English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 18/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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Bible Quotations For today

God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.
Second Letter to Timothy 01/06-14: “For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.”.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 17-18/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Ministry of Health: 3544 new infections, 62 deaths
President Aoun’s address to the nation
Hariri replies to Aoun: If you cannot sign the decrees forming a salvation government, then allow early presidential elections
Berri meets Arslan and Japanese ambassador, chairs Amal Movement’s Presidency Body meeting
Bassil, Russian Ambassador Discuss Govt. Formation 'Difficulties'
Injuries in Aisha Bakkar Clash Linked to Roadblocks
Salameh Suggests Ideas that Can 'Lower Dollar Exchange Rate'
Wazni Orders LBP 50 Billion Advance for Supporting Poor Families
Protesters Try to Storm Economy Ministry over Currency Crisis
Jumblat: Lebanon Facing Tough Times Ahead
Hassan: Lebanon Suspends Astrazeneca Vaccine Pending Intl Investigation
Lebanese Queue for Fuel across the Country
Israel Building Road off Adaisseh
Nuncio to Lebanon on the Pope and the 'existential crisis' of a message-nation/Fady Noun/AsiaNews/March 17/2021
Karpowership: Arrest warrant against Ralph Faisal result of fabrications and lies aimed at damaging our reputation and credibility

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 17-18/2021

Iran enriching uranium with new advanced machine type at underground plant -IAEA
Syria claims Israeli airstrikes target weapon shipments near Damascus
UAE calls off Netanyahu trip, says won’t get involved in 'Israeli electioneering’
US Intelligence: Russia, Iran tried to influence 2020 election
GCC backs Saudi measures to preserve its security
Sudan’s Burhan demands Ethiopian troops leave country'
Respond to Myanmar crisis: ASEAN politicians
Ghani to quit ‘only after polls’ as US mulls new government
Syria says Assad and wife are recovering from COVID-19
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 17-18/2021

Joe Biden Shouldn’t Return to the Iran Deal But he probably will anyway/Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz/FDD-National Review/March 17/2021
In war-torn Syria, uprising birthplace seethes 10 years on/Sarah El Deeb and Bassam Mroue/AP/March 17/2021
Vaccines can help Biden rebuild US-EU ties/Melvyn B. Krauss/Arab News/March 17, 2021
UK foreign policy review highlights growing role of technology/Alistair Burt/Arab News/March 17, 2021
Clash between unlikely allies Turkey and Russia is inevitable/Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/March 17, 2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 17-18/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/

Ministry of Health: 3544 new infections, 62 deaths
NNA/March 17, 2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 3544 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 426,977.
62 deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours.

President Aoun’s address to the nation
NNA/March 17, 2021
The following is President of the Republic General Michel Aoun's address to the nation on Friday:
"My Fellow Lebanese ladies and gentlemen,
Everything seems trivial compared to your suffering, which has reached levels that no people are capable of tolerating. Indeed, the pandemic is lurking, and so are poverty, destitution, unemployment, migration, oppression and the slashed purchasing power entailed by the rocketing value of the US dollar versus the Lebanese Pound (Lira); along with the shortage of vital supplies, the decline of subsidies which were for them,and the dilemma that are facing the various constitutional authorities, and the administrations and institutions in charge of securing the essentials of livelihood, while we have not yet got over the tragedy of the Beirut Port explosion and its catastrophic repercussions. Trauma after trauma, and every day brings along its own burdens and concerns, aggravatinganxiety due to the incapacity to sustain the most basic means for a decent life.
I chose to keep quiet in order to make room for solutions at various levels and to avoid any incidententailed by the sharp polarizations and divisions in political stances, as well as the collapse of the economic and financial system due to decades-long wrong policies. Nevertheless, I have gone down the rough road of accountability, in a system where authoritarian and institutional corruption is deep-rooted, and all sorts of roadblocks were thrown before me; and you know well that I am not used to yielding and giving up, in defending your dignity and your decent free living.
Today, driven by my oath, and after Prime Minister designate Saad Hariri has presented the headlines of a governmental draft that does not fulfill the minimum of national balance and pact-adherence, which has dragged the country into the tunnel of stalling, I herebyinvite him to the Baabda Palace to form a cabinet at once, in agreement with me, according to the constitutional mechanism and criteria adopted in the formation of governments, without any pretexts or delay.
Nevertheless, if he finds himself incapable of forming and heading a national rescue government that would stand up to the dangerous situation that the country and the people are going through, then he must clear the way for any person capable of formation.
This will be motivated by his constitutional responsibility and his national and human conscience because such suffering shall have no mercy on those responsible for stalling, exclusion and the eternalization of “caretaking”.
This is a determined and sincere call to the Prime Minister designate to take the lead immediately and go for one of the two available options, whereas there is no use after today to remain silent and stay in strongholds, hoping to save Lebanon.All positions are vain and deflecting responsibilities onto each other is pointless if the country falls apartand people become prisoners of despair and frustration, indulging in inevitable anger."-- Presidency Press Office

Hariri replies to Aoun: If you cannot sign the decrees forming a salvation government, then allow early presidential elections
NNA/March 17, 2021
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri issued the following statement:
Several weeks after I presented an integrated lineup for a government of non-partisan specialists, capable of implementing the reforms required to stop the collapse and begin rebuilding what was destroyed by the Beirut port explosion, and while I was waiting for a phone call from His Excellency the President to discuss with me the proposed lineup in order to issue the new government’s decrees –knowing that these weeks increased the suffering of the Lebanese that had started many months before I was chosen by the MPs to form the government- I was surprised, as were all the Lebanese, by the President's inviting me via a televised speech to the Presidential Palace, for an immediate formation, in agreement with him in accordance with the customary constitutional mechanism and standards, as His Excellency said. As I visited the President sixteen times since my appointment for the same goal set by him, to agree on a government of non-partisan specialists capable of implementing the agreed reforms and stopping the collapse that the Lebanese are suffering from, I will answer him in the same way: I will be honored to visit him for the seventeenth time, immediately, if his schedule permits, to discuss with him the lineup that has been in his hands for several weeks, and immediately announce the formation of the government. However, if the President finds himself unable to sign the decrees forming a government of non-partisan specialists capable of implementing the reforms required to stop the collapse that the country and its people are suffering from, then he will have to tell the Lebanese the real reason that pushes him to try to disrupt the will of the Parliament that chose the designated Prime Minister - and that has been preventing him for several months from allowing the salvation of the citizens- and reduce their pain and their suffering by allowing early presidential elections, which is the only constitutional means capable of canceling the effects of his election by the MPs to head the Republic five years ago, just as they chose me as a Prime Minister-designate to form the government five months ago.--Hariri Press Office
 

Berri meets Arslan and Japanese ambassador, chairs Amal Movement’s Presidency Body meeting
NNA/March 17, 2021
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Wednesday received at his Ain El-Tineh residence Lebanese Democratic Party Head, MP Talal Arslan, in the presence of former Minister Saleh Al-Ghareeb, and Speaker Berri’s Political Aide MP Ali Hassan Khalil. Discussions reportedly touched on the general situation and most recent political developments.Speaker Berri also met with Japanese Ambassador to Lebanon, Takeshi Okubo, with whom he discussed the general situation in Lebanon and the region, in addition to the bilateral relations between the two countries. On the other hand, in his capacity as head of “Amal Movement”, Berri chaired the meeting of the Movement’s Presidency Body, on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of the Movement's foundation, in the presence of all body members. The meeting focused on the occasion’s national dimensions and the Movement’s struggle landmarks since its start, far-reaching the current stage that Lebanon is going through, and the Movement's stance vis-à-vis the various political, economic, financial and daily living issues. In a statement issued in the wake of the meeting, the Movement called on the Lebanese, in general, and the various official leaderships, in particular, to immediately shoulder their responsibilities and to take a historic stand to save Lebanon and prevent it from slipping towards the abysses of the collapse. The statement underlined that what is required is the formation of a government void of any veto power but serving Lebanon’s interest as a whole.

Bassil, Russian Ambassador Discuss Govt. Formation 'Difficulties'
Naharnet/March 17, 2021
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil held talks Wednesday at his Laqlouq residence with Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Rudakov. An FPM statement said Bassil and Rudakov held a “detailed discussion of Lebanon’s situations and the changes in the region.”“The talks also tackled the difficulties that the government formation process is facing and their reasons,” the statement added. “The two sides also demonstrated all the aspects of the Russian-Lebanese ties and the prospects of cooperation between the two countries, in addition to the Syria crisis file and the need to secure the requirements of a political solution in Syria and the return of the displaced to their land,” the statement said. The meeting comes on the last day of a three-day visit to Moscow by a Hizbullah delegation.
 

