English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 27/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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Bible Quotations For today

I was afraid that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labour had been in vain
First Letter to the Thessalonians 02/17-20//03-01-05: “As for us, brothers and sisters, when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being separated from you in person, not in heart we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. For we wanted to come to you certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy! Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we decided to be left alone in Athens; and we sent Timothy, our brother and co-worker for God in proclaiming the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith, so that no one would be shaken by these persecutions. Indeed, you yourselves know that this is what we are destined for. In fact, when we were

Question: "What is the significance of the triumphal/triumphant entry?"
GotQuestions.org/March 26/2021
Answer: The triumphal entry is that of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday, the Sunday before the crucifixion (John 12:1, 12). The story of the triumphal entry is one of the few incidents in the life of Jesus which appears in all four Gospel accounts (Matthew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-40; John 12:12-19). Putting the four accounts together, it becomes clear that the triumphal entry was a significant event, not only to the people of Jesus’ day, but to Christians throughout history. We celebrate Palm Sunday to remember that momentous occasion.
On that day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed donkey’s colt, one that had never been ridden before. The disciples spread their cloaks on the donkey for Jesus to sit on, and the multitudes came out to welcome Him, laying before Him their cloaks and the branches of palm trees. The people hailed and praised Him as the “King who comes in the name of the Lord” as He rode to the temple, where He taught the people, healed them, and drove out the money-changers and merchants who had made His Father’s house a “den of robbers” (Mark 11:17).
Jesus’ purpose in riding into Jerusalem was to make public His claim to be their Messiah and King of Israel in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Matthew says that the King coming on the foal of a donkey was an exact fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus rides into His capital city as a conquering King and is hailed by the people as such, in the manner of the day. The streets of Jerusalem, the royal city, are open to Him, and like a king He ascends to His palace, not a temporal palace but the spiritual palace that is the temple, because His is a spiritual kingdom. He receives the worship and praise of the people because only He deserves it. No longer does He tell His disciples to be quiet about Him (Matthew 12:16, 16:20) but to shout His praises and worship Him openly. The spreading of cloaks was an act of homage for royalty (see 2 Kings 9:13). Jesus was openly declaring to the people that He was their King and the Messiah they had been waiting for.
Unfortunately, the praise the people lavished on Jesus was not because they recognized Him as their Savior from sin. They welcomed Him out of their desire for a messianic deliverer, someone who would lead them in a revolt against Rome. There were many who, though they did not believe in Christ as Savior, nevertheless hoped that perhaps He would be to them a great temporal deliverer. These are the ones who hailed Him as King with their many hosannas, recognizing Him as the Son of David who came in the name of the Lord. But when He failed in their expectations, when He refused to lead them in a massive revolt against the Roman occupiers, the crowds quickly turned on Him. Within just a few days, their hosannas would change to cries of “Crucify Him!” (Luke 23:20-21). Those who hailed Him as a hero would soon reject and abandon Him.
The story of the triumphal entry is one of contrasts, and those contrasts contain applications to believers. It is the story of the King who came as a lowly servant on a donkey, not a prancing steed, not in royal robes, but on the clothes of the poor and humble. Jesus Christ comes not to conquer by force as earthly kings but by love, grace, mercy, and His own sacrifice for His people. His is not a kingdom of armies and splendor but of lowliness and servanthood. He conquers not nations but hearts and minds. His message is one of peace with God, not of temporal peace. If Jesus has made a triumphal entry into our hearts, He reigns there in peace and love. As His followers, we exhibit those same qualities, and the world sees the true King living and reigning in triumph in us.
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 26-27/2021

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/
MoPH: 3,100 new Coronavirus cases, 49 deaths
Aoun submits financial disclosure to Constitutional Council
Lebanon outgoing PM warns of ‘dangerous chemicals’ in southern Zahrani oil facility
Patriarch Raï and Hariri Beirut meet on government and economic crisis
Canada/Minister Garneau Speaks with Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Charbel Wehbe
Exclusive – In his Memoir, Berri Recalls Informing Aoun that He Will Not Vote for Him as President
Lebanon Receives Russian Vaccines Imported by Private Sector
Higher Defense Council Extends General Mobilization for Six Months over COVID-19
Lebanon to Impose Full Coronavirus Lockdown on Easter
Ferzli Says Hariri Optimistic after Meeting Him at Center House
Report: Berri Prepares ‘New Initiative’ to Ease Cabinet Impasse
'Dangerous' Radioactive Material to be Moved from Zahrani Oil Installations
Nissan-Renault Rift at Center of Japanese Trial of American
Four Syrian refugees found frozen to death in Lebanon mountains
Analysis: Lebanon frozen by political intransigence as it hurtles towards collapse/Samia Nakhoul, Maha El Dahan/Reuters/March 26/2021
Behind enemy lines: Joining the IDF on a special operation in Lebanon
Udi Shaham/Jerusalem Post/March 26/2021
Rafik al-Hariri’s murder was ‘Iranian-Syrian decision,’ executed by Hezbollah: Tlass/Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English/March 26/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 26-27/2021

Suspect in Iran 1988 mass executions to be tried in Sweden in June
Houthis continue to reject peace efforts, attack Saudi Arabia: Defense Ministry
Saudi Arabia’s defense forces intercept Houthi ballistic missile over Najran
Saudi Reports Fire at Oil Terminal as Huthis Escalate Attacks
Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia jeopardizing Yemen peace efforts: US State Department
Chinese foreign minister in Iran, expected to sign 25-year accord: Iran’s state media
Turkey’s lira slid as much as 2% as executive-level overhaul spreads
US goes ahead with $1.15 bln financing deal, hailing Sudan reforms
United States Seizes Websites Used by Foreign Terrorist Organization
Israeli-owned ship hit by missile in suspected Iranian attack: Israeli official
Attempt to Refloat Ship Blocking Suez Canal Fails
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 26-27/2021

Iran must come clean on its nuclear deception/Richard Goldberg and Anthony Ruggiero/The Hill/March 26/2021
Erdogan’s Power Plays Turn to Profit Margins/Aykan Erdemir/Foreign Policy/March 26/2021
Manhattan Court Gave Erdogan’s Pet Bank a Get-out-of-Jail-Free Card/Mark Dubowitz and Aykan Erdemir/Newsweek/March 26/2021
Why Iran’s Proxies Fear Evidence/Michael Knights/Washington Institute/March 26/2021
No Country Thrives on Instability Like Iran/The Islamic Republic needs /merica as an enemy. The U.S. needs a strategy to win a cold war.
The Courts and the Election of 2020/Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute/March 26/2021
Arabs: A Warning to Biden about Iran’s Mullahs/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 26/2021
Why Muslim Soldiers Kill Their Christian Comrades/Raymond Ibrahim/March 26/2021
Karim Sadjadpour/The Atlantic/March 26/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 26-27/2021

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/
 

MoPH: 3,100 new Coronavirus cases, 49 deaths
NNA/March 26/2021
 The Ministry of Public Health announced on Friday the registration of 3,100 new Coronavirus infections, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 455,381.
It also indicated that 49 deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.

Aoun submits financial disclosure to Constitutional Council
The Daily Star/March 26/2021
BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun met with the head of the Constitutional Council Judge Tanous Meshleb Friday and submitted a statement on the financial disclosure, in accordance with the Illicit Enrichment Law.
The meeting was also attended by council members Judge Awni Ramadan and Judge Riad Abou Ghaida, as well as presidency General Director Dr. Antoine Choucair. The financial disclosure statement presented by Aoun is in line with Law No.189 (of Oct. 16, 2020). Despite being passed into law originally in 1953, Lebanon’s illicit enrichment legislation has never been applied, experts say. Late last year, Parliament voted through significant amendments to the existing law on illicit enrichment, making it easier for prosecutors to press charges against top level officials and politicians, including sitting ministers and MPs. The Lebanese president is excluded from this law because he can only be tried in front of a special court, even for common law crimes. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption defines illicit enrichment as the significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to their income.
 

Lebanon outgoing PM warns of ‘dangerous chemicals’ in southern Zahrani oil facility
Reuters/ 26 March ,2021
Lebanon’s outgoing prime minister said on Friday that experts had found “dangerous chemicals” at a warehouse at the Zahrani oil installations in the south. Hassan Diab said the country’s atomic energy authority identified the substances as “nuclear” after reviewing a report by German company Combi Lift, which Lebanon had tasked with clearing hazardous material at Beirut port. The comments came nearly eight months after a stockpile of chemicals detonated in Beirut, killing nearly 200 people in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record. The ammonium nitrate went up in flames after being stored unsafely at the port for years. A Combi Lift spokesman confirmed to Reuters that the firm was in talks with Lebanon over potential recovery projects in Tripoli and Zahrani refineries but said there were no concrete results yet. “We don’t want to comment on possible finds,” the spokesman said. Diab appealed for action, without elaborating. Lebanon’s caretaker PM Diab says conscience is clear over Beirut port blast But Lebanon’s oil directorate said the canisters, which totaled 1.2 kg (2.7 lb), were just used for research and would be transferred next week for safe storage. “We assure the Lebanese...there is no reason for any fear,” the directorate said. Diab’s cabinet has served in a caretaker capacity since resigning over the devastation that last August’s explosion wreaked in much of the Lebanese capital, compounding an already acute financial crisis. After Lebanon hired Combi Lift in the wake of the blast, the German firm said it had found 58 containers at Beirut port that posed a threat to the city. Some of it had been there for more than a decade. The German ambassador to Beirut, Andreas Kindl, said this month the material were packed well but were still waiting to be shipped to Germany for disposal, as Lebanon had yet to make a nearly $2 million payment in the contract. Combi Lift spokesman Malte Steinhoff said on Friday those containers remained in Beirut amid talks with the Lebanese authorities over financing. “We...hope to find a solution this month,” he said.
 

Patriarch Raï and Hariri Beirut meet on government and economic crisis
Beirut /AsiaNews/March 26/2021
The cardinal invited the interim premier to re-launch institutional dialogue. The request for a new team of ministers and for consultations between the parties in a spirit of "unity and sincerity". But the rift between Hariri and President Aoun remains. The Feast of the Annunciation is an opportunity to strengthen the dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
Card. Beshara Raï welcomed the prime minister in charge, Saad Hariri, to the patriarchal seat of Bkerké last night, in an attempt to unblock a political and institutional impasse that has long paralyzed Lebanese politics and risks wrecking the country. The focus of the talks was the controversial formation of the new executive, which opened a further front of confrontation between the premier (exponent of the Sunni wing and close to Riyadh) and the Christian Maronite president Michel Aoun, linked to Hezbollah, a Shiite faction that refers in Tehran.
Hariri was accompanied by former minister Ghattas Khoury. In addition to the cardinal, there was also the former minister Sajaan Azzi, in a sort of enlarged summit. At the end of the meeting, the prime minister in charge explained that he had "accepted the patriarch's invitation to dinner" during which "we discussed what is happening around the formation of the new executive".
“You know that visiting his Beatitude is important to me, because I am keen to listen to his point of view, especially in these difficult days. Hopefully we will continue the talks after dinner,” Hariri told reporters.". The cardinal renewed the invitation, already launched several times in the past, to unblock and negotiate for the formation of a government "which the country is in dire need of, in a time of economic crisis that has pushed many Lebanese to poverty".
Yesterday was the Feast of the Annunciation, a national holiday since 2010 uniting Christians and Muslims. It also marked the 10th anniversary of Card. Raï’s appointment as Patriarch which he used to appeal to Aoun and Hariri to resume negotiations. His words were echoed by the US ambassador Dorothy Shea, who in yesterday's meeting with the Lebanese president underlined the "urgency" of a stable executive, the result of a "compromise between the political forces that, to date, block this process”. Returning to the meeting between Hariri and the Maronite patriarch, the latter asked the prime minister in charge to submit a new government team to the President of the Republic and re-launched the request for consultation between the parties in a spirit of "unity and sincerity". The goal is to arrive at shared names and an equitable distribution of portfolios "respecting the Constitution and the National Pact of 1943".
Yesterday afternoon, Card. Raï presided over the solemn Eucharistic celebration for the Feast of the Annunciation. During the homily, the cardinal, as he often does at masses, returned to the political and institutional crisis by renewing the appeal to "active neutrality", to safeguard the Land of Ceders from regional tensions and to hold an international conference on Lebanon under the auspices of the United Nations. “The political crisis and its economic and social repercussions - he said - are getting worse and worse. We would never have imagined that Lebanon, the lighthouse of the East, would have experienced such a level of decline "and that all" decisions and prerogatives of power "would have been" delegitimized". The cardinal, who has made the element of neutrality his battle horse, called with renewed insistence - albeit without making it explicit – for the disarmament of the pro-Iranian Shia Hezbollah movement and the holding of the international UN conference. “Lebanon as a civil state - concluded the cardinal - is for everyone, Christians and Muslims. Its conservation is a collective responsibility in which all the Lebanese components participate, a sign of our absolute belief in the unity, identity and role of Lebanon in the East and in the world ".
 

Canada/Minister Garneau Speaks with Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Charbel Wehbe
March 25, 2021 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today spoke with Charbel Wehbe, Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Minister Garneau had his initial call with Minister Wehbe, where he reaffirmed Canada’s exceptional people-to-people ties with Lebanon. The Minister thanked his counterpart for Lebanon’s support of the Declaration on Press Freedom and the Canadian-led Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention. He also underscored Canada’s unwavering support of the people of Lebanon.
The two Ministers discussed the ongoing political and economic crises currently facing Lebanon and their dire effects on the Lebanese people. Minister Garneau reiterated Canada’s desire that Lebanon forms a new government without delay to implement the necessary reforms and respond to the aspiration of the Lebanese people. He also emphasized the vital importance of holding Lebanon’s next round of national elections as scheduled in 2022.
Minister Wehbe thanked Canada for its steadfast support of Lebanon and its contribution of $30 million to assist with the aftermath of the devastating Beirut explosion. Minister Garneau reasserted the importance of achieving justice for the victims of this tragedy though a credible and transparent investigation. Minister Garneau also called for a credible, impartial and independent investigation into the assassination of Lokman Slim.
Minister Garneau committed to continue to collaborate and work with Lebanon to achieve greater peace and stability for the Lebanese people and the region.

Exclusive – In his Memoir, Berri Recalls Informing Aoun that He Will Not Vote for Him as President
Asharq Al-Awsat Publishes Excerpts of the Lebanese Parliament Speaker’s Memoir
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/March 26/2021

In the second and last episode of excerpts from the memoirs of Lebanon’s parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Asharq Al-Awsat focuses on the agreements that paved the way for the election of Michel Aoun as president following two-and-half-years of presidential vacuum.
In his memoirs, which will soon be published by Dar Bilal, Berri recalls how then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri decided to go back on his decision to support the election of former Minister Suleiman Franjieh in favor of Aoun.
He also talks about his frank discussion with Aoun, when he told him that he would not vote for him as president.
Berri begins the narration, citing a festival for his Amal movement in the coastal city of Tyre on August 31, 2016, two months before Aoun’s election:
“This festival was an opportunity for me to talk about political futility that some parties were practicing with regard to disrupting the government and the parliament. I said at the time: I hear words from here and there about building a state; it is beautiful indeed. But heading towards a state demands stopping political stalling and removing the idea that each one of us has the power or veto over national decisions.
“I also tell you, stop disrupting the institutions and let us avoid political meddling and abide by the constitution. I honestly tell you that faced with the forces that continue to revolt against various political principles, we will confront all this with the power of the people…
“I cannot forget that day. I was following up on the preparations for the festival and was ready to head to the square of the Imam Mousa al-Sadr Festival in Tyre. Suddenly the phone rang, and I was informed that an explosive device had detonated in the Zahle region. I was shaken by the news… I learned that a bus transporting Amal movement supporters had been targeted. My deep regret was for the lady who was martyred, as well as for the wounded. It was a bloody message.
“From the Imam’s square in Tyre, I almost couldn’t control myself in front of the crowds that gathered for the festival, as well as those who flooded the streets leading to the square. At the beginning of the speech, I found myself addressing the hundreds of thousands of people and telling them if I could only change the celebration into prayer… The scene of the people in front of me was touching, and I could not express the extent of my affection in front of these young people who defied the explosion and came from all over the country…”
Political stalling
Berri recounts how some parties have exploited the opportunity to manipulate his speech at the event.
“In my speech I referred to political stalling and coyness, so they started to project this description on whatever suited their political interests, although my words on this matter were very clear... I did not mean any particular person or side. That day, I replied to them, saying I will teach you the Arabic language… Didn’t I say each of us? Didn’t I say, let’s avoid political tampering and abide by the constitution?”
He continues: “I was shocked by their attempt to manipulate my words and suggest that I was trying to put preconditions on the government formation.”
The Lebanese speaker says in his memoirs that he made sure to tell all sides that it was necessary to admit that much time had been lost and that it was crucial to reach an agreement over the presidential elections.
“I remember that I gave them an example and told them: let’s suppose that the president was elected without prior agreement, and a person was assigned to form the government, also without prior agreement… In this case, we would have done nothing but complicate the situation…
“During that period, the presidential elections were like a vicious cycle… At the beginning of October 2016, Prime Minister Saad Hariri was still committed to nominating MP Suleiman Franjieh, based on the agreement that was concluded between them in Paris. Had the presidential election session taken place at that time, Franjieh would have been elected, because he had the support of more than 70 deputies, and [Berri’s] Development and Liberation bloc publicly endorsed his candidacy. However, the session was not convened due to lack of consensus.
“Samir Geagea then surprised everyone by endorsing the candidacy of General Michel Aoun. The speculation at the time was that Hariri would stick to Franjieh’s nomination. I remember that during that period, I met Hariri and told him I support you, but no more than that, this is your battle, and you have to assume responsibility. I am ready to help you if you continue to support Franjieh. Hariri did not conceal the fact that he was feeling overwhelmed and under pressure, so I urged him to persevere.
The retreat
“However, the situation soon changed and my predictions turned to be true. Hariri began to go back on supporting Franjieh’s candidacy and prepare for Aoun’s nomination. The first signs were evident in the lengthy meeting that Hariri held with Aoun at Rabieh in late September 2016. That day, before Hariri headed to Rabieh, he met with Franjieh.
“I would like to point out here again that Hezbollah had already publicly announced his support for General Aoun as the final candidate. Basically, our position was not the same regarding the presidential elections: the party had its candidate, and I had my own.”
Berri recounts how Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (FMP) launched a campaign against him, accusing him of violating the constitution.
“I was surprised at that time by a campaign by the FPM and its media, accusing me of working against the constitution. They said that while a near consensus on Aoun was reached, Berri was still rejecting his election. I did not let these words slide, so I refuted the allegations and told them that it was not the time for political games.
“I, Nabih Berri, am the keenest on the constitution, and the most committed to its provisions. I challenge you to prove your credibility.
“In the second week of October and as I faced negative responses to my request for a package of prior understandings, I decided to take a step back and watch Hariri announce his final position on Aoun’s nomination.
“After Hariri formally adopted his candidacy, General Aoun visited me in Ain al-Tineh, and we held a friendly meeting and a very frank conversation. I insisted on my position that the safest way to hold the presidential elections was the understanding package that I had proposed, which would pave the way for the new presidential term and remove all obstacles.
“When he asked me about my position on the election session that I scheduled for Oct. 31, 2016, I told him: You know, Your Excellency, the extent of my affection and respect for you, but I tell you frankly that I will not vote for you. “He asked me: Why, I know that your relationship with Gebran [Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law] has improved. “I replied: I will not vote for you, because of my commitment to others.
“He said: I understand your position.
“But I stressed: In any case, I assure you, Your Excellency, that disrupting the quorum of the presidential election session is in my hands, but I will not do so.”

