English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 02/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation
Mark 16/15-18: “‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 01-02/2021
MoPH: 242 new coronavirus cases, 6 deaths
Presidency Press Office denies allegations claiming that President had prior knowledge of smuggling money through airport
Aoun meets Minister of Public Health over medicine shortage crisis
Pentagon official warns of Hezbollah threat to Lebanon’s stability amid financial crisis
Lebanon crisis among world’s worst since 1850s: World Bank
Bassil Vows Action if 'Procrastination' Drags for More than a Week
Mustaqbal Lashes Out at Bassil, Rejects Possible National Dialogue Call
No Breakthrough' after Shiite Duo Officials Meet Bassil
Reports Say 'Plan B' May be 'Elections Govt.' Led by Tammam Salam
Nasrallah's Health Reportedly Getting Better
Nasrallah is recovering from pneumonia, not coronavirus - report
World Bank: Lebanon's Crisis among World's Worst since 1850s
Qatari Emir Urges Lebanese to Speed Up Govt. Formation
Lebanese military stages ‘national crisis’ drill
Ghosn interrogated for second day in a row by delegation of French judges

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published  on June 01-02/2021
UN watchdog: Access to key Iranian data lacking since Feb 23
IAEA 'Concerned' over Undeclared Iran Sites
Iran enriched uranium stockpile 16 times over deal limit: IAEA
UN atomic agency ‘concerned’ over undeclared Iranian sites
OPEC+ seen sticking to supply plan with Iran’s oil yet to return
Israel says military exports hit $8.3 bn in 2020, boosted 15 pct spike in deals
Netanyahu Opponents Grapple to Form Cabinet before Deadline
In new tally, decade of war in Syria killed nearly 500,000 people
Israel to open economic attache office in Abu Dhabi to boost Gulf investment
Barnea takes over Mossad; Cohen: Mossad struck deep into Iran’s heart
Prisoner exchange tops agenda in Hamas-Israel talks
Iraq’s government warns PMF against challenging the state
UN envoy ‘frustrated’ over derailment of Yemen truce talks
Mia Khalifa calls Israel 'apartheid' while drinking Nazi-era champagne
In major boost to Morocco’s position, Western powers join US in ‘African Lion’ exercise in Western Sahara
A decade of Syria war killed nearly 500,000 people – new tally

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published  on June 01-02/2021
The Five Myths That Doom a New Iran Deal/Michael Rubin/National Interest/June 01/2021
Eleven Days in May: The Latest Battle in the Long War Against Israel/Audio from Washington Institute/May 28/2021
Biden Gets It Wrong in the Pacific and Afghanistan/Bradley Bowman and RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery/FDD/June 01/2021
Only the Chinese Communist Party Knows the Origins of the COVID Pandemic/Thomas Joscelyn/FDD/June 01/2021
Iran Clears Way for Hard-line Judiciary Chief to Become President/Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times/June 01/2021
Biden Administration Rewards Terrorists: Abbas and Hamas/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/June 01/2021
Seeking to enter Europe, migrants will reckon with digital fortress/Derek Gattopoulos and Costas Kantouris/The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
The Middle East has a missile problem with Iran at its heart/Sultan Althari/Al Arabiya/ June 01/2021
Khamenei will control Iran policy no matter who is president/Hassan Al-Mustafa/Arab News/June 01/2021
Pan-Gulf identity as an alternative to Iran’s Vilayat-e Faqih/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/June 01/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published  on June 01-02/2021
MoPH: 242 new coronavirus cases, 6 deaths
NNA/01 June/2021
Lebanon has recorded 242 new coronavirus cases and 6 deaths in the pas 24 hours, as announced by the Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday.

Presidency Press Office denies allegations claiming that President had prior knowledge of smuggling money through airport
NNA/01 June/2021
The Presidency Press Office asserts that there is absolutely no truth in what journalist, Jean Aziz, stated in his interview on Al-Jadeed channel last Sunday that President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, had prior knowledge of money smuggling operations from Rafic Hariri International Airport, and other fabricated-fake news mentioned in the interview. The Presidency Press Office affirms that such baseless allegations fall within the framework of programmed campaigns targeting the Presidency of the Republic for useless reasons which are no longer hidden.—Presidency Press Office

Aoun meets Minister of Public Health over medicine shortage crisis
NNA/01 June/2021
President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, on Tuesday welcomed at Baabda Palace Caretaker Minister of Public Health, Hamad Hassan, with whom he discussed vaccination process against the coronavirus, as well as the medicine shortage crisis in the country.

Pentagon official warns of Hezbollah threat to Lebanon’s stability amid financial crisis
Arab News/01 June/2021
LONDON: US military officials warned on Tuesday of the threat posed by Hezbollah to Lebanon’s stability amid the economic crisis wracking the country. The concerns were raised in a discussion on Washington’s defense cooperation with Lebanon. The US has provided support for more than 15 years to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), but the increasing influence of the terrorist-designated Hezbollah in Lebanese politics has strained the partnership. “Hezbollah’s terrorist and illicit activities threaten Lebanon’s security, stability, and sovereignty,” Dana Stroul, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told a conference hosted by the Middle East Institute. “It (Hezbollah) is more concerned with its own interests than what is best for the Lebanese people.” The financial and political crisis in Lebanon has seen the value of the local currency plunge, wiping out people’s savings and salaries. The panel heard how the crash has placed increasing pressure on members of the LAF, who are now struggling to make ends meet. “The administration remains keenly interested in Lebanon’s stability, and as a result we are committed to working with the LAF to find ways to bolster them in this time of crisis,” Stroul added.

Lebanon crisis among world’s worst since 1850s: World Bank
AFP, Beirut/01 June/2021
Lebanon’s economic collapse is likely to rank among the world’s worst financial crises since the mid-19th century, the World Bank said in a damning report released Tuesday. The report predicts that Lebanon’s economy will shrink by close to 10 percent in 2021 and stresses there is “no clear turning point in the horizon." Lebanon defaulted on its debt last year, the currency lost around 85 percent of its value and poverty is devastating a country once seen as a beacon of prosperity in the region. “The economic and financial crisis is likely to rank in the top 10, possibly top 3, most severe crisis episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century,” the report said. The latest World Bank Lebanon Economic Monitor report, entitled “Lebanon Sinking: To the Top 3”, said such brutal economic collapses are usually the result of war. The complete meltdown of Lebanon’s economy over the past 18 months is widely blamed on corruption and mismanagement by the country’s hereditary political elite. “Policy responses by Lebanon’s leadership to these challenges have been highly inadequate,” the report says. Lebanon’s ruling class has failed to act on the country’s worst emergency in a generation, which was compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and a devastating explosion at Beirut port last August. “The increasingly dire socio-economic conditions risk systemic national failings with regional and potentially global effects,” the World Bank said.The International Monetary Fund has offered assistance but the country’s political barons have failed to even form a government that could deliver the reforms on which foreign aid is conditioned. “Subject to extraordinarily high uncertainty, real GDP is projected to contract by a further 9.5 percent in 2021,” according to the World Bank, dashing any hopes of a quick recovery. According to the monetary institution, the economy contracted by 6.7 percent in 2019 and 20.3 percent in 2020.

Bassil Vows Action if 'Procrastination' Drags for More than a Week
Naharnet/June 01/2021
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday pledged to facilitate the cabinet formation process as he warned that the FPM would take “more pressuring steps” should the efforts to put together a new government drag for more than one week.
“We will smother any new excuse not to form the government and it is clear that there is a fabrication of excuses in order not to form it,” Bassil said at a press conference that followed the weekly meeting of the FPM-led Strong Lebanon bloc.
“We have repeatedly proven that we are not clinging to any portfolio, including the energy portfolio, but we support the distribution of portfolios equally among blocs and sects,” Bassil added. Vowing to do everything that can facilitate the formation of a new government, Bassil stressed that the FPM “wants a government” and that it wants it to be “led by PM-designate Saad Hariri.”Moreover, the FPM chief said his movement “fully supports” Speaker Nabih Berri’s initiative and Hizbullah’s efforts that are aimed at speeding up the government’s formation. His remarks come hours after he met with mediators from Hizbullah and Berri’s Amal Movement. “The president is clear in not seeking any additional minister on top of the eight and he supports any mechanism or method for naming ministers who are not linked to him politically or in any way,” Bassil added, noting that such ministers could be “from the civil society or the Lebanese administration.” He added: “We have proposed many ideas that eventually lead to not affiliating the ministers with any side, and if someone insists on rejecting us, we will back the government’s formation and we will work so that the president accepts it.”
“It will win the vote of confidence and we will not question its respect for the National Pact,” Bassil went on to say. He, however, warned that “should procrastination drag for more than a week,” the FPM would again ask the president to call for a national dialogue conference in Baabda. “Frankness around the table would certainly lead to expediting and facilitating formation, seeing as when things are clearly raised in everyone’s presence, tittle-tattle would stop and problems would be directly solved,” Bassil added.
He also pledged that should Hariri decide to boycott such a dialogue, the FPM would “think of a new initiative and more pressuring steps regarding the formation process.”

Mustaqbal Lashes Out at Bassil, Rejects Possible National Dialogue Call
Naharnet/June 01/2021
Al-Mustaqbal Movement on Tuesday blasted Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil and described him as the country’s “shadow president.”
“Shadow president Jebran Bassil spares no opportunity to talk in the name of the president of the republic, confirming that the two men’s obstruction will comes before all the national efforts seeking to form a government,” the Movement said in a statement, hours after a press conference by Bassil. “Are we in the tenure of Jebran Bassil or in the tenure of Michel Aoun? Or has destiny thrown the Lebanese into a political quagmire run by Bassil and sponsored by Aoun?” Mustaqbal wondered.
Moreover, it said that Bassil has an “illusion” that his “exploitation” of Aoun’s post will enable him to “pounce on the premiership, defeat it, usurp the designation and formation powers, and consolidate the grip on the executive authority.”
“The fog of illusions has grown in Jebran’s head to the extent of believing that he can issue an arrest warrant for Lebanese leaders to come to the Baabda Palace under the national dialogue label,” the Movement added. “This will not happen, no matter how much you maneuver, make adventures and hide behind the president to float yourself and sit around a table that you to be a bridge for fulfilling your dreams and illusions,” Mustaqbal went on to say, addressing Bassil. It also accused Bassil of “leading the Lebanese into the hell that his president had promised.” Bassil had warned earlier in the day that “should procrastination drag for more than a week,” the FPM would ask Aoun to call for a national dialogue conference in Baabda. “Frankness around the table would certainly lead to expediting and facilitating formation, seeing as when things are clearly raised in everyone’s presence, tittle-tattle would stop and problems would be directly solved,” Bassil added. He also pledged that should PM-designate Saad Hariri decide to boycott such a dialogue, the FPM would “think of a new initiative and more pressuring steps regarding the formation process.”

No Breakthrough' after Shiite Duo Officials Meet Bassil
Naharnet/June 01/2021
An overnight meeting between Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil and officials from Hizbullah and the Amal Movement has failed to make any “positive breakthrough” in the cabinet formation crisis, media reports said on Tuesday. Quoting credible sources, al-Joumhouria newspaper said the conferees discussed the atmosphere of the meeting that was held earlier on Monday between Speaker Nabih Berri and PM-designate Saad Hariri. They also discussed “the only remaining obstacle delaying the government, which is related to the two (additional) Christian ministers, and agreed to continue consultations later, the sources added. “The meeting failed to make a positive breakthrough, especially that Bassil did not reflect any change in the presidential stance or in his own stance which rejects that Hariri name any of the two Christian ministers,” the sources went on to say.
In addition to Bassil, the meeting was attended by Berri’s political aide MP Ali Hassan Khalil, Hizbullah secretary-general’s political assistant Hussein Khalil and the head of Hizbullah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, Wafiq Safa.

Reports Say 'Plan B' May be 'Elections Govt.' Led by Tammam Salam
Naharnet/June 01/2021
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri might give up the mission of forming a new government should the difficulty in forming a “rescue government” continue, political sources said. Hariri may make such a move should an agreement on forming an “elections government” be reached, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted the sources as saying in remarks published Tuesday. “As a plan B, The French are considering the issue of the formation of a transitional government that would oversee the legislative elections,” the sources said. “It would be comprised of ministers who would not run in the elections,” the sources added. The daily also quoted unnamed sources as saying that ex-PM Tammam Salam might be chosen to lead such a government should Hariri step down.

Nasrallah's Health Reportedly Getting Better
Naharnet /June 01/2021
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s health is “improving” and “is now better than it was during his latest TV appearance,” sources close to him have said. “He is specifically being treated for a spring allergy and pneumonia and it is not correct that he is infected with coronavirus,” the sources told the journalist Imad Marmal, who is close to Hizbullah and works for its al-Manar TV, in remarks published Tuesday in al-Joumhouria newspaper. “This is not the first time that Nasrallah suffers from this allergy and its complications, but he used to receive treatment without noise and without drawing the attention of anyone, because his illness never coincided with occasions obliging him to appear on TV,” the sources added.The sources also noted that Nasrallah has been examined by a specialist doctor and that he has not needed hospitalization until the moment. “Doctors, one of them based in the United States, have called to give their opinion on his condition, and they all agreed that Nasrallah is suffering from a natural allergy and pneumonia and that the dry weather and antibiotics will aid his recovery,” the sources added. “Nasrallah is continuing his work and his follow-up on the files he is concerned with in a calculated frequency through Hizbullah’s internal telecom network,” the sources went on to say. Marmal’s article also quoted a Hizbullah official who called Nasrallah two days ago as saying that he had personally inquired about the Hizbullah leader's health and that he felt that his voice had improved. The Hizbullah official also called for “dismissing the rumors that are being launched for distortion.” “Hizbullah’s leadership meanwhile informed its institutions and committees that Sayyed Nasrallah is fine and that there is no need to worry, adding that his illness is limited to a spring allergy and does not pose any danger,” the article adds. Israeli experts have suggested that Nasrallah’s situation in his latest speech had indicated that “the issue is not linked to a localized problem.”Others have meanwhile circulated claims that Nasrallah’s health had deteriorated and that he had “entered into a coma.”There were also on Tuesday social media rumors alleging that he has died, which Hizbullah supporters blamed on "Israeli and Saudi electronic armies."

