017 when Trump took office that cozying up to him would
come at a price. When Netanyahu made comments that Trump was “the greatest
friend” Israel ever had in the White House, he was warned that it was a mistake,
that doing so would insult the previous 12 men who had sat in the Oval Office
during the 72 years of Israel’s existence. By saying what he said, Netanyahu
erased Truman, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama. None of them, Netanyahu implied,
was as good as Trump.
He was warned that his flattery would return to hurt him, that the pendulum
would eventually swing back, and that a Democratic president would again take up
residence in the White House and might even enjoy a majority in the Senate and
the House of Representatives. But Netanyahu ignored those warnings, and made no
secret of his desire to see Trump reelected.
Netanyahu, in his defense, dismisses such criticism. As proof, he mentions the
meetings he has with almost every Democratic member of Congress who visits
Israel. This might be true, but meetings in Jerusalem don’t make up for the
actions he took in Washington, like the 2015 speech in Congress or the lecture
he gave Obama in the Oval Office in 2011 that angered the president and his
staff.
BUT POLITICS are not the only place where mistakes were made. For the last five
years, Netanyahu has not only ignored the Reform and Conservative Jewish
communities in the US, he has repeatedly slapped them in the face.
In June 2017, he shamefully overturned a previous decision by his government to
establish a pluralistic prayer plaza at the Kotel due to pressure from his
haredi coalition partners; he has also done nothing to change the conversion
policy in Israel, despite his promises; and he continues to outsource all
matters of religion and state to Yaakov Litzman and Aryeh Deri.
The last few years have seen a continued breakdown in ties between the State of
Israel and progressive Jewish movements in the US, where the Union of Reform
Judaism’s Biennial conference fails to even attract top members of the
government anymore.
Netanyahu knows this, and consciously facilitated this situation. He knew that
progressive American Jews who overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats did not
approve of his alliance with Trump, and he knew that they were against his
policies in Israel.
What Israelis have to do is make sure they don’t pay the price, which means
ensuring that the current prime minister – assuming he remains in office after
the upcoming election – does not end up fighting with Biden the way he fought
with Obama. He needs to continue smiling when talking to the president.
While Biden mentioned the Palestinians in his talk with Netanyahu on Wednesday,
no one has any expectation right now of a breakthrough in the years-long
impasse. Instead, if something is going to test the relationship between
Jerusalem and Washington, it will be what Biden decides to do with Iran.
For now, Israel has an opportunity to influence the path Biden decides to take.
To do that successfully, Netanyahu will have to approach the matter clean of any
other interests, whether political or personal. Based on the way he engaged with
the last two presidents, the chances of that happening are not particularly
high.
As decarbonisation continues, green hydrogen could be key
Omar El-HuniThe Arab Weekly/February 20/2021
LONDON– Saudi Arabia has begun to explore more sustainable and efficient power
generation solutions that it envisions will produce 60 gigawatts of renewable
energy, including solar and wind, by 2030.
To reach its target, Saudi Arabia has continued to decarbonise the power sector,
and to complement renewable energy, improved gas fueled power generation. As
renewable energy comes from natural sources, such as wind, sunlight and rain,
the amount generated varies depending on climate and season. President and CEO
of GE Gas Power in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia Joseph Anis
said “Gas power technologies not only offer the flexibility to ramp power
production up or down rapidly to meet potential gaps in energy supply from
variable renewable sources and stabilize the grid but gas also presents the
cleanest means to generate electricity from traditional fossil fuels.”GE has
installed over 500 gas turbines across Saudi Arabia, as it helps customers
unlock gas’s true potential through an industry-leading solution.GE’s turbines
are capable of ramping up or down at up to 88 megawatts per minutes, and can
support the kingdom’s transition to increased renewable power by adjusting the
turbines’ output to balance to the grid.
Furthermore, upgrade solutions increase not only the efficiency, for which it
holds two world records, but also the availability, flexibility, lifespan and
output of gas turbines, even while reducing the environmental impact and fuel
consumption. To do so, it uses hydrogen gas, which is formed by using renewable
energy to power electrolysis that splits water molecules into its constituent
elements. Green hydrogen is versatile as it can be used in both gaseous and
liquid states, converted into either fuel or electricity and produced and
transported anywhere. It can also be produced from excess renewable energy and
stored for extended periods of time. It contains almost three times as much
energy as fossil fuels pound for pound, so more can be accomplished with less.
