LCCC
ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
April 04/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias
Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the
lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/newselias18/english.april04.18.htm
News Bulletin Achieves Since
2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible
Quotations
Whatever
you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it.
Mark 11/19-25: "And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of
the city. In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered
away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The
fig tree that you cursed has withered.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in
God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown
into the sea", and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what
you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever
you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be
yours. ‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against
anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your
trespasses.’"
Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in
prison with them
Letter to the Hebrews 12/28-29-13/01-09: "Therefore, since we are receiving
a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to
God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a
consuming fire. Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality
to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing
it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with
them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being
tortured. Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be
kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your
lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he
has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’So we can say with
confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do
to me?’ Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you;
consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Do not be carried away
by all kinds of strange teachings; for it is well for the heart to be
strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food, which have not
benefited those who observe them.
Titles For
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on April 03-04/18
Judases Of the Cedar’s Revolution & the 14th Of March CoalitionظElias
Bejjani/02 April/18
To Make Our Easter’s Commemoration Godly & Righteous/Elias Bejjani/01
April/18
The hidden chapter of Zahle's battle/Dr.Walid Phares/Face Book/April 03/18
Lebanese Parliamentary Coming Elections: A Gigantic Political Rivalry/Sondoss
Al Asaad/Moder Diplomacy/April 03/18
The "Moderate" Muslim Scholar Industry/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone
Institute/April 03/18
Iran using religious indoctrination to gain influence in Georgia/Ali
Hajizade/Al Arabiya/April 03/18
Saudi Arabia’s bravery in confronting problems/Hassan Al Mustafa/Al Arabiya/April
03/18
How relations between China and the US are heating up/Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al
Arabiya/April 03/18
Trump and Syria, reality and fantasy/Mashari Althaydi/Al Arabiya/April 03/18
How Will Iran Prepare for Potential U.S. Withdrawal from the JCPOA/Omer
Carmi//The Washington Institute/April 03/18
If Trump walks away from the Iran deal, Tehran will win/Dennis Ross/The
Washington Institute/ April 03/18
Turkish-Russian-Iranian Summit: Limits to a Tripartite Entente/Soner
Cagaptay, Anna Borshchevskaya, and Nader Uskowi/The Washington
Institute/April 03/18
Titles For Latest LCCC Lebanese Related News published on April 03-04/18
Judases Of the Cedar’s Revolution &
the 14th Of March Coalition
To Make Our Easter’s Commemoration Godly & Righteous
The hidden chapter of Zahle's battle
Aoun Receives Saudi Invitation to Arab Summit
Rifi: Their Battle is against Me, Not against Syrian Regime
Hariri Meets al-Rahi, Blames Jumblat for Relation's 'Ups and Downs'
Hariri, Geagea, Jumblat Attend Inauguration of King Salman Avenue in Beirut
Saudi Charge d'Affaires Holds Talks with al-Rahi in Bkirki
Jumblat: Naming Beirut Avenue after King Salman an Honorable Chapter
Mashnouq Stresses that Mustaqbal Backs Berri's Reelection
LF Spearheading Electoral Battle in Baalbek-Hermel
EU to Send Election Monitors to Lebanon
Shiite Cleric Opposed to Hezbollah Threatened in East Lebanon
Saudi Arabia officially invites Aoun to Arab Summit
Jumblatt Escalates Rhetoric Against Bassil, Dissociates Aoun
Aoun: Brussels conference to help lift refugee 'burdens'
Berri, interlocutors tackle current developments
Fighting fake news: International bodies launch new standards for
journalists
Hariri inaugurates King Salman Avenue: Lebanon’s Arabism takes precedence
over all allegiances
Bukhari during inauguration of King Salman Avenue says Saudi Lebanese
relations deeply entrenched
Chbib during inauguration of King Salman Avenue says event outright message
Beirut sticking to Arab roots
Jumblatt: Naming boulevard in Beirut after King Salman reminder of Beirut's
struggle history
Lebanese Parliamentary Coming Elections: A Gigantic Political Rivalry
Titles For Latest
LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 03-04/18
Despite Trump Vow, Quick U.S. Pullout from Syria Unlikely
Rouhani Pressured to Fulfill Campaign Promise on Lifting Mousavi, Karroubi
House Arrest
Syria Regime Prepares Evacuation, Eyes Total Ghouta Reconquest
Putin Tightens Turkey Alliance with Nuclear Project, Syria Talks
China Begins Counter-Measures in Trade Tariffs War with US
Saudi Crown Prince Says Israel Has 'Right' to a Homeland
Saudi Crown Prince Meets Warner Bros CEO in Los Angeles
Husband of British-Iranian Prisoner in Tehran Urges UK PM May to Intervene
North Korea Foreign Minister in China to Meet Counterpart
Ehud Barak’s New Book Reveals Intelligence Operations in Arab Countries
After Egypt's Sisi Wins 97%, Eyes on Next Term
Kuwait to Recruit Ethiopians amid Philippines Labor Crisis
Latest
Lebanese Related News published
on April 03-04/18
Judases
Of the Cedar’s Revolution & the 14th Of March Coalition
يوداصيو ثورة الأرز و14 آذار
Elias Bejjani/02 April/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/63605
Sadly there are no politicians in Lebanon,
but mere thugs, mercenaries and merchants. 99% of the so called Lebanese
politicians, as well as the majority owners of the so called parties which
are in reality commercial corporations ..have No dignity, No self respect,
No patriotic background, No vision and no faith or hope.
They do not fear Almighty God or even take into consideration His Judgment
Day.
These thugs are 100% totally accountable for all the hardships that Lebanon
and the Lebanese have been encountering since 2005..
The worst among these thugs are those who falsely allege to be patriotic and
hide behind the Cedar’s Revolution national tags.
the same revolution that they betrayed, abandoned and sold to Hezbollah,
Iran and the Syrian butcher. Definitely, we do not have actual politicians
in Lebanon at the present time.
To Make Our Easter’s
Commemoration Godly & Righteous
Elias Bejjani/01 April/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/63605
There is no doubt that our commemoration of the resurrection of Christ
remains meaningless unless we humble ourselves and reconcile with our actual
enemies and open a new page of respect and love with those who we are in
conflicts with, especially parents and family members. In conclusion the
righteous celebration of the lords’ resurrection is not genuine without
actual deeds of love and forgiveness.
يبقى احتفالنا بذكرى قيامة المسيح دون معنى إيماني ما لم نتواضع ونتصالح مع
الذين نعاديهم أو يعادننا حيث لا قيامة دون محبة وغفران
The hidden chapter of Zahle's battle
Dr.Walid Phares/Face Book/April 03/18
During April 1981 while the battle of Zahle was underway and the Syrians
were trying to push via the "Gurfet el Frensewiye" in Oyoun el Simane,
intense diplomatic efforts were taking place to end the conflict. I was one
of the (very young) persons in charge of the outreach to the UN as a
volunteer in a commission under the Kasleek Group and the Lebanese Front. I
remember when Western diplomats told the commission that Assad had ordered
his forces to take the city (Zahle) as soon as possible because he was
afraid that his army is threatened in Lebanon. Surprised the participants
asked the diplomats: "His forces are pounding the coast from Beirut to
Kesrwan, are advancing in the jurd and suffocating Zahle. What is he afraid
of?" The diplomat answered that Assad assessment is different: "He was
fighting the militias in Ashrafieh in 1978 and now they are fighting him in
the heart of the Bekaa in 1981. If he doesn't stop there, they would surge
in Besharre and Batroun and other communities could follow." We were
surprised and wondered if this was a joke. But Albert Sara a Lebanese
Melkite bourgeois, member of the Christian Leagues, who was born in Syria
whispered in my ear: "That's how Assad think. He has read about Lebanon more
than many Lebanese have. He has read Boutros Daou's book. He fears that a
prolonged fight will draw international support."Indeed the international intervention materialized after few weeks. All it
took was for the local resistance to stand firmly for as long as it took and
the leaders demonstrating strategic resolve. How far is Lebanon from these
times of clarity...
(From memoirs)
Aoun Receives Saudi
Invitation to Arab Summit
Naharnet/April 03/18/Saudi charge d'affaires in Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari on
Tuesday handed President Michel Aoun an invitation from Saudi King Salman to
the Arab League summit that will be held in the Saudi city of Dhahran on
April 15. In his invitation letter, the Saudi monarch said Aoun's
participation in the summit “would greatly contribute to its success,”
hoping the summit will “strengthen joint Arab action and confront the
challenges that our Arab nation is facing.” Aoun for his part asked Bukhari
to relay his greetings to King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,
conforming that he will lead the Lebanese delegation to the summit. The
president also hoped the summit will “enhance Arab unity, especially amid
these difficult circumstances in the Arab countries.”
Rifi: Their Battle is against Me, Not against Syrian Regime
Naharnet/April 03/18/Ex-minister and Tripoli parliamentary candidate Maj.
Gen. Ashraf Rifi has vowed to hold his rivals “accountable” in the May 6
parliamentary elections. “They tried to wage a psychological war against
people and to intimidate them, but the scenes (of Rifi's electoral rallies)
in Akkar, Beirut and Tripoli have toppled their illusions and bets. We
promise them that the score will be settled in ballot boxes,” Rifi told al-Joumhouria
daily in remarks published Tuesday. “The attempt to delude people into
believing that they are confronting the hegemony scheme and the Syrian
regime has also failed,” Rifi added, in an apparent reference to Prime
Minister Saad Hariri and his al-Mustaqbal Movement. “Their battle is against
Ashraf Rifi, not against the Syrian regime,” the former minister claimed. He
noted that “there are reports that the cronies of this regime on their lists
are still in contact with this regime.” “We know very well that they have
received a green light from Hizbullah to attack me, whereas they are in
agreement on everything with the presidency, which is Hizbullah's ally,”
Rifi added. “After the elections, they want to carry on with this
humiliating settlement. We tell them to be prepared for people's
accountability on May 6,” the ex-minister went on to say. Rifi had on Monday
announced his 11-member electoral list for the Tripoli-Dinniyeh-Minieh
district. A list backed by Rifi had achieved a landslide victory in
Tripoli's 2016 municipal elections.
Hariri Meets al-Rahi, Blames Jumblat for Relation's
'Ups and Downs'
Naharnet/April 03/18/Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks Tuesday in Bkirki
with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and said that his relation with
Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat has always witnessed “ups and downs.”Talks
with al-Rahi tackled “the various topics in the domestic arena and the
latest developments,” Hariri's office said, noting that discussions with the
patriarch were continued over a lunch banquet. Culture Minister Ghattas
Khoury and Hariri's adviser Daoud al-Sayegh attended the talks. Asked by
reporters about the reported deterioration in his relation with Jumblat,
Hariri said: “My relation with Walid Beik witnesses ups and downs and we all
know this, but this is not because of Saad Hariri. That's why in this issue
I always look at the strategic relation, whereas the daily trivialities of
this relation are part of Lebanese politics.”“Walid Beik and I will not
disagree. He knows what he represents to me and I know what I represent to
him,” the premier added. Asked whether he will resume communication with his
allies in the March 14 camp after the elections, Hariri said: “I have not
abandoned my March 14 allies.” As for his relation with Lebanese Forces
leader Samir Geagea, the premier said: “My relation with Dr. Geagea is
excellent and I called him yesterday to offer Easter greetings.” Asked when
he would meet him, Hariri said “soon.”
Hariri, Geagea, Jumblat Attend Inauguration of King
Salman Avenue in Beirut
Naharnet/April 03/18/A ceremony to inaugurate the King Salman bin Abdul Aziz
Avenue was held Tuesday evening in Beirut's Minet El Hosn area, in the
presence of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea
and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat. Saudi royal envoy
Nizar al-Aloula and Saudi charge d'affaires in Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari
attended the ceremony. According to Lebanon's National News Agency, the
avenue stretches from the Four Seasons Hotel Beirut in Minet El Hosn to the
seaside Zaitunay Bay area. It has a length of 1.3 kilometers and a width of
45 meters.
Speaking at the ceremony, Bukhari said “Saudi Arabia has always been and
will always be keen on Lebanon's safety, security, stability and national
unity.” “We laud the efforts of President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri
and Prime Minister Saad Hariri in consolidating the pillars of peace despite
the difficulties,” the Saudi envoy added. “The Saudi-Lebanese ties are
deep-rooted and will remain deep-rooted like cedars,” Bukhari went on to
say. Hariri for his part said Beirut is “honoring a great Arab leader who
has stood by Lebanon during the most difficult circumstances.” "Between
Lebanon and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia there is a history that will never
be broken, no matter how much they try. This Beiruti evening is a clear
message that Lebanon's Arab identity comes before all loyalties, axes and
equations,” Hariri added. Beirut Municipality sources told al-Akhbar
newspaper in remarks published Tuesday that the decision to name an avenue
after King Salman “was taken by the municipal council following a suggestion
from its chief Jamal Itani, who fulfilled a wish from the Saudi charge
d'affaires in this regard.” Sources loyal to al-Mustaqbal Movement said the
move is part of efforts to “strengthen the Lebanese-Saudi historic
ties.”Beirut's municipality had in 2005 named Beirut's new seaside corniche
after late Saudi King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz.