Nasrallah is recovering from pneumonia, not coronavirus - report
Jerusalem Post/June 01/2021
Nasrallah stated last week that he had not made any statements in recent weeks because he had been sick.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is recovering from pneumonia and seasonal allergies, Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria reported. Last week, Nasrallah attempted to broadcast threatening messages to Israel while hacking and coughing throughout his speech. The Hezbollah leader delivered the speech in a quiet, raspy voice and appeared to have difficulty keeping his head up. His speech caused rumors that the Hezbollah leader was in poor health, and at the time his son Javad Nasrallah denied his father's condition was worsening and "just a cold, stay calm." Following the speech, the IDF even chimed in to say that the Hezbollah leader looked weak and sick, believing that the speech was a mistake by the terrorist organization. During the recent IDF operation in Gaza, Nasrallah did not make any statements, and Hezbollah officials remained relatively quiet, with only one or two statements made besides for an official statement issued by the terrorist movement after the ceasefire. Nasrallah stated last week that he had not made any statements in recent weeks because he had been sick. Many speculated that he could have contracted a coronavirus infection, which bears some of the same symptoms he looked to have been experiencing while making his speech. According to Walla! News, a medical expert estimated that Nasrallah could be suffering from coronary heart disease or an infection within his airways. The medical expert also said that Nasrallah hiding out in a bunker since 2006 would also be a factor affecting his health.

World Bank: Lebanon's Crisis among World's Worst since 1850s
Associated Press/June 01/2021
Lebanon's severe economic and financial crisis is likely to rank as one of the worst the world has seen in more than 150 years, the World Bank said in a report released Tuesday. The World Bank said that since late 2019, Lebanon has been facing compounded challenges, including its largest peace-time economic and financial crisis, the spread of coronavirus and a massive blast at Beirut's port last year that is considered as one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. The crisis has worsened in recent months amid a paralyzing power struggle between the president and prime minister-designate that has delayed the formation of a new government, The Cabinet of outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned days after the Aug. 4 blast, and the country has been without a fully functioning government since. The explosion in the Port of Beirut killed 211 people, wounded more than 6,000 and damaged entire neighborhoods.
In the face of these colossal challenges, continuous policy inaction and the absence of a fully functioning government threaten already dire socio-economic conditions and a fragile social peace with no clear turning point in the horizon, the World Bank report said.
"The economic and financial crisis is likely to rank in the top 10, possibly top 3, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century," it added. The report said the country's gross domestic product is projected to contract 9.5% in 2021, after shrinking by 20.3% in 2020 and 6.7% the year before. Lebanon's gross domestic product plummeted from close to $55 billion in 2018 to an estimated $33 billion in 2020, while GDP per capita fell by around 40% in dollar terms, the report said. "Such a brutal contraction is usually associated with conflicts or wars," the World Bank said. The report was released two days before the World Bank's vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, Ferid Belhaj, and Merza Hussain Hasan, its executive director, were set to arrive in Lebanon to meet with Lebanese officials and urge them to address the crisis "with urgency," a World Bank spokeswoman said.
For decades, Lebanon has been dominated by the same political elites, many of them former warlords and militia commanders from the civil war. Corruption has been widespread over the past decades, brining the tiny country to near bankruptcy. In March 2020, Lebanon defaulted on paying back its debt for the first time in its history as the local currency lost more than 85% of its value.
Tens of thousands have lost their jobs while many others left the country seeking opportunities abroad. Nearly half the country's 5 million people live in poverty. "Lebanon faces a dangerous depletion of resources, including human capital, and high skilled labor is increasingly likely to take up potential opportunities abroad, constituting a permanent social and economic loss for the country," said Saroj Kumar Jha, the World Bank regional director. "Only a reform-minded government, which embarks upon a credible path toward economic and financial recovery" can reverse further sinking of Lebanon, he said. In recent weeks, with foreign currency reserves dwindling at the central bank, Lebanon has been witnessing severe shortage in medicines as well as fuel, with people having to wait in line at gas stations to fill their cars. Electricity cuts last more than 12 hours a day.

Qatari Emir Urges Lebanese to Speed Up Govt. Formation
Naharnet/June 01/2021
Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani has called on the Lebanese parties to “put the national interest first, cooperate with the international efforts and speed up the formation of a new government.” Sheikh Tamim voiced his message in a letter sent to caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab. Voicing support for Lebanon and the “brotherly Lebanese people,” the Qatari ruler the new government would have a mission of “overcoming the challenges and crises and consolidating stability in Lebanon.”

Lebanese military stages ‘national crisis’ drill
Arab News/June 01/2021
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army carried out large-scale military exercises on Monday to test its readiness to deal with a nationwide crisis.
The “Lebanon Wide” exercise included units from the army, the Internal Security Forces, General Security, State Security, the General Directorate of Customs, the General Directorate of Civil Defense, the Lebanese Red Cross, UNRWA, UNHCR, along with French experts and officers.
The exercise assessed the capability of units to coordinate missions with security forces, and local and international NGOs during a national crisis. It comes as Lebanon confronts an economic collapse, with the absence of a rescue government, and mounting anger among Lebanese forced to endure long queues outside gas stations, pharmacies and supermarkets. In a new attempt to resolve the obstacles facing the formation of a rescue government, Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon Nabih Berri met on Monday with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri.
Hariri did not release a statement at the conclusion of the meeting. Berri’s office said that the meeting “lasted for two hours, during which the government issue was discussed.”It said that there was discussion “about the path of forming the government and the steps that had been made, and the atmosphere was positive.”Berri is seeking to mediate with Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Hariri to agree to form a government of 24 ministers, with no “obstructing third” for any party.
FASTFACT
• In a new attempt to resolve the obstacles facing the formation of a rescue government, Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon Nabih Berri met with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri.
• Hariri did not release a statement at the conclusion of the meeting.
On Oct. 22 last year, the majority of the country’s parliament mandated Hariri to form a new government, and he submitted a draft formation of 18 nonpartisan ministers to Aoun, but it was rejected by the president, who demanded that Hariri personally nominate Christian ministers and employ an obstructing third in the prospective government.
Aoun called parliament to discuss the naming of a prime minister other than Hariri, but on May 22, the parliament affirmed its commitment to assign Hariri unanimously. Future Movement MP Rola Al-Tabash said: “The chances of forming a government are almost equal to the possibility of obstructing it.”
She added: “There is a side led by the prime minister-designate striving to overcome all obstacles, internally and externally, and another side led by a presidential obsession that creates all obstacles to perpetuate the constitutional distortion, political rifts and social exhaustion.”Amid the economic crisis, prices of food such as beef and chicken have risen steeply in Lebanon, leading to a crisis among consumers. Only eight food commodities remain subsidized by the state, with policies in the past covering subsidies for more than 100 common food products. On Monday, a financial source told Arab News: “The caretaker government does not want to bear the responsibility for lifting subsidies on food commodities, for fear of the security and social repercussions.”The decision is the responsibility of the government and the Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s central bank, said the source. “However, in light of the government’s reluctance to swallow this poison, the central bank slowed down the process of supplying traders and importers with fresh dollars — required for importation — to match the official exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds ($1) to the dollar, and this is what we have seen recently in the issue of fuel and medicines,” the source added.
American University’s Crisis Observatory said the government “has refrained from presenting policies and programs to address the economic, financial and living crisis, except for the decision to refrain from paying eurobonds in March 2020.”The financial source also warned that due to entanglement, the bread industry “will be affected by the removal of fuel subsidies.” Also on Monday, Asaad Bayram, Beirut investigate judge, finished questioning lawyer Rami Aliq over the offense of defaming the judicial authority and threatening the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Judge Ghassan Oweidat.
Bayram ruled to “prevent Aliq from practicing the profession of attorney and entering the justice palaces for two months, and to make him pay a fine instead of arresting him.”The decision came following Aliq’s work as an activist group supporting the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). The FPM supported Judge Ghada Aoun when she stormed the Mecattaf Money Transfer Company — in violation of a judicial decision preventing her from handling a file concerning currency export breaches, which she was investigating. Aliq went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest, labeling it “a violation of the immunity the legal profession affords him.”He said that he was “subjected to flagrant violations of the constitution and the charter of human rights, and that he is a prisoner of conscience.”Many lawyers supporting Aliq gathered in front of Judge Bayram’s office inside the Palace of Justice in Beirut to protest against his treatment.

Ghosn interrogated for second day in a row by delegation of French judges
NNA/June 01/2021 
The National News Agency correspondent stated that former president of the Renault-Nissan alliance, Carlos Ghosn, is currently appearing before a delegation of French investigative judges to testify, for the second day in a row, about charges including the misuse of the company's assets during his tenure as president, the payments made to a commercial distributor in the Sultanate of Oman, the two parties held at the historic Palace of Versailles, and other accusations of financial breaches.
The interrogation will continue daily until Friday, June 4, inclusive.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published  on June 01-02/2021
UN watchdog: Access to key Iranian data lacking since Feb 23
VIENNA (AP) /June 01/2021
The United Nations’ atomic watchdog hasn’t been able to access data important to monitoring Iran’s nuclear program since late February when the Islamic Republic started restricting international inspections of its facilities, the agency said Monday. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a confidential document distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press that it has “not had access to the data from its online enrichment monitors and electronic seals, or had access to the measurement recordings registered by its installed measurement devices” since Feb. 23. While the IAEA and Iran earlier acknowledged the restrictions limited access to surveillance cameras at Iranian facilities, Monday’s report indicated they went much further. The IAEA acknowledged it could only provide an estimate of Iran’s overall nuclear stockpile as it continues to enrich uranium at its highest level ever.
Iran started limiting inspections in a bid to put pressure on the government of U.S. President Joe Biden to lift crippling sanctions reimposed after then President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran unilaterally in 2018.
Under the deal, the IAEA placed around 2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment. Those seals communicated electronically to inspectors. Automated measuring devices also provided real-time data from the program.
Talks are currently underway in Vienna for the U.S. to rejoin the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
Since the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, Iran has been steadily violating its various restrictions, including on the types of centrifuges it’s allowed to use, the amount of enriched uranium it is allowed to stockpile, and the purity to which it is allowed to enrich.
In the IAEA report, the agency for the first time released estimates of Iran’s stockpile rather than precise figures, saying that as of May 22, Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was 3,241 kilograms (7,145 pounds), up about 273 kilograms (600 pounds) from the last quarterly report.
That was down from an increase of nearly 525 kilograms (1,157 pounds) reported in the last quarterly report.
Though it wasn’t immediately clear what led to the decrease, it comes as an explosion in April at its underground Natanz nuclear facility affected centrifuges there. Iran has yet to offer a full accounting of what happened in an attack it described as “nuclear terrorism.” Israel, which is widely suspected of carrying out the assault, hasn’t commented publicly on it. The nuclear deal signed in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia only permits Iran only to keep a total stockpile of 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds) of enriched uranium.
The agency said the current stockpile includes 62.8 kilograms (138.5 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 20% purity, and 2.4 kilograms enriched up to 60% purity — well above the 3.67% purity allowed under the JCPOA.
Despite Iran’s violations of the deal, the other nations involved have stressed that the agreement was still important as it allowed international inspectors to continue their surveillance of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Under a confidential agreement called an “Additional Protocol” with Iran, the IAEA collects and analyzes images from a series of surveillance cameras installed at Iranian nuclear sites. Those cameras helped it monitor Tehran’s program to see if it is complying with the nuclear deal.
Iran’s hard-line parliament in December approved a bill that would suspend part of U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories didn’t provide relief from oil and banking sanctions by February.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi was able to negotiate a last-minute deal in February, however, under which promised the IAEA it would hold onto footage shot by its surveillance cameras and would hand them over if diplomats reached a deal in Vienna to lift the sanctions it faces. Otherwise, Tehran said it would delete the images. That deal has yet to come, but Grossi was able to negotiate a one-month extension last week. That means his agency still can’t access the images taken by the cameras for the time being, but could regain access to the material if a deal is reached — a situation Grossi called an emergency measure that was “not ideal.”The last-minute discussions further underscored the narrowing window for the U.S. and others to reach terms with Iran as it presses a tough stance with the international community over its atomic program.
Negotiations continue in Vienna to see if both the U.S. and Iran can reenter the deal, which limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Iran and the U.S. aren’t directly negotiating, however.
The U.S. isn’t at the table because it unilaterally pulled out of the deal in 2018 under Trump, who restored and augmented American sanctions in a campaign of “maximum pressure” to try and force Iran into renegotiating the pact with more concessions. Biden wants to rejoin the deal, however, and there is a U.S. delegation in Vienna taking part in indirect talks with Iran, with diplomats from the other world powers acting as go-betweens.
The deal promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. The reimposition of American sanctions has left the country’s economy reeling, and Tehran has reacted by steadily increasing its violations of the restrictions of the deal, such as increasing the purity of uranium it enriches and its stockpiles, in a thus-far unsuccessful effort to pressure the other countries to provide relief.
The ultimate goal of the deal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something it insists it doesn’t want to do. Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, but nowhere near the amount it had before the nuclear deal was signed.
The negotiations and tensions over the program come as Iran faces an upcoming June 18 presidential election to select the replacement for the relative moderate Hassan Rouhani, whose administration reach the 2015 nuclear deal. Analysts believe hard-liners have an edge going into the vote.
The IAEA also said that after many months it was still awaiting answers from Iran on three sites where inspections had revealed traces of uranium of man-made origin.
**David Rising reported from Berlin. Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

IAEA 'Concerned' over Undeclared Iran Sites
Agence France Presse/June 01/2021
The U.N. nuclear watchdog has voiced concern that Iran had not clarified queries over possible undeclared nuclear activity, adding that its enriched uranium stockpile was 16 times over the limit. The two reports issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday are the first substantive reports since Iran suspended some inspections in February. Last week the IAEA said it had extended a temporary agreement with Iran until June 24 which has allowed many inspections to continue. The report said IAEA director general Rafael Grossi was "concerned that the technical discussions between the agency and Iran have not yielded the expected results," referring to exchanges on the sites where undeclared nuclear activity may have occurred. The conclusion comes despite a "proactive and focused effort" launched by the IAEA in April "to break the impasse" over the sites. The IAEA says that the results of its inspection work have established "a clear indication that nuclear material and/or equipment contaminated by nuclear material has been present" at three undeclared locations, with most of the activity in question dating back to the early 2000s. The agency also said Iran has failed to answer questions regarding a fourth site where natural uranium may have been present between 2002 and 2003 in the form of a metal disc. Iran and world powers are engaged in talks in Vienna to rescue the 2015 nuclear deal after former U.S. president Donald Trump walked away from it in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran. Trump's successor Joe Biden has signaled his willingness to revive the plan. For this to happen, the US would need to return to the accord and lift the sanctions reinstated by Trump while Tehran would have to re-commit to full compliance with nuclear obligations it progressively withdrew from since 2019.
In a separate report, the IAEA said Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is around 16 times the limit laid down in the 2015 deal with world powers. It gave an estimate of a stockpile of 3,241 kilograms (7,145 pounds) but said that it was not able to verify the total. The limit laid down in the 2015 deal was 300 kilograms of uranium in a particular compound form, the equivalent of 202.8 kilograms of uranium.
'Sabotage' blast
A senior diplomat with knowledge of the issue said that while the suspension of some inspections meant that the IAEA could not give precise figures for the stockpile, its level of access to declared sites has not been greatly reduced and its stockpile estimate would still be accurate to within a few percentage points. The rate of production of enriched uranium has slowed since the last quarterly report from the IAEA in February. In April Iran said a "small explosion" had hit its Natanz nuclear facility, an act that Tehran branded "sabotage" by its arch-foe Israel. In Monday's report the IAEA estimated 62.8 kilograms of the uranium stockpile had been enriched up to 20 percent and 2.4 kilograms up to 60 percent. Under the 2015 deal, the enrichment level was meant to be capped at 3.67 percent, well below the 90 percent purity needed for a nuclear weapon. The latest report will be presented to the IAEA's board of governors next week. Talks to restore the 2015 deal are taking place in Vienna as Iran prepares for presidential elections on June 18. The press had widely predicted a showdown between ultraconservative judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and moderate conservative Ali Larijani, a key domestic backer of the 2015 deal. However, last week Larijani was barred from standing.

