Detailed Lebanese & Lebanese Related LCCC English New Bulletin For October 30/2018
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Syria's Solution Rug
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/October 29/18
Weaving a political solution in Syria requires strenuous and creative efforts that almost need a miracle to succeed. It demands tough negotiations, enormous pressure, and thorny compromises. With overlapping conflicting roles and old and emerging obstacles, we are witnessing one of the most complex crises the world has faced in the recent era.
The picture would have certainly been different if one party had declared victory by a knockout and imposed a unilateral solution. If the Russian side can be named the first player on this complex stage, it cannot be considered as the only player. It has partners whose interests must be taken into account. The Syrian file is one of many files on the table of its relations with the West, especially with the United States.
Syria has an important position in the coup led by Vladimir Putin against the world of the only superpower. But it is early to believe that the Kremlin is interested in a complete victory in Syria, even if it has lost its relationship with Israel, Turkey, and the West. Putin’s calculations go beyond the borders of the Syrian theater.
There is no doubt that the Russian thread will be the most important component of the solution rug. Moscow is a mandatory crossing point for any permanent solution in Syria, and that is certainly acknowledged by US National Security Adviser John Bolton and UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is about to leave the theater.
The Russian thread is not enough, as Moscow is neither in a position to bear the burden of rebuilding Syria nor it is able to do so. Moreover, it is hard to believe that Western countries are willing to participate in the reconstruction of Syria, if this role is limited to polishing the Russian victory there and just normalizing the situation under Moscow’s umbrella, without restraining the influence of Iran, which used its militias to prevent the overthrowing of the Syrian regime.
The Russian thread is necessary, so is the American thread. The United States has a military presence in eastern Syria and has recently chosen to step up the pressure to push Iranian militias out of the country. US pressure will start a new phase of escalation in the first week of November when Washington returns to impose the “harshest sanctions ever” against Tehran, which no longer hides the scale of its economic difficulties.
Syria’s political solution rug also needs a European thread, a Turkish thread, an Iranian thread, an Arab thread, and an Israeli thread, at least in terms of security arrangements. The quartet summit in Istanbul, which gathered the leaders of Russia, France, and Germany, as well as the president of the host country, could be put within the framework of the quest to find those threads.
The summit called for the formation of the Syrian constitution drafting committee to meet by the end of the year. Participants underlined the need to create conditions throughout Syria for a safe and voluntary return of refugees, to facilitate humanitarian access to the country, to impose a permanent ceasefire and to continue fighting extremists.
There is no doubt that the summit itself revealed the need for partners, albeit at different levels. Putin needs a European partnership to provide an umbrella for the solution because it could pave the way for America’s engagement under such an umbrella. Turkey also needs European partners to strengthen its position and to balance Iran’s influence on one hand and Russia’s role on the other. France and Germany also want to participate to emphasize that Europe has not lost its role due to Britain’s decision to withdraw from the European Union and to warn Italy and other countries against defying the EU’s spirit and controls.
A quick meeting in Istanbul is not enough to resolve differences in the accounts. The press conference that followed the summit revealed the divergences. Angela Merkel stressed that there was no military solution to the Syrian crisis. “At the end of this political process, there must be free elections involving all Syrians, including those living abroad,” she said. President Emmanuel Macron rushed to support the German chancellor’s proposal and urged Russia to “exert very clear pressure on the Syrian regime.” For his part, Putin emphasized the fight against terrorism and hoped that Turkey would soon complete the establishment of a demilitarized zone in Idlib. As for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he said: “The Syrian people at home and abroad” will determine the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, underscoring the fight against “terrorists” in northern Syria, in reference to the Kurdish organizations.
The outcome of the Istanbul summit is supposed to be at the table of the “small group” meeting in London. The group includes the US, France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, in addition to De Mistura. Attempts to establish coexistence between the necessary threads will also be present on other dates, including the expected summit between Putin and Donald Trump on the sidelines of France’s World War I commemoration. The Syrian file is likely to occupy a prominent place in light of the results of Bolton’s visit to Moscow. The Russian-US dialogue continues, confirmed by Trump’s invitation to Putin to visit Washington, even if China seems to be present in this invitation.
The same file will be tackled when De Mistura submits on November 19 his final briefing to the Security Council on the results of his efforts to resolve the political crisis and his failure to convince Damascus to facilitate the formation of the constitutional committee.
Sewing Syria's solution rug will not be easy. It is not enough to arrange a coexistence between the Sochi track and the Geneva route. The Syrian regime did not make concessions when it was weak; so how would it provide them after the equations on the ground have changed in its favor? What about Iran’s position, which is preparing for an extraordinary round of US pressure? Can Putin receive from Iran what is enough to justify the US and European involvement in the solution rug?
We are facing a very complex crisis with internal, regional and international dimensions. The solution requires pressure and patience, preparing documents and concluding major understandings. It almost needs a miracle.

You Are Not Your DNA
Faye Flam/Bloomberg/October 29/18
People are reading too much meaning into DNA – Elizabeth Warren’s and their own. It continues to carry a mystique as a key to who we are, where we belong, and when and how we’ll die. Just days before Warren announced her DNA ancestry results, headlines were warning of a new threat to the genetic privacy of us all. But the experts offered no compelling examples of what DNA snoops might find out about us and how that information would cause us harm.
