English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 11/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 06/12-19/:”Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 10-11/2021
MoPH: 229 new coronavirus infections, 5 deaths
Lebanon Opens ‘Largest’ Vaccination Center at Shopping Mall
President telegraphs Iraqi counterpart thanking him for doubling amount of oil for Lebanon: It is not strange that the Iraqi State always stands by Lebanon
Berri calls for joint committees' session next Wednesday
Lebanon’s leaders offer free Covid-19 jabs in return for votes
Jabs for Votes: Lebanon's Oligarchs Turn to Covid Bribery
Report: Fears of U.S. Sanctions after Nasrallah’s Bid to Import Oil from Iran
Hospitals Up in Arms amid Sharp Shortage in Medical Supplies
Longden pays farewell visit to Rahi
Geagea: Door to salvation is early parliamentary elections
No More Kidney Dialysis? Lebanese Hospitals Issue Warning
Report: Center House Says Rejection of Hariri Naming Christian Ministers Unacceptable
Macron says working with international partners to ensure continuity of Lebanon's public services
UNESCO rehabilitates three universities damaged in port blasts with the support of the Qatar Fund for Development
Designating Hezbollah as a Terrorist Organization Under Australia’s Criminal Code
We Want to Break Free/Issam Payssi/Carnegie/June 10/2021
Lebanon’s army still deserves US aid/Michael Young/The National/June 10/202
Preserving the Lebanese Armed Forces Amid State Decline/David Schenker and Grant Rumley/The Washington Institute/June 10/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 10-11/2021
Iran nuke talks back over weekend, but could drag into August
Iranian oil tankers set to arrive in Syria on Friday
In push for Israel-Arab ties, US to name normalisation coordinator
Muslih’s release likely part of deal compelling militias to stop anti-US strikes in Iraq
Militia rockets target Iraqi bases where Americans are located
N. Ireland Casts Shadow over First Johnson-Biden Meeting
U.S. Offers $3 Million for Information on Iraq Attacks
Biden, Putin set to meet in 18th-century Swiss villa for summit

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 10-11/2021
Iraqi Militias Are Developing Local Funding Sources for Social Activities/Sadiq Hassaan/Washington Institute/June 10/2021
What Erdoğan’s ‘Hero’ Says about Turkey/Raymond Ibrahim/June 10/2021
Iran's election is a choice between 'extreme' and 'more extreme'/Con Coughlin/The National/June 10/2021
Is the Biden Administration Helping Iran to Achieve Its Nuclear Dream?/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/June 10/202
Moroccan parties call on Spain to clarify position on Western Sahara/Mohamed Alaoui/The Arab Weekly/June 10/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 10-11/2021
MoPH: 229 new coronavirus infections, 5 deaths
NNA/June 10/2021  
Lebanon has recorded 229 new coronavirus infections and 5 deaths, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health on Thursday.

Lebanon Opens ‘Largest’ Vaccination Center at Shopping Mall
Associated Press/June 10/2021 
Caretaker health minister Hamad Hassan inaugurated the country’s largest vaccination center at a shopping mall in Beirut as the government speeds up the inoculation campaign against the coronavirus. Hassan says the center, at City Mall in Dora area, run by the Lebanese Red Cross can vaccinate more than 5,000 persons a day and aims to encourage more people to take the vaccines outside hospitals and clinics. Lebanon, a nation of about 6 million people, including a million Syrian refugees, has vaccinated more than 600,000 people with a first shot. After hitting a record of more than 6,000 cases and nearly 100 deaths in one day earlier this year, lockdowns and strict measures by the government helped bring down the numbers. Lebanon’s health ministry reported 139 new cases and six deaths on Wednesday. The nation has registered more than 540,000 confirmed cases and 7,780 deaths.

President telegraphs Iraqi counterpart thanking him for doubling amount of oil for Lebanon: It is not strange that the Iraqi State always stands by Lebanon
NNA/June 10/2021   
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, expressed Lebanon's gratitude for the support it constantly receives from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, looking forward to its continuation, especially in the difficult circumstances it is going through. The President received the Secretary-General of the Union, Mr. Jagan Chapagain, today at Baabda Palace.
President Aoun stressed that the presence of the Union's regional office covering the countries of the Middle East and North Africa in Beirut is evidence of the union's confidence in Lebanon and its role in its surroundings and the world. President Aoun also indicated that the services provided by the union, especially after the explosion in the port of Beirut, had a great impact on the souls of the Lebanese in general, especially the afflicted among them, especially in terms of participating in immediate relief work, helping 9800 affected families and providing food and material aid, as well as psychological support. In addition, President Aoun thanked the Union's assistance in combating the Corona pandemic, praising the coordination between the Union and the Lebanese Red Cross Society.
Then, President Aoun raised the issue of the Syrian refugees and its repercussions on all Lebanese sectors, calling for Lebanon's support in its demand to return the displaced to their country within the framework of a safe return, especially to areas that no longer witness military operations. The President pointed out that the displacement of large numbers of Syrians has worsened the economic and social conditions in the country, which makes it impossible to continue this reality.
For his part, Mr. Chabagin had expressed his happiness for his presence in Beirut and his meeting with the President of the Republic, stressing the continuation of support for Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross Society headed by Dr. Antoine Zoghbi, who attended the meeting and the Society’s Secretary-General, George Kattani. Chabagin praised the permanent coordination between the Federation and the Society, noting what the Lebanese Red Cross is doing in various fields. “The Union will continue to provide aid to Lebanon in the health and social fields, with the aim of alleviating the difficult effects left by the events, especially after the explosion of the Port of Beirut and the spread of the Corona pandemic” Mr. Chabagin said. The Secretary-General of the Union was accompanied on his visit by the Legal Adviser, Ms. Victoria Stoddart, Financial Director of the Middle East and North Africa region in the Union, Dr. Hossam Al-Sharqawi, and Director of the Lebanon Office of the Union, Mr. Christian Cortez Cardoza, in addition to Dr. Zoghbi.
Thanks for the State of Iraq:
President Aoun telegraphed to both Iraqi President, Barham Salih, and Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, thanking them for the Iraqi government’s decision to double the amount of oil it approved for Lebanon from 500 thousand tons to one million tons annually to help Lebanon overcome the difficult conditions it is going through.
President Aoun considered that “It is not strange that the State of Iraq always stands by our country, in the various circumstances and tribulations it has gone through.
Your country's initiative comes today, in very delicate and difficult economic and life conditions for our people, and we are in great need of the support from our brothers and friends, so that we can address the deterioration of living and human conditions, and start the stage of recovery”. -- Press Office

Berri calls for joint committees' session next Wednesday
NNA/June 10/2021    
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called upon the committees of finance and budget, administration and justice, public health, labor and social affairs, national economy, trade, industry and planning, to convene in a joint session at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday June 16, to study the following:
- The draft law of Decree No. 7453 aimed at establishing a mandatory syndicate of psychiatrists in Lebanon
- The expedited draft law of Decree No. 7797 aimed at approving the subsidy card and opening an exceptional credit for its funding
- The electronic subsidy credit card draft law.
- The public procurement draft law.

Lebanon’s leaders offer free Covid-19 jabs in return for votes
The Arab Weekly/June 10/2021
BEIRUT – Lebanon’s cash-strapped leaders are bribing their base with free Covid-19 jabs ahead of next year’s elections, in what observers say is the latest variant on an old corruption trick. The “vaccine for vote” system builds on decades-old patronage practices that have seen leaders buy their way into office by offering voters money or public sector employment. But with state resources stretched to their limit by a severe economic crisis and international aid dwindling due to a failure to deliver promised reforms, politicians are turning to Covid jabs to stock up on political capital. “Political forces are trying to directly or indirectly make themselves a part of the equation with regards to the vaccine campaign, primarily because it is a profitable investment,” said a member of the state-run National Vaccination Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity. Prime minister-designate Saad Hariri, a leading figure in Lebanon’s Sunni community, organised a countrywide vaccination campaign with the help of his Future Movement in early May. More than 7,000 people received at least one dose of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, said spokesperson Abdel Salam Moussa. Tens of thousands of new jabs are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, he said. The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), founded by President Michel Aoun, and its Christian rival the Lebanese Forces, have also distributed jabs through private initiatives organised by members or affiliates. Elias Bou Saab, a lawmaker close to the FPM, rented out a private hospital outside Beirut until March next year for vaccination purposes. Last month, he said he would provide “20,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to be distributed free of charge”. Antoine Habchi of the Lebanese Forces provided jabs for 1,600 people in the eastern region of Baalbek. “The funds were raised from the diaspora,” he said.
Vaccine pact The Lebanese government, with the help of international agencies, provides free jabs of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine on a priority basis. It started its vaccination campaign in February, but the rollout was initially slow, forcing many, including political leaders, to turn to private suppliers providing Sputnik doses. With more than half the population living below the poverty line and the Lebanese pound sliding rapidly against the dollar on the black market, vaccines are a luxury for many.
Two Sputnik doses are sold to companies and associations for $38, which amounts to 500,000 Lebanese pounds at the black market rate, or around three quarters of the minimum wage. Firas, a former insurance broker, had registered along with his wife for state-sponsored vaccination. But when a political party offered him free jabs, he chose not to wait for the government. “I have been unemployed for six months. How would I have afforded vaccines for two people?” said the 52-year-old, who declined to name the party that sponsored his Sputnik dose. Out of nearly 900,000 people who have received vaccines in Lebanon, nearly 60,000 benefited from party handouts, said Mohamad Haidar, a health ministry adviser. The powerful Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed party that boasts major welfare institutions, including several hospitals, says it is not distributing vaccines. With health minister Hamad Hassan hailing from its ranks, Hezbollah can rely solely on the state, said political scientist Hilal Khashan of the American University of Beirut.
Honey pots
According to a 2019 report by Transparency International, nearly one in two people in Lebanon is offered a bribe in return for their vote, while more than one in four receives threats if they do not comply. With traditional party leaders going up against a revitalised opposition in elections next year, vaccine handouts could be “exploited for political ends,” said Julien Courson, the director of the Lebanese Transparency Association. But vaccines aren’t the only honey pot. Food prices in Lebanon have soared by up to 400 percent as of December and medicines are fast disappearing from pharmacy shelves. Political patrons are stepping in to ease the blow. The FPM will launch a platform for medicine exchange that will primarily benefit party supporters, said Marwan Zoghbi of the party’s coronavirus committee. People with a surplus of a certain medicine will be matched with those who are in need, he said. Hezbollah, which has long offered a wide array of social services, said in April that it is boosting the number of supporters who benefit from assistance. Services include a shopping card for discounted food items sold at select discount stores. But with Lebanon’s woes piling up quickly, political parties across the board will struggle to keep up. “Lebanese clientelism is failing because the political system does not have material resources to dispense to sectarian leaders,” said Khashan. “The pervasive poverty attests to the failure of the system and the inability of confessional leaders to provide for their impoverished followers.”