Iran enriched uranium stockpile 16 times over deal limit: IAEA
AFP/June 01/2021
The UN nuclear watchdog Monday voiced concern Iran had not clarified queries over sites where undeclared nuclear activity may have occurred and reported Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpile was around 16 times the limit laid out in a 2015 deal. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said director general Rafael Grossi was “concerned that the technical discussions between the agency and Iran have not yielded the expected results,” referring to exchanges on the sites with Iranian officials. In a separate report, the agency said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is around 16 times the limit laid down in the 2015 deal with world powers. It gave an estimate of a stockpile of 3,241 kg (7,145 pounds) but cautioned that it was not able to verify the total. The limit laid down in the deal was 300 kilograms of uranium in a particular compound form, the equivalent of 202.8 kilograms of uranium. The latest report will be presented to the IAEA’s board of governors next week and comes as talks are ongoing in Vienna on the possible full revival of the 2015 deal and the return of the US to the accord. Former President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew from the deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.

UN atomic agency ‘concerned’ over undeclared Iranian sites
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
VIENNA--The UN nuclear watchdog Monday voiced concern that Iran had not clarified queries over possible undeclared nuclear activity, adding that its enriched uranium stockpile was 16 times over the limit. The unexplained traces of uranium found at several undeclared sites could possibly spark a fresh diplomatic clash between Tehran and the West that could derail wider nuclear talks. The two reports issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday are the first substantive reports since Iran suspended some inspections in February. Last week the IAEA said it had extended a temporary agreement with Iran until June 24 which has allowed many inspections to continue. The report said IAEA director general Rafael Grossi was “concerned that the technical discussions between the agency and Iran have not yielded the expected results,” referring to exchanges on the sites where undeclared nuclear activity may have occurred. The conclusion comes despite a “proactive and focused effort” launched by the IAEA in April “to break the impasse” over the sites. The IAEA says that the results of its inspection work have established “a clear indication that nuclear material and/or equipment contaminated by nuclear material has been present” at three undeclared locations, with most of the activity in question dating back to the early 2000s. The agency also said Iran has failed to answer questions regarding a fourth site where natural uranium may have been present between 2002 and 2003 in the form of a metal disc. Iran and world powers are engaged in talks in Vienna to rescue the 2015 nuclear deal after former US president Donald Trump walked away from it in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran. Trump’s successor Joe Biden has signalled his willingness to revive the plan. For this to happen, the US would need to return to the accord and lift the sanctions reinstated by Trump while Tehran would have to re-commit to full compliance with nuclear obligations it progressively withdrew from since 2019. In a separate report, the IAEA said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is around 16 times the limit laid down in the 2015 deal with world powers. It gave an estimate of a stockpile of 3,241 kilogrammes (7,145 pounds) but said that it was not able to verify the total. The limit laid down in the 2015 deal was 300 kilogrammes of uranium in a particular compound form, the equivalent of 202.8 kilogrammes of uranium.
Natanz blast
A senior diplomat with knowledge of the issue said that while the suspension of some inspections meant that the IAEA could not give precise figures for the stockpile, its level of access to declared sites has not been greatly reduced and its stockpile estimate would still be accurate to within a few percentage points.
The rate of production of enriched uranium has slowed since the last quarterly report from the IAEA in February. In April Iran said a “small explosion” had hit its Natanz nuclear facility, an act that Tehran branded “sabotage” by its arch-foe Israel.
In Monday’s report the IAEA estimated 62.8 kilogrammes of the uranium stockpile had been enriched up to 20 percent and 2.4 kilogrammes up to 60 percent. Under the 2015 deal, the enrichment level was meant to be capped at 3.67 percent, well below the 90 percent purity needed for a nuclear weapon. The latest report will be presented to the IAEA’s board of governors next week. Talks to restore the 2015 deal are taking place in Vienna as Iran prepares for presidential elections on June 18. The press had widely predicted a showdown between ultraconservative judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and moderate conservative Ali Larijani, a key domestic backer of the 2015 deal. However, last week Larijani was barred from standing.

OPEC+ seen sticking to supply plan with Iran’s oil yet to return
Reuters/01 June ,2021
OPEC+ is likely to stick to the existing pace of gradually easing oil supply curbs when it meets on Tuesday, five OPEC sources said, as producers balance expectations of a recovery in demand against a possible increase in Iranian supply. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies - known collectively as OPEC+ - decided in April to return 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of supply to the market during May to July as it anticipated demand would rise despite high numbers of coronavirus cases in India. Since that decision, oil has extended its rally and has now gained more than 30 percent this year, although the prospect of more crude from Iran, as talks on reviving its nuclear deal make progress, has limited the upside for oil prices. Brent crude hit $71 a barrel, its highest since March, on Tuesday. An OPEC+ panel of ministers, consisting of some key producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia, recommended maintaining existing policies on Tuesday, two OPEC+ sources said. A full ministerial meeting started at around 1330 GMT. OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said he did not expect higher Iranian oil supply to cause problems. “We anticipate that the expected return of Iranian production and exports to the global market will occur in an orderly and transparent fashion,” he said in a statement. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said he saw a good recovery in demand in the US and China. “The vaccine rollout has gathered pace with around 1.8 billion vaccines administered around the world ... This can only lead to further rebalancing of the global oil market,” he said ahead of the main ministerial session. OPEC+ experts confirmed earlier forecasts for a sizeable, 6 million bpd jump in oil demand in 2021 as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, OPEC+ sources said. They said they do not expect OPEC+ to decide on its output policy beyond July, since the outlook for Iran was not clear. “It is likely that OPEC+ will stick for now with the increases in June and July rather than already planning any further production hikes from August,” said analyst Eugen Weinberg of Commerzbank. “However, an increasingly tight market could make it necessary to review the agreement at short notice.”OPEC+ cut output by a record 9.7 million bpd last year as demand collapsed when the COVID-19 pandemic first struck. As of July, the curbs still in place will stand at 5.8 million bpd.

Israel says military exports hit $8.3 bn in 2020, boosted 15 pct spike in deals
AFP, Jerusalem/01 June ,2021
Israeli military exports reached $8.3 billion in 2020, buoyed by a 15 percent spike in the number of agreements signed compared with the previous year, the government announced on Tuesday. Despite fears the coronavirus pandemic would impact 2020 sales, Israel cited new markets in allowing sales jumping $1 billion from 2019. It’s the second highest sales figure ever, behind 2017, when the total hit $9.2 billion. “During the past year, we have worked intensively to deepen government agreements and cooperation with our partners around the world, and we will continue to do so,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz was quoted as saying in a statement from his office. As in previous years the bulk of the military exports went to countries in Asia and the Pacific region, the ministry statement said. The government figures said radar and early warning systems along with ammunition and armament each contributed 16 percent of sales, while manned aircraft and avionics accounted for 13 percent, as did observation and optronics. Missiles, rockets and air defense systems sales contributed 10 percent. Other areas included communication, drone and intelligence systems. Sales to the Asia and the Pacific region comprised 44 percent, with 30 percent going to Europe, 20 percent to North America, four percent to Africa and two percent to Latin America. A major supplier of arms to Azerbaijan, Israel in 2020 came under diplomatic fire from Armenia over the struggle between the Caucasus neighbors in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), over the past five years Israel has been the top supplier of arms to Azerbaijan, with sales of more than $740 million, putting it ahead of Russia.

Netanyahu Opponents Grapple to Form Cabinet before Deadline
Agence France Presse/01 June ,2021
Israeli politicians worked against the clock Tuesday to overcome final hurdles to building a coalition that would end the record rule of right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, a secular centrist, and religious nationalist Naftali Bennett were locked in talks late into the night Monday on the terms of a "change alliance" to unseat the premier ahead of a Wednesday midnight deadline. "The coalition negotiation team sat all night and made progress toward creating a unity government," a Bennett spokesman said in a statement. He said Bennett, who heads the Yamina party, would meet Lapid -- leader of the Yesh Atid party -- again in the afternoon. The discussions come as Israel's longest serving premier is on trial on criminal charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust while in office, accusations he denies. Former TV anchor Lapid inched closer to success Sunday when he and tech millionaire Bennett overcame their sharp political differences and publicly agreed to join a "national unity government" in which both would serve as premier, with Bennett going first. Lapid was tasked with forming a government after Netanyahu failed to do so following Israel's fourth inconclusive election in less than two years.
'Compromises'
Efforts to form a new government without Netanyahu have picked up speed after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on May 21 halted 11 days of hostilities with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. They have left the 71-year-old prime minister, who heads the right-wing Likud party, scrambling to scupper the new alliance against him. Lawyers for the Likud on Tuesday tried to hobble the emerging coalition by challenging Bennett's right to serve first as prime minister when Lapid was charged with forming the government. But the legal adviser to Israel's president knocked down the challenge. Netanyahu, in power for 12 straight years after an earlier three-year term, had warned on Sunday of "a left-wing government dangerous to the state of Israel." Lapid said Monday that obstacles remained to build the diverse coalition necessary to unseat the premier, but encouraged his party to be upbeat.
"That's our first test -- to see if we can find smart compromises in the coming days to achieve the greater goal."
Arab Israeli parties?
Lapid, 57, is seeking to cobble together an unlikely alliance including Bennett, a supporter of Jewish settlements in the Israel-occupied West Bank, as well as Arab-Israeli lawmakers. In order to build such an anti-Netanyahu bloc, he must sign individual agreements with seven parties, whose members would then vote in parliament to confirm their coalition. They include the hawkish New Hope party of Netanyahu's former ally Gideon Saar and right-wing secular nationalist Avigdor Lieberman's pro-settlement Yisrael Beitenu party. The centrist Blue and White party of Defense Minister Benny Gantz, the historically powerful center-left Labor party, and the dovish Meretz party would also join. But to achieve the required 61 seats in the 120-seat parliament, the emerging alliance still needs the backing of four more lawmakers. Lapid is counting on parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, which have not yet announced their intentions. Despite the votes stacking up against him, it is too early to count out the wily Netanyahu, political scientist Jonathan Rynhold of Bar Ilan University has said. "It's never done until it's done, particularly because, even if they (the opposition) got by far the best hand, Bibi is the best card player by miles, you can't count him out." If Lapid fails to muster a majority, and lawmakers cannot agree on another candidate for prime minister, Israelis will return, yet again, to the polls.

In new tally, decade of war in Syria killed nearly 500,000 people
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
BEIRUT – A decade of war in Syria has left nearly half a million people dead, a war monitor said Tuesday, in a new toll that includes 100,000 recently confirmed deaths.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the conflict has claimed 494,438 lives since it erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.The previous tally, issued by the Observatory only in March this year, stood at more than 388,000 dead.
Months of documentation
The war monitor has since confirmed an additional 105,015 deaths following months of documentation efforts supported by its network of sources on the ground. “The overwhelming majority of these deaths occurred between the end of 2012 and November 2015,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said, referring to the latest additions. Of the recently confirmed fatalities, more than 42,000 are civilians, most of them dying under torture in Syrian regime prisons, according to the monitor. Abdel Rahman said that a lull in the fighting allowed his organisation to investigate reports of deaths that had not been included in the overall tally for lack of documentation. “It provided us with a window to document tens of thousands of cases for which we lacked evidence,” he said. With government forces having reconquered large swathes of Syria and a ceasefire still holding along the main front line in Idlib region in the northwest, violence levels are at their lowest since the start of the conflict.
Prison deaths
The new figures published by the Observatory bring the total civilian death toll to 159,774, with attacks by Syrian government forces and allied militia accounting for the majority of fatalities. The Observatory also documented a total of at least 57,567 deaths in government prisons and detention centres since 2011, up from the 16,000 confirmed deaths it reported in March. It also reported 168,326 deaths among Syrian soldiers and allied militia, with troops accounting for more than half of the tally. The conflict has killed 68,393 jihadists, mostly members of the Islamic State group or of organisations linked to Al-Qaeda, as well as 79,844 other rebels. A deal brokered by Turkey and Russia in March 2020 froze a government offensive on the rebel-controlled Idlib enclave which many feared would have caused human suffering on a scale yet unseen in the conflict. The attention on both sides has since turned to battling the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 saw the lowest number of conflict-related deaths since the start of the war with 10,000, according to the Observatory. Today the Damascus government controls more than two-thirds of the country after a string of Russia-backed victories since 2015. President Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000, was re-elected in May for a fourth seven-year term. The war has forced more than half the country’s pre-war population to flee their homes.