The privacy warnings came from a paper in Science, which proclaimed that detectives, or hackers for that matter, could find the identity of “almost anyone” from a sample of DNA. Of course, if you committed rape or murder and left your DNA at the scene, this DNA matching capability could reveal that you are the perpetrator. But what can it reveal about the rest of us?
The reason it’s now possible to connect names with otherwise anonymous DNA is that so many people have entered their DNA into databases to trace their genealogy, and many have posted it publicly in the hope of connecting with relatives. Detectives investigating a notorious cold case, that of the Golden State Killer, recognized that they could make use of this data. They had the killer’s DNA, but no match to any suspects.
So they created a fake customer for an online genealogy service and found partial matches to people likely to be the killer’s relatives, after which they found the source of the DNA sample through his family tree. The Science paper demonstrates that this case wasn’t a lucky fluke. The same strategy would work to track down about 60 percent of people of European ancestry. And as more people sign up for genealogy services, that will grow to encompass almost everyone.
A similar ominous tone followed another paper released the same week in the journal Cell. There, scientists demonstrated that it’s possible to link DNA samples collected through law enforcement to samples that contain other sorts of genetic information, and use it to match not just individuals who have volunteered their DNA but also family members who have not.
One serious concern is that, in principle, someone could use the same techniques to unmask the identities of people who donated DNA for scientific studies. But it would be against the law for anyone to use any of their genetic information against them.
Back in the 1990s, scientists and medical ethicists worried that the health insurance system would refuse coverage over genetic risk factors, and that might lead to employers firing people over their DNA. And so the US and many other countries adopted laws to prohibit genetic discrimination.
How has that worked out? I asked Bartha Maria Knoppers, a law professor and director of the Center of Genomics and Policy at McGill University in Canada. She said there hasn’t been any problem with genetic discrimination. That might be because companies are respecting the law, but also, DNA turned out to be much less predictive than people thought it would be.
A small minority of people carry a real genetic time bomb, such as Huntington’s disease or mutations associated with a high risk of certain cancers. For most of us, our health is tied to multiple genes and environmental factors, such as exposure to pollution, stress and diet – and to some extent random chance.
Knoppers said that fears set off by these new reports might inhibit the free sharing of data that’s becoming important for international collaboration in science. Subjects should be informed that if they give DNA for a study, it’s hypothetically possible for them to be identified. But it is a hypothetical problem.
The news stories also hinted at a risk that use of genealogy might lead police to arrest innocent people. When I was researching a previous column about the implications the Golden State Killer case, experts said that technique will help detectives catch the right person, as long as there’s a complete sample of DNA at the crime scene, and they can match it to DNA directly from any suspect tracked through relatives. DNA has helped to free the innocent, and call attention to the problem of wrongful convictions.
DNA has also contributed to wrongful convictions, in cases where detectives try to use minute fragments left from someone merely touching an object, or mixtures of DNA from different people. But that’s a separate issue.
Beyond forensics, DNA has revolutionized the understanding of evolution and where we as a species came from. But there are limits to what it can reveal about any given individual. Since Elizabeth Warren published her genetic profile, everyone is reading something different into the test results. Supporters say she has now proven that she is indeed part Native American, while her foes say the test proves the opposite, that she has too little Native American ancestry to qualify.
What do the geneticists say? News stories have quoted several boasting about how accurate their tests are in finding minuscule contributions to people’s DNA. But they can’t answer whether Warren’s result means she can identify as Native American. That's a line drawn by cultures, not by science.
One of the most interesting things DNA ever revealed was that all humans share a recent common origin in Africa, and that there’s been a long history of mixing. Studies show that many Americans have a combination of European, African and Native American ancestors, and that the degree of mixing varies by region. There is no scientific way to decide who qualifies to be in which race, because scientists now recognize that there are no lines separating races – only a continuum of skin colors and other traits that vary around the globe. A scientist once told me that race is just family resemblances writ large.
And so the bad news is that a DNA test can’t really tell you who you are or divine your future health. But the good news is that any hackers who stole your DNA wouldn't learn much either.

Can Iran escape the backlash of biting sanctions?
Sabena Siddiqui/Al Arabiya/October 29/18
Even as Iran braces itself for the second round of US sanctions next month in November, President Trump has stressed that not only will all sanctions lifted by the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal be back in full force from 5th November, there will be more sanctions in the future to prevent Tehran from “developing the world’s deadliest weapons.”Further sanctions would be implemented to “address the full range of Iran’s malign conduct,” he said. In August, the first set of sanctions targeted the purchase of US dollars, gold trade and automotive sector, and next week Iran’s oil and shipping sectors and its central bank would be hit. Evidently, the US will not be placated easily and Washington has specified once again that those countries that continue to do business with Iran after 4th November would be blocked from accessing the American banking and financial system. Vowing to “take care” of countries that defy the US directives to bring their oil imports from Iran to zero from November the 4th, the US appears to be dead serious about implementation. Predictably, more countries will shy away from continuing business with Iran after this latest warning. Evaluating the scenario, US National Security adviser John Bolton had said, “I think the return of the sanctions has had a devastating effect on their economy and I think it’s going to get worse.”Apparently, the US aims to not only drastically severe Iranian oil exports it also plans to disrupt exports coming into Iran from main trading hubs to completely cripple its economy.