Lebanon Receives Russian Vaccines Imported by Private Sector
Associated Press/March 26/2021
Lebanon's private sector is stepping in to speed up the vaccination campaign against coronavirus by importing at least 1 million doses of Russian vaccines, with the aim of reopening businesses around the country hit by an unprecedented economic crisis. The first batch of 50,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines arrived early Friday, making Lebanon one of few nations where the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is being boosted by private sector initiatives. Lebanon, a small nation of six million people including around one million Syrian refugees, began its inoculation campaign in mid-February after finalizing a deal for some two million doses with Pfizer. According to Lebanese Health Ministry, the country has so far received 224,640 Pfizer-BioNTech doses over the past six weeks with nearly 100,000 doses already administered. Lebanon's government also began receiving AstraZeneca vaccines this week, with 33,600 doses that arrived on Wednesday. The Pfizer vaccines are funded by the World Bank while AstraZeneca vaccines will be provided under the U.N.-backed COVAX program. Lebanon is currently in the grips of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, which has been exacerbated by the lockdown measures related to the pandemic. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs and the local currency has lost 90% of its value against the dollar, leading to inflation and shortages in food products and medicines.
According to the World Bank, more than half the population is now living under the poverty line.
Jacques Sarraf, a Lebanese businessman and head of the Lebanese Russian Business Council, said he hoped the import of the Russian vaccines would help safely reopen businesses around the country. "Our first target will be private companies, factories, banks — and this is important to reactivate institutions," he told The Associated Press in an interview. Sarraf, who played a major role in bringing the Sputnik V vaccines to Lebanon, said priority will be given for employees at companies and business institutions, including those of Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines and the Banking Association. He added that with the private sector moving in, the numbers of people inoculated daily will multiply by more than three times compared with the current pace. Sarraf said the Sputnik V will be sold at a price of $38 for the required two doses, in addition to hospital fees. The minimum monthly salary in Lebanon is currently 675,000 Lebanese pounds, the equivalent of about $60. Sarraf said Lebanon will be receiving between 100,000-200,000 doses every three weeks until the 1 million is reached. Some businessmen and politicians have already expressed readiness to pay for people in their electoral districts to get vaccinated. Assem Araji who heads the parliament health committee, said so far only around 950,000 people in Lebanon have registered to take the vaccines, or about 20 percent of the population. "The vibrant private sector in Lebanon will make a difference," he told the AP. "This will speed up the inoculation process and will reduce pressure on the public sector." He said Lebanon needs about 10 million vaccines and most of them have been secured, adding that the numbers will start increasing dramatically over the coming weeks with the arrival of Sputnik V and AstraZeneca vaccines. Lebanon has so far recorded nearly 452,281 infections since the first coronavirus case was recorded in February last year, with 5,964 deaths.

Higher Defense Council Extends General Mobilization for Six Months over COVID-19
Naharnet/March 26/2021
The Higher Defense Council on Friday extended the general mobilization measures for another six months to contain the spread of COVID-19, and decided to impose a three-day shutdown during each religious holiday. President Michel Aoun, chaired the meeting that was also attended by several ministers and army leaders and security forces, pointed to a spike in cases and an increase in deaths and voiced calls to face the third phase of the virus spread. He addressed the repercussions of the port explosion and said that 50 billion Lebanese pounds of his presidential salary allocated from the state budget of 2021 will be given to those affected by the explosion in coordination with the Lebanese army. For his part, outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab said “Lebanon is passing through extraordinary conditions at all levels due to an exceptional political situation. We must face these circumstances through reforms.” “Every day we see the suffering of the Lebanese people in order to obtain subsidized goods, the issue can be addressed by providing direct support to needy families,” he added, lashing out at some “unconscientious, greedy” merchants taking advantage of the crisis.

Lebanon to Impose Full Coronavirus Lockdown on Easter
Naharnet/March 26/2021
Lebanon’s coronavirus ministerial committee on Friday decided to fully shut down the country from Saturday, April 3 until the morning of Tuesday April 6.The measures will include a curfew and urgent movement permissions via the electronic platform while worshipers will have to use the platform to attend Easter mass in churches, MTV said. The government-linked Disaster Risk Management Unit meanwhile announced that businesses, restaurants and cafes will now be allowed to open until 9pm instead of 7pm.
Social and religious gatherings will meanwhile remain banned while bars, nightclubs, cinemas, theaters, kids playgrounds and popular markets will remain closed, the Unit added. Lebanon has so far recorded 455,381 infections since the first coronavirus case was recorded in February last year, with 5,995 deaths.

Ferzli Says Hariri Optimistic after Meeting Him at Center House
Naharnet/March 26/2021
Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli held talks Friday with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri at the Center House. “The government’s formation can only happen according to constitutional texts and the constitution’s spirit,” Ferzli said after the meeting. “I believe that PM-designate Hariri not only understands this well but is also committed to this spirit and will not deviate from it in any way,” Ferzli added. “Because the idea of coexistence for PM Hariri, which he inherited from (his father), is a central cause, and he believes that Lebanon’s raison d'être is this coexistence and that relation between Muslims and Christians,” the Deputy Speaker said. Commenting on Hariri’s visit to Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Thursday, Ferzli said Hariri “always feels relieved after visiting His Eminence.”“It was a coincidence that I visited him today directly after that visit, that’s why I found him not only feeling relieved, but also feeling a great joy about what the coming days might produce in terms of the optimistic view of things,” Ferzli added.

Report: Berri Prepares ‘New Initiative’ to Ease Cabinet Impasse
Naharnet/March 26/2021
Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly plans to make a new move and launch an initiative that could ease the government deadlock, amid months of wrangling between political leaders to form a cabinet, al-Anbaa electronic daily reported on Friday. According to Berri’s visitors, the Speaker “expresses dismay” with the political situation. “Next week, everyone will see the Speakership take intense activity to reactivate the government file in a bid to help the government formation,” they said on condition of anonymity. “Berri’s initiative this time will succeed because it stems from basic principles that may satisfy everyone if things go in the right direction,” they added. Eighteen meetings at Baabda Palace between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri have failed to reach an agreement over a government format.

'Dangerous' Radioactive Material to be Moved from Zahrani Oil Installations
Associated Press/March 26/2021
Around two kilograms of radioactive material containing depleted uranium will be moved from the state-run Zahrani Oil Installations (ZOI) in the South to the stores of the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission, ZOI director Ziad al-Zein said on Friday.
Al-Zein’s remarks come after media reports described the material as “dangerous” and sparked an uproar on social media. Speaking to al-Jadeed TV, al-Zein said a specialized German firm had discovered the material during an inspection ordered by the Directorate General of Oil in the wake of the August 4 ammonium nitrate blast at Beirut port. Al-Jadeed meanwhile published images of a few small jars carrying labels declaring the presence of the uranyl acetate material inside of them. Al-Zein said the material had been brought “in the 1950s, when the Installations were under the administration of U.S. firm Medreco.”
Medreco was an American company whose main shareholders were Mobil and Caltex and it was active in Lebanon for four decades until the late 1980s. “The Installations contained an oil refinery, prior to the issuance of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” al-Zein added.
He explained that the German firm, Combi Lift, later asked the state-run Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission to inspect the material, at the instructions of the Directorate General of Oil that is under the authority of the Energy and Water Ministry. The Commission recommended that it be given this material for use in researches at its laboratories or to be re-packaged according to international standards, al-Zein added. “The material will be moved on Monday from the Installations to the stores of the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission and will become in its guardianship,” al-Zein went on to say. In a statement unveiled by al-Jadeed, the Commission had described the material as dangerous and noted that it would inform the International Atomic Energy Agency of the issue.
According to Wikipedia, uranyl acetate is both radioactive and toxic.
"Normal commercial stocks prepared from depleted uranium have a typical specific activity of 0.37–0.51 microcuries (14–19 kBq) per gram. This mild level of radioactivity is insufficient to be harmful while the material remains external to the body," Wikipedia says.
"Uranyl acetate is very toxic if ingested, inhaled as dust or by skin contact if skin is cut or abraded. The toxicity is due to the combined effect of chemical toxicity and mild radioactivity and there is a danger of cumulative effects from long term exposure," Wikipedia adds.
During a meeting of the Higher Defense Council earlier on Friday, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab told other officials that the material "is a highly pure nuclear substance" and its presence poses dangers.
"This matter should be discussed now and quick measures should be taken to deal with it with great concern," Diab said. In November, Lebanon signed a deal with Combi Lift to treat and ship abroad containers consisting of flammable chemicals found in the wreckage of Beirut's port. Combi Lift completed the treatment of 52 containers of "hazardous and dangerous chemical material" and was ready to ship them outside the country, Germany's ambassador to Lebanon said last month. The deal between Lebanon and Combi Lift is worth $3.6 million, toward which port authorities in Lebanon paid $2 million, with the German government covering the rest. Malte Steinhoff, a spokesman for Combi Lift in Germany, declined to give specific details on either the nuclear material or the chemical shipment. Combi Lift, Steinhoff said in an email to The Associated Press, is currently in talks with the Lebanese government. "This concerns possible salvage projects at the refineries in Tripoli and Zahrani," Steinhoff added. "There are no concrete results yet. We do not want to comment on any findings."

Nissan-Renault Rift at Center of Japanese Trial of American
Agence France Presse/March 26/2021
The trial of former Nissan executive Greg Kelly in a Tokyo court is increasingly focusing on a rift between Nissan Motor Co. and its French alliance partner. Kelly, an American, was arrested with former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn in November 2018 and has been charged with under-reporting Ghosn's compensation. He says he is innocent and was merely trying to find legal ways to pay Ghosn, who was dispatched by Renault to help turn Nissan around in the late 1990s. Kelly's chief defense lawyer Yoichi Kitamura questioned Hiroki Kobayashi, a partner at Latham & Watkins, Friday in the Tokyo District Court about an investigation of Ghosn and on Nissan's relations with Renault SA of France that the international law firm conducted on Nissan's behalf. Kobayashi declined to answer many questions, citing attorney-client privilege. But he confirmed that the law firm had investigated the relationship between the two alliance partners. In testimony earlier this month, Hitoshi Kawaguchi, formerly in charge of communications at Nissan Motor Co., said he feared that Ghosn planned to try to integrate Nissan and Renault to make the relationship "irreversible."
Kawaguchi said he worried about Nissan's lopsided relationship with Renault and about possible French government influence on the alliance. The French government owns 15% of Renault, which owns 44% of Nissan. Nissan owns 15% of Renault but has no voting rights.
Kawaguchi feared Ghosn would set up a holding company, and Nissan and Renault would remain separate in name only, losing their identities. He also sought help from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who at the time was the chief government spokesman. Suga apparently took little action.
"My only goal was to protect Nissan," Kawaguchi told the court when questioned by the defense. "I want to protect Nissan. I love Nissan. Ghosn had other intentions."Kawaguchi; former Nissan executive turned whistleblower Hari Nada and former Nissan auditor Hidetoshi Imazu described in their testimonies how they had gone to the prosecutors without consulting the company's board. That led to the arrests of Ghosn and Kelly. The final report of the internal investigation by Latham & Watkins was presented to Nissan in 2019, then headed Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa. As a result, Nissan, in cooperation with Renault, changed the governance structure at Nissan to allow for more external monitoring.
Nissan does not comment on specifics of the ongoing trial.
Ghosn has accused other top Nissan executives of engaging in a "conspiracy" to force him out. While out on bail in December 2019, Ghosn, who faces additional breach of trust charges for allegedly using Nissan money for personal gain, fled to Lebanon. Japan has no extradition treaty with Lebanon. Ghosn had halved his salary over several years, slashing it by 1 billion yen ($10 million) a year, after the disclosure of high executive pay became required in 2010. The focus of Kelly's trial is whether that difference had been decided on and should have been reported.
Earlier this year, Ghosn said French investigators had visited Lebanon to question him about probes in France into transactions between Renault and an Oman distributor; payments by a Renault-Nissan holding company in Amsterdam and a party Ghosn held at Versailles. Ghosn suggested that Japanese investigators do the same. Tokyo prosecutors have repeatedly said they have a case against both Kelly and Ghosn, who is a Lebanese, French and Brazilian national. They have not confirmed if they have gone to Lebanon, but have said they are pursuing Ghosn through various channels. Kelly's trial opened in September and a verdict is not expected for months. More than 99% of Japan's criminal trials result in convictions. Nissan as a corporate entity is a defendant in the same trial, but has acknowledged guilt, objecting only to questioning by Kelly's defense team. Separately, two Americans, Michael Taylor and his son Peter Taylor were extradited from a Boston area jail and charged Monday with helping a criminal escape. Their trial date has not been decided.

Four Syrian refugees found frozen to death in Lebanon mountains
AFP/26 March ,2021
Four Syrian refugees -- two women and two children -- were found frozen to death Friday in a mountainous area of eastern Lebanon, local officials said. Their bodies were found in the Ainata-Oyoun Orghosh area of the Mount Lebanon range, three days after they went missing, a civil defense source told AFP. They had been headed for Syria, he added. The source said the four Syrians, including a child aged seven and an eight-year-old, got out of a car in a storm to continue on foot. Bachir Khodr, the local governor, said on Twitter that the four had “died of freezing cold,” despite a search operation by security forces. A Lebanese man who had been with them is to be questioned to determine whether he was a people smuggler, Khodr said. Since the 2011 start of conflict in their country, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have crossed the border into Lebanon, often with people smugglers. Those who cross illegally avoid official border posts to return. Lebanon says it hosts 1.5 million Syrians -- nearly a million of whom are registered as refugees with the United Nations. Nine out of ten Syrians in Lebanon live in extreme poverty, the UN says. Lebanese authorities have pressured Syrians to return even though rights groups warn that Syria is not yet safe. In January 2018, 17 Syrians died of extreme cold while attempting to flee into Lebanon.