Israel to open economic attache office in Abu Dhabi to boost Gulf investment
Reuters, Jerusalem/01 June ,2021
Israel plans to open an economic attache office in Abu Dhabi this summer to attract foreign investment and boost economic relations with Gulf states and the broader Arab world, the Economy Ministry said on Tuesday. This follows a US-brokered normalization of ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last September that has led to a number of bilateral banking deals and direct flights between the two countries. On Monday, an Emirati embassy opened in Tel Aviv while Israel’s Finance Ministry said Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a tax treaty to spur business development between the countries. Economy Minister Amir Peretz said he saw “enormous economic potential” in strengthening Israeli-Emirati relations. “Opening the economic attache office will give a significant boost to the various initiatives already underway,” Peretz added. Israel’s Foreign Trade Administration (FTA), a part of the Economy Ministry, operates in more than 50 business centers around the world. It opened a branch in Manila last year. Aviad Tamir will be the economic attache in the UAE, the ministry said. The FTA last year identified significant economic potential for Israel’s economy from relations with the UAE, including strengthening aviation ties between Israel and the Gulf, oil imports, energy solutions, diamond exports, exports of medical equipment water technologies, and exports of financial and cyber security technologies. The new branches in the UAE “will yield significant returns in light of the great interest arising from Emirates interested in a long line of Israeli technologies as well as in light of the large capital in the UAE that may be translated into significant investments in Israeli economy and industry,” said FTA director Ohad Cohen. Israel has also recently normalized relations with Bahrain.

Barnea takes over Mossad; Cohen: Mossad struck deep into Iran’s heart
Jerusalem Post/June 01/21
Netanyahu: Cohen ‘won over’ region’s leaders for Abraham Accords
David Barnea took the reins of the Mossad from Yossi Cohen on Monday following a final ceremony and a five-and-a-half-year term dating back to January 2016. In his last speech as Mossad director, Cohen said the agency had “struck deep in Iran’s heart” by virtue of operations revealing the Islamic Republic’ nuclear secrets and its lies as well as actively preventing it from moving forward beyond certain redlines. Barnea gave his public speech, saying, “You leave behind you a strong institution with astounding capabilities. An institution with infrastructure and timeless foundations from which it will continue and grow.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Cohen credit for his personal role in holding back Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon. Both Netanyahu and Cohen referenced the January 2018 raid on Tehran’s secret nuclear archives which served as a turning point toward the Trump administration pulling out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The operation also caused new pressure on Iran from the IAEA for explanations about its past nuclear dimensions – a process and tensions which last to this day. Netanyahu also went out of his way to credit Cohen for his role in establishing the Abraham Accords despite not being in Washington DC for the final rounds of negotiations in summer 2020. The prime minister specifically noted Cohen’s talent with converting “the hearts of the leaders of the region…long before the emotional ceremony in Washington, and by the way, also after.”
"This may be goodbye, but this is not the end of the story," said Netanyahu.  "When I look back at my time as Mossad chief, I see pride and humility. We accomplished so much against so many threats," said Cohen. The ceremony was attended by former US secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo, with whom Cohen has remained close friends.It was also attended by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, IDF Chief Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman, former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, Finance Minister (but critically former intelligence minister) Israel Katz, Israel Atomic Energy Agency Chief Zeev Shnir and former Coronavirus Task Force Chief Roni Gamzou. Cohen worked intensely with Gamzou in fighting the coronavirus in the early months of the crisis in 2020. An inauguration ceremony for the new chief, David Barnea, will take place on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Cohen, at an acceptance speech for his honorary doctorate from Bar-Ilan University, urged Israel to not stop its "activity" against Iran. "Today's security operation is no less important than tomorrow's war," he said.
After successfully swiping the archives in 2018, Cohen met with former-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo to update him on the mission two months later. Cohen began his intelligence service in 1989 at the age of 22. He served in Tsomet for recruiting agents, eventually heading the division.
He eventually served as deputy chief of the Mossad until departing the organization to become Netanyahu’s National Security Council Chief in 2013. Most analysts view the NSC chief position and working daily with Netanyahu as part of what helped Cohen beat out other major contenders for the top Mossad spot in 2016.*Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

Prisoner exchange tops agenda in Hamas-Israel talks
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
GAZA - Hamas is open to “indirect and rapid” negotiations on a prisoner exchange following its bloody military escalation with Israel in May, the Palestinian militant group said Monday. “There is now a real opportunity to move this file forward,” Yahya Sinwar said in response to an AFP query on a potential prisoner exchange. “We are ready for indirect, urgent and rapid negotiations to conclude the case.” The head of Hamas’ political wing in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave home to some two million people, delivered the statement on the sidelines of a visit by Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. Kamel has been working to solidify the ceasefire Cairo brokered between Israel and Hamas that went into effect on May 21, after 11 days of Palestinian militant rocket fire and Israeli air strikes. The aerial bombardments on Gaza killed 254 Palestinians, including 66 children, health officials said. Rockets and other fire from Gaza claimed 12 lives in Israel, including one child and an Arab-Israeli teenager, medics said. A Hamas official, who requested anonymity, explained the Gaza talks focused on three points: turning the ceasefire into a longer-term truce, a prisoner exchange and the reconstruction of Gaza. Sinwar said Hamas had “no objection” to talks on reconstruction and an end to Israel’s decade-long siege of Gaza “moving forward in parallel” with negotiations on a prisoner exchange. “However, we categorically reject any link between these two aspects,” he added, without specifying how many prisoners could be released.
In Cairo on Sunday, Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi raised the issue of two soldiers thought to be dead and two other Israelis believed to be detained in Gaza. Since Israel’s 2014 invasion of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Islamist group has held the bodies of Israeli soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, although Hamas has never confirmed their deaths. Hamas is also believed to be holding two Israeli citizens who entered Gaza alone and whose families say they have mental health issues.
Israel is meanwhile holding more than 5,000 Palestinians in its jails.
Egypt’s intelligence chief met Hamas leaders in Gaza on Monday to try to bolster a ceasefire between the Palestinian militant group and Israel and to discuss reconstruction plans following the recent hostilities, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said. The visit was the first by an Egyptian intelligence chief to the enclave since the early 2000s. “The discussion is focused on ways to cement the calm and Gaza reconstruction plans following the recent Israeli aggression,” said a Hamas official, who asked not to be named. Hamas representatives, led by Gaza chief Yehya Al-Sinwar, would urge Cairo to pressure Israel to stop “its assaults against our people in Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah,” he said. Eleven days of fighting between Israel and Hamas erupted on May 10 amid Palestinian anger at Israeli police raids around the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and plans to evict Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah district of the city to make way for Jewish settlers. Large posters of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Egyptian flags decorated streets across the enclave to greet intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. Hundreds of people lined up outside the entrance to Gaza waving Egyptian flags as his motorcade drove by.
Kamel’s visit was seen as an effort by Cairo to regain a more vital role in mediation between Israel and Hamas and revive the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace process.
Sisi directed Egyptian officials to continue efforts and meetings to solve the problem of prisoners and missing people between Israel and Hamas, Egypt’s state news agency MENA reported on Sunday. Following the meeting with Kamel in Gaza, Sinwar said “there is a real chance for progress to be made” on resolving the issue of prisoners, though he added that Hamas demanded those negotiations be held separately from the ceasefire talks. Kamel was expected to announce plans by Cairo to fund a housing project in the territory, Hamas sources said. Egypt has said it would allocate $500 million to fund the rebuilding of devastated areas in Gaza. From May 10 to May 21 the Gaza Strip suffered extensive damage, and international aid has started to pour in. Gaza’s housing ministry said 1,500 housing units were completely destroyed during the fighting, another 1,500 housing units had been damaged beyond repair and 17,000 others suffered partial damage. A ministry official put the cost of rebuilding at $150 million. On Sunday, Kamel met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Netanyahu said his meeting dealt with regional security issues and ways to prevent Hamas from siphoning off civilian aid to strengthen its capabilities. Kamel also met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday and handed him a message from Sisi affirming Cairo’s support for Palestinians and Abbas, MENA said. The latest conflict erupted on May 10 when Hamas sent volleys of rocket fire towards Israel in solidarity with hundreds of Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli security forces inside Al-Aqsa mosque compound. Qatar has also pledged $500 million for reconstruction.

Iraq’s government warns PMF against challenging the state
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
BAGHDAD – An official source from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said that the leadership of the armed forces was serious in warning the militias against repeating a show of defiance against the state.
The source added to The Arab Weekly that “the statements of the Minister of Defence Jumaa Inad echoed the position of the Iraqi prime minister.” Other political sources said that the statements made by Inad against the Iranian militias came after Kadhimi encouraged military commanders to strongly condemn the spread of weapons in the country. Armed militias last Wednesday stormed the Green Zone, brandishing weapons in a new show of force. On Saturday, the Iraqi minister of defence announced that the army would respond to any further armed display carried out by the militias.
Iraqi military and parliamentary sources also revealed that the Iraqi government is currently studying possible scenarios to respond to armed rallies, if they are repeated in Baghdad. Kadhimi is clearly trying to exploit the public’s support for expanding the state’s authority and curbing the spread of militias’ weapons, following the arrest of a prominent leader with the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), Qassem Musleh, for his involvement in terrorist and criminal acts.
So far, pressure from Iran’s allies on Kadhimi to release Musleh, who is accused of leading assassination groups against activists who oppose Iran’s influence over the Iraqi state, has failed. After Musleh’s arrest, the three executive, legislative and judicial authorities in Iraq seemed united, with all expressing clear positions and emphasising the need to extend the authority of the state, bolster the rule of law and curb the spread of weapons. An Iraqi parliamentarian considered that Kadhimi had succeeded in this round of the showdown with militias. The parliamentarian, who spoke on condition of anonymity, argued the premier managed to end two things: the government’s inability to confront armed rallies and the PMF’s ability to control the political game.
“Kadhimi benefited from the folly that was on display on the night of terror that the militias created to prove that such militias should not be viewed as supportive to the government or any project for establishing a national state. On the contrary, the militias are clearly working to destroy the foundations of the state in order to perpetuate chaos,” the parliamentarian told The Arab Weekly.
Observers believe the PMF’s leadership has avoided escalation, which will encourage Kadhimi’s government to proceed with investigation procedures and allow the judiciary to carry out its duty to the fullest when it comes to Musleh’s case.
Unlike previous governments, Kadhimi’s cabinet, regardless of political affiliations, appeared united in the face of the show of force carried out by the militias.
Iraqi political analyst Saleh al-Hamdani said the statement of the Iraqi defense minister gives a clear indication that there is a Western-backed government move towards restructuring the PMF. “The role of the PMF in fighting ISIS was significant, but it was exaggerated by the media of the armed factions on a regular basis, angering the officers of the armed forces who saw their roles belittled. Therefore, the minister’s statements echo the viewpoint of Iraqi soldiers and officers, serving with the army, the police and the counter-terrorism agency,” Hamdani said.
He expected that Iraq would turn the page on the PMF, with the number of it fighters eventually being cut down or merged with state forces. The PMF, he said, has been part of the West’s and Saudi Arabia’s negotiations with Iran. However, with pressure from Kadhimi’s government, the PMF could eventually be subjected to the law in a manne that contains the sway of armed factions. The Iraqi defence minister had considered the recent militias’ moves in response to Musleh’s arrest as a major security breach and an attack on the state. “The weapons owned by the Popular Mobilisation Forces do not pose any threat to the army forces,” said Inad, pointing out that “the army, which is capable of fighting a country, can stand up to irregular forces that possess simple weapons. “Whoever engages in arm-wrestling and wields force must know their true size,” he warned, stressing that the prime minister had told him that he did not want bloodshed. After the arrest of Musleh, forces from the crowd surrounded, for some time, on Wednesday, the house of Kadhimi and other sites in the Green Zone in the centre of the capital, Baghdad. Commenting on the PMF’s role in the battles against ISIS, the defence minister said, “Whoever believes the army forces were unable to fight ISIS without the PMF are wrong.”“Yes, the PMF has accelerated the liberation operations. If the army was on its own, then victory over ISIS would have been achieved within five or six years.”The PMF is a grouping of militias, most of which are loyal to Iran and are run by Shia parties, despite the fact that it is an institution affiliated with the Iraqi armed forces and is directly linked to the prime minister.

UN envoy ‘frustrated’ over derailment of Yemen truce talks
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
ADEN – The UN Special Envoy for Yemen on Monday expressed frustration that his efforts to achieve a cease-fire in the war-torn country have been derailed by warring parties seeking gains on the battlefield. Martin Griffiths said ongoing fighting in several parts of Yemen, including a months-long attack by Houthi militias on government-held Marib province, has undermined the prospects for peace in the country. Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthis swept across much of the north and seized the capital, Sana’a, forcing the internationally recognised government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war the following year on the side of the government. The war has killed more than 130,000 people and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. “Nobody can be more frustrated than I am,” Griffiths said.
“We have spent a year and a half on things which are relatively simple to describe, the cease-fire, the opening of Sana’a Airport, the opening of Hodeida ports, the much-delayed start of the political negotiations,” he added. The effort to secure peace in Yemen comes after regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran restarted talks last month, their first high-level meeting since Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2016. While the United Nations and the US administration of President Joe Biden are pushing to end the grinding conflict, the Houthi militias have demanded the re-opening of Sana’a airport before any ceasefire agreement. The Saudi-led coalition imposed an air blockade on the Houthis, which has resulted in the closure of Sana’a airport to commercial flights since 2016. Griffiths spoke Monday during a news conference at the Sana’a airport, a day after a video meeting with the Houthis’ religious and military leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, who was in an undisclosed location. Griffiths also held talks with Yemeni and Saudi officials in Saudi Arabia and Oman, part of his efforts to achieve a cease-fire, reopen the Sana’a airport, ensure an uninterrupted flow of fuel and commodities through Hodeida ports, and relaunch the political process. “We have been negotiating this in detail. … Sometimes we make good progress, and we think that it’s going to work, that we will get an agreement. And then the war intervenes and one or other party thinks they will gain more in the battlefield,” he said.
He urged the sides to seize the “considerable regional and international support” for the UN peace plan to “bring this negotiation, this long negotiation to a successful conclusion.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced earlier this month the appointment of Griffiths as the UN’s next humanitarian chief. But Guterres said Griffiths will continue to serve as the UN’s top envoy for Yemen “until a transition has been announced.”