Apparently, the US aims to not only drastically severe Iranian oil exports it also plans to disrupt exports coming into Iran from main trading hubs to completely cripple its economy
Domestic situation
Preparing for the onslaught, Iran is planning to bolster up its working class to keep the domestic situation stable. Keeping in mind the restive conditions last December due to raised food prices, the Iranian government plans to give financial support to a quarter of its population which constitutes around 20 million.
Meanwhile, the lower classes, which are around 11 million and earn $217 a month, would get a higher level of aid to reduce chances of discontent. Nevertheless, the country has already been hit by inflation at the rate of 30 percent as the 180-day notice to oil companies to get out of Iran is ending.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran’s economy is expected to shrink further by at least 3.6 percent in 2019 when only months ago in April before the JCPOA nuclear deal ended, it had predicted prospects for 4 percent growth. Inevitably, Iran’s domestic risks could also multiply if economic discontent hits the streets again and the risk factor will only rise with more and more sanctions in the days ahead. Announcing a $5 billion state fund to encourage foreign investment, the Iranian government is trying to survive the coming squeeze and a special payments channel is also being set up to enable Europe to continue trade with Iran. Very soon, Iran’s energy sector would see a removal of around 1 million barrels a day from global markets and begin losing a major source of revenue. Last year, Iran’s net oil export income was estimated at $55 billion but in the months ahead only China and Russia are likely to continue business as usual, many other countries might not risk Washington’s ire by dumping the dollar.
Special purpose vehicle
Many factors come into play, even the EU’s plan to create a “special purpose” financial company which would allow it to buy oil from Iran has been derailed recently. All the major oil companies such as Total, ENI and CEPSA backed out and the CEO of Total, Patrick Pouyanne said that they “cannot afford to take the risk to be banned from using the US Financial system.” Even the ENI went on to confirm that, “We have no presence in Iran anymore and our trading contract will naturally expire in November.” Unavoidably, these companies had to respect the wishes of their shareholders also who wish to play it safe.
Escaping the backlash will not be easy for Iran and it has already gone in recession mode since the last few months. Even last year in December, the rising cost of food items had caused street rage that devolved into widespread protests by the working class and spilled over into the rural areas from the urban areas which is an unusual pattern. This may be because Iran has a young population in the majority which requires employment and a better standard of living. Even before the JCPOA crisis started, Iran urgently needed to improve its long-term economic outlook, and the sanctions could not have come at a worse time. Considering the state of affairs, if Iran enters an economic slump like the one during the last sanctions in 2012-15, the masses might not be easy to manage and the economic situation is already getting out of hand.

‘New Europe’ and the ‘mighty people’
Abdullah bin Bijad Al-Otaibi/Al Arabiya/October 29/18
“I think that the new Europe will be the Middle East. I think this goal will be achieved 100 percent.”The Saudi Crown Prince gave this enlightening statement at the Future Investment Initiative, held in Riyadh last week, and explained one of his future ideas and progressive visions of the Middle East. This was addressed to the entire world and to an audience that consisted of an elite of investors and politicians from across the world. Some may voice surprise at this massive dream and the difficult challenges, and they have every right to do so. Allow me to remind you that the Saudis themselves voiced surprise at the Crown Prince’s dreams few years ago, and some of them thought these dreams were impossible.However, we began to see them with our own eyes and we saw how they were developing day after day. The Saudi Crown Prince follows words with action. The challenges of our time is rare he always succeeds at addressing them. The prince confidently spoke about the “great and mighty Saudi people” whom he sees as strength. He believes Saudis trade dreams with dreams and trust with trust. Their collective hope is on him to leap into the path of progress as they have seen with their own eyes. They are aware how he is loyal in structuring the vision and how he works hard to turn the impossible into tangible reality. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise that after this unjust attack on Saudi Arabia, the country may need to enhance its soft power and expand it internationally via all means possible
Diversifying economy
The Saudis have not previously known a leader who so diligently seeks real diversification of the economy in order to create new opportunities and make use of resources. He talks numbers the way experts and the knowledgeable people would do and asks people not to believe him but to believe the numbers as they do not lie. For the Saudis, and for those who are following up on the new Saudi experience, everything that is new and great and unprecedented was achieved at the hands of the ambitious young prince. His vision, i.e. Vision 2030, extends for 15 years and they did not have programs that support them such as the National Transformation Program 2020, Quality of Life Program, Financial Balance Program, Citizens Account Program and many others.
Saudis have been introduced to the state of decisiveness and determination and to the new and glorious Saudi Arabia by him – it’s a new Saudi Arabia that leads from the front and that clearly expresses its strength, prestige and capability as it plays a major and pivotal role in the region and the world.
This enhances pride in the country, ensures dedication for the future and builds accomplishments. Saudi Arabia is today a prime player in confronting the Iranian regime, which spreads chaos, supports sectarianism and strengthens terrorism in the region and the world.