Injuries in Aisha Bakkar Clash Linked to Roadblocks
Naharnet/March 17, 2021
A clash erupted Wednesday afternoon in Beirut’s Aisha Bakkar area in connection with roadblocking protests in the neighborhood, the National News Agency said. The agency said the altercation, which escalated into gunfire, took place between protesters and passersby who tried to cross the blocked road. It added that several people were wounded, some critically. Al-Jadeed TV had earlier described the dispute as “personal,” saying two people were injured, including one who is in critical condition. It identified the critically injured man as Samer Ammar. Al-Mustaqbal Movement later denied any links to the clash. Describing the incident as a “personal dispute,” the Movement said it was working along with the area’s residents, the parties concerned and security agencies on pacifying the situation and containing any repercussions. Mustaqbal also warned against “circulating fake news that stir tensions and discord,” urging all parties to show restraint and cooperate with the army and security forces. Media reports meanwhile said the critically wounded person, Samer Ammar, is a supporter or a member of the Amal Movement.

Salameh Suggests Ideas that Can 'Lower Dollar Exchange Rate'
Naharnet/March 17/2021
Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh on Wednesday said he raised with caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni ideas that can lower the dollar exchange rate in Lebanon after it reached record levels in recent days.
The National News Agency said the two men discussed all the pressing financial and monetary issues. “I met with Minister Wazni and proposed to him some proposals which will be studied by him and by the central bank’s central council over the next 24 hours,” Salameh said after the talks.
“We believe that these suggestions will lead to a drop in the dollar exchange rate in Lebanon,” he added.

Wazni Orders LBP 50 Billion Advance for Supporting Poor Families
Naharnet/March 17/2021
Caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni on Wednesday ordered the payment of an advance worth LBP 50 billion to the High Relief Council. The treasury loan is aimed at completing the fourth phase of the social aid plan seeking to assist vulnerable families suffering from economic hardship due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Protesters Try to Storm Economy Ministry over Currency Crisis
Agence France Presse/March 17/2021
Lebanese protesters briefly attempted to storm the economy ministry on Wednesday to denounce exploding prices of basic goods as the local currency collapses. Around 20 protesters had gathered outside the ministry's Beirut headquarters a day after the Lebanese pound hit a new-low of 15,000 to the greenback, according to an AFP correspondent. Some tried to enter the building, causing tension with security forces, the official National News Agency reported. "We are killing each other for a bag of diapers and a carton of milk," one protester told a local TV station. The political class "have humiliated us," he said, denouncing hikes in consumer prices which rose by almost 146 percent during 2020, according to official statistics. Later in the afternoon, demonstrators tried to march towards the presidential palace outside Beirut but they were stopped by security forces. Others blocked several key roads across the country with burning tires and torched garbage bins. Lebanon is in the grips of its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. The pound, officially pegged at 1,507 to the greenback since 1997, has lost almost 90 percent of its value on the black market. It was changing hands for around 14,000 to the dollar on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the head of the syndicate of fuel distributers, Fadi Abou Chacra, announced a new increase in petrol prices, already rising on global price hikes, NNA reported. With the latest increase, the price of petrol has climbed by around 49 percent since July. Lebanon's crisis is also eating away at the country's dwindling foreign currency reserves which have so far funded subsidies on key goods such as fuel, flour and medicine. The diminishing funds are cornering the government into cutting such support, which will push more of the population into poverty.
Some 55 percent of Lebanese live below the global poverty line of 3.84 dollars a day, the United Nations says. The country is also facing political deadlock, with no new government agreed some seven months after premier Hassan Diab resigned over an August 4 explosion that killed more than 200 people and disfigured swathes of the capital.

Jumblat: Lebanon Facing Tough Times Ahead
Naharnet/March 17/2021
Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Wednesday said Lebanon was facing very tough days ahead, stressing the need for political compromises and government formation to steer the country out of its crisis. Jumblat said that a new government was the basis for any solution, and warned against “any other calculation,” he said in an interview with al-Anbaa website marking the commemoration of his slain father Kamal Jumblat. Addressing politicians, Jumblat advised them to resort to compromise and to waive conditions to ease the cabinet formation. He stressed the need for a firm government capable of taking all the necessary measures, especially with regard to the rationalization of subsidized products. He also pushed for a cabinet that’s capable of holding successful negotiations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to help remedy the situation in Lebanon before it’s too late.
 

Hassan: Lebanon Suspends Astrazeneca Vaccine Pending Intl Investigation
Naharnet/March 17/2021
Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan said on Wednesday that Lebanon was currently suspending the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine pending the decision of the international health authorities.“The ministry does not take any hasty decisions that might endanger the citizens’ health,“ Hassan told VDL radio station. Hassan said that the first shipment of AstraZeneca vaccine was scheduled to arrive in Lebanon in mid-March, yet the company had postponed the delivery date, “which rules out any commercial intentions involving the vaccine.”Stressing that the Ministry encourages the import of the vaccine by private sector companies, he said: “The private sector sought to secure the Russian and Chinese vaccines for private initiatives, the ministry had not prevented but rather encouraged them to do so.”Hassan added that more than thirty pharmaceutical companies and drug warehouses were given permission to negotiate with vaccine companies abroad provided that the vaccine is provided to citizens free of charge. On the stages of vaccination in Lebanon, he said that next week the state’s vaccination campaign will begin to target age groups that range between sixty-five and seventy-five years, as well as those suffering from chronic diseases.

Lebanese Queue for Fuel across the Country
Naharnet/March 17/2021
Lebanese stood in queues in their vehicles on Wednesday as the country witnessed a gradual increase in gasoline prices, one of Lebanon’s multiple plights bringing the country to its knees amid total political failure to address an almost two-year crisis. Frustrated Lebanese queued at petrol stations across the country and lines of cars blocked traffic in several areas, one day after caretaker Finance Minister, Ghazi Wazni, confirmed that Lebanon is scaling back food subsidies and gradually raising gasoline prices to save dwindling foreign reserves. Some petrol stations raised their fuel hoses, a sign known well in Lebanon that the station is out of fuel stock and is not providing any services. Representative of fuel distributors in Lebanon, Fadi Abu Shakra, told MTV television station that “the rise in fuel prices is linked to the rise in dollar, we cannot know if the gasoline prices will rise by an additional 5,000 next week.”He voiced hopes that a government is formed soon to stop the economic collapse. Besides removing subsidies on basic food products, Wazni said the government plans to gradually increase prices at fuel stations in the coming months, reducing gasoline subsidies to 85% from 90%. Lebanon is battling its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. The national currency is in freefall, while poverty and unemployment are on the rise. The economic downturn has pushed a battered population to the brink with no solution in sight as the country's barons wrangle over forming a new government. In the absence of a fully functioning executive that can spearhead reforms and provide the most basic of services, no rescue seems on the horizon.

Israel Building Road off Adaisseh
Naharnet/March 17/2021
Two Israeli bulldozers began constructing a road off the southern border village of Adaisseh, the National News Agency reported on Wednesday. Two bulldozers could be seen clearing the land amid a heavy deployment of Israeli forces, said NNA. United Nations Interim Forces stationed in southern Lebanon, and Lebanese Army troops deployed to the area to monitor the Israeli action, it added.

