LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 06/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 05-06/18
Houthis’ Ballistic Missiles: Triggering A Regional War Or Concealed Iranian Tests?
Riad Kahwaji, CEO, INEGMA0/February 05, 2018
Ballistic missiles repeatedly fired by the Houthi rebels in Yemen against Saudi Arabia might be more than a mere retaliation against the Kingdom for leading an Arab coalition against them to restore the legitimately elected Yemeni government to power, according to observers and diplomatic and military sources in the Arabian Gulf. “The Houthi ballistic missiles could be an attempt by the party (Iran) providing them to the rebel militia to either trigger a bigger regional conflict or to test the missiles’ performance and efficiency against U.S.-supplied missile defense systems deployed in Saudi Arabia,” according to a Western diplomat based in the region.
Houthis have increased in the past couple of months the frequency of firing the ballistic missiles against Saudi Arabia in an apparent reaction to the big advances the Saudi-led coalition has made on the ground in the same period, progressively edging towards the capital Sanaa and the Houthi stronghold of Sa’adah.
According to the Saudi-led Arab Coalition and press reports the Houthis have fired at least 90 ballistic missiles against targets in Yemen and Saudi Arabia over the past three years of the Yemeni war. In the past, Houthi fired ballistic missiles were limited to ranges of around 350 kilometers but since November 2017 the Houthis have been launching ballistic missiles with ranges of up to 800 kilometers – placing the Saudi capital, Riyadh, within reach.
The United Nations is conducting an investigation into the allegations made by the representatives of the United States and Britain at the Security Council that Iran was the source of ballistic missiles being used by the Houthis. The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley presented at a presser in December 2017 fragments of a ballistic missile that crashed near Riyadh stating they constituted a solid proof that Iran was smuggling weapons to the Houthis in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that forbade Tehran from exporting such weapons. Iran has denied the charges.
However, a growing number of observers and officials in the region and the West have asserted that Iran has indeed been supplying Houthis with various types of weapons. Several ships carrying Iranian weapons to the Houthis have been intercepted by Arab and Western naval ships in the Red Sea and in Gulf waters over the past two years. Moreover, Iranian officials have boasted about aiding Houthis and supplying them with missiles like the Zilzal-3.
“Why has Iran supplied more advanced ballistic missiles with a longer range to the Houthis knowing the possible consequences of such a move?” asked a Western diplomat in the region. “Tehran knows that if these missiles do hit a strategic target in Riyadh, the Saudis might retaliate against Iranian targets. So why take such a chance?” In November 2017, Houthis claimed to have launched a cruise missile against the United Arab Emirates’ capital, Abu Dhabi. but the missile fell some distance short of its target.
According to a senior military official in the Saudi-led coalition, messages were passed to Tehran via diplomatic channels that if any of the Houthis’ ballistic missiles hit strategic targets in any of Arab Gulf capitals they will retaliate against Iran directly.
Some Western diplomats worry that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards might be seeking to widen the conflict in Yemen into a limited regional confrontation with the Arab Gulf States in order to escape growing domestic turmoil, push oil prices dramatically upward and improve the position of their Houthis allies in Yemen.
“An exchange of missiles with Arab Gulf States will increase nationalist feelings in Iran and subdue current internal unrest, and will also push oil prices close to $100 a barrel which will suit the ailing Iranian economy and ease pressure on the Houthis and improve their bargaining position vis-à-vis the Yemeni government and the Saudis,” the diplomate said. “Besides, getting a foreign party to trigger the war will give Tehran plausible deniability of starting it.”
However, the senior Arab military official believes that Iran is actually using Yemen as a testing ground for its missiles. “The Iranian advisors who are helping the Houthis fire these missiles are basically testing their accuracy and efficiency as well as their performance against the missile defense systems the Arab Coalition has deployed in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.” Saudi Arabia and the UAE are both operating the Patriot Pac-3 missile defense system as the main line of defense against ballistic missiles.
Iran has an advanced ballistic missile program that is now a serious cause of concern to the United States and other countries in Europe and the Middle East region. Iran continues to conduct missile tests despite a U.N. Security Council ban on the testing of missiles believed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Iran is believed to have conducted some 23 missiles tests since the signing of the nuclear agreement better known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the five permanent representatives to the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. Many regional officials and observers do not discount the possibility of Iran using Yemen as a testing ground for its missiles, which in such a case means Iran has actually conducted way much more than the recorded 23 official missile tests on Iranian territories.