It is the strongest player in confronting terrorism on all levels, whether on the intellectual, political, security and military fronts. Terrorism is one of the most dangerous international threats to the entire of humanity. Saudi Arabia is also the most important player against extremism and has been targeting extremist groups, primarily those with links to Muslim Brotherhood, both at home and abroad. This is only few of the many reasons as to why the Saudi people love this young leader and cling to his great dreams and vision. He is one of the few leaders who is capable of changing the rudder of history, amend its course and fix its mistakes. Hence, nothing is truer than what Prince Turki al-Faisal told the Washington Post when he said that the Saudis are supportive of the Saudi Crown Prince, noting: “If you took a poll among Saudis today, you would find that he is more popular than he was two weeks ago.”
Honest admiration
Sweeping popularity and honest admiration of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are among the most important headlines in Saudi Arabia and personally targeting him is tantamount to targeting his great vision and project of Saudi Arabia and the region and of the 20 million people about whom he once said: “I am nothing without them.” These 20 million see themselves – in action and in words – as nothing without him. This cohesion and this fusion in the project and vision between the leader and the people are the strongest guarantees to confront all the challenges regardless of all the rivals and enemies’ incitement and of any hatred, maliciousness, lies, forgery and fake news. The Khashoggi case is on its way to judicial conclusion and justice will prevail following criminal investigation led by the Saudi prosecution. The Saudi state has throughout its long history never been known for pursuing “opposition” figures. On the contrary, it honored some when needed toward the end of their lives and pardoned anyone who requested to return home. This is what can be seen throughout history, and the examples are many. There is a point we must pay attention. Due to unjust media attack against Saudi Arabia and its leadership, they have begun to ask the world and its politicians about the silence over Iran’s policies in spreading chaos, destruction and terrorism and about the Assad regime that killed the Syrian people using all types of weapons from tanks to fighter jets, missiles and internationally-prohibited chemical weapons.
Despite the sincerity of the argument, it’s not possible in any case and by any standards to compare Saudi Arabia with these bloody dictatorial regimes.
Saudi Arabia is a huge and influential “soft power” by virtue of its spiritual status in the Islamic world, its policies for stability of nations, its effective diplomacy, diverse culture, deep-rooted Islamic and Arab traditions and robust economy.
However, perhaps it is a blessing in disguise that after this unjust attack on Saudi Arabia, it may need to enhance its soft power, expand it internationally via all means possible and the best means possible is to appeal to the neutral around the world and who do not know much about the new Saudi Arabia. As for the enemies and rivals, that’s another story. The deals worth billions, sealed during the three days of the Future Investment Initiative, indicate that the tendentious media attacks cannot cancel rationality or defeat political realism or eliminate major interests among countries.

Identity politics and the threat to individualism
Adil Rasheed/Al Arabiya/October 29/18
One of the sterling concepts of liberalism that helped usher in the modern age of scientific progress and socio-political change is individualism. According to this concept, the rights and needs of an individual are superior to those of any group or social organization and an individual’s worth cannot be judged based on his or her ethnicity, race, gender, religion or economic background. The liberal idea. The proponents of individualism argue that bright ideas and epiphanies come to individuals and not to groups. They contend that the act of thinking is a singular and not a collaborative exercise.
Thus spiritual awakening or intellectual enlightenment issue from an individual’s personal inspiration and motivation and is not the preserve of collective consciousness or of any specific group of people.
Collectivist institutions or polities are often crippled by hierarchical structures and promote trite ideas to ensure internal cohesion, often at the expense of innovation and reform. Therefore, societies and polities that embrace individualism have proven to be at the forefront of social development and technological breakthroughs as opposed to those led by collectivist diktats or group think. Again, it is suggested that by emphasizing the dignity and worth of the individual above the superiority of any collectivist identity linked to race, religion, creed, gender etc., liberalism has successfully eliminated the historical ills of feudalism, slavery and imperialism, followed by its defeat of collectivist tyrannies of communism and fascism. By pursuing ideas of free market enterprise and individual freedom, liberal states became prosperous and drew intelligent and innovative intellectuals, scientists and entrepreneurs from all over the world to reinvigorate their societies with creativity. It is noteworthy that individualism does not undermine the role of society, religion or politics, but merely puts the primacy of individual rights above any totalitarian, collectivist order.
Parochial politics
However, a new threat to individualism has risen in modern polities from what is being described as ‘identity politics’. In simple terms, identity politics seeks to rally special privileges for the “protection” of a particular race, ethnicity, religion, class or gender on the pretext of correcting a supposed historical wrong against it.
With the rise of this new brand of collectivism, individual identity and distinctiveness has been subsumed by the strident straitjacket of group consciousness, leading to uncompromising feuds and divisiveness in society. It is not how an individual thinks or acts, but which group one belongs to (in the collectivist scheme) which is gaining importance in politics. Under the excuse of being historically deprived and victimized, certain minority and even majority groups in democracies (be they in the US, Iraq or India) are demanding special treatment to reverse the ‘cultural appropriation’ of their rights. This has led narrow group interests stymie broader national causes. From US right-wing extremists causing a state of emergency in Charlottesville Virginia in 2017 to left-wing extremists shutting down the Evergreen State College near Seattle, vituperative exchanges between racial, religious and even gender groups are now dogging even the strongest bastions of liberalism, such as the US. Thus, at a time when women are speaking out against sexual harassment and assault as part of the Me Too movement that has gone viral around the world, several men’s rights group like the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) in the US and the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) in New Delhi are crying hoarse against the alleged violation of men’s rights.