Nuncio to Lebanon on the Pope and the 'existential crisis' of a message-nation
Fady Noun/AsiaNews/March 17/2021
The positions between Aoun and Hariri are irreconcilable. The legacy of the civil war has never been remedied. The alliance with Hezbollah is a problem: a confrontation between a democratic society and an incompatible totalitarian project. The Pope's visit to Iraq carries great significance for the Lebanese.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – Lebanon is going through an existential crisis due to unreconciled differences. This quick diagnosis by the head of the Catholic Church after returning from his trip to Baghdad, on the flight back to Rome on 8 March, deserves a comment. It clearly shows that the Pope is closely following developments in Lebanon’s crisis.
“Lebanon is a message [. . . ]. It has the weakness of differences, some of which are still not reconciled [. . .] Lebanon is in crisis, but in crisis – here I wish not to offend – in a crisis of life,” said quite correctly the leader of 1.5 billion Catholics.
The Pope's words can be interpreted several ways, but the head of the Maronite Church, who did everything to get the head of state, Michel Aoun, and the prime minister designate, Saad Hariri, to agree on a government, summed it up very well just recently. The head of state and the prime minister “are not in a position to sit down together to address the points of contention that have accumulated”, he said on Sunday, to justify his call for a special international conference under the auspices of the United Nations. “They don't talk to each other. They do not look each other in the eye,” he said several times in front of visitors and in public.
Lebanon is poles apart from its “message”
The Patriarch’s words are serious because they give the impression that Lebanon today is far apart from the Lebanon of Saint Pope John Paul II. In 1989, the Pope had said that “Lebanon is more than a country: it is a message of freedom and an example of pluralism for the East and for the West”.
“Can we continue to talk about Lebanon-as-a-message if for the Lebanese living together is beginning to be their main difficulty?” said the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Joseph Spiteri, commenting on the current situation. After more than thirty years, a new phase in the political life of Lebanon seems to have started. Today, the head of state, Michel Aoun, as well as the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, claim to act in order to “reclaim the rights of Christians”, which they believe were taken away or seized by the Sunni establishment under the governance of the assassinated head of government Rafic Hariri.
“Popes John Paul II (1997) and Benedict XVI (2012) have already visited Lebanon,” noted the nuncio, while Pope Francis let it be known in late December 2020 that he intended to come to Lebanon “as soon as possible “. However, “historical contexts have changed. The message that Francis will address to the Lebanese, when he will have the opportunity to keep his promise to visit them, will undoubtedly not be that of John Paul II,” added the nuncio.
For Professor Antoine Messarra, who holds the UNESCO Chair of Comparative Study of Religions at the Université Saint Joseph, “living together is a break with current changes in the world: hyper-individualism, emergence of deadly identities, fanaticism of ideologised religions, populism at the expense of watchful citizenship and cross-community public affairs, extension of proxy wars in fragile or weakened states, regression of state authority, terrorism by trans-national organisations supported and fuelled by rogue states that practice the diplomacy of blackmail.”
The Free Patriotic Movement has unfortunately seized some of the issues specific to the political doctrine of the alliance of minorities, and the Lebanese have entered into this new age without any self-examination after a war (1975-1990) that some still refuse to admit was a civil war. The Lebanese whitewashed the atrocities they committed without cleansing their memories and consciences nor fully assumed responsibility for the suffering inflicted and received. They have not asked or received the forgiveness that comes with a confession, nor sought to repair the broken bonds, as real social life demands, or as other countries have done, like South Africa, the Rainbow Nation.
The ways of dialogue are blocked and “in crisis” for other reasons as well. The Free Patriotic Movement has decided to defend the “rights of Christians” by allying itself with ... Hezbollah, without really knowing what Hezbollah is. With the latter, we don’t have only a political party, but a societal project, indeed plans for an Islamic State, even if its leaders said at one time that Lebanon’s communitarian structure is incompatible with the establishment of an Islamic republic, as they envision it.
It is obvious however that with Hezbollah, there is a problem of existential, cultural, anthropological adjustment. We are also in the presence of “unreconciled differences”, to cite the Pope. But if these differences remain cultural, their reconciliation in the extraordinary melting pot of living together that is Lebanon is still possible. Only if these differences are political do they become problematic, insofar as they lead to a confrontation between a democratic society and a totalitarian project incompatible with pluralism and freedom of expression, a totalitarian project that must adapt to Lebanon’s reality; otherwise, Lebanon will pay the price in terms of its freedoms, affiliations and alliances, as it is doing today.
A visit that comes too late?
“Pope Francis presented himself as a pilgrim and a penitent,” said the apostolic nuncio. He asked forgiveness in the name of humanity, to both Christians and Yazidis, for the suffering, the theft of property, the exodus, human cruelty and ideological intolerance they endured.”
However, feelings of bitterness, even resentment, were still expressed on the occasion of the Pope's visit. Some believe that his visit to Iraq “came too late” and that the damage has already been done. In fact, Iraqi Christians have gone from 6 per cent of the population to 1 per cent in 20 years. What is more, some say out loud that after the Pope left, nothing has changed.
Responding to the latter, the nuncio cites the episode of the Gospel in which Jesus chases the merchants out of the Temple. Speaking about this spectacular account, Archbishop Spiteri said: “You cannot force people to change their mindset overnight. A few hours or a few days after the holy wrath of Jesus, the livestock traders and the overturned tables of the money changers were probably back in business. Yet Christ's prophetic gesture took on once and for all its permanent and definitive meaning: one must not exploit religion for business or political purposes and turn God's house into a cave of thieves.” “Jesus changes hearts, but structures take much longer to evolve,” said the nuncio.
The same is true for Lebanon, Archbishop Spiteri explained. “One has to give time to time, as they say. Between staying and leaving, the hearts of young people hesitate. The Pope's visit to Iraq and his appeals are prophetic words and gestures that establish a pattern of conduct that can instil new hope in young people, encouraging them to remain in their homeland, even if they are not accompanied by immediately visible effects. They touch hearts. Changes take time, but they will eventually come.”
The pledge to visit Lebanon
Finally, with respect to the Pope’s pledge to make a pastoral visit to Lebanon, the nuncio said that he will certainly do it. “But what the Pope wishes is one thing, organising a trip is quite another,” he said. “A pastoral visit by the Pope is known months in advance. Its preparation is thorough and it depends, like it or not, on the internal situation of the country.”The nuncio is outraged by what was done in Lebanon to the French initiative and the “personal commitment” of President Emmanuel Macron, after the explosion of August 2020 at the port of Beirut. “The pope knows what Lebanon means in itself and to the Christians of the Middle East; he will do everything to strengthen it so that it may have, as he said, the strength of cedar trees, that of a great, reconciled people.”
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Karpowership: Arrest warrant against Ralph Faisal result of fabrications and lies aimed at damaging our reputation and credibility
NNA/March 17/2021
Regarding news on Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim issuing a warrant against Mr. Ralph Faisal, and referring him to Beirut First Investigative Judge Charbel Bou Samra, Karpowership regrets the issuance of this warrant, which has resulted from a series of slanders and lies aimed at damaging its reputation and credibility in the media.While the company firmly objects to such attempt that involves it in a case that it has nothing to do with at all, it affirms its full confidence in Mr. Ralph Faisal, whom it has been working with for many years. The company requests the Lebanese judiciary to highlight this case once and for all, in order to put an end to the series of extortion and defamation. It also reserves itself to take all measures to ensure the protection of its rights.Moreover, Karpowership regrets being slandered in that way, while it has made a lot of sacrifices for Lebanon, the most important of which being not receiving yet its dues for fifteen months now. The company is still continuing, in spite of it all, to provide Lebanon with power and to stand by the Lebanese people while enduring the hardships and being subject to baseless attacks in the media. Finally, Karpowership reminds that it has come to Lebanon under a contract with the Government of Lebanon approved by all its members at all times. The company carries out all its contractual duties with the government of Lebanon and contributes to the energy project in accordance with its contract. Karpowership is providing a capacity that exceeds 370 megawatts (i.e. between 4 to 5 power supply hours per day) through its two Powerships, ‘Fatmagül Sultan’ and ‘Orhan Bey’, moored off the Zouk and Jiyyeh power plants respectively, at costs far cheaper than alternative sources for Lebanon such as private generators, imports, and expensive old units of EDL, and continues to provide savings and help alleviate sourcing hard currency challenges of Lebanon through those savings. -

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 17-18/2021

Iran enriching uranium with new advanced machine type at underground plant -IAEA
Francois Murphy/VIENNA (Reuters)/March 17/2021
Iran has started enriching uranium at its underground Natanz plant with a second type of advanced centrifuge, the IR-4, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday, in a further breach of Tehran’s deal with major powers. Iran has recently accelerated its breaches of the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear activities in an apparent bid to pressure U.S. President Joe Biden as both sides are locked in a standoff over who should move first to save the deal. Tehran’s breaches began in 2019 in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the deal and the reimposition of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, who opposed the agreement and sought to wreck it. Last year Iran started moving three cascades, or clusters, of different advanced models of centrifuge from an above-ground plant at Natanz to its below-ground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). It is already enriching underground with IR-2m centrifuges. The deal only lets it enrich there with first-generation IR-1 machines. “On 15 March 2021, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding the cascade of 174 IR-4 centrifuges already installed at FEP with natural UF6,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in the report to member states dated Monday, referring to uranium hexafluoride, the form in which uranium is fed into centrifuges for enrichment. Iran has indicated that it now plans to install a second cascade of IR-4 centrifuges at the FEP but installation of that cascade has yet to begin, the report said. Iran has already increased the number of IR-2m machines, which are far more efficient than the IR-1, installed at the underground plant. “In summary, as of 15 March 2021, Iran was using 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges installed in 30 cascades, 522 IR-2m centrifuges installed in three cascades and 174 IR-4 centrifuges installed in one cascade, to enrich natural UF6 up to 5% U-235 at FEP,” the IAEA report said, referring to the fissile purity of uranium. Iran is enriching up to 20% purity at another plant, Fordow.
 

Syria claims Israeli airstrikes target weapon shipments near Damascus

The Jerusalem Post/March 17/2021
The last alleged Israeli attack was reported in Syria on February 28, with strikes against Iranian targets near the Syrian capital. Syrian air defenses responded to an alleged Israeli airstrike near Damascus on Tuesday night, after a number of cargo flights between Iran and Syria were reported earlier in the day, according to Syrian media. A Syrian military source claimed that the alleged Israeli strike targeted sites near Damascus and that most of the incoming missiles were intercepted and only material damage was caused, according to SANA. The Syrian Capital Voice site reported that the strikes targeted a weapons shipment that arrived at the Damascus International Airport earlier in the day. Explosions were reported after the strikes as well, according to the news source, which stated that they were likely caused by stored ammunition exploding. The news source added that the 1st Division of the Syrian military in Al-Kiswah also went on alert after the airstrikes. Independent flight tracking sites reported earlier on Tuesday that a number of Iranian and Syrian flights from Qeshm Air, Mahan Air and the Syrian Air Force, which have all reportedly been used to smuggle Iranian weapons to Syria and Lebanon, traveled between Damascus and Tehran today. The last alleged Israeli airstrike reported in Syria was reported on February 28, with strikes against Iranian targets near Damascus. The strikes in February came just days after an Israeli-owned commercial vessel was attacked by mines in the Gulf of Oman. While Israeli media reported that the strikes were an Israeli response to the attack on the ship, no official government or military statement has been made on the matter. In the past, the IDF has often confirmed when it responded to specific attacks. The strikes on Tuesday come as Iran places blame on Israel for a series of alleged attacks against Iranian vessels they claim occurred from 2019 until recent weeks. The airstrikes are the eighth since January, with strikes attributed to Israel reported in eastern, southern and Western Syria in January and February. Israel has struck a wider range of targets than usual since the beginning of the year, including a major attack against Iranian-linked strongholds further east near the Iraqi border. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz in February said Israel was taking action "almost weekly" to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria. Tensions remain high in the region in the aftermath of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh just east of Tehran, which Iran blames on Israel, and the first anniversary of the US assassination of former IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January. Israel's northern border remains tense as well due to continued threats by the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist organization to carry out a revenge attack against Israel in response to the death of a Hezbollah militant in Damascus in July in an airstrike blamed on the Jewish state. Concerns surrounding the Biden administration's intent to return to the nuclear deal with Iran have also been raised in recent months, with Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi stating that he had ordered operational plans to strike Iran’s nuclear program to be ready if necessary. Reuters contributed to this report.