The U.S. Administration of Donald Trump is now demanding a full review of JCPOA to add clauses imposing restrictions on Iran’s advancing ballistic missile program. Washington has threatened to walk away from JCPOA if the agreement is not amended. It is not yet clear whether Iran has agreed to renegotiate the agreement but so far that appears to be the only way to salvage a deal that ended international sanctions against Iran and eased huge pressure on its economy.
**Riad Kahwaji, is the founder and director of INEGMA with a 28 years of experience as a journalist and a Middle East security analyst.
*N.B: Any party interested in publishing or quoting this study is welcomed to do so but with the condition of giving full attribution to the author and INEGMA. All Copy Rights reserved.

IRGC’s Generals and the New Generals
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/February 05/18
On the 11th of February, the Iranian Revolution will celebrate the 39th anniversary of its victory and commence its 40th year. We can imagine the map of the region wide open on the table of current and former Revolutionary Guard generals; General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Guards, General Rahim Safavi, military adviser to the spiritual leader and former IRGC chief, General Mohsen Rezaee, secretary general of the Expediency Discernment Council and former commander of the Guards.
If it is possible to avoid describing the Guards as the “ruling party”, one cannot ignore the overwhelming presence of the “IRGC State” at the core of the Iranian regime and its decision-making process.
The four generals are likely to be relieved if they look at the map. Iran has the leading role in Iraq. Through its militias and in partnership with Russia, it has prevented the collapse of the Syrian regime. In Lebanon, there are those who believe that the parliamentary elections scheduled for May would consolidate, through legitimate means, the country’s presence within the Iranian Crescent. As for Yemen, the Houthis continue to assume their role in the Iranian program, undaunted by the terrible adventure into which they have driven the country.
The Guards Generals’ boasting of the Iranian influence in the four Arab capitals does not eliminate the bad conditions witnessed in the respective countries. Iraq, where Iran is strongly present in the decision-making process, is unfortunately a broken country confused between Sunnis and Kurds, despite its significant victory over “ISIS”, with the support of the “International Alliance”.
Syria, where Moscow and Tehran have managed to salvage the regime, has turned into a jungle of flags of states and militias in a rare and unprecedented abuse of a fractured country. It is certain that any viable political solution in Syria will lead to a decline in the role of Iran, which was completely dominant before the outbreak of confrontations in this country. It is hard to believe that Lebanon is at its best. As for Yemen, nothing suggests that this challenging country will be an easy celebration for the Houthi adventure.
In contrast to breakthroughs and achievements, it is difficult for the four generals to ignore the fact that recent days have revealed that the Iranian Revolution is beginning to suffer from the symptoms of turning forty. The open letter addressed by prominent opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi to the spiritual leader is very significant. He said: “I urge you, before it is too late, to make room for structural reforms of the regime with accurate diagnosis of the country’s political, economic and foreign situation, and through the evaluation of policies adopted in recent years.”
One day later, the regime received a new warning; this time from President Hassan Rouhani. “All the leaders of the country must listen to the demands and wishes of the people. The former regime lost everything, because it did not hear the voice and criticism of the citizens,” he stated.
It is clear that Rouhani and Karroubi are aware of the growing resentment in the Iranian street and the disappointment of new generations with domestic policies and regional adventures that drain the energies of the country and put them in constant conflict with the people of the region and most of the world.
The two men realize that the nuclear deal was not a final salvation for the regime; and that the US administration is preparing to impose a painful package of sanctions that will deprive Tehran of reaping the fruits of the Obama agreement, because it will convince investors that the time to return to Iran has not come yet. The sanctions are aimed at making Iran pay the price of violating countries, disrupting stability, supporting terrorism, manufacturing ballistic missiles and threatening the security of waterways.
Time is the fiercest enemy of revolutions. It caresses them and later entangles them. It sympathizes with them and then attacks them. It tests them and destroys their auras. Time is ruthless. It separates fantasies from dreams and drags them into the Court of Numbers. The peculiarity of a revolution is not enough to immunize it against fixed rules. Change is the only salvation. Refusing to reconcile with time is the shortest way to collapse, no matter how late it is.
There are no ideas that fit all times and places. The ideas are the fruit of their time and carry with them the features of the place as well. Time, like a river, carries with it new and different ideas, and question marks. The “KGB” Empire was unable to protect Lenin’s revolution from committing suicide. The massive Communist Party of China (CPC) was unable to protect Mao Zedong’s revolution from the needs and winds of the times. Nothing suggests that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards will succeed where others have failed.