Analysis: Lebanon frozen by political intransigence as it hurtles towards collapse
Samia Nakhoul, Maha El Dahan/Reuters/March 26/2021
Just 18 months have passed since mass protests against Lebanon’s political class brought down one government, and nearly eight more months since a huge explosion destroyed the port of Beirut and toppled its successor.
Since then the currency has lost 90 per cent of its value, inflation has driven more than half the population below the poverty line, the country has defaulted on its debts, and banks have all but cut clients off from their dollar deposits.
Scenes of shoppers brawling over scarce goods, protesters burning tyres to block roads, and hundreds of shuttered businesses are now commonplace.
A vibrant Beirut has turned into a ghost-town in eerie darkness, as the outgoing energy minister warns that a total black-out is looming as fuel for electricity runs out.
Yet even as Lebanon hurtles towards outright collapse, in the worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, bickering politicians are either unwilling or unable to form a government.
Saad al-Hariri, the Sunni Muslim three-time prime minister designated by parliament to form a cabinet, stormed out of his 18th meeting with President Michel Aoun this week. He said Aoun’s Christian party, led by the president’s son-in-law Gebran Bassil, wanted to dictate cabinet seats and have veto power over decisions.
“As of today you have to satisfy Gebran Bassil’s conditions; he has the pen of the president,” said one government source.
Hariri, son of Rafik al-Hariri, the post-war premier assassinated in 2005, has called for a technocrat cabinet that must enact reforms long demanded by the IMF and donor countries such as the United States and France. He is backed by the Shi’ite Amal party, led by influential House Speaker Nabih Berri and others. Overshadowing what might otherwise look like a sectarian squabble over sharing the diminishing pie of Lebanon’s spoils system is the power of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shi’ite group that dominates Lebanon politics and underpins Aoun’s presidency.
Like other Arab countries such as Iraq and Syria, Lebanon has long been an arena of proxy competition between Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with traditionally influential Christians divided between the two.
With a new administration in Washington reassessing policy towards Iran, the regional balance of power is shifting. For now, Hezbollah, as Iran’s main client, appears reluctant to back a new governmnent that might be seen as offering a concession to Saudi- and Western-backed rivals such as Hariri.
While it agrees on the need for a government, Hezbollah is not ready to pressure Aoun and risk its alliance with his large Christian party.
‘EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT’S NEEDED’
The most optimistic scenario would see a capable government, able to regain local and international confidence, and implement reforms international lenders have demanded, such as an overhaul of the wasteful power sector, audit of the central bank and restructuring of the bloated public sector.
“Everyone knows what fiscal and monetary reforms are needed,” a senior official source told Reuters.
The pessimistic scenario would see a further collapse in the pound and plummeting economic growth, already measured at minus 25% of GDP by the IMF last year and minus 19% of GDP by the World Bank.
The economy is shrinking so fast it is difficult to measure precisely, but on present trends this year’s contraction is set to be around 10% of GDP, the source said.
The remaining foreign exchange reserves estimated at $16 billion are draining away: with roughly $500 million a month on fuel, wheat and medicine subsidies; $75 million to $100 million a month spent by the state, and at least $100 million a month when the Central Bank intervenes in the currency market.
Some officials, diplomats and politicians are inclined towards pessimism: “I don’t think the parties want a solution,” the senior official source said.
“It’s not so important who the prime minister is, what matters is the criteria and implementation, regaining confidence and credibility,” he said. “The current government started by persuading the parties to go to the IMF (and) any successor government will have to do the same. They have no choice.” As long as the paralysis continues, it is hard to fathom how bad the situation can get. Dan Azzi, former chief executive of Standard Chartered Bank in Lebanon, said a scenario could evolve in which the currency tumbles further, all basic functions of government cease to exist and chaos spreads. “If we continue like this...total control will be lost on society. This means you are driving down a road and someone with a weapon can stop you kill you, take your car, money and wife.”
Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of An-Nahar daily, said: “I don’t see any solutions, I see an open-ended crisis.”
WHAT’S AT STAKE
While Hariri blames Aoun’s demands for holding up a government, the president has so far remained intransigent.
Sources who meet Aoun quote him as saying he is not responsible for the financial crisis: as power has been held for most of the last three decades by Hariri, Hariri’s father and Berri, they should be the ones making concessions, the president believes.
The sources say Aoun’s attitude has hardened since Washington imposed sanctions on his son-in-law Bassil, the man he was grooming as a contender for president.
“There is total change. He’s not ready to make any concessions at all,” one visitor said.
The scale of financial losses and a planned audit of state finances turned into a point of friction in Lebanon last year, bringing IMF talks to a halt, as top bankers and lawmakers torpedoed the outgoing government’s draft recovery plan.
Western donors have made clear they won’t bail out Lebanon without reforms to tackle enshrined corruption and the crushing debt, and revive IMF talks. Gulf Arab states that once funnelled money to Lebanon have shut the taps, wary of the expanding role of Iran’s client Hezbollah.
Despite the meltdown, the parties that form the ruling elite appear more concerned with securing seats in next year’s parliamentary elections than enacting reforms, diplomats and sources close to power say.
“For them it’s a political game. It’s about who’s going to win. The total collapse, the economic and social costs are not a priority for them. It’s a battle of existence for them, they think they can discuss the costs later,” a source close to government sources said.
“They think they can last a bit longer – but nobody knows where the breaking point is,” added another political source.
*Additional reporting by Laila Bassam; Editing by Peter Graff
 

Behind enemy lines: Joining the IDF on a special operation in Lebanon

Udi Shaham/Jerusalem Post/March 26/2021
The enclave is a piece of territory between the concrete border that was constructed after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and the Blue Line.
It is still dark and cold outside, just before dawn. The force does some final drills on the commands it has worked on for weeks and steps outside the gate separating Israel from Lebanon.
Walking silently in two straight lines, wearing full combat gear and equipped with all the necessary devices, the soldiers suddenly kneel when their commander gives the agreed-upon sign, indicating that they need to stop.
After making sure that the coast is clear, the force keeps moving toward the gate.
The soldiers are walking on the road along a heavy concrete wall located on the top of the Sulam-Tzor (Tyre) mountain, which is the geographic barrier between the countries, stretching from Rosh Hanikra in the west to Hanita and Adamit in the east.
“The mountain is what we call a(n) [IDF] General Staff essential asset,” said Capt. Gal Tabac, a company commander in the 601st battalion who leads this operation. “Without the fog, we would be able to see Haifa from here. It means that if the enemy manages to get here with anti-tank missiles or mortars, he can shoot anything he wants from here to Haifa.”
Given this rare situation, the force is being backed by tanks and missile batteries, who point their cannons at places that enemy forces might be hiding, according to prior intelligence. It is also being covered by advanced observation units that constantly scan the area for a potential enemy.
“We’ve trained for a variety of scenarios, and the tanks and gunners are ready to fire in less than a minute if needed,” Tabac said.
Reaching the gate, Tabac sends the scout and the Oketz Canine handler to make sure that no IED is attached. After receiving the okay and checking one last time with the fire and observation units, the force starts stepping into the unknown.
“This is the moment when the adrenaline rises,” Tabac said. “This is a unique activity. There is nothing separating you from Lebanon and you need to stay as vigilant as you can.
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side. The enemy could be hiding in the bushes,” he said.
THE COMPANY’S day-to-day duty is to protect the border. Their outpost is located on the mountain, and throughout the day they carry out routine patrols with armored vehicles, man fortified watch-towers and execute other casual IDF border-protecting missions.
But this time, they were tasked to do something different – the company was asked to protect a crew of professionals that would map an exposed enclave ahead of an engineering activity inside it.
The enclave is a piece of territory between the concrete border that was constructed after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and the Blue Line – the official border that was set after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. It is one of several enclaves along the border that is sovereign Israeli territory but is outside the security fence. These enclaves were generally created in places where it was difficult to build a wall that could be defended, or was hard to construct from an engineering standpoint.
This enclave is considered a large one; most of it is covered with flora, including high bushes, trees and thorns – and geographically it is very steep. The professional engineers are tasked with mapping the area ahead of bulldozing it and clearing away the dense flora covering it.
The rationale behind it is that such an enclave – which is wide open and accessible to Lebanon – could be a perfect location for Hezbollah fighters to operate. They could use the thick bushes to hide in and carry out attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. This is not an imaginary scenario; the abduction of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in 2006 that sparked the Second Lebanon War, was carried out from such an enclave, near the area of Zar’it and Shetula. In a video that was released by Hezbollah in 2012, it can be seen how multiple Hezbollah forces attack the two soldiers’ Hummer jeep and how they easily crossed the fence to carry out their mission.
Since then, the IDF changed its attitude toward these enclaves, and it keeps operating within them, both to keep them safe – and to “apply sovereignty.”
“That’s one of our main goals,” Tabac said. “Legally, this is our territory, despite it being behind the wall. We want to apply our sovereignty up until the Blue Line, and show them that we’re here.
“We mustn’t leave our territory to anyone else,” he added. “Here in the Mideast, when it comes to territory, if you’re not on it, you’re losing it.”
The IDF Intelligence Directorate believes that the Lebanese front is the most sensitive among all of the current threats to Israel. It said in its recent annual assessment that Hezbollah is still seeking to avenge the death of an operative who was killed in an attack attributed to the Israel Air Force in Damascus last July.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech in late August, “Israel needs to understand… If they kill one of ours, we’ll kill one of yours.” That came a month after the organization accused Israel of killing one of its members, Ali Kamel Mohsen Jawad, near Damascus.
Hezbollah sees the situation as an account that needs to be settled and according to Nasrallah’s remarks, it is believed that it will try to kill an Israeli soldier in order to maintain the “equation.”
BEING INSIDE the enclave feels like venturing into the wilderness – a no-man’s-land where colorful flowers manage to grow undisturbed. Within the large green area are some black spots that seem burnt.
“This is a result of illumination bombs that were fired here when there was a suspect in the area,” Tabac explained.
The entrance to the enclave is located at the top of the hill and the exit is a few kilometers down at the bottom. To get to it, the force will have to go down the slippery and bushy slope.
The fog dissipates and the border community of Shlomi suddenly appears behind the wall at the bottom of the hill. This sight underscores the importance of the operation – if the area remained unrazed, a Hezbollah warrior could easily shoot rockets or missiles from the bushes at the small town.
The top part of the enclave was already exposed and razed by heavy machinery, and after the protecting squad took its positions and pointed its rifles toward the bushes, Tabac and the battalion commander, Lt.-Col. Avshalom Dadon went to examine the situation and see what was accomplished in the enclave so far.Behind the concrete wall, the actual Blue Line is marked with United Nations bright blue barrels scattered throughout the field. The shining blue is visible from far away, and the sign on the barrels says in both Arabic and English in all caps: “BLUE LINE: LINE OF WITHDRAWAL 2000 – DO NOT TRESPASS.”
Throughout the entire operation, Dadon makes sure that no one goes beyond the barrels, even by mistake.
“Doing so is a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty,” he said. “We are here to make sure that they don’t violate our sovereignty, so we should respect the rules, and they are expected to act the same.”
The operation is executed phase after phase, step by step. Each squad carries a bright red flag, so eye contact can be maintained even inside the thick bushes. The scout and the dog clear the path, the protecting squad takes positions, and the patrolling squad accompany the engineers and the battalion commander as they examine the ground.
“We are here to measure the incline of the slope, the type of the ground, altitude and terrain, so next time we enter, we can come with heavy machineries such as D-9s and excavators and raze the ground,” Dadon said.
“Our next entrance will take several weeks, in which we will turn the sharp slope into large, razed terraces,” he said.
GOING DOWN the slope gives one a feeling how combat in Lebanon would look like in a future war.
The IDF dubs this terrain “roof bushes,” which essentially means that it covers you completely, and you feel as if you have a roof over your head. The forces need to pave their way inside the bushes and the thorns, while the protecting force constantly needs to stay on alert and ensure that no one is emerging from behind the blue barrels.
At some point, the observations tell Tabac that they spot suspicious movement on the Lebanese side.
The force gets into positions, and the battalion’s armored vehicle patrol, which operates on the Israeli side of the fence, tells by Tabac to scramble to the point, and see if they can spot enemy troops while the observation forces scan the area.
In these tense moments, Tabac makes radio contact with the different squads and ensures that the artillery and the tanks are ready and in position to lay down fire, if needed. After several tense minutes, Tabac is told that everything is okay, and that his troops can keep moving. However, he’s told he is being watched by the Lebanese Army intelligence’s pickup trucks. The IDF claims that these trucks are used by Hezbollah operatives who sit in civilian clothes side-by-side with Lebanese soldiers, despite UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which bans any Hezbollah presence in Southern Lebanon.
On the one hand, Tabac’s troops go on heightened alert in case a confrontation erupts. On the other hand, the observation by the Lebanese helps the force achieve its goal to assert dominance and show the other side that we are here.
This new information doesn’t stop the force from completing the task and after reaching the bottom of the valley, they cross the concrete wall and are safely back inside the less exposed part of Israel. After finishing, the company takes a group photo – a memento from a unique activity.
“We achieved our goals in this operation,” Dadon said, just before the force starts walking back to its borderline outpost. “We studied the terrain so that next time we can come with the heavy machines. We also learned the importance of understanding the area – it is exceedingly thick, and razing it will help us monitor every small movement within it. There were some cases in which only after events took place did we understand that hostile forces came very close [to the border] inside the bushes.
“This is the first step that will eventually lead to better control of the border area – and greater safety for the residents,” he concluded. 

Rafik al-Hariri’s murder was ‘Iranian-Syrian decision,’ executed by Hezbollah: Tlass
Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English/March 26/2021
Hezbollah was behind the execution of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and the assassination was a “shared Syrian-Iranian decision,” Syrian opposition figure Firas Tlass told Al Arabiya.
In a sit-down interview with Al Arabiya, Tlass discussed the assassination of Lebanon’s ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri in a 2005 bombing, which he said “the Syrian regime had a hand and which Hezbollah executed.”
A UN backed tribunal in December convicted a Hezbollah member of conspiring to kill al-Hariri, however Hezbollah has denied any links to the attack. Tlass said he “loved Rafik al-Hariri as a person,” however, the Syrian regime considered him an enemy.
This, he stressed, was particularly true of Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad who only nominated al-Hariri as prime minister due to pressures from peers, notably Elias Hrawi, the former President of Lebanon.
However, both Hafez and Bashar al-Assad “strongly believed that al-Hariri was planning to become a Sunni Arab leader over Syria and Lebanon,” according to Tlass.
Tlass told Al Arabiya that “malign intentions intensified” against al-Hariri after Bashar al-Assad saw a video that reportedly depicted the late Lebanese prime minister claiming he would lead both countries.
“This is when malign intentions intensified against Rafik al-Hariri,” said Tlass. The “breaking point” was the occupation of Iraq.
“The Americans came in and complicated the situation,” he said. “Al-Hariri had strong ties with them and that complicated things further.
“From their (the Syrian regime) point of view, al-Hariri was coordinating with the Americans to invade Syria and topple the regime.”
His assassination was “a shared Syrian-Iranian decision,” claimed Tlass. “A Syrian-Iranian decision and a Syrian-Hezbollah execution.”
When asked if he has any credible proof, Tlass said: “There is no information simply because in Syria assassinations are ordered on a piece of paper or in-person, meaning that Bashar al-Assad invites three or four officers, which are all well-known, and he would tell them the name of the person to assassinate.
“The decision was from Iran and Syria and the officers were called in and given the order in Damascus to get the work done.
“They worked with high precision and executed with precision.”
Ties with Hezbollah
According to Tlass, he had an “excellent” relationship with Lebanon’s Hezbollah before it changed at the beginning of the Syrian revolution
Tlass, the son of former defense minister Mustafa, said: “(Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah used to visit my father at least once or twice a year.”
They both, said Tlass, share common ideals in that “Hezbollah and its project in Lebanon contradict the concept of the State.”
Tlass himself began to have meetings with Nasrallah, either at a hotel or in the Lebanese suburbs, often chatting for “an hour or two hours” at a time.
While many struggled to gain access to the Hezbollah leader, Tlass claims that was not the case for him, “as they considered our relationship to be friendly,” and he debunked media claims that the leader is living in hiding.
“He is not the type of person who would live underground,” said Tlass.
Broken relations
But after the conflicts in Syria erupted, Tlass fled his home country following the start of the civil war in March 2011. This is thought to be around the same time his father left the country too.
Tlass has since severed ties with Hezbollah, he claims, although says he still has contacts with relatives who are part of the group.
“No, not at all. I am completely on the opposite side,” he said when asked about his political ties with the group.
He recalled a message Nasrallah had sent to his father in 2015 on behalf of Bashar al-Assad..
“He stated, “Come back to Syria where you will be treated well and receive whatever you want, but your kids are our enemies”,” said Tlass.
His father responded, saying “I am in Paris and all of us are enemies.”
Lebanese-Syrian borders
Tlass also discussed a “demographic change on the Lebanese-Syrian borders,” which he said is for the benefit of Hezbollah and Iran.
“It is commissioned by Iran to cancel the borders in that area. There are no borders and no police checkpoints. As a result, Hezbollah completely manages both Syrian and Lebanese sides.”
Bashar al-Assad’s regime has no presence of power in the area, said Tlass.
This demographic change, he added, is leading to “the more dangerous and more discreet conversion to Shia.”
Iran recruiting children, journalists as ‘weapons of war’
Hezbollah is now targeting children as young as seven in the eastern region of Syria and also media professionals across Damascus and Aleppo as part of new attempts to grow their army and gain control over enemies, Tlass told Al Arabiya.
“They send skilled young journalists to Iran for a training where they are taken care of and spoiled.”
“A lot of people say that they do not care about Bashar al-Assad, Turkey, or Syria All they care about is the winner and being with the winner. Iran is acting like a winner and inviting others to join it.”
“This is where the danger of Iran lies for the entire Arab region. Some people want to be alongside the winner.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 26-27/2021

Suspect in Iran 1988 mass executions to be tried in Sweden in June
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/26 March ,2021
An Iranian who was arrested in Sweden in 2019 on suspicion of carrying out crimes against humanity in the 1980s in Iran will be tried in June, according to one of the plaintiffs in the case. “The trial of Hamid Nouri will be held on June 8. This is the biggest court case in Sweden’s history,” Iraj Mesdaghi, former political prisoner and one of the plaintiffs in the case, tweeted on Wednesday. Mesdaghi added that he will appear in court as the first plaintiff on June 22 and June 24. This would be the first trial ever for an alleged perpetrator of Iran’s mass executions of political prisoners in the summer of 1988.
Nouri’s arrest has been extended several times since he was detained at an airport in Stockholm in November 2019. He was allegedly a member of what came to be known as the “death committee,” a group of Iranian judiciary and security officials put together by former Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini in 1988. The committee oversaw the mass executions of thousands of political prisoners – mostly leftists and members of dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – at the time. Several members of the committee hold key positions in Iran today, such as Ebrahim Raisi, who heads the judiciary and is often viewed as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. As many as 5,000 people were executed, according to international rights groups. MEK puts the number at 30,000. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions.