Mia Khalifa calls Israel 'apartheid' while drinking Nazi-era champagne
 Zachary Keyser/Jerusalem Post/June 01/2021
"My wine is older than your apartheid 'state,'" she boasted.
Former Lebanese-American porn star Mia Khalifa uploaded a post to Twitter of her drinking Nazi-era champagne, while condemning Israel as an apartheid state.
The Charles Heidsieck bottle of champagne Khalifa was drinking in the photo was made in Nazi-occupied Reims, France in 1943, around the same time French Jews were being expelled from their homes and marched off to death camps amid the pivotal moments of the Holocaust.
"My wine is older than your apartheid 'state,'" she boasted.
Khalifa has been quite vocal in her opinions amid the recent escalation in violence between Israel and allied terror groups operating out of the Gaza Strip - often voicing anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric in between the status updates of her life.
The post faced with widespread backlash, with many Twitter users - including some well-known journalists - pointing out that both alcohol and her former occupation as a porn star are illegal in Gaza, and would result in her immediate arrest or execution.
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"You’re drinking wine made in 1943 Nazi-occupied France, while denying thousands of years of Jewish history in our ancestral homeland," said Israeli writer and activist Hen Mazzig. "Glad you found the perfect pairing for your antisemitism!"
One user noted that Israel, being the only democratic state in the Middle East, is the only country where Khalifa wouldn't be "stoned to death in the streets," regarding her past occupation and current lifestyle.
"I’ll take my chances in Saudi [Arabia] and Syria, that 'born in: Lebanon' on my passport wouldn’t go over well in 'Israel,'" she retorted, with Israel being placed in quotations.
The post gained enough attention that the New York Post ran a full article on the hypocrisy of Khalifa's post - with her calling out Israel for being a Zionist apartheid state while drinking champagne made in Nazi-occupied France.
After the article's release, Khalifa did not shy away from her statements, she instead doubled down and attacked the NY Post for even drawing the comparison.
"Enjoying what would be classified as 'Nazi-era' music according to the NY Post’s logic on things produced in 1940’s France," Khalifa said in a Monday tweet while dancing around her kitchen like a ballerina.
"Let’s keep this same energy in 78 years with people who support Israeli brands and products funding apartheid," she added to the thread, inadvertently expressing her support for the BDS movement.
On the same day, Khalifa also made a far-fetched comparison between Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a moral obligation to return borrowed diamonds back to their original owner.
"'If I don’t steal it someone else is going to steal it.' - me using Zionist logic to defend the borrowed diamonds my stylist puts me in not being returned," Khalifa tweeted.
Since the IDF began Operation Guardian of the Walls on May 10, the bulk of Khalifa's posts have contained anti-Israel sentiments, accusing Israel - without much evidence - of war crimes, apartheid, occupation, using chemical warfare, running over Palestinian children, cheering as bombs are dropped over Gaza and desecrating holy sites, among many other examples.
And while she shared condolences for the Palestinians caught up in the fighting Gaza, she held no regard for the millions of Israelis who feared for their safety during the 11 days of constant rocket barrages originating from with coastal - with over 4,500 being shot off in total into Israeli territory, targeting over 70% of the country.
"The Zionists crawled out from their bomb shelters to tweet this morning," she tweeted. "Glad to see you have portable phone chargers in there with you to continue spewing your idiotic rhetoric online."
Another read: "90% accuracy rate on the ‘ole billion dollar Iron Dome and 20% inaccuracy rate on the Hamas rockets and the bomb shelters Israeli citizens have... I’m not good at math, but I think Tel Aviv will rebuild."
Aside from the anti-Israel rhetoric, Khalifa made it clear that she understands the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, adding that antisemitic statements have no place on her Twitter feed or in her mentions.
"If you don’t understand the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, log the f*ck off the internet," she said, posting a screen share of her deleting a post by a commenter saying "Hitler had a vision."
"I block every single one of these sentiments that I can find," she added, as the posts seem to draw away from the credibility of her argument. "If you see things like this in my mentions, report them, please."
Khalifa is just one of the many social media influencers that have been posting anti-Israel rhetoric since the commencement of the IDF operation in Gaza, attempting to shift the narrative in favor of Hamas and the Palestinian people by spreading information and disinformation that has fundamentally shaped how much of the world viewed the conflict from the outside looking in.
Other notable celebrities who have championed the Palestinian cause to their followings of millions, include models Bella and Gigi Hadid, both of whom have Palestinian heritage.
The Hadid sisters, who have more followers on Instagram than there are people in Israel, have spread similar sentiments like Khalifa, claiming that Israel is an apartheid state while calling for the end of the Israeli "occupation" in "Palestine."
Khalifa asked not to be "lumped" in together with Bella, claiming that the Hadid sister's cause and actions were much more benevolent than that of Khalifa's.
"Don’t lump me in with Bella, I don’t have sh*t to lose but she put everything on the line to march with her people not once, but twice," she said during the conflict.
Khalifa rose to fame as a porn actress in 2014. Within the first few months of her career, she became one of the most viewed actresses on Pornhub. During her tenure as an actress, Khalifa was banned from her home country of Lebanon for her exploits and even received death threats from ISIS and other extremist groups for wearing a hijab in one of her featured scenes.

In major boost to Morocco’s position, Western powers join US in ‘African Lion’ exercise in Western Sahara
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
RABAT – The “African Lion 2021” exercise held in Morocco including the Western Sahara reflected Rabat’s success in expanding the circle of international recognition of its sovereignty over the Western Sahara, especially since this exercise is taking place with the participation of major Western powers, including the United States and Britain, analysts say. The Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony, mostly under the control of Morocco which considers it part and parcel of its national territory and refers to it as the “Moroccan Sahara”. Tensions with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front have simmered since the 1970s over the issue. The US Republican administration announced last December its recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory. On Monday, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine Othmani said that the inclusion of the Saharan region in the “African Lion 2021” exercise, the largestin Africa, is the culmination of the American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty of the Western Sahara. “Part of the exercise will take place for the first time in the Moroccan Sahara in the Mahbas region and near Dakhla, the region’s largest city,” Othmani stress. He explained that the exercise organised by the American Military Command in Africa (AFRICOM) will continue on June 7-8, with the participation of eight countries, namely the United States, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Tunisia and Senegal and will see the participation of about 10,000 soldiers from the eight countries and observers from 21 other countries. Mohamed el-Tayyar, a researcher in strategic and security studies, said that the organisation of the exercise in the Mahbas area, close to the Algerian border, as well as in the city of Dakhla at the far end of the Western Sahara, is a clear indication that the United States will stand by Morocco in its struggle with the opponents of its territorial integrity. Talking to The Arab Weekly, Tayyar added that the African Lion’s manoeuvres this year are different from previous exercises. “It comes in special political circumstances represented by the American recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara, and it also constitutes an exceptional turning point in the field of security and military cooperation between the United States and Morocco.”
He pointed out that the exercise sends a message to the country’s neighbours, especially Algeria and Spain, highlighting the strength and resilience of the strategic cooperation between Morocco and the United States.
He called on Algeria, Spain and Germany to “reexamine strategic developments and steer away from their hostility to Moroccan territorial integrity.”Major General Andrew M. Rohling, Deputy Commanding General for Africa and US Army Southern European Task Force-Africa Commander, described the “African Lion 21” military exercise as “a great opportunity to strengthen one of the oldest strategic relationships of the United States”, namely with Morocco, he said. The first operation of the “African Lion 2021” took place in the regions of Tafnit and the attached base of Lanzgan, where Special Forces exercises have already begun, according to the “Far Maroc” forum specialising in Royal Moroccan Armed Forces news. US forces have installed a mobile command centre in the middle of the Lanzgan military airport as part of an operational command exercise.
The “African Lion” exercise was agreed on in 2002 between the US Marines “Marines” and the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces. The military exercise itself was launched in 2003 bringing the two countries together along with other partner nations seeking to enhance military inter-operability and cooperation.
For the first time in years, Spain will not participate this year amid the ongoing crisis between Rabat and Madrid over Spain’s welcoming of Polisario leader Ibrahim Ghali for medical treatment under a false identity, which deeply angered Morocco.
The “Far Maroc” forum stated that the participation of the Spanish forces would have been modest and limited to operations in the cities of Tefnit and Tan-Tan. The Spanish Ministry of Defence cited financial reasons for not participating in the exercise, while Spanish newspapers attributed this absence to the fact that Madrid does not want its participation to be construed as a formal Spanish recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed areas.

A decade of Syria war killed nearly 500,000 people – new tally
AFP/June 01, 2021
New toll that includes 100,000 recently confirmed deaths
BEIRUT: A decade of war in Syria has left nearly half a million people dead, a war monitor said Tuesday, in a new toll that includes 100,000 recently confirmed deaths. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the conflict has claimed 494,438 lives since it erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published  on June 01-02/2021
The Five Myths That Doom a New Iran Deal
Michael Rubin/National Interest/June 01/2021
The Biden administration embraces these myths which distort strategy and undercut the prospects for diplomacy.
The Biden administration continues its efforts to jumpstart the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which President Donald Trump subsequently walked away. Iran Envoy Rob Malley and his team continue to seek the right formula of sanctions relief and verification sequencing to return Iran to compliance.
President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Malley may believe that showering Iran with incentives will constrain Iran’s nuclear program and even allow further reconciliation, a series of faulty assumptions undercut their strategy and assessment of Iranian motivations and behavior. Below are five myths that Biden’s team embraces which distort strategy and undercut the prospects for diplomacy.
1) Fear of the United States and Israel Motivates Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Programs
For the better part of two decades, the United States has had forces on Iran’s borders, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in the Persian Gulf. Israel, meanwhile, continues to sabotage Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities and assassinate key scientists. Under such circumstances, who can blame Iran for seeking nuclear weapons or long-range, precise ballistic missiles? The problem with this line of argument is that the Islamic Republic’s covert pursuit of nuclear weapons dates back to the Rafsanjani-era and precedes not only U.S. intervention in both Iraq and Afghanistan but also the shadow war with Israel. Nor did the U.S, Navy send aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf prior to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Assuming Tehran acts in reaction to Washington and Jerusalem puts the cart before the horse and misunderstands the genesis of and motivations behind the post-Revolutionary nuclear program.
2) The ‘Axis of Evil’ Speech Ruined Rapprochement
In a recent overview of Biden’s relationship with Iran, Nahal Toosi, a foreign affairs correspondent with Politico, put the onus for the failure of post-9/11 rapprochement on George W. Bush. “Iran’s government even reportedly helped fund and supply the leaders of Northern Alliance militias that the U.S. turned to for help in ousting the Taliban government,” she wrote, “But U.S. President George W. Bush’s decision to list Iran as an ‘Axis of Evil’ nation in his January 2002 State of the Union speech dealt a blow to the improving ties.” While Biden and Blinken may believe Toosi’s narrative, it is nonsense. Consider: Toosi ignores that Bush’s comments followed an Iranian effort, just weeks before, to smuggle fifty tons of weaponry to Palestinian terrorists. She also omitted that Bush was aware that Iran had built and shielded from inspection a secret enrichment plant at Natanz, a fact which would not become public for another eleven months. Nor does Toosi acknowledge Iran’s sheltering of senior Al Qaeda operatives following the start of Operation Enduring Freedom. Even if she and fellow progressives ignore those issues, to depict Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a man who encourages regular chants of “Death to America,” as an oversensitive snowflake is ridiculous on its face. Self-flagellation might lead progressives to believe a more generous deal is just, but their narrative is not based on reality.
3) Bush Spurned a 2003 Grand Bargain Offer
The idea that George W. Bush spurned a 2003 Iranian grand bargain has resonated in the American policy debate, but it is fiction promoted by an attention-craving Swiss diplomat. Emails exposed in court discovery between Trita Parsi, now at the Quincy Institute, and Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the time Iran’s UN ambassador, show Zarif expressing ignorance about the proposal that Parsi nevertheless credited to him. Officials blinded by partisanship accepted his narrative uncritically. Indeed, the Washington Post subsequently gave “three Pinocchios” to Secretary of State John Kerry’s reference to the offer. Nor given the propensity of Iranian diplomats to mire in minutiae and the Iranian leadership’s long-stated commitment to Palestinian “resistance” does the outline of the supposed grand bargain pass the smell test.
4) The 2015 Nuclear Deal Was Unprecedented in its Rigor
This is false on its face. It took the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nineteen years to give a fully compliant South African government a clean bill of health on its nuclear program, and yet the IAEA could certify Iran as clean in just months? Likewise, Kerry dropped demands Iran ratify the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that ensures inspections that are more rigorous. While Kerry accepted Zarif’s pledge that Iran would act in accordance with the Additional Protocol, the failure to bring Additional Protocols into force puts Iran behind 133 other countries that have accepted the higher standard.
5) Iranian Elections Matter
American academics and officials often describe a dichotomy in Iranian politics between hardliners and reformers. Too often, however, projection of American attitudes upon Iranian counterparts skew reality. Firstly, consider the origin of the two camps: the hardliners—called principlists in Persian—grew out of those who fought to defend the revolution on the frontlines of the Iran-Iraq War. The so-called reformists, meanwhile, grew out of those who profited from more comfortable posts in Tehran at the time. Within the Iranian societal context, therefore, the issue is not only revolutionary fervor but also corruption and sincerity. In reality, the Iranian political debate is more complicated: there might be a spectrum of hardline vs. reform social attitudes along one axis, but there is an equally important debate about command economies and free-market reforms along another axis. Each of those four quadrants is often in dissonance with the other. None of these camps, however, is willing or able to compromise on theocratic, revolutionary values. In effect, the difference between hardliners and reformers is one of style rather than substance.
Nevertheless, Biden, Kerry, and Sullivan embrace the notion that winning a deal could tip reformers over the top in their competition with other factions. Even if this was true (and it ignores the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the economy), such assessment fails to recognize that security policy within the Islamic Republic is the product of unelected bodies rather than the presidency, his cabinet, or the parliament.
A Lasting Deal?
Malley may achieve a deal in Vienna; certainly, he appears willing to offer his Iranian counterpart almost everything Tehran demands. At issue is not whether a renewed deal is possible, but rather whether such a deal will substantively change Iranian behavior or alleviate regional security concerns. Unfortunately, any agreement based on an imaginary Iran whose motivates are pure and whose elections matter will be doomed to fail. Simply put, if a deal will stick, it must base itself on a reality that, whether through ignorance or deliberately, Biden’s team ignores.
*Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. You can follow him on Twitter: @mrubin1971.