Saudi Charge d'Affaires Holds Talks with al-Rahi in
Bkirki
Naharnet/April 03/18/Saudi charge d'affaires in Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari
held talks Tuesday in Bkirki with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Bukhari said he paid a “protocol”
visit to al-Rahi after being reappointed as charge d'affaires. Noting that
he extended Easter greetings to the patriarch, the Saudi envoy said the
meeting was an occasion to discuss al-Rahi's “historic visit to Saudi Arabia
and its positive outcome.” Bukhari had held talks Monday in Clemenceau with
Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat.
Jumblat: Naming Beirut Avenue after King Salman an
Honorable Chapter
Naharnet/April 03/18/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on
Tuesday hailed the move of naming an avenue on Beirut's seafront after Saudi
King Salman bin Abdul Aziz. “It is an honorable chapter of Arab history and
solidarity in the face of colonialism. Naming a Beirut avenue after King
Salman reminds of Beirut's history of Nasserite struggle and the
Lebanese-Palestinian cohesion during the (1982 Israeli) siege of Beirut,”
Jumblat tweeted. Jumblat accompanied his tweet with a link to an article
detailing the story of King Salman's volunteering in the Egyptian army
during the 1956 war on Egypt. The PSP leader later arrived in Beirut's Minet
El Hosn area to take part in a ceremony to inaugurate the avenue. He had met
Monday with Saudi charge d'affaires in Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari. The
developments mark an improvement in the ties between Jumblat and the kingdom
after they were strained during Prime Minister Saad Hariri's resignation
crisis and because of tweets by Jumblat about the Yemen war.
Mashnouq Stresses that Mustaqbal Backs Berri's Reelection
Naharnet/April 03/18/Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq emphasized Tuesday
that al-Mustaqbal Movement backs the reelection of Parliament Speaker Nabih
Berri to his post after the May parliamentary elections. “We are with
Speaker Berri as PM Saad Hariri has affirmed, contrary to reports claiming
that al-Mustaqbal Movement will not vote for him after the parliamentary
polls,” Mashnouq said during an electoral tour in Beirut. “He has always
asserted his patriotism and his Arab identity and this issue is
non-debatable,” the minister added. MP Hani Qobeissi of Berri's AMAL
Movement had warned Saturday that there are attempts to "weaken" Berri.
"Their main slogan is weakening Speaker Nabih Berri and rejecting his
reelection as parliament speaker," the MP said. Progressive Socialist Party
leader MP Walid Jumblat had cautioned in remarks published Friday that
President Michel Aoun, PM Hariri and the Free Patriotic Movement "are
targeting Berri."
LF Spearheading Electoral Battle in Baalbek-Hermel
Naharnet/April 03/18/The Lebanese Forces party is spearheading the electoral
battle in the key Baalbek-Hermel district, a media report published Tuesday
said. “In the Baalbek-Hermel district, al-Mustaqbal Movement is not leading
the electoral battle. It has rather left the mission to the LF in terms of
management, organization and rallying,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported. “Saudi
Arabia will provide the financial support for this battle at the request of
LF leader Samir Geagea,” the daily said. It noted that prior to the latest
LF-Mustaqbal rift, Geagea had tried to convince the Saudis that “the LF
should oversee March 14's electoral battles” and that “any funds should go
through him.”“Geagea's proposal has succeeded in one place – north Bekaa,”
al-Akhbar added. The Saudi and Emirati envoys to Lebanon paid Friday a rare
visit to the eastern city of Baalbek. State-run National News Agency said
they performed the Friday prayer at the Grand Ommayad Mosque in Baalbek, at
an invitation from Mufti of Baalbek and Hermel Sheikh Khaled Solh. The visit
by the two Gulf envoys comes amid a heated electoral battle in the Baalbek-Hermel
district where a list backed by Mustaqbal and the LF is seeking to snatch
seats from Hizbullah in its main stronghold.
EU to Send Election Monitors to Lebanon
Naharnet/April 03/18/The European Union has decided to send a specialized
delegation to Lebanon led by Spanish MEP Elena Valencia with the aim of
monitoring the May 6 parliamentary elections, a media report said. A report
published Tuesday by al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted EU diplomatic chief
Federica Mogherini as saying that the European Union is paying special
attention to these elections, the first that Lebanon organizes in around a
decade. Mogherini noted, according to the daily, that Lebanon's stability
and economic growth are important for the entire region. The EU official
also hoped that new parliament will lead the EU-demanded urgent reforms. “A
nine-member team of monitors has already started its work in Beirut and it
will remain in Lebanon after the vote in order to prepare a comprehensive
final report,” al-Joumhouria said. “Another 36 monitors will be deployed as
of the beginning of May,” the daily added.
Shiite Cleric Opposed
to Hezbollah Threatened in East Lebanon
Beirut- Asharq Al Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/A Shiite cleric opposed to
Hezbollah said he had received an indirect threat from two masked men in
Baalbek when his driver came under fire in the eastern city of Lebanon.
Sheikh Abbas al-Jawhari said the driver was passing through a Baalbek
neighborhood on Monday, when gunmen intercepted his vehicle, stepped out of
a Mercedes car and fired shots to intimidate him while cursing the Shiite
sheikh.
In a news conference reported by the Central News Agency (Marzakiah),
Jawhari said that gunmen attacked his car, which forced the driver to get
out and fire in the air, noting that the two armed men have threatened him.
Jawhari added: “We have received from them an ISIS-like message that is far
from tolerance, and which accuses everyone, who is running against them, as
being an ISIS supporter. This is the result of their provocative rhetoric.”
The Shiite cleric urged the Lebanese Judiciary to look into the incident,
adding that the perpetrators have defamed the image of Hezbollah. On the
other hand, some media reports said that a few days ago, Jawhari’s driver
fired at a young man from Wehbi family, without injuring him, so a group of
the family retaliated by attacking him, according to Markaziah.
Saudi Arabia officially invites Aoun to Arab Summit
The Daily Star/ April 03, 2018 /BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun Tuesday
received an official invitation to attend the Arab Summit to be held in
Saudi Arabia later this month. Aoun was handed the invitation, extended by
Saudi King Salman, during a meeting at Baabda Palace with Saudi Minister
Plenipotentiary Charges d’Affaires in Lebanon Walid Bukhari. The Arab Summit
will be held on April 15 in Dhahran. In the written message, King Salman
said that Aoun's personal attendance at the summit would "have a great
effect on its success," according to a statement from the presidency. The
king also expressed hope that the summit will assist “the mutual work of the
Arabs and the combat against the challenges that our Arab nation is facing,
and ... the goals and ambitions that our people are aiming for." Aoun, the
statement added, thanked the Saudi King for the invitation, saying that he
would head the delegation to Saudi. He expressed hope that the summit would
lead to results that would strengthen Arab unity, particularly at these
difficult times. During a Cabinet session last month, Aoun confirmed that he
intended to attend the summit, in what will be an ice-breaking move after
the president took a critical stance towards Saudi Arabia during Prime
Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation crisis last year. Hariri later revoked
his resignation, and local media have reported that the premier will
accompany Aoun on his visit to the Arab Summit. Aoun first visited Saudi
Arabia as president in January 2017. The Free Patriotic Movement, which he
founded, is allied with Hezbollah, which Saudi Arabia has accused of
fomenting instability in the region and targeting Gulf nations in its
capacity as a proxy for Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival Iran. The upcoming Arab
Summit is being held in an effort to block Israel’s ascension to the U.N.
Security Council as a non-permanent member – a position that is allocated on
a rotating basis. Israel is a candidate for a two-year term on the council
beginning on Jan. 1, 2019. Elections for the council are slated for mid-2018
during the U.N. General Assembly’s 72nd session.
Jumblatt Escalates Rhetoric Against Bassil, Dissociates
Aoun
Beirut- Wajdi Al- Aridi/Asharq Al Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/A political
conflict between the Progressive Socialist Party, led by MP Walid Jumblatt,
and the Free Patriotic Movement, headed by Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil,
has gone public as the country prepares to hold parliamentary elections on
May 6. Jumblatt, however, is dissociating President Michel Aoun from his
harsh criticism of Bassil and the FPM, touching on issues ranging between
electricity generating ships and the upcoming parliamentary polls, which
will see a tense rivalry between the two parties in the Chouf-Aley
constituency, as well as in other regions.In this regard, political sources
told Asharq Al-Awsat that the electoral understanding between the FPM and
Minister Talal Arslan led to the escalation of the dispute between the FPM
and the PSP, forcing the latter’s leader to issue a series of tweets,
criticizing Bassil’s policies and directives.
The electoral battle in the Chouf-Aley district is likely to witness a
confrontation between four lists, particularly between the Recoiliation List
headed by Taymour Jumblatt, and the list formed by Arslan and the FPM, in
addition to another list led by former Minister Wiam Wahhab and a fourth
list formed by representatives of the civil society. Meanwhile, sources told
Asharq Al-Awsat that disagreements between the PSP and the FPM might mark
the next stage of the political life, in the wake of Bassil’s efforts to
impose his policies and projects in the Chouf Mountain, hence directly
entering into Jumblatt’s stronghold, which will have negative repercussions
at many levels. In this regard, member of the PSP and the Democratic
Gathering parliamentary bloc, MP Nehmeh Tohme, said that his party would not
engage in any political confrontation or escalation with any side, in order
to guarantee the holding of democratic elections, in which the Lebanese
people freely choose their representatives.
Aoun: Brussels conference to help lift refugee
'burdens'
The Daily Star/April 03/18 /BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun expressed hope
Tuesday that international funding gathered at this month’s conference in
Brussels would help Lebanon “face the burdens” of the Syrian refugee
presence, according to a statement from the president’s office. The
so-called Brussels conference, slated for later this month, is aimed at
garnering international aid to support Lebanon in coping with the at least
one million Syrian refugees within its borders. “Lebanon is crying out right
now for the results of the Brussels conference,” Aoun said Tuesday, at a
meeting with the General Union of Employees and Workers of Hotels,
Restaurants, Nutrition and Entertainment. Repeating an often-used refrain,
Aoun lamented the economic impacts of the large number of Syrian refugees in
Lebanon, whom he blamed for “entering the Lebanese job market” and driving
up unemployment. The president estimated that Lebanon’s unemployment rate
was at 46 percent, a number he also cited last week at a meeting with a
delegation from the Lebanese Press Syndicate at Baabda Palace. Aoun
expressed hope that the Brussels conference would have “positive
repercussions on this issue, which will help Lebanon reduce the competition
of foreign labor for Lebanese workers,” according to the statement. Syrian
refugees hoping to find formal employment face significant barriers to entry
into many Lebanese sectors.
Berri, interlocutors
tackle current developments
Tue 03 Apr 2018/NNA - House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday welcomed at his
Ain Tineh residence US Ambassador to Lebanon, Elizabeth Richard, with whom
he discussed the current situation in Lebanon and the region. Speaker Berri
also met with the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Bernell Dahler Cardel,
with talks between the pair reportedly touching on most recent developments.
This afternoon, Berri met with MP Boutros Harb, with the forthcoming
legislative elections and the general political situation featuring high on
their talks. On emerging, MP Harb stressed commitment to maintaining
principles and standards in addressing the electoral topic. Berri also
received former PM Nejib Mikati, with discussions centering on the general
situation and the elections' issue. Among Berri's itinerant visitors for
today had been former Vice Prime Minister, Head of the INTERPOL Foundation,
Elias Murr. The general situation highlighted their talks. The Speaker also
received a delegation from the army command, led by Brigadier General Fadi
Abi Farraj, who presented him with an honorary shield.
Fighting fake news: International bodies launch new
standards for journalists
Tue 03 Apr 2018/NNA - Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and leading
broadcasters launched a drive against fake news Tuesday with a new set of
trust and transparency standards for journalists.The Journalism Trust
Initiative (JTI), which hopes to be able to certify outlets and news sources
with high standards of ethical norms and independence, is being backed by
Agence-France Presse, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Global
Editors Network. RSF head Christophe Deloire said the idea was that search
engines and social media platforms would give preferential treatment in
their algorithms to media outlets that met the standards. He hopes that it
will lead to the setting up of a "trusted media label" in a world
increasingly assaulted by fake news.--AFP
Hariri inaugurates King Salman Avenue: Lebanon’s
Arabism takes precedence over all allegiances
Tue 03 Apr 2018/NNA - Prime Minister Saad Hariri inaugurated on Tuesday King
Abdullah Salman Avenue in Beirut (Minet elhosn - Zaituna Bay), in the
presence of President Michel Sleiman, former Prime Ministers Fouad Siniora,
Najib Mikati and Tamam Salam, the representative of the Guardian of the Two
Holy Mosques, the adviser to the Royal Court Nizar al-Alula, the Saudi
Chargé d'Affaires Walid Al-Bukhari, MP Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Forces
head Samir Geagea and many ministers and MPs. Hariri said: "Many Lebanese
and many people in this capital know very well the special status of Beirut
in the heart and memory of the Guardian of the two Holy Mosques, King Salman
ben Abdel Aziz. They know how much he loves Lebanon and its people. He is
one of the great men in the Kingdom, who know Lebanon and its regions, and
has a wide network of friends including dozens of political, cultural and
social figures as well as journalists.I never met King Salman since he was
Prince of the city of Riyadh, without him having a good memory of Lebanon to
tell, to the point that one had the impression that one is facing a
historian of Lebanese affairs who talks to you about successive presidents,
leaders he met, the governments that were formed, the parliaments, the
conflicts during parliamentary sessions. He also talks about the affairs of
the Lebanese press and its symbols, the festivals of Baalbeck, the markets
of Beirut and Tripoli, the restaurants of Zahle, the intellectuals' cafes of
Hamra and Raouché. He is from the generation that is a witness to the
grandeur of this city and its role in the lives of Arabs and Arab leaders.