Jabs for Votes: Lebanon's Oligarchs Turn to Covid Bribery
Agence France Presse/June 10/2021 
Lebanon's cash-strapped leaders are bribing their base with free Covid-19 jabs ahead of next year's elections, in what observers say is the latest variant on an old corruption trick.  The "vaccine for vote" system builds on decades-old patronage practices that have seen leaders buy their way into office by offering voters money or public sector employment. But with state resources stretched to their limit by a severe economic crisis and international aid dwindling due to a failure to deliver promised reforms, politicians are turning to Covid jabs to stock up on political capital. "Political forces are trying to directly or indirectly make themselves a part of the equation with regards to the vaccine campaign, primarily because it is a profitable investment," said a member of the state-run National Vaccination Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity. Prime minister-designate Saad Hariri, a leading figure in Lebanon's Sunni community, organised a countrywide vaccination campaign with the help of his Future Movement in early May.  More than 7,000 people received at least one dose of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, said spokesperson Abdel Salam Moussa. Tens of thousands of new jabs are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, he told AFP. The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), founded by President Michel Aoun, and its Christian rival the Lebanese Forces, have also distributed jabs through private initiatives organised by members or affiliates. Elias Bou Saab, a lawmaker close to the FPM, rented out a private hospital outside Beirut until March next year for vaccination purposes. Last month, he said he would provide "20,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to be distributed free of charge".Antoine Habchi of the Lebanese Forces provided jabs for 1,600 people in the eastern region of Baalbek. "The funds were raised from the diaspora," he told AFP.
Vax pact
The Lebanese government, with the help of international agencies, provides free jabs of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine on a priority basis. It started its vaccination campaign in February, but the rollout was initially slow, forcing many, including political leaders, to turn to private suppliers providing Sputnik doses. With more than half the population living below the poverty line and the Lebanese pound sliding rapidly against the dollar on the black market, vaccines are a luxury for many. Two Sputnik doses are sold to companies and associations for $38, which amounts to 500,000 Lebanese pounds at the black market rate, or around three quarters of the minimum wage. Firas, a former insurance broker, had registered along with his wife for state-sponsored vaccination. But when a political party offered him free jabs, he chose not to wait for the government.  "I have been unemployed for six months. How would I have afforded vaccines for two people?" said the 52-year-old, who declined to name the party that sponsored his Sputnik dose. Out of nearly 900,000 people who have received vaccines in Lebanon, nearly 60,000 benefited from party handouts, said Mohamad Haidar, a health ministry adviser.
The powerful Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed party that boasts major welfare institutions, including several hospitals, says it is not distributing vaccines. With health minister Hamad Hassan hailing from its ranks, Hezbollah can rely solely on the state, said political scientist Hilal Khashan of the American University of Beirut.
'Impoverished followers'
According to a 2019 report by Transparency International, nearly one in two people in Lebanon is offered a bribe in return for their vote, while more than one in four receives threats if they do not comply. With traditional party leaders going up against a revitalised opposition in elections next year, vaccine handouts could be "exploited for political ends," said Julien Courson, the director of the Lebanese Transparency Association.  But vaccines aren't the only honey pot. Food prices in Lebanon have soared by up to 400 percent as of December and medicines are fast disappearing from pharmacy shelves.
Political patrons are stepping in to ease the blow. The FPM will launch a platform for medicine exchange that will primarily benefit party supporters, said Marwan Zoghbi of the party's coronavirus committee. People with a surplus of a certain medicine will be matched with those who are in need, he said. Hezbollah, which has long offered a wide array of social services, said in April that it is boosting the number of supporters who benefit from assistance. Services include a shopping card for discounted food items sold at select discount stores. But with Lebanon's woes piling up quickly, political parties across the board will struggle to keep up. "Lebanese clientelism is failing because the political system does not have material resources to dispense to sectarian leaders," said Khashan. "The pervasive poverty attests to the failure of the system and the inability of confessional leaders to provide for their impoverished followers."

Report: Fears of U.S. Sanctions after Nasrallah’s Bid to Import Oil from Iran
Naharnet/June 10/2021 
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s latest remarks about the party’s readiness to rely on fuel imports from Iran if the Lebanese state fails to take action, raised concerns of U.S. sanctions on the crisis-stricken country, media reports said on Thursday. Since 2018, Washington has imposed sanctions on anyone who knowingly enters into deals with Iranian oil companies in order to buy, possess, sell, transfer or market petroleum or petroleum products from the Iranian authorities. On Tuesday, Nasrallah said if the Lebanese state fails to take action, "we, within Hizbullah, will go to Iran, negotiate with the Iranian government... and buy vessels full of petrol and fuel oil and bring them to Beirut port.”"Let the Lebanese state (dare to) prevent the delivery of petrol and fuel oil to the Lebanese people!" he said, adding, "We can no longer tolerate these scenes of humiliation." Lebanon has been facing increasingly severe fuel shortages in recent months, with long queues at service stations and some drivers waiting more than an hour to buy even small quantities of supplies. Describing the situation as humiliating, Nasrallah called on authorities to take a "courageous decision" and override their "fear" of the U.S. to import fuel supplies from Iran, a country under hefty American sanctions. According to Paul Morcos, the head of Lebanese law firm Justicia, “American laws prevent the import of oil from Iran; this would expose Lebanon, if Nasrallah does what he announced, to U.S. sanctions,” he told Asharq el-Awsat newspaper. On the other hand, MP Fares Soaid, head of the Our Lady of the Mountain gathering told the daily: “The danger of his speech is not in its literalism, but in declaring that the Lebanese state does not exist, and is not protected by law and the constitution, as if there is no president of the republic in Baabda."Conflicting reports emerged Wednesday evening on whether or not the current government formation efforts have made progress.

Hospitals Up in Arms amid Sharp Shortage in Medical Supplies
Naharnet/June 10/2021
Doctors around Lebanon on Thursday staged sit-ins outside hospitals protesting the dire conditions and sharp shortages in medical supplies, and called on the World Health Organization to step in and help the crisis-stricken country. A group of doctors known as the White Shirts called for the protest, MTV television station reported. “Hospitals in general suffer from a severe shortage of supplies necessary for conducting laboratory tests and diagnosing diseases. That has compelled many hospitals to stop conducting tests for patients,” one of the doctors whose name was not mentioned told MTV in anger. “We had to reduce the number of patients admitted to hospitals due to shortage. Hospitals also suffer from a severe shortage of dialysis supplies. Patients could die one after another. We call on international organizations to step in and help Lebanon because its own officials are busy with their political aspirations,” he added.
Lebanon is wranging with an unprecedented economic and financial crisis that largely impacted its healthcare system. Hospitals have decided to cut down on elective surgeries to save what is left of medical supplies and anaesthetics for emergency procedures.
The state resources are stretched to their limit by the crisis and international aid dwindling due to a failure to deliver promised reforms.

Longden pays farewell visit to Rahi
NNA/June 10/2021 
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi, on Thursday welcomed in Bkirki the UK Chargé d'Affaires in Lebanon, Martin longden, who paid him a farewell visit before the end of his mission in Lebanon next month. The visit was a chance to discuss the simmering situation endured by the country. On emerging, the UK Chargé d'Affaires affirmed that the UK will continue to support and stand by Lebanon.

Geagea: Door to salvation is early parliamentary elections
NNA/June 10/2021 
Lebanese Forces leader, Samir Geagea, said on Thursday that salvation lies within holding early legislative polls, especially amid the failure to form a new government. "The door to salvation is early elections that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah considered a waste of time," Geagea told a news conference. Addressing the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Geagea said: "Sayyed Nasrallah, you do not want the elections at all and you want the Lebanese people to stay where they are; we will keep fighting to take them to a bright place.""We are called to remain steadfast to prevent the transformation of Lebanon’s economy, identity, and culture," he stressed. Moreover, Geagea criticized the caretaker government for draining the Lebanese people through its "disastrous" subsidy policy.

No More Kidney Dialysis? Lebanese Hospitals Issue Warning
Associated Press/June 10/2021
Hospitals in Lebanon warned Thursday they may be forced to suspend kidney dialysis next week due to severe shortages in supplies, the latest in Lebanon's accelerating crises and collapsing health sector. Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented economic and financial crisis that has seen the local currency collapse and banks clamp down on withdrawals and money transfers. As the Central Bank's foreign currency reserves dry up, the country has been witnessing shortages in medicines, fuel and other basic goods, with long lines forming outside petrol stations. The once-thriving health care system has been among the hardest hit, with some hospitals halting elective surgeries, laboratories running out of test kits and doctors warning in recent days that they may even run out of anesthesia for operations. On Thursday, doctors said they may be forced to suspend kidney dialysis next, blaming shortages on a dispute between medical importers and the Central Bank over subsidies. "It is a crime against humanity," said George Ghanem, chief medical officer at the Lebanese American University Medical Center-Rizk Hospital, reading a statement on behalf of the doctors. "The hospitals and medical sector cannot continue this way. We are approaching very difficult days where we will no longer be able to receive patients," he added. Ghanem appeal to the United Nations and the World Health Organization, urging them to step in by sending aid directly to hospitals or the Red Cross, bypassing the Lebanese government and Central Bank.
"Otherwise there are patients tomorrow who will not have their dialysis, patients who will not be diagnosed, and patients who will not be operated on," he said. Already, there were 350 brands of basic medications that were in short supply, he added. The crisis in Lebanon, which is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by an entrenched political class, has driven more than half of the population into poverty, caused the local currency to lose more than 85% of its value. The World Bank on Tuesday said Lebanon's crisis is one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years.
The crisis has worsened considerably because of politicians' inability to agree on a new government amid colossal challenges the country faces. The Cabinet of outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned days after a massive explosion at Beirut's port last August, and the country has been without a fully functioning government since. Locked in a power struggle, President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri continue to trade blame as the country sinks deeper into crises that every day become more intractable. The meltdown, with no end in sight, poses the gravest threat to Lebanon's stability since the 1975-90 civil war."We are headed for a real catastrophe," said Hala Kilani, the doctor in charge of the dialysis department at the LAUMC-Rizk Hospital. She said medical teams were fighting each day to secure the necessary amounts of filters needed to continue with dialysis and blood tests for patients. Even finding needles to administer blood for dialysis patients, who are usually anemic, is a struggle. "We have to call one million pharmacies just to find one or two needles," she told The Associated Press. "This is very dangerous." Issam Yassin, a 40-year-old on dialysis, said said he was at a loss for words. "It is very difficult and it will be a catastrophe if it continues." "For us, if there is no dialysis there is no alternative," he said. Kilani, the doctor, said the current situation was worse than during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war."We have honestly never reached the situation we are in now," Kilani said. "If we cannot secure the supplies needed, the patients will die."

Report: Center House Says Rejection of Hariri Naming Christian Ministers Unacceptable
Naharnet/June 10/2021
Center House sources have poured cold water on a flurry of reports suggesting that there are “positivities” in the cabinet formation negotiations. “If there were so-called positivities, they would have appeared. Show us where these positivities are so that we capitalize on them,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Thursday. “The PM-designate is giving a chance to the ongoing contacts and he has already offered maximum facilitations to expedite the government’s formation as soon as possible,” the sources added. The sources also said that PM-designate Saad Hariri is “cooperating to the fullest with Speaker Nabih Berri’s initiative.” Moreover, the sources said that the rejection by President Michel Aoun and Free Patriotic Movement head Jebran Bassil for Hariri to name Christian ministers is neither “realistic” nor “acceptable.”The sources added that “the ball is not in the court of the PM-designate at all” but rather in the country of Aoun and Bassil.
Geagea to Nasrallah: How Can We Pay Iran in Lebanese Lira?
Naharnet/June 10/2021
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday criticized the caretaker government, accusing it of standing idly by in the face of the growing economic and financial crises, as he described Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s call for buying fuel from Iran as unrealistic. “Is the caretaker government taking care of matters? I see that it is draining the Lebanese people,” Geagea said at a press conference. Describing the ongoing confusion over the subsidization of essential goods and the shortage of commodities in the market as a “major crime against the Lebanese people,” the LF leader said the caretaker government is not asked to “do miracles” but rather to “shoulder its responsibilities within its jurisdiction.”Turning to Nasrallah’s latest remarks about Iranian fuel and the government’s inaction, Geagea told the Hizbullah leader that his party and its allies are in charge of the government. “Ask President Michel Aoun to form the (new) government, and should he refuse, take a clear political stance and that would be enough, instead of standing idly by and decrying the country’s situation,” Geagea added. “Sayyed Hassan, you are in control of the state. You can take a decision to buy gasoline from Iran… But how can we pay to Iran in LBP when we ourselves don’t know what to do with the Lebanese pounds?” the LF leader went on to say.
Geagea also reiterated that “the main gateway to salvation is holding early parliamentary elections.”

Macron says working with international partners to ensure continuity of Lebanon's public services
NNA/June 10/2021
French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that he is "working with international partners to establish a financial mechanism that ensures the continuity of the key public services in Lebanon."He also told a news conference that he would defend his efforts to form a government designed to lead reforms.