Eleven Days in May: The Latest Battle in the Long War Against Israel
Audio from Washington Institute/May 28/2021
https://www.fdd.org/podcasts/2021/05/29/eleven-days-in-may-the-latest-battle-in-the-long-war-against-israel/
Clifford D. May/Founder & President
Jonathan Schanzer/Senior Vice President for Research
About
The Islamic Republic of Iran provides Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad with rockets and other weapons, technology, training, and funding. Over 11 days in May, the two groups fired more than four thousand rockets at Israeli cities and villages.
President Biden supported Israel’s right to defend itself but, at the same time, his envoys in Vienna have been negotiating a return to President Obama’s Iran deal. Iran’s rulers want billions of dollars and other concessions in exchange for allowing America to rejoin a deal that at most slows their progress toward a nuclear weapons capability.
Since money is fungible, that means America will be helping fund Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Hezbollah and Ansar Allah in Yemen.
Joining host Cliff May to discuss these developments are Lahav Harkov, Senior Contributing Editor and Diplomatic Correspondent of The Jerusalem Post; Jonathan Schanzer, FDD Senior Vice President; and Brad Bowman, Senior Director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power.
Bradley Bowman/CMPP Senior Director
Lahav Harkov/The Jerusalem Post


Biden Gets It Wrong in the Pacific and Afghanistan
Bradley Bowman and RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery/FDD/June 01/2021
To support the Biden administration’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to shift the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group from its normal area of responsibility in the Western Pacific to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean for four months this summer. With U.S.-China relations only becoming more tense, withdrawing the most significant U.S. air and naval asset postured in the Pacific to deter Chinese aggression is just the latest evidence of insufficient defense spending, inadequate U.S. naval capacity, and an ill-advised withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In March, neglecting the advice of commanders and conditions on the ground, President Joe Biden confidently announced the decision to withdraw the remaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan by September. “U.S. troops,” Biden declared from the White House on April 14, “will be out of Afghanistan before we mark the 20th anniversary of that heinous attack on September 11th.”
One of the motivations for the timeline-based withdrawal was a desire to focus finite U.S. military resources on deterring aggression from China in the Indo-Pacific. In his speech last month, Biden emphasized the need to focus on “an increasingly assertive China.” And Biden’s political appointees at the Pentagon have rightly emphasized the need to increase U.S. military capability and capacity in the Indo-Pacific.
Over the past two decades, insufficient defense funding left the Pentagon with insufficient resources to maintain or establish the force posture necessary in both the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.
As a result, the margin of safety has eroded in both theaters. In the Indo-Pacific, as Beijing undertook the largest military modernization in the history of the People’s Republic of China, the United States failed to make the necessary posture shifts, doctrinal developments, and capability investments. Top American military officers in the Indo-Pacific have repeatedly sounded the alarm.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2021/05/28/biden-gets-it-wrong-pacific-afghanistan/
In the Middle East, meanwhile, successive presidents ignored persistent threats and continued to cut U.S. force posture there. The United States had 170,000 troops in Iraq in 2007 and approximately 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in 2011. But by the time Biden took office, there were fewer than roughly 6,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. That was hardly an excessive troop commitment to prevent another 9/11-style attack on our country and avoid the return of the Islamic State caliphate.
More broadly, the problem in the wider Middle East has been that the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist proxies, as well as other jihadist terrorist groups in Afghanistan and elsewhere, were not following the American script. America’s adversaries cared little whether we were weary of conflicts in the region.
The decision to shift the USS Ronald Reagan out of the Western Pacific, therefore, is just the latest evidence that reducing U.S. military commitments in the Middle East and increasing U.S. military posture in the Indo-Pacific is easier said than done – especially when Washington fails to provide sufficient defense funding.
To be sure, military withdrawals can be periods of vulnerability for U.S. troops, and it is essential to do what is necessary to protect American forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. But it is notable that the U.S. Navy had no other carrier strike group available to cover the withdrawal and had to rely on the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, based in Japan, to conduct the mission.
The irony of the Afghanistan withdrawal, at least for now, is that the withdrawal will “free up” Army ground units but actually increase demands on the U.S. Navy and Air Force – exactly the forces most needed in the Indo-Pacific. To make matters worse, due to the increased time required to get to the battlefield, the quality of air support provided to forces in Afghanistan from a carrier in the Arabian Sea or from a base in Qatar will be inferior to the support previously provided by assets based in Afghanistan.
This crisis highlights the fact that the Navy remains unable to meet its posture requirements without drastic measures such as pulling the Seventh Fleet carrier strike group out of the Western Pacific. Continued and even increasing demand in the Middle East for Air Force assets will place an equally difficult demand on Air Force readiness and warfighting capability. For both the Air Force and Navy, these realities demonstrate that we need both to retain the legacy assets we hold today and to procure new equipment to address the growing threat from Beijing. It’s not “either/or” – it’s “both/and.” And that won’t be possible without significantly increasing the budgets of both services – in accordance with the recommendations of the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission.
Some may respond by suggesting that this surge in demand for naval forces in the Middle East is only temporary. But the Biden administration’s decision to conduct an unconditional, timeline-based withdrawal from Afghanistan may actually result in more – not less – demand for U.S. forces in the region in the long run. As with the ill-advised withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, a failure to maintain a modest, forward-positioned, economy-of-force military posture in Afghanistan may require the U.S. military to return sooner rather than later. Another major terrorist attack emanating from Afghanistan or the collapse of the Afghan government may require the U.S. military to return later with more forces and at a greater cost.
That scenario, and not the indefinite maintenance of 3,000 to 4,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan alongside a greater number of NATO forces, represents the real threat to strengthening U.S. military posture in the Indo-Pacific.
As the Department of Defense has sought to implement Biden’s withdrawal, it has become increasingly clear that the political decision from the White House came before vital military planning had been completed.
How will the United States conduct counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan after the withdrawal? Where will those assets be based? Have such basing agreements been negotiated and concluded? How will the United States provide maintenance and training support to the Afghan forces from outside the country? Can Washington transfer vital contracts to Kabul before our withdrawal? How will American diplomats be protected after the military withdrawal? According to reporting this week by The New York Times, it appears that many of these questions remain unanswered.
The Biden administration deserves credit for doing what is necessary to protect U.S. forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. But the administration’s decision to shift the sole aircraft carrier based in the Pacific to the Arabian Sea highlights the consequences of insufficient defense spending, the fact that America lacks sufficient naval forces, and the costs of a timeline-based withdrawal from Afghanistan that seems to put more emphasis on the demands of the Taliban than the protection of U.S. national security interests.
Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery is senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) and a contributor to CMPP. For more analysis from the authors, CMPP, and CCTI, please subscribe HERE. Follow the authors on Twitter @Brad_L_Bowman and @MarkCMontgomery. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Only the Chinese Communist Party Knows the Origins of the COVID Pandemic
Thomas Joscelyn/FDD/June 01/2021
And it has been withholding, deflecting, and obfuscating the entire time.
The story of our times is the coronavirus pandemic. No issue is more important. COVID-19 has killed approximately 3.5 million people and infected more than 160 million others, while reshaping the global economy. Yet, we still don’t know how it really started. We may never know.
On Wednesday, the White House released an update from President Joe Biden concerning the U.S. government’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19. A series of recent reports revived the “lab-leak theory”—that is, the possibility that the virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology or one of its affiliated sites. And the White House clearly thought it was necessary to demonstrate its due diligence.
In March, according to the White House’s statement, President Biden asked National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to “task the Intelligence Community to prepare a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of COVID-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.” To date, no one in the U.S. government is really sure.
According to the White House, the U.S. intelligence community has “coalesced around two likely scenarios”—though it isn’t entirely clear what those scenarios are. The statement attributed to President Biden is clumsily written, stating that “while two elements in the IC leans [sic] toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter—each with low or moderate confidence—the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.”
At first blush, it appears that the “former scenario” involves “human contact with an infected animal,” while the “latter” is the lab-leak hypothesis.
Either way, America’s spy agencies can’t say how the virus became a global menace. It is significant, however, that the U.S. intelligence community hasn’t ruled out the “lab-leak theory.” For months, that scenario was widely ridiculed.
When Sen. Tom Cotton raised the possibility last year, the Washington Post declared it “a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” A more recent “fact check” from the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler notes that it was “once dismissed as a ridiculous conspiracy theory,” but claims it has “gained new credence.” It is easy to find reporting, including other “fact checks,” that similarly dismissed the lab-leak hypothesis as conspiracy gibberish.
Analysts inside the U.S. government remain divided on this issue—but not just because the intelligence is murky.
Hours before the White House’s statement was released to the public, CNN’s Kylie Atwood reported that the Biden administration had shut down an effort within the State Department to examine the evidence concerning the virus’s origin. That initiative was launched in 2020 under then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It’s clear that the Biden team, or some members of it, believe that the inquiry initiated by Pompeo was an attempt to politicize the issue.
The CNN report says that the Biden administration viewed the Pompeo State Department’s moves as part of “a deliberate effort to put more weight into the lab leak theory while they ignored information suggesting the virus spread naturally from animals to humans.”But as the reporting over the last 15 months makes clear, some officials and journalists are guilty of the opposite—ignoring evidence suggesting that the lab-leak theory is at least possible.
To be clear, we can’t say the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan. We can say that no one can rule it out. We can also add this: The only entity that really knows is the CCP. But Beijing hasn’t been forthcoming. In fact, Chinese officials are quick to feign outrage at any suggestion that they’ve been less than truthful.
“Origin-tracing of the virus is a scientific issue,” Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, insisted during a press conference this week. “The purpose is to improve human’s understanding of the virus and better guard against infectious diseases in the future.” Zhao went on to insinuate, once again, that there was something suspicious about the activities of U.S. facilities in Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere.
It’s easy to see why Zhao and other CCP representatives are eager to deflect attention from the origins of COVID-19. It’s a massive political liability for Beijing. It’s a liability that the Biden administration should focus on.
President Biden says that his administration is positioned “to rally the nations of the world to defend democracy globally, to push back the authoritarianism’s advance.” China and Russia are the two main autocracies the president has in mind.
But whatever the truth is behind COVID-19’s origins, the pandemic draws into question the CCP’s model of governance. It should also undermine the CCP’s desire to be seen as a world leader on par, at least, with the U.S.
The CCP detained and harassed early whistleblowers, fed disinformation to the World Health Organization (WHO), prevented a full investigation into COVID-19’s origins, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy throughout the pandemic. The CCP has also lashed out at anyone who calls for an independent inquiry. Indeed, the CCP escalated its trade war with Australia, in part, because Canberra thinks such an investigation is necessary. Beijing’s “wolf warrior” diplomats have also spread disinformation throughout the pandemic. And again, of course, there’s still the possibility that the CCP covered up a lab leak.
Zhao and other Chinese officials try to make it purely an issue of science—not politics, or moral culpability. But the science is only part of the story.
President Biden says that he has asked the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” regarding the origins of COVID-19 and report their results to him in 90 days.
That’s fine. But even if America’s spy agencies can’t draw any definitive conclusions, the Biden administration should always remember why we are in the dark in the first place.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD’s Long War Journal. Follow Tom on Twitter @thomasjoscelyn. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2021/05/28/origins-of-the-covid-pandemic/

Iran Clears Way for Hard-line Judiciary Chief to Become President
Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times/June 01/2021
Potential rivals to Ebrahim Raisi, Ayatollah Khamenei’s favored choice, were barred from the June 18 election, and the remaining candidates do not present a serious challenge.
Candidates in Iran’s presidential elections have always been strictly vetted, and those deemed insufficiently loyal to the Islamic Revolution were disqualified. Within those limits, contenders held differing views on easing domestic restrictions or dealing with the West, and sometimes the victor was even a surprise.
Now even minor differences that give voters some semblance of a choice appear to have been erased.
The candidates in the election scheduled for June 18 either espouse deeply conservative positions aligned with those of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or are little known, with no voter base and no chance to win.
And one candidate in particular is leading: Ebrahim Raisi, the current judiciary chief, appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei, who has a long history of involvement in human rights abuses, and who lost in 2017 in a surprise victory by the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani.
With no credible challenger, Mr. Raisi is expected to win this time. Any serious competition has been winnowed from the race. Even some members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, known for their strong hostility to any political dissent, described the election as anti-democratic.
The Guardian Council, a 12-person body responsible for approving candidates, disqualified anyone who might shift the vote against Mr. Raisi, who, as a prosecutor and as a judge, has overseen the executions of minors and dissidents.
On Thursday, Ayatollah Khamenei publicly endorsed the Guardian Council’s final decision. He said council members had conducted their duty and called on the public to “not listen to anyone saying it’s useless, don’t go to the election polls, we won’t go.”
The council’s decision and Ayatollah Khamenei’s endorsement of it have rattled political circles. The reformist party announced for the first time that it has no candidate in the race. Analysts say Mr. Raisi’s presidency would finalize a plan years in the making for conservatives to consolidate power, take over all branches of the government, marginalize any reform faction and severely restrict the internal power fights within the Islamic Republic.
“Today we are witnessing an unabashed attack on any semblance of republican principles in favor of the absolute power of the supreme leader,” said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.
The appearance of an engineered victory for Mr. Raisi, 60, has prompted louder and wider calls for an election boycott and increased voter apathy among ordinary Iranians. Polls predict a low turnout. The most recent survey conducted this week by the Student Polling Agency, ISPA, showed only 37 percent of voters want to cast ballots.
With Ayatollah Khamenei’s allies already in control of the Parliament and judiciary, the takeover of the presidency could reshape the current negotiations on how to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.
President Donald Trump renounced the pact three years ago, in what he called a “maximum pressure” campaign to squeeze more concessions from Iran, but his policy appears to have only strengthened the hard-liners.
President Biden wants to seek a wider agreement with Iran that would constrain not only its nuclear program, but also its missile development and its involvement in conflicts around the region. But Mr. Raisi and his faction oppose making concessions to the West.
What particularly astonished political circles in Iran was the Guardian Council’s disqualification of prominent political figures such as Ali Larijani, a centrist conservative and former speaker of the Parliament, and the current vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, considered a reformist most closely aligned with Mr. Rouhani.
Mr. Larijani belongs to a very prominent political family, and was appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei to lead negotiations for a 25-year economic deal between Iran and China. Mr. Larijani was seen as a candidate who could attract reformist votes.
While a former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a former government minister, Mostafa Tajzadeh, the leading reformist candidate, were also disqualified, their removal from the race came as little surprise. Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was once considered close to Ayatollah Khamenei, has increasingly taken the posture of an eccentric opposition figure. Mr. Tajzadeh, who was imprisoned for several years for his political activism, had called for a revision of the Constitution.
“This is an election coup,” Mr. Tajzadeh said on Wednesday in a virtual town hall he hosted on the Clubhouse communal chat site, attended by at least 12,000 Iranians. “We must all speak up and say people will not accept the legitimacy of the result. People will not participate in this theater.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad has also said he will not vote and has denounced the Guardian Council. “Why don’t you just take out the Republic altogether and say this regime is all ours and nobody has the right to even protest?” said Mr. Ahmadinejad in a live Instagram talk he hosted on Wednesday with an audience of thousands. Even Mr. Raisi voiced some concern and said that he had lobbied with the Guardian Council to reinstate some of the candidates so that elections would be more competitive.
The council has not made public its reasons for disqualifying candidates and has only said that it approved those deemed suitable to lead the country in the current circumstances.
In early May the council announced new eligibility requirements to narrow the race, excluding anyone who holds dual citizenship, is younger than 40 or older than 75, has a detention record or lacks governing experience.
Kian Abdullahi, the editor in chief of the Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, criticized the Council’s final list of candidates on Twitter, a striking note of discord from a group that has long symbolized Iran’s power base.
He said candidates must be acceptable to the public and that “the people must decide.”
Elections in the Islamic Republic have never been considered democratic by Western definition. Government opponents cannot run, and the process of vetting candidates and counting ballots is not transparent. In 2009, the election result was widely seen as rigged and led to months of anti-government unrest.
But even so, in elections past candidates representing different factions and policies were on the ballot, and the victor was not a foregone conclusion — rivals campaigned and competed vigorously. The public was engaged. Celebrities and pop stars were even enlisted to endorse contenders.
The months leading to presidential elections in Iran typically brought a party-like atmosphere to cities where young people rallied in the streets at night carrying posters, chanting slogans and waving flags of their favorite candidate. The security apparatus tolerated these fleeting moments of open civic discourse, partly because they gave the appearance of a population that endorsed the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy and participated in its elections.
This time around, election fever appears extremely subdued — partly because of the pandemic but also from an underlying apathy. Tehran and most cities are quiet, campaign posters are scarce and rallies and town halls are held online. Iranians have struggled through a year of pandemic mismanagement, slow vaccine enrollment, a collapsing economy and social oppression.
“I don’t know anyone around me who is voting,” said Aliyar, a 44-year-old engineer who asked that his full name not be used for fear of retribution. “Because it has proved over and over to us that nothing will change with us voting. It’s hopeless.”
Besides Mr. Raisi, the other candidates are Mohsen Rezaee, former commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards; Abdolnasser Hemmati, the governor of Iran’s central bank; Mohsen Mehralizadeh, a former governor of Isfahan Province; Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, a hard-line lawmaker; Alireza Zakani, a former hard-line lawmaker; and Saeed Jalili, a hard-line conservative and former nuclear negotiator.
Mr. Raisi, Mr. Rezaee and Mr. Jalili have run unsuccessfully for the presidency before. The other candidates are not widely known.
Abdullah Momeni, a Tehran-based political activist aligned with the reform faction, said the final list showed that the hard-line conservatives had strengthened power.
The Islamic Republic, he said, had “displayed a total disregard for public opinion and it’s doing it without paying any cost and crushing all potential chances of dissent.”