UAE calls off Netanyahu trip, says won’t get involved in 'Israeli electioneering’

The Jerusalem Post/March 17/2021
Netanyahu had been working on an Abu Dhabi visit and meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for Thursday.
The United Arab Emirates rejected attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to squeeze in his first trip to the Gulf state before Tuesday’s election. Netanyahu had been working on visiting Abu Dhabi on Thursday – including a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan – a week after a planned trip was postponed for the first time. “From the UAE’s perspective, the purpose of the Abrahamic Accords is to provide a robust strategic foundation to foster peace and prosperity with the State of Israel and in the wider region,” former UAE minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted on Wednesday. “The UAE will not be a part in any internal electioneering in Israel, now or ever.” The statement by Gargash, who left his position last month, was unusually candid for someone close to the decision-making in Abu Dhabi.
Netanyahu denied that a trip had been planned for this week, telling Radio Galey Israel: “I’m not going to Abu Dhabi before the election. It’s spin. I don’t know who spread it.” However, Emirati sources told The Jerusalem Post otherwise on Tuesday, and Netanyahu’s schedule had been cleared of political events on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s Office and the Likud campaign did not deny reports the prime minister was planning such a trip, though neither did they confirm it. Netanyahu has previously postponed four planned visits to the UAE since the Gulf state announced peace with Israel in August. Two postponements were because of COVID-19 lockdowns, and one was because bin Zayed had a scheduling conflict. Last week’s planned UAE trip was canceled after Jordan blocked Netanyahu’s flight in retaliation for an incident in which Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein canceled a visit to the Temple Mount, after attempting to go with a cadre of armed guards, contrary to prior agreements with Israel. Netanyahu then ordered that Jordanian flights not be allowed into Israeli airspace. Within several hours, before any Jordanian flights were actually blocked, Jordan agreed to allow Netanyahu’s flyover, but by then, Netanyahu had postponed his trip. UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Al Jaber also distanced himself from Netanyahu’s political messaging. After Netanyahu’s UAE trip was canceled last week, Abu Dhabi announced that it would establish a $10 billion fund from the government and private sector to invest in Israeli “energy, manufacturing, water, space, healthcare and agri-tech...[and] development initiatives to promote regional economic cooperation between the two countries.” Netanyahu has repeatedly referred to the investment in recent days, saying that it is an expression of bin Zayed’s confidence in the prime minister’s economic policies. In response to questions about the planned investment, Jaber told the UAE news site The National that the fund is “commercially driven and not politically associated.” Jaber added that “these are very early days,” and that his ministry is studying Israeli laws with regard to investments. Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he expects Israel to make peace with four more countries in the region. “I brought four peace agreements,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Ynet. “There are another four on the way. I talked about one of them yesterday.”Netanyahu said he received a call from “one of the leaders in the region” on Monday night, and they spoke for 45 minutes.

US Intelligence: Russia, Iran tried to influence 2020 election
The report assesses “with high confidence” that Iran carried out an influence campaign during the 2020 presidential election.
Reuters/The Jerusalem Post/March 17/2021
Russia’s government tried to seed the 2020 US presidential campaign with “misleading or unsubstantiated allegations” against candidate Joe Biden through allies of president Donald Trump and his administration, US intelligence officials said Tuesday. The assessment was made in a 15-page report into election interference published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It underscores allegations that Trump’s allies were playing into Moscow’s hands by amplifying claims made against Biden by Russian-linked Ukrainian figures in the run-up to the November 3 election. Biden defeated Trump and took office on January 20. US intelligence agencies found other attempts to sway voters, including a “multi-pronged covert influence campaign” by Iran intended to undercut Trump’s support. The report assesses “with high confidence” that Iran carried out an influence campaign during the 2020 presidential election. These efforts “intended to undercut the reelection prospects of former President Trump and further its longstanding objectives of exacerbating divisions in the US, creating confusion and undermining the legitimacy of US elections and institutions.”“There are no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, voter tabulation, or reporting results,” the report said.“We did not identify Iran engaging in any election interference activities as defined in this assessment,” it said. Iran’s election influence included “creating or amplifying social media content that criticized former president Trump – probably because they believed that this would advance Iran’s longstanding objectives and undercut the prospects for the former president’s reelection without provoking retaliation,” the report said. The assessment also mentioned Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He “probably” authorized the influence campaign, it said, adding that “it was a whole of government effort.” “Iran focused its social media and propaganda on perceived vulnerabilities in the United States, including the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, economic recession, and civil unrest,” the report said. Beijing “did not deploy interference efforts,” it said. “China sought stability in its relationship with the United States and did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk blowback if caught,” the report said.US officials said they also saw efforts by Cuba, Venezuela and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to influence the election, although “in general, we assess that they were smaller in scale than those conducted by Russia and Iran.” US intelligence agencies and former special counsel Robert Mueller previously concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election to boost Trump’s candidacy with a campaign of propaganda aimed at harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

GCC backs Saudi measures to preserve its security
Arab News/March 17, 2021
The GCC condemn the Iran-backed Houthi militia’s attacks on civilians in Saudi Arabia
The Bahraini FM stressed that current regional issue require a united front
The Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Nayef Al-Hajraf, said on Wednesday that the organization supports all measures taken by Saudi Arabia to preserve its security. Bahrain’s foreign minister Abdullatif Al-Zayani, who was the former GCC secretary general, echoed Hajraf’s statement and expressed the Gulf countries’ support for Saudi Arabia. “The GCC stands united with Saudi Arabia in the face of the ongoing threats it faces,” Zayani said, during a meeting held with his counterparts of member states. “We have witnessed widespread international solidarity with Saudi Arabia against the Houthi terrorist attacks,” he added. The minister went on to condemn the Iran-backed Houthi militia’s attacks on civilians in Saudi Arabia. He stressed that the AlUla Declaration and current regional issue require a united front. Hajraf confirmed that the Ministerial Council will discuss the follow-up to the implementation of the decisions of the "Al-Ula summit", and issues related to the strategic dialogues between the countries of the GCC and global blocs. On the Cooperation Council, Al-Zayani explained that "the decisions of the Al-Ula statement stressed the need for the unity of the GCC countries." Meanwhile, Hajraf addressed future negotiations with Iran, state that they must include discussions on the regime’s ballistic missiles and nuclear program. Iran continues to support militias and destabilize the region, Hajraf said. Hajraf added that the Cooperation Council rejects the Iranian occupation of the three Emirati islands, adding that any actions that Iran undertakes in the three islands are null and void. Iranian military forces seized the three islands on Nov. 30, 1971, just two days before the establishment of the UAE, after British forces withdrew from the islands. The Secretary General went on to condemn the Houthi militia's use of civilians as human shields in the ongoing battles in Yemen's Marib. He also condemned the fire at a migrant detention center in Sanaa, which lead to the death of dozens of African migrants.

Sudan’s Burhan demands Ethiopian troops leave country'
Arab News/March 17, 2021
“We will continue to demand that Ethiopian forces withdraw from all Sudanese lands,” Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan said
Tensions are high between the two countries over Ethiopian farmers cultivating land claimed by Sudan
LONDON: The head of Sudan’s ruling interim military council called on Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from all Sudanese territory on Wednesday. “We will continue to demand that Ethiopian forces withdraw from all Sudanese lands,” Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan said during a visit to units in the Omdurman military zone. He added the country’s armed forces have reopened Sudanese territory on the eastern border and that no negotiations with Ethiopia would take place until Addis Ababa recognized Sudanese sovereignty over the area. “Unless there is an acknowledgment by the Ethiopian side that these lands are Sudanese and signs have been placed, we will not negotiate with anyone,” Burhan said. Tensions are high between the two countries over Ethiopian farmers cultivating land claimed by Sudan. Al-Fashaqa is an agricultural area where Ethiopia’s northern Amhara and Tigray regions meet Sudan’s eastern Gedaref state. The area is claimed by both Sudan and Ethiopia.