The radical right
In order to better understand the rise of ‘identity politics’, it would be better to first understand the concept of identity. In his new book titled Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Francis Fukuyama explains identity as that part of the human personality that wants recognition of its dignity.
He likens identity to Plato’s idea of the soul’s spiritedness or “themos”, which causes a person to get angry for not being recognized. This idea of identity is often linked to one’s origins, often in a nation, race, religion or even gender. According to Fukuyama, the modern world has allowed repressed identities to express themselves politically, but now its distorted and abusive forms are harming the greater good. Ironically, the rise of identity politics is often blamed on the ideology of the Left. It is claimed that after championing the cause of the economically deprived working class, socialist parties in Western states started championing the rights of racial and religious minorities as well as the feminist movement, for largely justifiable reasons. However, such politics eventually led to anomalies such as excessive support for certain Black extremist and radical Islamist groups.
This led to a majoritarian backlash with the rise of right-wing nationalist parties in the West, the Middle East and Asia. With growing economic challenges following the 2008 global recession, the appetite for special privileges for minorities as well as for punctilious political correctness withered away.
By switching from their original agenda of working for the economically deprived working class to identity groups, leftist parties in Europe have become weaker as their voter base is fast shifting to the radical right opposed to the liberal values of universal equality.
Perhaps the best way for resolving the present crisis is to follow the principles of the civil rights movement in the US led by Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s. This movement was not about identity politics, but about destroying it. It saw people as individuals and not as members of groups and wanted everybody to be given equal opportunity to work for the betterment of their respective country and the world.

Ghannouchi, Khashoggi and other goals
Mashari Althaydi/Al Arabiya/October 29/18
It’s as if the scene is repeating itself. It’s as if we’re at the beginning of media chaos and flaring Brotherhood incitement; the season of the Arab Spring or Arab chaos.
In the past two days, Rached Ghannouchi spoke before his supporters from the Tunisian Ennahda Movement, the special Tunisian version of the Brotherhood. Ghannouchi likened the consequences of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder to the atmosphere which prevailed in Tunisia after Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010 sparking a revolution in Tunisia. Speaking before his movement’s cadres, Ghannouchi said: “The global political atmosphere currently resembles the tragic scene which was witnessed in 2010 when young man Bouazizi set himself on fire and when he brought about all that regional and international sympathy and highlighted the circumstances that brought him into that scene.” His statements are clear and the investment is clearer. It’s by the same party via the same approach and aims to serve the same purpose. A shocking death is being fully exploited and used to invoke feelings of anger in politics and to gain supporters and harm rivals. The rivals here, according to the Muslim Brotherhood, are the Arab countries that reject their project.
Due to the pressure which Ennahda Movement is feeling on the internal and external levels, its leader is trying to ignite the spark again using the Jamal Khashoggi case. It’s been several years since the collapse of the Brotherhood project, the so-called Arab Spring, which received western leftist support, of primarily President Barack Obama. People woke up and revolted against the Brotherhood’s plans especially in Egypt and against the Khomeini projects in Bahrain – projects that came under the pretext of the Arab Spring. Ghannouchi and his comrades in Tunisia tried to adapt with the changes.
Today, due to the pressure which Ennahda Movement is feeling on the internal and external levels, its leader is trying to ignite the spark again using the Jamal Khashoggi case, and he is trying to expand the network of allies in the Arab region and besieging states that oppose the Brotherhood project and primarily Saudi Arabia.
Within this context, I remember the moment of great exposure in the “Arab Spring,” that dangerous stance which Ghannouchi made during a lecture at the Washington Institute in Washington in 2011 as he called for a revolution in Gulf countries and hopefully stated the “Spring”, i.e. chaos, will make its way to the Gulf’s kingdoms, as he put it. At the same time, he said he and his movement, Ennahda, did not mind an Arab-Israeli reconciliation. Notice that he was talking at that particular timing with America and at a think tank that’s affiliated with the Jews!
He then tried to contain the anger which his remarks sparked. In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in December 2011, he directed anger at the “institute” because it violated the condition of not publishing the content of the forum he had attended! Then he tried to flirt with Gulf countries saying: “We hope this (in reference to reform and not the revolution) takes the easiest of paths.” This “easy” approach was definitely not seen in the Egyptian case!
Fouad Mansour Kacem, one of Ennahda Movement officials and its former leader in France, spoke in detail about Ghannouchi’s support of Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Ghannouchi also greatly admired Khomeini whom he views as his “spiritual father” as seen in his book “Public freedoms in the Islamic state” that was published by the Center for Arab Unity Studies in 1993.
Oh how much tonight resembles yesterday Mr. Rached. Just like the attempts failed yesterday, they will fail today.

Iran’s Economy Is Stagnating Even Before New U.S. Sanctions Hit
Patrick Clawson/The Washington Institute/October 29/18
The impact of imminent sanctions will be magnified by the economy’s recent struggles, and Tehran’s bad financial policies will only make matters worse.
The consequences of new U.S. sanctions are just beginning to unfold, but Iran’s economy is already in a precarious position. Since this spring, it has experienced an unexpected recession, and government policy has exacerbated the situation. Life will get tougher in Iran, but the big question is whether the Islamic Republic believes its economy can muddle through until the Trump administration leaves office.