Houthis continue to reject peace efforts, attack Saudi Arabia: Defense Ministry
Tamara Abueish, Al Arabiya English/26 March ,2021
The Iran-backed Houthi militia’s attack on a petroleum distribution terminal in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan confirm the group’s rejection of all peace efforts put forth by the Kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) cited the Ministry of Defense as saying on Friday. The Houthi’s attack on the distribution station on Thursday night was “cowardly,” and did not only target Saudi Arabia and its economic facilities, but also targeted the global economy, the security of oil exports, and the stability of oil supplies, the ministry’s spokesman Brigadier General Turki al-Maliki said. The attack also threatened the freedom of navigation and international trade, he added. A fire erupted at 09:08 pm local time at a petroleum products distribution terminal after it was hit by a projectile, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Energy announced on Thursday. No casualties were reported. Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia proposed a new peace initiative to end the ongoing conflict in Yemen between the internationally-recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthis. The new initiative includes a nationwide ceasefire that will be implemented under the supervision of the United Nations, the Kingdom’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan said during a press conference in Riyadh on Monday. “It is up to the Houthis now, and we are ready to go today. We hope that we can have a ceasefire immediately. The Houthis must decide whether to put their interests first or Iran’s interests first,” Prince Faisal had said. The Saudi Royal Air Defense Forces and the Saudi Royal Air Force were able to intercept and destroy eight booby-trapped drones that were launched by the Houthi militia to deliberately target civilians, al-Maliki said, according to SPA. The Iran-backed group also launched three ballistic missiles towards the Kingdom, one of which fell after it was launched from Yemen’s Sanaa in the al-Jawf governorate, according to al-Maliki. The two other ballistic missiles landed in two uninhabited border areas, he added.

Saudi Arabia’s defense forces intercept Houthi ballistic missile over Najran
Tamara Abueish, Al Arabiya English/26 March ,2021
Saudi Arabia’s defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile over the city of Najran on Friday morning, Al Arabiya sources said. Najran, is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen. The Arab Coalition later confirmed that a missile was intercepted over the city. The Houthis were targeting civilian objects that is protected under international law, the Arab Coalition said. The foiled attack comes less than 24 hours after the Ministry of Energy announced that a petroleum distribution terminal in Jazan was hit by a Houthi projectile, causing it to catch on fire. The Kingdom’s air defenses also intercepted and destroyed on Thursday eight explosive drones launched by the Iran-backed Houthis targeting civilian areas in Saudi Arabia. The Iran-backed Houthi militia’s attack on a petroleum distribution terminal in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan confirm the group’s rejection of all peace efforts put forth by the Kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) cited the Ministry of Defense as saying on Friday. “These attacks confirm the terrorist Houthi militia’s rejection of all political efforts to end the crisis,” defense ministry spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said in a statement. The Houthi’s attack on the distribution station on Thursday night was “cowardly,” and did not only target Saudi Arabia and its economic facilities, but also targeted the global economy, the security of oil exports, and the stability of oil supplies, al-Maliki added. Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia proposed a new peace initiative to end the ongoing conflict in Yemen between the internationally-recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthis. The new initiative includes a nationwide ceasefire that will be implemented under the supervision of the United Nations, the Kingdom’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan said during a press conference in Riyadh on Monday.

Saudi Reports Fire at Oil Terminal as Huthis Escalate Attacks
Associated Press/March 26/2021
A projectile attack sparked a fire at an oil terminal in southern Saudi Arabia, the country's energy ministry said Friday, on the sixth anniversary of a Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen. The ministry did not say who was behind the strike in Jizan province on Thursday, but it comes as Yemen's Huthi rebels escalate attacks on the kingdom -- including its energy facilities -- despite Saudi Arabia's offer this week for a ceasefire. The upsurge in cross-border attacks comes even as the United States pushes anew for a cessation in hostilities, with Washington's special envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking set to return to the Middle East to press for a ceasefire in the war-torn country. "A projectile attack on a petroleum products distribution terminal in Jizan... resulted in a fire in one of the terminal's tanks," the energy ministry said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency, adding that no casualties were reported. Strongly condemning the "cowardly attack", the ministry said the strike was not just an assault on the kingdom but the world economy and global energy security. Earlier Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted several explosives-laden drones fired towards the kingdom by the Iran-aligned rebels, state media reported. The Huthis also attempted to target universities in Najran and Jizan, southern cities close to the Yemeni border, the coalition said. The insurgents did not immediately claim responsibility for the strikes.
'Lasting ceasefire'
Saudi Arabia on Monday offered the Huthis a "comprehensive" UN-supervised ceasefire, as part of a series of fresh proposals aimed at ending the catastrophic six-year conflict.
The kingdom also proposed to reopen the international airport in Sanaa, the rebel-held Yemeni capital, and restart political negotiations between the warring sides. But the Huthis swiftly dismissed the initiative as "nothing new" as they reiterated their demand that a Saudi-led air and sea blockade on Yemen be completely lifted. The coalition says it enforced a naval and air blockade to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the rebels from Iran -- allegations Tehran denies. Lenderking travelled to the Middle East on Thursday for discussions to "promote a lasting ceasefire and peace agreement" in Yemen, along with efforts to address the country's humanitarian crisis, the State Department said. The US administration of President Joe Biden is also mounting a renewed push to end the conflict. On his previous visit to the region last month, Lenderking made contact with the Huthis in Oman, sources told AFP. Saudi Arabia's ceasefire offer, the second since last year, marks what analysts call a public exercise by the kingdom to portray the Iran-backed insurgents as aggressors while it seeks a way out of the military quagmire in Yemen. Riyadh led a military coalition into Yemen in March 2015 to prop up the internationally recognised government, but it has struggled to oust the rebels. Amid a surge in Huthi missile and drone attacks on the kingdom, Saudi Arabia last Sunday began naval drills in the Gulf in a bid to boost the security of its oil fields, state media reported. Saudi-backed forces are also under pressure as the Huthis battle towards Marib, the Yemeni government's last northern stronghold in the war-ravaged country. Yemen on Friday marks the sixth anniversary of the Saudi-led military coalition's involvement in the war, which has left the country broken and on the edge of famine. The grinding conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions, according to international organisations, sparking what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia jeopardizing Yemen peace efforts: US State Department
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/26 March ,2021
The United States on Friday condemned yet another string of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, which it said were a “clear provocation meant to perpetuate the conflict.” A petroleum products distribution terminal in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan was struck by a projectile on Thursday, causing a fire at one of the terminal’s tanks, the Saudi Ministry of Energy said. This came after Saudi Arabia’s air defenses intercepted and destroyed at least eight bomb-laden drones fired by the Iran-backed Houthis targeting civilians in the Kingdom overnight Thursday. “The actions by the Houthis are a clear provocation meant to perpetuate the conflict. This is the latest in a series of Houthi attempts to disrupt global energy supplies and threatens civilian populations,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price said on Friday. Saudi Arabia and the US have been working in tandem with the United Nations to end the yearslong war in Yemen. However, the Houthis continue to escalate their offensive on Marib and their cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia. US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking is back in the region for his third trip in less than two months as the Biden administration steps up its efforts to reach a ceasefire. So far, the Houthis have rejected ceasefire proposals from the UN and the US. Saudi Arabia announced another initiative aimed at ending the war earlier this week. Houthi officials reportedly welcomed parts of it, but they continued to attack the Kingdom. Thursday’s attack comes days after the Yemeni government announced its backing for the Saudi initiative. “The Houthis’ actions are prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people and jeopardizing peace efforts at a critical moment when the international community is increasingly united behind a ceasefire and a resolution of the conflict,” the State Department official said. “We again call on all parties to commit seriously to and strictly uphold a ceasefire and engage in negotiations under UN auspices, in conjunction with UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths and US Special Envoy Tim Lenderking,” Price added.
 

Chinese foreign minister in Iran, expected to sign 25-year accord: Iran’s state media
Reuters/Published: 26 March ,2021
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Iran on Friday for a visit that Iranian state media said would see the signing of a 25-year cooperation agreement between the two countries, which are both under US sanctions. The accord, final details of which are yet to be announced, is expected to include Chinese investments in Iran’s key sectors such as energy and infrastructure. In 2016, China, one of Iran’s largest trading partners and long-time ally, agreed to boost bilateral trade by more than 10 times to $600 billion in the next decade. “The signing of the comprehensive cooperation program of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China by the foreign ministers of the two countries is another program of this two-day trip,” Iran’s state news agency IRNA said. The accord comes as Tehran hardens its stance towards the United States and the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear accord with world powers. On Thursday, China’s commerce ministry said the country will make efforts to safeguard the Iran nuclear deal and defend the legitimate interests of Sino-Iranian relations. China’s comments came after Reuters reported that Iran has “indirectly” moved record volumes of oil into China in recent months, marked as supplies from other countries, even as China customs data showed that no Iranian oil was imported in the first two months of this year. US President Joe Biden has sought to revive talks with Iran on the nuclear deal abandoned by former President Donald Trump in 2018, although harsh economic measures remain in place that Tehran insists be lifted before any negotiations resume. The United States and the other Western powers that signed the 2015 deal appear at odds with Tehran over which side should return to the accord first, making it unlikely that US sanctions which have crippled Iran’s economy can be quickly removed. However, the OPEC member’s oil exports climbed in January after a boost in the fourth quarter, despite US sanctions, in a sign that the end of Trump’s term as US president may be changing buyer behavior, after a sharp drop in Iranian exports to China and other Asian customers since late 2018.

Turkey’s lira slid as much as 2% as executive-level overhaul spreads
Reuters/26 March ,2021
The Turkish lira slid as much as 2% on Friday as executive overhauls at state bank Ziraat and the exchange operator followed the shock replacement of a hawkish central bank chief with one expected to usher in interest rate cuts. The lira dropped to as far as 8.09 against the dollar before trimming losses to 1.3% to stand at 8.04 at 1502 GMT. It has shed 10% since Naci Agbal was sacked as bank governor on Saturday, and began the week briefly plunging 15%. Agbal - who had hiked the policy rate to 19% to head off near 16% inflation - was replaced by Sahap Kavcioglu, who like Erdogan is a critic of tight policy. Capital Economics said it expects a 200-point cut in the policy rate next month and more easing later in the year due to “upheaval” at the central bank. It also expects the lira to slide to 9.5 versus the dollar by year-end. Last weekend, before the volatile market open, Kavcioglu said a permanent fall in inflation remained the goal and that an unscheduled policy meeting was not planned. The next meeting is on April 15. “The new governor at the very, very least has to hold pat in the April 15 meeting, and ideally with a tightening bias,” said Patrick Esteruelas, head of research at Emso Asset management in New York. “But I think that’s kind of pie in the sky,” he told Reuters, given Erdogan’s public calls for lower rates.
Rapid turnover
A flurry of top-level changes continued as Ziraat Bank named Alpaslan Cakar its new CEO, replacing Huseyin Aydin, who was also chair of the national banks’ association (TBB). At Borsa Istanbul, sources said Korkmaz Ergun would become CEO. He would replace Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a former Halkbank executive who was convicted in an Iran sanctions-busting case in the United States and resigned earlier this month. The rapid turnover at powerful state and financial institutions began in November when Agbal and a new finance minister were named, and continued this month with changes at the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and Turkey Wealth Fund, where Erdogan loyalist Salim Arda Ermut took the reins. The latest overhaul at the central bank sent Turkish stocks down more than 10% this week. Istanbul’s main index slid some 1% on Friday. Investors sold $29.2 million from Turkish lira-denominated bond funds in the week ended March 24, the biggest weekly net selling this year, on the prospect of quick rate cuts. Foreign funds have reported about $3.4 billion in Turkish stock and sovereign dollar bond holdings so far this year - much of which could be in the red after Agbal’s ousting. “The moment they start to lower rates, the market will effectively be pricing the beginning of a loosening cycle that will bring real rates back into negative territory, not attract foreign inflows and potentially fuel another round of dollarization by locals,” said Esteruelas, of Emso.

US goes ahead with $1.15 bln financing deal, hailing Sudan reforms
AFP, Khartoum/26 March ,2021
The United States confirmed Friday it has assisted Sudan with more than $1 billion to help clear arrears at the World Bank as it hailed reforms by the civilian-backed government. President Joe Biden’s administration said it carried out a financing deal signed in January by the previous treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, on a trip to Sudan, which has faced unrest over the past several years due to the dire economic situation. The Treasury Department on Thursday provided Sudan with $1.15 billion in bridge financing, typically loans that cover short-term needs. No US taxpayer money was involved. “Sudan’s civilian-led transitional government deserves credit for making challenging but necessary reforms to restore its social contract with the Sudanese people,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Mnuchin’s successor. The financing “will move Sudan one step closer to securing much needed-debt relief and help the nation reintegrate into the international financial community,” she said in a statement. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a British-educated economist, has been seeking ways to end conflicts and rebuild economic opportunities as Sudan turns the page on decades of pariah status under Omar al-Bashir, who was toppled in April 2019. In the final months of Donald Trump’s administration, the United States removed Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a long-sought goal of Khartoum as the designation severely impeded investment. Trump agreed to the move after pushing Sudan to agree to normalize ties with US ally Israel, a decision that has triggered protests in Khartoum.

United States Seizes Websites Used by Foreign Terrorist Organization
U.S. Attorneys » Eastern District of Virginia » News
Department of Justice/U.S. Attorney’s Office/Eastern District of Virginia
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 25, 2021
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The United States has seized “r-m-n.net” and “Almaalomah.com,” two websites that were unlawfully utilized by Kata’ib Hizballah, a Specially Designated National and a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“The internet must not be used as a recruitment tool for terrorist organizations to promote violent extremism and spread their hateful rhetoric,” said Raj Parekh, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “We stand committed with our law enforcement partners to use all available resources to combat terrorism.” “Special Agents with the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Office of Export Enforcement will use all of the tools at our disposal to protect American citizens, including our military service members, from terrorist acts of violence inspired and directed via online platforms,” said Kevin J. Kurland, who is performing the non-exclusive duties of the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the Bureau of Industry and Security. “We will continue to aggressively disrupt Foreign Terrorist Organizations such as Kata’ib Hizballah and their efforts to utilize U.S. cyber infrastructure to harm U.S. national security.”
On July 2, 2009, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury designated Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iran-backed terrorist group active in Iraq, as a Specially Designated National for committing, directing, supporting, and posing a significant risk of committing acts of violence against Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces. On the same day, the U.S. Department of State designated Kata’ib Hizballah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization for committing or posing a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism.
On Aug. 31, 2020, pursuant to a seizure warrant in the District of Arizona, the United States seized “Aletejahtv.com” and “Aletejahtv.org.” “Aletejahtv.com” and “Aletejahtv.org,” served as Kata’ib Hizballah’s media arm and published internet communications such as videos, articles, and photographs. Within weeks, federal agents located the content from “Aletejahtv.com” and “Aletejahtv.org” on “Aletejah.tv” and “kataibhezbollah.com,” including the Kata’ib Hizballah flag and the words “Islamic Resistance, Kataib Hizbollah.” The content even included false information about COVID-19 designed to damage the perception of the United States in the minds of Iraqi citizens and to destabilize the region to the benefit of Iran. On Oct. 14, 2020, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued in the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States seized “Aletejah.tv” and “kataibhezbollah.com.”
On March 25, 2021, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued in the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States seized “Almaalomah.com” and “r-m-n.net.” Visitors to the site received the following message:
Domain Seizure Graphic
Federal law prohibits designated entities like Kata’ib Hizballah from obtaining or utilizing goods or services, including website and domain services, in the United States without a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control. “Almaalomah.com” and “r-m-n.net” are domain names that are owned and operated by a U.S. company based in Reston, Virginia. Kata’ib Hizballah did not obtain a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control prior to utilizing the domain names.
This seizure was investigated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement, Miami Field Office.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Department of Justice’s National Security Division prosecuted the seizure.
A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Israeli-owned ship hit by missile in suspected Iranian attack: Israeli official
JERUSALEM /Reuters//March 26/2021
A cargo ship owned by an Israeli company was damaged by a missile in the Arabian Sea on Thursday in what was suspected to be an Iranian attack, an Israeli security official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ship was on its way from Tanzania to India and was able to continue its voyage after the attack. The official did not provide further details. According to Israel’s Ynet news website, the ship sailing under a Liberian flag did not sustain serious damage and Channel 12 news reported the ship is owned by XT Management, based in the port city of Haifa. Reuters could not reach officials at the company for comment. Israeli government officials had no official comment. Maritime security company Dryad Global said it suspected, though could not confirm, that the vessel involved in the alleged attack was the container ship MT LORI. It said the ship, while en route to the Indian port Mundra from Dar Es Salaam, came to a full stop and drifted for about three hours, before continuing its journey at about its original speed. It comes about a month after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran for an explosion aboard an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman. The vehicle-carrier MV Helios Ray was hit between the night of Feb. 25 and morning of Feb. 26 by a blast above the water line that a U.S. official said ripped holes in both sides of its hull. An Israeli official said limpet mines were used. Iran denied involvement at the time. “We strongly reject this accusation,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Tehran. Reporting by Dan Williams and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by William Maclean and Matthew Lewis.