Beirut is here today to celebrate the fact that the name of Salman ben Abdel
Aziz will be enthroned on the waterfront. All Beirut is here to honor an
important Arab figure who stood alongside Lebanon in the most difficult
circumstances. It honors through it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which in
the history of the relationship with our country, has glorious pages of
kindness, support and generosity, the big brother who translated the true
meaning of fraternity by sponsoring the Taif agreement and ending the
Lebanese tragedy, and helping Lebanon at all stages and in all crises.
Between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, there is a history that will not be
broken, no matter how much they tried to do it. This evening in Beirut is a
clear message that Lebanon's Arabism takes precedence over all allegiances,
axes and equations. In loyalty to the kingdom and its leadership and in
appreciation of its supportive role in Lebanon, I am pleased to inaugurate
King Salman Ben Abdel Aziz Avenue on the seafront of the city of Beirut."
Bukhari during inauguration of King Salman Avenue says
Saudi Lebanese relations deeply entrenched
Tue 03 Apr 2018/NNA - Saudi Minister Plenipotentiary Charges d'Affaires
Waleed Bukhari deemed Lebanese Saudi relations as deeply rooted, saying
Saudi Arabia has been and will always remain keen on preserving Lebanon's
safety, security, stability and national unity. Bukhari's fresh remarks on
Tuesday came during the ceremony to mark the inauguration of King Salman bin
Abdul Aziz Avenue in Beirut's Mina El Hosn, attended by scores of officials
and dignitaries. The Saudi Charges d'Affaires hailed the efforts of
President Michel Aoun, House Speaker, Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister, Saad
Hariri, in the face of difficulties to consecrate the pillars of peace.
Bukhari underlined that Saudi Lebanese relations shall remain deeply rooted
akin to the embedded "cedar". The freshly inaugurated avenue was named after
the Saudi Monarch, King Salman, who embodies peace and humanity. The avenue
spans across 1.3 kilometers with a width of 45 meters. Among the speakers
during today's ceremony were most notably Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Beirut
Mayor Jamal Itani and Beirut Governor Ziad Chbib. Attending the ceremony
were former Lebanese presidents, former prime ministers and religious
representatives from all Lebanese sects, as well as scores of Lebanese MPs
and figures from all religions and sects that have a strong affection for
the Kingdom. Tuesday's ceremony is the latest event that reaffirmed the
long-lasting relationship between Riyadh and Beirut. The event also
portrayed the real image of Lebanon as it is -- a beautiful Arab country
trying to keep itself distant from all conflicts surrounding its borders and
the region. Lebanon, as was shown today, is a country that unites people
from all backgrounds. Around 7,000 balloons along with a number of doves
were released into the air as a glamorous firework show was performed
against the backdrop of Solidere's dazzling skyline and high-rise buildings.
The doves represented the sign of peace, which King Salman focuses on
through the King Salman Center for International Peace and the King Salman
Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center. A band from the Lebanese Army performed
the national anthems of Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. This is Beirut, the
capital of Lebanon, which was, is and will continue to be the crown jewel of
the Middle East. This is the true image of the city of coexistence and
peace.
Chbib during inauguration of King Salman Avenue says
event outright message Beirut sticking to Arab roots
Tue 03 Apr 2018/NNA - The Municipality of Beirut held a
ceremony on Tuesday, April 3, 2018, marking the inauguration of King Salman
Avenue in Downtown Beirut. "Our celebration today is a tribute to the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; a tribute that reflects a history of relations that
have always been so profoundly fraternal and unique, thanks to the KSA's
endless support to the Lebanese state and people," Beirut Governor, Ziad
Chbib, said. Named after the Saudi monarch, who embodies peace and humanity,
the avenue spans across 1.3 kilometers at a width of 45 meters.
Among the speakers were most notably Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Minister
Plenipotentiary Charges d'Affaires Walid Bukhari, Beirut Mayor Jamal Itani
and Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib. Former Lebanese presidents, all former
prime ministers and religious representatives from all Lebanese sects
attended, as well as a number of Lebanese MPs and figures from all religions
and sects that have a strong affection for the Kingdom. In his delivered
word, Chbib added that the Lebanese government knew best the importance of
maintaining steadfast Lebanese-Saudi relations, adding that the Lebanese
state has always defended, fortified, and worked on deepening Saudi-Lebanese
ties at all levels. "Thank you Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, for everything
you have done and will do for Lebanon's best interest (...) naming this
avenue after His Majesty, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is a message to the
world that Beirut remains committed to its Arab roots, as it has always been
throughout its modern history -- a beacon of Arab thought since the 19th
century and during the 20th century," Chbib concluded. Tuesday's ceremony is
the latest event that reaffirmed the long-lasting relationship between
Riyadh and Beirut. The Kingdom also reiterated its support and respect for
Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the work he has carried out since assuming
his role as the leader of Cabinet. The event also portrayed the real image
of Lebanon as it is -- a beautiful Arab country trying to keep itself
distant from all conflicts surrounding its borders and the region. Lebanon,
as was shown today, is a country that unites people from all backgrounds.
Around 7,000 balloons along with a number of doves were released into the
air as a glamorous firework show was performed against the backdrop of
Solidere's dazzling skyline and high-rise buildings. The doves represented
the sign of peace, which King Salman focuses on through the King Salman
Center for International Peace and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and
Relief Center. A band from the Lebanese Army performed the national anthems
of Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom remains a firm believer in Lebanon
and looks forward to continuing its relationship with the Lebanese
government and its people, which dates back decades. This is Beirut, the
capital of Lebanon, which was, is and will continue to be the crown jewel of
the Middle East. This is the true image of the city of coexistence and
peace.
Jumblatt: Naming boulevard in Beirut after King Salman reminder of Beirut's
struggle history
Tue 03 Apr 2018/NNA - "Democratic Gathering" head MP Walid Jumblatt said
naming a boulevard in Beirut after King Salman is a reminder of Beirut's
history of Nasserite struggle and Palestinian national cohesion. MP
Jumblatt's words on Tuesday came during his participation in the ceremony to
mark the inauguration of King Slaman bin Abdul Aziz Avenue in Beirut's Mina
El Hosn. Jumblatt deemed the inauguration of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz
Avenue in Beirut's Mina El Hosn as an "honorable page of Arab history and
solidarity in the face of colonialism."In reply to a question about his
relation with Saudi Arabia, he said: 'Let's open a new page of relations
with Saudi Arabia."
Lebanese Parliamentary Coming Elections: A Gigantic
Political Rivalry
Sondoss Al Asaad/Moder Diplomacy/April 03/18
The Lebanese constitution stipulates that the parliamentary electoral
process take place every four years; however, the political unrest during
the recent years has delayed this election, rankling voters and galvanizing
a campaign to change electoral laws. Per Lebanon’s constitution, it is
committed that the president is a Maronite Christian; the prime minister is
a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the parliament a Shiite Muslim.In May
2018, Lebanon will hold its first parliamentary elections after postponing
it several times since 2009.
The new electoral dynamic could significantly change the political calculus.
This law has eventually granted the Lebanese immigrants their right to vote;
has reduced the number of electoral districts in the country from 26 to 15
and has replaced the current plurality system with a system of proportional
representation; increasing the sectarian diversity of MPs within each
district.
Each of the eighteen religious sects, which the Lebanese constitution
recognizes, the designations by which political seats are allocated, court
foreign support. In response to Lebanon’s failure to condemn attacks on
Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran following the kingdom’s execution of a
Shi’ite cleric, the Saudis cancelled a three billion dollar aid package for
the Lebanese army. Additionally, they increase the level of their aggressive
threatening rhetoric anti Lebanon.
The expected election will take place after the consecutive political
debates and since the former president; Michel Suleiman finished his term in
2014 without an agreement on who would succeed him. After two years of the
presidential vacant, the Lebanese Politicians overcame the political
deadlock in October 2016, electing General Michel Aoun as president.
In a televised speech, Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
urged the Lebanese to effectively take part in order to get the largest
electoral outcome. He asserted that the relative law allows people to take
their natural size in contrast to the law of majority, stressing, “The great
harvest that we have achieved in Lebanon has cost us dear blood and it is
our responsibility to keep our country strong.”
Lebanon is considerably polarised because of the continuous political
unrest, Zionist attacks, security drastic events and the impact of the
Syrian civil war. With this situation, President Aoun would play an
effective role in terms of implementing changes and reforms. Undoubtedly, he
stores experience of having an ability to weave understandings, build
national bridges, address diverse forces and demonstrate strong leadership
to rebuild the state.
Analysts consider that Aoun’s impending election would be an immense victory
for Hezbollah, in terms of its political allies as well as its position in
Lebanon and a painful climb down for the Saudis after their disengagement
with Lebanon since February 2018. This co-operation dates back to 2006 when
President Aoun signed a formal agreement of alliance between his Free
Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah. President Michel Aoun has consistently
backed Hezbollah ever since.
The Lebanese electoral system has followed sectarian allocations, entitled
‘consociational democracy’, since the independence from French Mandate in
1943. Seats in both the parliament and the government are reserved for the
18 different religious sects’ representatives. This sectarian designation
divides sects and prevents political mobilisation around specific issues. As
a result, the interests of outside powers take precedence over the interests
of Lebanese voters.
Addressing his followers,Sayyed Nasrallah further highlighted, “Your votes
in favour of the Resistance’s candidates would preserve the blood of the
martyrs who have fallen in the Resistance’s path especially amid the current
direct US interference in the region.”
After the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri, the Lebanese
public was divided, either supporting the March 8 Alliance i.e. Resistance
axis, or the March 14 Alliance i.e. anti-Resistance axis. Disagreements
between these two groups at the very beginning intensified, and then
subsided correspondingly with political developments.
Since the adoption of the new law, which is based on the proportional
representation system, electoral experts confirmed that the distribution of
seats among the political forces was almost conclusive. They emphasised that
the “Shi’ite duo” Hezbollah and Amal Movement agreed that the sect’s
parliamentary seats would be shared consensually. Such a deal means that
Hezbollah and Amal would maintain additional parliamentary seats;
particularly in the two districts: Baalbek/Hermel and Nabatieh/Bint Jbeil/Zahrani.
Amid the consecutive Zionist-American-Saudi failures in the region, analysts
expect that the coming election, which many Lebanese are awaiting
enthusiastically, might interrupt almost the nine years of stability.In the
announcement of the electoral program for Hezbollah’s MPs and the Loyalty to
the Resistance Bloc, the Secretary-general of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah said, “Be careful there are American-“Israeli” exercises. There
are developments in the region and the world.”
Mostly all Lebanese understand that the stagnant political status quo can
undermine security in the long run due to the foreign blatant interference
in the Lebanese internal issues. A robust debate and concerns remain heavily
centred on security and the status quo. It is obvious that the Zionist Saudi
American powers aligned with some Lebanese actors would react undesirably to
any significant shifts in the Lebanese political scene.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addressed his followers, “To the Lebanese, the
upcoming parliamentary elections represent a serious opportunity for the
Lebanese people to re-produce their national authority, benefiting from the
state of stability and safety provided by the protection umbrella thanks to
the equation of the army, the people and the resistance. The security
presence in Lebanon is due to this equation. There is a dispute in the
evaluation, but this is our opinion. There is a new electoral law based on
proportionality in which we contributed greatly to its adoption. It will
allow the Lebanese to better express their choices better and correct the
parliamentary representation as much as possible.”
Analysts, further, assume that the Saudis could leverage the power and
launch an economic boycott over Lebanon as they have done with Qatar. Sayyed
Nasrallah expressed, “Everyone has come to realize that the country’s
situation on the financial level has become dangerous. Thus, discussions
were held that if we continue like this, will Lebanon become like Greece or
not?” He added, “It is necessary for everyone to deal with the issue of
fighting waste and corruption in all departments and institutions of the
state that is linked to public money.” “The issue of fighting [corruption
and waste] is an absolute national priority. We will commit ourselves and
work on the basis of this priority in the coming stage,” Sayyed Nasrallah
read.
