LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 14/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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‘The snake’s head’ and the Khobar bombing
Fahad Suleiman Shoqiran/Al Arabiya/August 13/18
The revolutionary Khomeinist movement succeeded in reviving many fundamentalist movements. After Khomeini's arrival in Tehran, Bin Laden described Khomeini as "great”, wishing to achieve a similar dream in Saudi Arabia.
Starting in the 1980s, Bin Laden gained knowledge from the experiences of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and Imad Mughniyah who later become an ally for assisting in bombings, including the Khobar operation in 1996.
The cooperation between Iran, its branches, affiliates and Al-Qaeda is familiar to Americans. When Saudi Arabia insisted on conducting an investigation into the circumstances of the bombing, a long story unfolded, as recounted by Prince Bandar bin Sultan. He bitterly narrated the suspicious deal between the Clinton team and Iran to tamper with the investigation and kill it after leads showed Iran's explicit involvement in supporting the perpetrators of the bombings in question.
Clinton appointed then-FBI director Louis Freeh to cooperate with the Saudis to complete the investigation, and told him “to leave no stone unturned”.
If the world is serious about combating terrorism, then fighting and besieging evil states should be the first step towards achieving this goal.
Iran’s hand in Khobar blast
William Simpson in his book ‘The Prince’, which is a biography of Prince Bandar, reveals the complications that occurred, including the dispute between the Clinton administration and the FBI. This is in addition to the hesitation due to the legal jurisdiction of the FBI’s work outside the US. He differentiated between the National Guard bombings and the Khobar bombings and noted that the latter’s victims were Americans, hence, as much as it violates Saudi sovereignty and security, American families need a clear result after the investigation.
According to Simpson, Freeh noted two important findings; the discovery of Iranian involvement at the highest levels made the kingdom subject to retaliate against due to any action taken against Iran, even more than the United States. The second thing is that the Saudis approved of legal procedures to record the statements and the evidence provided by witnesses in Saudi Arabia in the presence of American prosecutors, the lawyer of the accused, and an American judge, and to take this material to the United States and use them in any American trial.
What is shocking about the whole issue is that Freeh himself admitted that the bombing was not just an attack perpetrated by Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, but was a whole operation financed and carried out by the senior leadership of the Iranian government from abroad.
Freeh admits that Saudi Arabia succeeded against all odds to extensively complete the investigation. Freeh stated that Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz and Prince Bandar bin Sultan were confident of Iran being behind the bombings.
A disagreement then occurred between Freeh and Sandy Berger, the former National Security Adviser. The latter warned against political repercussions on the United States if the investigation results accuse Iran. Prince Bander responded by saying: "We do not want to be accused of pushing you into war”.
The whole administration was in line with Sandy's position. A lengthy narration of details by Simpson about what Prince Bandar said, showed that it became clear in 1997 that the US administration was lenient in its investigation, choosing to go cold. He said that the administration intentionally left the investigation unanswered, while it focused its efforts on improving ties with Iran’s moderate government.
The cover-up
The Saudis felt coldness on the part of the Americans when the investigation proved the involvement of Iran. As for Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar, he said: "If George W. Bush or Reagan was instead of Clinton and I provide the evidence we had submitted to the US administration, Iran would have been invaded. I am certain of that."
Delaying the investigation results and killing them off was the major path in which Clinton issued a statement in April 1999 extending a hand to Iran. The US decided that dealing as such with the investigation was up to it since the victims were all Americans. Freeh’s case was thus crushed. Prince Bandar bitterly commented on this ominous deal, stating: "I and Freeh felt the worst abuse of power. Sandy pushed towards aborting all charges and was glad that no one had known, therefore: (Keep your mouth shut).”
Simpson also said that weakening the investigation regarding the Khobar Towers bombing is the most obvious example of the long mistrust and deep-seated hostility between Clinton and Freeh, adding that the hostility turned into a deep divide and the White House was cold about following up on the Khobar case.
This brief summary, extensively narrated in the book, shows the extent of hit and run between the international community and Iran. The latter has been rewarded for carrying out catastrophic terrorist operations. Clinton delayed the investigation in the Khobar bombings and Obama turned his back on his main allies and engaged in flattering Iran, the primary passage of all forms of terrorism around the world.
What’s more alarming is Hassan Nasrallah boasting that Hezbollah was offered a deal worth a billion-dollar by the Obama administration through a European mediator. All this has happened and then the world wonders about the source of terrorism and the reason behind its perpetual spread!
Iran today has militias in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Africa, and which it directly funds without any deterrence. If the world is serious about combating terrorism, then fighting and besieging evil states should be the first step towards achieving this goal. This information shows the extent of the catastrophe in terms of how the world's major powers are dealing with Iran.
Vali Nasr, a former adviser during the Obama administration, narrated in one of his books that in a frank argument with the president, late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz angrily said to him: “Cut off the snake's head”.

Alarm bells are sounding from Jordan and Egypt
Mashari Althaydi/Al Arabiya/August 13/18
he ISIS attack on a security patrol in Fuheis in Jordan and the other ISIS attack on an Egyptian church in Shubra El Kheima in the Qalyubia Governorate bring focus again on the continuity of the battle or rather the big open war with these black groups.
Jordanian King Abdullah II said: “We will punish anyone who dares harm Jordan’s security and its citizens’ safety. We will fight the Khawarij and mercilessly strike them and with all power and decisiveness.”
His statement came while heading a National Policy Council meeting at Al Husseiniya Palace to follow up on the terror attack which targeted a joint patrol of gendarmerie and general security in Fuheis and on the raid on the involved terror cell in the city of Salt and which led to the death of a number of security forces’ personnel.
The ISIS suicide bomber in Egypt, who is in his 20s, was blown up by his evil suicide belt before his devilish footsteps reached the church’s steps to attack innocent lives. The war against ISIS has not ended, and it also did not end against Al-Qaeda and the groups which branched from these devilish organizations; they are a permanent problem - not temporary. Even if they are temporary, it does not mean we should surrender to them and to their influence on the minds of some evil or deceived men, and it means that the ideological, media, political, legal and, of course, security war must go on. This war must continuously operate while extending its efforts without any laziness or delusional reliance of victory. The war against ISIS has not ended, and it also did not end against Al-Qaeda and the groups which branched from these devilish organizations; they are a permanent problem - not temporary. It’s true that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, as it calls itself, or the practical and organizational entity was deterred in its Syrian and Iraqi positions but even if it calls itself a state, it’s in the end a mutation of Islamized groups and a fruit of the Qutbist-Brotherhood Al Zaqqum Tree. The confrontation against these groups has been ongoing for around 70 years, ever since the secret Brotherhood group carried out assassinations and explosions during the era of King Farouk and until today. Yes, there are regional intelligence political uses of ISIS and al-Qaeda but the origin is the fatal sick ideology. In short, protecting public health is non-stop continuous work to shield from old and new diseases, and the same applies to the diseases of the mind and the soul. Jordan’s and Egypt’s alarm bells alert to this.

China-USA trade war: August trial balloons going nowhere
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/August 13/18
Recent headlines were dominated by the tough rhetoric and aggressive Chinese official media editorials that included vows to dig in for a protracted trade war with the US, even at the expense of the country’s short term economic interests if need be. But through the tough rhetoric, Beijing remained keen on de-escalating the trade war with the US and was looking to float a proposal that could give Trump a valuable, even if partial, political victory on trade before the November mid-term elections. The president desperately needs this given the inroads that the Democratic Party is making.
Beijing may be ready to provide assurances, one more time, that it will reduce the total trade surplus with the US by an agreed amount. But any agreement from Beijing would not include concessions on China’s strategic drive towards dominance in technologies including robotics, artificial intelligence, and 5G telecommunications networks. This the Trump administration might find hard to swallow.
Some believe that this new Chinese offer was nothing more for the moment than a trial balloon to feel the Trump Administration out. With November US elections in mind, Beijing felt the time may be ripe, perhaps by the middle or end of August, to give it another try. But the opposite has been the American reaction - President Trump chose to go and imposed tariffs on the next $200 billion tranche of imports from China, with China’s Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission responding by agreeing on a series of measures in response.
Those would include retaliatory tariffs, at four different rates, on $60 billion of imports from the US, as well as the active targeting of “less cooperative” American companies operating in China, in attempts to further drive a wedge between corporate America, Congress, and President Trump.
The Chinese seemed to be at a quandary. If assurances from Beijing that it will reduce the trade surplus with the US by an agreed amount may seem awfully similar to a proposal that was floated earlier in May of this year to reduce China’s surplus by $200 billion - and rejected at the time for being too vague and incomplete – it is. The new trial balloons had taken US domestic politics into consideration. The assumption in Beijing was that as the calendar approaches the November mid-term elections, the Trump White House, looking to latch onto a trade victory, could now be more open to taking some “wins,” even if incomplete, while leaving a host of unresolved items open to be settled later.
In the process that partial win would leave some of the thornier - yet politically popular – IP and technology transfer battles alive through the second half of President Trump’s term. And even while the President – and his economic advisors - continue to relish in their fight with China, invoking the strong hand of the US at campaign rallies around the Midwest, many Republican Congressional candidates up for re-election are far less sanguine.
In the meantime, Beijing will continue to refuse to concede - even as it reaches out - that it is responding to pressure, or to any signs of weakness in the economy or markets. President Xi will be portrayed as simply playing along with a Trump negotiating tactic template that has been seen already in the North Korea nuclear negotiations, and then again in the EU trade talks, where Trump, it will be said, “manufactures a crisis,” and then stages a dramatic resolution that changes nothing. Even more, claims will be made that beyond the immediate threats, Trump‘s policies are actually good for China’s strategic interests - to wit his pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations that had excluded China, his singling out of Japan, and his clear desire to withdraw troops from the Korean peninsula.
Asian sphere of influence
Like the North Koreans, when Trump signals he is ready to move, China will then make a major "concession" in the trade negotiations, giving Trump a pre-midterm "victory" on trade – be it out of pressure, or clever negotiations. In the meantime, the Chinese had a raft of their own countermeasures which included the imposition of immediate tariffs, at four different rates, on 5,207 items of US imports worth $60 billion, as well as targeted efforts to drive a wedge between US companies that cooperate with Beijing, and those that do not. In a clever move to optimise on some American companies discomfort with these expanding trade wars, the Chinese government has let it be known that it welcomes and continues supporting American companies that are friendly to China, whereby they adhere to China’s industrial policies, and oppose Trump’s trade protectionism.
But there is also a Chinese stick. On the other hand, the government will strengthen supervision over, and block the expansion of American companies operating in China that have complained to the US government over technology transfers and the theft of intellectual property by China, while “failing” to have ever informed Chinese authorities of such transgressions.
As for Asian sphere of influence and positioning China against the United States in the future, the Chinese have made their intentions very clear by willing to take a leadership role towards meeting an extremely ambitious timetable for signing by year-end a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that is being negotiated between sixteen Asian countries. Representing half the world’s population - China, all ten ASEAN countries, plus Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand - the 16 nation RCEP discussions were initiated as a regional alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement that was scuppered last year by the Trump administration, and pointedly this time around includes China, but not the United States. The question for the Middle East and Gulf countries, is on whose tailcoat they want to ride in the future?