Attempt to Refloat Ship Blocking Suez Canal Fails
Agence France Presse/March 26/2021
An attempt Friday to refloat a giant container ship blocking Egypt's Suez Canal has failed, the vessel's managers said. "Another attempt to refloat the vessel earlier today... was not successful," the Singapore-based Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement said in a statement, referring to the MV Ever Given, which has been wedged diagonally across the entire canal since Tuesday, shutting the waterway in both directions.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 26-27/2021

Iran must come clean on its nuclear deception
Richard Goldberg and Anthony Ruggiero/The Hill/March 26/2021
President Joe Biden’s Iran policy centers on the notion of “compliance for compliance” — if Iran returns to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States will follow suit and lift its sanctions on Iran. But with recent revelations that Tehran has been cheating on the deal from day one, Biden must compel Iran to fully account for all undeclared nuclear activities before easing sanctions. Otherwise, he will irreparably harm the international safeguards regime.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi on March 1 announced that the agency visited three sites in Iran last year and discovered undeclared nuclear material at two of them. The Institute for Science and International Security stated that one of the sites was the location of a pilot uranium conversion facility and the other was used to test components for Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Grossi also reported that for the last 18 months, “Iran has not provided the necessary, full and technically credible explanation” for why the IAEA found nuclear material at an additional site where Grossi said there was a “clear indication that nuclear material and/or equipment contaminated by nuclear material has been present.”
These are not historical problems. The Biden administration faces an imminent threat to the IAEA’s safeguards regime. Iran committed to the nonproliferation principles enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA safeguards regime. A core element of these commitments is that non-nuclear weapon states, like Iran, commit to not develop nuclear weapons and the IAEA implements a system of safeguards that verify Iran is not using declared facilities to produce nuclear weapons.
When a country conducts nuclear activities at undeclared sites outside the safeguards system, it suggests that the country is attempting to produce materiel or components necessary for a nuclear weapon.
Tehran’s repeated attempts to hide its activities is a troublesome sign that we do not yet know the full extent of those activities. If the Biden administration sweeps this issue away as the Obama administration did to preserve the JCPOA it will have devastating impacts on the IAEA safeguards regime.
A reporter recently asked State Department spokesperson Ned Price a simple question: Does Iran need to declare to the IAEA all its currently undeclared nuclear sites, materials and activities for the regime to be considered “back in compliance” with the JCPOA? Mr. Price’s response was anything but simple: “…we know that Iran continues to take steps in excess of the JCPOA… So it’s precisely why we put this offer on the table, to meet with the Iranians in the context of the P5+1, to try and get back to that point of joint full compliance with the JCPOA… And so the IAEA will be the judge as to whether Iran is or is not in full compliance.”
Price’s convoluted answer raises several concerns and could signal Biden’s willingness to ignore Iran’s potential breach of the NPT. First, Iran’s concealment of a secret nuclear archive — which Tehran likely kept to allow for a quick restart of its nuclear weapons program — and its undeclared nuclear activities occurred before the Iran-U.S. JCPOA standoff. The State Department should not tie Iran’s concealment to its post-2019 JCPOA breaches. Since the deceit occurred before, during and after JCPOA negotiations, we should expect the deceit to continue if the United States returns to the agreement without first resolving these issues.
Second, Price’s statement does not explicitly call out Iran and wrongly frames a U.S. return to the JCPOA as a possible solution. President Obama said in August 2015 that “if Iran cheats, we can catch them — and we will.” On Implementation Day in January 2016, the Obama administration claimed that the JCPOA allowed the IAEA to continuously monitor “every element of Iran’s declared nuclear program” and the IAEA would also verify “that no fissile material is covertly carted off to a secret location to build a bomb.”
The Biden administration must come to terms with this basic truth: The IAEA didn’t know that Iran was concealing a nuclear archive, nuclear sites and nuclear materials until the Mossad discovered the archive.
The JCPOA’s verification regime failed, much as it did in the early 2000s when foreign sources tipped off the agency to Iran’s secret nuclear facilities. An Iran-IAEA deal brokered last month could lead to Iran destroying three months of monitoring data that could further weaken IAEA monitoring.
The JCPOA’s monitoring deficit is worsened by Iran’s refusal to allow inspections at military sites. Given that Iran’s secret military-nuclear organization, SPND, employs nuclear weapons scientists, the United States cannot have confidence in the IAEA’s ability to fully verify Iran’s activities until and unless the regime fully accounts for its undeclared work. In 2015, the Obama administration made a fatal error of allowing the JCPOA to proceed without forcing such a full accounting. The Biden administration now has an opportunity to correct course.
Finally, the State Department spokesperson’s claim that the IAEA will decide whether and when Iran is in full compliance with the JCPOA raises additional questions. While the IAEA plays an important role in verifying and monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities, certification of Iran’s commitments would be a political decision through the JCPOA’s Joint Commission or the IAEA’s Board of Governors.
Preventing undeclared nuclear activities is a fundamental nonproliferation principle that is supported by Republicans and Democrats. If the Biden administration returns to the JCPOA without resolving the problem of Iran’s undeclared activities, it would send a dangerous message and green light Tehran to advance a clandestine nuclear weapons program. North Korea will be taking notes given its own unresolved nuclear activities, and countries eying expanded nuclear programs, like Saudi Arabia, may learn the same lesson. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East could follow.
President Biden should deliver a clear message: There will be no sanctions relief for Iran without a full accounting. There should be no going back to a nuclear deal based on nuclear deception. To delude himself otherwise, Biden would repeat the mistakes of the past and slowly unravel the NPT framework, leading to a more dangerous world with more countries with nuclear weapons.
*Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (@FDD), a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Goldberg previously served as Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the National Security Council. Follow him on Twitter @rich_goldberg
*Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow at FDD. He previously served in the U.S. government for more than 19 years, most recently as senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the U.S. National Security Council. He was the nonproliferation advisor to the U.S. delegation to the 2005 rounds of the Six-Party Talks. Follow him on Twitter @NatSecAnthony

Erdogan’s Power Plays Turn to Profit Margins
Aykan Erdemir/Foreign Policy/March 26/2021
While conventional wisdom has it that for-profit corporations pursue profit at the expense of all else, they are not obliged to: In fact, modern corporate law neither dictates profit maximization nor second-guesses board decisions about what is best for a company. But Turkey’s trade ministry begs to differ. The ministry is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against a joint-stock company for exactly that—allegedly failing to prioritize profits.
If the charge seems speculative and ill-founded, that’s because it is. Nevertheless, a ruling in favor of the prosecution would enable the Turkish government to take over the firm in its crosshairs. And that has consequences: Not only would such a verdict strike down economic freedoms—serving as the final nail in the coffin of Turkish private property rights—but it would also create a bogus precedent whereby President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can effectively nullify his political foes. That bears a financial cost nobody—not even Erdogan—can afford.
The company in question is Anadolu Kultur, one of Turkey’s leading arts and culture institutions and the brainchild of Osman Kavala, a prominent Turkish entrepreneur and philanthropist. Since establishing Anadolu Kultur—which remains privately held—in 2002, Kavala has been a generous benefactor of numerous initiatives that seek to document and restore minority heritage sites and intercommunal reconciliation projects across Turkey. Though these efforts have won Kavala a whole slate of awards, including the European Archaeological Heritage Prize, they have also landed him on Erdogan’s hit list.
Anadolu Kultur is the epitome of everything Erdogan despises: a business that refuses to become his client and toe his ideological line. Kavala’s tireless efforts to protect and highlight Turkey’s diversity—whether ethnic, religious, or sexual—and nurture pluralism through grassroots projects are a direct threat to Erdogan’s imagined monolith of a nation of heterosexual Turkish Sunni Muslim men and their obedient wives and daughters. For the Turkish president, the battle over Anadolu Kultur is an existential culture war that threatens the very foundations of his ethno-religious engineering project.
The Turkish president has found ways to target his ideological foe under practical pretenses. Erdogan insists—without substantiation—that Kavala “financed terrorists” during the Gezi Park protests, a series of nationwide demonstrations that shook the Justice and Development Party-led government in 2013. Authorities first arrested Kavala for the charge in 2017. After an acquittal in a Turkish court—and a European Court of Human Rights ruling in his favor—Kavala has remained in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison outside Istanbul for over three years. So far, in court, Erdogan’s opinion of Kavala appears to have greater weight than (the lack of) any evidence against him. New chargesof “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order,” brought only hours after of Kavala’s acquittal in February 2020, could lend him a life sentence without parole.
The Turkish government, however, is not satisfied with simply locking Kavala up. Ankara also wants to take over Anadolu Kultur and shutter it for good. Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board combed through 10 years of company documents and bank records to no avail; government inspectors were not able to find even a single irregularity. This should come as no surprise given that Anadolu Kultur’s board of directors is a who’s who of reputable figures with distinguished records of upholding their fiduciary duties across various sectors.
For Erdogan, the battle over Anadolu Kultur is an existential culture war that threatens the very foundations of his ethno-religious engineering project.
Anadolu Kultur’s sound corporate governance forced Ankara to improvise by way of legal “innovation,” and that is how Turkey’s trade ministry in February invented the crime of failing to prioritize profits. It’s an especially odd accusation given that Anadolu Kultur is not publicly traded and thus has no shareholders to which it reports. But the Turkish government claims Kavala’s company operates “in a similar way to associations and foundations,” which poses a threat to “public order.” For Erdogan, the work Anadolu Kultur and other like-minded for-profit and nonprofit entities undertake to advocate for gender equality, Kurdish and LGBTI rights, and reconciliation with Armenia—among other pluralist causes—is an existential threat to the ideological straitjacket he would like to force upon the Turkish citizenry.
The lawsuit against Anadolu Kultur isn’t happening in a vacuum. Turkish businesses have been on edge for a while. After the failed coup attempt in 2016, the Erdogan government seized assets worth at least $11 billion from nearly 1,000 businesses allegedly linked to Erdogan-ally-turned-archnemesis Fethullah Gulen—a religious cleric Ankara accuses of masterminding the putsch—which led to a steady erosion of private property rights in the country. This economic crackdown and subsequent financial mismanagement prompted the biggest outflows from Turkey’s debt and equity markets in more than a decade and also dried up foreign direct investment from Ankara’s traditional economic partners in the West. In short, it has benefited no one—not even Erdogan. Now, as Ankara is poised to effectively criminalize corporate social responsibility—that is, prioritizing factors other than revenue—the economic ramifications promise to be even more momentous.
Ironically, a profitable Anadolu Kultur is the opposite of what the Turkish government actually wants. Ankara would much rather see the company go bankrupt, but Anadolu Kultur’s talented executives and their sound management practices make that highly unlikely. As a result, the Turkish president has pretended to be invested in its success—all so he can take over Anadolu Kultur and liquidate it. This would, in Erdogan’s view, not only eliminate the nuisance posed by Kavala and his company but also have a chilling effect on others who might dare to follow in his footsteps and promote pluralism, diversity, and social inclusion through for-profit entities.
If an Istanbul court rules as Erdogan wishes, it will open up a new era of judicial second-guessing on how best to serve for-profit corporations. The late Cornell Law School professor Lynn Stout noted that forcing companies to pursue profit at the expense of all else could carry unintended consequences—including an easy out for mistreating employees, customers, communities, and the environment. Stout also warned that a focus on short-term earnings could curtail investment and innovation. Indeed, as numerous U.S. states begin to allow corporate boards to consider social or environmental objectives ahead of profits through benefit-corporation laws, Ankara seems to be going in the opposite direction.
Erdogan’s pursuit of Turkey’s dissident businesspeople and their companies by way of tortured legal cases will inevitably have a distorting effect on economic behavior at home while also scaring off international investors. Anadolu Kultur has a long historyof working with numerous Western for-profit and nonprofit entities, such as the World Monuments Fund, European Cultural Foundation, British Council, and Goethe-Institut. What guarantee do these organizations have that such a precedent won’t target or pressure their Turkey-based representatives or partners in the future?
Ankara should look to the Asia-Pacific for a warning that economic pressure campaigns carry real consequences for all involved. China’s “mainlandization” of Hong Kong’s judicial system and undermining of its Basic Law have had grave effects on international business. Since Beijing’s definition of national security includes finance and economic activities, analysts warn that its heavy-handed meddling could trigger a capital flight, putting Hong Kong’s status as a financial hub in jeopardy. In a global indexof the competitiveness of financial centers, Hong Kong’s rating has declined 42 points within the last two years—from its all-time high of 783 in March 2019 to 741 in March 2021.
Tampering with the market may prove to be a very costly way to muzzle dissidents and close loyalist ranks.
Istanbul, also once considered a global financial center, has already suffered a much more dramatic decline: 65 points since its all-time high in September 2014. The city now ranks as the 74th most competitive financial hub in the world, a 10-place slide since September 2020 alone. Last year, Turkey experienced the biggest outflowsfrom its debt and equity markets in more than a decade. In 2019, Turkey’s FDI net inflows, excluding real estate, nosedived to their lowest point within the last 15 years—hitting a negative in 2020, the first since October 2000. And this week, Erdogan’s erratic meddling in financial markets—reshuffling the central bank chief for the fourth time in five years—led to a meltdownin Turkey’s currency and stock market. In short: Erdogan’s efforts to remedy Western capital flight with investments from his ideological ally Qatar—which injected $22 billion within the last five years alone and now accounts for 15 percent of Turkey’s FDI stock—are not sustainable. Attacks on domestic corporations with which he is ideologically at odds will come back to hurt the entire Turkish populace.
If the Turkish economy really can’t take any more hits, why is Erdogan going to such lengths just to target Anadolu Kultur? Support for his party is currently at an all-time low, according to one survey, and the Turkish president knows there is not much he can do to salvage the economy before Turkey’s next elections in 2023. But Erdogan believes—perhaps correctly—that he can still win the culture war. To do this, he must polarize the public through controversy, whether over ethnic, religious, gender, or sexual identity. The Turkish president’s bombshell announcement on March 20 that he was withdrawing Turkey from the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women resulted from a similar calculation. Left with empty coffers, Erdogan is doubling down with ideological warfare.
For Turkey—already suffering from a chronic current account deficit and rampant unemployment—further tampering with the market may prove to be a very costly way to muzzle dissidents and close loyalist ranks. That makes it all the more unwise. Indeed, the all-out assault on Osman Kavala and his businesses could boomerang in a way that Turkey’s iron-fisted president may soon regret.
*Aykan Erdemir is the senior director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament for the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Twitter: @aykan_erdemir