In this month, 40 years ago, the Iranian Revolution achieved victory, reverberating across the region and the world; a revolution that was born from outside the ideology of these two camps. Back then, Lenin’s party resembled Lenin himself, and Mao’s party reflected Mao’s beliefs. But time has changed, and here is Khomeini’s revolution facing the troubles of turning forty, in a world very different from the one in which it was born.
The IRGC generals must know that there are new generals, who represent more threat to the Iranian regime than US generals. Generals, who came from scientific, technological and digital revolutions… Generals, who cannot be intercepted at the border, nor can they be faced by rockets and the mobilization of militias. The Iranian youth is more likely to be turning towards these generals they see in their smartphones. They want to be neutral citizens in a normal country busy with investment and stability. Here I mean Google Gen. Larry Page, Microsoft General Satya Nadella and his predecessor Bill Gates, Amazon General Jeff Bezos, Facebook General Mark Zuckerberg, Apple General Tim Cook and Telegraph General Pavel Durov.
If the Iranian revolution fails to capture the deep meaning of the pains of turning 40 in a world of change, Khamenei must truly reflect on what time has done with the revolutions of Lenin and Mao.

US Shows Beginning of a Response to Muslim Brotherhood
Eli Lake/Bloomberg View/February 05/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/62352
A year ago it looked like Donald Trump was going to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Some of his closest advisers pushed for it. US allies like Egypt quietly made the case too. Many Republicans in Congress also believed the movement that created political Islam should be treated like al-Qaeda. It didn't happen. Trump administration officials tell me the initial proposal last year to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood, which includes chapters and offshoots in countries all over the world, stalled out. By the time the White House approved its national security strategy in December, it didn't even mention the Muslim Brotherhood by name. Instead the Trump administration has settled on a more refined approach, seeking to designate violent chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists, but not going after the entire organization. As the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, told reporters in December: "We will be evaluating each organization on its own terms. The organization is not monolithic or homogeneous."
In some ways this approach is not new. The Obama administration managed to reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the Arab Spring in 2011, and nonetheless treat its Palestinian wing, Hamas, as terrorists. There are no plans for the Trump administration to attempt to find common ground with the Muslim Brotherhood, US officials tell me. But the administration is getting more aggressive against the Brotherhood's violent affiliates.
On Wednesday, the US ambassador for counterterrorism, Nathan Sales, gave some specifics on this new approach at the annual conference for the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Hamas was first designated as a terrorist organization by the US government in 1997. But in Obama's second term, the pace of designations against Hamas slowed to a trickle.
Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told me this week, "There was a reluctance in the last three years of the Obama administration to designate Hamas guys." Part of this is because of Israel. After the 2014 rocket war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel reached an understanding with two principal supporters of Hamas -- Qatar and Turkey -- to allow more approved goods into Gaza, loosening the blockade Israel imposed after 2007 when Hamas took over Gaza and ousted the Palestinian Authority. Schanzer told me that at the time, he had heard from his contacts at the Treasury Department that they did not want additional sanctions to undermine those nations' understanding with Israel.
"It's interesting that the US is signaling it does not see a difference between the political leadership in Gaza, the politburo and the military leadership," Schanzer said. This approach is evident in the State Department's announcement of the new designation for Ismail Haniyeh.
Another reason the Haniyeh designation is important is because it signals the US will not support efforts at a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
Trump has already threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinians. President Mahmoud Abbas responded in January with a deranged speech declaring the peace process a dead letter. Now Sales is making clear the US will not encourage a Palestinian unity government either.
Sales also announced the designations of two relatively new organizations, Liwa al Thawra and Harakat Sawa’d Misr. The groups, formed in 2016 and 2015, are led by former members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Both groups have taken responsibility for acts of terror.
Operatives for Liwa al Thawra last year claimed responsibility for a bombing outside of an Egyptian police training facility. In 2016, the group was responsible for the assassination of Brigadier General Adel Ragai, who commanded the Egypt's Ninth Armored Division.
Harakat Sawa’d Misr also has a violent past. It attempted the assassination of Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, and killed Ibrahim Azzazy, an officer with Egypt's National Security Agency. In 2017, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on the Egyptian embassy in Myanmar.
Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has pressed the US to designate the entire Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. He will likely view these designations as a half measure. But of course, Egypt's government, which has expanded its domestic crackdown well beyond the Muslim Brotherhood, does not dictate US policy.