UNESCO rehabilitates three universities damaged in port blasts with the support of the Qatar Fund for Development
NNA - UNESCO/June 10/2021
launched today a partnership with the Lebanese University (LU), the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Saint Joseph University in Beirut (USJ), during a ceremony held at the organization's office in Beirut, with the aim of rehabilitating university buildings damaged by the port explosions on August 4, 2020, and under the auspices of the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE). This project is implemented in partnership with the Education Above All Foundation - EAA-EAC, with the support of the Qatar Fund for Development, and comes within the framework of UNESCO's flagship "Li Beirut" initiative, through which the organization is rehabilitating more than 100 damaged educational sites at schools and universities.
The ceremony was attended by His Excellency the Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Education, Tarek Majzoub, His Excellency the Ambassador of Qatar in Beirut, Mohammed Hassan Jaber Al-Jaber, the President of the Lebanese University, Dr. Fouad Hussein Ayoub, AUB's president Dr. Fadlo Khoury, and USJ's president Father Salim Daccache, to celebrate this project which encompasses the restoration of 22 faculties and the central administration building at the Lebanese University, 8 buildings at AUB, most of which are heritage buildings, and 2 buildings at USJ. In addition to that, equipment and furniture is being provided in 7 buildings to replace what was damaged by the blasts, while the implementation counts on national experts and local contractors.
The partnership between EAA and UNESCO supports the initial phase of building back the education system affected by the blasts and providing a safe and accessible learning environment for learners, to ensure their right and access to education. The project is in line with UNESCO's programme focusing on education for vulnerable populations, and directly linked with UNESCO's Arab Regional Strategy for Education in Crisis Situations (2018- 2021). As the global lead on the Sustainable Development Goal 4, as well as the School Rehabilitation Coordinator in Lebanon, UNESCO considers education as the most critical life-saving and life enhancing tool, crucial for the development of prosperous and peaceful societies.
Speaking during the ceremony, Minister Majzoub said that "there are many spaces of hope in times of despair with the presence of countries and international parties that are friends, and that view education as a basis for general advancement. "In this context comes the "Li Beirut" initiative. It received support from the State of Qatar, which took in charge the rehabilitation of schools, TVETs and the buildings of the Lebanese University, AUB, and USJ. The UNESCO Regional Office coordinated this process and today, we launch the partnership with UNESCO for the process of rehabilitating these university buildings with the support of the Emir of the State of Qatar, the Education Above All Foundation and the Ambassador of Qatar in Lebanon. Together with the educational and university family, we strive to sustain education in Lebanon, because education is a right and education is above all. From here comes our appreciation and gratitude for the beautiful countries, organizations, and institutions that respond to our growing needs in light of the cumulated crises that we cannot bear alone. One goal that unites us is to raise generations through their upbringing and education, whether education is done in presence, by distance or mixed. Therefore, our endeavors focus on protecting the educational sector and protecting those responsible for it and its workers as a national priority. We have received support in our endeavors and we have succeeded in placing education at the beginning of the vaccination campaign, so that our children return to schools and universities".
For his part, the Ambassador of the State of Qatar in Beirut, Mohammed Hassan Jaber Al-Jaber, indicated that "the Education Above All Foundation and UNESCO have united their efforts with the financial support of the Qatar Fund for Development, which amounts to about USD 10 million, in order to rehabilitate 55 schools, 20 TVETS and 3 universities. All with the aim of ensuring the continuity of the educational mission, and ensuring the right of children and youth to return to the classrooms and receive their education in a safe and accessible environment". Al-Jaber confirmed that nearly 30,000 people have benefited from the foundation's projects in Lebanon since 2013.
Costanza Farina, Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in the Arab States in Beirut, thanked the Government of Qatar for its generous support, and praised the role of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in trusting UNESCO with the coordination of the rehabilitation and recovery of the sector. Farina mentioned that the "Li Beirut" initiative aims to place education and culture at the heart of reconstruction efforts and to mobilize international and local resources and partnerships, with the aim of supporting two very vibrant sectors in the country, namely education and culture. She noted that Lebanon still faces enormous challenges, as recently reported by the World Bank. She added: "In times of severe crisis, we all count on the role of higher education and the support for local communities. Rebuilding Beirut begins with reviving the education sector and its cultural fabric, and universities have a critically important role to play to ensure that the right to quality education and learning opportunities for all is not compromised. And that no one is left behind. The graduates of AUB, USJ and the LU are leaders in politics, healthcare, business, government and education everywhere in the world. As Lebanon continues to battle multiple crises, education must be protected to avert a generational catastrophe. When education is interrupted, it affects everyone - not just students and teachers, but the future of nations".
In his speech, the President of the Lebanese University, Dr. Fouad Hussein Ayoub, highlighted the importance of this cooperation between the Lebanese University and UNESCO in general, especially in the current crises, in regards to health, economy or security, and following the Beirut blasts, which paralyzed the higher education sector and the Lebanese University on the humanitarian and infrastructure levels. President Ayoub emphasized that the UNESCO office in Beirut was the first to help the Lebanese University confront these obstacles and rehabilitate the destroyed buildings and infrastructure through the "Li Beirut" initiative. He also thanked UNESCO Beirut specialists for this constructive initiative and the great support given, which has enabled 87,000 men and women to continue their studies.
The President of the American University of Beirut, Dr. Fadlo Khoury, said that Lebanon has often been said to be rising, stronger and better, after each disaster over the years, like the Phoenix of the Greek mythology. "The great work you are doing to rescue Lebanon's heritage not only memorializes its history, he added, but it also builds much needed hope within this country, reminding us that resilience and continuity are possible after all. Post-disaster urban and architectural reconstruction develops resilient cities that are empowered by lessons learned from the past to reinvent themselves for a better future. Immediately after the tragic Port of Beirut blast, UNESCO rushed to conduct rapid assessments and commence the rescue process in different parts of Beirut. The fruits of these labors are becoming increasingly evident today. We thank you for prioritizing universities in your initiative and we thank the Education above All Foundation, which, as it rightly describes itself, is an "enabler of human development". A long-time friend of AUB, UNESCO has been supporting this university's cultural initiatives, honoring its outstanding faculty, and partnering with it on youth education and development for decades. It has witnessed first-hand some of the historical significance of the buildings it rescues today on this campus, those that represent more than 150 years of the history of the peoples of this region. These buildings have been the liberal space where more than 70,000 alumni worldwide obtained their education, interacted on campus, and created lifetime memories. They are also where much Arab thought emerged and regional history was shaped. Reconstruction through the Li Beirut initiative will enhance these iconic structures at AUB".
As for the President of Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Father Salim Daccache, he expressed his thanks and gratitude to UNESCO and the "Li Beirut" initiative, which hastened to help Beirut rise from its depression and supported USJ. "We are appealing to UNESCO today for at least moral and material assistance on three levels, he said. The first is to help anchor our youth in their homeland, so that they can continue to trust their university institutions and higher education in particular. These institutions must remain strong so that students feel that the university in Lebanon will remain impregnable, firm and pioneering in its academic educational mission in education, scientific research and community service. The second is to persuade some universities, especially in Europe, to stop hunting our students so that they don't lure them with money and equipment, and thus work to empty this country of the elements needed for our institutions to carry out their mission. Thirdly, the need is urgent to support everything related to the field of informatics, such as hardware, software, newspapers, books and electronic magazines, and this constitutes at least forty percent of the annual procurement budget today, since it is a necessity for students, professors and researchers. When we call UNESCO, we consider it the incubator of culture, science and education. Higher education institutions define themselves as holders of a national non-lucrative mission, and who else can be the tool that secures science, education, culture, competencies and skills". The explosions at the Beirut Port damaged more than 200 schools, 32 universities and 20 TVET centers, and therefore resulted in diminishing or excluding access to education for over 85,000 children and youth.

Designating Hezbollah as a Terrorist Organization Under Australia’s Criminal Code
Matthew Levitt/Washungton Istitute/June 10/2021
As in many other countries, the group has undertaken more than enough terrorist and criminal activity in Australia to justify an expanded listing. The following is an excerpt from Dr. Levitt's testimony before the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Download the PDF to read the full version. There is no doubt that Lebanese Hezbollah fulfills the statutory requirements under the Australian Criminal Code for continued designation as a terrorist organization. However, it is my expert recommendation to the Parliamentary Joint Committee that renewal of this partial designation—to include only the group’s External Security Organization—is insufficient. Hezbollah is structured and operates as a singular organization, a fact that the group’s own leaders proudly proclaim. Moreover, Hezbollah politicians and civilian organizations are deeply involved in the group’s terrorist and militant activities. As a result, an increasing number of countries and international organizations have moved to designate the entirety of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Slovenia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Serbia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Argentina, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Paraguay, the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Bahrain and more...*Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow and director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.

We Want to Break Free
Issam Payssi/Carnegie/June 10/2021
Because of the deep crisis in Lebanon, investors are finding ways to opt out of the financial system.
The phrase “Lebanon is the Switzerland of the Middle East” is now considered by many Lebanese to be either a bad joke or a painful reminder of glory days that are long gone.
One reason Lebanon was given that label had to do with its banking secrecy laws, which were among the strictest in the region. At one point this made Beirut the financial capital of the Middle East. Today, the Mediterranean country finds itself in unprecedented difficulty. The World Bank has concluded that the country’s economic and financial collapse is likely to rank in the top ten, possibly even the top three, most severe crises globally since the mid-19th century.
Since late 2019, Lebanese banks have had a hole of over $83 billion, most of it loans to the Lebanese state. Consequently, since that time they have restricted the withdrawals and foreign transfers of depositors. The Lebanese pound, which for almost three decades was pegged at LL1,500 = $1.00, is now trading at around LL14,500 = $1.00 on the black market. For a country that relies heavily on imports for basic needs, the massive inflation and decline in the pound’s purchasing power has been catastrophic. The World Bank estimates that around half the country’s population lives in poverty.
The financial and economic crisis which has engulfed Lebanon has understandably severely damaged the once unshakable trust that the Lebanese had in their financial system, even driving some to publicly declare that they would never bring their hard-earned U.S. dollars back into it. In the face of colossal challenges for more than a year now, some Lebanese have decided to find ways to opt out of their disastrous financial order.
Some have chosen to invest in the decentralized digital currency Bitcoin, which has been in circulation globally since 2009 and is protected from unexpected inflation. The governor of Lebanon’s central bank, Riad Salameh, does not regard Bitcoin as a currency, but as a highly volatile commodity. That is why its use as a currency was banned in 2017 in the Lebanese market. This did not stop Salameh from announcing in 2020 the central bank’s plans (currently on hold) to introduce its own digital currency in order to transition to a “cashless system.” One would imagine that this “digital pound” would be controlled by Salameh, its supply, like the current pound, inflated at his will and that of his political backers.
That is precisely why many Lebanese have chosen Bitcoin. The currency is based on strict algorithms, with no central governor or operator. Its supply is ultimately limited, and this makes owners of the currency trust it much more than they do the pound, and even among some people the U.S. dollar. One Lebanese bitcoin community, Bitcoin du Liban, was trading between $2–3 million dollars worth of Bitcoin per month in March. The trading is organized online and usually happens peer to peer, as many Lebanese credit and debit cards are not accepted on trading platforms due to Salameh’s ban. Bitcoin’s price has demonstrated that it can be volatile on a day-to-day basis, but in the long run the price of Bitcoin has appreciated every year since its circulation. Bitcoin also serves another important function, which is to bypass the current restrictions of Lebanese banks, allowing the instantaneous transfer of large sums of money in and out of Lebanon.
Because of the crisis, another function of Lebanese banks—granting loans—has been diminished. This is where a cooperative initiative such as Shreek (Arabic for “partner”) comes in. Shreek is a local Lebanese institution that aims to provide alternatives for credit and money management during the crisis and beyond. One of the services it provides is granting small loans of between LL3 million and LL30 million, as well U.S. dollar loans of between $1,000 and $20,000, repayable within a period of up to three years. According to one of its founders, the initiative will only finance projects in productive sectors, with the ambition of reviving the economy. Still in its early stages of development, Shreek aims to increase its membership to 1,000 members by the end of 2021, each recommended by at least one individual who is already a member.
Whether the use of Bitcoin ultimately proves successful in preserving the wealth of individuals inside Lebanon remains to be seen, as is determining whether Shreek will be able to set up a more democratic financial alternative for people in the country. What is clear, however, is that the drive to use Bitcoin and set up and join a cooperative like Shreek come from a need to rebel against a financial system over which the average resident of Lebanon has no real say. With Bitcoin, this rebellion means choosing a digital currency that is radically decentralized. On a smaller level, joining Shreek means being part of a cooperative credit union the members of which have equal voting rights to appoint the board of directors, regardless of the shares they hold in the initiative.
*Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