Manhattan Court Gave Erdogan’s Pet Bank a Get-out-of-Jail-Free Card
Mark Dubowitz and Aykan Erdemir/Newsweek/March 26/2021
Turkey’s currency is in free fall. International investors are fleeing the country. Accusations of bribery and support for terrorism abound. And something clearly is rotten at the heart of the Turkish banking system. Yet a Manhattan court still thinks Turkey is a functioning democracy with a fair and transparent legal system.
On March 17, 876 victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism appealed a Manhattan federal court’s dismissal of their case against the Turkish bank that they claim helped Tehran avoid the financial consequences of its support for these terrorist attacks. The court ruled in February that the plaintiffs, who are U.S. citizens or foreign employees of the U.S. government targeted during their service to the United States, should pursue their case before a Turkish court instead, ignoring substantial evidence that Ankara is covering up the bank’s complicity in Iranian sanctions-busting schemes.
Expecting American victims of the Tehran regime and their bereaved relatives to seek remedy through Turkey’s deeply politicized courts only ensures further injustice.
The plaintiffs are pursuing civil action against Halkbank, Turkey’s second largest public lender. The bank is also facing a federal indictment on charges of fraud, money laundering and offenses related to its participation in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. The extent of the bank’s complicity became clear as the result of an earlier trial. In May 2018, a federal court sentenced Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Halkbank’s deputy general manager, to 32 months in prison for “participation in a scheme to violate U.S. economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran.” (One of us, Mark Dubowitz, testified as a government expert witness in the case.)
The Manhattan judge overseeing the recent civil action against Halkbank dismissed the case, ruling that a fair consideration and trial of the matter could be had in Turkey. She conditioned her dismissal on the bank’s agreement to “accept service in Turkey, submit to the jurisdiction of Turkish courts, and waive any statute of limitations defense that may have arisen since the filing of this action.”
Halkbank found those terms entirely acceptable because it knows Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will protect it at all costs. According to U.S. court records, senior Turkish officials received “millions of dollars in bribes” to facilitate the bank’s conspiracy. In fact, Erdogan has been manipulating Turkish courts since a 2013 graft probe first implicated him and his inner circle in Halkbank’s criminal activities.
Despite dismissing the civil action against Halkbank, the presiding judge acknowledged that the plaintiffs’ allegations about “efforts by Turkish officials to interfere with criminal investigations into Halkbank” are “serious and deserve attention.” But she ruled that these allegations are not sufficient to demonstrate that Turkey is an inadequate forum for the terror victims’ claims, since “the litigation would involve Turkey’s civil court system rather than its criminal law enforcement agencies.” That distinction is meaningless, however. No Turkish court can resist Erdogan’s pressure.
When details of Halkbank’s sanctions-busting scheme first became public in December 2013, the Erdogan government purged or imprisoned all police officers, prosecutors and judges involved in the investigation and muzzled the press and social media. Since then, the Turkish president has not only ensured impunity for all of Iran’s accomplices, but even rewarded them with cushy appointments.
These appointments, especially in Turkey’s financial sector, have only compounded the country’s economic problems. When Atilla returned to Turkey in July 2019 after serving his U.S. sentence, he became CEO of the Istanbul stock exchange. The finance and treasury minister who appointed him—Erdogan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak—is also implicated in the Halkbank indictment.
Nine days after Atilla’s appointment as CEO, a disgruntled European Bank for Reconstruction and Development—Borsa Istanbul’s only major foreign shareholder—announced its intention to sell its 10 percent stake in protest, an exit it finalized within two months. Last weekend, Erdogan appointed Sahap Kavcioglu, who served as a deputy general manager at Halkbank alongside Atilla at the height of Iran’s sanctions evasion schemes, as the governor of Turkey’s central bank. On Monday, Turkey’s stock market and currency plunged, following the biggest single-day selloff in three years.
Erdogan is so determined to protect Halkbank that he sought to interfere with U.S. judicial proceedings and reportedly came very close to succeeding thanks to his close relationship with Donald Trump. The 2018 verdict against Atilla was the culmination of a two-year process that started with the March 2016 arrest of Reza Zarrab, the Iranian-Turkish ringleader of Tehran’s sanctions evasion network who since turned state’s witness. The Erdogan government used formal and informal channels to stall the U.S. prosecution of Zarrab, Atilla and Halkbank. This reportedly involved attempts to swap first Zarrab and then Atilla for North Carolina pastor Andrew Brunson, a hostage who spent two years in a Turkish prison on false charges. Ankara’s interference in the Halkbank prosecution is now part of a probe launched by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
In an interview earlier this month, former national security advisor John Bolton stated that Erdogan was “completely focused on getting Halkbank out of the investigation and potential prosecution” and “raised the issue repeatedly with Trump.” The Turkish president went so far as to present President Trump with “a brief prepared by an American law firm working on behalf of Halkbank.” Trump unsuccessfully pressed then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson for help getting the case dropped in line with a prisoner swap deal put forward by Rudy Giuliani, who represented Zarrab before becoming Trump’s personal lawyer.
The Erdogan government also lobbied the Trump administration into pressuring Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop the Halkbank case. The indictment of Halkbank only went forward in October 2019, after Erdogan ordered his troops to assault America’s Syrian Kurdish partners against the Islamic State, provoking outrage in Washington.
With Trump’s departure from office, Erdogan has lost considerable leverage, but is not giving up. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York is currently evaluating Halkbank’s request for dismissal in the run up to the jury trial set to begin in May.
The Turkish president has every reason to fear action against Halkbank in U.S. courts. In his November 2017 testimony, Zarrab implicated Erdogan personally by declaring that the Turkish leader approved the use of public lenders to bust U.S. sanctions. In a 2020 interview with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, one of Zarrab’s bagmen recalls Zarrab telling him that they have “nothing to fear from Turkish authorities” since “the government is in on it.”
Erdogan will simply not allow a Turkish court to offer a remedy to victims of terror attacks orchestrated by Tehran by acknowledging Halkbank’s complicity in the Islamic Republic’s sanctions-evasion schemes. Expecting American victims of terrorism to fight Erdogan in Turkish courts is not only unrealistic; it is a miscarriage of justice to which no federal judge should want to be party.
*Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was sanctioned by the government of Iran in 2019 and testified as a government expert in the 2017 Atilla case. Follow him on Twitter @mdubowitz.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter

Why Iran’s Proxies Fear Evidence
Michael Knights/Washington Institute/March 26/2021
Also published in Crisis Response Council
Iraqi militias value legitimacy and try to portray themselves as acting within the law, so evidence-based approaches can be very effective at reining in those who attack on Tehran’s behalf.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” and this is certainly the case when it comes to defeating the blurring tactics used by Iran-backed militias in Iraq. The February 15 rocket attacks on Erbil, a wanton act of vandalism that sprayed 107mm high explosive munitions across a densely populated city near a U.S. base, were followed by a new attack on U.S. forces at Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on March 3. An Iraqi and a Filipino died in the Erbil strike, which wounded nine others; and a U.S. contractor died at Al-Asad. Kurdish security forces arrested at least two of the perpetrators behind the barrage of rockets that hit Erbil, and then reported he had confessed to undertaking the attack. The militia fighter in Kurdish custody claimed he was recruited by Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, a militia group struck by the U.S. in Syria last week, as a response to its involvement in the attack on Erbil.
In the case of both rocket attacks, Iran-backed militias undertook the attacks but did so in a blurry manner, either claiming the attack through a “facade” group (Saraya Awliya al-Dam in the Erbil case) or not issuing a claim at all (in the Al-Asad case). We know this because the militias used their dedicated media networks—Telegram channels and Twitter pages, plus some more obscure methods—to preemptively hint at the coming attacks, report the attacks with uncommon rapidity, and then dominate the coverage of the attacks with unique detail. What this duality tells us—obscuring their role in the attack but hinting strongly at it—is that militias also find so-called “gray zone warfare” difficult. On the one hand, they need to avoid the downsides of their actions—retaliation by the U.S. and blame for civilian deaths caused by their rockets. On the other hand, they want to take credit for “resisting” the United States, NATO and any other Western powers providing security assistance to Iraq.
As a result of this tricky balancing act, they make plenty of mistakes that can be gathered as evidence of their culpability. Militia leaders are constantly implicating themselves by demonstrating command and control of rocket and bombing cells, ordering them to stop or start attacks against this or that class of target. In the case of Erbil, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada might have provided manpower to move and fire the rockets, but the enterprise was clearly driven by, and claimed by U.S.-designated terrorist Qais al-Khazali and the U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. This is why AAH’s media organs—Sabereen News and the façade groups Ashab al-Kahf and Saraya Awliya al-Dam—dominated coverage of the attack from thirteen minutes before the rockets landed.
Militias like Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Hezbollah Harakat al-Nujaba are also struggling to play a different kind of shell game—namely being part of the armed forces of Iraq when it is convenient, but not under state control. When U.S. aircraft struck Kata’ib Hezbollah-run checkpoints in Syria on February 25, killing one Kata’ib Hezbollah member, the militias all characterized the strike as an attack on the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an auxiliary arm of the Iraqi security forces that draws salaries from the Iraqi state but only loosely answers to the chain of command. Yet the PMF is not authorized to be in Syria, where members of Kata’ib Hezbollah and other Iraqi militias operate, while on full pay from the Iraqi government but under the operational control of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi noted after the February 25 attack, the Iraqis hit by the U.S. airstrike in Syria “were not true members of the Iraqi security forces”. The key lesson from recent “gray zone” jousting with Iran and its militia proxies is that sunlight is indeed the best form of disinfectant, and that the United States is quite capable of playing in the gray zone as well.
Since the summer of 2020, Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence agencies have made symbolic arrests of Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada rocketeers. In each case, the arrests, however limited, have caused the militias great discomfort and alarm. While Iran-backed militias do their best to distort their complicity in rocket attacks, arresting militia fighters and exposing their complicity in rocket attacks undermines their ability to escape the reach of the law. The decision by Kurdish authorities to arrest the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada member and report his confession also indicates militias cannot always escape the reach of the law and that where there is political will, together with encouragement and backing from the U.S., it is possible to impose a degree of accountability that ensures militias do not have carte blanche. Further, linking militia media operations and “facade” groups to real organizations like Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq causes a visible, measurable cringe among such networks, followed by fragmentation and a new wave of energetic but ultimately impossible efforts to create new anonymous brands.
The uncovering of Kata’ib Hezbollah’s launch of drones from Iraq into Saudi Arabia in May 2019, September 2019, and January 2021 has similarly exacerbated breaches between Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Iraqi government. Highlighting Kata’ib Hezbollah’s control of Baghdad airport resulted in its role there being diminished. Demonstrating militia corruption at Iraq’s largest port resulted in a clean-out of port officials and military garrisoning of Umm Qasr.
Iran-backed Iraqi militias value legitimacy and try to portray themselves as acting within the law. They value being a formal part of the security forces, yet they simply lack the discipline to follow Iraq’s constitution and laws. The next steps in this effort will be to develop more evidence of militia culpability in crimes, and to provide that evidence to Iraqis, to support civil lawsuits and criminal cases. The United States should use its return to multilateralism to encourage Europe and Gulf States to adopt Global Magnitsky-type human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, which would greatly strengthen their impact.
*This article was originally published on the Crisis Response Council website.
*Michael Knights is the Boston-based Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow of The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf states.