America must draw a distinction between nonviolent Islamists and those who turn to terror. The designations announced last Wednesday are important in this respect. But it's no substitute for a coherent policy on the Muslim Brotherhood. For that the Trump administration must devise a strategy.

Three Steps to Avert an Accidental Nuclear War
Ernest Moniz and Sam Nunn/Asharq Al Awsat/February 05/18
The world has crossed over to a new nuclear era, where a fateful error -- rather than intentional aggression -- is the most likely catalyst to nuclear catastrophe.
American leaders have been warned more than once of incoming Russian missiles -- in each case, it was a false alarm resulting from technical or human error. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin was mistakenly alerted to a possible US missile strike after the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket.
After every incident, we deceive ourselves that we can solve the problem with better technology and training -- or we reassure ourselves that the combination of diligence and good luck we experienced during the Cold War will continue. But do we really believe we can prevent a nuclear catastrophe indefinitely in a world with nine states with nuclear weapons and significant suspicion and hostility in many of their mutual relationships?
The risks of human error involving nuclear weapons are compounded by the potential for deliberate cyber-threats to warning and command-and-control systems. Hackers could insert a false warning of a nuclear attack into national warning and alert systems and falsely attribute that attack to an innocent country. At a time of heightened global tensions -- with too little communication or cooperation between nuclear rivals, and only minutes of decision time -- how would leaders of states with nuclear weapons respond? The Donald Trump administration recently declared plans to broaden the role of nuclear weapons in US defenses beyond deterring nuclear attacks on the US and our allies. Its new National Security Strategy states that the arsenal is now “essential" to preventing not just a nuclear attack but also "non-nuclear strategic attacks, and large-scale conventional aggression.” A leaked draft of its forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review has similar language.
Expanding the range of threats against which nuclear weapons might be used -- which implies, for example, “strategic” cyberattacks -- will greatly increase the risks of miscalculation or blunder. If a cyberattack took out a major part of our electrical grid, would we be able to quickly and confidently identify the attacking country?
If Russia, China, India, Pakistan and others adopt similar policies, are we moving down a path where nuclear use becomes highly probable?
Every country with nuclear weapons perceives its geopolitical circumstances differently, but we all face substantially increasing nuclear risks. Individually where necessary, and together where possible, they must move with urgency on policies that can reduce these risks for all nations. We recommend three initial steps. First, countries with nuclear weapons should continuously review and protect against the vulnerability of their nuclear warning and command systems to cyber-threats. The focus should be on correcting current weaknesses and instituting a process of continuing assessment and updates. Some findings and conclusions could be shared with other nuclear powers -- reducing risks for all. Each should recognize that a cyberattack against nuclear warning and command systems is a prescription for global disaster.
Second, despite significant disagreements on many global issues, the US, Russia and other nuclear-armed nations must work together on areas of existential common interest -- chief among them, reducing the risk of a nuclear error. Once fired, a nuclear ballistic missile unfortunately cannot be recalled before it reaches its target. Removing US and Russian nuclear weapons from Cold War-era “prompt-launch” postures -- where they are ready to launch and hit their targets within minutes -- would eliminate “hair-triggers” and increase decision time for leaders. In doing so, Washington and Moscow would set an example for all states with nuclear weapons. Military experts in each of these countries should be mandated by their leaders to explore this and other options that would give them more time to make fateful decisions about nuclear use.
Third, the US and Russia should reinforce the principle -- articulated eloquently by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev -- that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Have the two largest nuclear powers already forgotten this powerful historical breakthrough that was essential to ending the Cold War? The most immediate priority should be to structure and posture US and Russian nuclear forces to deter nuclear use and reduce the risk of an accidental, mistaken or unauthorized launch. Against this backdrop, the current Russian concept of “escalate to de-escalate” -- —i.e., limited nuclear use designed to create a pause in the conflict and open a pathway for a negotiated settlement on Moscow’s terms -- and US calls for more “usable” nuclear weapons taken together make the world a vastly more dangerous place.
The US must have a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But in today’s nuclear era it is not enough. There is still time for the world to come together to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear threats -- most urgently by taking action to reduce the risk of an accident, mistake or miscalculation. This should be a core principle and key objective shaping the Trump administration’s nuclear policy.

