LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 24/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/newselias18/english.july24.18.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Soleimani, Rouhani and the Lion’s Tail
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/July 23/18
General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, sent a message to President Hassan Rouhani telling him: “I kiss your hands for these wise statements, and I am at your service to implement any policy that serves the Islamic Republic.”Rouhani, who was described as Iran’s dove, has assumed the hawk’s role ever since he was subjected to criticism from the governance, where they have demanded for him to be held accountable, accusing him of implicating them in the nuclear agreement, and that he was tricked and betrayed by the Americans.
The “wise statements” made by Rouhani, and admired by Soleimani, are threats to the US that Iran will respond by force if it prevents it from selling its oil. The supreme guide also applauded Rouhani and said he admired his statements, adding that he supports the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. The new hawk, Rouhani, then dared and addressed the American president warning him not to play with the lion’s tail! The old lion, i.e. Iran’s regime, and not just its tail, is being publicly beaten and humiliated in Syria by the Israelis. It has not dared to respond, not even once. All its threats are worthless empty talk.
Iranian officials have been in a state of confusion ever since President Trump imposed sanctions. They do not know whether to accept half a deal with the Europeans or cancel the entire agreement or concede to the Americans and renegotiate. Do they resort to force to threaten and blackmail the West like they did in the past, or will Trump find this as an excuse to topple the regime like George Bush toppled Saddam’s regime?
Some officials in Tehran publicly call for targeting American interests, igniting the region and closing the Strait of Hormuz, primarily General Soleimani who said he is “ready to implement President Rouhani’s plan” and that “Hormuz is either for everyone or for no one.”Whether Soleimani kisses Rouhani’s hands to launch a terror war, carry out assassinations and close the Hormuz Strait or whether the Americans step on the lion’s tail directly and not through their regional proxy, Israel, the pressure will increase during the next weeks. There are two important dates we must observe in detail. On August 4, American sanctions on whoever sells gold and food to Iran will go into effect. Three months later, i.e. beginning of November, the American siege on Iranian oil begins.
 It is then that we will know the Khamenei regime’s limitations, and whether it really intends to escalate or if it will back down, lick its wounds and surrender its pride. According to my observation of the regime and its behavior in the region, it will likely retreat as per its old tactic until it comprehends the crisis, with the intention to resume exporting chaos after the end of Trump’s presidency or even before that if it seals another nuclear deal. This does not mean we should not be cautious of the wounded, humiliated lion in Syria after the cancellation of the nuclear deal, which it viewed as the epitome of its victories. We must also not forget the new factor, i.e. the situation in Iran, which is difficult and may develop into a revolution, and which may push the regime to export its problem by opening a front in the Gulf. This is unlikely given its style in managing past crises, and the backlash it suffered over ventures in Syria and the rest of the countries in the region.

Ireland's Anti-Israel Bill and the Muslim Brotherhood
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/July 23/ 2018
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12733/ireland-israel-boycott
The Irish bill could have a negative impact on American companies with subsidiaries in Ireland: it is illegal under US anti-boycott laws to cooperate with a ban on commerce with Israeli settlements.
What is behind the proposed bill? One possible explanation is the prominent role played by Islamic institutions and organizations in Ireland, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. There is evidence to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood has established its European headquarters in the Emerald Isle.
Leaked US Embassy cables indicated that even some Irish Muslims refer to a certain mosque in Dublin as "Tora Bora," a cave complex on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. One of the mosques imams, Yayah al-Hussein, originally from Sudan, is a member of Hamas, and many of its congregants are Bosnian and Afghan jihadists.
On July 11, the Irish Senate approved a bill criminalizing local companies that engage in commerce with Israeli firms based in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Introduced in the body's Upper Chamber by independent member Senator Frances Black, the bill passed initial muster, in a 25-20 vote with 14 abstentions. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, 2018 would prohibit any import of goods or services from "occupied territories," with financial penalties of a quarter million euros in fines and up to five years imprisonment for violators.
Israel's reaction to the Irish Senate's vote was swift. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned Ireland's ambassador, Alison Kelly, for a reprimand. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for the immediate closure of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin. It is unlikely, however, that Israel will follow through on Lieberman's threat, as Ireland's governing party, the Fine Gael, is opposed to the bill, which in any case must pass in Ireland's Lower house of Parliament, the Dáil, before becoming a law.
A U.S.-based litigation outfit, The Lawfare Project, which fights anti-Israel discrimination -- with the help of UK Lawyers for Israel -- has initiated legal action against the proposed legislation. The litigators say that the Irish bill could have a negative impact on American companies with subsidiaries in Ireland: it is illegal under US anti-boycott laws to cooperate with a ban on commerce with Israeli settlements. Compliance with US boycott laws would, in turn, cost US companies a good deal in fines for violation of the Irish boycott.
What, then, is behind the proposed bill? One possible explanation is the prominent role played by Islamic institutions and organizations in Ireland, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's influence in Dublin, the nation's capital, is evidenced by the easy access its key personnel have to Ireland's government.
There is evidence to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood has established its European headquarters in the Emerald Isle. The Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland (ICCI), which hosts several Muslim institutes affiliated with the international Sunni group that many view as a terrorist organization, is located in Clonskeagh, a suburb south of Dublin. The ICCI complex includes the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), a prestigious institute of Islamic jurisprudence, which was founded by the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), itself a Muslim Brotherhood institution.
Dubai's ruling al-Maktoum family, a key Muslim Brotherhood financier, donated the money to erect the ICCI complex, which also houses Ireland's largest mosque. Furthermore, the ICCI's Campus Dean, Imam Sheikh Hussein Halawa, is a former colleague of the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual guide, Qatar-based Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Al-Qaradawi, the chair of the ECFR, was denied entry into Ireland in 2011, after he expressed support for the suicide bombing of Israelis. Since then, he has not been allowed into Ireland.
Sheikh Halawa, in addition to being the dean of the ICCI, also chairs the Irish Council of Imams, made up of at least 35 Sunni and Shia Muslim scholars in the Irish Republic. As a result, he maintains a high public profile, which has awarded him invitations to state events with Ireland's prime minister and president, and with the mayor of Dublin.
Despite popular support in Ireland for same-sex marriage and other liberal causes, Halawa openly sanctions the death penalty for gays, and the ICCI has a record of hosting radical Islamic speakers. One such speaker, Saudi Mullah Aed al-Qarni, told Iqra TV in 2004 that the "brothers of apes and pigs" (i.e. Israelis and Jews) killed arch terrorist Hamas leaders Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi and Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. In 2005, al-Qarni sermonized about Jews "that throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered."
Another Saudi firebrand, Salman al-Ouda, delivered sermons at the ICCI in 2007. Egyptian imam Wagdy Ghoneim, who visited the center in 2006 and 2007, denounced Jews as pigs and apes at a conference of the American Muslim Society in May, 1998 at Brooklyn College. He was eventually banned from the UK and the US for having issued a fatwa urging Muslims to kill American troops fighting in Muslim lands, specifically to kill American soldiers in Iraq.
Classified cables exchanged in 2006 between the State Department and the US Embassy in Ireland -- and published by Wikileaks in 2011 -- revealed that the administration of George W. Bush was trying to find out whether the European Council for Fatwa and Research and other such groups were working to legitimize Sharia (Islamic) law in Western Europe.
According to James Kenny, the American ambassador to Ireland at the time, a certain journalist claimed that outside of Qatar, Ireland had the strongest Muslim Brotherhood presence, and that al-Qaradawi "runs Islam in Ireland."
The White House's concern may have been warranted concerning some Muslim Brotherhood zealots in Ireland. But there are other Irish Islamic leaders who are more willing to compromise with Ireland's values, if not assimilate. In his 2014 book, Islam and Education in Ireland: An Introduction to the Faith and the Educational Challenges It Faces, Dr. Ali Selim -- the ICCI spokesman and secretary general of the Irish Council of Imams -- called for a reform of Ireland's education system, to make it more "inclusive" for Muslims. Among the changes he advocated was gender segregation in gym, music and art classes, where there could be "a clash of values" with Islam. Selim was interviewed in the Irish press and asked whether he favored Sharia to be implemented in Ireland. He responded that only in the case where Muslims are a majority is Sharia likely to be enacted.
Nor is Islamic extremism in Ireland limited to the ICCI campus alone. The leaked US Embassy cables also indicated that even some Irish Muslims refer to a certain mosque in Dublin as "Tora Bora," a cave complex on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. One of the mosques imams, Yayah al-Hussein, originally from Sudan, is a member of Hamas, and many of its congregants are Bosnian and Afghan jihadists.
That jihadist groups feel comfortable in Ireland is understandable, given the country's genuine societal openness to Islam in general and Muslim immigrants in particular. In addition, Irish politics tend to favor the narrative of Palestinian Arabs in their conflict with Israel. This is due, in part, to their viewing -- inaccurately -- the plight of the Palestinians through the prism of their own history of occupation by England. But the Irish never aspired to displace Great Britain.
Even so, in Northern Ireland's Province of Ulster, still part of the United Kingdom, Palestinian flags can be seen flying from private homes.
Meanwhile, the recently-replaced Lord Mayor of Dublin Mícheál Mac Donncha is a member of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which supports the global boycott effort against products made in Israel.
Politics aside, the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood -- and its use of Ireland as a friendly base from which to spread its doctrine throughout the rest of Europe -- should be a cause of great concern not just to Dublin, but to democracies everywhere. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi summed up the Muslim Brotherhood creed while running for election in 2012:
"The Koran is our constitution;
The Prophet Muhammad is our leader;
Jihad is our path and death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration;
Above all, Allah is our goal."
Is it any wonder, then, that chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the Irish Senate's bill? In a statement quoted by the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa, Erekat said, "This courageous step builds on the historic ties between Ireland and Palestine, [and] shows the way forward for the rest of the European Union."
*Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
© 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.

Erdoğan's Turkey: Unwanted in Arab Lands
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/July 23/ 2018
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12734/erdogan-turkey-unwanted
"[Erdogan] does not even understand that Turks are not Arabs and Arabs have no intention go back to Ottoman rule." — Arab attaché.
Erdoğan in fact has succeeded in a rare achievement: making his country equally unloved by Muslim nations and Israel at the same time.
"We remain most curious," an Arab defense attaché told this author one evening, "how an intelligent man like [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan stubbornly fails to understand that his services are simply unwanted in the Arab world ... How he does not even understand that Turks are not Arabs and Arabs have no intention [to] go back to Ottoman rule." The Arab smiled and added: "Just because he champions the Palestinian cause does not make him a friend of Arabs."
In addition to his ideological kinship with Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups, Erdoğan has been more Arab than the Arabs when it comes to the Arab-Israeli dispute. Erdoğan has apparently been hoping to win allies in the anti-Israeli bloc and votes at home where Palestine is a "holy cause." He has repeatedly called on the Muslim world to unite against Israel.
In a 2017 summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Erdoğan's Turkey spearheaded the idea of a "Muslim army" that would surround Israel. "Those who think Jerusalem belongs to them today will not be able to find a tree to hide behind tomorrow," said Erdoğan. Earlier this year Erdoğan called on Muslim leaders to unite against and confront Israel.
As Zvi Bar'el wrote in Haaretz, "Erdoğan wanted an empire but must suffice with an unloved country". His Muslim "allies" have divergent interests, policies and calculations, often obscured further by sectarian differences. They often fall apart even on common "holy causes" such as Palestine.
In June, crowds gathered at a square in Tehran to protest Iran's sliding currency and other economic woes. The crowds shouted, "Death to Palestine" and threw stones in anger, forcing storekeepers to close down their shops. They chanted, "No to Gaza, no to Lebanon".
Erdoğan's efforts to extend Turkey's sphere of influence to Jerusalem caused alarm among his Muslim allies Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. At the end of June, Amman, Riyadh and Ramallah urged Israel to act against Erdoğan's claims that he is the custodian of the Muslim sites in Jerusalem. The Arab capitals said Erdoğan's efforts weakened their own interests and harmed Israel's. They complained that Turkish Islamic associations had lately been sponsoring activities and trips for thousands of people in East Jerusalem. They also had a strong presence in protests around the Temple Mount while Turkish government-funded charities were purchasing property. An official told Haaretz that the "Palestinian Authority was not interested in having another landlord in East Jerusalem".
Israel's Hadashot TV reported that Israel's top security body had drafted possible measures against the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a government organization active in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The planned measures could include a general restriction on all TIKA activities and require the agency to obtain individual permits for its projects.
The Turkish effort for more influence in Jerusalem, however, does not always come from institutional sources. In early July, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Prosecution filed an indictment in the Samaria Military Court against a Turkish woman for smuggling funds to Hamas during trips to Israel and the West Bank. Ebru Özkan, 27, was arrested by police at Ben-Gurion Airport on June 11 and transferred to authorities on suspicion of endangering state security and for contacting terrorist organizations. According to the indictment, Abd al-tif Sada, a Hamas operative, allegedly guided Özkan about smuggling items for Hamas through airport security; he advised her to place the items in her checked luggage and not in her carry-on. Özkan was later released pending trial after an Israeli military court decided to grant her conditional release.