Lebanon’s army still deserves US aid
Michael Young/The National/June 10/202
مايكل ينك/زي ناشونال: لا يزال الجيش اللبناني مستحقاً للمساعدات الأميركية
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99641/michael-young-the-national-lebanons-army-still-deserves-us-aid%d8%b8/
In late May, the commander of the Lebanese Army, Joseph Aoun, was received in Paris by the French president Emmanuel Macron. The singular nature of the meeting – presidents don’t normally receive army chiefs from small countries – underlined the importance that France gives to Lebanon’s armed forces as an agent of stability at a time when Lebanon is collapsing economically and socially. There appears to be a consensus among foreign governments that the army must not be allowed to fragment because of the Lebanese state’s bankruptcy. Indeed, an international conference has been scheduled in Paris for June 17 to support the institution. Soldiers’ salaries are now worth almost nothing because the Lebanese pound has lost around 93 per cent of its value. Last March, Gen Aoun made a much remarked address in which he stated: “The people are hungry, the people are poor and the members of the military are also suffering and are hungry”. in that same speech, the commander publicly asked the political class, which has remained unable to form a government: “Where are we going? What are you waiting for? What do you plan to do? We have warned more than once of the danger of the situation.” Those remarks highlighted another side of Gen Aoun, that of the socially responsible official, an image the commander doubtless sought to project, given that he remains a prime candidate for Lebanon’s presidency.
The consensus in foreign embassies in Beirut, particularly that of the US, is that bolstering the army is a priority, as it remains the sole multi-sectarian national institution that continues to function relatively efficiently. If the army were to disintegrate, the thinking goes, this could not only have a devastating impact on security and stability, but on the very idea of reconstituting a cohesive state. If the economic catastrophe worsens, partisan groups could begin to protect their own areas of concentration and, conceivably, even form proto-militias to do so.
The US is a major backer of the Lebanese army, though there is a part of the right-wing firmament in Washington that would like to end all American funding to the institution. In June 2020, the congressional Republican Study Committee (RSC), a conservative caucus in the House of Representatives, recommended just that. In a report released at the time, the RSC had affirmed that as the army had not acted against Hezbollah, Washington should discontinue security assistance. It is possible that the report’s section on Lebanon was written by employees of right-wing Washington think tanks that have influence over Middle East policy. The problem is that nowhere in the document was there any serious assessment of what might happen if funding were stopped, or if another one of the RSC proposals was implemented – that the US should pass legislation prohibiting any taxpayer money to the International Monetary Fund from going to a bailout of Lebanon.
However, from the perspective of the foreign embassies, the answers are all too clear. There is a strong consensus that Lebanon’s breakdown would only benefit Hezbollah, which alone has the means to weather the crisis that the country is facing today. The party would welcome a weakening of the army, which it has always considered a potential rival, even if it does have influence in the institution. Hezbollah also realises that for as long as the army remains a potent institution, the party’s legitimacy as a “national resistance” will be questioned. Many Lebanese insist the armed forces, not the party, should be the sole defender of the country. Even during the civil war, the army remained popular as a remnant of the absent state that was against militia rule, to the extent that Lebanon’s former army commander and current president, Michel Aoun, first built his reputation on this yearning.
For those who argue, simplistically, that the army’s bona fides can only be proven if it opposes Hezbollah, what they are asking for is that the institution risk civil war and rifts within its own ranks to merit outside support. Yet the army is a mirror of Lebanese society, with its sundry sectarian loyalties and tendency to accept compromises to avert dangerous outcomes. Pushing it to take actions that only heighten its contradictions would be irresponsible.
But the armed forces’ effectiveness and broad appeal is not in doubt. As Dana Stroul, the US deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East, recently remarked following a joint exercise between American and Lebanese forces, Washington is “interested in developing a long-term partnership with a national representative institution to provide an alternative to Lebanese Hezbollah.” Such language irritates the American hardliners, because they argue that far from providing an alternative to Hezbollah, the army colludes with it. Certainly, it has co-ordinated with the party on issues, which is inevitable in a multi-sectarian country like Lebanon. However, what the critics refuse to grasp is that for as long as the army remains in place, it will indeed be seen as a far more consensual alternative to Hezbollah, albeit one the pro-Iranian party will do its best to neutralise.
For now, those demanding a cessation of aid to the Lebanese army are on the sidelines. Those with knowledge of Lebanon know that accelerating the armed forces’ demise would be folly when Lebanon may be entering a ruinous vacuum that could have regional repercussions, and would only reinforce Hezbollah. Western governments still trust their embassies over ideologically driven think tankers.
*Michael Young is a Lebanon columnist for The National

Preserving the Lebanese Armed Forces Amid State Decline
David Schenker and Grant Rumley/The Washington Institute/June 10/2021
ديفيد شينكر وغرانت روملي/معهد واشنطن: الحفاظ على الجيش اللبناني وسط تراجع الدولة
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99627/david-schenker-grant-rumley-preserving-the-lebanese-armed-forces-amid-state-decline-%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%b4%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%83%d8%b1-%d9%88%d8%ba%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%aa-%d8%b1%d9%88/
Although continued pressure on the country’s political elites is necessary, the U.S. government needs to find more immediate ways of helping soldiers and citizens by making creative use of State, Defense, and congressional authorities.
When the United States and Lebanon convened the inaugural Defense Resourcing Conference (DRC) on May 21, the headline of the virtual meeting was that Washington had “renewed its commitment” to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) by increasing its Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grant by $15 million, for a total of $120 million in fiscal year 2021. While the proposed boost is considerable, arguably more consequential were the DRC’s discussions on how Washington might provide other kinds of assistance to the LAF. Amid Lebanon’s deepening, self-inflicted economic crisis, the Biden administration is rightfully concerned about the integrity of the state’s armed forces. The LAF plays a critical role in maintaining some semblance of domestic security through its counterterrorism work and policing of demonstrations. Yet according to a new World Bank report, the country faces a growing risk of unrest as its economy crumbles further.
Like its predecessor, the Biden administration is conditioning support for an IMF bailout in Lebanon on the implementation of financial reforms. Unfortunately, these reforms are unlikely to occur anytime soon, and without them, the state will continue its slide toward failure. Washington cannot prevent this deterioration—that is the responsibility of Lebanon’s hapless political elites—but it can take steps to mitigate the humanitarian crisis and prevent the military from collapsing.
The LAF’s Predicament
Although funding the LAF has been controversial at times because of the organization’s collusion with and penetration by Hezbollah, such support has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy in Lebanon since the 2005 Cedar Revolution. Annual FMF to Lebanon has hovered just above $100 million over the past three years, buttressed by nearly $100 million in additional Defense Department spending on border security and training activities, as well as about $3 million in International Military Education and Training funds. This makes Washington the leading donor to the LAF, with U.S. largesse accounting for the vast majority of the organization’s procurement budget.
Despite this assistance, the deterioration of Lebanon’s economy has visibly affected the LAF over the past year and a half. Budget cuts have seemingly eroded its operational readiness, while hyperinflation on foodstuffs led the army to announce in June 2020 that troops would no longer be served meat at meals. Meanwhile, the nearly 90 percent devaluation of the lira has made each soldier’s already-meager salary practically worthless, apparently spurring a spike in desertions, furloughs, and early retirements. During an unprecedented public address this March, LAF commander Gen. Joseph Aoun criticized the political leadership and lamented the suffering among the rank and file troops.
U.S. Response Options
With little hope that Lebanon’s political elite will stop the economic hemorrhaging anytime soon, the Biden administration is looking for creative alternatives to support the LAF. The Defense Department already has some authorities in place to financially buttress the force’s current operations, such as Section 1226 of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the Pentagon to reimburse Lebanon for border security efforts (Washington recently announced that a $60 million reimbursement was in process). And according to a State Department press release on the DRC, the delegations “discussed ways to leverage the full range of authorities under U.S. law” in order to provide the LAF with additional assistance. The dilemma for the U.S. government is that the Arms Export Control Act limits FMF to the procurement of “defense articles and services,” which precludes Washington from supplementing LAF salaries or, indeed, paying any recurrent costs.
Despite these restrictions, the United States should consider several initiatives that could make a big difference in stabilizing the LAF:
Explore available Pentagon authorities. The LAF’s most urgent needs are paying salaries, fueling equipment, and feeding the troops. One potential avenue for such emergency assistance is through the use of Excess Defense Articles (EDA), an authority that enables the Pentagon to unload equipment it no longer needs to foreign partners at a considerable discount. For instance, the U.S. delegation at the DRC announced that three Coast Guard Marine Protector-class boats would be transferred to Lebanon in 2022. EDAs could also be used to transfer articles that the LAF typically purchases (e.g., Humvees, drones, helicopters), thereby freeing up space in the force’s budget. Another option is to use the Pentagon’s humanitarian relief authorities, which under certain conditions allow the department to donate excess nonlethal supplies and equipment to partner nations. Congress’s annual Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid appropriation provides funds to help the department support foreign disaster relief operations (e.g., in August 2020, it donated over $2 million in supplies for the construction of COVID-19 response centers in Honduras).
Continue pressing for maritime border demarcation. According to the World Bank, Lebanon’s GDP dropped from $55 billion in 2018 to $33 billion in 2021, and the resultant erasure of revenue has corroded the country’s finances and armed forces. One potential new source of revenue lies offshore, in the country’s large but untapped deposits of natural gas. The most promising deposits are in waters disputed with Israel, and protracted negotiations on the matter have made little headway so far. Yet by showing a bit more flexibility on finding a maritime border solution, Beirut could generate significant revenues in relatively short order—a theme that Washington should continue to underscore in its public and private messaging to Lebanese authorities.
Support further LAF reforms. Although the organization has already taken steps to cut discretionary funding, more can still be done in terms of austerity measures. For example, the 80,000-strong force currently has over 400 general officers. Compare that to the U.S. Army, which has nearly 500,000 active-duty troops but just 295 active-duty general officers as of 2020. Upon retirement, these Lebanese generals receive a one-time six-figure pension payout, as well as a monthly stipend and a car, driver, and free gas in perpetuity—an enormous drain on the LAF’s recurrent funding. These payments can be deferred in the short term, but for the sake of future sustainability, the force needs to reassess its bloated senior officer corps.
Encourage other states to provide budgetary support. The State Department’s budget request for the next fiscal year seeks to increase Lebanon’s allotment of Economic Support Funds (ESF) from $78 million to $112 million. The Biden administration should use this increase to galvanize regional partners into stepping up their own assistance. In recent years, Gulf countries have indicated they are no longer interested in providing financial support to Lebanon, largely because the state is dominated by Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Yet other states have offered modest help despite facing their own severe financial constraints—last month, for example, Iraq sent the LAF $2 million in cash. Washington may be able to convince the Egyptians to donate and raise funds for their Lebanese partner as well, building on Cairo’s unprecedented $500 million pledge to help rebuild Gaza (though it is unclear how much, if any, of this generous undertaking will materialize in the end).
Explore sanctions against officials who prevent government formation. Lebanon has been without a government since Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned after the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, creating a political vacuum that has stalled reforms and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. Following the disaster, French president Emmanuel Macron pledged to sanction local political actors who impede reform and government formation, but Paris has yet to follow through on these threats. Although French pressure is more meaningful to many Lebanese politicians than U.S. warnings, Washington can still prod the government formation process by sanctioning certain political elites, many of whom are allied with Hezbollah and are actively preventing the formation of a reform-oriented government.
Conclusion
Watching Lebanon’s continued deterioration is difficult, but the decline is clearly attributable to what the World Bank recently described as “the disastrous deliberate policy inaction” of Lebanese political elites. Washington and its partners should therefore continue using carrots and sticks to press these elites into putting their country first, while maintaining the international insistence on reform as a prerequisite for a bailout. Admittedly, however, the track record of the ruling class provides little optimism that they will change their ways anytime soon. In the meantime, then, U.S. officials should prioritize creative measures that mitigate suffering among the general population and bolster the LAF, Lebanon’s most functional government organization. Supporting the LAF is no panacea, but as the 1975-1990 civil war showed, the country’s situation would be much worse if the military were to falter.
*David Schenker is the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute. From 2019 to January 2021, he served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
*Grant Rumley is a senior fellow at the Institute. From 2018 to April 2021, he served as a Middle East policy advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/preserving-lebanese-armed-forces-amid-state-decline

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 10-11/2021
Iran nuke talks back over weekend, but could drag into August
The Jerusalem Post/June 10/2021
Iranian officials started to leak that they would like a deal by August, around when the country’s new president, who will be elected on June 18, actually takes office.
Talks between Iran, the US and the world powers in Vienna to resolve the nuclear standoff will be renewed this weekend, but could drag into August.
After earlier mixed messages from the parties about whether the talks would restart on Thursday as originally planned, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendt Sherman said on Wednesday that the latest round of talks would restart over the weekend.
Despite optimism from some EU, Russian and Chinese officials that a return to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal could have been accomplished weeks ago or during this round, both US and Iranian officials made loud noises this week that the talks were not near an end. Other Iranian officials started to leak that they would like a deal by August, around when the country’s new president takes office. Earlier in the spring, Iranian President Hassan Rouhanii had made a series of positive statements that nearly all issues were resolved, indicating that he clearly wanted a deal before May 21.
At the time, May 21 was the deadline that the Islamic Republic had set for the US to lift sanctions, threatening to otherwise end international nuclear inspections.
That deadline was somewhat artificial, and Tehran extended the deadline for cooperating with IAEA inspectors to June 24. This raised speculation that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not want a deal before the June 18 presidential election.
The thinking was that Khamenei wanted a deal around the June 18-24 period so that the expected hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi, could take credit and not Rouhani.
If Khamenei did not want a deal in late June, why would he extend the deadline with the IAEA only one month and have to breach yet another of several deadlines Iran has tried to impose on the Biden administration, dating back to the end of 2020?
Khamenei, not the president, is the final voice on major strategic issues like the nuclear standoff, and many say he has wanted to punish Rouhani as being overly cooperative with the West. Now it appears that the short extension was to try to keep pressure on the US, but that a deal in August around when the new president takes office would be equally acceptable to Khamenei. “There is an interest to reach understandings until August,” said Iran expert Dr. Raz Zimmt, a fellow at INSS and an editor at the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. “Though in principle talks could be continued beyond then, maybe even with the same negotiators.”
Questioned on how Iran would explain violating yet another self-imposed deadline on June 24, Zimmt said: “As long as the talks are continuing, it is always possible to extend cooperation with the IAEA again and again, though each time it is more and more complex and burdensome.”Iranian officials claimed on Thursday that the US was insisting that the Islamic Republic return to the JCPOA’s nuclear limits before sanctions are lifted.
In fact, Washington has said it is willing to sequence lifting sanctions simultaneously to a return to the nuclear limits.
Meanwhile, Iran’s presidential candidates held a debate earlier this week in which Raisi, the front-runner and favorite of Khamenei, did take some hard questions from other candidates. However, he did not need to defend himself much as other hard-line candidates lashed out at any candidate who attacked him, saying they should be banned from public office for their radical views.

Iranian oil tankers set to arrive in Syria on Friday
The Jerusalem Post/June 10/2021
Another about 300,000 barrels of oil are on a third tanker waiting in the Suez Canal.
Two Iranian oil tankers carrying about 1.4 million barrels of Iranian crude oil are set to arrive in Baniyas, Syria on Friday, Tanker Trackers reported on Thursday. Another about 300,000 barrels of oil are on a third tanker waiting in the Suez Canal, according to the report. Iran has reportedly shipped about five million barrels of crude oil to Syria in recent months, amid a severe fuel shortage in Syria. The shipments come as an Iranian Naval fleet reportedly entered the Atlantic Ocean for the first time on Thursday without mooring at other countries' ports, according to Iranian media. The fleet includes the IRINS Makran navigator and the IRIS Sahand destroyer, Coordinating Deputy of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told Iranian media. The fleet departed from Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf last month and reached the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday after traveling 6,000 nautical miles and passing through the Cape of Good Hope. This is the first time the Iranian navy has gotten this far into the Atlantic. The two vessels are reportedly headed to Venezuela. According to Politico, the vessel is believed to be carrying fast attack boats intended for sale to Venezuela. The Biden Administration has called on Venezuela and Cuba to turn away the ships, warning that the US would take "appropriate measures" to "deter the transit or delivery of such weapons," according to Politico.
Venezuela is reportedly using the situation to try and gain relief from US sanctions that were imposed by the Trump Administration, according to the Politico report. During a speech on Tuesday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stressed that the gasoline crisis in Lebanon could be addressed within a few days if the country would just accept Iranian oil shipments, which are under sanctions by international law. “All the humiliation that the Lebanese people suffer in front of gas stations will end quickly when the decision is made to abandon America and import oil from Iran in Lebanese pounds,” said Nasrallah.
The Hezbollah leader stated that Hezbollah will eventually negotiate directly with the Iranian government on its own and import Iranian oil through the Port of Beirut, if the Lebanese government does not begin “bearing its responsibility.”
The statements seem to imply that Hezbollah would openly act against the wishes of the Lebanese government. Such a move could bring Iranian fuel tankers not far from Israel’s shores. Earlier this year, a number of Iranian ships were hit by attacks blamed on Israel, with a number of Israeli ships hit by alleged Iranian attacks as well. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that a dozen Iranian oil tankers headed to Syria had been attacked by Israel.

In push for Israel-Arab ties, US to name normalisation coordinator
The Arab Weekly/June 10/2021
WASHINGTON--The Biden administration is laying the groundwork for a renewed push to encourage more Arab countries to sign normalisation accords with Israel while working to strengthen existing deals after last month’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip interrupted those diplomatic efforts and threw a damper on any normalisation plans. The embrace of the so-called Abraham Accords is a rare carryover of a signature Trump administration policy by President Joe Biden and other Democrats. It reflects the bipartisan support for Israel in Washington. The Biden administration saw the significant prospect of several other Arab governments signing accords soothing and normalising relations with Israel. However, US officials have declined to publicly identify the countries they regard as promising prospects. Sudan inked a general declaration of peaceful intent but has not yet signed up to diplomatic relations with Israel ahead of its next legislative elections. Oman, which has a policy of non-interference that allows it to be a broker across the Middle East’s fault lines, has long been seen by Westerners as a likely contender. But the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas militant rulers last month has complicated US-backed diplomacy for new Abraham accords. It has even boosted the stature of Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and widened the popularity of their radical agenda. The fighting “has strengthened the conviction of opponents of normalisation” with Israel, activist Doura Gambo said in Sudan. The Sudanese were already divided over their government’s agreement last year to become one of the four Arab states signing accords. In Sudan’s case, the Trump administration offered financial relief from US sanctions. Last month’s bloodshed, which killed 254 Palestinians, including 66 children and at least 22 members of one family, resonated deeply with the Arab public, including in the other countries that had already signed accords with Israel: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. Thirteen people died in Israel, including two children and one soldier.
For the general Arab public, the recent confrontation showed that Israel has been unwilling to address the issue of Palestinian national rights, despite the normalisation moves.
Country-by-country accords
Even before fleshing out its plans to promote a Palestinian-Israeli settlement based on the two-state- solution defended by Democrats, the Biden administration is considering appointing a former US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, to a Mideast role that would marshal and potentially expand the country-by-country accords between Israel and Mideast governments. Two people familiar with the matter confirmed Shapiro was being considered for the job, as first reported by The Washington Post. US officials are also working to encourage more business, education and other ties among the four Arab states and Israel. They hope visible success there will also promote the bilateral accords in the region, while the US works to advance resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Last year, the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab country in over two decades to establish ties with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994, respectively. The deals former President Donald Trump struck were “an important achievement, one that not only we support, but one we’d like to build on,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week.
In addition, “we’re looking at countries that may want to join in and take part and begin to normalise their own relations with Israel. That, too, has been very much part of conversations I’ve had with, with several of my counterparts,” Blinken added.
Opponents of these deals, however, argue that they undermine Arab consensus around only recognising Israel when it resumes serious peace talks with the Palestinians that lead to tangible concessions. “These agreements were never about the peace process,” said Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister of Jordan, who charges that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw the accords as an alternative to peace-making with the Palestinians. “Were they helpful to the peace process? No, they were not,” Muasher said. “They gave Israel the false impression that it can forge peace agreements with Arab states as a substitute for coming to terms with the Palestinians.”
In the small North African nation of Tunisia, activists are jockeying to introduce an anti-normlisation bill in parliament. Tunisian President Kais Saied said earlier this week countries that normalised with Israel were “free to do so. But likewise we are free to die free.”Supporters of the country-by-country accords say isolating Israel failed to overcome decades of stalemate on Palestinians’ demand for their own state with its capital in East Jerusalem. “As many ways as the Biden administration will depart from Trump policy in the region, there will be places where it sees an interest in continuity,” said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who spoke to officials in Oman on a trip immediately before last month’s Gaza war erupted. Before any new efforts on the accords move forward, big political and pragmatic developments need to fall into place in the region so as to promote a settlement to the Palestinian question, Middle East analysts say. The Biden administration has yet to develop a clear vision of what a fair settlement would look like and demonstrate a willingness to weigh in on Israel. At the moment, eyes are on the Jewish state to see how a possible new coalition government led by a new prime minister may affect Israeli-Palestinian relations, especially in the aftermath of the Gaza war. The Knesset is set to vote on Sunday on whether to confirm the new government and end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule. If it does, Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett will become prime minister. Bennett opposes Palestinian statehood. Bennett, an advocate of more settlements, is seen an unlikely supporter of the two-state-solution, the endgame of any settlement. The accords signed by the four Arab nations so far seem solidly in place despite the strain of last month’s war. So too do the big incentives that the Trump administration threw in to help close the deals. An example is the US Republican administration’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara. In the UAE, a Gulf financial hub that has been the most enthusiastic about establishing ties with Israel, Emirati political analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said the government is gauging public sentiment, but can also control the street and sometimes defy whatever public opposition there is. “The UAE have taken this decision. They knew exactly where they are and knew the risk and they are not going back on it,” he said.
The way things stand today in the Middle East, normalisation does not seem to enjoy a popular momentum across the region. But the US administration still sees potential in bilateral diplomatic arrangements.

Muslih’s release likely part of deal compelling militias to stop anti-US strikes in Iraq
The Arab Weekly/June 10/2021
BAGHDAD – Tehran made every effort to prevent Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi from strengthening the state’s influence over Iran-backed militias and armed organisations. The pressure it applied led to the release of the Popular Mobilisation Forces’ (PMF) leading figure, Qasim Muslih, Wednesday. Sources told The Arab Weekly that this step was taken only after an agreement was reached obliging the militias to stop striking at US targets in Iraq. Muslih’s release coincided with the arrival in Baghdad of Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force, the foreign intervention force within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iraqi political sources said that Qaani’s agenda during his meetings with the PMF leadership will also focus on imposing electoral alliances between Shia forces so as to prevent a shift in power in favour of the pro-sovereignty forces. They added that the commander of the Quds Force will also meet Kadhimi to confirm that the militias will stay under the authority of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, especially when it comes to the launching of missiles at the US embassy building and using drones against American forces in Iraqi camps.
Qaani’s message is seen as Iran’s response to a US embassy insistence during contacts with Kadhimi on a halt to the launch of rockets by the militias and its warning that “If the Iraqi government does not act, we will act.”The problem continues as rockets hit near US forces and contractors in Iraq on Wednesday, including an air base north of Baghdad and a military base at Baghdad International Airport. The army reported at least three rockets hit Balad air base, where US contractors are based. Security officials told Reuters at least one rocket hit shortly afterwards near the airport at a base which US military aircraft use. Following the announcement of Muslih’s arrest two weeks ago pro-Iranian factions staged a show of force at the entrance of the Green Zone in the Iraqi capital. Government headquarters and embassies, including the US embassy are based in the zone.
Iran needs to make sure of the militias’ obedience to its authority before any progress on international negotiations over its nuclear programme can be made, analysts in Baghdad said. On Wednesday, Muslih, accused of assassinating protest movement figures, was released days after his arrest as part of a probe over his activities by the Iraqi authorities. His release sparked a wave of resentment among activists who accused the Iraqi government of reneging on its promises to hold criminals accountable. But the Iraqi government held the judiciary responsible for the release of Muslih.
It stressed that it had “provided all the evidence related to Muslih’s activities, but the judiciary took the decision to release him due to pressures.”Officially, the judiciary released Muslih due to lack of evidence provided by the Iraqi government about his alleged implication in terrorist acts and violations against demonstrators. A government source told AFP that in fact the evidence included “Telephone communications between Muslih and the direct perpetrators, threats to relatives, witness testimony, explanations received under questioning” that prove Muslih’s involvement in the assassinations, while the judiciary nevertheless asserted it did not have sufficient proof to continue detaining him. A well-informed source in Baghdad confirmed to The Arab Weekly that the release of Muslih came against the background of an understanding between the Iraqi government and the leaders of the PMF by which the militias would stop targeting the US embassy in Baghdad as well as Iraqi bases hosting US forces in some provinces.
The source said it is expected simmering tensions to remain despite the semblance of calm during the months before the parliamentary elections scheduled for next October. But he wondered whether the pledges Qaani would make to Kadhimi about the militias’ allegiance to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards would be a sufficient guarantee to prevent them targeting of the Green Zone sites, again and again. An Iraqi MP ruled out the possibility that Iran has lost control over some of its militias in Iraq, or that there are one or more militias that have decided to act independently of Iranian control.
The MP told The Arab Weekly that “what happens from time to time is that the Quds Force, which is the direct supervisor of the work of these militias, reorganises their work, which gives the impression some of them operate on their own account without deferring to Iranian instructions.”The parliamentarian stressed that “it is all an illusion, not only because the militias are just an Iranian industry, but also because the militias do not have a national reference point and were not created to carry out the duty of protecting the Iraqi state, as is alleged.” The armed militias are keen to consolidate the notion of the parallel state, at times referred to as “the non-state”.
A clash was seen as inevitable between the PMF and the government, which tried to restore respect to the judiciary through its arrest of Muslih. Observers believe that the judges’ release of Muslih on grounds of insufficient evidence means that a settlement has been reached at a level above the ability of the Kadhimi government to continue its efforts to rein in the militias. The judiciary’s decision to release Muslih constituted a face-saving way out for the Kadhimi government, which was careful not to appear as weak in the face of PMF threats. The general intent at this particular juncture is not to allow the PMF to appear as the strongest party in the political balance in Iraq.
Observers unanimously agree that there will be no winner nor loser in the showdown, even though the ultimate result will be that Kadhimi will lose a lot of his credibility and popularity. That will also lead to the expansion of the non-state’s power in the face of governmental caution. Iraqi political analyst Mustafa Kamel described what happened as a confirmation of the ongoing policy of impunity in Iraq, despite all the compelling evidence presented to the court, some of which was oral, all confirming the involvement of Muslih in the murders of activists. This means that justice for the victims of the October Revolution will have to wait. Talking to The Arab Weekly, Kamel added that “the release of Muslih confirms that no authority is above the authority of the militias, no decision is above their decision and no weapons are above their weapons;”He pointed out also that everything that is said about the PMF’s affiliation with the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in Iraq and the claims that they are part of the official military establishment are meaningless assertions that irrelevant to the Iraqi context.
He added that Qaani’s arrival in Baghdad on the day of Muslih’s release carried more than one meaning, as it strengthened the position of the Iran-backed militias and confirmed that they cannot be touched and that nothing happens in Iraq without their approval. Shaho Al-Qara Daghi, adviser to the New Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, said that this suspicion will tarnish the reputation of the judiciary, the security forces and the government. He stressed that this case will send a negative signal about the ability of these official bodies to hold the leaders of the PMF accountable and prosecute them in future cases. Qaradaghi told The Arab Weekly that the coming days will reveal whether there was a deal that closed this case, or whether the government actually submitted to threats without anything in exchange. Independent Iraqi politician Jabbar al-Mashhadani wondered why Muslih was arrested in the first place and if there were indeed sufficient and valid reasons for the arrest, then why was he released and were those reasons annulled or refuted? Talking to The Arab Weekly, Mashhadani described the the PMF leader’s release as reflecting a state of chaos in the taking of decisions and confirming that the current political process is determined by understandings and mutual benefits. He did not rule out that Kadhimi had tried to measure the reaction of the pro-Iran factions as and when he decided to confront them. If that were the case, the factions have proven beyond any doubt that they still have the upper hand.

Militia rockets target Iraqi bases where Americans are located
The Arab Weekly/June 10/2021
BAGHDAD - Rockets hit near US forces and contractors in Iraq on Wednesday, including an Iraq’s Balad airbase north of Baghdad and a military base at Baghdad International Airport, the Iraqi army and security officials said. The army reported at least three rockets hit Balad air base, where US contractors are based. Security officials told Reuters at least one rocket struck shortly afterwards near the airport at a base used by US military aircraft. Five rockets Wednesday evening targeted Iraq’s Balad airbase, with two of the projectiles falling, without causing casualties, near an area used by US contractors a security official said. “There were no victims or damage,” the official said. Balad airbase, north of Baghdad, is used by US company Sallyport to service F-16 fighter jets flown by Iraq’s air force and has repeatedly been targeted by rocket fire. Another US company, Lockheed Martin, withdrew its staff from the base last month amid concerns about the safety of its personnel. At least three foreign subcontractors and one Iraqi subcontractor have been wounded in attacks on Balad. The US routinely blames such attacks, which also regularly target US interests at other installations, including Baghdad airport, on Iran-backed factions.
US troops are in Iraq as part of a military coalition that was established to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist group, a campaign that Iraq’s government declared won in late 2017. The rocket attacks are seen as a way to pressure Washington into removing all its remaining personnel and to flex Iran’s muscle through its proxies in Iraq. In mid-April, pro-Iran fighters sent an explosives-packed drone crashing into Arbil airport in the first reported use of such a weapon against a base housing US troops in Iraq.

N. Ireland Casts Shadow over First Johnson-Biden Meeting
Agence France Presse/June 10/2021
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday played down reported tensions with U.S. President Joe Biden over the impact of Brexit on the fragile peace in Northern Ireland, after the pair met for their first face-to-face talks on the eve of the G7 summit. The pair were all smiles as they posed for the media before 90 minutes of closed-door discussions, overshadowed by claims Biden had ordered a rebuke to London amid its row with the European Union over new trading arrangements in Northern Ireland. According to The Times, Washington's most senior diplomat in London, Yael Lempert, told Brexit Minister David Frost the UK government was "'inflaming tensions in Ireland and Europe with its opposition to checks at ports in the province". U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan insisted the president -- a proud Irish-American with distant family still in Ireland -- would not make "threats or ultimatums" to Johnson. But he said Biden was "rock solid" in the belief that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of violence over British rule in Northern Ireland must be protected. Adding to the pressure on Johnson, EU leaders said they would also bring up the row when they meet the British leader on Saturday, as member state Ireland said it welcomed U.S. support. Johnson denied that Biden raised alarm over Northern Ireland and insisted there was "absolutely common ground" on all sides in upholding the landmark peace accord. "I'm optimistic we can do that," he told reporters in Carbis Bay, Cornwall.
Peace process
The meeting came at the start of Biden's first foreign tour as president that takes in NATO, the EU and talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin, and was billed as a chance for the old allies to help shape the post-pandemic world. Biden and Johnson agreed a modern version of the 1941 charter signed by their predecessors Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt that determined the new world order after World War II. Biden called the meeting "very productive" and echoed Johnson's commitment to supporting the peace process in Northern Ireland, without elaborating.
"We affirmed the special relationship -- it's not said lightly -- the special relationship between our people," he added. New trading arrangements for Northern Ireland introduced in January after the UK left the European single market and customs union, nearly four years after the divisive Brexit vote, have caused tensions with the EU -- and alarm in Washington. Under a new protocol, checks are supposed to be carried out on deliveries heading into Northern Ireland from mainland Britain, to prevent unchecked goods going into the single market via neighboring EU member Ireland.
But pro-British unionist communities say the new rules have driven a wedge between the province and the rest of the UK, increasing the likelihood of reunification with Ireland. London suspended checks earlier this year because of threats to port staff, and the protocol has been blamed for the worst violence in years in the British-run province. Talks to resolve the simmering feud broke up in London without agreement Wednesday, with Europe threatening retaliatory action, including tariffs, if the new trading arrangements are not implemented.
- Vaccine diplomacy? -
Biden on Wednesday night outlined the need for global collaboration to rebuild after Covid-19 and reset diplomatic ties after the isolationism of the Trump era, declaring: "The United States is back!" On Thursday, he confirmed US plans to donate 500 million Covid vaccine doses for 92 poorer countries as a "historic step" to boost the collective fight-back against the global pandemic. "This is about our responsibility, our humanitarian obligation, to save as many lives as we can," he said. Other G7 countries -- hosts Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- will follow suit, and outline a way to ending the pandemic, he added. But as Russia and China also engage in so-called "vaccine diplomacy" and campaigners press for a level playing field on global vaccine distribution, a senior U.S. official denied the US was seeking any quid pro quo. "This is the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do, and it is tangible proof that it is going to be the world's democracies who ultimately deliver when it comes to beating the Covid-19 pandemic," he said. In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron called on pharma groups producing vaccines against Covid-19 to donate 10 percent of their production to poor nations. He also urged fellow G7 leaders to back a goal of getting 60 percent of Africans vaccinated by the end of March next year -- a figure more ambitious than the international Covax jab scheme -- as the WHO warned of a huge shortfall in doses.

U.S. Offers $3 Million for Information on Iraq Attacks
Agence France Presse/June 10/2021
The U.S. Department of State's Rewards for Justice program said Thursday it was offering a reward of up to $3 million for information on attacks against Americans in Iraq. The announcement comes a day after an attack was carried out with three "explosive-laden" drones on Baghdad airport, where U.S. troops are deployed. "O faithful people of Iraq, cowardly terrorists are attacking U.S. diplomatic missions in Iraq, then they are fleeing to hide among civilians," said a statement in Arabic on the Twitter account of Rewards for Justice. "America is offering a reward of up to $3 million for information on planned attacks or past ones against American diplomatic installations," said the statement, which was accompanied by a video. It provided a U.S. telephone number, and said the information could be sent via the messaging apps WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. U.S. interests in Iraq have come under repeated attacks since October 2019, including with rockets, with the United States routinely blaming them on Iran-backed factions. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 42 attacks have targeted the US embassy in Baghdad, Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops or Iraqi convoys carrying logistical support. The latest attack on Wednesday was carried out with three drones packed with explosives, the Iraqi army said on Thursday. It said one of the drones had been intercepted by air defenses Wednesday evening, the fourth such drone attack in less than two months. Experts say the use of such drones marks an escalation in attacks against American interests by pro-Iranian forces. The techniques are similar to those deployed by Huthi rebels in Yemen against Tehran's regional rival Saudi Arabia. Wednesday's attack was the first such attack on targets in the Iraqi capital, the Arab world's second-most populated city. On Wednesday, five rockets also landed at Balad, an airbase further north where American contractors are based, a security source said. They did not cause any casualties or damage, the source said. The Balad base has been targeted so regularly that US weapons firm Lockheed Martin withdrew last month, citing concerns about the safety of its personnel. Pro-Iran groups on Wednesday had hailed what they described as "one more victory" for the state-affiliated Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition, as commander Qassem Muslah was released. Muslah had been arrested in May by police intelligence on suspicion of ordering the killing of Ihab al-Wazni, a pro-democracy activist shot dead earlier that month by unidentified gunmen on motorbikes. Iraqi authorities have repeatedly blamed "outlaws" of carrying out "terrorist" attacks with rockets or explosive-laded drones but have struggled to identify those behind these assaults.

Biden, Putin set to meet in 18th-century Swiss villa for summit
NNA/June 10/2021
U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to hold their June 16 summit in an 18th-century Swiss villa overlooking Lake Geneva, a soothing setting for what promises to be heated talks. Bitter disputes over election interference, cyber attacks, human rights and Ukraine hang over their first face-to-face meeting since Biden took office on Jan 20. Strategic nuclear stability and regional conflicts will be on the table. Biden, who is due to arrive in Britain on Wednesday at the start of his first trip abroad as president, has said he would press Putin to respect human rights.—Reuters

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 10-11/2021
Iraqi Militias Are Developing Local Funding Sources for Social Activities
Sadiq Hassaan/Washington Institute/June 10/2021
Iran-backed militias in Iraq are using fraudulent loans to bankroll their community activities, drawing into question their adherence to Islamic laws and mores.
After losing Iranian funding for social and religious community activities and payments to the families of militia members who died fighting ISIS, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are trying to cover their financial losses through fraudulent and usurious lending.
For years, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have funded community gatherings and offered support for families of militia members who died fighting ISIS. These social and religious community activities play a major role in attracting ideologically-aligned followers, and the militias rely on them for the health of their reputation in the Iraqi Shia community.
As such, after losing Iranian funding for those activities, the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are relying on new local financial sources. As a part of that operation, some militias, like Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Saraya al-Salam, have opened loan offices for Iraqi employees and retirees who have online payment cards. These loans are often harmful to borrowers, and they expose an entrenched network of usurious lending with complicity from national banks and at least one major financial firm in Iraq. Furthermore, the loans violate Islamic law, calling into question the militias’ ideological legitimacy and highlighting their determination for power.
Social and Religious Activities
About a year ago, the Iranian government informed the leadership of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, which include organizations such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, that Iran would stop funding the militia’s social and religious community activities. Iranian officials claimed this end in funding was part of spending cuts for operations against ISIS.
Given the importance of these events for the popularity of Shia militias in Iraq, the militias’ leadership saw a major threat in any harm done to these programs, which attract new militia members and bolster the militias’ humanitarian and ideological commitments.
Militia leaders also worried that ending their social and religious activities would dampen the religious fervor that they had been able to kindle in Iraqi Shia communities. The militias were especially successful in stirring up that fervor when fomenting sectarian crises during major pilgrimages, such as the Arba’een Pilgrimage, during which some Shia participants attempted to provoke Sunnis by targeting figures they revere, such as the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab or the Prophet’s wife Aisha.
Fraudulent Loans
Considering the importance of these activities for Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, the militias began looking for alternative funding, which ultimately led to the establishment of fraudulent, militia-operated loan offices. In order to understand the significance of this practice, it is necessary to explore the process by which these loans are disbursed, and how the militias profit from them.
The militias first attract borrowers through advertisements on social media. These advertisements include general calls for borrowing outside of the administrative purview of government banks, through what is known as “instant loans.” In these loans, the borrower receives the amount they have requested, according to their salary, on the same day they request the loan, making the them very appealing for those in need of quick money.
Once the borrower has clicked on the advertisement, the borrower is led a number to call using Facebook, or sometimes to the names of companies that sell household products in reasonable installments. In this way the lenders can disguise their fraudulent activity.
When the borrower calls the phone number listed in the advertisement, the militia lenders provide the address or the location where the loan transaction will be conducted, often in an office in a well-known building. When the borrower goes to meet the fraudulent militia lenders at this location, the lenders take the information for the borrower’s Qi Card, the electronic banking and default national debit/credit card in Iraq, and send it to another location with a register of all of Iraq’s employees and retirees and their salaries, as well as a fingerprinting device. In this location, they make a copy of the paperwork. This process lasts for more than five hours, after which the materials are sent to one of the national banks to receive the money.
To complete this operation, the militia-affiliated lenders work with a well-known company located in Kahrabana Square in Baghdad, across from the French embassy. This company gives them the amount in dollars, and they take out a large sum that same day from the loan that was given to the employee or retiree. The militia continues to take out a very large amount of money every month, through a simple accounting process. For example, a borrower whose salary is 800,000 Iraqi dinars is given twenty bills, i.e. 2000 dollars, and from this amount they take three bills, i.e. 300 dollars on the same day, and then every month for a year they take 400,000 Iraqi dinars. In other words, the total amount of the loan is almost 5 million dinars, which is a huge amount of money.
Ingenious as it is, this process has run into difficulties in the recent past. In June and July 2020, the militias’ loan offices encountered technical issues for two interrelated reasons. The first problem was that banks began disbursing retirement pension payments every month instead of every other month, as had been done for years, which affected the calculations for the militias’ withdrawals.
The second problem was that many retirees changed their electronic payment cards from Qi Card to MasterCard or something similar, and as a result the militias could not draw from their pensions. As a result, the militias’ loan offices sent threatening covert messages to individual retirees, demanding cash payments delivered directly to the loan office. Some of the borrowers went and turned in their monthly amount, and then received a second message telling them to take the unpaid installment at the end of the year along with a fee for the delay, followed by yet another message when they received their salaries for August notifying the borrower to take two equal installments from their August salary. All of this caused serious financial problems for the original borrowers.
A Fraudulent Network
After investigating the lenders involved in these exploitative transactions, it became clear that they belonged to militia groups. Because of the massive power wielded by these militias, government banks and electronic card companies are bowing to their demands. Whereas regular, unaffiliated criminals engaged in such activity might be arrested upon discovery, militia-backed lenders escape penalty through the notorious reputation and political power of their organizations.
As a result, while the militias are the central actors behind these operations, it’s clear that other financial institutions are complicit or participatory in the process. For instance, this fraudulent operation is helped along by the announcements and advertisements sent out from time to time by Iraq’s two major banks, Rasheed and Rafidain, stating that lending will end for two or three months or until further notice, as well as rumors spread about through private militia media such as such as al-Ahd or al-Nujaba channels, and through the websites of their electronic armies.
It therefore seems clear that the Rasheed and Rafidain banks are complying with these offices’ desires and allowing them to profit at the expense of poor employees and retirees. And while these banks occasionally issue statements warning people not to work with the loan offices that engage in fraudulent transactions, they have not taken any measures to actually stop the illegal withdrawals.
Ideological Hypocrisy
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of these loans, however, is not their civil illegality, but their religious illegality. The militias’ loan transactions are against Islamic law and are considered usurious, which is especially important considering that these militias claim to defend religious legal principles that prohibit such fraudulent transactions. Indeed, the militias consider usurious lending to be a major sin in Islam, and they consider those who engage in such activities to be evil-doers who have no right to oversee the affairs of Muslims.
How can the militias that undertake these activities which violate both civil law and Islamic law while claiming to defend Shia doctrine and serve as social leaders promoting reform and resistance?

What Erdoğan’s ‘Hero’ Says about Turkey
Raymond Ibrahim/June 10/2021
Conquering Christians and turning their churches into mosques seems to be very much on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s mind these days. Last Friday, June 4, he “spoke of the Turkish legacy of conquest and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia [into a mosque] during a mosque opening in the city of Zonguldak on Friday.” In his own words, “the re-opening of the Hagia Sophia as a mosque is important, as it is a legacy of conquest.”
Thus, while the West falls all over itself to disavow any “conquest” its ancestors may have engaged in—for example, the “conquest of the Americas” at the hands of the “genocidal” Columbus—here is the president of Turkey praising the violent conquests committed by his Muslim ancestors. The significance of this dichotomy, and what it portends for the future, is in need of acknowledgement.
As a case study, take Erdoğan’s stance towards Turkey’s greatest jihadis of history—men whose atrocious deeds would shame ISIS. Last summer, while celebrating his decree to transform the Hagia Sophia—which for a millennium had functioned as Eastern Christendom’s greatest basilica—into a mosque, Erdoğan repeatedly saluted Sultan Muhammad al-Fatah (“the Conqueror,” 1432-1481) for violently transforming Christian Constantinople into Islamic Istanbul.
And yet consider: Sultan Muhammad’s sole justification for conquering Constantinople was that Islam demands the subjugation of “infidels,” in this case, Christians. He had no other “grievance” than that. In fact, when he first became sultan, he “swore by the god of their false prophet, by the prophet whose name he bore,” a bitter Christian contemporary retrospectively wrote, that “he was their [the Christians’] friend, and would remain for the whole of his life a friend and ally of Constantinople.” Although they believed him, Muhammad was taking advantage of “the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit,” wrote Edward Gibbon. “Peace was on his lips while war was in his heart.”
During his siege of Constantinople, he regularly exhorted his Muslim army with jihadi ideology, including by unleashing throngs of preachers crying,
Children of Muhammad, be of good heart, for tomorrow we shall have so many Christians in our hands that we will sell them, two slaves for a ducat, and will have such riches that we will all be of gold, and from the beards of the Greeks we will make leads for our dogs, and their families will be our slaves. So be of good heart and be ready to die cheerfully for the love of our [past and present] Muhammad.
“Recall the promises of our Prophet concerning fallen warriors in the Koran,” the sultan himself exhorted: “the man who dies in combat shall be transported bodily to paradise and shall dine with Muhammad in the presence of women, handsome boys, and virgins.”
The mention of “handsome boys” was not just an accurate reference to the Koran’s promise (e.g., 52:24, 56:17, and 76:19); Muhammad was a notorious pedophile. His enslavement and rape of Jacob Notaras—a handsome 14-year-old nobleman’s son in Constantinople, whom Muhammad forced into becoming his personal catamite until he escaped—was only one of the most infamous. The sultan stabbed to death another Christian boy who “preferred death to infamy.”
After his conquest and desecration of the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad had the “wretched citizens of Constantinople” dragged before his men during evening festivities and “ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment.” The rest of the city’s population—as many as 45,000—was hauled off in chains to be sold as slaves.
This is the man whom Turkey and its president honor—including by rededicating one of Christendom’s greatest and oldest churches as a victory mosque to him last year. Nor is Muhammad al-Fatah the only terrorist to be so esteemed; as Erdoğan explained in one of his speeches:
The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history.….The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia represents our memory full of heydays in our history, from [the battles of] Badr to Manzikert, from Nicopolis, to Gallipoli [all jihadi victories] … The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is required by our respect and commitment to all of our ancestors, from Alp Arslan [Islamic victor of Manzikert who opened the way to the conquest of Asia Minor, and massacred or enslaved tens of thousands of Christians], to Muhammad al-Fatah, to Abdulhamid [who massacred as many as 300,000 Armenians in the name of jihad between 1894-1896]. The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia … honors Muhammad al-Fatah’s spirit of conquest… Allah willing, we will continue to walk on this sacred path without pause or hesitation, until we reach our ultimate destination [emphasis added].
The message could not be clearer: jihadi ideology dominates Turkey, at least its leadership. Invading and conquering neighboring peoples—not due to any grievances but because they are non-Muslim—with all the attending atrocities, rapes, destruction, and mass slavery is apparently the ideal, to resume once the sunset of Western power is complete.
Meanwhile, because Americans are used to seeing statues of their own nation’s heroes toppled—for no other reason than that they were white and/or Christian, and therefore inherently evil—the significance of Erdoğan’s words and praise of Muhammad the Conqueror—who as an Asian Muslim is further immune from Western criticism, as that would be “racist”—will remain lost on them.
Note: Quoted material in this article was derived from and is cited in Sword and Scimitar.