**Sondoss Al AsaadSondoss Al Asaad is a Lebanese freelance journalist,
political analyst and translator; based in Beirut, Lebanon. Al Asaad writes
on issues of the Arabs and Muslims world, with special focus on the Bahraini
uprising.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/04/03/lebanese-parliamentary-coming-elections-a-gigantic-political-rivalry/
Latest LCCC
Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on April 03-04/18
Despite Trump Vow, Quick U.S. Pullout
from Syria Unlikely
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 03/18/When
President Donald Trump vowed U.S. forces would shortly quit Syria, observers
were left wondering if he was signalling an epic policy shift -- or whether
it was more a case of wishful thinking. Trump, who campaigned on a pledge of
"America First," is said to be frustrated by the open-ended U.S. commitment
in Syria, where special operations forces are training and advising Kurdish
and Syrian Arab fighters who are battling the Islamic State group. Now that
the jihadists have lost 98 percent of the ground they once held, according
to the Pentagon, Trump last week told supporters it is almost time to bring
the 2,000 or so U.S. troops home from Syria. "We'll be coming out of Syria,
like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now," Trump promised
in an address to industrial workers in Ohio. "We're going to have 100
percent of the caliphate, as they call it -- sometimes referred to as 'land'
-- taking it all back quickly, quickly," he added. Analysts were quick to
question the consequences of a rapid withdrawal from Syria, and by Monday it
was clear that the current Syria policy is not shifting, at least for now.
"Our mission has not changed," Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway
said. "We are continuing to implement the president's strategy to defeat
ISIS."Officials told AFP that Trump's aside in his speech was not a slip,
but that for several weeks he had been resisting the idea of a long- or
medium-term U.S. commitment to stabilizing eastern Syria after the defeat of
IS. The State Department refused to confirm or deny a report in The Wall
Street Journal that Trump had placed on hold $200 million in U.S. funding to
help stabilize areas of eastern Syria recaptured from IS. But, speaking on
condition of anonymity, U.S. officials confirmed that Trump has been
privately questioning the strategy for several weeks.
Total U.S. capitulation
Since late 2014, the United States has led an international coalition
fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, where most of the combat
has been conducted by local partners on the ground. Trump's apparent
readiness to quit the chaos of Syria runs counter to a new U.S. strategy
announced in January by then secretary of state Rex Tillerson -- who has
since been sacked. Tillerson argued U.S. forces must remain engaged in Syria
to prevent IS and al-Qaida from returning and to deny Iran a chance "to
further strengthen its position in Syria."Charles Lister, a senior fellow
and director of the Extremism and Counterterrorism Program at the Middle
East Institute, noted that a sudden withdrawal of U.S. forces would
immediately bolster Iran, Russia and the regime of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad. Trump's "comments come so much out of nowhere that it's hard to
take them totally seriously," said Lister, of the Washington think tank. The
president has picked a new national security advisor, John Bolton, and
nominated a new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, both of whom are hawkish on
Iran. "Trump and his new team basically now are kind of violently
anti-Iranian and leaving Syria would represent a total U.S. capitulation to
Iranian influence in the region," Lister told AFP. Trump's advisors
including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other officials "will at least
for now overpower Trump's tendency to just pack up and leave."But Daniel
Davis, a retired army lieutenant colonel and fellow at the Defense
Priorities military think tank, said Trump is right to desire a withdrawal
of U.S. troops because ultimately, America's presence would have no impact
on Syria's seven-year civil war, and that the real players are Iran and
Russia. "Why would the president want to continue to do something that is
guaranteed to fail? I think (withdrawal) is the right thing to do," Davis
told AFP, noting that America should only get involved in foreign military
interventions when U.S. national security interests are directly threatened.
More than 340,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since
Syria's civil war started in 2011, spiralling into a complex conflict
involving multiple world powers.
Rouhani Pressured to
Fulfill Campaign Promise on Lifting Mousavi, Karroubi House Arrest
London - Adel al-Salmi/Asharq Al Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani is facing several internal challenges in regards to
fulfilling pledges he made during his presidential campaign. He has faced
mounting pressure over the ongoing house arrest of reform movement leaders
former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Rouhani had
vowed to end their arrest, a promise that has yet to be fulfilled.
Restrictions curbing the activity of reformist former president Mohammad
Khatami were also promised to be rolled back. Reformist MP Elias Hazrati
sent an open letter to Rouhani asking him to meet his constitutional duty on
releasing Mousavi and Karroubi. When analyzing the internal situation, the
ongoing status quo is unacceptable, said Hazrati. “In view of your
responsibility to implement the Constitution, I affirm your legal duty in
the case of compulsory house arrest imposed on Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi
Karroubi,” Etemad cited Hazrati as saying when addressing Rouhani. He said
that ending the house arrest “is a necessary step for national unity and
reducing social and political divisions.”Karroubi had sent an open letter to
supreme leader Ali Khamenei demanding that he take responsibility for his
policies over the past three decades instead of criticizing others. He said
the current political, economic, cultural and social conditions are a result
of Khamenei's strategic and operational policy “adventures.”Karroubi also
called the recent popular protests in Iranian cities “a warning bell”
against corruption, injustice and discrimination, stressing the need to take
the concerns of the Iranian people into account. Backing his father’s
position, Hussein Karroubi said in an interview with reformist Insaf News
that “his father will not remain silent even after the lifting of house
arrest.”He stressed that his father “is still a believer in the Islamic
Republic.” However, he disagreed with Khamenei’s approaches. Despite rising
differences between the reformist camp and the moderates, reformist
movement's leaders have confirmed continued support for Rouhani. Their
backing of the president aims to reduce the chances for a conservative
government takeover backed by Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards forces.
Syria Regime Prepares
Evacuation, Eyes Total Ghouta Reconquest
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 03/18/Buses entered the last rebel
holdout of Syria's Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday in preparation for a possible
second day of evacuations as the regime eyed the total reconquest of the
enclave. Evacuations of Jaish al-Islam fighters and their families from the
former bastion's main town of Douma started Monday under a Russia-brokered
deal. Jaish al-Islam has not yet confirmed the accord, amid reports
hardliners within the group were refusing to leave their positions. The
reported deal is the latest in a string of agreements that have seen tens of
thousands of people -- rebels and civilians -- leave the onetime stronghold
outside Damascus for the north of the country. Russia-backed regime forces
have retaken control of 95 percent of Eastern Ghouta since February 18
through a combination of a deadly air and ground assault and evacuation
deals. The reconquest of Eastern Ghouta would mark a major milestone in
President Bashar al-Assad's efforts to regain control of territory seized by
rebels during Syria's seven-year civil war. Buses entered the enclave on
Tuesday to prepare for a second day of evacuations, a military source and
the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
But there were no reports of any having exited at the start of the
afternoon. "The operation could continue today or not. There are divisions
among the Jaish al-Islam group on their leaving but we are continuing
preparations," the military source told AFP.
Will not leave
In a first wave of the evacuations from Douma under the deal, more than
1,100 people -- Jaish al-Islam fighters and family members -- set off late
Monday to the rebel-held town of Jarabulus in northern Syria, state news
agency SANA said. In the morning, an AFP reporter saw dozens of empty buses
waiting by the side of the highway and near a government-held checkpoint
used by the buses to enter and exit Eastern Ghouta. The Observatory, which
relies on sources on the ground, said the evacuations were set to continue
on Tuesday but that divisions continued within the group. "There is still a
hardline wing in Jaish al-Islam that refuses the deal," Observatory chief
Rami Abdel Rahman said. Jaish al-Islam has around 10,000 fighters in its
ranks, the Observatory says. In video footage published by the group online
on Sunday, leader Essam al-Buidani told men in a mosque: "We will stay in
this town and will not leave."
But "those who want to leave should leave," he said. Monday's evacuation
came after more than 46,000 people -- including fighters from other areas of
Eastern Ghouta -- left on buses to the northwestern province of Idlib, the
last in Syria to remain largely outside regime control. Backed by Russia,
Assad's forces have scored a series of victories over rebel forces in recent
years, often through campaigns of siege, aerial bombardment and ground
offensives that have drawn widespread international condemnation.
Spider's web
Before February 18, some 400,000 people in Eastern Ghouta had lived under
regime siege for five years, facing severe food and medicine shortages. The
regime assault on Eastern Ghouta since mid-February has killed more than
1,600 civilians and caused tens of thousands to flee into regime-held
territory. Aid workers have criticized the living conditions in the
temporary camps in government-controlled territory receiving the displaced.
On Tuesday, SANA quoted a military source as saying more than 40,000 people
have returned to their homes in areas of the former rebel enclave. Syria's
war has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions since
starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Eastern Ghouta lies within mortar range of the capital, and last month the
deadliest rebel rocket attack on the capital in months killed 44 civilians.
Rebels have left behind a labyrinth of tunnels under Eastern Ghouta, fitted
with hospitals and military headquarters, and some of them wide enough to
drive a car through. A Syrian army official who escorted journalists on a
visit Monday described them as "a real spider's web." SANA said the military
also found two underground field hospitals, equipped with medical equipment
and medicine.
Putin Tightens Turkey
Alliance with Nuclear Project, Syria Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 03/18/President Vladimir Putin on
Tuesday embarked on a two day visit to Russia's increasingly close partner
Turkey to launch the construction of its first nuclear power plant and
coordinate policy on the war in Syria. Putin was to hold an afternoon of
talks with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the two strongmen
leaders are joined on Wednesday by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for a
summit devoted to Syria. Their meeting in Ankara opened with Putin and
Erdogan, via video conference, launching construction of Turkey's first
nuclear power station in the Mediterranean Mersin region, a massive project
that will come online in half a decade. In a sign of the importance of the
alliance, Putin's visit to Turkey is his first trip abroad since he won a
historic fourth presidential mandate in March 18 polls. Putin and Erdogan --
who have both led their post-imperial states out of economic crisis but also
into a new era of confrontation with the West -- have forged an increasingly
close alliance in recent months. The Russian leader was driven to the vast
presidential palace surrounded by an escort of Turkish troops in ceremonial
dress on horseback and was warmly greeted by Erdogan who was waiting in
person at the gate.
Close cooperation
Their meeting comes as ties between Russia and the West are nosediving to
post-Cold War lows after the March poisoning of Russian ex-double agent
Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK. While EU powers have rushed to
join Britain in condemning Russia and expelling diplomats over the attack on
Skripal, Turkey has been much more circumspect. Erdogan, who in 2017 held
eight face-to-face meetings with Putin and has already spoken to the Russian
leader seven times by phone this year, has said that Ankara will not act
against Moscow "based on an allegation". In a move that has troubled
Turkey's NATO allies, Ankara has agreed to buy S-400 air defense missile
systems from Russia. But Ankara-Moscow relations were also tested by a
severe crisis from November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian war plane
over Syria, a confrontation both sides are trying to put behind each other.
Despite being on different sides of the Syrian civil war, key regime backers
Russia and Iran have joined with rebel-supporting Turkey to push forward a
peace process but also to ensure influence in Syria once the conflict ends.
"We are also in close cooperation with Russia to end as soon as possible the
terror threat and clashes in Syria," said Erdogan.
'New stage for Turkey
The Akkuyu power station -- a project costing over $20 billion (16 billion
euros) and heavily disliked by environmentalists -- was already launched
once before in February 2015 but then put on hold due to the row over the
downed Russian plane. "The scale of this project is difficult to
exaggerate," Putin said at the ceremony. "This marks a new stage in the
development of Turkey's economy." Erdogan declared: "We are witnessing a
historic moment." The project was launched with Erdogan declaiming "in the
name of God!" and work immediately began on the site, with the first
concrete pouring as celebratory fireworks were let off. Once completed the
power station will provide 10 percent of the electricity needs of Turkey,
which has few energy resources of its own. The first stage is due to come
online in 2023, the 100th anniversary of modern Turkey's founding, and be
completed entirely in 2026. Russia and Turkey are also building the
TurkStream gas pipeline under the Black Sea that will allow Moscow to pump
gas to Europe avoiding Ukraine and increase Turkey's importance as a transit
hub. Half of the offshore section of the pipeline has already been
installed. "We are realizing a number of strategic projects with the Russian
Federation," said Erdogan.
China Begins Counter-Measures in Trade Tariffs War with
US
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/China announced on Monday its
"retaliatory and practical" measures in the trade tariff crisis sparked by
the United States, revealing the entry into force of customs duties on 128
US goods, 120 of which now have 15 percent tariffs and eight others have 25
percent.
However, Beijing has also urged trade talks with the US to prevent further
damage to relations. China has criticized the administration of US President
Donald Trump for imposing taxes on steel and aluminum and has responded by
targeting some US products, including meat, fruit and wine.
In its first response, China did not target major US goods, like airplanes,
instead focusing on several small products, such as coconuts, cashew and
almond nuts, as well as scrap aluminum. According to analysts, imposing fees
on such products will first confirm Beijing's position on its threats that
it will respond strongly to the US move to impose tariffs on steel and
aluminum. Secondly, it means that targeting small commodities may spark
pressure on Trump’s administration more than major products or factories,
given the wide range of farmers and manufacturers affected by this move.