Respond to Myanmar crisis: ASEAN politicians
AP/March 18, 2021
JAKARTA: Lawmakers from six Southeast Asian nations on Wednesday urged ASEAN member states to scrap the regional bloc’s long-standing principle of noninterference and respond to the political crisis in Myanmar. Nearly 150 protesters have been killed across the country since the military’s coup on Feb. 1. Indonesia’s former deputy House speaker, Fadli Zon, one of the regional lawmakers to issue the statement, urged all parties in the region to keep fighting for the principles and goals of the ASEAN charter, which is the regional bloc’s constitution. “Respect for human rights and the rule of law, and the most important thing is political will to pressure the Myanmar military to go with these principles,” Zon said during the online conference on Wednesday. In a statement read by Sam Rainsy — Cambodia’s opposition leader who is now in exile in Paris — the lawmakers said that the 10-nation bloc, which includes Myanmar, had been “handicapped by the self-imposed doctrine,” which may have been a necessity in the past but had become a “barrier for democracy and human rights enforcement” in ASEAN. “We demand our respective ASEAN governments abandon the old doctrine of non-interference and pursue a new approach of constructive and critical engagement, with the option of imposing trade and economic sanctions on the Myanmar military junta,” Rainsy said on behalf of politicians from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines who are also signatories to the statement.
Rainsy further accused ASEAN governments of “lacking political will and unity.”“While the brave pro-democracy protesters of Myanmar are being killed by the military junta, all other ASEAN governments are demonstrating a lack of political will and unity to pressure the military junta to end the killings,” he said.
However, former Thai foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, one of the signatories of the statement, said that the sanctions should not be imposed nationwide as it would only “add to the suffering of the people in Myanmar.”“But there should be a targeted sanction against all the military personnel and civilian personnel that have rendered support to the military takeover,” Piromya said. During the online press conference, moderated by Malaysian lawmaker, Wong Chen, the politicians said that the events unfolding in Myanmar since the military overthrew the civilian government led by Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in early February showed ASEAN governments’ “impotence” in dealing with a regional crisis. Nearly 150 people have died in peaceful rallies in major cities across Myanmar, according to media reports. Brunei Darussalam, which holds this year’s ASEAN rotating chair, said that the bloc has called on all parties in Myanmar to refrain from inciting more violence. In a statement issued on March 2 after the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting, the bloc also “called on all parties concerned to seek a peaceful solution, through constructive dialogue, and practical reconciliation in the interests of the people and their livelihood.”Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told journalists after the foreign ministers’ meeting on March 2 that the talks were to discuss the situation in Myanmar, following her shuttle diplomacy to neighboring countries to meet regional counterparts and address the crisis. “Respecting the principle of non-interference is a must,” she said. “In this regard, I conveyed my confidence that no single ASEAN country has intentions to violate this principle, while at the same time upholding and implementing values of democracy, respect of human rights, good governance, the rule of law and constitutional government are equally important,” Marsudi said.

Ghani to quit ‘only after polls’ as US mulls new government
Reuters/March 18, 2021
Remarks a departure from his pledge to oppose an interim setup at any cost
KABUL: President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to step down from power, but only after elections are held in Kabul — even as pressure mounts on the Afghan head of state to form an interim government that includes the Taliban.
“If the Taliban are ready for elections tomorrow, we are also ready . . . But I am not ready to transfer the power to my successor without elections,” he said during an official event late on Tuesday.
“Forty-two years of war is enough; we also have the right to live in peace like other civilized nations of the world,” Ghani said. His remarks came a day after talks with US special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who earlier this month had shared a proposal with key Afghan leaders, including Ghani, for the formation of a participatory government — which would include Taliban members — as part of efforts to end Washington’s engagement in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.
Khalilzad’s proposal was circulated ahead of a May 1 deadline for the complete withdrawal of US-led foreign troops from Afghanistan, based on a controversial accord signed between former American President Donald Trump’s administration and the Taliban more than a year ago.
Government and Taliban delegates are set to attend Russia-sponsored talks on Thursday — to expedite the peace process — and another international UN-led conference in Turkey, in April, as part of the proposed US plan for an interim setup before elections are held.
Besides Taliban and Afghan government emissaries, Thursday’s meeting in Russia will host delegates from the Afghanistan High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), factional and influential leaders, and representatives from the US, China and Pakistan.
Ghani, who assumed his second, five-year-term in office more than a year ago amid allegations of poll fraud, said on Tuesday that he would move forward based on “realities instead of sentiments” for a “lasting and fair peace.”His remarks came a day after talks with the US special envoy for Afghanistan, who earlier this month proposed the formation of a participatory government which would include Taliban members.
This is despite the 71-year-old leader repeatedly vowing to oppose an interim setup “at the cost of my life.”
Ghani’s comments on Tuesday are his first since a letter addressed to him by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was leaked to the public nearly two weeks ago. Blinken’s letter to Ghani — a copy of which was published by several media houses — urged the Afghan president to “develop constructive positions” on Khalilzad’s proposals to “jump-start the flailing peace process.”The letter pressed upon the urgency for a new government in Afghanistan to break a stalemate in the intra-Afghan talks, which began in Doha, Qatar, between the Taliban and Kabul government representatives in September, and have been riddled with disputes.The letter said that even with the continuation of US financial assistance to Afghan forces after an American withdrawal, there was concern “that the security situation will worsen and that the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains” and that he was sharing this so that Ghani “understands the urgency of my tone regarding the collective work outlined in this letter.”The letter and Khalilzad’s proposal has caught many confidants of Ghani by surprise because Kabul long expected that the new government in Washington would reconsider the deal the former administration made with the Taliban and would keep its troops in Afghanistan for some years to come. Ghani’s government has come under fire at home and abroad over its perceived inefficiency, poor management of affairs, rampant corruption and an inability to curb crime and advances by Taliban insurgents.
Ahmad Shah Katawazi, a writer and former diplomat, said that Kabul and Washington needed to exercise caution and “compromise” on some issues as the country went through a critical phase.
“Flexibility and compromise from both sides will be a rational approach given the current uncertain scenario the country is facing,” he told Arab News. Tabish Forugh, a US-based Afghan analyst, said that Ghani would not be able to “stand against US policy” but was “trying his luck to remain relevant” in the case of an interim set-up. “Perhaps more than anyone else in his administration, Ghani knows that he cannot stand in the way of the US proposed political settlement with the Taliban,” he told Arab News. Forugh added that while Ghani “lacks what it takes to block the proposal both at the national and international level,” he was pushing to secure a deal for the “survival of state institutions.”“Ghani will ultimately, under US pressure, compromise on peace if Washington forces the Taliban to accept Ghani’s leadership of the transitional government, a period he considers crucial to the safeguarding of certain democratic gains and his future in Afghanistan’s politics,” Forugh said. Toreq Farhadi, an adviser to the former government, agreed but added that holding polls in Afghanistan “was out of the question” under the current circumstances. “The president of Afghanistan asking for elections now might be an indication that he is totally unaware of the citizens’ security situation in the country,” he said.
 

Syria says Assad and wife are recovering from COVID-19
Reuters/March 17/2021
Syrian President Bashar al Assad and his wife Asma are recovering from COVID-19 and will soon resume their full duties after ending a period of isolation at home, the president’s office said on Wednesday.
The office had said on March 8 that Assad, 55, and his 45-year-old wife, who announced her recovery from breast cancer in 2019, had tested positive for COVID-19 after showing minor symptoms and that they would work in isolation at home. “The laboratory and X-ray indications related to their health condition are returning gradually to normal,” the office said in a statement, the first public update on the couple’s condition since they fell ill.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 17-18/2021