Biden Administration Rewards Terrorists: Abbas and Hamas
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/June 01/2021
Ironically, the same Abbas who told Blinken that he (Abbas) is committed to a peace process with Israel is the same Abbas who also wants to see his Israeli "peace partners" put on trial at the ICC.
Now comes Blinken and announces that the reopening of the consulate in the city. Here is how the Palestinians understand his gestures: If you fire 4,000 rockets and missiles at Israel, you get a US embassy in Jerusalem and millions of dollars of US taxpayer money. It works! The solution, then, is to keep on doing it! By reopening the consulate, Blinken is telling both Hamas and Abbas that the US does not recognize Jerusalem as the united and undivided capital of Israel.
Blinken has also sent a message to Abbas and Hamas that former US President Donald Trump's formula of "peace for peace" in the Middle East is off the table; they no longer need to worry.
Abbas and Hamas are rubbing their hands because, the way they see it, the Biden administration has just achieved their goal of scrapping Trump's peace plan, "Peace to Prosperity: A vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People."
By rewarding Abbas, Hamas and the anti-normalization camp in the Arab world, the Biden administration has bludgeoned its declared objective of reviving a peace process in the Middle East. It has demonstrated decisively that corruption and dictatorship pay. It has shown that terrorism pays – to the tune of millions of dollars. Palestinian incitement and violence against Israel are unlikely to recede in the context of such an encouraging outcome.
First, these overtures signal to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas that the US will support and lavish funding on any Arab leader who seriously abuses not only his own people but also his neighbors. This policy would also include leaders such as Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China and "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei in Iran, as well as other despots. One pretext for the war that Hamas initiated was that Abbas had cancelled parliamentary elections to have been held in May and July. The real reason the elections were canceled was that they would have resulted in another victory for Hamas.
Hamas won the last parliamentary election in 2006 due to the Palestinians' frustration over the rampant political, administrative and economic corruption in Fatah, the dominant faction of Abbas's PA.
The Biden administration -- by offering Abbas more money and reopening the US diplomatic mission that deals directly with the Palestinians -- is actually rewarding Abbas for those attributes.
By engaging Abbas and sending the top US diplomat to meet with him in Ramallah, the Biden administration is telling the Palestinians that it does not care either about human rights or responsible governance.
It is telling the Palestinians – as well as leaders worldwide -- that the United States and the Biden administration have no problem dealing with a leader who misgoverns his own people, who incites them to violence and who does not have the slightest intention of educating his people for peace with their neighbor.
The Biden administration, in addition, is telling Abbas that it has no problem with him continuing to run the PA as a one-man show while cracking down on his political rivals and social media users for daring to speak out against corruption and human rights violations in the PA-ruled areas of the West Bank.
On the eve of Blinken's visit to Ramallah, Abbas's security forces arrested a number of Palestinian political activists on suspicion of "insulting" senior Palestinian officials on various social media platforms or during rallies in the West Bank.
When Abbas announced his decision to postpone the elections, he made extremely serious -- and extremely false -- charges against Israel. Abbas said he was holding Israel responsible for hindering the vote, which Israel had not done, and for carrying out "assaults" against the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which Israel also had not done. It was, in fact, Abbas's harsh rhetoric against Israel that contributed to the eruption of violence on the streets of Jerusalem, where Palestinians physically attacked police officers and Jewish civilians.
On May 18, Abbas announced in front of the Arab Parliament, the legislative body of the Arab League, that he was planning to prosecute Israelis for committing "war crimes" for responding to the rockets and missiles that Iran's proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, had fired into Israeli territory.
The $75 million aid package for the Palestinians that Blinken intends to ask Congress to approve will most likely just end up helping Abbas in his effort to file "war crimes" lawsuits against Israelis in various international forums, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is also trying to indict Americans.
Ironically, the same Abbas who told Blinken that he (Abbas) is committed to a peace process with Israel is the same Abbas who also wants to see his Israeli "peace partners" put on trial at the ICC.
Abbas, in other words, wants to make peace with the Israelis, but only after he gets them handcuffed and imprisoned for alleged "war crimes." Needless to say, this is the same Abbas who does not dare to call out Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for their war crimes of firing 4,000 rockets and missiles indiscriminately into Israel.
While Blinken has rewarded Abbas financially, he has also given Hamas a political gift in the form of reopening east Jerusalem's US diplomatic mission. The consulate used to serve as a liaison to the Palestinians until the Trump administration merged the consulate into the new US Embassy in Jerusalem.
Hamas launched its recent war on Israel professedly because of Jerusalem. Hamas told the Palestinians that it was firing rockets and missiles at Israel as part of its campaign to "liberate Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque from the Zionist enemy." Hamas even named its war on Israel "Sword of Jerusalem."
The real reason Hamas launched its war, though, was apparently to gain more power throughout all the Palestinian territories, as it had been hoping to do in the elections, before they were suddenly cancelled.
Hamas then seems to have decided, possibly with the urging of Iran, to try "Plan B": a show of strength to show the Palestinians who was the real "strong horse" -- and to further weaken Abbas, whose political power exists only because Israel provides full-time security for him.
Hamas's goal was to send a message to the Palestinians and the world that the Jews have no rights in Jerusalem; that it is exclusively an Arab and Muslim city, and that only Hamas can deliver it. Hamas also possibly wanted to show the world that contrary to Israel's claim, Jerusalem is not a united city where Arabs and Jews live together.
The reality, like it or not, is that Hamas and the PA both want the same result: the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state. They just differ about how to get there. Abbas would prefer to do it diplomatically, by having international groups declare a State of Palestine, which could then, if necessary, be used as a launching pad from which to conquer the rest of the territory; Hamas, as in its charter, prefers to seize all the land militarily, through jihad. Neither the PA nor Hamas has the slightest interest in any kind of peace with Israel.
Now comes Blinken and announces the reopening of the consulate in the city. Here is how the Palestinians understand his gestures: If you fire 4,000 rockets and missiles at Israel, you get a US consulate in Jerusalem and millions of dollars of US taxpayer money. It works! The solution, then, is to keep on doing it!
By reopening the consulate, Blinken is also telling both Hamas and Abbas that the US does not recognize Jerusalem as the united and undivided capital of Israel. Blinken has also sent a message to Abbas and Hamas that former US President Trump's formula of "peace for peace" in the Middle East is off the table; they no longer need to worry.
Abbas and Hamas had denounced Trump's plan as a "conspiracy to eliminate the Palestinian issue and rights." Now, Abbas and Hamas are rubbing their hands because, the way they see it, the Biden administration has actually just achieved their goal of scrapping Trump's peace plan, "Peace to Prosperity: A vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People." It was supported by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, as well as by Serbia and Kosovo.
Blinken's visit then, even with the best of intentions, has been a big win for Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and all those Arabs and Muslims who are fiercely opposed to Israel's right to exist and totally reject peace with it.
The Biden administration's decision to resume unconditional financial aid to the PA -- and to Iran -- only means strengthening dictatorships and corruption for those living in the Middle East. It means that Abbas can go on with his autocratic rule and oppressive measures, including depriving his people of a parliamentary government, freedom of expression and equal justice under the law. America's decisions will embolden Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and prove to them that their most recent war against Israel was not in vain.
By rewarding Abbas, Hamas and the anti-normalization camp in the Arab world, the Biden administration has bludgeoned its declared objective of reviving a peace process in the Middle East. It has demonstrated decisively that corruption and dictatorship pay. It has shown that terrorism pays -- to the tune of millions of dollars. Palestinian incitement and violence against Israel are unlikely to recede in the context of such an encouraging outcome.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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Seeking to enter Europe, migrants will reckon with digital fortress
Derek Gattopoulos and Costas Kantouris/The Arab Weekly/June 01/2021
PEPLO, Greece— As the world begins to travel again, Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away! Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armoured truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine.
It is part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometre Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally.
A new steel wall, similar to a recent construction on the US-Mexico border, blocks commonly-used crossing points along the Evros River that separates the two countries.
Nearby observation towers are being fitted with long-range cameras, night vision and multiple sensors. The data will be sent to a control centre to flag suspicious movement using artificial intelligence analysis.
“We will have a clear ‘pre-border’ picture of what’s happening,” Police Major Dimonsthenis Kamargios, head of the region’s border guard authority, told the Associated Press.
The EU has poured €3 billion ($3.7 billion) into security tech research following the refugee crisis in 2015-16, when more than one million people, many escaping wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, fled to Greece and on to other EU countries.
The automated surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border is aimed at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices.
Key elements of the network will be launched by the end of the year, Kamargios said. “Our task is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. We need modern equipment and tools to do that.”
Researchers at universities around Europe, working with private firms, have developed futuristic surveillance and verification technology and tested more than a dozen projects at Greek borders.
AI-powered lie detectors and virtual border-guard interview bots have been piloted, as well as efforts to integrate satellite data with footage from drones on land, air, sea and underwater. Palm scanners record the unique vein pattern in a person’s hand to use as a biometric identifier and the makers of live camera reconstruction technology promise to erase foliage virtually, exposing people hiding near border areas.
Testing has also been conducted in Hungary, Latvia and elsewhere along the eastern EU perimeter. The more aggressive migration strategy has been advanced by European policymakers over the past five years, funding deals with Mediterranean countries outside the bloc to hold migrants back and transforming the EU border protection agency, Frontex, from a coordination mechanism to a full-fledged multinational security force.
But regional migration deals have left the EU exposed to political pressure from neighbours. Earlier this month, several thousand migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in a single day, prompting Spain to deploy the army. A similar crisis unfolded on the Greek-Turkish border for three weeks last year.
Greece is pressing the EU to let Frontex patrol outside its territorial waters to stop migrants reaching Lesbos and other Greek islands, the most common route in Europe for illegal crossing in recent years.
Armed with new tech tools, European law enforcement authorities are leaning further outside borders. Not all the surveillance programmes being tested will be included in the new detection system, but human rights groups say the emerging technology will make it even harder for refugees fleeing wars and extreme hardship to find safety.
Patrick Breyer, a European lawmaker from Germany, has taken an EU research authority to court, demanding that details of the AI-powered lie detection programme be made public. “What we are seeing at the borders and in treating foreign nationals generally, is that it’s often a testing field for technologies that are later used on Europeans as well. And that’s why everybody should care, in their own self-interest,” Breyer of the German Pirates Party told the AP.
He urged authorities to allow broad oversight of border surveillance methods to review ethical concerns and prevent the sale of the technology through private partners to authoritarian regimes outside the EU.
Ella Jakubowska, of the digital rights group EDRi, argued that EU officials were adopting “techno-solutionism” to sideline moral considerations in dealing with the complex issue of migration. “It is deeply troubling that, time and again, EU funds are poured into expensive technologies which are used in ways that criminalise, experiment with and dehumanise people on the move,” she said.
The London-based group Privacy International argued the tougher border policing would provide a political reward to European leaders who have adopted a hard line on migration. “If people migrating are viewed only as a security problem to be deterred and challenged, the inevitable result is that governments will throw technology at controlling them,” said Edin Omanovic, an advocacy director at the group.
“It’s not hard to see why: across Europe we have autocrats looking for power by targeting foreigners, otherwise progressive leaders who have failed to come up with any alternatives to copying their agendas and a rampant arms industry with vast access to decision-makers.”
Migration flows have slowed in many parts of Europe during the pandemic, interrupting an increase recorded over years. In Greece, for example, the number of arrivals dropped from nearly 75,000 in 2019 to 15,700 in 2020, a 78% decrease.
But the pressure is sure to return. Between 2000 and 2020, the world’s migrant population rose by more than 80% to reach 272 million, according to United Nations data, fast outpacing international population growth.
At the Greek border village of Poros, the breakfast discussion at a café was about the recent crisis on the Spanish-Moroccan border.
Many of the houses in the area are abandoned and in a gradual state of collapse and life is adjusting to that reality.
Cows use the steel wall as a barrier from the wind and rest nearby.
Panagiotis Kyrgiannis, a Poros resident, says the wall and other preventive measures have brought migrant crossings to a dead stop.
“We are used to seeing them cross over and come through the village in groups of 80 or a 100,” he said. “We were not afraid. … They don’t want to settle here. All of this that’s happening around us is not about us.”