Beijing may have preferred to postpone imposing fees on major products to a
later stage, amid an expected escalation from Washington. According to the
figures, China's imports of 128 US products annually amount to $3 billion.
The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council imposed the fees, after
weeks of exchanged statements which raised fears of a trade war between the
world's two largest economies, the official Xinhua news agency said. Trump's
administration said the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports were aimed at
protecting the national security of the United States, but China's Ministry
of Commerce considered it a "violation" of World Trade Organization (WTO)
rules. "China advocates and supports a multilateral trade system,” the
ministry said. Trump had attacked China on several occasions over the huge
trade deficit, and promised during his presidential campaign to take action
to reduce it.
In March, Beijing warned that it was considering imposing tariffs ranging
from 15 to 25 percent on a number of US products. On Sunday, China's
Ministry of Commerce expressed hope the US government would withdraw the
tariffs "as soon as possible so that the trading of products between China
and the United States will return to a normal track."
Saudi Crown Prince
Says Israel Has 'Right' to a Homeland
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 03/18/The crown prince and de facto
leader of Saudi Arabia said Israel has a "right" to a homeland, a notable
shift in the kingdom's position published overnight. Saudi Arabia and Israel
still have no formal diplomatic relations, but behind the scenes,
improvements in their ties have accelerated in recent years. Both countries
see Iran as their biggest outside threat and the United States as their key
ally, and both see danger from armed Islamist extremists. Israel's conflict
with the Palestinians has long proved an obstacle to a full rapprochement,
however, as Riyadh still supports their claim to sovereignty. But now Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- speaking to the editor-in-chief of U.S. news
magazine The Atlantic -- appeared to put the rival land claims on an equal
footing. The prince was asked by Jeffrey Goldberg whether the "Jewish people
have a right to a nation-state in at least part of their ancestral
homeland?" "I believe that each people, anywhere, has a right to live in
their peaceful nation," said the prince, who is on a three-week U.S. tour.
"I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their
own land," he added. "But we have to have a peace agreement to assure the
stability for everyone and to have normal relations." Since 2002, Saudi
Arabia has been the main sponsor of the Arab Peace Initiative, which
envisions a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But no
such senior Saudi official is known to have previously accepted that Israel
has a "right" to any land beyond the practical need to secure a lasting
deal. If, as expected, the crown prince succeeds his octogenarian father
King Salman and ascends to the Saudi throne, he will also become guardian of
Islam's holiest shrines. But he told Goldberg he had no "religious
objection" to Israelis living alongside Palestinians, so long as the main
Muslim holy site in Jerusalem -- the Al-Aqsa mosque compound -- is
protected. "We have religious concerns about the fate of the holy mosque in
Jerusalem and about the rights of the Palestinian people," he said. "This is
what we have. We don't have any objection against any other people."
Saudi Crown Prince Meets Warner Bros CEO in Los Angeles
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, held talks with
Warner Bros. Chairman Kevin Tsujihara in Los Angeles as part of his ongoing
official visit to the United States. The talks, which included a number of
officials from firms affiliated with the entertainment company, tackled
opportunities for a promising media, entertainment and cultural partnership.
The meeting was attended by Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Khalid bin
Salman bin Abdulaziz and members of the Crown Prince’s delegation.
Husband of British-Iranian Prisoner in Tehran Urges UK
PM May to Intervene
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/The husband of Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran, Monday accused
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson of "not doing enough" to secure her release
and urged Prime Minister Theresa May to act. According to AFP, Richard
Ratcliffe said that “Nazanin is still in prison, so in simple terms, the
foreign secretary has not done enough.” “The prime minister is more
important, and just as we were pushing to meet the foreign secretary, at
some point, if that is not enough, we have to push up another level and
that's the prime minister,” he added. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the
Thomson Reuters Foundation - the media organization’s philanthropic arm -
was arrested at Tehran airport on April 3, 2016. She is serving a five-year
jail sentence for alleged sedition - charges she has always denied. The
couple's young daughter, Gabriella, was in Iran with her mother at the time
of her detention and has remained there in the care of relatives. Ratcliffe
insisted that "the ball is absolutely in the [British] government's court".
He added that the head of the prison where his wife is being held had told
her "I approved your release many months ago". Ratcliffe believes her
release is being held up by a battle over interest that Britain owes over a
historic arms deal that went sour following the Iranian revolution of 1979.
North Korea Foreign Minister in China to Meet
Counterpart
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong
Ho arrived in Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, a week
after Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un made a surprise trip to China before
planned summits with the US and South Korean presidents. The latest visit,
disclosed by China's foreign ministry, is part of a flurry of diplomacy that
has eased regional tensions after months of bellicose rhetoric between the
United States and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear program. A Chinese
foreign ministry spokesman did not say when Wang would meet Ri. The
spokesman, Geng Shuang, indicated that the visit would be short. Wang is
scheduled to be in Russia on Wednesday. "Details on the meeting will be
provided in a timely manner," Geng said. North Korea's official KCNA news
agency said Ri was heading a government delegation that left on Tuesday for
a conference of foreign ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement in Azerbaijan.
Ri will also visit Russia and other former Soviet states. Kim last week met
President Xi Jinping on his first trip abroad since inheriting power from
his father Kim Jong Il in December 2011. China is the North's only
significant ally and trade partner, but ties had cooled since it began
enforcing UN sanctions aimed at curbing its neighbor's nuclear and missile
programs. Kim's secretive visit was dubbed "unofficial" but bore all the
trappings of an official state occasion, with honor guards, bouquets, red
carpets and meetings with most of China's top leaders. Kim is now due to
hold a summit with South Korea's Moon Jae-in on April 27 and a landmark
meeting with US President Donald Trump is also planned -- events that give
both Pyongyang and Beijing new incentives to repair their strained
relationship. Wang hoped on Tuesday that the summit can advance smoothly and
that all sides maintain focus and avoid “disruptive factors”. He said there
had been positive changes on the Korean peninsula and that all sides were
engaging in “sincere exchanges”. “China hopes all sides can cherish this
hard to come by situation, maintain the momentum of contact and dialogue,
and create conditions to smoothly restart dialogue,” Wang said during a
joint news briefing with visiting Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis. he
hoped the Kim-Trump summit would “increase mutual understanding”. “But
historical experience tells us that at the moment of easing of the situation
on the peninsula and as first light dawns on peace and dialogue, frequently
all manner of disruptive factors emerge,” the minister added. “So we call on
all sides to maintain focus, eliminate interference, and firmly follow the
correct path of dialogue and negotiation.” Cassis said that he would discuss
with Wang the role that Switzerland could play in the strategic meetings
between Kim and “some important partners on the international level”, but he
did not elaborate.
Ehud Barak’s New Book Reveals Intelligence Operations
in Arab Countries
Tel Aviv – Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 April, 2018/Ehud Barak’s New Book
Reveals Intelligence Operations, Assassination Plots in Arab Countries
Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently finished his
autobiography in which he revealed several Israeli intelligence and
assassination operations, as part of his military activity in several Arab
countries. Some of those operations have remained under wraps for over 50
years and are now revealed in his book, “My Country, My Life: Fighting for
Israel, Searching for Peace.”Chaired by Benjamin Netanyahu, the ministerial
committee that reviews books by former senior officials allowed their former
colleague to go ahead with publishing his memoir. Sources revealed that the
book discusses the story of Israel’s most secret intelligence-gathering
operations, which laid the ground for victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 and
could possibly have prevented its defeat in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In
one of Barak’s personal stories, he recalled leading his first operations
deep in Syria and Egypt as one of the first officers of the Sayeret Matkal
commandos. The authorization for the first operation came in August 1963,
when Barak was ordered to plan and command an incursion of a five-man team
into the Golan Heights to wire-tap a Syrian army communications line. In his
book, Barak gives the first detailed account of the operation that led to a
historic and strategic breakthrough for Israeli intelligence. Each member
carried an Uzi gun and two grenades, and then crossed the border after
nightfall north of Kibbutz Dan. They had orders to return by 1:15 A.M., but
on the way they had to move passed three sleeping Syrian soldiers and the
Banias River, which was deeper and wider than expected at the spot Barak had
chosen to cross. When the order came over the radio to return, he told his
men to switch it off. Once they installed the device at the top of a
telephone pole, they returned to Israeli territory undetected, but three
hours late. They were greeted at the border by the Military Intelligence
chief, Meir Amit. The intelligence that would be gathered by the planted
devices would be a key factor less than four years later when Israeli forces
captured the Golan Heights in the last 36 hours of the Six-Day War.
However, the Syrian front wasn’t Israel’s main concern in the 1960s. Egypt
boasted the largest Arab army and a president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was
determined to unify the Arab world against Israel. Tapping into the
communications of the Egyptian army deep in Sinai would take a much larger
and more powerful device, not one that could be carried on the backs of
commandos. At the time, the Israeli Air Force received its first large
transport helicopters, Sikorsky S-58s, and it was decided that Barak would
lead the Sayeret Matkal’s first major helicopter-borne mission. “Even now,”
he writes, “most of the details of how we planned to tap into the Egyptians’
communications remain classified.”He still gives a good deal of new details,
including the fact that geologists were consulted to help work out the best
locations to hide the tapping devices from Egyptian desert scouts. Barak did
not mention how the device was connected to the Egyptian communication line
and hidden in early 1964, but he does reveal that all five men made sure it
was installed before they had to get back. This was Barak’s first mission
that was approved by the new Chief of Staff, Yitzhak Rabin, and would be
followed by similar operations. Early 1970, the third secret operation to
install listening devices took place. Barak stated that this operation
needed larger helicopters and included diversionary attacks on Egyptian
installations to hide the true mission. The helicopters flew over the Suez
Canal and installing and hiding the device was much more difficult than
expected. The team nearly aborted midway, but the generals radioed that they
had more time and the work was completed. “For the first time since we’d
captured Sinai, Israel was again receiving real-time communications from
inside Egypt,” Barak wrote. These devices and others installed were called
the "special sources" that Israel used sparingly to minimize the risk of
detection.
After Egypt's Sisi Wins 97%, Eyes on Next Term
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 03/18/Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi will be in a stronger position than ever after winning 97 percent of
valid votes for a second term, but the big question is whether it will be
his last. His next four years are expected to resemble his first term, in
pursuing economic reforms, and further slashing wasteful subsidies. He is
also expected not to let up a crackdown on dissent. Sisi often warns that
the country is on the brink of collapse and that he will not tolerate
anything that threatens his efforts. Sisi has said he has no ambition to
stay after the end of his second term in 2022 -- something the current
constitution prohibits anyway. But analysts say that can change. "All
options are open," said Hassan Nafea, political science professor at Cairo
University. Sisi won last week's election against a sole rival who himself
is a supporter of the president. Other candidates had withdrawn, been
sidelined, or arrested. Despite Sisi's appeal for a large turnout, only 41
percent of registered voters cast their ballots, with seven percent spoiled
ballots. "Although I don't consider what happened an election, because it
had no real competition, what concerns me now is the future," Nafea said.
"The question now is whether he will resort to amending the constitution to
cancel the article that stipulates a president may not rule for more than
two terms, or whether he will find another military man to take his place,
or will he take the democratic choice," Nafea said. Sisi, a former army
chief, had ousted his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Morsi was
the republic's first democratically elected president, and the first leader
not from military ranks, but his year in office was divisive and sparked
massive protests demanding his resignation. Since his election, he has
imposed tough economic reforms that have been welcomed by foreign investors
but sent inflation sky rocketing. He is also fighting a tenacious Islamic
State group insurgency based in Sinai, but although military campaigns have
degraded the jihadists, it is not expected they will be defeated soon.
Mostafa Kamel al-Sayed, a political science professor at Cairo University,
said there was a "big chance" Sisi would have the constitution amended. "His
supporters have started discussing this (in media), especially to amend the
article" on two presidential terms, he said.
Unliteral decisions
The article, drafted after the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni
Mubarak, has been considered one of the main successes of the uprising.
Sisi's second term, al-Sayed said, is expected to see more of his unilateral
decision making. "These are decisions meant to dazzle without achieving
anything on the ground nor agreeing with development priorities," he said,
referring to mega projects such as a Suez Canal extension and a new
administrative capital. He is also expected to continue cracking down on
dissidents, and "restraints on freedoms and organizing" will remain, al-Sayed
said. Sisi has proven adept at consolidating power, whether through having a
pliant parliament or loyal media that rarely step out of line, said Karim
Emile Bitar, a senior fellow at the IRIS think tank in Paris. Bitar also
pointed to a favorable international atmosphere for Sisi. The election,
"which international observers agree is a charade," came "in an
international context suitable to supporting authoritarianism and with a
blank check from U.S. President Donald Trump." Trump was among the first
leaders to congratulate Sisi after the official results on Monday, with the
White House saying in a statement the two leaders "look forward to advancing
this partnership and addressing common challenges."