Putin Wants Syria Talks to Last Forever
Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg View/February 05/18
A Syrian opposition group that flew to the Russian resort of Sochi for a peace conference last week saw the gathering's logo -- the flag of Bashar al-Assad's regime unfurled between the wings of a dove -- and flew back to Ankara without even going through passport control. That must've pleased the Russians, who didn't really want Assad's opponents to attend.
It was the latest example of the game Russia is playing in Syria: It isn't interested in any kind of resolution to the conflict even as it plays along with the peace process.
Russia's official position is to back Syria's territorial integrity and a United Nations-sponsored political solution to end the country's civil war. The Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi ostensibly served that purpose. But Russia knew ahead of time that the Syrian opposition's UN-recognized negotiators wouldn't come, and the organizers did their best to scare away everybody else who wanted to speak up against Assad. It didn't quite succeed -- Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was heckled as he opened the conference -- but, for the most part, the gathering allowed pro-Assad delegates to have some nice meals and load up on souvenirs.
What Russia really did at Sochi is put on a show for the UN's special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who initially worried that Russia, Turkey and Iran -- the three countries behind the congress -- were trying to set up an alternative to the official Syria talks in Geneva. The Sochi congress officially decided to hand off talks on a new constitution to a new Geneva-based committee representing all sides. De Mistura was, at least outwardly, satisfied, thanking the delegates and organizers for backing the UN-led process.
But de Mistura probably won't be surprised if the new committee is deadlocked from the start. The Russian government isn't rolling out a red carpet for the Assad supporters because it wants to point them toward Geneva. Rather, it wants them to feel like valued long-term allies.
In July 2017, the Russian parliament ratified an agreement with the Assad regime allowing Russia to keep its air force base in Khmeimim for at least another 49 years, with subsequent extensions every 25 years. A similar deal has also been made for the naval base in Tartus, which swelled significantly from a modest resupply facility during the Syrian war and is undergoing further expansion. Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly regrets his earlier moves to shrink Russia's overseas military presence, and the two Syrian bases are valuable to him as Russia's only strongholds in the Middle East.
Putin, however, would be unlikely to keep the bases under a plan like the one proposed by the US, the UK, France and other regional countries whose representatives met with the UN-recognized Syrian rebels in Vienna last week. The idea of that plan is to devolve much of Assad's authority to the parliament and to regions. That body, however, would have few reasons to recognize Assad's agreements with the Kremlin. Indeed, no one but Assad and his loyalists have a deep-seated interest in maintaining them. And the only way Assad and his loyalists can hang on to undiluted power is if Syria remains partitioned, with all the meddling foreign powers in de facto military control of their own areas.
Whatever Russian officials, including Putin, say about a political solution, what they really want is for Syrian constitution talks to go on for 49 years, and then for another 25.
The US is in a very different position in Syria, where it has about 2,000 troops. While its presence there is characterized as open-ended and focused on the "strategic threat" from Iran and countering terrorist groups, the US already has enough bases in the Middle East. A political solution in Syria, especially one along the Vienna lines, would mitigate those threats. It might be enough for the US to retain a presence in neighboring Iraq.
Similarly, Turkey is only involved in Syria as long as the chaos there creates a threat to its borders. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn't appear to believe in a lasting political solution, and he appreciates Russia's acquiescence to his action against the Syrian Kurds.
A de facto partition and a semi-frozen conflict (in which, like in eastern Ukraine, people keep dying every day but no major military action occurs) is the only viable option for Russia, the best one for Iran since it retains influence on Assad, an acceptable second-best scenario for Turkey and an unnecessary nuisance for the US. But since Russia isn't likely to believe any Western guarantees that it can retain its bases indefinitely under any alternative arrangement, none of the alternatives are feasible.
That makes de Mistura's position unenviable. He'll be forced to attend more Russian-produced circuses as the pro-Assad side stalls further talks.

The Cost of Illegal Immigration
Ruthie Blum/Gatestone Institute/February 05/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11829/illegal-immigration-cost
"At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens." — Matt O'Brien and Spencer Raley.
It is also rather more than the single payment of $25 billion that it will cost to build a wall -- five and a half times more, and every year.
"Undocumented immigrants are at least 142% more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans. They also tend to commit more serious crimes..." — John R. Lott.
In 2015, included in the DEA's drug-threat assessment was the fact that drug overdoses killed more people in the United States than car accidents or guns. Many of these drugs [were] smuggled in large volumes by drug cartels."