Iran's election is a choice between 'extreme' and 'more extreme'
Con Coughlin/The National/June 10/2021
No vote has yet been cast, but already the outcome of Iran’s upcoming presidential election is considered by many to be a foregone conclusion, with victory unquestioningly being claimed by hardliners.
Ever since the disputed outcome of the 2009 presidential contest, which saw tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in what became known as the “Green Movement”, the hardline faction within the Iranian regime has acted to consolidate its grip on power. The protests were the biggest of their kind in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and their leaders have since been silenced, while their supporters have been subjected to brutal repression.
Iranian security forces, backed by the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, arrested thousands of protesters, dozens of whom lost their lives. The movement’s leaders – former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi and political activist Zahra Rahnavard – have remained under house arrest since 2011.
The brutality of the regime’s crackdown on anti-government protesters has meant that more recent protests, such as those that took place in cities and towns throughout the country in 2018 and 2019, have tended to focus more on the economy and not politics, even though the regime has nevertheless adopted the same repressive measures. Hundreds of protesters were reported to have died and thousands more detained as the regime sought to reassert its authority. The determination of hardliners to expand their influence within the regime has been very much in evidence as the country prepares for its next round of presidential elections on June 18.
When Iran’s Guardian Council finally approved its choice of seven candidates for the contest last month, it came as little surprise to observers that all the candidates boasted hardline credentials.
For, far from being a genuinely democratic process, anyone wishing to take part in both Iran’s presidential and parliamentary elections must first be subjected to intense security by numerous committees, including the Guardian Council, an unelected body that consists of 12 theologians and jurists. The Council members are all approved by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office, and endeavour to ensure that only those that are deemed suitable by Mr Khamenei are allowed to stand for office.
This means that even Iranian politicians who have already held high office within the regime can be deemed unfit to run for the presidency.
In this year’s contest, for example, the forensic examination of potential candidates by regime loyalists has resulted in the disqualification of Eshaq Jahangri, who served as the first vice president of Iran's current leader, Hassan Rouhani, as well as Ali Larijani, a conservative former speaker of the Majlis, the Iranian parliament.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the candidate who has emerged as the most likely successor to Mr Rouhani is Ebrahim Raisi, the austere chief of Iran’s judiciary, who is a close ally of Mr Khamenei. Other hardliners approved to run in the contest include nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Mr Rouhani beat Mr Raisi by a landslide in the last election in 2017, but he is not allowed to stand again after serving two consecutive terms. Mr Raisi only won 38 per cent of the vote in the first round, compared to 57 per cent for Mr Rouhani. During that campaign, Mr Rouhani warned of the conservative Islamic restrictions that Mr Raisi would impose on Iranians if he won.
The latest crackdown on potential presidential candidates has led to major concerns that hardliners are seeking to engineer a landslide in their favour.
Mr Jahangri responded to his exclusion from the race by warning that the credibility of Iran’s electoral system was at stake. "The disqualification of many qualified people [is] a serious threat to public participation and fair competition among political tendencies, especially reformists," Iranian media quoted him as saying.
The disqualification of so many more reform-minded candidates certainly appears to have turned the presidential election into a one-horse race, with the controversial Mr Raisi emerging as the clear favourite.
Mr Raisi first came to prominence in the 1980s when he participated in Iran’s notorious Death Commission, which was responsible for ordering the mass execution of thousands of the regime’s political opponents in 1988. Many others were sent to clear landmines during the Iran-Iraq war.
Despite losing to Mr Rouhani in the last poll, the 60-year-old Mr Raisi has remained a firm favourite of Mr Khamenei, and was appointed head of Iran’s judicial system in 2019. There has even been speculation that the regime loyalist is being lined up to replace Mr Khamenei as the country’s Supreme Leader.Mr Raisi’s appointment to head Iran’s judiciary resulted in him being added to the US sanctions list for promoting oppression at home and abroad. The US cited the execution of children, the oppression of human rights lawyers and the campaign against protesters that followed the 2009 election.
Now, with the latest Iranian opinion polls predicting that Mr Raisi, who has the official backing of the IRGC, will win 72 per cent of the vote, Iran looks set to take a significant move towards adopting a more extreme approach, and one that does not bode well for US President Joe Biden’s attempts to revive a controversial nuclear deal with Tehran.
As nuclear experts warn that the “breakout time” Iran requires to move from nuclear development to producing a nuclear warhead has been reduced to a matter of months, if not weeks, the need for progress on nullifying the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions has never been greater.
Unlike Mr Rouhani, who was elected eight years ago with a mandate to improve relations with the West, Mr Raisi has made it clear that he opposes negotiations, an approach which suggests that, under his presidency, Iran will not be prepared to countenance any concessions on its nuclear activities.
*Con Coughlin is a defence and foreign affairs columnist for The National

Is the Biden Administration Helping Iran to Achieve Its Nuclear Dream?
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/June 10/202
كون كوكلن/معهد كايتستون: هل الرئيس بيدين يساعد إيران على تحقيق حلمها النووي؟
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99637/con-coughlin-gatestone-institute-is-the-biden-administration-helping-iran-to-achieve-its-nuclear-dream-%d9%83%d9%88%d9%86-%d9%83%d9%88%d9%83%d9%84%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%8a/
The improvement in Iran’s technical ability to develop nuclear weapons is the result of a number of steps Tehran has taken during the past year to increase its nuclear activity, all of which constitute clear violations of the terms Tehran agreed under the JCPOA.
Consequently, if the predictions are correct and Raisi emerges triumphant in the presidential elections [June 18], the prospects of the hardliners making any tangible concessions over the country’s nuclear programme will be negligible…. [Raisi] made his name during as a prominent member of Iran’s notorious Death Commissions, when opposition activists were either executed or sent to clear minefields during the Iran-Iraq war.
As a result, the only achievement of Mr Obama’s deeply-flawed nuclear deal with Iran will have been to enable the ayatollahs to achieve their dream of acquiring nuclear weapons, with all the implications that will have for the future security of the globe.
The improvement in Iran’s technical ability to develop nuclear weapons is the result of a number of steps Tehran has taken during the past year to increase its nuclear activity, all of which constitute clear violations of the terms Tehran agreed under the JCPOA. (Image source: iStock)
The most likely outcome of US President Joe Biden’s ill-considered attempt to revive the nuclear deal with Iran is that it will lead to a dramatic reduction in the time frame Tehran requires to build an atomic warhead.
One of the central goals of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) struck with Iran by former US President Barack Obama was to delay Tehran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons for more than a decade.
At the time the deal was agreed in 2015, intelligence experts predicted it would take it Iran about one year to develop the technological know-how to develop a nuclear warhead if Iran was allowed to continue with its nuclear activities.
In an attempt to slow Iran’s research into nuclear weapons, the JCPOA required Tehran to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years, Iran would only enrich uranium up to 3.67%.
Yet, despite the JCPOA being in force for nearly six years, the latest estimates suggest that Iran is only a matter of months away from having the ability to produce sufficient quantities of weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear warhead.
A report published by the Institute of Science and International Security this week predicts a “worst case scenario” of 2.3 months for Iran to produce enough weapons grade uranium (WGU) for one nuclear weapon.
“Iran could produce a second significant quantity of WGU early in the fifth month after breakout commences, and a third quantity could be produced early in the seventh month,” the report concludes.
The improvement in Iran’s technical ability to develop nuclear weapons is the result of a number of steps Tehran has taken during the past year to increase its nuclear activity, all of which constitute clear violations of the terms Tehran agreed under the JCPOA.
Iran’s most serious breach of the accord took place on April 16 when Iran began enriching uranium, a key component in the production of nuclear warheads, at 60 percent purity for the first time — just below the threshold required for nuclear warheads. In addition, Iran has said it will increase the number of sophisticated centrifuges, the sophisticated devices used for uranium enrichment, at its Natanz facility to 5,000.
Biden administration officials insist these moves by Iran, which Tehran says have been taken in response to the previous Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in 2018, are nothing more than a bargaining ploy to increase pressure on Washington to make further concessions at the latest round of talks taking place in Vienna on reviving the nuclear deal.
There is growing concern within Western intelligence circles, however, that any advances Iranian scientists achieve by accelerating the country’s nuclear programme will result in them gaining vital technical knowledge that cannot be erased. Iran’s scientists would be able to retain their nuclear know-how even in the unlikely event that the Vienna negotiations result in a new deal whereby Iran agrees to lower its enrichment levels and make substantial reductions to the number of its operational centrifuges.
The rapid advances Iran is making in its nuclear programme were acknowledged earlier this week by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who conceded that the “breakout time” Iran requires to move from conducting nuclear research to developing nuclear warheads could soon be reduced from months “to a matter of weeks.”
During a meeting with the US House of Representatives on Monday, Mr Blinken warned that Iran’s nuclear programme was “galloping forward… The longer this goes on, the more the breakout time gets down … it’s now down, by public reports, to a few months at best. And if this continues, it will get down to a matter of weeks.”
By highlighting the dramatic reductions in Iran’s “breakout time”, Mr Blinken was seeking to justify the Biden administration’s decision to invest so much political capital in seeking to revive the JCPOA.
Mr Blinken was nevertheless forced to concede that, even though indirect talks have been taking place between the US and Iran in Vienna since April, the US still does not know whether Iran has any genuine intention of resuming compliance with the agreement.
Furthermore, with Iran’s hardliners set to consolidate their control over the regime in this month’s presidential elections, which are due to take place on June 18, Western diplomats are becoming increasingly sceptical about the prospect of concluding a new agreement with Tehran.
Ebrahim Raisi, the candidate who is seen as the favourite to replace Iran’s outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, is a renowned hardliner whose candidacy has attracted the support of both the regime’s all-powerful Guardian Council, as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Raisi, a close ally of the country’s 82-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has previously served as the head of Iran’s judiciary and made his name during the 1980s as a prominent member of Iran’s notorious Death Commissions, when opposition activists were either executed or sent to clear minefields during the Iran-Iraq war.
Consequently, if the predictions are correct and Raisi emerges triumphant in the presidential elections, the prospects of the hardliners making any tangible concessions over the country’s nuclear programme will be negligible.
As a result, the only achievement of Mr Obama’s deeply-flawed nuclear deal with Iran will have been to enable the ayatollahs to achieve their dream of acquiring nuclear weapons, with all the implications that will have for the future security of the globe.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph’s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Moroccan parties call on Spain to clarify position on Western Sahara
Mohamed Alaoui/The Arab Weekly/June 10/2021
RABAT – Moroccan opposition parties called on Spain to issue a clear position on the Western Sahara issue, reiterating their full support for the measures taken by Rabat in response to Madrid’s decision to receive the leader of the Algeria-backed Polisario Front Ibrahim Ghali. This came during a joint meeting organised by the Progress and Socialism Party, the Independence Party and the Authenticity and Modernity Party.
Nabil Ben Abdallah, head of the Progress and Socialism Party, stressed that Morocco had made the right moves during the recent crisis, with the aim of bringing about a shift in the ambiguous position of the northern neighbour of the kingdom on the issue of territorial integrity. “At least so that they stop stabbing us in the back, with the absence of an official recognition of our territorial integrity,” Ben Abdallah said.
The Moroccan political parties said, through their representatives, that the Western Sahara issue enjoys a popular and political consensus in Morocco, but that “does not obscure the need for concerted efforts by all partisan institutions and the activation of parallel diplomacy to defend the Moroccan cause more effectively before our Spanish and European counterparts and push them to pressure Madrid into abandoning its actions against the interests of the kingdom.”
Ben Abdallah called for strengthening the national front and closing ranks, by forming a democratic front and bringing about a political breakthrough, “so that this weapon [division] is not exploited by our opponents,” he said. Abdellatif Wahbi, secretary-general of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, agreed with Ben Abdallah, stressing that Morocco should strengthen its democracy as an effective way to confront its opponents.
Tensions are still high between Spain and Morocco, especially after the leader of the separatist Polisario Front left the Spanish territory, which makes it difficult to adjust the course of relations between Rabat and Madrid, despite the latter’s desire to restore those relations. Moroccan opposition parties believe that it is necessary to remain cautious in dealing with Madrid, especially since Spain’s political players do not all agree with the decisions of their government.
“There are voices opposing the current Spanish government’s approach to relations with Morocco, such as the Popular Party, which accused Pedro Sanchez’s government of harming the strategic relationship with Morocco,” said Nizar Baraka, Secretary-General of the Independence Party. He explained that “the current tension between Morocco and Spain cannot be blamed on all components of the Spanish political fabric.”
Local Spanish media had earlier reported that Madrid was weighing several options to end the escalation in relations with Rabat, including relying on credible mediation. Another option would be a visit by a Spanish minister to Rabat, provided that the visiting minister is not Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya. A visit by King Philip VI to Rabat for talks with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI could also help resolve the worsening crisis.
Spain hopes to swiftly restore relations with Morocco to their normal course. Rabat, however, wants the Spanish authorities to answer fundamental questions regarding Madrid’s positions on the issue of Morocco’s territorial integrity. Rabat is also hoping to attack the matter of maritime borders’ demarcation and other disputes, including the repatriation of Moroccan minors and the issue of seasonal workers in Spanish strawberry fields. Turning the page on the confrontation between the two countries will not be easy under the government of Sanchez, experts in international relations say.
For such a dispute to be resolved, there is need for a lot of diplomatic efforts and political initiatives, the experts argue, stressing that Madrid’s notification to Rabat about the Polisario leader’s departure from the country towards Algeria is not enough.
For Morocco, as noted in a foreign ministry’s statement, at the core of the problem is a matter of broken trust between partners. “The root of the crisis is a question of hostile Spanish ulterior motives about the Sahara, a sacred cause of the whole of the Moroccan people.”The head of the Authenticity and Modernity Party referred to this , when he insisted that the crisis is not related to Ghali or his trial, “but rather the presence of a powerful lobby within the Spanish government that stands against Morocco’s interests by supporting secession in the Western Sahara.”