Kuwait to Recruit Ethiopians amid Philippines Labor Crisis
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 03/18/Kuwait will recruit
Ethiopian nationals to make up for a "deficit" in domestic workers,
authorities said Tuesday, following the grisly murder of a Filipina maid in
the Gulf state. The Philippines banned its citizens from working in Kuwait
after the body of 29-year-old Joanna Demafelis was found in a freezer
earlier this year, bearing signs of torture. "We aim to open the door to the
recruitment of Ethiopian workers to fill the deficit of domestic servants
and reduce prices," General Talal Al-Maarifi, head of Kuwait's General
Department of Residency Affairs, told AFP. Ethiopia five years ago
instituted a similar ban, following reports of abuse and complaints that
employment agencies lured its citizens to work under illegal and appalling
conditions. The ban was lifted last Thursday. Maarifi said there were more
than 15,000 Ethiopians currently living and working in Kuwait. Kuwaiti
police in March 2017 detained a woman for filming her Ethiopian maid falling
from the seventh floor without trying to rescue her. The 12-second video
shows the maid hanging outside the building, with one hand tightly gripping
the window frame, as she begs for help. Rights groups have voiced
alarm over the plight of workers in the Gulf and other Arab countries, where
migrant labor is regulated under a system known as "kafala." The kafala, or
sponsorship, system ties migrant workers' visas to their employers,
prohibiting workers from leaving the country or changing jobs without prior
consent.
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials
from miscellaneous sources published
on April 03-04/18
The "Moderate" Muslim Scholar Industry
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/April 03/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12077/moderate-muslim-scholars
I have lived for years in these places in the Middle East and seen with my own
eyes the cruelty and abuse that takes place under extremist Islamic law. I have
heard the screams of families as their loved ones were tortured and slaughtered
for the simplest acts -- singing, dancing, voicing an opinion, or simply being a
non-Muslim -- all of which are crimes.
If we play the game of misinforming and misleading people about Islamism, by
making irrelevant analogies to whitewash the violence and terrorism which are
generated by Islamic fundamentalism, we are indoctrinating the literally
millions of innocent children who will be either the perpetrators or victims of
the next radical Islamic terror attacks -- including Muslims.
Meanwhile the real scholars of Islam, such as Robert Spencer, who are trying to
warn the public about these apologists, are called "Islamophobes," poisoned,
often fired from work, censored on social media and barred from entering
democratic countries such as Britain.
When I was new to the United States, a so-called "moderate" Muslim scholar
pulled me aside and gave me some "friendly" words of advice:
"In the West, there is a trend unfolding. If you follow it, you will find great
success, more than you can imagine. It is very easy, all you have to do is stick
to a few simple rules. No matter what your personal views are, you must be a
Muslim apologist -- an apologist for radical Islam -- and present yourself as a
'moderate' Muslim scholar. If you can accomplish this, they will lap it up. You
will never want for anything again. You will easily gain wealth and become the
most in-demand 'moderate' Muslim scholar in the West!"
It sounded reasonable enough. "As you have the advantage of being from the
region," he continued, "you will come across as authentic."
His advice was accurate. There is a huge industry of so-called "moderate" Muslim
scholars, who are actually apologists for Islam. This industry began to grow
after the catastrophe of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and from there, expanded.
There seems to exist a symbiotic relationship between the mainstream media and
liberal organizations on one side, and the "moderate" Muslim apologists on the
other.
It is these "moderate" Muslim apologists, commentators, and organizations that
are creating -- directly or indirectly -- the rise of Islamic extremism and with
it, terrorism. They provide a window for all sorts of acts of evil to take
place: from raping women and children to blowing up public places or running
people over with vans. These are the people who are preventing any positive
changes or reforms from taking place. By not criticizing these extremists, they
are not only failing to address the underlying problem of extremism and Islamic
terrorism; they are also stealing attention away from the root of the problem.
If you scrutinize the uptick in recent terrorism, their approach leads to even
more radicalization. There appears to be a direct correlation between the
expansion of this "moderate" Muslim apologist industry, and the increasing rate
of terrorist attacks in the West. If officials were actually interested in
saving lives -- rather than just in cozying up to the Muslim vote to keep their
jobs -- they should jump at the chance to reveal the truth behind fundamentalist
Islam and Islamic terrorism. If not, they should be voted out of their jobs.
The West, unfortunately, encourages these "moderate" Muslim apologists to keep
on advancing these false views: that one must not blame extremists, that nothing
is the fault of the Islamic teachings, that all of these radical and that
Islamist terrorist attacks "have nothing to do with Islam." More doors and
opportunities keep opening for these apologists to get cash. The Muslim
apologists are handed megaphones, invited to international forums, handed book
deals, given scholarships, and offered jobs with elite but false titles such as
"Islam and Counter-Terrorism Expert." With such incentives, why would anyone
ever stop?
Meanwhile the real scholars of Islam, such as Robert Spencer, who are trying to
warn the public about these apologists, are called "Islamophobes," poisoned,
often fired from work, censored on social media and barred from entering
democratic countries such as Great Britain.
It does not even matter that many of these so-called "moderate" Muslim
apologists in the West may never have lived in an Islamist state or experienced
first-hand what it is like to be ruled by extremists. The majority of them seem
to have been born and raised in the West under a democratic system of governance
where they can freely voice their opinions and practice their religion without
fear of prosecution. The concepts they talk about -- such as sharia, jihad, or
the "true" interpretation of Islamic teachings -- are as foreign to them as they
are to any other Westerner.
I have lived for years in these places in the Middle East and seen with my own
eyes the cruelty and abuse that takes place under extremist Islamic law. I have
heard the screams of families as their loved ones were tortured and slaughtered
for the simplest acts -- singing, dancing, voicing an opinion, or simply being a
non-Muslim -- all of which are crimes.
If we play the game of misinforming and misleading people about Islamism, by
making irrelevant analogies to whitewash the violence and terrorism which are
generated by Islamic fundamentalism, we are indoctrinating the literally
millions of innocent children who will be either the perpetrators or victims of
the next radical Islamic terror attacks -- including Muslims.
With the lure of money and fame tempting so many, unless we begin to wake up to
the damage they are doing to their victims, their families and the whole of
society, it will not stop.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a business strategic and advisor, Harvard-educated
scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and
president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has
authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at
Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2018 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.
Iran using religious indoctrination to gain influence
in Georgia
Ali Hajizade/Al Arabiya/April 03/18
Media outlets and research centers of the world write a lot about Iran’s
expansionary policies in the Middle East. In fact, Iran’s hegemonic
tendencies in the region are a matter of serious concern and should be
studied in-depth.
However, few in the global media and the wider research community pay
adequate attention to Iran’s growing interference in South Caucasus. This
region has three important former Soviet republics: Georgia — which has
complicated relations with Russia and has taken the path of European
integration; Christian Armenia — which is an ally of Russia, Turkey and
Israel as well as has the highest percentage of Shiite population after Iran
– and secular Azerbaijan.
Missionary influence
Each of these countries is of specific interest for Tehran. Iranian
authorities have to act selectively and more carefully than they did in the
Middle East, for a number of reasons.
This article focuses on Iranian approach towards Georgia, which is a small
country in South Caucasus. According to official data in 2014, the
population of Georgia (without the provinces, which are not controlled by
Tbilisi) officially stands at 3.7 million..
There are, mainly two Muslim ethnicities in Georgia – Azerbaijanis, who live
in the South of Georgia, on the border with Azerbaijan and a certain part of
Ajarians, who live in the autonomous republic of Ajaria.
Iranians have their eyes on Azerbaijani Georgians, majority of whom profess
the Shiite sect while s smaller section follows Sunni doctrine. It is
noteworthy that Azerbaijanis are second ethnic group in the country only
after the Georgians.
Iranian activities in Borchali — which is a Georgian region with high
concentration of Azerbaijani population — has been blatantly conspicuous
since the last ten years. Some Azerbaijanis and Georgians are seriously
concerned about Iranian missionary and promotional activities and its
consequences. Today, there are some tensions between Azerbaijanis influenced
by Iranian propaganda and Azerbaijani Sunnis, who don’t accept the Iranian
version of Shiism.
Iranian influence lies primarily in organizing various free training and
schools, sending young people to Iran to receive religious education,
publishing pro-Iranian promotional literature (part of which is sent to
Azerbaijan), financing activities of various pro-Iranian organizations (Ahl
ul-Bayt, Alul Bayt, Ali Hikmet etc.) and organizing events related to Ashura.
In addition, religious preachers from Iran who deliver pro-Iranian teachings
are not always sermons of peace. These preachers are increasing their
presence in Azerbaijani Mosques in Georgia. There are also accusations
against Iran of using Georgia as its route for delivering drugs to Europe.
An Ashura procession in Georgia. (Photo courtesy: Jeikhun Muhamedali)
Pro-Iranian websites in Azerbaijani and Georgian languages are also
operating in the region. I can give two examples of such websites –
ahlibeyt.ge, mgeo.ge. Both websites are registered in the Georgian domain
zone and both of them are of poor quality (this is a common feature of
Iranian propaganda websites operating in the South Caucasus), however,
propaganda news and articles can be found on both websites.
We should also consider the attitude of Georgia’s authorities towards these
processes. Obviously Iran couldn’t have developed such activity without a
tacit acceptance by Georgian authorities. It is noteworthy that in 2011 the
Georgian authorities established the “Council of Muslims of Georgia”, which
is a non-governmental organization whose stated objective is “to monitor
activities of Islamic communities and Mosques in the country”. Before this,
Mosques were under the patronage of the Caucasus Muslims Office with the
centre in Baku (Azerbaijan). In most cases this patronage was nominal.
In cohorts with Georgian authorities
In Baku this step was treated as an attempt by authorities of Georgia to
drive a wedge between Muslims of Azerbaijan and Georgia. It is noteworthy
that the number of Iranian clerics has increased dramatically since 2011 and
there is a surge in the activity of the Iranian missionary involvement among
Shiites in Georgia. Clearly, the authorities of Georgia have taken this step
in order to minimize the possible impact of Azerbaijan on Azerbaijani
community in Georgia and to undermine the credibility of the Caucasus
Muslims Office in Georgia. Nevertheless, let’s not forget that the
replacement of moderate, often apolitical clerics by rabid apologists of
Iran may lead to problems which will directly threaten future stability of
Georgia. Unlike Iranian or deeply pro-Iranian clerics, members of
Azerbaijani Shiite clergy have never given anti-Semitic, extremely radical
speeches and extremist political appeals. I think that vigorous Iranian
missionary activities may pose problem for Georgia, a country which took the
path of active European Integration. In March 2017, citizens of Georgia were
granted a visa-free entry to EU. This opportunity may be used also by the
citizens of Georgia, who have been influenced by the Iranian propaganda and
received religious education in Iran. This is the matter of concern. That
essentially means free movement of Iranian agents around EU. And if Tbilisi
turns a blind eye on it, I believe that the West such developments in
Georgia seriously.
Busting sanctions through Georgia Georgia is also interesting for Tehran
from the standpoint of a “back door” channel for evading international
sanctions imposed on Iran. Since the imposition of the first sanctions,
Iranian authorities have built an entire infrastructure, covering several
countries and channels for circumventing sanctions. Georgia is one such
country.
However, the matter of Iran’s economic expansion in the South Caucasus is
not that simple. There is a general feeling in certain circles in the West
that Moscow and Tehran are allies, but in fact this is not entirely true.
Russia tries to fend off Iranian sway and marginalizes Tehran on a range of
issues. One such area of rivalry is South Caucasus. In fact, Moscow is
currently trying to discourage Tehran from implementing major economic
projects.
In general, Iranian activities in Georgia, both economic and missionary,
should be viewed in the context of Iran’s regional strategy for expanding
and strengthening its influence in the region and around the world.
Saudi Arabia’s bravery in confronting problems
Hassan Al Mustafa/Al Arabiya/April 03/18
There is great significance in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to
the US that goes beyond the close political relations between Riyadh and
Washington as well as the military and economic agreements. It relates to
changes sweeping through Saudi Arabia, which have picked up pace since King
Salman bin Abdulaziz became ruler in 2015. Through his press interviews,
speeches and political stances, Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been altering
the stereotypical image of Saudi Arabia in the foreign media, which usually
presents the country as medieval state that possesses a lot of wealth and
exports terrorists around the world! The modern response of Saudi Arabia,
particularly when dealing with Western media is not based on hostility and
rejection, but is based on the concept of dialogue and correcting the
latter’s misconceptions.
Saudi Arabia is not ashamed of admitting its past mistakes and admits there
have been hard-line voices promoting hatred and takfir. However the crown
prince has stated clearly: “We will eliminate extremists now and
immediately.” These “terrorists” would not have a place in the new Saudi
Arabia, because it is a country that respects differences and diversity and
renounces violence. Prince Mohammed bin Salman was quite candid in his
interview on CBS channel’s “60 minutes” program, in which he talked about
how after 1979 “we were victims (of extremism), especially my generation.”