INFLATION, EMPLOYMENT, AND INVESTMENT
The numbers evidence a worsening situation. The Majlis Research Center estimates that Iran’s GDP will fall by 0.8% in the 2018/19 Iranian fiscal year and 2.5% in 2019/20. The IMF’s predictions—especially when compared to its March estimate that the Iranian GDP would increase annually by 4.0%—have become gloomier; its October forecast now shows a decline of 1.5% this year and 3.6% in the next. In describing these changes, the IMF’s most recent World Economic Outlook stated that “Prospects for 2018-19 were marked down sharply for Iran, reflecting the impact of the reinstatement of U.S. sanctions.”
According to Iran’s two consumer price indices, this is just the start of their troubles. The Statistical Center of Iran showed that inflation levels in September were at 5.4%, which translates to an 88% annual rate when compounded monthly. Similarly, the Central Bank showed inflation that month at 6.1%, which would mean a 103% annual rate. At levels this high, the rial’s value relative to the dollar will continue to plummet.
In late September, heavy-handed pressure on traders saw the exchange rate drop, but this has since settled at about 140,000 rials to the U.S. dollar—three times the rate before March 21, the Iranian New Year. With the arrests of numerous traders and the death sentences imposed on two purveyors of gold and foreign exchange, the rate could presumably stabilize for a while. But economic fundamentals dictate that it will fall again; inflation invariably drives domestic costs up. Since the Iranian people tend to fixate on the dollar rate as a barometer of the economy’s condition, the government typically wastes many scarce resources to prop up the rial instead of addressing other problems.
The national employment rate, for one, has not increased enough to mitigate inflation. The problem is worst for the well-educated. By some accounts, a third of men and half of women under thirty with college degrees are unemployed. The Management and Planning Organization reports that 44% of Iran’s unemployed have a college degree. Moreover, the Ministry of Education reports that 20,000 people start doctoral programs every year, but there are only jobs for 4,000-5,000 of them. According to a report in Donya-ye Eqtesad, a mid-October poll by the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture unsurprisingly found that 76% of respondents “believed that private sector activities were declining” and that “the situation would be further aggravated in the future.”
Admittedly, there are some positive signs. The Tehran Stock Exchange is up 90% from the Iranian New Year to mid-October—a direct result of the crisis in confidence with banks and the fears of inflation, both of which have led to a flood of money into stocks. However, this still leaves stocks, as valued in dollars, declining sharply. Furthermore, Iranians are only investing in those items deemed capable of preserving their value. For instance, locally made Pride cars, infamous for their low quality, are sold out for months in advance despite the 50% price increase in August alone. The housing market, though, has seen a sharp drop-off in sales activity; people may be afraid to commit in these uncertain times.
Overall, exports are up and imports are down, providing a much-needed boost to GDP. From April to September, non-oil exports totaled $13.7 billion compared to $11.1 billion a year earlier, while imports were valued at $22.2 billion compared to $24.8 billion last year. In other words, the trade balance unrelated to oil improved by $5.2 billion, while the deficit was only $8.5 billion—which is almost covered by the $7.02 billion in petrochemical exports, relieving some pressure on reserves. This improved trade balance lessened the fall in GDP.
BAD DECISIONS
Positive indicators aside, Tehran’s questionable economic decisions have contributed to the gloomy overall forecast. Fararu reported that in a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with President Hassan Rouhani on October 15, more than thirty economists criticized the government’s economic policies as “politically motivated” and “short-term” solutions, while complaining about the quality of people on his economic team. Additionally, rather than celebrating the increase in agricultural exports—tomato shipments are up 145%, and potatoes 12%—the Rouhani government has blamed them for rising food prices. For instance, it has tried, unsuccessfully, to impose a ban on tomato exports, one of the few bright spots for long-suffering farmers.
Other commodities and resources have also fallen under the scrutiny of economists. The price of gasoline in rials, for example, has not been adjusted since May 2015 even though the rial has lost 75% of its value on the free market. This August, gasoline consumption was at 100 million liters per day, almost 25 million higher than the previous year. Iranians are not necessarily traveling more; rather, gas has become incredibly cheap. At the official rate, it costs 10,000 rials ($0.24) per liter, or $0.07 at the free market rate—compared to $1.20 in Turkey, $0.73 in Afghanistan, $0.65 in Pakistan, and $0.63 in Iraq. At least 20 million liters of gasoline is smuggled abroad each day, all of which Iran has to import back into the country because its refineries can only make enough gas to meet the real domestic demand, not the smuggling-induced inflated demand.
Adding to these issues, controversial exchange rate policies have been draining public finances and enriching corrupt elites. The dollars earned from exporting oil are almost all converted at the low official rate, with the result that government oil revenue from April to September was only 82% of the budgeted amount, according to Central Bank data. Had this revenue been converted at the free market rate, government earnings would have reached at least 250% of the budget, resulting in a large surplus. Meanwhile, the Central Bank announced on October 20 that it will be providing $9.5 billion at an official rate of 42,000 rials per dollar for “essential goods.” Not surprisingly, extensive anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these goods are sold at prices that echo the free market rate of about 140,000 rials per dollar, with middlemen pocketing the substantial difference—potentially $30 billion.