The Middle East has a missile problem with Iran at its heart
Sultan Althari/Al Arabiya/ June 01/2021
The Middle East has a missile crisis driven by Iran’s quest for regional expansionism.
While reminders of Tehran’s malign influence can be found across the region, its most recent manifestation is particularly troublesome: The fourth Gaza war saw Hamas fire over 4,000 projectiles in 11 days of unprecedented barrages. When juxtaposed with Hamas’ 4,500 missiles fired over the course of 50 days back in the 2014 standoff, it is no surprise that military planners find such a marked increase rather unsettling.
Quantity is merely one dimension – the magnitude, reach, and precision of Hamas’ arsenal is witnessing an alarming uptick. In this latest confrontation, Hamas rolled out new weapons including unmanned submarine drones, attack drones, and the “Ayyash,” an unguided rocket with a 250-kilometer reach. These arsenals share a common origin: The Iranian regime and its ideological custodian, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The link is explicit enough to impel Hamas leadership to publically praise Iran for its support, ranging from engineering know-how to key contraband – including missiles.
Iran’s generous missile supply to its network of violent non-state proxy groups is part of a developing pattern across the region. Despite sanctions, rising internal discontent, and international backlash, the Iranian regime remains ideologically committed to training, equipping, and funding its destabilizing network of proxy groups across the region.
Houthi rebels in Yemen rely primarily on Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles and drones to conduct attacks against land-based targets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while targeting critical shipping routes – such as the Bab el Mandeb Strait – that are central to global energy stability.
Among Iran’s ordnance on offer are anti-tank guided missiles, sea mines, aerial drones, 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets, ballistic missiles, Misagh-2 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), RDX high explosives, unmanned explosive boats, radar systems, and missile tech know-how. Tehran’s generous offerings are extended to neighboring Shia militias in Iraq against US forces and facilities on Iraqi military bases.
But arguably the largest, and most extensive menu is offered to Tehran’s Lebanese militia proxy Hezbollah. The terror group has amassed a variety of weapons including precision-guided missiles, M113 armored personnel carriers, T-72 main battle tanks, Karrar unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and Katyusha rocket launchers. Hezbollah’s armed drone capabilities are equally lethal, and, thanks to Tehran’s support, among the most advanced of any terrorist group in the world – its recent use of the Karrar armed drones is a case in hand.
These revisionist terror groups thrive off a regressively bloody and apocalyptic vision – one at explicit odds with regional stability, socio-economic development, and a rules-based global order. It has become glaringly clear that feeding the non-state proxy crocodile only whets its appetite – the sooner this reality is internalized by the international community, the better.
But there’s good news: The region’s geopolitical center of gravity is rapidly shifting from a zero-sum rivalry to the primacy of multilateral diplomatic dialogue. Tehran would be wise to engage in this unprecedented diplomatic overture and return to international norms, and with it a rules-based global order supported by proactive diplomatic dialogue – if not for regional stability, then at the very least to overcome its dismal state of economic suffocation and political isolation.
The region is experiencing a diplomatic spring, with serious potential to bloom into new era of cooperation wherein states form new friendships and strategically reexamine old ones. After approximately 10 years of frosty relations, Egypt and Turkey recently held their first high-level talks in hopes that bilateral ties will enter a period of thawing and ultimately, normalization. Similarly, Turkish diplomats are actively pursuing a positive strategic reset to their ties with a number of key regional powers.
The Saudi-led agreement reached at the historic AlUla GCC summit earlier this year marked a full return of diplomatic relations between Gulf states. Beyond reinvigorating a robust geostrategic bloc, the agreement turned the page on the past to a future where differences are transcended through diplomatic dialogue and strategic cooperation. Détentes, strategic dialogue, and rules-based multilateral order now reign superior across the region. This diplomatic spring – and COVID-induced strategic re-evaluation – offers Iran an unprecedented opportunity to overcome zero-sum differences and competition for influence, territory, and resources. Failing to recognize and act on the pervasive opportunities posed by the region’s geopolitical climate would be a reckless mistake by the Iranian regime.
Facts are stubborn things. No amount of state-sponsored obfuscation or obscurantist foreign policy can alter the reality of Iran’s missile crisis. As it stands today, Iranian rockets collectively cover an alarming 5,000-kilometer reach, spanning the world’s most vital trade routes. But, the region’s strategic shift is underway, and Tehran is faced with a choice to further deepen regional fissures, or strategically reevaluate its priorities beyond expansionism, militant proxies and destabilizing activities. The answer to the foregoing tradeoff should be straight forward – the onus is on the Iranian regime to act on this opportunity.

Khamenei will control Iran policy no matter who is president
Hassan Al-Mustafa/Arab News/June 01/2021
During a televised speech to the members of Iran’s parliament last week, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urged all citizens to participate in the June 18 presidential election, warning against “those who promote voting abstention” and saying “they do not sympathize with the people.”
Khamenei was clearly responding, while naming no one, to widespread criticism of the decision by the Guardian Council to bar a number of candidates from standing and instead issue a restricted list of just seven people considered eligible to compete in the election.
Former Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani and First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri were the most prominent names excluded. According to Zahra Khomeini, daughter of the republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini: “The unbelievable matter is to reject the candidacy of regime officials whose efforts are well documented, since the beginning of the revolution and till this day, in the service of the people and the revolution.”
Hassan Khomeini, Khomeini’s grandson, also criticized the Guardian Council’s decision, saying: “Were I among the eligible candidates, I would have withdrawn my candidacy.”
Two members of Khomeini’s house, a respected and sanctified figure in the pro-revolutionary street, have openly criticized the manner in which the election has been managed and hinted that they are in favor of a boycott. This position is consistent with the majority of the leadership and members of the “reformist” movement, which has had two of its most prominent leaders — former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Sheikh Mehdi Karroubi, who represented Khomeini for years on the official Hajj mission — under house arrest since 2011.
Speaking to the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Khamenei noted something important when he said: “Elections are held for one day, but their impact will continue for several years.”
This is key to understanding why Larijani and Jahangiri’s candidacies were rejected. They were the strongest rivals of current judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, a cleric who ran for president in 2017 but lost to Hassan Rouhani. The “hard-line” current does not want to see that defeat repeated because the direct interpretation would be that Raisi is unpopular among the citizens, reducing his chances of succeeding Khamenei as guardian of the Vilayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) regime, especially since his name has been proposed as a possible successor and he is supported by “fundamentalists” and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Hence, the outcome of the election, as stated by Khamenei, will have an effect for years to come because the process, beyond the choice of president, is the preparation and training ground for the 82-year-old’s successor. The supreme leader also wants the next government to be in total harmony with the Islamic Consultative Assembly, which is controlled by the hard-liners, the IRGC and his foundation, in order to make the formulation of domestic and foreign policies smoother.
The president, in this case, would not be a source of obstruction, as is currently the situation with Rouhani, who belongs to the “moderate” movement and whose foreign minister, Javad Zarif, complained, in leaked recordings published in April, about the military’s control over political decision-making and the interventions of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in the work of the Foreign Ministry. This position does not reflect the opinion of Zarif as such, but that of Rouhani’s team. Therefore, Khamenei does not want the next government to be reformist in nature so that it does not diverge with him on political issues.
What does this Iranian political landscape mean to its Gulf neighbors and how will it affect them?
The ongoing events within the institutions of the Iranian regime send the message that internal changes are taking place. These changes will not return moderates or reformists to power, but will consecrate the influence of the hard-liners, who adopt critical and even hostile speech toward a number of Arab and Gulf states. These politicians will support tougher foreign policy stances after the presidential election, especially on the subject of discussions related to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, should the ongoing negotiations in Vienna not secure an agreement before the inauguration of the next president.
The incoming fundamentalist government’s policies will be based on extracting the greatest political, security and economic gains, in parallel with a tactical adjustment in its regional influence map, along with its support for militias and parties loyal to it in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. It will also seek to take advantage of its regional influence to negotiate with neighboring countries in a tougher way, contrary to Rouhani’s diplomatic approach.
Khamenei will be the “maestro” governing foreign policy, which is essentially under his authority according to the Iranian constitution. This gives him broad powers, especially since he has pointed out on numerous occasions that Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is only a policy enforcer.
The ongoing events within the institutions of the Iranian regime send the message that internal changes are taking place.
The supreme leader, as solid as he is in his political positions and strict in his administration, is aware that the Iranian people have great economic needs and that there are complaints in many cities and villages. He will, therefore, seek to ease this congestion by achieving positive results in a new JCPOA agreement with the P5+1, which would ease US sanctions on the Iranian regime, giving it access to certain funds and the ability to trade and make deals with European and American companies, which would support the labor market in Iran.
In the Gulf, Khamenei may seek to ease tensions with Iran’s Arab neighbors, specifically Saudi Arabia, because a state of continuous isolation will damage Tehran’s reputation and image, which has already suffered a lot of harm. He is also well aware of Saudi Arabia’s strategic position and influence in the Arab world and beyond, depending on the extent to which Iran’s regional behavior changes.
Therefore, whether or not Raisi becomes, as expected, the next president, Khamenei will remain in control of the game and the government, parliament and IRGC will just be obedient tools for the implementation of his will.
*Hassan Al-Mustafa is a Saudi writer and researcher interested in Islamic movements, the development of religious discourse and the relationship between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Iran. Twitter: @Halmustafa

Pan-Gulf identity as an alternative to Iran’s Vilayat-e Faqih
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/June 01/2021
The people of the Gulf urgently need a new political discourse. The previous pan-Arabism discourse of the 1960s constituted an intellectual framework for many people and elites. At the time, an individual’s identity, patriotism and sense of belonging was based on Arabism. This surpassed any other affiliation, such as religion, ethnicity or sect. Although dominant, this political discourse had some flaws and faced different challenges as several contrary ideologies emerged, including socialism, political Islam, and Vilayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) on the eastern bank of the Arabian Gulf, which will be the focus of this article.
The ideology of Vilayat-e Faqih interacted with and found fertile ground among Arab Shiite communities as a result of four key stages. Each stage was linked to political realities and circumstances, rather than to the Iranian revolutionary ideology itself.
The first stage of this interaction took place during the first two years of the Iranian revolution and the subsequent establishment of the Islamic Republic, when the newly formed political system in Iran promoted the policy of “neither east nor west” and anti-imperialist rhetoric. Arab Shiite communities accepted this discourse, but it was not fully tested.
The second stage was during the Iran-Iraq War, when the Iranian regime began to export the Iranian revolution, calling for Arabs in the region to dismantle their political systems and reproduce the Iranian experience. This attempt focused more on the revolutionary dimension than the sectarian. Therefore, it did not achieve the desired outcome.
The third stage, which was the stage of engagement and containment, started after the liberation of Kuwait and ended with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. This stage witnessed the actual promotion of Vilayat-e Faqih among Arab Shiite communities with a primary focus on the sectarian dimension. Iran’s efforts during this period included an increase in the admission of Arab Shiite students to Iranian religious seminaries (hawzas), the dominance of sectarianism over nationalism, and the establishment of cross-border sectarian affiliations. In response to pan-Arabism failing and the emergence of divisions among Arab countries, Arab Shiite communities began to adopt the ideology of Vilayat-e Faqih.
The fourth and final stage started when Iran adopted the discourse of protecting Arab Shiite communities, from the US invasion of Iraq until today. The manifestations of this discourse were evident when Iran intervened in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria.
Even though freedom and political participation have been overlooked in Iran’s ideology of Vilayat-e Faqih, the country’s political system has repeatedly held cosmetic presidential and parliamentary elections and promoted alleged economic achievements to export its revolutionary ideology among Arab Shiite communities. Vilayat-e Faqih completely revokes the rights of individuals to participate in decision-making, marginalizes the authority of elected institutions, and elevates the powers of the supreme leader.
According to this ideology, the supreme leader enjoys absolute guardianship over all peoples, tribes and countries of the Islamic Ummah. He may restrict his guardianship to the country where he is vested with power so that he is not accused of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries based on the norms of today’s world. However, in case the supreme leader exercises his extensive powers beyond the boundaries of his country, his loyalty-based leadership will be binding, just like the one he imposes on the people of his own country.
The pan-Gulf discourse, on the other hand, did not, according to my belief, stem from any intellectual or cultural grounds. Rather, the occupation of Kuwait and its subsequent liberation was the key factor that led to the development of this discourse. Afterward, it was enhanced by economic integration projects and the laws regulating the movement of individuals between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, along with the freedom of investment and the transfer of capital between the GCC members.
The secretariat general of the GCC adopted the pan-Gulf discourse. In September 2016, it held a seminar in cooperation with the National Council for Culture, Arts and Literature in Kuwait entitled “Strengthening Gulf National Identity.” The seminar resulted in a series of recommendations, which were later submitted for consideration to the relevant committees in the ministries of culture of the GCC countries. These recommendations included strengthening Gulf unity via educational curricula, increasing youth opportunities, supporting media institutions to produce joint awareness projects and programs, funding/encouraging research centers, and preserving state and public heritage by participating in heritage-related events, as well as supporting initiatives that are concerned with raising the level of nationalism, strengthening national identity and consolidating Gulf unity.
However, can this pan-Gulf discourse counter the ideology of Vilayat-e Faqih, which is promoted among Arab Shiite communities in the Gulf region?
To answer this question, we must examine the main elements of this pan-Gulf discourse and the opportunities it offers to Arab Shiites to integrate into Gulf societies. This discourse negates sectarian disagreements/differences, rejects discrimination and takfiri ideologies, and criminalizes those who promote such ideologies. In addition, it acknowledges the full participation of Arab Shiites in Gulf societies.
This discourse also imposes obligations on every citizen, including the rejection of cross-border affiliations and foreign loyalties, whether sectarian, intellectual or cultural. It also deems such affiliations as socially unacceptable and prioritizes loyalty to national authorities and elected institutions.
This discourse rejects discrimination and takfiri ideologies, and criminalizes those who promote such ideologies.
Advancing the discourse of pan-Gulf identity will consolidate a sense of belonging to one entity, accelerate the transition from the GCC, which is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, to the Gulf Union, which may later include Iraq and Yemen, and help in overcoming tribal, sectarian, regional and class affiliations. This discourse may also contribute to the adoption of educational and cultural programs and more harmonious common political orientations. Most importantly, this discourse will contribute to closing intellectual and societal gaps in the face of external challenges and safeguard the Gulf’s social fabric from expansionist and hegemonic ambitions targeting our countries.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is president of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). Twitter: @mohalsulami