The victims — whom the Prince is referring to — are those who have been
under the sway of Islamic sahwa and takfiri Salafism. Consequently, they
were lured by militias like Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra front and ISIS which
exploited their religious enthusiasm, as well as the conservative and strict
way in which they were raised. It was thus easy to exploit them to promote a
fundamentalist doctrine and carry out terrorist operations. The new Saudi
response in dealing with Western media is not based on hostility and
rejection, but on dialogue and correcting the latter’s misconceptions
The importance of such a frank approach is that it rejects the premise of
those who criticize Saudi Arabia thus making them incapable of attacking it
like they used to do. The political leadership is now openly talking about
the “the hard-line era” and criticizing it. Moreover, it is striving
diligently to get out of that mindset, confront the issues of this era, and
create a different environment based on civilized living, modernity and
belief in individuals’ right to choose their way of life without
constraints. Saudi Arabia faces up to its problems bravely and does not feel
ashamed about it. The solution to any problem starts by admitting it,
thoroughly diagnosing it, knowing its causes and then uprooting or removing
it effectively.
The power of the new rhetoric allows Saudi Arabia to forge non-traditional
alliances and makes western public figures support Saudi politics and the
ongoing change and reformation process as they began to see practical
procedures and a modern language without justification or veneration that
suggests a qualitative shift which will affect the entire Gulf and Middle
East region.
How relations between China and the US are heating up
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/April 03/18
As the world lurches from one geo political crises to another, especially
between Russia and some major western countries, the relationship between
the USA and China is also entering a period of cold spell following the
glowing praises that President Trump heaved on Chinese President Xi in the
USA last year at his Florida resort. A major contention and what seems to be
a red line for China is the complex issue of Taiwan. President Xi Jinping
considers the signing of the Taiwan Travel Act by US President Donald Trump
to be a severe – and deliberate - escalation of tensions in Sino-US
relations, coming on the heels of already heightened tensions over trade.
The appointment of John Bolton, a leading neo -con hawk as National Security
Advisor who does not believe that the USA should recognise a One China
policy will only add to this tension.
While the Chinese can live with the upheavals of the U.S tariff hikes on
imported Chinese products and see it as a starting negotiating point between
the two countries, the Taiwan Travel Act has raised the stakes to a new
level, and if President Trump were to allow the US Secretary of Defence or
Secretary of State to visit Taipei, or welcome Taiwan officials to visit the
White House, Chinese officials warn Beijing will not hesitate to expel the
US Ambassador to China, and to take “unprecedented retaliatory measures”
that would deliver a heavy blow to US agricultural producing states and to
the US financial markets.
On the trade war front, the Chinese are set to prepare a full slate of
countermeasures on trade, including specific and targeted actions against
certain US goods through retaliatory, high tariffs, and through the
imposition of new, strict import standards. Beijing, nevertheless, does
still interpret Trump’s latest moves as "opening positions" in negotiations
before the two leaders meet face to face, and believes the US president will
continue to push for concessions from China even while averting an outright
collapse in talks. They see the current tactics following the same template,
albeit a much more alarming one, as the White House positioning in the
run-up to the first Xi-Trump summit held at Mar-A-Lago last year.
On a knife’s edge
With the signing of the Taiwan Travel Act, on the heels of heightened
tensions over trade, and the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in
favour of the more hawkish CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Beijing is bracing for
a period of instability in relations with the US for months to come,
relations some believe will remain on knife’s edge until the two leaders
agree to set their first summit of this year. The Chinese have issued the
first warning shots and already five departments, including, most pointedly,
China’s Ministry of National Defence, issued warnings that the Trump
administration refrain from the implementation of relevant clauses of the
act, and stop seeking any official contacts and military ties with Taiwan.
President Xi has made it clear that he considered it a deliberate
provocation by Trump himself. The act, though not legally binding, is said
to “severely violate” the One-China principle, as well as the three joint
communiqués the U.S. signed with the People's Republic of China. Foreign
Minister Wang Yi for his part also lodged a formal protest and “stern
representations” over the Taiwan Travel Act. Wang relayed China’s position
that it will take all necessary measures to deal with the situation if US
warships were to anchor in Taiwan, and to expel the US Ambassador to China
from Beijing if US Secretary of State or Secretary of Defence was to visit
Taipei, or Taiwan officials visit the White House. Mr. Xi said "achieving
total unity" was the "collective hope of all Chinese people" and any
attempts to divide it were "doomed to fail". The speech was a strong warning
against any attempt at separatism from places like Taiwan and Hong Kong.
With Trump’s recent sacking of several key administration officials, Chinese
officials expect policy from Washington to continue to turn more hawkish and
confrontational. They are specifically alert to the implications of the
recent firing of Rex Tillerson, and Trump’s plan to replace Tillerson with
CIA head Mike Pompeo, and believe Pompeo may prove to become the most
hostile US Secretary of State to China in recent US history, and this is
without the recent John Bolton appointment. With Trump’s already tough
stance on Sino-US bilateral trade, Taiwan, and the South China Sea,
officials in Beijing are now bracing for instability in Sino-US relations
for months to come. This is one more headache the world can do without.
Trump and Syria, reality and fantasy
Mashari Althaydi/Al Arabiya/April 03/18
American President Donald Trump made a shocking statement during the recent
Ohio rally as he voiced his intent to withdraw from Syria noting that he won
the fight against ISIS and accomplished the task. Is this just a “populist”
political remark to appeal to the sentiment of the masses he was addressing
– crowds that are ignorant in terms of foreign policy and what American
national security necessitates? Perhaps this is the case. However, this
statement contradicts with Trump’s intent to confront Iran and eliminate its
“malicious activities” in the region. It also contradicts with the current
American mood against Russia’s ascendancy over the West and with America’s
anger towards Turkey’s role in North Syria, i.e. in Afrin, as decision
makers in Washington believe that Ankara is “dispersing” the real battle and
deviating the compass from the right direction by not focusing on ISIS which
is the West’s approach in Syria.
The enemies of American presence in Syria are Russia, Iran and Turkey.
Turkish, Russian and Iranian officials will meet on Wednesday in Ankara to
coordinate efforts in Syria. Russia and Iran are about to achieve their
planned aims via the “crime” they committed in eastern Ghouta to complete
the sectarian displacement which began with Madaya, Zabadani, Qusayr and
other areas.
Everything that Trump is doing and that he’s done in the past year and few
months since he’s become president has absolutely nothing to do with the
statement made in Ohio.Trump’s announcement also contradicts with other
indicators such as appointing John Bolton as the new national security
advisor. Bolton had clearly called for ending the Iranian Khomeini regime.
It also contradicts with appointing Mike Pompeo, a bitter enemy of Iranian
influence, as secretary of state. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who
has a realistic approach regarding Syria told the American Time magazine:
“American troop presence inside Syria is the last effort stopping Iran, from
continuing to expand influence with regional allies.” The Washington Post
which is usually not that friendly towards Trump published an article by
Josh Rogin to comment on Trump’s announcement. Rogin wrote that the most
important reasons behind American presence in Syria is “containing Iranian
expansionism, preventing a new refugee crisis, fighting extremism and
stopping Russia from exerting influence over the region.”Forget about all
this. The Khomeini regime understood Trump’s message when he appointed
Bolton as a national security advisor. In an interview with the Iranian
Students News Agency (ISNA), Hossein Mousavian, a former high-ranking member
of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said: “Except for Obama’s era –
oh alas – enmity has always existed between the Islamic Republic and the US.
However, the policy of changing the Iranian regime (within the framework) of
Trump’s cabinet has become public.”Everything that Trump is doing and that
he’s done in the past year and few months since he’s become president has
absolutely nothing to do with the statement he made in Ohio.
How Will Iran
Prepare for Potential U.S. Withdrawal from the JCPOA?
ما هي تحضيرات إيران لإحتمال انسحاب أميركا من الإتفاق
النووي معها
Omer Carmi//The Washington Institute/April
03/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/63641
Tehran seems to believe that President Trump will kill the deal next month,
so it may start prepping its dormant nuclear facilities, sowing division
between U.S. allies, or courting other global powers.
Many observers believe that President Trump's recent appointment of Iran
hawks for two top positions—John Bolton as national security advisor and
Michael Pompeo as secretary of state—is a further sign that he will withdraw
from the nuclear deal next month, when the next deadlines for extending
sanctions waivers arrive. Although Tehran's response to the appointments has
been fairly muted so far, this is no surprise given that the country
effectively shuts down for two weeks around the Nowruz celebration in late
March. After the holiday, Iran will likely start preparing more actively for
a potential U.S. decision to reapply old sanctions and essentially nullify
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
BOLTON AND IRAN
John Bolton is a well-known commodity among Iran's leadership. Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tangled with him for years going back to the
2003 nuclear negotiations with Europe, when Bolton was undersecretary of
state for arms control and international security. Later, they both served
as ambassadors to the UN, where they spent two years arguing with each other
on the Security Council podium.
Over the past decade, media outlets in the Islamic Republic have portrayed
Bolton as an anti-Iran neoconservative who supports the opposition group
Mujahedin-e Khalq, and whose policies toward the country are obsolete and
counterproductive. For instance, when Bolton issued his August 2017 "memo"
to the White House—a National Review article in which he outlined a strategy
to withdraw from the JCPOA—Zarif declared that such a policy would be a
"huge failure for Washington," resulting in further international isolation
for the United States. He emphasized that Bolton's policies were proven
wrong in the previous decade, claiming that they spurred Iran to increase
its number of uranium enrichment centrifuges "from 200 to 20,000 in ten
years." Zarif concluded that this is why no one in Washington "is listening
to these proposals anymore."
As for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his basic narrative has always been that
America seeks to topple the Islamic regime, and that the nuclear file is
only a cover for reaching that goal. Bolton's return to the scene will
probably reinforce that line of thinking.
Iran's Supervisory Committee on Implementing the JCPOA—composed of officials
such as Zarif, President Hassan Rouhani, Supreme National Security Council
secretary Ali Shamkhani, and Atomic Energy Organization director Ali Akbar
Salehi—will presumably meet again soon, and one can assume that they will
devote at least some attention to Bolton's writings in order to understand
his potential impact on U.S. policy. In addition to his 2017 roadmap for
annulling the nuclear deal, they are no doubt aware of his January Wall
Street Journal op-ed advocating the regime's ouster—and of Pompeo's similar
rhetoric over the years.
WHAT MIGHT TEHRAN DO IN THE LEAD-UP TO MAY?
In light of this background, Iran will likely begin preparing the ground now
for the possibility of Trump taking action against the JCPOA after his May
deadline. Its options for doing so are numerous.
Readying the nuclear program for a restart. Iranian leaders have
consistently threatened that U.S. reimposition of sanctions or withdrawal
from the deal would result in rapid development of the nuclear program. In
August, for example, Rouhani warned that the program would be ramped up to
"a situation much more advanced" than before the JCPOA "in a matter of hours
and days." Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi recently repeated this
threat, claiming that Iran has been preparing for every possible scenario
and will respond promptly to a Trump withdrawal according to its national
interests. In practical terms, this means Iran may soon take necessary steps
to ready its nuclear facilities for a quick restart after the May
deadline—while carefully avoiding any measures that would violate the JCPOA.
Deterring U.S. and Israeli pressure. Soon after Bolton's appointment, a
former Iranian diplomat with apparent ties to the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps-Qods Force asserted that the "enemies of the region only
understand force," emphasizing Tehran's influence abroad and its "defensive
power." Indeed, Iran has a long history of exercising this "logic of power"
via frequent missile launches (accompanied by slogans vowing to annihilate
Israel), harassment of U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf and Bab al-Mandab
Strait (the latter using Houthi proxies), and threats of retaliation against
U.S. forces and bases in the region (as seen when Congress passed new
non-nuclear sanctions last year).
Driving a wedge between Washington and Europe. In August, nuclear official
Salehi promised that "if the Americans cast the deal aside, it is highly
likely that Europe won't follow suit, [and] America will remain alone." By
this logic, Iran will probably continue its talks with the EU3 (Britain,
France, and Germany) and cast itself as the aggrieved party, hoping to bring
the Europeans to its side and prevent a unified Western front if sanctions
are reimposed in May. It may take a similar approach with major trade
partners and oil importers (e.g., India, South Korea, Japan) in an attempt
to dissuade them from complying with U.S. pressure tactics.
Coordinating with Russia and China. Shortly after leading Iran's
negotiations with Europe in 2003-2005, Rouhani expressed regret for not
investing enough resources to secure Russian and Chinese diplomatic support,
admitting that Tehran "would have had an easier time" with their assistance.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of Iran's Majlis Committee on National
Security and Foreign Policy, echoed this line of thinking last month when he
claimed that expanding relations with Beijing and Moscow would help
"neutralize and reduce the impact of U.S. pressure."
Preparing the public and economy for renewed sanctions. During his recent
Nowruz speech, the Supreme Leader declared the theme of the new year to be
"Support for Iranian Products," repeating his constant demand to pursue a
"resistance economy" and increase the country's self-sufficiency. Despite
this familiar "call to arms," however, Iran's economy is still greatly
flawed and dependent on foreign investments. The rial has lost around a
quarter of its value over the past six months, with the gap between official
and unofficial rates widening every day. Thus, Tehran will likely complement
its longstanding efforts to increase the economy's resilience by building a
strong "rally around the flag" narrative over the next couple months, hoping
to unite the public and prevent (or at least postpone) another outburst of
mass unrest. Last month, for example, Shamkhani declared that the millions
of dollars America has invested in "anti-Iran strategies" are for naught
because the Islamic Republic has only improved its "strength and spiritual
influence."