In his State of the Union address on January 30, US President Donald J. Trump referred to the brutal murder of two 16-year-old girls from Long Island in December 2016 by members of the "savage MS-13 gang," responsible for a spate of other gruesome killings in the area, as well.
Many of these gang members, he explained, had entered the United States illegally. "For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities," he said.
Calling on Congress "to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed... criminal gangs to break into our country," he listed the four pillars of his immigration-reform proposal:
A path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought to America by their parents.
The construction of a "great wall on the southern border" and enforcement by agents patrolling and securing the border.
Ending the visa lottery, "a program that randomly plans out green cards without regard for skill, merit, for the safety of American people."
Ending the "current, broken system" of chain migration of distant relatives, and limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children.
Although he did not specify this in his speech, Trump reportedly is seeking $25 billion from Congress to fund the wall. Opponents of the wall have been arguing that illegal immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than legal immigrants or native-born Americans; that illegal immigration has been a boon to the economy, rather than a drain on it; and that the cost both of deportation and a wall far exceeds the benefits of both. These claims are repeatedly voiced by the Trump administration's detractors, as part of their campaign to accuse the president of racism; but what are the facts?
To set the record straight, let us take a look at a number of those that have been obscured or ignored by the media.
As far as the cost of the wall is concerned, a study released in September 2017 by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reveals that, "At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens." This, the report says, is a nearly $3 billion increase in the cost since 2013. It is also rather more than the single payment of $25 billion that it will cost to build a wall – five and a half times more, and every year.
Pictured: The US-Mexico border fence near San Diego, California. (Image source: US Customs and Border Protection)
The same goes for the cost of deporting illegal immigrants. According to Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies,
"...The average cost of a deportation is much smaller than the net fiscal drain created by the average illegal immigrant," in part due to the fact that "illegal immigrants overwhelmingly have modest levels of education — most have not completed high school or have only a high school education...creating more in costs for government than they pay in taxes."
The question of the rates of criminality among illegal aliens vs. those of legal immigrants and American-born citizens has been examined by John R. Lott, Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, using Arizona's prison population as a microcosm for study. According to Lott, the ability to measure the crime-rate among illegal immigrants in the U.S. has been difficult, due to many factors, including the lack of a national data base and "primitive" methodology – such as "simple, cross-sectional analysis to see whether areas with higher immigrant populations have higher crime rates," and "a purely time series approach... look at the United States as a whole and note that crime has decreased since 1990 as immigration has increased." The advantage of the Arizona Department of Corrections study, Lott says, is that
"over our 32.5-year period, we know each prisoner who entered the prison system, their criminal convictions history, and whether he is a documented or undocumented immigrant. The only mystery is why this type of data has not been utilized until now."
Peter Kirsanow wryly solved the mystery in National Review, writing:
"Unfortunately, almost every public official not named Jeff Sessions guards against disclosure of illegal-immigrant crime data more tenaciously than disclosure of nuclear launch codes."
According to Lott, whose research spans 1985-2017:
"Arizona's prison population data allow us to compare undocumented immigrants' share of the prison population with their estimated share of the state population...For the first time, we break down the data to examine differences between US citizens, undocumented immigrants, and legal permanent residents. One advantage of using convictions rather than just reported crimes is that convictions depend on a 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard of evidence and thus are much less likely to count innocent people."
The findings are unequivocal, as the following summary illustrates:
"Undocumented immigrants are at least 142% more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans. They also tend to commit more serious crimes and serve 10.5% longer sentences, more likely to be classified as dangerous, and 45% more likely to be gang members than U.S. citizens...There are dramatic differences between in the criminal histories of convicts who are U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants...
"[Y]oung undocumented immigrants commit crime at twice the rate of young U.S. citizens. These undocumented immigrants also tend to commit more serious crimes. If undocumented immigrants committed crime nationally as they do in Arizona, in 2016 they would have been responsible for over 1,000 more murders, 5,200 rapes, 8,900 robberies, 25,300 aggravated assaults, and 26,900 burglaries."
These numbers do not even include the cost to American taxpayers of the toll taken on America's children by illegally imported drugs. Although available information on this is at best spotty, the key finding from the DEA's 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment is that the "most commonly reported greatest drug threat was heroin, at 44.1 percent of law enforcement responses... This was followed by 29.8 percent of respondents indicating methamphetamine was their greatest drug threat, 9.3 percent reporting controlled prescription drugs..."