No Country Thrives on Instability Like Iran/The Islamic Republic needs America as an enemy. The U.S. needs a strategy to win a cold war.
Karim Sadjadpour/The Atlantic/March 26/2021
Senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Flags from the U.S. and Iran
Before he became president, Joe Biden spent decades seeking reconciliation in the Middle East. By his second term as vice president, his frustration with feuding nations and factions was palpable. “Notwithstanding all of the hundreds of hours I and others spent with each of their leaders, they didn’t resolve a core problem of how the hell they’re gonna live together,” he told The New Yorker in 2014. “We can’t want unity and coherence … more than they want it.”
Today Biden’s presidential mandate is rebuilding unity and coherence in America, but Middle East crises will invariably beckon him. Foremost among these potential entanglements is an Iranian regime—eager for sanctions relief, but committed to maintaining its cold war with the United States—that has played an outsize role in every presidential administration since Jimmy Carter’s.
“At times during my administration we gamed out the scenarios for what a conflict with Iran would look like,” Barack Obama writes in his memoir A Promised Land. “I left those conversations weighed down by the knowledge that if war became necessary, nearly everything else I was trying to achieve would likely be upended.” Obama’s strategy was to negotiate a 2015 multinational agreement that successfully curtailed Iran’s nuclear program. Obama believed, his CIA director John Brennan wrote in his 2020 memoir, Undaunted, that the nuclear deal was “essential not only for regional stability but also to strengthen the influence of Iranian moderates, especially Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.”
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. tried the opposite tack, exiting the nuclear deal and instead trying to coerce Tehran into capitulation or collapse. “Iran will be forced to make a choice,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in 2018. “Either fight to keep its economy off life support at home or keep squandering precious wealth on fights abroad. It will not have the resources to do both.” Yet Iran’s domestic brutality and regional ambitions continued, and its nuclear program expanded.
Today Biden must contend with an Iran that is advancing toward nuclear-weapons capability, is directly implicated in the world’s worst humanitarian crises, and gains leverage against other nations by threatening global economic and political stability. Tehran’s Syrian client, the dictator Bashar al-Assad, has fueled the greatest global refugee crisis since World War II, which in turn has fanned right-wing populism across Europe. The ongoing proxy war in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and another of Iran’s clients, the Houthi movement, has created a horrifying humanitarian crisis and the return of once-eradicated diseases. Iran’s proven ability to launch precision missile and drone strikes against Saudi oil installations is a looming threat to world energy supplies and a harbinger of Middle East wars to come. Iran’s increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks have successfully targeted U.S. elections and commerce, as well as the critical infrastructure of U.S. allies.
While Trump’s experience with Iran proved that pressure alone does not work, Obama’s experience illustrated the challenges of engaging a regime whose primary interest, apart from staying in power, is opposing American influence. Given the perils of both action and inaction, Biden’s Iran strategy requires both the flexibility of a gymnast and the precision of a surgeon to cooperate with Iran when possible, confront Iran when necessary, and contain Iran with the help of partner nations.
Consider just one of the challenges: America’s eagerness to coax Tehran back into nuclear compliance, and our fear of jeopardizing the nuclear deal’s revival, might inhibit—whether consciously or unconsciously—our commitment to deter Iran’s regional provocations and domestic brutality, signaling to Iran and its proxies that it can continue to act with impunity. At the same time, our efforts to discourage Iranian provocations risk pulling us into regional proxy wars that we have no interest in fighting and that Iran can easily escalate.
Despite the urgent security challenges that Iran presents, a U.S. strategy that focuses only on the nuclear and regional ambitions of the Iranian government while overlooking the democratic ambitions of the Iranian people ignores the lessons of how the Cold War ended. Can the United States use pressure and diplomacy to effectively constrain not only Iran’s nuclear program and regional influence, but also its domestic authoritarianism? This is Biden’s challenge. He needs a strategic framework that sees Iran for what it is.
The Nature of the Islamic Republic
After the 1979 revolution transformed Iran from a pro-American monarchy into an anti-American theocracy, seven U.S. presidents tried and failed to change the U.S.-Iran relationship, Iran’s behavior, or the Iranian regime altogether. Throughout this period the Islamic Republic has proved adept at surviving but, like many revolutionary regimes, incapable of reforming. American expertise about Iran has suffered from four decades of diplomatic estrangement—the State Department has more Albanian speakers than Persian speakers—but the continuity of Iran’s revolutionary ideology reveals the character of the Iranian regime.
Iran’s physical size (75 times larger than Israel, four times larger than Germany), geostrategic location, enormous natural resources, ideological zeal, and cultivation of foreign militias have afforded it a major role in a wide range of global-security and humanitarian challenges, including Islamist radicalism, energy security, cyberwarfare, nuclear proliferation, and wars in Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Although Henry Kissinger once observed that “there are few nations in the world with which the United States has less reason to quarrel and more compatible interests than Iran,” Tehran’s leaders have continually prioritized opposition to the United States ahead of the welfare and security of its people. This was evident most recently when the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, banned American-made COVID-19 vaccines, despite Iran being among the countries worst hit by the virus.
The 81-year-old Khamenei is among the world’s longest-serving autocrats. Since inheriting power from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, he has not left Iran, and his careful cultivation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—Iran’s most powerful institution—has helped him enfeeble potential rivals, including four Iranian presidents, and crush dissent. Despite appearances of competing power centers, Khamenei also has effective control over the Islamic Republic’s Guardian Council, Assembly of Experts, and Expediency Council—all institutions that nominally provide oversight but actually serve to buttress his authority.
Like Trump’s now-suspended Twitter feed, Khamenei’s public statements have proved a reliably accurate window into the leader’s soul. Khamenei, whose vitriol against the United States has been remarkably consistent for more than four decades, couches his anti-Americanism in revolutionary themes of justice and anti-imperialism. But like many autocrats, he serves his self-interest by maintaining an external adversary. As the American diplomat George Kennan once observed about the U.S.S.R., “The menace confronting Soviet society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home.”
Tom Nichols: Iran’s smart strategy
Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who favored détente with the United States, told me in 2008 that Khamenei would insist to him that the Islamic Republic “needs enmity with America, the revolution needs enmity with America.” The political scientist Mahmood Sariolghalam, an erstwhile adviser to senior Iranian officials including President Hassan Rouhani, wrote in a 2018 essay that anti-Americanism is the “raison d’être” of the Islamic Republic of Iran. “This has less to do with the nature of the American system,” he wrote, “and more to do with the fact that Iran has turned anti-Americanism into an identity.” Ideological opposition to the United States, Sariolghalam explained, “serves to perpetuate Iran’s revolutionary domestic political order.”
So long as Khamenei remains the supreme leader, the United States can at best expect tactical compromises from his government, not major shifts in the country’s internal and external policies. Khamenei has long believed that reforming the ideological principles of the Islamic Republic would accelerate, not prevent, its collapse, just as perestroika hastened the Soviet Union’s demise. His instincts are corroborated by some of history’s most astute political philosophers, including Machiavelli and Tocqueville, who argued that “the most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways.” Even Khamenei’s death might not alter Iran’s near-term disposition, as the next supreme leader is likely to be an Iranian Raul Castro—a successor handpicked for his commitment to the status quo.
Even as the Islamic Republic continues to confound outside observers, decades of elections that produce no lasting change have shown Iranian citizens how power is really exercised in Tehran. Two parallel regimes are working in concert. A deep state of security and intelligence forces, reporting to Khamenei, will continue to build nuclear facilities, cultivate regional militias, seize foreign ships, crush popular dissent, take Western hostages, and conduct assassinations. A weak state—consisting of apparatchiks and civil servants authorized to speak to Western officials—will continue to vehemently deny and subsequently defend those activities, of which they usually have no advanced knowledge. Rather than a genuine battle between “hard-line” and “reformist” factions, Iran’s deep state will continue to have power without accountability, while Iran’s weak state will continue to lack power and deflect accountability.
A Three-Pronged U.S. Strategy
Although Iran will continue to trigger the most polarizing foreign-policy debates in Washington, the broad contours of a bipartisan Iran strategy are apparent. Republican members of Congress passionately oppose both the Iranian regime and Obama’s nuclear deal, but they also recognize that their constituents oppose another U.S. conflict in the Middle East. While American Democrats are generally supportive of engaging Iran and returning to the nuclear deal, 70 percent of them have an “unfavorable” view of Iran, and even prominent progressives have concluded that, “like the Soviet Union 30 years ago, the Iranian regime sooner or later will crumble under the weight of its own failures.”
Indeed, while the scale of today’s Iranian threat—at least to the United States—pales in comparison to the danger the Soviet Union posed after World War II, the strategy used to contain, counter, and communicate with the U.S.S.R. remains the soundest template for Iran. It is a strategy that supports diplomacy and seeks to avoid war, while mindful that the Iranian regime’s hostility toward the United States is driven by its own self-interest. Like the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic of Iran is willing to subject its population to enduring repression and economic hardship rather than compromise its ideological principles.
In his classic work Strategies of Containment, the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis noted that America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union—conceived by the famed Cold Warrior George Kennan—had three critical parts: fortifying American allies and partners (including Iran, in 1946); fragmenting the international Communist movement; and employing both pressure and inducements to attempt to “modify Soviet behavior.” These objectives were not in tension with one another, but rather cohered into a mutually reinforcing strategy. Kennan implored the United States to be firm, patient, and confident that American democracy would eventually prevail over Soviet dictatorship.
A variation of this three-pronged approach should be the basis of Biden’s policy toward Iran. It would be unrealistic to expect nuclear nonproliferation, regional security, and Iranian civil rights to be discussed in one negotiation, But these three areas should be viewed as complementary, rather than conflicting, pieces of a unified strategy. Such an approach will help ensure that, if Biden manages to revive the nuclear deal, the terms will outlive his presidency.
Deferring Iran’s Nuclear Challenge
Because virtually 100 percent of Iranian trade is with countries other than the United States, American attempts to contain Iran will fail if Tehran believes that it has reliable economic and strategic partners in Asia, Europe, and Russia. History has shown, however, that building a global consensus that Iran is in the wrong first requires a clear-eyed U.S. effort to engage the Islamic Republic.
In A Promised Land, Obama recounts how, weeks after taking office in 2009, he sent a secret letter to Khamenei, suggesting a U.S.-Iran dialogue on a range of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program. Khamenei’s hostile response, Obama writes, was tantamount to a “middle finger.” The Obama administration’s numerous unrequited overtures to Iran—coupled with U.S. intelligence outing an Iranian clandestine nuclear site—would play a critical role in persuading Europe, China, and Russia that the chief obstacle to compromise was Tehran, not Washington. This set the table for the global pressure campaign that, together with rigorous diplomacy, spawned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
The Trump administration had four years to prove the alternative thesis—that an increase in American pressure and an absence of American diplomacy could break the Iranian regime. Although Trump subjected Iran to enormous economic deprivation and humiliation—including the January 2020 assassination of its top military commander, Qassem Soleimani—its regime closed ranks, its nuclear program grew twelvefold, and its regional influence remained intact despite diminished expenditures. In short, the lone policy that has exerted any influence over Iranian behavior has been a combination of significant international pressure and tough U.S. diplomacy.
The Biden administration’s foremost challenge at the moment is how to revive the nuclear deal.
In theory, this should not be difficult; Washington wants to undo Iran’s nuclear progress, and Iran cannot reverse its economic decline without a full or partial restoration of an agreement. Although the domestic politics of both Washington and Tehran, enormous mutual mistrust, and tactical disagreements have so far impeded the deal’s revival, these obstacles should eventually prove surmountable.
What will prove far more challenging is the Biden administration’s stated intention to “lengthen and strengthen” the nuclear deal—that is, to extend sunset clauses that expire as early as 2023 and to expand the scope of the deal to include nonnuclear concerns, such as Iran’s dissemination of precision missiles to its regional proxies. Critics of Biden’s approach believe that his administration should attempt to strengthen the deal before rejoining it—using the Trump administration’s sanctions as leverage—rather than afterward. Regardless of the sequencing, any U.S. attempts to fortify the agreement will invariably be met with fierce opposition from Iran; the same pressure the Biden administration must cede in order to revive the JCPOA might once again need to be wielded in order to improve the agreement.
For advisers who favor a swift return to the JCPOA, the calculation is simple: Should Biden begin his presidency with a potential escalatory crisis with Iran in the middle of a pandemic, or should he defer that possibility? Biden’s (mostly Republican) critics, in turn, cite Henry Kissinger’s dictum that “competing pressures tempt one to believe that an issue deferred is a problem avoided; more often it is a crisis invited.”
The task of potentially reassembling a global coalition to strengthen the nuclear deal will prove challenging, but the European Union, Russia, and China all support the underlying goal of preventing an Iranian bomb. Marshaling a global response to Iran’s regional ambitions will be harder, because China prefers neutrality, Russia is allied with Iran in supporting Assad in Syria, and Europeans fear provoking Tehran. Nevertheless, Iran remains among the world’s most strategically isolated nations. Russia has ignored Israel’s repeated attacks on Iranian outposts in Syria, Chinese trade with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates exceeds its trade with Iran, and European popular views on Iran—which is holding several European nationals hostage—are just as jaundiced as American popular opinion. Russia and China are particularly sensitive about respecting national sovereignty, often the gravest concern of Iran’s regional rivals.
How Iran Fills Regional Power Vacuums
No other region in the world threatens global stability like the Middle East, and no country in the Middle East has benefited more from regional instability than Iran. Tehran’s sizable influence in four embattled Arab countries—Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen—is attributable to the power vacuums created by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the 2011 Arab uprisings, and decades of failed governance. Arab disorder facilitates Iranian ambitions, and Iranian ambitions exacerbate Arab disorder.
Iran’s regional policy has three pillars: opposing the United States, opposing Israel, and opposing Saudi Arabia. Tehran has pursued these ends by cultivating a network of foreign militias—modeled on the Lebanese organization Hezbollah—whose total size is estimated at between 50,000 and 200,000 men. As the Middle East’s lone theocracy, Iran has managed to harness Islamist radicalism—both Shia and, at times, Sunni—more effectively than any of its peers. Indeed, although the Iran-Saudi rivalry is commonly viewed as a sectarian war between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s huge asymmetric advantage over Riyadh is that virtually all Shia radicals are willing to fight for Iran, whereas virtually all Sunni radicals, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, want to overthrow the Saudi government.
While Iran-Saudi détente might be possible, Tehran has made clear that it will never recognize Israel. Iran’s leaders routinely call Israel a “cancerous tumor” that must be “annihilated,” engage in Holocaust revisionism, and write “Death to Israel” on their weaponry. In addition to talking the talk, Tehran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas; has amassed, via Hezbollah, more than 100,000 rockets and missiles in Lebanon that are pointed at Israel; and is actively building military bases in Syria to open an additional front against the Jewish state. Israel has retaliated by allegedly conducting half a dozen assassinations of nuclear scientists inside Iran, more than 200 bombings of Iranian outposts in Syria, and devastating cyberattacks that have sabotaged Iranian infrastructure and nuclear facilities. “In war and fighting,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif once told me, citing a Persian proverb, “they don’t distribute sweets.”
Although Iranian influence in the Middle East cannot be eliminated, it can be more effectively exposed, countered, and contained. The JCPOA proved that a combination of global pressure and sustained American diplomacy in pursuit of a viable end game—restraining rather than eradicating Iran’s nuclear program—was achievable. A similar formula should be used to meaningfully restrain, rather than wholly eradicate, Iran’s regional influence. This would not require Arab nations or citizens to outwardly accept Iranian violations of their sovereignty. But Arab governments would have to seek enforceable limits on specified forms of misconduct by Tehran, rather than simply demanding, as Saudi Arabia’s then foreign minister flatly did in 2018, that Iran “get out” of the Arab world.
Michael Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi: The case against the Iran deal
The JCPOA was a highly detailed 159-page document that carefully described how Iran’s nuclear program would be restrained and subjected to greater transparency. America’s regional allies must provide similarly concrete prescriptions for how to limit Iranian support for regional proxies and violations of their sovereignty. Just as the JCPOA offered Tehran positive inducements for compromise, Gulf Arab nations should be prepared to talk not only about their concerns and demands, but also about avenues for mutual cooperation. Climate change—which could soon render parts of both Iran and the Arab world too hot for human habitability—is an obvious start.
Mutual fears about Iran and a U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East helped the Trump administration midwife the normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab nations, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Yet the most potent defense against Iranian regional encroachment will be the building of cohesive Arab states and national identities, just as the nationalism of Soviet subjects played a critical role in countering Communist ideology.
Although Lebanese Hezbollah and elements of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces effectively operate as wings of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Tehran can no longer take for granted its continued popular support among Arab Shia. In November 2019, Iraqi protesters attacked and set fire to Iranian consulates in Najaf and Karbala—two Shiite shrine cities that are longtime Iranian strongholds—and Lebanese Shiites protested Hezbollah in the southern city of Nabatieh. Opinion polls show that more than half of Arab Shia now hold an “unfavorable” view of Iran. Despite their grievances at home, few Arab Shia view Iran’s theocracy as a model to emulate.
Arms Controllers Didn’t End the Cold War
After Trump’s first year in power, Americans generally understood that his character was unlikely to change. After 42 years in power, many Iranians understand even more clearly that the character of the Islamic Republic is unlikely to change. Virtually all of the conduct the regime has exhibited since its inception—hostage taking; the cultivation of regional militias; the persecution of women, religious minorities, LGBTQ people, and free thinkers—have proceeded with the same intensity. Tehran’s official slogan of “Death to America” has also continued uninterrupted throughout both Republican and Democratic U.S. administrations. In the words of former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, “Arms controllers didn’t end the Cold War with the Soviet Union; democrats inside Russia and other Soviet republics did.” Similarly, the U.S.-Iran cold war will likely be concluded not by American diplomats but by Iranian democrats.
Until now, Washington’s attempts to elicit political change in Tehran have failed. Efforts to empower reformists within the Iranian regime against hard-line rivals have shown little signs of success; reformists lack the will, and hard-liners have all the guns. U.S. attempts to incite uprisings among unarmed, unorganized, and leaderless Iranian civilians against a heavily armed and organized repressive apparatus have also achieved little. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly shown willingness to throttle the internet and murder thousands of its citizens in the dark, as it did most recently in November 2019. In authoritarian countries, change requires not only popular pressure but also divisions within the elite. When the entirety of a regime and its security apparatus believe that they must either kill or be killed—such as in Syria—they unreservedly embrace option A.
Although the United States lacks the ability to reform or remove the Islamic Republic, it does have the capacity to meaningfully champion Iranian civil rights. Just as the Reagan administration negotiated arms-control agreements with Soviet leaders while also expressing solidarity with freedom-seeking Soviet subjects, renewed nuclear talks between the United States and Iran should not deter the Biden administration from countering Iranian authoritarianism, such as Tehran’s aspirations to control the information and communications of its citizens by building a walled-off national internet akin to China’s. The Biden administration should also work with European and Asian allies to ensure that their eventual resumption of business ties with Iran does not simply enrich Revolutionary Guard companies and cronies at the expense of Iranian civil society.
Opponents of the Islamic Republic, both inside Iran and in the region, fear that a revival of the nuclear deal will strengthen the regime. Yet history has proved that political dissent is not usually triggered by crushing poverty, but—according to what’s known as the J-curve theory—when a society’s improving economic circumstances lead to elevated expectations that go unfulfilled. For this reason, the near-term economic improvements that might result from a removal of U.S. sanctions are likelier in the medium and long term to destabilize the Islamic Republic rather than entrench it. The more that Iranians understand that what stands between them and a better future is their own leadership, not Washington’s, the more the country’s most potent ideology—Iranian nationalism—will be harnessed against the regime rather than in service of it.
For this reason, the Biden presidency presents both an opportunity and a challenge to Tehran’s leadership. A revival of the nuclear deal might help reverse Iran’s economic decline, but it would also make it more difficult for the Islamic Republic to continue blaming the United States for its myriad failures. As Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian academic recently released from captivity in Iran, told me, “So many people in prison were breathing a sigh of relief that Trump lost the election. The Revolutionary Guards, however, were undoubtedly disappointed.”
While the Guards’ use of fear and coercion might be able to indefinitely sustain the Islamic Republic’s internal contradictions, this should not be mistaken for popular legitimacy. In an impassioned speech during a 1986 congressional hearing on South African apartheid, then Senator Joe Biden told Secretary of State George Schultz that America’s “loyalty is not to South Africa, it’s to South Africans!” Similarly, the Biden administration’s commitment to reviving the Iran nuclear deal should not obscure the fact that America’s loyalty and interests lie not with Iran’s regime, but with its people.
Building the Tunnel
No matter which route the Biden administration chooses, America’s Iran strategy will continue to trigger fierce global disagreement, given the high stakes. It directly impacts the security and well-being of not only tens of millions of Iranians but also tens of millions of Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Yemenis, Israelis, and Gulf Arabs—people who view Iran as either an indispensable ally or an existential threat. For opponents of the Iranian regime, no amount of U.S. pressure will be sufficient; for allies and supporters of the Iranian regime, no amount of U.S. pressure is justified.
In a 2019 essay in The Atlantic, Jake Sullivan—now Biden’s national security adviser—wrote that “the U.S. needs to adopt the foreign-policy version of the serenity prayer: Grant us the wisdom to know the difference between those things we can change and those we cannot.” Throughout America’s 42-year absence from Iran, successive U.S. administrations have at times failed to understand this distinction. Americans can constrain Iran’s nuclear and missile programs; we cannot eliminate them. We should stand for civil and human rights in Iran; we cannot engineer regime change. We can limit and expose destructive Iranian policies in the Middle East; we cannot expunge Iranian influence from the region. We can attempt to manage our differences with Iran; we cannot force a rapprochement with a regime that needs us as an adversary.
As in all dictatorships that lack democratic mechanisms for renewal and use greater repression as their primary tool for managing dissent, history is not on the side of the Islamic Republic. While most modern economies try to better understand how to promote technological innovation, combat climate change, and foster diversity, Iran’s elderly clerical rulers sell fossil fuels to sustain and export an intolerant revolutionary ideology. Iranian officials themselves admit that the resulting brain drain costs the country $150 billion annually, far more than the country’s oil revenue. This economic, political, and social malaise will eventually force a reckoning that U.S. policy should be designed to facilitate, not impede.
The tragic history of modern Iran, and U.S.-Iran relations, evokes the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’s observation about the prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. “The good news is there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Peres said. “The bad news is there is no tunnel.”
After four decades of the Islamic Republic, the light in Iran is a young, dynamic, educated society that aspires to live like South Koreans, not North Koreans—prosperously and at peace with the world. Although the tunnel from Iranian theocracy to Iranian democracy might take years to build, its completion is the single most important key to transforming the Middle East.
**KARIM SADJADPOUR is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