But the single worst set of policies continues to be in the monetary and banking sectors. The Central Bank has been flooding the economy with liquidity; by late August, debts to the Central Bank rose 35%, or 1.48 quadrillion rials, allowing banks to lend money to failing companies and the government so that they can pay workers and therefore forestall protests. Meanwhile, little has been done to address the structural shortcomings of the banks, which go beyond the money-laundering issues flagged by international watchdogs at the Financial Action Task Force.
To be fair, part of the problem is that Rouhani is constrained by powerful forces, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to Department of Environment head Issa Kalantari, the Ministry of Agriculture is “under the influence of military institutions” and therefore often adopts counterproductive policies. The IRGC’s penchant for building dams—600 in the last thirty years, compared to 14 in the shah’s last twenty years—has been a leading cause of environmental problems as water is diverted to inefficient agricultural projects. In response to such accusations, the IRGC has arrested numerous environmental activists.
SHOWING IRAN IT CANNOT WAIT THINGS OUT
The Islamic Republic may believe that it can outlast the new round of U.S. pressure, based on the assumption that these constraints will dissipate once Trump leaves office. But Washington has been framing the reimposed sanctions as counterterrorism measures, increasing their likelihood of surviving U.S. political shifts.
A key step was the October 16 designation of various entities as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) under Executive Order 13224, which financially targets those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. This designation included Bank Mellat, one of Iran’s largest state-owned banks—which had previously been named for counterproliferation activities but was removed as part of the nuclear deal. The designation also involved a variety of important economic actors that were never targeted previously, not even at the height of nuclear sanctions. The newly designated Bonyad Taavon Basij, its offshoot Mehr Eqtesad Bank, and the linked Mehr Eqtesad Investment Company hold shares in many important enterprises. Some of the Treasury’s SDGT designations included entities that had never been classified as such by the U.S. government, including the largest steel mill in the Middle East, Esfahan’s Mobarakeh Steel Company, the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, and Iran Zinc Mines Development Company. Rather than waiting to do sequential designations as was the past practice, Treasury listed several of these companies for supporting another entity designated that same day.
This suggests that the Trump administration will be particularly far-reaching and rapid in its designations. Many of the already classified entities had received waivers from secondary sanctions but still could have been cited previously for both terrorism and nuclear proliferation concerns. Yet previous administrations decided to cite them only for nuclear-related issues in order to preserve the option of waiving sanctions in the advent of a nuclear deal. The approach underlying the October 16 designations was not to reiterate those nuclear concerns, but to demonstrate that these entities provide material support for terrorism.
While European countries have many disagreements with the Trump administration about Iranian nonproliferation, more counterterrorism cooperation may be achievable if the Trump team can make a convincing case linking designated entities to terrorism. After all, Iran is active in supporting terrorism not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe and beyond. In the eyes of Americans and Europeans alike, opposing Iranian support for terrorism tends to be less controversial than endorsing Trump’s approach to counterproliferation. To the extent that officials can build broad support at home and abroad for the new designations by grounding them in a counterterror rationale, the pressure tactics could outlast the Trump administration. If Tehran comes to believe that the new sanctions will persist until a broader agreement is reached on nuclear and non-nuclear matters, then its confidence about waiting things out would likely be shaken.
NEXT STEPS
Many argue that the pain of sanctions will be felt by the Iranian middle class rather than the elite. But the prevalence of sanctions-evading corruption in Iran can be turned from a problem into an opportunity for Washington. Given the outrage in Iran about those who reap privileges from widespread graft, the U.S. government has much room to spread information about how the aqazadeh—the children of the elite—are living. Luxagram, a private Iranian social networking app which describes itself as “a fun and quirky way for you to share your luxury moments with your affluent friends,” is subscription-only, but the “Rich Kids of Tehran” website is free. Even former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered an excellent suggestion in this regard when he tweeted, “Mr @realDonaldTrump release the list of relatives of #Iranian Government officials that have #GreenCards and #BankAccounts in the #UnitedStates if you have such a list.”
While some say that the Trump administration has little credibility with the Iranian public, it can offset this problem by drawing on the extensive information about corruption provided by Iranian sources. Hardline-dominated state television often highlights corruption by political opponents, but information on the hardliners themselves is buried. A good place to start digging is the Instagram account of Mahdi Sadrossadati, a young cleric who regales his 255,000 followers with stories about the luxurious lifestyle of clerics and aqazadeh.
Moreover, on July 18, the reformist newspaper Sharq published an article on how the financial institution Samen al-Hojaj lost $3 billion belonging to its 3 million deposit holders, primarily by making loans at 3% to well-connected clients and paying astronomical salaries to officials and their families. In response, the company’s managing director, Abolfazl Mir Ali, announced that he was suing the newspaper, even though all of its information came from what a prosecutor had presented in open court. Mir Ali, who once brandished a gun to intimidate the Central Bank governor, was recently pictured standing next to Iran’s prosecutor-general. Combined with the pressures stemming from new sanctions, such high-profile domestic cases provide a deep well from which Washington can draw to show Iranians just how much their leaders are endangering their economic future.