Joe Biden Shouldn’t Return to the Iran Deal But he probably will anyway.
Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz/FDD-National Review/March 17/2021
Although President Biden has demanded that Iran reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action before it receives economic relief, he will probably soon start green-lighting billions of dollars in assistance and lifting sanctions. Tehran will undoubtedly remain in violation of the atomic accord and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory. Biden will do so for the same reason that Barack Obama repeatedly gave ground in negotiations with the Islamic Republic: fear of risking war or publicly conceding a nuke to the clerical regime. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who has an autarkist streak and despises the United States, has been ratcheting up the pressure.
Tehran has increased the quantity and quality of its enriched uranium and started to construct and deploy advanced centrifuges faster than what the JCPOA allowed. The clerical regime is also preventing the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency from accessing Iran’s nuclear facilities, which is in violation of the NPT. And for the fourth time under the Biden administration, an Iran-guided Shiite militia has rocketed an American base in Iraq. The president responded to one of the attacks with a limited strike in Syria.
Khamenei has been point-blank — more so than he often is when he wants to give himself wiggle room: “We have no sense of urgency, we are in no rush to see the United States return to the JCPOA; this has never been a concern for us. . . . What is our entirely reasonable demand is the lifting of sanctions; this is the usurped right of the Iranian nation.”
Although senior officials in the administration are loath to say this publicly, they need the credible threat of U.S. military power and the pain of sanctions to drive the supreme leader back into negotiations. As punishing as sanctions had been for two and a half years under Donald Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign, they did not crack the fortitude and faith of Iran’s ruling elite.
For Khamenei and his security forces, the decisive moment came in the winter of 2019 when they crushed nationwide, anti-regime protests, initially provoked by a rapid increase in fuel prices. By 2020, after using machine-gun fire against the poor, the supreme leader had overcome three years of increasingly severe demonstrations. In his mind, he’d overcome American provocations.
Addicted to arms control, with a uranium clock ticking, dreading the thought of another conflict or Iranian-orchestrated violence against U.S. forces, President Biden is probably meditating most on this: How can his administration choreograph nuclear extortion as a mutual de-escalation that makes it seem Tehran has given something substantial for the billions of dollars that the White House will release? The Europeans, especially the French, have been similarly focused, serving as a middleman in an effort to resuscitate what they regard as a diplomatic triumph.
Philosophically, the president is in a worse position than his former boss. President Obama was averse to the use of military and economic coercion, seeing “engagement,” especially Western commerce, as a catalyst for the clerical regime’s moderation. He certainly appeared to believe that if Washington were nicer, Tehran would reciprocate. The United States could make concession after concession in negotiations — about sunset clauses, the destruction of existing centrifuges, the development of more-powerful and easier-to-hide centrifuges, intrusive inspections, undisclosed nuclear activities, ballistic missiles, and regional aggression — and evolution could well prevent the worst-case scenarios, which Obama probably wasn’t in any case prepared to stop militarily. President Biden doesn’t appear that naïve.
Since Obama’s nuclear outreach to Khamenei in 2012, we have seen the Islamic Republic’s official emissaries take the lead in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Syrians; undertake an assassination campaign against expatriate dissidents and try to bomb an opposition conference outside Paris, which many Americans attended; and savagely crush ordinary Iranians protesting. Some of Obama’s people who are now Biden’s people could wince when Iran’s depredations in Syria were paired with sanctions relief for the theocracy. Liberal internationalists, and the Biden administration may be the last gasp of this species, have a conscience. They are not blind to the problematic nature of the theory that the Islamic Republic would be on the cusp of Thermidor if it were not for “hardliners” in the United States.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has conceded that the JCPOA was far from what former secretary of state John Kerry maintained it was, an agreement that forever shut down all pathways to a bomb. If a follow-on agreement needs to be “longer, stronger, and broader,” then the JCPOA was, at best, a stepping-stone. If the administration is successful in selling a JCPOA 2.0 in Washington, the president will gain the support of congressional Democrats who opposed the deal in 2015, and he might even crack the Republican consensus, which, so far, has remained solidly against any U.S. return to the nuclear accord. Some Republicans, as in 2015, may want to find a diplomatic way to escape the American–Iranian confrontation, to see hope on the desert horizon even if it’s a mirage.
But how President Biden takes another step with Tehran isn’t clear — unless the administration just intends to give way to Iranian demands, including lifting sanctions linked to terrorism, missile proliferation, and the depredations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, while using tough rhetoric to camouflage its retreat. To wit: Obama’s policy with a Senator Tom Cotton voiceover.
Iran’s supreme leader certainly isn’t going to accept more restrictions on his industrial-size atomic aspirations after the United States lifts sanctions. Iranian Shiite imperialism and the nuclear-weapons program aren’t exercises that financially have made any sense; they do give satisfaction and security to religious revolutionaries who still have a cause. Blinken, who doesn’t have the kumbaya instincts and hubris of Kerry, may know this.
President Trump never really tried to effect a containment policy against the Islamic Republic, where Washington doggedly tries to roll back the clerical regime’s influence throughout the Middle East, patiently aggravating the theocracy’s internal weaknesses. And he unwisely premised his sanctions regime on obtaining a new, more comprehensive, A-bomb-foreclosing agreement — a fantasy while Iran remains the Islamic Republic. But containment would draw redlines. Billions of dollars wouldn’t be transferred for a short, weak, and narrow nuclear deal. Mass slaughter and terrorism wouldn’t be rewarded.
And the president of the United States could reply to the supreme leader: “I don’t need to return to the JCPOA, either.” In the Middle East’s endless hard-power contests, that would be a momentous next step.
*Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
*Mark Dubowitz, sanctioned by Iran in 2019, is the CEO. Follow them on Twitter @ReuelMGerecht and @mdubowitz. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