RETALIATION OR RESTRAINT?
Tehran will have to decide between two basic courses of action in the coming
weeks: retaliating harshly against the Trump administration's hostile
signals in order to deter Washington from intensifying the pressure, or
restraining itself and playing the grievance card in order to maintain
European support and prevent the emergence of a Western coalition against
Iran. History shows that on similar occasions, the regime chose the former
path and regretted it—indeed, escalation now might provoke the Trump
administration to respond in kind rather than back down.
Khamenei and Rouhani seem to have learned their lesson, however, reacting
patiently to perceived "U.S. violations of the deal" in order to avoid
falling into an "American trap," which in their view would give Washington
an excuse to revoke the JCPOA. They are now searching for the perfect middle
path: a way to deter President Trump from intensifying the pressure while
maintaining enough international support to foil a unified coalition against
Iran.
**Omer Carmi is director for intelligence at the Israeli cybersecurity firm
Sixgill. A 2017 military fellow at The Washington Institute, he previously
led analytical and research efforts in the Israel Defense Forces pertaining
to developments in the Middle East and national security arenas.
If Trump walks away from the Iran deal, Tehran will win
Dennis Ross/The Washington Institute/ April 03/18
Dennis Ross, a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute, served in
senior national security positions in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton
and Obama administrations.
I was not a fan of the Iran nuclear deal. While it imposed restrictions on
Iran’s nuclear program, it also legitimized a large Iranian nuclear
infrastructure by imposing no real limits on its size or character after
2030. Rather than ending Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, it deferred it.
True, the Iranians committed to not acquire or develop nuclear weapons, but
they also claimed they had never attempted to do so — despite clear evidence
to the contrary.
So the danger in 12 years when some of the deal’s provisions end is real,
but that does not mean President Trump should walk away from the deal in
May. If he withdraws, he withdraws alone. The Europeans will not join him,
especially after having been willing to negotiate with the administration
and accept a number of concessions: sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile
testing, a joint statement on limiting what Iran should be able to do after
2030 and a readiness to raise the costs to the Iranians of their
destabilizing actions in the region. Even if the British, French and Germans
are not prepared to go as far as the administration might like, they have
acknowledged the Trump administration’s concerns about the deal and been
willing to address them at least in part.
Walking away will end that. It will isolate the United States, not the
Iranians. Pressure on the Iranians has always been most effective when the
United States was joined by others. In fact, it was only when the European
Union decided to impose a boycott on Iranian oil that Iran truly felt
squeezed, beginning to negotiate after declaring it would never do so as
long as it was under sanctions.
Unfortunately, the Europeans won’t simply stick with the deal; they will go
to great lengths to keep the Iranians in — and the Iranians know how to play
on European fears. Already Tehran is declaring that it could move swiftly to
install new and far more effective centrifuges, and not limit their output.
That will surely stoke European fears about an increasing risk of war and
lead them to offer incentives to the Iranians to stay in the deal.
For those who say the administration can pressure Europe by threatening to
impose sanctions on European companies that do business with the Iranians,
don’t bet on it. The Europeans have always resisted such secondary
sanctions, and given Trump’s unpopularity with European publics, few leaders
there will want to appear to give in to American threats.
Of course, some European banks and companies will be chary of potential U.S.
sanctions, with a chilling effect on their willingness to invest in Iran.
But that fear exists even without our withdrawing from the agreement. Our
sanctions on Iran for its support for terrorism and human rights violations
remain — a reality that helps to explain why Iran continues to complain that
it has not reaped the economic benefits it expected from the deal.
But my concerns about an American walkaway go deeper. It would create the
illusion of toughness on Iran without the effect. The danger that Iran poses
is its expansion in the region. It is using Shiite militia proxies to gain a
stranglehold over governments. It is embedding itself militarily in Syria,
even trying to change the demographic balance by importing Shiite militias
(and Shiite civilians ) to populate Sunni areas — something designed to
prevent refugees from returning to their homes but also something likely to
ensure an ongoing insurgency in Syria. Worse, Iran seems increasingly less
risk-averse in Syria. It acted out of character when it chose to challenge
Israel directly, and not through one of its proxies, when it flew a drone
into Israeli airspace.
Israel has made clear that it cannot live with an expanding Iranian military
presence in Syria, which the Israelis believe includes plans to fabricate
advanced guidance systems in Syria and Lebanon for the more than 120,000
rockets Hezbollah possesses. Israel’s size and relatively small number of
critical military and civilian infrastructure targets mean that it does not
have the luxury of waiting if Iran makes this move. It is easy to see how a
war between the Israelis and Iran/Hezbollah starts but not how it ends.
Containing the spread of the Iranians, their proxies and the development of
their military capability in Syria should be the Trump administration’s
focal point. But it is not, with Trump making clear that he wants to “let
the other people take care of it now.”
Our priority should be to blunt the real Iranian threat there, and that
requires mobilizing support for that purpose, not saying it is up to others.
Trump may believe that walking away from the deal makes him look tough on
Tehran. It doesn’t. It ignores the real threat and gives the Iranians a win.
They will know we are alone and that there will be no meaningful pressure to
stop what they are doing in the region. The great irony is that one way to
deal with the vulnerabilities created by the agreement and bolster our
deterrence is to demonstrate to the Iranians that we will react whenever
their behaviors cross the line, starting in the region. The Iran deal bought
time on the nuclear issue, and now is surely not the moment to throw it
away.
Turkish-Russian-Iranian Summit: Limits to a Tripartite
Entente
القمة التركية
الإيرانية الروسية: حدود الحلف الثلاثي
Soner Cagaptay, Anna Borshchevskaya, and Nader Uskowi/The Washington
Institute/April 03/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/63644
Although any attempts at coordinated action will be hampered by historical
rivalries and modern disagreements, Moscow and Tehran can still use the
Ankara meeting to harm U.S. interests in Syria.
On April 4, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host his Russian and
Iranian counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani, for their first
trilateral meeting since a November 22 summit in Sochi. Putin has already
commenced his visit, co-chairing the seventh Turkish-Russian High-Level
Cooperation Council meeting and attending the groundbreaking ceremony for
the Akkuyu nuclear power station in southern Turkey, to be built by Russian
nuclear firm Rosatom.
Erdogan, Putin, and Rouhani have been meeting more frequently of late,
suggesting the emergence of a tripartite relationship. In reality, however,
ties between Ankara and Tehran are wrought with tensions, and Moscow remains
Turkey's historic adversary despite their common cause on certain regional
issues.
THE VIEW FROM ANKARA
During six centuries of Ottoman rule, the Turks defeated and ruled over all
of their neighbors except Russia and Iran, a fact that elevates the two
countries in the Turkish Weltanschauung. Accordingly, Ankara tends to tread
carefully with the Russians and Iranians, neither confronting nor ignoring
them.
The relationship with Moscow suffered from historic rivalries before the
twentieth century and throughout the Cold War, but they improved after the
fall of the Soviet Union. Helped by booming trade, Turkish-Russian ties took
off during the 1990s and 2000s, allowing the two countries to enter a
lengthy period of improved relations for the first time in history. Yet the
Syria war undermined these ties as Moscow threw its lot behind the Assad
regime and Ankara backed his adversaries. The situation worsened in November
2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian plane that violated its airspace.
Putin responded by slapping Ankara with economic sanctions and threatening
to target Turkish forces entering Syria in support of the rebels.
Yet the tide turned again after the failed 2016 coup against Erdogan, which
spurred Putin to soften his policy in order to take advantage of growing
anti-Western sentiment in Turkey. Many opinion-makers, including members of
Erdogan's party, alleged that the United States and other NATO allies were
behind the coup. And while some of these same allies were slow in reaching
out to Ankara once the coup was put down, Putin called Erdogan the day after
and wished him well. Bilateral ties have improved ever since.
In Syria, the Turks and Russians have arrived at a modus vivendi whereby
they cut deals and deconflict their forces in the north on a case-by-case
basis. Most recently, Putin gave Ankara a green light for Operation Olive
Branch, which resulted in Turkey capturing Afrin from the People's Defense
Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
Turkey's longtime enemy. In return, Erdogan has stayed quiet while Russia
helps the Assad regime bomb civilians in East Ghouta, one of the last
remaining rebel-held de-escalation zones.
Going forward, Putin will likely offer Erdogan further ad hoc deals in
northern Syria, such as in Tal Rifaat, allowing Turkey to make new advances
at the YPG's expense in exchange for continued acquiescence to Russian
moves. Erdogan would accept most any deal that helps him defeat the YPG and
PKK, two organizations that are almost universally despised in Turkey. Putin
will also presumably request Ankara's support for the Astana peace process,
Russia's alternative to the UN's Geneva-based negotiations aimed at ending
the war.
In short, Putin has Turkey exactly where he wants it: as an upset NATO ally
willing to break ranks with the alliance's stance toward Russia. Most
recently, Turkey joined a few other NATO members in refusing to follow the
U.S. path of ejecting Russian diplomats in response to the Kremlin's
suspected assassination of a former intelligence officer in Britain. Putin
does not want Turkey to leave NATO—he wants it to remain in the alliance as
a nonparticipating member, thereby undermining the organization's
effectiveness.
As for Turkey and Iran, the relationship is wrought with differences, many
of them rooted in Tehran's discomfort about the Afrin operation and similar
deals that have allowed Ankara to capture Syrian territory with Putin's
blessing. Unlike Moscow, Iran is uncomfortable with a "soft partition"
outcome in Syria and objects to any Turkish military presence there.
Accordingly, Iranian-backed militias have repeatedly targeted Turkish forces
in the north even as Russia green-lights Ankara's cross-border moves.
Putin will therefore face a tall order if he aims to get Rouhani and Erdogan
on the same page during this week's summit. Historically speaking, the rival
Ottoman and Persian Empires fought themselves into bankruptcy after two
centuries of inconclusive wars, so they settled on a power parity
relationship in the mid-1600s, agreeing to avoid future conflict against
each other at any cost. In Tehran's view, however, Ankara's support for
rebels fighting the Iranian-backed regime in Damascus violates that historic
parity—indeed, the Syria war is the closest the two countries have come in
recent memory to outright conflict. Iran's fortunes and allies are currently
ascendant there, so it will likely attempt to restore its power parity with
Turkey on its own terms—namely, by demanding complete cessation of Ankara's
support to the rebels and otherwise forcing the Turks to recognize full
Iranian control over Syria.
THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Syria will be Putin's focus during the trilateral talks, while his bilateral
conversations with Turkish officials will focus on their tentative agreement
to purchase Russian S-400 air-defense systems, currently scheduled for
delivery to Turkey in 2020. Although Putin will publicly confirm the sale,
it is yet to be seen whether Russia will actually send the missiles—in
addition to the quandary of providing sensitive weapons to a long-time
rival, this would also expose them to greater U.S. intelligence scrutiny.
Moscow's goal is to make Turks angry at Americans, and Americans angry at
Turks. Therefore, its game seems to lie in making the sale look as real as
possible, knowing that this impression will further sour NATO's view of
Turkey and facilitate Russia's goal of isolating Ankara within the alliance.
Putin will exploit the threatened S-400 transfer for as long as he can, and
Washington should not dismiss the possibility that the sale might go through
in the end.
More broadly, the Turkey visit is Putin's first trip abroad since securing a
fourth presidential term on March 18, showing the importance he places on
the Middle East and his desire to usurp Washington's role as regional
peacemaker. The summit should also highlight his determination to reach a
Syria settlement on his terms, with Bashar al-Assad remaining in power and
America potentially retreating from the region, to Moscow's benefit.
Discussions on Syria will likely focus on Idlib province, the last
opposition stronghold. Putin may pressure Erdogan to convince rebel groups
there that they should stop fighting Assad; in return, Moscow could agree to
allow further Turkish moves against the YPG.
THE VIEW FROM TEHRAN
Iran expects a pullout or significant drawdown of U.S. forces from Syria in
the near term. Accordingly, Rouhani's strategy during the Ankara summit may
be to contain Turkey's incursion by limiting its advance to immediate border
areas following a U.S. withdrawal. In particular, Tehran wants to keep
Turkish forces out of Manbij and Afrin city.
Toward that end, Iran seems ready to offer Ankara a deal: namely,
guaranteeing Turkey's border security by deploying Syrian forces to
Kurdish-majority frontier zones, advised and assisted by Iranian forces. In
short, Tehran does not want to see any Turkish troops in Syria once U.S.
forces leave. Iran's fundamental strategy there is to regain its primacy and
extend its influence in Syria's political and security institutions, much
like it has done in Iraq.
**Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish
Research Program at The Washington Institute. Anna Borshchevskaya is the
Institute's Ira Weiner Fellow. Nader Uskowi joined the Institute as a
visiting fellow after four years as the senior civilian policy advisor to
U.S. Central Command.