This tells us something about the extent of the problem, but not enough. The 2010 drug-threat assessment, released a year after the previous administration took office, revealed that,
"From January through November 2009, U.S. seizures of illegal drugs in transit exceeded 1,626 metric tons, indicating that DTOs succeed in moving several thousand tons of cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, and MDMA into the United States annually. There are unique smuggling and transportation methods..."
In 2015, included in the DEA's drug-threat assessment was the fact that drug overdoses killed more people in the United States than car accidents or guns. As was noted by the BBC at the time, "Many of these drugs are smuggled in large volumes by drug cartels..."
The late Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." His successors in Congress would do well to remember this while debating the issue of illegal immigration. They certainly need to keep it in mind when voting on the administration's proposed plan.
*Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
© 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’s Worsening Treatment Of Religious Minorities
أسوأ معاملة إيرانية للأقليات الدينية
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 05/2018
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/62364
The Iranian regime boasts about respecting religious freedom and being tolerant towards religious minorities, and President Hassan Rouhani has frequently promised them equal rights. Nevertheless, reports from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International reveal a different story. The rights of the Iranian people to enjoy religious freedom continue to be violated and many are facing systematic persecution and discrimination on a daily basis.
One specific example of the ongoing harassment and persecution by the Iranian authorities is linked to the regime’s targeting of Sunni religious leaders. Sunnis constitute the largest religious minority — roughly 5 to 10 percent of the population — in the Shiite-majority nation.
Molavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi is considered Iran’s highest-ranking Muslim Sunni cleric and is regarded as a “spiritual leader for Iran’s Sunni minority.” He is the head of the council of Sunni religious schools in the Sistan and Baluchestan Province and is a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. The Iranian regime has intensified its harassment of Ismaeelzahi. He has attempted to find a middle ground with Iran’s ruling Shiite clerics, but his attempts have failed.
The Iranian regime targets leaders of religious minorities in a shrewd attempt to impose fear collectively from the top of the group, in order to restrict the activities of its members.
Ismaeelzahi is facing an “ongoing climate of intimidation and fear” and the regime has barred him from traveling within the country, let alone abroad. In a recent interview with the Center for Human Rights in Iran, he pointed out: “We know that if we don’t ask for permission before we travel, the authorities will create problems for us.” He highlights the complexities of the issue by adding: “We understand the situation and the pressures that exist. So we have decided to coordinate our plans with the authorities. We wanted to go to Mashhad but they didn’t allow it. We said thousands of people go to Mashhad every day. They said those people are different because, if I go to Mashhad, the people will come to see me. Then we wanted to go to Kerman and we talked about it with the authorities, but they didn’t give us permission.”
The country’s Sunni population and its religious leaders are viewed through a prism of suspicion and are regarded as an opposition group, or even as outsiders though their homeland is Iran.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
From the perspective of the Iranian regime, the country’s Sunni minority and religious leaders are viewed through a prism of suspicion and are regarded as an opposition group, or even as outsiders though their homeland is Iran.
In addition, since one of the major revolutionary and religious principles of Iran’s ruling clerics has been to export Shiite ideology, non-Shiite groups are considered rivals, conspirators or threats to achieving such an ideological goal. No Sunni has been appointed to a high-level government position since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
The Iranian regime mainly utilizes the Ministry of Intelligence (Etela’at), the Basij and the judiciary to intimidate and control the country’s Sunnis.
Sunnis have not been successful in invoking the Iranian Constitution, which guarantees rights to Islamic traditions other than Shiite. Article 12 stipulates: “Other Islamic schools, including the Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanbali, and Zaydi are to be accorded full respect, and their followers are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious rites. These schools enjoy official status in matters pertaining to religious education, affairs of personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and wills) and related litigation in courts of law.”
This failure is due to the lack of fairness and due process in Iran’s judicial system, as well as the regime’s trumped-up and ambiguous charges against many Sunnis. Such articles in Iran’s Constitution that guarantee the rights of Sunnis are only a facade to delude the international community into believing that Iranian leaders respect religious freedoms and the human rights of all groups, irrespective of their ethnic or religious backgrounds.
Iran’s treatment of the country’s largest religious minority, the Sunnis, and their leaders continues to deteriorate under the second term of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency.
Iran’s Sunnis have the right to exercise their religious faith. It is incumbent on human rights groups and the international community to pressure the Iranian regime to halt its intimidation, persecution and harassment of the Sunnis and their religious leaders.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for Commerce and Business. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh