Detailed Lebanese & Lebanese Related LCCC English New Bulletin For November 12/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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A disastrous scenario stares Tehran in the face
Nadim Koteich/Al Arabiya/November 11/18
The 4th of November will be remembered as a glorious day of confrontation with the Iranian regime. The re-imposition of US sanctions is the last thing Tehran would have wanted to face at the moment when it is going through its largest “revolutionary” expansion in the region and one of the most critical of its domestic situations since 1979.Iran's problem with US President Donald Trump issues from the clarity of the man. He had stated in his presidential campaign that the nuclear agreement is the worst deal in history, and that he would revoke it if he won the presidency. He has done exactly as he had promised.
The Trump offensive
Trump is also honest when he says he wants good relations with Iran. His only demand is actually quite simple: Iran should stop being the way Iran is. Trump does not know how to use Kissinger’s equations like the phrase “it is necessary for Iran to transform from being a revolution into becoming a state.” His advisors do not have the imaginative literary and narrative techniques such as those possessed by former President Barack Obama's adviser Ben Rhodes, who had written about Tehran's tight grip and Obama’s open hand to greet the Iranians. Trump speaks a different language, a simpler and a more interactive one. You give me something and I give you something back and when this does not work, he says, as he told the North Korean president: “My nuclear button is bigger than yours.” Trump really wishes to see an Iran that is different from the one we know now. He sees in Iran a huge market that needs everything from cotton socks to oil refineries and all that lies in between. He also sees its tourism potential and its role for bringing stability in Asia as well as a gateway to solve other intractable problems in this part of the world — from Israel's security, to solving the intractable peace crisis, alleviating the climate of extremism and terrorism and extinguishing many of the wars that have come to threaten the security of a united Europe because of their displaced victims. This is the most important transatlantic American security achievement after World War II. Trump is not an ideological man. What he really wants is to reach a new agreement that opens the door to a new Iran. He is not seeking to change the regime, though some inkling of this idea has started to emerge in his administration via the remnants of the George Bush administration, particularly through national security adviser John Bolton. It is not his goal to provide credentials to anyone in the name of America to change its image, as Obama’s concern was and who thought that the world would change if he just finds the right words to address it.
Economic slump
Trump’s policy is as simple as the Iranian crisis. He does not have a doctrinal rhetoric that can be confronted with a doctrinal rhetoric, and he is only asking the regime the same things that the Iranians themselves are asking of their regime. It is unfortunate for the regime that these oil sanctions –oil is the backbone of the Iranian regime as it feeds 80% of the treasury's revenues – comes at a time characterized by two factors. The first one is a global economic slowdown and a series of currency crises stretching from Argentina to Turkey. This means the decline of demand on oil. Second, expectations of surpluses in oil supplies in the first half of 2019 comes from either a rise in Saudi and Russian output to protecting prices from harmful hikes, or the introduction of new producers or barrels from non-traditional producers such as Canada and the US. The environment surrounding American sanctions guarantees drying up of Iran's oil revenues and protecting current oil prices and preventing them from going up and threatening global economic disasters. In addition, there are temporary exemptions granted by the Trump administration to eight countries to continue buying Iranian oil, which do not benefit Iran but are placed in special accounts within the procuring state and in the local currency and are only used to pay Iranian bills for food, drugs and materials that are not subject to sanctions.
Iran’s options
A disastrous scenario stares Tehran in the face and it stipulates that Tehran may resort to escalation in Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz to create a militarily tense environment threatening oil trade and increasing oil prices in the hope that the world will turn against the United States. About 12% of the total international trade passes through Bab al-Mandeb, and in 2016 the strait was a gateway for 4.8 million barrels of oil per day, of which 2.8 million barrels of oil per day headed towards Europe. In 2016, the Strait of Hormuz accounted for more than 30% of the total trade of crude oil and liquid gas transported overseas. But any untoward incidents in Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz, or any obstruction of Saudi and UAE transport pipelines in that spot and striking the bases of the Trump plan, will push Europe into America's lap and not the other way around and will prove to the world that Iran is indeed the irrational state that Trump had warned of. Tehran may thus subject itself to a direct military strike launched against it by the Trump administration. The second option, which is the most likely one is that Iran will swallow the bitter pill of sanctions and lick its economic wounds for the next two years in the hope that the term of Trump will end and he won’t return for a second term. Tehran will then move on to negotiate with the new US administration by the end of 2020. Iran believes it has the time, but the reality on the ground indicates otherwise.

The art of arranging hostilities
Abdullah bin Bijad Al-Otaibi/Al Arabiya/November 11/18
In politics, decision-makers need to re-examine and re-arrange priorities that serve their vision, goal and country, and this is a natural part of decision making, which happens whenever certain changes that call for a reevaluation occur.
We can mimic this rearrangement of priorities when looking into the art of rearranging hostilities. It is well known that there is no permanent ally in politics just like there isn’t a permanent enemy.
Failure to adapt
Positions change and develop according to interests, national security and the desired future. In the Middle East, there are currents, parties, movements and organizations that have been frozen for more than five decades and could not re-arrange their priorities or hostilities since then. This deadlock in a speedy era is like walking against time and it leads to decline in vision and cultural participation and also affects political status and influence. The region has witnessed political storms, in fact devastating earthquakes, but none of them could develop any vision or achieve any change because they believe that political stances are sacred positions or an ideology that must not be touched. This is the best recipe for political failure: ignoring flexibility and not searching for the best while relying on the past as it is. Perhaps this outlook had some benefits before, but it is extremely harmful when strictly adopted in a different time with different challenges.
As an example, let’s look at the relationship of the Gulf with the state of Iraq. The relationship was amicable during the Iraq-Iran war. The Gulf States continued to support Iraq during the eight years of that war. Iraq came out victorious, but switched its loyalty and decided to invade the State of Kuwait, entering it in early August 1990 and annexing it with full military force. All those rational in the Gulf and in the world thus knew well that relations would turn upside down so soon from friendship to enmity. Many movements, parties, currents — whether nationalists, leftists and organizations of political Islam — have remained stuck in their ideological outlook and have completely ignored the convulsions in the pool of regional politics. They have failed to develop any understanding or perception of the events. The international coalition defeated Saddam Hussein's army and sent it back to Iraq with the imposition of international sanctions against him. This only resulted in more inertia and further stubbornness in hanging on to the slogans without any ability to overcome or rearrange priorities or rearrange hostilities.
Iran’s hostilities
Since Khomeini’s revolution, Iran has through exporting the revolution sought to interfere in the internal affairs of Arab countries, by launching direct wars like the one Khomeini fought against Iraq for eight years and lost. This was followed by Khamenei who adopted another strategy not based on a direct military confrontation, but on infiltrating Arab societies through proxy movements and militias. He succeeded in his endeavor to the point that some Iranian officials proudly claim that the Iranian regime now controls four Arab capitals. This is a very big change in the region and everyone should have paid attention to that new, real and imminent danger, but these groups of thinkers, intellectuals and currents were unable to see the extent of change and thus failed to make any development to arrange priorities or hostilities. Today, there are two major hostile schemes working against Arab states and their peoples: one is sectarian and the other is fundamentalist. Those who failed to see the extent of change before still lack insight as those who do not consider these two projects as two hostile projects are ignorant or impotent or an agent to one of them. Finally, it is the ability of man to develop, understand and change that governs his position and influence, and the same applies to currents, parties and even nations.