The Courts and the Election of 2020
Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute/March 26/2021
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson did not go through the proper rule-making process when issuing the guidance.... That is precisely how elections are stolen.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts scrupulously ignored every 2020 election legal challenge raised by former President Trump in order to assure a legally uncontested Biden victory. Irregularities in six states could not get the attention of the highest court....
Pandemic or not, the last-minute rule changes imposed by judicial and executive branch officials were irregular and perhaps outright illegal. State legislatures govern elections. Changing the rules to extend deadlines, dropping signature requirements for mail-in ballots and other sketchy practices that saw huge voting total swings are all indications of election manipulation.
"We failed to settle this dispute before the election," [Justice] Thomas wrote, "and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence." He then reviewed the documented risks presented by mail-in balloting, which offers "simpler and more effective alternatives to commit fraud."
The further we get from the November 2020 election, the more we will see documented evidence of voting irregularities, manipulations and gamesmanship. There remain unresolved issues in Georgia, Wisconsin and Maricopa County, Arizona.
We must use every legal tool available to us... to ensure free and fair elections that the American people can trust. That means cleaning up voter registration rolls; having and election DAY (not a "season"); voter ID; enforced rules for absentee and mail-in ballots; paper ballots for audit purposes; and banking-quality cyber security on all electronic voting systems. Those measures are just a start, but should be a minimum standard achievable by the 2022 mid-term elections.
While the mainstream news media continues to shout down anyone raising even the slightest penumbral emanations of possible 2020 election irregularities, and social media giants suspend, and even erase, people for similar "violations of community standards" (whatever that means) -- a Supreme Court justice and a Michigan Secretary of State have issued written opinions that refute what every sensible MSNBC viewer desperately wants to believe is true.
State Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray ruled that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's guidance to Michigan clerks in early October was invalid. Benson instructed the clerks to presume the accuracy of absentee ballot signatures. Benson did not go through the proper rule-making process when issuing the guidance. Murray has ruled Benson's actions unlawful, stating that Benson's orders went, "beyond the realm of mere advice and direction, and instead is a substantive directive that adds to the pertinent signature-matching standards."
That is precisely how elections are stolen.
According to the Detroit News: "Michigan law requires clerks to match required signatures on absentee ballot applications and absentee ballot envelopes with the voter signature on file to ensure the person submitting the ballot is the same one registered to vote in Michigan. But state law doesn't define what it means for signatures to 'agree sufficiently.' "
As a reminder, former President Trump sued in six states – including Michigan – over election irregularities. Peter Navarro, President Trump's Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing, issued a 36-page report in December 2020 detailing a host of election irregularities that merited court and congressional scrutiny – but that were brushed aside in accordance with the offensive information operation described in a 3-part essay published in September 2020 by the Gatestone Institute.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts scrupulously ignored every 2020 election legal challenge raised by former President Trump in order to assure a legally uncontested Biden victory. Irregularities in six states could not get the attention of the highest court like the 2000 election irregularities in just a handful of Florida counties.
Pandemic or not, the last-minute rule changes imposed by judicial and executive branch officials were irregular and perhaps outright illegal. State legislatures govern elections. Changing the rules to extend deadlines, dropping signature requirements for mail-in ballots and other sketchy practices that saw huge voting total swings are all indications of election manipulation. It might not be fraud, but the irregularities demand an explanation.
Pennsylvania had a contested mail-in ballot controversy. When "the Supremes" finally got around to the case in February, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote a blistering dissent, stating:
"We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence."
He then reviewed the documented risks presented by mail-in balloting, which offers "simpler and more effective alternatives to commit fraud."
The further we get from the November 2020 election, the more we will see documented evidence of voting irregularities, manipulations and gamesmanship. There remain unresolved issues in Georgia, Wisconsin and Maricopa County, Arizona. Will there be ironclad evidence of "fraud?" "Fraud" by the legal standard – not under the colloquial terms thrown around loosely by TV pundits? Not if the victors and their propaganda partners in the news and social media venues have their way. Just in the past couple of days the Washington Post was forced to admit they had phonied-up claims about President Trump's call to Georgia election officials and then lied about it. The reckless, inaccurate language in the reporting of the Washington Post found its way into former President Trump's second impeachment. Not as actual evidence, mind you, but in the heated presentations of the impeachment managers. It seems they were thinking: "Facts be damned! We've got a great line to use!"
While the legal opinions of Judge Murray and Justice Thomas are tough to jam down the memory hole, they are too late to make a difference in the November 2020 election.
The cautionary lesson for the American public now is for there to be legitimate reform of the election process, without buying into the nightmare offered by H.R.1 and the federalizing of all elections. Many states are pursuing reforms tailored to their individual needs. That is a good thing, and consistent with both the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution and the Elections Clause. We must use every legal tool available to us – county by county and from statehouse to statehouse – to ensure free and fair elections that the American people can trust.
That means cleaning up voter registration rolls; having and election DAY (not a "season"); voter ID; enforced rules for absentee and mail-in ballots; paper ballots for audit purposes; and banking-quality cyber security on all electronic voting systems. Those measures are just a start, but should be a minimum standard achievable by the 2022 mid-term elections. State legislators must eliminate the "confusion and erosion of voter confidence" Justice Thomas warned of, and before the next election.
Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer. For the past 20 years, he has served as the Director of Investigations & Research for Judicial Watch. The views expressed are the author's alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Arabs: A Warning to Biden about Iran’s Mullahs
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 26/2021
خالد أبو طعمة/معهد كايتستون: العرب يحذرون بايدين من ملالي إيران
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/97333/khaled-abu-toameh-gatestone-institute-arabs-a-warning-to-biden-about-irans-mullahs-%d8%ae%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af-%d8%a3%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%b7%d8%b9%d9%85%d8%a9-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%8a/

President Biden’s decision to pursue the sanctions against Iran, however, has failed to reduce the fears of many Arabs. They say they remain skeptical about Washington’s policy toward the threats posed by the mullahs in Tehran.
“He [Biden] should not make any concessions [to Iran] that do not serve stability in the region. Iran will continue with its tricks and deception to avoid sanctions and attempts to stop it from possessing a nuclear bomb that would pose a danger to countries in the region.” — Khaled bin Hamad al-Malek, Saudi newspaper editor and writer, Al Jazirah, March 5, 2021.
“Iran is an evil, terrorist, and rogue state, and it does not abide by what is agreed upon with it.” — Khaled bin Hamad al-Malek, Al Jazirah, March 5, 2021.
“The current Iranian ploy aims to delude the American side into believing that Tehran wants to return to the agreement, but it cannot make concessions due to street pressure, so it needs Washington to drop the sanctions before starting any negotiations…. With regards to Iran, it wants to pursue its goal of achieving nuclear weapons that threaten the region and the world.” — Dr. Salem Hameed, Emirati political analyst and academic, Al-Ittihad, March 6, 2021.
“Iran’s mullahs are like dangerous poisonous snakes. The mullahs cannot be tamed unless their fangs are completely pulled out. President Biden does not seem to be aware of how dangerous they are.” — Mohamed al-Sheikh, prominent Saudi writer, Al Jazirah, March 5, 2021.
The Biden administration, “especially the left-wing of the Democratic Party, still hope to win the mullahs into their camp and pull them out of the Chinese-Russian camp,” he remarked.
“The mullahs of Iran are still dreaming of establishing the Great Persian Empire, and for the sake of this goal they are not averse to harnessing all efforts and funds to reach this goal, even if they are forced to be patient.” — Mohamed al-Sheikh, Al Jazirah, March 5, 2021.
Former Egyptian diplomat Amr Helmy lashed out at the Biden administration for “dropping” most of the 12 conditions… set for returning to the nuclear agreement with Iran. The conditions … require Iran… to stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with unqualified access to all its sites, end its proliferation of ballistic missiles, halt support to Middle East terrorist groups and end its threatening behavior against its neighbors.
“US begging for negotiations [with Iran] will lead to more Iranian intransigence and promote its extremism,” [Egyptian political analyst Dr. Tarek] Fahmi said. He warned that the US would be the “biggest loser” if Iran is allowed to continue with its maneuvers and threats against the security of the region. — Al-Ain, March 4, 2021.
Significantly, such voices seem to be shared by a large number of Arabs in different Arab countries – not only the Gulf states.
The Biden administration has decided to extend for another year Executive Order 12957, issued in 1995, which imposed a series of sanctions against Iran in response to the threat Iran posed to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the US. This decision, however, has failed to reduce the fears of many Arabs. They say that they remain skeptical about Washington’s policy toward the threats posed by the mullahs in Tehran. Pictured: US President Joe Biden at the White House on March 5, 2021, the day he extended Executive Order 12957.
The Biden administration has decided to extend for another year the “national emergency” (Executive Order 12957), issued in 1995 in response to the threat Iran posed to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the US.
The Executive Order imposed a series of sanctions against Iran in response to its support for international terrorism, its efforts to undermine the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and its acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Last week, the White House announced that the “national emergency” must continue beyond March 15, 2021. It quoted President Joe Biden as saying that Iran’s actions continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the US. Iran, he added, continues to develop missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities. He also accused Iran of continuing to support terrorist groups throughout the world.
The U.S. president pointed out that Iran is continuing the “proliferation and development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities, its network and campaign of regional aggression, its support for terrorist groups, and the malign activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its surrogates.”
President Biden’s decision to pursue the sanctions against Iran, however, has failed to reduce the fears of many Arabs. They say that they remain skeptical about Washington’s policy toward the threats posed by the mullahs in Tehran.
“President Biden should not tolerate Iran,” warned Saudi newspaper editor and writer Khaled bin Hamad al-Malek.
“He [Biden] should not make any concessions [to Iran] that do not serve stability in the region. Iran will continue with its tricks and deception to avoid sanctions and attempts to stop it from possessing a nuclear bomb that would pose a danger to countries in the region.”
Addressing the Biden administration, al-Malek wrote:
“Iran is an evil, terrorist, and rogue state, and it does not abide by what is agreed upon with it. Iran plants its proxies in most countries of the region to create chaos and consolidate its agenda and expansionist goals. There is no better option than using force with this terrorist state to force it to respect international conventions and obligating it not to harm its neighbors, which is what we expect from the Biden administration in order to maintain the security and stability of the region.”
Emirati political analyst and academic Dr. Salem Hameed warned the Biden administration against allowing itself to be deceived by the mullahs in Tehran.
Hameed expressed fear that the Biden administration would return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal, which was signed in 2015 only by the five permanent members of the United nations Security Council – China, Russia, Britain, France, the US – plus Germany and the European Union. The Iranians never signed the JCPOA deal.
“The current Iranian ploy aims to delude the American side into believing that Tehran wants to return to the agreement, but it cannot make concessions due to street pressure, so it needs Washington to drop the sanctions before starting any negotiations,” according to Hameed. Referring to the countries that signed the deal, Hameed added:
“Perhaps these countries, in order not to plunge the region into chaos, should develop continuous, unchanging strategies, because countries such as Iran take advantage of the pre- and post-election transitional state to rearrange their plans. With regards to Iran, it wants to pursue its goal of achieving nuclear weapons that threaten the region and the world.”
Prominent Saudi writer Mohamed al-Sheikh said he was doubtful whether Iran would change its policies now that Biden is in the White House.
“Iran’s mullahs are like dangerous poisonous snakes,” al-Sheikh cautioned. “The mullahs cannot be tamed unless their fangs are completely pulled out. President Biden does not seem to be aware of how dangerous they are.”
Al-Sheikh said that the Biden administration was hoping that by turning a blind eye to the crimes and human rights violations of the mullahs, Washington would “win the mullahs into the US camp.”
The Biden administration, “especially the left-wing of the Democratic Party, still hope to win the mullahs into their camp and pull them out of the Chinese-Russian camp,” he remarked.
“The mullahs of Iran are still dreaming of establishing the Great Persian Empire, and for the sake of this goal they are not averse to harnessing all efforts and funds to reach this goal, even if they are forced to be patient.”
Al-Sheikh added that he still could not understand why the Democrats were rushing to appease Iran while sacrificing Washington’s historic allies such as Israel and the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.
Former Egyptian diplomat Amr Helmy lashed out at the Biden administration for “dropping” most of the 12 conditions that the Trump administration had set for returning to the nuclear agreement with Iran.
The conditions, announced in May 2020 by then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, require Iran, among other things, to stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with unqualified access to all its sites, end its proliferation of ballistic missiles, halt support to Middle East terrorist groups and end its threatening behavior against its neighbors.
Helmy argued that by abandoning these conditions the Biden administration was sending the wrong message to Iran:
“Iran has stepped up its pressure to exploit the US eagerness to resume negotiations with it over its nuclear program… The message Iran has received: the Biden administration is focused on reviving the policy applied by [former US President Barack] Obama and is backing down from the [policies] of the Trump administration.”
Iran, Helmy added, “will not stop the escalation in the region now that it understands that the new US administration will not hesitate to continue weakening Washington’s allies and prioritize the most dangerous adversaries who may not return to the negotiating table unless the US sanctions [on Iran] are lifted.”
Egyptian political analyst Dr. Tarek Fahmi said that Iran continues to pose a threat to the entire region, and not only Israel. Fahmi urged the Biden administration to review its policies and not rush into entering negotiations with Iran.
“Iran continues to threaten the security of the entire region, and not a specific country; this requires the US administration to re-examine its positions and not rush to enter into negotiations with Iran,” Fahmi wrote in an article headlined, “The wrong path of Biden’s policy toward Iran.”
He said that Iran will continue its maneuvers to obtain concessions from the Biden administration.
“US begging for negotiations [with Iran] will lead to more Iranian intransigence and promote its extremism,” Fahmi said. He warned that the US would be the “biggest loser” if Iran is allowed to continue with its maneuvers and threats against the security of the region.
“Despite all the negative positions of Iran, the US administration is still ready to re-engage in serious diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the commitments of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” he added.
These voices from the Arab world are unmistakably articulating a growing fear over the Biden administration’s perceived weakness in dealing with the Iranian threat. Significantly, such voices seem to be shared by a large number of Arabs in different Arab countries — not only the Gulf states. Tellingly, the voices are speaking in unison to the Biden administration: pacify the mullahs in Tehran today, pay for the appeasement in blood tomorrow.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced,
 

Why Muslim Soldiers Kill Their Christian Comrades
Raymond Ibrahim/March 26/2021
Muslim soldiers are killing their Christian comrades in arms—apparently because the latter, as “infidels,” are already the enemy. Most recently, in Nigeria, a Muslim colonel stole weapons from an armory and then blamed the 12 soldiers on duty for the theft. Six of those 12 soldiers—all Christians—were then executed. According to a lawyer acquainted with the case:
The [Nigerian] government of today detests Christianity… This administration is running on ethnic agenda against the Igbo [Christian] population…. This has never been a practice in the Army. Things got changed the moment this present administration [of Muhammadu Buhari] came to power. Things are happening before that didn’t happen. It’s not only about these six soldiers…. Even in the security forces, Christians are being targeted.
The Feb. 4 report elaborates:
Many Nigerians now believe the Army fights for Islam, not Nigeria… In the country’s predominately Christian south, people call it ‘Boko Haram’s Army.’ Muslims hold all the most important leadership positions. The Army’s lack of action to protect Christians comes directly from its leaders in government… When troops go into areas controlled by radical Islamists to defend Nigerian Christians, the government orders them to retreat. Then, Islamist rebels shoot them in the back.
The phenomenon of Muslim military men murdering their Christian counterparts—and getting away with it—is hardly limited to Nigeria. In 2018, for instance, Matthew Samir Habib, a 22-year-old Christian in Egypt’s military was killed simply for being Christian. He was the latest of about 10 Christian soldiers in Egypt to be killed in separate incidents over the years by Muslim soldiers on account of their faith.
In virtually all of these cases, a similar pattern follows: despite all the evidence otherwise (such as physical bruises all over the bodies of the slain), military officials insist that—due to some sudden and inexplicable bout of depression—all these Christians supposedly committed “suicide.” Meanwhile the dead Christian soldiers’ families and those closest to them insist their slain sons and brothers were happy and healthy, that they were observant Christians, and that there was evidence that they were being persecuted by their Muslim “brothers-in-arms” for their evident Christianity.
For example, in the aforementioned case of Matthew Habib, the murdered Christian was shot twice—and still authorities maintain it was suicide. (Click here for several more examples of military authorities offering bizarre reasons for the deaths, all rejected by the victims’ Christian families.)
Why these Christians are being killed is not difficult to comprehend. For many Muslims in Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere, war is synonymous with jihad—and it doesn’t do much for morale to have lowly infidels, who are themselves the prime targets of jihad, fighting alongside the practitioners of jihad.
These modern day killings shed further light on a more theoretical—or rather theological—point. One of the staples of the Islamic whitewashing industry is the claim that jizya—the extortion money subjugated Jews and Christians were/are required to pay (Koran 9:29)—actually “entitled them to Muslim protection from outside aggression and exempted them from military service,” to quote Georgetown University’s John Esposito.
By this widely held logic, Muslim invaders did not demand that the conquered non-Muslim populations ransom their lives with money—as virtually all Muslim jurists and historians explain it—but rather were kind enough to offer their infidel subjects “protection” and exemption from military service for a small fee.
However, and as the modern day killings of Christian soldiers makes clear, Christians and Jews were “exempt” from military service not because they paid jizya-tribute, but because, as conquered infidels, they themselves were the enemy and had to remain separate and subjugated—as Christian minorities in Muslim nations tend to till this day. (As one example, requests to open or renovate churches are always met with mass violence and upheavals, often enabled if not instigated by local Muslim authorities: as infidels, Christians are not allowed to build or renovate temples of worship that openly challenge the teachings of Muhammad.)
Apologists like Esposito twist the facts around in another important way: while payment of jizya did indeed purchase “protection” (of a sort) for the conquered infidels, that protection was not against an outside hostile force, but against inside hostile forces—that is, Muslims themselves: sharia manuals make clear that failure to pay jizya made the lives of dhimmis forfeit. Finally, and as if all the above was not enough, that the Koran itself requires conquered non-Muslims “to give the jizya willingly while they are humbled” (9:29)—or else—puts to rest any claim that payment of jizya was a mere business transaction justifying exemption from military duty but rather a ritual show of Islamic dominance over infidels. From here one may also begin to understand the roots of a related phenomenon: Muslim soldiers killing non-Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military, as a show of loyalty to Islam.