Matters for Turkey in the Middle East are not exactly moving in the direction Erdoğan might want. The Saudi media began championing a need to reconsider any alliance with Turkey and describing Erdoğan as an authoritarian ruler. A United Arab Emirates ambassador declared Turkey a threat to the region and said the Americans did not understand the gravity of this threat. Egypt, another Muslim country deeply hostile to Erdoğan, imposed an economic boycott on Turkey and advised Egyptians not to travel to Turkey or fly with Turkish Airlines -- thereby blowing up Turkey's hopes of using Egypt as a commercial bridge to Africa.
Again, as Bar'el wrote in Haaretz: "Thus no new Ottoman Empire will ever be born of Erdogan's dream; his 'sultanate' will end at Turkey's borders".
If that should count as a success, Erdoğan in fact has succeeded in achieving a rare title: making his country equally unloved by Muslim nations and Israel at the same time.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from Turkey's leading newspaper after 29 years, for writing what was taking place in Turkey for Gatestone. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 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.

Building a strategic response to Islamist terrorism
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/July 23/18
Last month saw the first anniversary of the terrorist attach on London Bridge. A great deal of time and effort has been put into counter-terrorism in the since then.
And on the information available, we must say that the investment has been paying off: police report that 13 attacks have been prevented, and there are 500 live counter-terror investigations at any one time. But no amount of surveillance and de-radicalization initiatives can prevent all attacks. Some individuals will always slip through the cracks. And when they do, we will have to bear the costs.
So is there nothing we can do? Must we resign ourselves that such attacks are now just a fact of life? The answer, I believe must be a firm “No”. And to see why, we need a bit of historical perspective.
While terrorism has steadily become a normal fact of our news diet, a quick look at the statistics regarding the number of attacks, the number of deaths, and the geographical spread of incidents show that Western Europe and the UK in particular are far safer now than they were in the 1970s and 1980s.
Nor are we talking about a return to the fore of historical terror trends. The terrorism then was not Islamist. It was Irish nationalist, Basque separatist, neo-Fascist, anarchist, as well as state-sponsored terrorism, typically pursuing political aims in the Cold War.
If we choose to do the hard, unpopular things now, we will be able to count in years the time before this wave of terrorism ebbs away
Old causes
What is interesting about this is that nowadays, despite the emergence of Islamist terrorism, we hear nothing about the old causes of terrorism. In other words, all those historical waves of terrorism have, for lack of a better word, been resolved.
If we hope to quell this wave of terrorism, we must attempt to do the same – to resolve its underlying causes. The excellent work done by our security and intelligence services in preventing individual attacks must not be underplayed.
Hundreds of lives have been saved and it is because of their diligent work that we have not come to accept attacks such as the one in Manchester and London as a new normal. But this reactive response is merely tactical: what we need is a strategic response.
A strategic response to Islamist terrorism must draw from the lessons of past, resolved waves of terrorism. State-sponsored terrorism in Europe has died out with the Cold War: the cause of that wave of terrorism was geopolitical rivalry. Once the cause has been removed with the collapse of the USSR, the attacks have naturally gone away.
Irish nationalist terrorism was (largely) resolved with the Good Friday Agreement. It turns out that a diplomatic settlement can produce results where decades of stationing armies on the streets cannot. The same can be said about the Basque situation, and a parallel can be drawn to the ongoing diplomatic negotiations between the FARC rebels and the government in Colombia.
This is something Israel might want to look into, seeing as bombing Palestinian territories does not seem to produce much in the way of long-term solutions to the constant stream of terror attacks coming from Palestinian groups.
Neo-fascist and anarchist terrorism has ebbed with the popularity of those ideologies, as well as with an increase in the levels of education of the general population, and increasing restrictions on the access to weapons and explosives, especially to unstable individuals, across the continent.
There are many lessons to be learned there for the United States, which, despite its obsession with “Islamic terrorism”, is seeing many more attacks with many more victims from domestic far-right and white supremacist actors.
Root cases
So what are the root causes of Islamist terrorism today, and what can we do to tackle them?
1. Islamist ideology: an inevitable fact about terrorism is that it has political aims. Those political aims are underpinned by an ideology, as indeed has been the case for all the historical waves of terrorism mentioned above. And, inevitably, as the ideology wanes in popularity, so does the threat from its particular brand of terrorism. The growth of Islamist ideology is not an organic, natural trend. It is the promotion of this poisonous vision of Islam.
2. Marginalisation of immigrant communities: the Islamist ideology promoted by the extremist is an ideology of division and “eternal conflict” between “true” Muslims and everyone else. That ideology finds fertile ground in Western Europe precisely because it resonates with the experience of separation and marginalisation that many young men and women live through in the ethnically and religiously segregated urban ghettos of the West. We need to start thinking seriously about robust, and perhaps even illiberal solutions to this problem such as compulsory mixed schooling, social housing allocation that deliberately mixes communities, and social policies which put the onus and responsibility on native populations as well as the immigrant populations for the latter’s integration in our societies. Most migrants to our countries, first-, second-, event third-generation, would dearly love to be integrate as full members of our societies, but often find a cold reception from segments of the native populations. So long as we allow that to happen, we cannot be surprised that some individuals from migrant background fail to integrate and do not feel they have a stake in our society – or indeed, that Islamist or other sectarian ideologies resonate with them.
3. Media handling of terror incidents: we live in celebrity-obsessed societies. And for a short while, we treat the perpetrators of such attacks to the same kind of notoriety that we would the C-list celebrities who have done something “naughty” this week. In today’s media environment, anyone can have their 5 minutes of fame. But let us not reward those who commit atrocities with those 5 minutes of fame. A rather more appropriate, and effective approach would be to impose a punishment of oubliette on the perpetrators: report that a terror attack has happened, celebrate the lives of the victims, and impose a blanket ban on “the human story” of the attacker himself. That analysis is to be done by security experts and academics, not by a frenzied press and their ghoulish fascination with deranged individuals. And if the “patriotic” press does not choose the censor itself, then there is a good argument for an external agency to censor them in the interest of deterring future incidents.
Of course, there are more things we can do and it will take years before we can reap the rewards of our efforts. But if we choose to do the hard, unpopular things now, we will be able to count in years the time before this wave of terrorism ebbs away. If we do not, we may well count that time in decades, and in thousands of innocent lives.

Why Iran’s malign behavior must be confronted — not appeased
الأمير خالد بين سلمان: لهذه الأسباب يجب التصدي لسلوك إيران الخبيث وليس استرضائها والتملق لها
Prince Khalid bin Salman/Arab News/July 23/18
July 23, 2018 20:00
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/66244/prince-khalid-bin-salman-why-irans-malign-behavior-must-be-confronted-not-appeased-%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85/
I was born just three decades ago, long after the “The Greatest Generation” endured the darkest chapter in human history. I can only think their survival and ultimate triumph over the forces of evil were meant to impart lessons to us all, so that such horror never befalls the world again. It is encouraging to hear US President Donald Trump make clear that we will not approach Iran with the sort of appeasement policies that failed so miserably to halt Nazi Germany’s rise to power, or avert the costliest war ever waged. Now, we all need to unite on a broader strategy to address the Iranian regime’s destabilizing behavior.
At a time of thunderous echoes of the 1930s — the sustained fallout from an economic crisis, extreme polarization of the political spectrum from the far right to the hard left, inaction from the global community and malignant actors determined to fill a void in leadership by spreading their ideology of hate and violence — it is incumbent on the global community to act with resolve. As the philosopher George Santayana famously declared: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In the appeasement of Iran, we are clearly seeing something we have seen before. It is equally obvious that the strategy has already failed.
Despite the best intentions of its architects, the 2015 nuclear deal and subsequent easing of financial restrictions on Tehran did nothing to stem the regime’s expansionist ambitions or eliminate its support for the Middle East’s most destabilizing extremists — in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere. Instead, it served only to grant the world’s most egregious sponsor of global terrorism rewards for temporarily suspending its apocalyptic pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The deal was but part of a worrying pattern of appeasement. As Iran threw more and more economic and military muscle behind the murderous government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, it was not punished. Instead, governments responded by offering Tehran a seat at successive Syrian peace tables. The result was predictable: No peace, and nothing that resembled a more accommodating Iran, which to this day stands by Assad, one chemical weapons attack after the next.
President Trump has declared that his administration “will be working with our allies to find a real, comprehensive, and lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear threat. This will include efforts to eliminate the threat of Iran’s ballistic missile program, to stop its terrorist activities worldwide, and to block its menacing activity across the Middle East.”
Saudi Arabia is committed to doing everything we can to help the United States. There is still time for a determined international response that stops Iran from spreading its tentacles of mischief to every corner of the region — from the Hezbollah terrorist organization that has put a stranglehold on Lebanon’s future, to the Houthi militia that has wrought misery on Yemen and tried, unsuccessfully, to intimidate my country by firing Iranian-provided missiles into Saudi Arabian territory.
Whatever your position on the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, we all should now answer a higher calling: Deterring Iran and its minions from their campaign of chaos. Even leaders who sought to salvage the nuclear deal recognize the importance of combating Iran now. As the French President Emmanuel Macron said after the US withdrew from the agreement: “We will work collectively on a broader framework, covering nuclear activity, the post-2025 period, ballistic activity, and stability in the Middle-East, notably Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.”
As other nations and their peoples weigh the matter, it is worth considering the abundant and disturbing parallels between 2018 and 1938.
Eighty years ago, the guardians of global order looked on powerlessly as expansionist forces in Europe, Asia and Africa pierced what faith remained in the ideal of international law or in the League of Nations. A similar danger presents itself now as Iran runs roughshod over the international order, stoking conflict beyond its borders and arming the extremists who do its bidding in pursuit of regional domination.
Tehran promotes sectarianism to divide communities. That leads to weakened or failed nations, which Iran then controls through proxy organizations.
Iranian expansionism fuels and foments most of the Middle East’s crises — the sectarian strife that pits neighbor against neighbor, the militant movements that shatter legitimate state institutions, and the terrorist forces that kill innocent men, women and children. “Everywhere you look, if there is trouble in the region, you find Iran.” Note, it was not a Saudi leader who said that — it was the US secretary of defense, Jim Mattis.
The pernicious threat posed by Iran is at the core of its regime. The Iranian constitution calls for spreading “the ideological mission of jihad” throughout the world. And from its first days, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini exhorted his followers to conquer Muslim and non-Muslim land alike. In 2015, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), proclaimed: “The Islamic Republic of Iran is at its best. The Iranian revolution is quickly spreading beyond the republic’s borders; with the same speed it opens the front lines of revolution, achieving [Khomeini’s] goals.” This statement was made while the JCPOA was being concluded and during the Iran-backed Houthi takeover of Yemen.
The Iranian state ideology is based on the concept of Wilayat Al-Faqih, a guardianship-based political system in which the people owe their allegiance to a supreme religious jurist (who also becomes the Supreme Leader) regardless of their nationality, geography or form of government. This supra-national doctrine aims to undermine the influence of legitimate state government by theocratic rule, and does not recognize the legitimate international order of governments. But is religion really at the heart of Iran’s interpretation of Wilayat Al-Faqih? If it were, then why wouldn’t a Supreme Leader emerge from Iraq’s religious centers, and under Wilayat Al-Faqih the people of Iran would pledge allegiance to him?
After almost four decades of malfeasance, we know the Iranian playbook. Tehran promotes sectarianism to divide communities. That leads to weakened or failed nations, which Iran then controls through proxy organizations.
The Iranian politician Alireza Zakani, who is close to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, has bragged that Sanaa in Yemen is now in Iran’s grasp, joining “the three Arab capitals that are already a subsidiary of the Iranian Islamic revolution” and part of “the greater jihad.” The other Arab capitals to which he referred are Beirut, Baghdad and Damascus. That statement was made immediately after the Houthi militia, with the help of Iran, slaughtered their way to Sanaa, before the Saudi-led coalition intervened to restore the legitimate government of Yemen.
Zakani has also said: “The Yemeni revolution will not be confined to Yemen alone. It will extend, following its success, into Saudi territories. The vast Yemeni-Saudi borders will help accelerate its reach into the depths of Saudi land.”
Too often, Iran has not paid the price for its brutal behavior. Twenty-five years ago, it preyed on a civil war in Lebanon to install its forces and drive out American peacekeepers, killing 241 US servicemen at a Marine barracks. In 1996, Iran blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 US Air Force personnel — one of a series of terrorist acts that were not confined to our region, whether it was assassinating opposition leaders in Germany in 1992, bombing a building in Argentina in 1994, or plotting to assassinate my predecessor in Washington, DC, in 2011.
Iran went on to kill hundreds more Americans by supplying the roadside bombs and explosives used by militants in the Iraq War. In its findings, the Iraq Study Group reported: “Iran has supplied improvised explosive devices to groups … that attack US forces. These types of weapons were responsible for almost 40 percent of all US casualties.” In concert with Iran, Bashar Assad released hundreds of terrorists from Syrian prisons and moved them into Iraq for the purpose of attacking US interests there. In recent years, Iran has insidiously expanded its control or influence in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon. It has also filled voids created by the US withdrawal from Iraq. Everywhere Iran has gone, its methods of terrorism and assassination have followed.
Today, Saudis live within minutes of new Iranian ballistic missiles pointed at them by the Houthis in Yemen.
The lack of concrete reactions to these activities, and the fading of “red lines” in Syria, made the Iranian view clear: The US — and the world — was handcuffed and had only words of condemnation in response. That message is changing now and we believe President Trump when he says: “The United States no longer makes empty threats.”
Saudi Arabia has always believed the international community cannot address Iran’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, while ignoring the mass destruction Iran is inflicting daily on its neighbors. Any future deal must address Iran’s ballistic missile program, its increasing financial and military support for terrorism, and its interference in the internal affairs of countries in the region.
Today, Saudis live within minutes of new Iranian ballistic missiles pointed at them by the Houthis in Yemen. More than 160 Iranian missiles have been fired into Saudi Arabia. It is an intolerable situation and one, thankfully, Americans do not have to endure from a drug cartel or terrorist state shooting at Washington, DC, from just across the US border.
Saudi Arabia’s policy is to confront evil wherever it may be found and in whatever form it takes. We are aggressively fighting Daesh and Al-Qaeda, and the extremist ideologies that underpin them. (Both terror organizations see Saudi Arabia and the United States as their primary enemies. In fact, Osama bin Laden’s first declaration of war in 1996 was on just those two countries.) Our war on terror is not limited to those groups, but is waged against all who inflict or condone violent extremism. Those who adhere to terrorism and violent extremism are but a small minority in both Saudi Arabia and Iran. The difference is that in Saudi Arabia these terrorists are on the run, while in Iran they are running the country.
At home, we are pushing ahead with implementing a positive vision of a modern and engaging partner to the world. It is an agenda that stands in sharp contrast to the Iranian menace that aspires to pull everyone back against the tide of modernity. This is the real conflict at the heart of the Middle East, not the Sunni vs. Shiite divide that Iran wants you to see. It is a clash of two very different visions of the future.
Saudi Arabia’s vision is inclusive, guided by the rule of law and international order, and promoting peace, stability and economic prosperity for all. That means supporting legitimate state institutions throughout the region, irrespective of sect. For example, in Iraq, Saudi Arabia supports the legitimate government against (Sunni) Daesh, and in Yemen we support the legitimate government against the (Shiite) Houthis.
Iran’s vision is the opposite, shaped by its nature as an expansionist power that propagates sectarianism, hatred and violence as a means to expand its influence on Arab countries and impose its will on them. At home, our paths could not be more divergent. Compare them since Iran’s 1979 revolution. On almost every measure of national development and quality of life, Saudi Arabia has surged forward while Iran has slid back.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley briefs the media in front of remains of Iranian ‘Qiam’ ballistic missile in December 2017. (Reuters)
Saudi Arabia’s per capita income has increased almost tenfold, from just over $2,300 in 1978 to more than $22,000 today. Iran’s has fallen by more than half, to barely more than $4,000.
Four decades ago, the Saudi and Iranian economies were roughly the same size: About $80 billion. Saudi GDP has since expanded to almost $700 billion, double that of Iran.
If your home is in Saudi Arabia instead of Iran, you would earn 2½ times more money; be 34.3 percent more likely to be employed and 45 percent less likely to be in prison; and likely to live four years longer.
In Iran, you cannot use Twitter, Facebook and other platforms that are regularly banned, while in Saudi Arabia social media is open for Saudis to engage with the world and for the world to engage with them.
Sure, Iran’s leaders blame everyone but themselves for their miserable record. It is all because of Western sanctions, they cry, or the lingering effects of the Iran-Iraq war. When these excuses are disproved, they readily come up with others.
But this gap in achievement is real and pervasive, and only likely to accelerate as Saudi Arabia speeds up transformation, reform, and economic and social change, while the Iranian regime remains obsessed with inflicting as much death and destruction as possible.
Iran’s theocratic rulers won’t have it any other way. With his English-language tweets and Facebook postings, the Iranian regime’s foreign minister Javad Zarif desperately attempts to present a moderate face outside his country. He doesn’t even try at home, where such networks are banned, demonstrating that what he says is mere lip service to the West.
President Hassan Rouhani similarly seeks to beguile the world with talk of reformers who might one day replace the “hardliners” holding the levers of Iranian power. It is an elaborate ruse from leaders who are part of, and benefit from, the same system of repression. From 1989 to 2005, Rouhani was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, in which post he helped oversee Iran’s campaign of assassinations and embassy bombings. And in 2013, as he ran for president, Rouhani sang a similar tune. “We need to express ‘Death to America’ with action,” he exhorted his fellow Iranians in a speech in the city of Karaj.
I even have heard directly from a former US government official that Zarif whispers privately that the Supreme Leader is “disconnected from reality” and that the United States needs to back Iran so the moderates can take over when he passes. This is not reality; it is a deceptive strategy meant to lull America into inaction.
And should you look at the jockey or the horse? The true “jockeys” in Iran’s leadership today are not the Zarifs. They are individuals such as Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who has commanded the Quds Force for 15 years and, according to Time magazine, is “responsible for exporting Iran’s revolution, supporting terrorists, subverting pro-Western governments and waging Iran’s foreign wars. Soleimani is also a master of propaganda, posting selfies from battlefields across the region to convince one and all that he is the master of the Middle Eastern chessboard.” This is the real face of Iran’s leadership.
Five years into Rouhani’s presidency, the West’s policy of appeasement to “empower” him clearly has not done much good for ordinary Iranians.
The nuclear deal provided Iran with more than $100 billion in concessions. But look at Iran’s budget the following year. That money did not go into schools, or roads or hospitals. No wonder Iranian citizens took to the streets this year crying out for improvements in their country, wondering into whose pockets the benefits of the nuclear deal disappeared. Following the agreement, the Iranian budget showed significant funding increases for the IRGC and the Quds Force. The available data on Iran’s official fiscal budgets show that between 2014 and 2017, the defense budget grew by 71 percent, from $9.29 billion to $15.9 billion. Available information also shows the budget rose even further last year to $19 billion.
The Iranians are a civilized people and want the same things that we all want, a better quality of life and a better future for themselves and their children. But as the Kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pointed out, the Iranian regime has not invested in a single road or major civil project since the nuclear agreement was signed.
Five years into Rouhani’s presidency, the West’s policy of appeasement to “empower” him clearly has not done much good for ordinary Iranians.
Should we be surprised? When a regime’s motto is “Death to America,” is it any wonder that it cannot be appeased with more relaxed trading or banking regulations?
It is simplistic to say history repeats itself. And yet, looking at the recent past, I cannot escape the feeling that we have been here before. We share with those who lived through 1938 the overwhelming sense of frustration, anxiety, desperation and fear of the unknown. I cannot help but wonder what future historians will make of 2018 if we do not alter the course of history.
As at Munich eight decades ago, when Western concessions failed to satisfy Nazi Germany’s desires for a bigger, more powerful “Reich,” the world is again faced with the twin options of offering treasure and territory to placate a murderous regime, or confronting evil head-on.
In today’s example, those who have not learnt history’s lessons counsel us to let the Iranians subvert the entire Middle East while granting them as many financial enticements as possible. The rationale has been to preserve a nuclear deal that has done nothing to resolve the region’s troubles, and appeal to the Iranian regime’s better angels. A wiser and ultimately more moral approach is to pressure Iran to correct its awful behavior immediately.
As Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has emphasized repeatedly, standing up to the forces of aggression may entail more cost in the short term. But it is the only real strategy for preventing already grave threats to snowball into wider, and potentially far deadlier, conflicts. “We will not repeat an agreement that was reached in 1938 and that led later to the Second World War,” the crown prince said in Paris this year at a conference with President Macron.
Following the path of appeasement will lead countries in the region to lose faith in international law. They will see that proxy militias can be tools of foreign policy, unchecked by the world community. They will change and adapt to this new reality — and not for the better, I fear. We cannot pass the buck and hope things get better. Committing to a firm policy of containing Iran, and all its mischievous activity, will solve more problems than just saying: “Something must be done.”
The world must join us to confront Iran with seriousness and intent. Iran needs to know it will pay a price if it continues to violate international law and interfere in the affairs of its neighbors. Iran must be punished economically and diplomatically, with all options kept on the table to ensure the strength and integrity of diplomacy. And the Middle East’s legitimate state institutions — in Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere — need to be supported as they fight Iran’s proxies of chaos.
Only such a course of action will allow the seeds of modernization, growth, and innovation to flourish across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia will do its part. We need as many partners as possible.
________
• Prince Khalid bin Salman was appointed ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States of America on April 22, 2017, by King Salman. He presented his credentials to US President Donald J. Trump and officially assumed his position on July 21, 2017.
Before that, Prince Khalid was an adviser at the Saudi Embassy in Washington and at the Ministry of Defense in Riyadh.
Previously, he was an F-15 pilot and tactical intelligence officer in the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF). Before a back injury ended his flying career, Prince Khalid flew more than 50 combat missions as part of the international coalition campaign against Daesh in Syria and as part of Operations Decisive Storm and Renewal of Hope in Yemen.
Prince Khalid graduated from the King Faisal Air Academy in Riyadh and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the RSAF. He received his initial pilot training at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and advanced training at Columbus Air Force Base in Columbus, Mississippi. He also studied advanced electronic warfare in France.