In war-torn Syria, uprising birthplace seethes 10 years on
Sarah El Deeb and Bassam Mroue/AP/March 17/2021
https://apnews.com/article/syria-war-10-years-427f9094fa560dd8ce3cc8708990fa7a
BEIRUT (AP) — Daraa was an impoverished, neglected provincial city in the farmlands of Syria’s south, an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim backwater far from the more cosmopolitan cities of the country’s heartland.
But in March 2011 it became the first to explode against the rule of President Bashar Assad. Assad’s decision to crush the initially peaceful protests propelled Syria into a civil war that has killed more than a half million people, driven half the population from their homes and sucked in foreign military interventions that have carved up the country.
On the 10th anniversary of the protests, The Associated Press spoke to activists from Daraa who set aside their lives to join the marches in the streets, then paid the price in torture and exile. Unable to return home, they continue from abroad to support a cause that they hope can still prevail, despite Assad’s military victories.
After a decade of bloodshed, Daraa is back under Assad’s rule, but only tenuously.
Boiling with resentments, battered by an economic crisis and rife with armed groups caught between Russia, Iran and the government, the uprising’s birthplace still feels perched on the rim of an active volcano.
MARCH 18
Assad’s security agencies were clearly nervous in early 2011 as Arab Spring uprisings felled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt.
In Daraa, officers summoned known activists and warned them not to try anything. Small initial protests were quickly pushed back by security.
Then graffiti appeared around the city. One caught everyone’s attention: “Your Turn Has Come, Doctor,” a reference to Assad, who was an ophthalmologist before inheriting rule from his father Hafez. When the boys who wrote the graffiti were arrested and tortured, Daraa’s population erupted in anger.
On March 18, protesters marched from mosques, met by charging security vehicles. Outside the city’s main Omari Mosque, security forces opened fire with live ammunition, killing two protesters and wounding at least 20 others.
They were the first to die in what would become a decade of death.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Doctors treat a wounded man who was injured during clashes between Syrian security forces and anti-government protesters in the southern city of Daraa, Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Ahmed al-Masalmeh, then 35 and the owner of an electronics shop, was at the Omari Mosque that bloody day. He was helping organize protests, bringing in people from neighboring villages. He kept at it as rallies spread and more “martyrs” fell. When security forces fired on protesters toppling the statue of Hafez Assad in Daraa’s main square, he helped carry away the wounded. Eight died that day.
Al-Masalmeh had thought troops would just use tear gas and rubber bullets against the protests. In this age, he thought, Syria’s rulers couldn’t get away with what Hafez Assad had in 1982, killing thousands to crush a revolt in the city of Hama.
“We thought the world has become a small village, with social media and satellite stations,” he told the AP. “We never expected the level of killing and brutality and hatred for the people to reach these levels.”
From Damascus, university student Nedal al-Amari watched the March 18 mayhem in his home city on TV.
Al-Amari, who had just turned 18, was the son of a parliament member from Daraa; it was his father’s connections that had got him a spot at the university in the capital, studying acting.
Full Coverage: Syria
Al-Amari jumped in a car, headed down the highway and arrived home to join in.
His father was not happy.
“If you think this this regime will fall because of a scream or millions of screams, then you know nothing about this regime,” his father told him. “It is ready to turn over every stone in this country to remain in power.”
The teen dismissed his father’s warning. It was the talk, he felt, of an older generation paralyzed by fear ever since Hafez Assad’s ruthlessness in 1982.
The young would not be cowed.
CRACKDOWN
Al-Amari, who spoke some English, picked up a camera, set up two computers and together with friends created a media center. It was one of the first of many that sprang up around Syria, communicating the conflict to the world. He filmed the marches and the deadly assaults against them by security forces. For the first time, he saw dead bodies. It changed him, he said, creating a sense of fearlessness bolstered by the camaraderie with his fellow activists.
That bravado would turn into trauma.
On April 25, 2011, the army stormed Daraa city. Assad’s inner circle had abandoned any possible conciliation.
Within days, al-Amari and his colleagues were rounded up.
A man uses a fire extinguisher in a burned out courtroom that was set on fire by anti-government protesters, March 21, 2011, in the southern city of Daraa, Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
In detention, the first thing al-Amari was forced to do was kneel on the floor and kiss a picture of Assad. Then the daily routine of torture set in. Beatings and electrocutions from guards — but also, prisoners were forced to torture each other, to beat each other or ram metal objects into the anus.
“You’d be tortured while (they force you into) torturing others,” al-Amari said.
For four months, his parents didn’t know where he was, until al-Amari was beaten so badly he nearly lost his eyesight. He was taken to a military hospital and a cousin who worked there happened to see him. Soon after, he was released and dumped on the street.
Anti-government protesters pass burning tires set alight by the protesters following clashes with Syrian security forces, March 23, 2011, in the southern city of Daraa, Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Over the course of the war, more than 120,000 people have similarly disappeared into government detention. Under relentless torture, thousands are known to have died. Tens of thousands remain missing.
Al-Amari emerged a broken and tormented soul. He spent a month recovering at his family’s half-bombed home, his mother sleeping beside him to keep him company.
Meanwhile, armed opposition groups were arising to fight back against the crackdown. Al-Amari’s brother joined one.
Al-Amari picked his camera back up and covered the battles. He threw away caution, no longer hiding his name. Across the country, as the viciousness grew, so too did the sectarian fever between a largely Sunni Muslim rebellion and Assad’s state centered on his Alawite minority.
“My fear turned into spite and hatred. I hated Shiites, I hated Alawites,” al-Amari said.
When four of al-Amari’s cousins in Damascus were detained, it became clear the family would pay the price for his activities. His father slapped him, angry and afraid, and told him it was time for him to go. The cousins have not been heard from since.
On Dec. 22, 2011, al-Amari left Syria. After several years in Lebanon, he reached Turkey. From there, he joined the massive wave of Syrians and other refugees and migrants who in 2015 by the hundreds of thousands crossed in small boats on dangerous sea trips from Turkey to Greece.
FULL CIRCLE
At its height in 2013 and 2014, the rebellion controlled most of Syria east of the Euphrates, parts of Daraa province and much of the north. It battled for all the major cities and even threatened Damascus from the surrounding countryside.
Assad’s forces unleashed airstrikes, devastating barrel bombs and chemical attacks. The tide turned when his allies, Moscow and Tehran, stepped in directly, first Iran with military experts and allied Shiite militias, then Russia with its warplanes.
Sieges and military campaigns against opposition-held cities and towns flattened neighborhoods and starved populations into submission. When the government retook the northern city of Aleppo in 2016 — destroying nearly half of it — it spelled the end of the rebellion’s military threat to Assad’s rule. In the northwest, the opposition became confined to a shrinking enclave centered on Idlib province, dominated by Islamic militants and surviving only because of Turkish protection.
In the south, government forces backed by Russia overwhelmed Daraa province in August 2018.
While recaptured, Daraa was far from controlled.
It has come under a unique arrangement mediated by Russia, partially because of pressure from Israel, which does not want Iranian militias on its doorstep, and from Jordan, which wants to keep its border crossings open.
Syrian soldiers check an ambulance in which a doctor and two paramedics were killed in an attack, according to the official Syrian television,March 23, 2011, in the southern city of Daraa, Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
In parts of Daraa province, rebel fighters who agreed to “reconcile” remained in charge of security. Some joined the 5th Corps, which is technically part of the Syrian Army but overseen by Russia. In these areas, state and municipal institutions have returned, but government forces stayed out. Elsewhere, Russian and government troops are in charge together in a watered-down government authority. In the rest, the government is in outright control, and the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militias have deployed.
The organized opposition presence gives a margin for protests and open anti-government sentiment hard to find elsewhere. Some rebels rejected the deal with Russia and are waging a low-level insurgency.
A string of killings, mainly by insurgents, has left more than 600 dead since June 2019, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The dead include government troops, pro-Iranian militiamen, rebels who signed onto the Russia deals, and mayors and municipal workers considered loyal to the government.
The volatile mix paints a possible scenario for Syria’s near future: A war that Assad can dominate but not outright win, foreign powers trying to patch together arrangements, and a population still boiling with dissent and drowning in an economic crisis.
To give a veneer of normalcy and placate foreign backers, Assad plans presidential elections this summer — in which he is the only candidate.
Assad’s forces are too exhausted to deal with another revolution, said Hassan Alaswad, a prominent activist lawyer from Daraa who fled the country. Now in Germany, he remains involved in opposition activity in Syria.
Among Daraa’s population, “there’s no such thing as fear anymore,” Alaswad said. In the town of Tafas, a Russian general met local notables and asked them if they will vote for Assad in the upcoming election. All of them said no, calling him a war criminal.
Daraa has seen frequent mass protests against the government and Iran, reflecting a growing concern over Tehran’s expanding influence. Iranian-backed militias recruit young men attracted by a stable salary. Families loyal to the government or Iranian-backed fighters are reportedly settling in villages in the south. Traders linked to Assad and Iran have exploited the destitution in Daraa to buy up land, said al-Amari. Pro-Iranian militias are said to be encouraging local Sunni Muslims to convert to Shiism.
Still, the public is also exhausted by the economy’s collapse across Syria. Inflation is spiraling, and there are few jobs. Trade and agriculture are broken down, and infrastructure wrecked.
“The young men still inside Syria are living in despair,” said al-Masalmeh, who fled to Jordan in 2018 but remains involved with activists at home. “We will invest in the despair ... to relaunch the revolution again.”
IN EXILE
Al-Amari now lives in Germany, learning the language and hoping to go to university. He gives talks on the Syria conflict and his experience with torture and works documenting crimes against civilians.
He’s enjoying his freedom in Germany — he has more freedom as a refugee than most living under the Arab world’s authoritarian regimes, he points out.
He still wrestles with his trauma. “Sometimes the memories are so hard, when I remember how I was tortured, I hate everything that is Alawite on the face of the earth,” he says — even as he also tells himself not every Alawite backed Assad. He worries about “shabiha,” or regime loyalists, living among refugees in Europe, who dissidents fear are targeting them.
And he is inextricably tangled with home. Al-Amari has not seen his family for 10 years. He still breaks down in tears when he talks about home. Tattooed on his forearm is the date of the first protests, March 18.
“We are living and not living,” he said.

Vaccines can help Biden rebuild US-EU ties
Melvyn B. Krauss/Arab News/March 17, 2021
Strange as it may sound, vaccines are now the key to reviving the transatlantic relationship. Former President Donald Trump’s “America First” administration left ties between the US and its European allies badly frayed. So, in his address to the Munich Security Conference in February, President Joe Biden thought it best to reaffirm America’s support for Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty: An attack on one NATO member would be considered an attack on all.
That is all to the good. Yet a speech is still a speech, and some wonder what Article 5 and the alliance is worth when Europe’s shortage of coronavirus disease vaccine supplies is putting European lives and livelihoods in danger, while the US is swimming in doses. The Biden administration has not even pressed for Food and Drug Administration approval of the UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, despite having an estimated 60 million doses on hand.
There is no doubt about Biden’s desire to revitalize ties with Europe, which is why his administration must address this egregious vaccine imbalance and help the Europeans in their moment of need. The fastest way to do this — and to strengthen the transatlantic relationship — is US-European joint production of vaccines in Europe. Here, the Biden team should follow the model of the highly successful deal it brokered in the US, where Merck is manufacturing millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) vaccine under license.
Cooperation in production and distribution across borders, and even oceans, is a more effective way to promote diplomatic objectives than simply selling vaccine supplies to the Europeans (though that is better than nothing at a time when Europe lags far behind the US in terms of vaccine delivery). Russia, not famous for sharing anything, understands this and has just signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V vaccine in Italy, with similar arrangements reportedly in the works in France, Germany and Spain.
By cutting such deals, the Kremlin has succeeded in leveraging a critical area, public health, while seeking to divide and hollow out the EU. Given this, the obvious question is why hasn’t the US government done more to push US pharmaceutical firms to agree to joint production agreements with European pharmaceutical firms?
True, Pfizer/BioNTech (the latter being a German firm) have a deal with Novartis to produce their vaccines in Marburg — 60 million doses per month at full capacity. And J&J’s vaccine is being produced in the Dutch city of Leiden, with the company having in February also signed a deal with Sanofi to produce 12 million doses per month in Marcy-l’Étoile, France. Moderna has now contracted with the Lonza Group to manufacture its vaccine in Switzerland.
But all of these moves came late, after it became clear that the EU was far behind in delivering vaccines to its citizens. And that inability to deliver vaccines gave both Russia and China a window of opportunity to position themselves as Europe’s health saviors, which they are now seeking to exploit.
By pushing joint vaccine ventures, US national security would be enhanced without an additional dime of defense spending. Just as the US cemented its ties with Europe after the Second World War with Marshall Plan aid, it should encourage as many cooperative vaccine production agreements as the Europeans require to meet their needs. The Marshall Plan helped keep the Soviets out of Western Europe; joint production of vaccines in Europe would limit the malign (and costly) influence that Russia and China seek to exercise. Hungary, for example, is paying many times more for its Chinese vaccines than it would for the UK or US versions.
But jabs are only part of the story. The Biden administration has already made solid progress in mending US relations with Europe, particularly by ending a long-standing, and poisonous, dispute over aircraft production subsidies. Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, agreed in early March to suspend all tariffs imposed in the subsidies dispute for an initial period of four months.
This agreement’s commercial significance is matched by its symbolic importance as a signal of a revitalized transatlantic partnership. The aircraft dispute started almost two decades ago and the EU had imposed tariffs on US products worth roughly $4 billion, while the US levied tariffs on $7.5 billion of European goods. “Finally, we are emerging from the trade war between the US and the EU, which created only losers,” Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said on Twitter.
But aircraft subsidies were not the only trade issue separating Europe from America. The tariffs Trump imposed on steel and aluminum from Europe on national security grounds remain in place. Gina Raimondo, the US commerce secretary, recently called the steel and aluminum tariffs “effective” — an indication the Biden administration will not soon repeal all of Trump’s protectionist measures. And there also remains the thorny dispute over US sanctions on German and other EU firms building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, bypassing Ukraine and Poland.
By pushing joint vaccine ventures, US national security would be enhanced without an additional dime of defense spending.
How can Europeans not be skeptical of Biden’s promise that “America is back” when he refuses to stand up to the steel protectionists? For Biden, there is a fear that tariffs are popular with the working-class white voters the Democrats want to win back. Moreover, Republicans and the steel industry and its unions remain behind them.
Biden’s preservation of steel tariffs represents a victory of domestic politics over sound foreign policy. But Biden also recognizes that an America estranged from its allies is a weaker America. By helping Europe produce vaccines within the EU, he will demonstrate not only that America is back, but that it is the far-sighted America of the Marshall Plan, not the sneering “America First” of Trump, that has returned.
*Melvyn B. Krauss is Professor Emeritus of Economics at New York University. Copyright: Project Syndicate

UK foreign policy review highlights growing role of technology
Alistair Burt/Arab News/March 17, 2021
The review of the UK’s foreign, defense, development and security policy was published this week after a year of consideration. It was the most apt time to do so. The combination of a fresh administration after the election of 2019, the UK’s exit from the EU and coping with a pandemic is surely a unique collection of circumstances in which to consider where a state may be going internationally.
The review is certainly bold and, to a degree, unconventional. If readers are searching for an index, in which to look up chapters devoted to familiar regions and geopolitical issues, they will look in vain. The whole point of integration is to engage both the population of the UK and those friendly and less friendly to us overseas in awareness that old boundaries are breaking down and that the speed of technological and scientific change has consequences for the old order. Friends, as in those in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), need to absorb all the messages to appreciate that the UK will still be reaching out to them in old and new ways.
Conventional issues are covered, but not in endless pages. The UK government says that it “will build on existing partnerships across the MENA region, strengthening them and taking them to new places through deeper engagement on science, technology, health, climate and biodiversity.” Do not miss the personal intent behind these examples. As at the UN Security Council during the UK’s presidency last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson clearly sees his legacy as depending on engaging multilateral efforts to combat climate change and the threat to biodiversity loss, which he describes as the UK’s “No. 1 international priority.” This is some claim. He has led the review and it was he, not the foreign secretary, who launched it in Parliament. This is important to note. These examples matter deeply to him, and the country.
The review is alive to regular policy messages, mentioning the need to work with partners in relation to Iran, the importance of the UK’s historic partners in the Gulf on maritime security, threats to Europe and the need for NATO, and combating terror.
I think the overall message should be reassuring. Despite the recognition of the growing importance of the East and the “tilt to the Indo-Pacific,” in which, of course, the UK is far from alone, familiar alliances get a boost. A US back in the international arena, the E3 of the UK,
Despite the recognition of the growing importance of the East and the ‘tilt to the Indo-Pacific,’ familiar alliances get a boost.
France and Germany, and the UK’s many friends in the MENA region remain as foundations of global security but, as part of this new collective relationship, that security is increasingly to be built around smart technology and science.
The hub of the paper and policy is in four overarching principles. The first of these is not, as would have been expected a generation ago, the UK’s commitment to NATO and increased defense spending, but rather “sustaining strategic advantage through science and technology.” The second is to ensure that “open societies and open economies can flourish.” Importantly, these key objectives are not focused on any triumphal “Make Britain Great Again” claim of world-leading exceptionalism. Instead they are rooted in a paragraph recognizing that the UK cannot achieve its objectives alone — it must rely on collective action and co-creation with others, leading by example where it can but identifying “where we are better placed to support others.” It is a big country that recognizes the need to work with others.
If the policy is influenced by a fast-changing technological world, where there are many threats from those who would make use of cyber and advanced scientific innovation for illicit purposes, it is also influenced by the recognition that security abroad is now intimately linked to domestic security. The targeting of states in cyberattacks are not victimless crimes because the perpetrators are truly aiming at our citizens accessing services or being protected by their critical infrastructure, from Abu Dhabi to Aberdeen. Just as in a pandemic, no one is safe unless all are safe.
There will be challenges, and questions to be asked. Modernizing a nuclear arsenal is one thing, but increasing the number of warheads while maintaining the mutual disarmament element of the Non-Proliferation Treaty will take some explaining. And the effort to square the circle on the UK’s exceptional development contribution in recent years by being reassuring about a return to the high standard of 0.7 percent of gross national income “when the fiscal situation allows,” while currently reducing it to 0.5 percent because of the pandemic, will not convince all in Parliament.
However, no set of foreign policy principles will be universally accepted, least of all in a free society that is open to questions. I doubt if this one will gather much dust, as it is set to be a topic of discussion in many capitals for quite some time.
• Alistair Burt is a former UK Member of Parliament who has twice held ministerial positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office — as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State from 2010 to 2013 and as Minister of State for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019.
Twitter: @AlistairBurtUK

Clash between unlikely allies Turkey and Russia is inevitable
Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/March 17, 2021
Having gone to war at least 12 times over the centuries, Turkey and Russia are unlikely allies. In 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, any accord between the two seemed unlikelier still. And the gunning down of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov in Ankara a year later was a cause for war if ever there was one. Startlingly, however, the reality since that low point in relations between the countries is that they have grown closer together. As Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to drive a wedge between Turkey and its NATO allies, how this relationship between historical adversaries continues remains to be seen.As a 17 million square km landmass to its north, Russia is an immovable reality for Turkey. For the Kremlin, the aspirations of 80 million Muslims to once again extend their writ beyond their borders are a threat to Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. It is in the Caucasus that the ambitions of these two regional juggernauts have always and will continue to rub cheek by jowl. Where Turkey sees in Georgia a potential NATO ally, Russia has long seen the Caucasus only as a host to client states it keeps on a short leash. Not since the early 20th century has Turkey considered taking up arms against Russia to reconnect itself with its Turkic brethren to its east. The events of the last year, however, have shown its willingness to engage in a conflict that has actually brought the two sides closer together.
For decades, the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh province of Azerbaijan remained in a state of stagnation, with Baku lacking the will to act independently without aggravating Russia, which concurrently backed its Armenian rival to the hilt. The intervention of Turkey in 2020, however, rather than antagonize the situation, actually led to a peace treaty and a territorial realignment.
Putin summarized his tolerance of Turkey’s military adventures when he stated in November: “Today, they (France and Germany) are jointly performing their NATO defense and security duties the way they think fit. Why can’t we (Russia and Turkey) do the same?” This statement highlights exactly why this marriage of convenience means so much to the Kremlin: In an increasingly multipolar world, it is only through exploring relationships with other powers that Russia is able to project itself. An alliance of sorts with Turkey not only limits the opportunities for other powers to involve themselves in Russia’s sphere of influence, but also has the added value of undermining NATO.
If the fighter jet crisis was a turning point in how Turkey dealt with Russia, it also highlighted how Syria would act as a blueprint for how the two could work together at the expense of other powers. In providing an all-important lifeline to sustain the Assad regime, Russia acted in opposition to international opinion, while extending its presence in a part of the world that had, in many respects, been an exclusively American concern. And by providing an opportunity for Turkey to pummel its Kurdish enemies across the border, the Kremlin was able to show itself as a practical ally.
Where Ankara’s relationship with Washington is governed by personality, elections, institutions and public opinion, its ties with Russia are entirely personal. It was Putin that reportedly forewarned Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the 2016 attempted coup and it was also he who congratulated the Turkish president on his survival. The two have had the most regular face-to-face sit-downs of any world leaders since.
Despite having done all that was necessary to align itself with the European economies for six decades, the chances of Turkey joining the EU are now more remote than ever. However, instead of integrating itself with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and simultaneously reinvigorating ties with the Central Asian Turkic peoples, Russia is now of increasing importance to Turkey. This trend was highlighted spectacularly by the decision to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system. Not only did this exclude Turkey from purchasing fifth-generation US fighter aircraft, but more importantly it was the first time since Bolshevik Russia supported the modern Turkish state against Greece in the 1920s that Ankara had so boldly stepped out of the Western orbit in favor of Russia. Faced with mounting security challenges, Europe can ill afford to lose the second-largest military within NATO, while Turkey would similarly do well to recall Putin’s expediency — Russia will only work with Turkey while its interests are served.
Ankara would do well to recall Putin’s expediency — Russia will only work with Turkey while its interests are served.
Despite the ability of Russia to sustain a relationship that is not rules-based, it does not provide the economic allure of the West — trade revenue that Turkey can ill afford to lose. Though Turkey and Russia have sought common ground where possible, Ankara will be hesitant to incur further international sanctions given how acute its economic problems currently are. Both sides now know the other has the power and, importantly, the daring to implement the decisions they reach. Before long, a clash is inevitable. Leaders on both sides only need to look at history to pinpoint where this may take place: Around the Black Sea, in the Caucasus or in Central Asia, where Turkish policies increasingly threaten Russia.
*Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator, and an adviser to private clients between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Twitter: @Moulay_Zaid