It can be stored in currently existing gas pipelines to power households and
serve as a renewable energy transporter when converted into ammonia. Moreover,
anything that uses electricity can be powered by green hydrogen when used with
fuel cells, which, unlike batteries, do not need to be recharged as long as they
have hydrogen fuel. Green hydrogen is not without its challenges, however. Like
other forms of fuel, it is flammable, but due to its lightness – it is
approximately 57 times lighter than gasoline fumes — it can disperse into the
atmosphere quickly, serving as a positive safety feature.
Its decreased density does make it difficult to transport, however. It either
requires heavy compressions — up to 700 times the atmospheric pressure — to be
delivered as compressed gas, or must be cooled to -253°C to be liquefied. It is
currently transported via low-temperature liquid tanker trucks, dedicated
pipelines or in tube trailers that carry gaseous hydrogen.
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of becoming home to the largest green hydrogen
planet plant, due to Air Products & Chemicals, a leading industrial gas giant
from the United States. The project was announced in July, and will be powered
by 4 gigawatts of solar and wind power. The $5 billion plant will be jointly
owned by Saudia Arabia’s ACWA, Air Products and the upcoming mega-city Neom,
which will be powered by the plant. According to Air Products, the facility will
be able to power 20,000 hydrogen-fueled buses with 650 tonnes of green hydrogen
that will be produced daily. For the global market, the fuel will be shipped as
ammonia and converted back to hydrogen upon arrival, a process that is expected
to begin in 2025. This project is an important step for the kingdom’s goal of
turning Neom into a global centre for green hydrogen and renewable energy.
CEO of Neom Nadhmi Al Nasr said in a statement: “This is a pivotal moment for
the development of Neom and a key element in Saudi Vision 2030 contributing to
the Kingdom’s clean energy and circular carbon economy strategy.”ThyssenKrupp, a
German multinational industrial engineering conglomerate, will provide the
electrolyzers. Other major players in the oil and industrial sectors are also
beginning to increase investment into green hydrogen, with Germany allocating
the largest share of its clean energy stimulus toward funding green hydrogen and
BP studying the feasibility of an Australia-based ammonia plant.
Biden Tells Allies 'America Is Back,' but Macron and Merkel Push Back
David E. Sanger, Steven Erlanger and Roger Cohen/The New York /February 20/ 2021
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the administration's response to the
military coup in Myanmar, at the South Court Auditorium at the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, as Vice
President Kamala Harris looks on. (Oliver Contreras/The New York Times)
President Joe Biden used his first public encounter with America’s European
allies to describe a new struggle between the West and the forces of autocracy,
declaring that “America is back” while acknowledging that the past four years
had taken a toll on its power and influence.
His message stressing the importance of reinvigorating alliances and
recommitting to defending Europe was predictably well received at a session of
the Munich Security Conference that Biden addressed from the White House. But
there was also pushback, notably from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who
in his address made an impassioned defense of his concept of “strategic
autonomy” from the United States, making the case that Europe can no longer be
overly dependent on the United States as it focuses more of its attention on
Asia, especially China.
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And even Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who is leaving office within the
year, tempered her praise for Biden’s decision to cancel plans for a withdrawal
of 12,000 U.S. troops from the country with a warning that “our interests will
not always converge.” It appeared to be a reference to Germany’s ambivalence
about confronting China — a major market for its automobiles and other high-end
German products — and to the continuing battle with the United States over the
construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Russia.
But all three leaders seemed to recognize that their first virtual encounter was
a moment to celebrate the end of the era of “America First,” and for Macron and
Merkel to welcome back Biden, a politician whom they knew well from his years as
a senator and vice president.
And Biden used the moment to warn about the need for a common strategy in
pushing back at an Internet-fueled narrative, promoted by both Presidents
Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China, that the chaos surrounding the
American election was another sign of democratic weakness and decline.
“We must demonstrate that democracies can still deliver for our people in this
changed world,” Biden said, adding, “We have to prove that our model isn’t a
relic of history.”For the president, a regular visitor to the conference even as
a private citizen after serving as vice president, the address was something of
a homecoming. The session was crunched down to a video meeting by Prime Minister
Boris Johnson of Britain, this year’s host, and the European leaders decided to
do the same for a brief, closed meeting of the Group of 7 allies that Biden also
participated in.
The next in-person summit meeting is still planned for Britain this summer,
pandemic permitting. Biden never named his predecessor, Donald Trump, in his
remarks, but framed them around wiping out the traces of Trumpism in the United
States’ approach to the world. He celebrated its return to the Paris climate
agreement, which took effect just before the meeting, and a new initiative,
announced Thursday night, to join Britain, France and Germany in engaging Iran
diplomatically in an effort to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement that Trump
exited.
But rather than detail an agenda, Biden tried to recall the first principles
that led to the Atlantic alliance and the creation of NATO in 1949, near the
beginning of the Cold War. “Democracy doesn’t happen by accident,” the president
said. “We have to defend it. Strengthen it. Renew it.”
In a deliberate contrast to Trump, who talked about withdrawing from NATO and
famously declined on several occasions to acknowledge the United States’
responsibilities under Article V of the alliance’s charter to come to the aid of
members under attack, Biden cast the United States as ready to assume its
responsibilities as the linchpin of the alliance.
“We will keep the faith” with the obligation, he said, adding that “an attack on
one is an attack on all.” But he also pressed Europe to think about challenges
in a new way — different from the Cold War, even if the two biggest geostrategic
adversaries seem familiar.
“We must prepare together for long-term strategic competition with China,” he
said, naming “cyberspace, artificial intelligence and biotechnology” as the new
territory for competition. And he argued for pushing back against Russia — he
called Putin by his last name, with no title attached — mentioning in particular
the need to respond to the SolarWinds attack that was aimed at federal and
corporate computer networks.
“Addressing Russian recklessness and hacking into computer networks in the
United States and across Europe and the world has become critical to protect
collective security,” Biden said. The president avoided delving in to the
difficult question of how to make Russia pay a price without escalating the
confrontation. A senior White House cyberofficial told reporters this week that
the scope and depth of the Russian intrusion was still under study, and
officials are clearly struggling to come up with options to fulfill Biden’s
commitment to make Putin pay a price for the attack.
But it was the dynamic with Macron, who has made a habit of criticizing the NATO
alliance as nearing “brain death” and no longer “pertinent” since the
disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, that captured attention.
Macron wants NATO to act as more of a political body, a place where European
members have equivalent status to the United States and are less subject to the
American tendency to dominate decision-making.
A Europe better able to defend itself, and more autonomous, would make NATO
“even stronger than before,” Macron insisted. He said Europe should be “much
more in charge of its own security,” increasing its commitments to spending on
defense to “rebalance” the trans-Atlantic relationship.
That is not a widely shared view among the many European states that do not want
to spend the money required, and the nations of Central and Eastern Europe are
unwilling to trust their security to anyone but the United States.
Macron also urged that the renovation of NATO’s security abilities should
involve “a dialogue with Russia.” NATO has always claimed that it is open to
better relations with Moscow, but that Russia is not interested, especially as
long as international sanctions remain after its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine
about seven years ago.
But Macron, speaking in English to answer a question, also argued that Europe
could not count on the United States as much as it had in past decades. “We must
take more of the burden of our own protection,” he said.
In practice, it will take many years for Europe to build up a defense arm that
would make it more self-reliant. But Macron is determined to start now, just as
he is determined to increase the European Union’s technological capacities so
that it can become less dependent on American and Chinese supply chains. Biden,
in contrast, wants to deepen those supply chains — of both hardware and software
— among like-minded Western allies in an effort to lessen Chinese influence. He
is preparing to propose a new joint project for European and American technology
companies in areas like semiconductors and the kinds of software that Russia
exploited in the SolarWinds hacking.
It was Merkel who dwelled on the complexities of dealing with China, given its
dual role as competitor and necessary partner for the West.
“In recent years, China has gained global clout, and as trans-Atlantic partners
and democracies, we must do something to counter this,” Merkel said.
“Russia continually entangles European Union members in hybrid conflicts,” she
said. “Consequently, it is important that we come up with a trans-Atlantic
agenda toward Russia that makes cooperative offers on the one hand, but on the
other very clearly names the differences.”
While Biden announced he would make good on an American promise to donate $4
billion to the campaign to expedite the manufacturing and distribution of
coronavirus vaccines around the world — a move approved last year by a
Democratic-led House and a Republican led-Senate — there were clear differences
in approach during the meeting.
Underscoring the importance that the European Union accords to Africa, Macron
called on Western nations to supply 13 million vaccine doses to African
governments “as soon as possible” to protect health workers.
He warned that if the alliance failed to do this, “our African friends will be
pressured by their populations, and rightly so, to buy doses from the Chinese,
the Russians or directly from laboratories.”
Vaccine donations would reflect “a common will to advance and share the same
values,” Macron said. Otherwise, “the power of the West, of Europeans and
Americans, will be only a concept, and not a reality.”
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health
Organization, on Friday also urged countries and drugmakers to help speed up the
manufacturing and distribution of vaccines across the globe, warning that the
world could be “back at Square 1” if some countries went ahead with their
vaccination campaigns and left others behind.
“Vaccine equity is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smartest to
do,” Tedros said to the Munich conference. He argued that the longer it would
take to vaccinate populations in every country, the longer the pandemic would
remain out of control.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2021 The New York Times Company
Putin considers slamming the door on Iran and opening a
window for Israel
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/February 20/2021
A remarkable meeting occurred in January between Syrian and Israeli officials at
the Russian base near Latakia in western Syria. It appears to have been
precipitated by Israeli concerns about the increasing sophistication of
high-precision Iranian missiles and drones in Tehran’s satellite states.
Israel wanted to convey the message to Tehran that an Iranian military presence
in Syria would never be permitted. Perhaps more remarkable than the meeting
itself was the extensive pressure exerted by the Russians to force Damascus to
participate, including temporarily suspending fuel supplies.
Some observers view Moscow’s persistent efforts to bring Israeli and Syrian
officials closer together as the prelude to a peace accord, similar to those
brokered with other Arab states. If Russia did facilitate such a deal, the
essential elements are obvious: Return of the Golan, in exchange for wholesale
Iranian exclusion from Syrian territory – a major concession to swallow for both
sides, but offering huge strategic gains. If Putin decides to put his boot on
Assad’s neck, this is probably an offer that the gravely weakened Syrian
dictator couldn’t refuse — particularly as it was Russia’s 2015 intervention
that fundamentally shifted the course of the Syrian conflict.
It’s no secret that many Assad regime officials are fed up with the contempt
they experience from Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel who behave as
if Damascus belongs to them. Similarly for Russia, Iran has gone from being a
necessary ally to a liability. Russia’s massive military investments in Syria
will never be secure as long as Iran’s radicalized militias provoke regional
conflict.
Meanwhile, the depths of Putin’s commitment to Israel — and to his friend
Benjamin Netanyahu —were highlighted again last week with a Russia-brokered
prisoner swap, the third such exchange amid successive rounds of Israeli
elections in which Netanyahu has been fighting for his political life.
Russia has conspicuously left Syrian airspace wide open for Israel to strike
Iran-associated targets on a daily basis. US intelligence sources describe
Syrian airspace as “saturated” with Israeli and Russian planes, necessitating
close coordination. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently pledged to Israel’s
leaders: "If you have facts that your state is facing threats from Syrian
territory, report the facts urgently and we will take every measure to
neutralize the threat."
The Biden administration appears to have reconciled itself to Syria being
consolidated under Russian influence; better this than being an Iranian
satellite or spawning ground for Daesh. Trump’s Syria envoy, James Jeffrey,
warns: “Russia is trying its very best to present an alternative security
architecture for the region. (The Russians) are our competition in the region as
much as the Iranians are.” Indeed, Biden’s lack of outreach to Arab leaderships
may spur them to seek closer Russian ties.
While Biden aspires to be tough with Moscow, he clearly isn’t seeking
confrontation for the sake of confrontation, evidenced by the swift return of
both sides to the START Treaty. However, this will remain a highly transactional
relationship, with Putin seeking as many negotiating cards as possible, even
when Russia-US interests overlap.
This is likely to be the case with Iran’s nuclear program. Both Putin and Biden
support a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Indeed, behind
the scenes Russia has been encouraging Tehran not to violate its JCPOA
commitments, with Lavrov warning Iran “not to give into emotions” and withdraw
from the IAEA Additional Protocol. Moscow furthermore has a strategic interest
in widening the deal to encompass the curtailment of Iran’s proxy
paramilitaries.
Russian diplomacy in Lebanon is also becoming increasingly visible in support of
Saad Hariri forming a government, after Western efforts appear to have petered
out. This is another arena where Russian diplomacy could constrain Iranian
influence, particularly as Moscow’s curtailment of Iran’s activity in Syria
would limit Tehran’s ability to arm and support Hezbollah, while abruptly
putting a halt to Hezbollah’s regional aspirations. Russia has also been
intervening in the floundering Afghan peace process, having most to lose from a
terrorism-exporting failed state in its backyard.
Biden should be urging Turkey, as a NATO member, to act as a check on Russian
expansionism, particularly as Turkish ambitions so frequently clash with those
of Moscow: Ankara backed the winning side, Azerbaijan, in Nagorno-Karabakh,
while Moscow (previously the pre-eminent Caucasus power) only latterly
intervened to calm the situation.
As part of this Armenia-Azerbaijan peace accord, “sister states” Turkey and
Azerbaijan are now physically linked by a “pan-Turkic super-highway” via
Armenia. This affords Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ultra-nationalist regime enhanced
access to the Turkic states of Central Asia, which Russia and China regard as
their exclusive zone of influence. Turkey’s close ties to Ukraine, including
military assistance, are an irritant to Putin’s aspirations to dominate the
Black Sea region.
Since 2017 the Central African Republic (CAR) has been the centerpiece for
Putin’s expansionist Africa strategy, offering the tantalizing prospect of
monopolies over the region’s vast mineral riches. But with the CAR dissolving
into renewed paroxysms of civil war, Putin has been compelled to send hundreds
of additional mercenaries (or “military instructors”), as his dreams of
lucrative African adventures turn into a costly headache.
With a plurality of crises in former-Soviet states (notably Belarus, Kyrgyzstan
and Armenia), a newly assertive domestic protest movement (personified by Alexei
Navalny) and a tough economic outlook, Putin appears unusually vulnerable and
overstretched. Thus, for the time being, Moscow has gone from being the foremost
global provoker of conflicts to energetically putting out fires and calming
things down — not least in the Middle East, where Putin is sick of Tehran’s
warmongering and ceaseless provocations. Russian pre-eminence in Syria and the
region is certainly not our ideal scenario, given the implications for
governance, freedoms and human rights. However, given the overarching menace
from Tehran, Hezbollah, Daesh, Al-Qaeda and a thousand and one other
paramilitary proxies, matters could be infinitely worse.
• 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.
A rocky road ahead to ‘JCPOA 2’
Cornelia Meyer/Arab News/February 20/2021
President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both made it
clear that the US is willing to engage in negotiations to restore the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear
program in return for an easing of sanctions.
Europe, too, wants to find a way forward with Iran, which is understandable
given its geographic proximity to the Middle East. Who wants nuclear weapons to
proliferate in one’s neighborhood? Iran is also rich in energy resources and
commodities, with a youthful population of about 85 million that could become a
lucrative market for European companies.
The JCPOA was one of the EU’s few foreign policy successes, so it was of little
surprise that the bloc disagreed with the Trump administration’s withdrawal from
the deal in 2018. The EU’s high representative, Federica Mogherini, engaged with
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in an effort save the substance of
the agreement. Europe came up with a non-dollar denominated payment mechanism
that would have allowed Iran to purchase goods outside the sanctions’ regime. It
did not work, because such is the pre-eminence of the dollar in global payment
systems that companies faced the stark choice of doing business with either Iran
or the US.
Since Trump began reimposing sanctions, Iran has incrementally expanded breaches
of its obligations under the JCPOA — enriching more uranium to 20 percent purity
and producing uranium metal, which may be used in nuclear warheads. Tehran’s
latest ultimatum is that if the US does not return to the agreement by Feb. 23,
Iran will cease to comply with the additional protocol to the JCPOA, which
permits unannounced snap inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
However, simply turning the clock back to 2015 is not going to happen. The Biden
administration and many observers believe any “new” JCPOA needs to go beyond
uranium enrichment to encompass Iran’s ballistic missile capability, the
aggressive behaviour of its proxy militias in the region, and Tehran’s support
for the Assad regime in Syria.
Washington would like to see Russia and China involved in negotiations, which
makes sense; there probably cannot be a lasting agreement without those two
geopolitical heavyweights. However, Biden also made it clear at the Munich
security conference last week that he stood for democracy and human rights, and
that his views on China and Russia on these issues were skeptical to say the
least. So something will have to give.
It will also be important to include the major Gulf states and Israel in any
future agreement. It is unclear what form such inclusion should take,
consultative or otherwise, which may become a stumbling block. But these are the
major US allies in the region and Washington can ill afford to ignore them,
especially given the debates on NATO troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The road to any agreement is also fraught with issues for Iran, where a
presidential election is months away. During the parliamentary election in 2016
and the presidential election in 2017, moderates argued that the JCPOA would
bring economic gains. But US sanctions ensured that little benefit accrued to
ordinary Iranians, so that argument will not work this time, which may help
hard-line conservative candidates. In judging where new negotiations could lead,
it will matter who holds the Iranian presidency after June 18.
No one doubts the value of an agreement that would moderate Iran’s behavior, and
the US seems willing to re-engage, but the way to a comprehensive deal is far
from easy and even farther from being assured. There is a rocky road ahead.
• Cornelia Meyer is a Ph.D.-level economist with 30 years of experience in
investment banking and industry. She is chairperson and CEO of business
consultancy Meyer Resources.
Twitter: @MeyerResources
Iran Just Handed Biden His First Credibility Test
Michael Knights/Politico/February 21/2021
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/96232/michael-knights-politico-iran-just-handed-biden-his-first-credibility-test-%d9%85%d9%8a%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%b4%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%aa%d9%8f%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a8%d8%a7/
Rocket attacks on an American base in Iraq by an Iran-backed
militia will require a clear response. Nuclear negotiations, not to mention the
safety of U.S. troops, depend on it.
Joe Biden is squarely in the middle of a major foreign policy test as president,
and while it has gone largely unremarked inside the U.S., the Middle East is
watching closely to see how he responds to an attack on U.S. forces.
Monday night, as many as 24 rockets were fired at a U.S. military base at Erbil
International Airport, in the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of
Iraq. The attacked, almost certainly launched by an Iran-backed militia, wounded
an American soldier, killed one non-U.S. contractor and wounded five others.
Three local civilians were also wounded.
Earlier this year, I argued that a new President Biden might face just such a
challenge early in his administration. Iran wanted to avenge the assassination
of Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020 but I suggested that rather than
provoking an outgoing Donald Trump, that it might choose instead to put his
replacement to the test by waiting until after Inauguration Day. That is exactly
what happened and now the question is how Biden will respond.
The early answer is: cautiously. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen
Psaki stated that the U.S. reserves “the right to respond at a time and manner
of our choosing but we’ll wait for the attribution to be concluded first.”
Establishing culpability is important, to be sure, but that won’t take long. In
fact, intelligence experts already have a very good idea where blame lies. The
most pressing concern is to communicate clearly to Iran what the consequences
will be for encouraging further attacks.
It is a miracle that a lot more people were not killed. Two of the two dozen
rockets struck the camp of the U.S.-led coalition. If more had struck the U.S.
base, the result might have been multiple U.S. fatalities, as was the case on
March 11, 2020, when another rocket attack killed two U.S. personnel and also
one British servicewoman in Iraq.
Most of the rockets fired on February 15 missed the airport and struck the
densely populated city, crowded with Kurds, Arab displaced persons, Western
diplomats and foreign workers. Civilian homes and apartment complexes were
struck. If even one rocket had struck a high-rise, in a city with limited
firefighting capacity, the death toll could have been catastrophic.
In late 2019, the same winding-up of militia attacks led to the end-of-year
tit-for-tat strikes in Iraq in which a U.S. contactor was killed, the U.S.
embassy was besieged, thousands of U.S. troops were flown to Iraq. America
killed over thirty Iran-backed militiamen and Iran’s senior general and
spymaster, Qassem Soleimani. Iran fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. base,
injuring over a hundred U.S. troops.
That episode warns that, unless countered, the Erbil attack will not mark the
end of militia provocations against the Biden administration but rather the
beginning. This dynamic has to be quickly reversed before Americans are killed
and maimed, before the U.S. is drawn into retaliatory actions, or before U.S.
credibility takes a new hit in the eyes of our allies and partners in the
region.
As Psaki noted Tuesday, ensuring a correct attribution of blame must be the
starting point, and it offers a welcome excuse for the Biden team to slow down
the process, take a breath, and review options. As someone who has been at the
heart of dozens of similar intelligence exercises, I know it is not difficult to
tell who did the attack: Many factors suggest with high confidence that it was
Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), a U.S.-designated terrorist group with gallons of U.S.
blood on its hands from the years before the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.
Let’s review the circumstantial evidence available even to a trained observer
who only has access to media, social media and some insiders. An AAH-run media
front called Ashab al-Kahf (Companions of the Cave) spent much of February 15
criticizing the Kurdistan Region, and then (13 minutes before the rocket attack)
issued a cryptic Telegram message threatening Kurdistan and Erbil. In the hours
after the attack, AAH’s Telegram channel, Sabareen, dominated coverage of the
incident, with other groups getting access to information slower than the AAH
channel.
When a claim emerged, and was not disputed by other militia groups, it came from
Saraya Alwiya al-Dam (Custodians of the Blood), which is another media brand
that AAH occasionally uses to claim attacks. To add to this picture, similar
circumstantial evidence has identified AAH as the militia that rocketed the U.S.
embassy in Baghdad on November 20 and December 25, and which undertook the last
attack on U.S. targets in Erbil on September 30.
For those inside the system, with top secret access to eavesdropping
intelligence, the trail of breadcrumbs leading to AAH will quickly become even
clearer. Whether they choose to let the outside world know of this evidence is
another matter.
Such evidence will also give a sense whether Iran commissioned the attack, or
was unaware of it, or simply didn’t care. In the case of AAH, the group has a
habit of attacking Americans in order to boost its own prestige, without needing
an explicit go-ahead from Tehran. But even if the Erbil attack was not intended
by Tehran as a trial of Biden’s credibility, it has immediately become that
test.
Based on my close focus on AAH and other Iraqi militias, I rather doubt Iran was
the driving force behind the Erbil attack, but I know for sure that Iran could
warn the group away from future outrages of this kind, if Tehran were properly
motivated.
The Biden team is looking for a diplomatic first step, as opposed to immediate
recourse to military strikes or new sanctions. A smart move would be to directly
warn Tehran that the U.S. expects Iran to restrain all its proxies from taking
destabilizing moves such as the Erbil attack or the January 23 drone attack on
the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, which was also launched from Iraq. Such a
message would alert the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that America is
not fooled by facades, but rather remains clear-eyed about Tehran’s influence
over anti-American militias.
In particular, the Biden team should publicly warn Iran that if another American
is killed or wounded in Iraq or elsewhere in the Gulf, then the Biden
administration will suspend efforts to restart nuclear negotiations. Only a firm
and clear line will safeguard U.S. soldiers operating on the frontlines of the
war against the Islamic State or those protecting U.S. interests across the
Middle East. An assessment period might be set during which Iran would be given
time to quietly de-escalate the activities of its militia partners in Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
It might seem counterintuitive to address the militia threat ahead of the more
consequential effort to stop Iran getting a bomb, but how can a U.S. president
sit down and negotiate with an Iranian government that is either tacitly or
actively encouraging attempts to kill Americans?
Better, surely, to privately condition new talks with Iran on a visible
quieting-down of Iran-backed militias in the Middle East – a non-lethal,
diplomatic first step to safeguard Americans and U.S. partners across the
region.
If Iran fails to restrain its proxies, then the Biden administration should not
shy away from a demonstration of force that is credible and measured. Very
clearly, as demonstrated by the Erbil strike, the Iran-backed militias do not
fear or respect the Biden administration in the same manner that they did the
Trump administration. This is a dangerous state of affairs that could lead to
miscalculation and the deaths of Americans.
To restore deterrence, the U.S. should consider options to shake the confidence
of the AAH leadership, such as a “near-miss” drone or covert action strike on a
location close to its head, Qais al-Khazali, or an obvious penetration of his
personal communications and computer security. If the Biden team wants to
differentiate their approach from the past administration, then such “out of the
box” thinking is more needed than ever.
**Michael Knights is a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy. He has worked on Iraq since the 1990s and made multiple trips to Iraq
each year since 2003, embedding with Iraqi security forces and interviewing
local and national leaders.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/17/iran-just-handed-biden-his-first-credibility-test-469484