.Patrick Clawson is the Morningstar Senior Fellow and director of research at The Washington Institute.

Impact of Iran sanctions key to future of oil market
Cornelia Meyer/Arab News/October 29/18
Last week was a bloody one on international stock markets. Disappointing earnings, mounting trade tensions between China and the US, the standoff between the Italian government and the EU over budgetary discipline and the high dollar’s impact on many emerging-market economies were just a few of the concerns on investors’ minds. Against that backdrop, oil prices have fallen a good 10 percent from their highs of nearly $87 per barrel of Brent at the beginning of October. They started the week at around $77 in early Monday trading.
Over the past few months oil stocks have been building moderately. The oil price is in contango, which means the spot price is lower than future contracts.
As always, when the oil price rises, many observers expect the sky to be the limit, and when it falls they anticipate a never-ending downward spiral. But the situation is more complex than that. Markets are still relatively tight and the next few weeks will determine whether the decline in prices continues.
On the downside, stock market woes and the fear of trade wars have a negative effect. The strong dollar also brings problems for emerging markets, with current account deficits in countries such as Turkey, Argentina or Indonesia. If these countries are net importers of oil, this will impact their ability to buy crude. The IMF also made downward revisions to economic growth in most countries, which could indicate another negative for global oil demand.
Turkey is the fourth largest buyer of Iranian crude so President Erdogan has been a vociferous critic of the Iran sanctions.
Members of the OPEC alliance with other producers led by Russia, known as OPEC+, pumped more oil in September compared to August. In 2016, OPEC+ agreed to take 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) out of the market to reduce the historically high global inventories overhang. In June, compliance with the agreement was well above 150 percent and in August it stood at more than 120 percent. The overcompliance reversed the inventories overhang and markets became incredibly tight. In September they were finally able to reduce overcompliance to 111 percent. A recent OPEC press release even voiced worries that the market might become oversupplied again, a concern echoed by Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih at a conference last week. In the meantime, markets are still relatively tight. The next few months should shed light on the direction of travel. The lynchpin is what will happen with the Iran sanctions. The US administration seems split, with National Security Adviser John Bolton advocating very strict implementation and the State Department also throwing the level of the oil price into the equation when assessing the sanctions.
The new Iran sanctions come into force on Nov. 4. Bolton would like to see Iranian oil exports going down to zero; while Japan and South Korea have already halted buying Iranian crude, India, Turkey and China see things differently. Turkey is the fourth largest buyer of Iranian crude so President Erdogan has been a vociferous critic of the Iran sanctions. India’s refineries are calibrated to accommodate heavy crude, and Venezuela’s economic collapse has resulted in shortages of shipments to Indian refiners. India needs to replace Venezuelan barrels with oil of a similar quality — and finding alternatives to Iranian crude is a challenge.
China’s refineries are thirsty and the country will import crude oil from wherever it can get it. Sinopec and CNPC will not load any Iranian cargo in November. Beijing is, however, in conversation with the State Department in an attempt to gain exemptions to get at least some oil from Iran. In the meantime, China has busied itself putting Iranian crude into storage. It is unclear how many barrels the Iran sanctions will take out of the oil market. Saudi Arabia has said that it will pump whatever it takes to replace any shortfalls due to the Iran sanctions. That is encouraging. However, there is still Venezuela, where production may go below 1 million bpd if economic decline is not halted. There is Libya and Nigeria, where production is unreliable due to domestic political and security situations. Then there is the international oil companies that canceled or postponed investments of up to $1 trillion during the years of ultra-low oil prices.
OPEC and Al-Falih are correct that markets currently err on the side of oversupply. However, markets could turn on a dime depending on how the impending Iran sanctions and other impediments to supply pan out. In that sense OPEC+ is an encouraging development, because the framework gives those 25 countries the ability to react relatively quickly to the vagaries of the market.
*Cornelia Meyer is a business consultant, macro-economist and energy expert. Twitter: @MeyerResources

Iran’s ‘Resistance’ Bloc Rises amid New U.S. Sanctions
Mehdi Khalaji/The Washington Institute/October 29/18
Hardliners see the latest pressure as proof that defiance works better than compromise—an attitude they are likely to change only if the pressure intensifies.
With U.S. economic sanctions against Iran set to go into effect November 4, domestic pressure on President Hassan Rouhani’s government is sure to intensify. The reimposed sanctions follow President Trump’s withdrawal earlier this year from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear deal is known. Even setting current dynamics aside, the pattern in Iran holds that a second-term president becomes increasingly irrelevant in major national decisionmaking.
Thus, on October 22, Ezzatollah Zarghami, the former head of Iranian state radio and television, and a member of the “Expertise Field” (Howzeh-ye Karshenasi) in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office, revealed that “some of the organizations controlled by the Supreme Leader” were seeking permission to “manage the country” given their belief that the executive branch is incapable of carrying out its duties. Zarghami specified two powerful entities outside government whose leadership apparently strives to remove Rouhani from power: the Foundation for the Oppressed and Disabled (Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan) and the Office for the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (Setad-e Ejra-ye Farman-e Emam), a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. Both are controlled by the Supreme Leader, and Zarghami implied that other organizations held a similar view. Earlier this year, on June 24, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, Khamenei’s military advisor and former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said, “Sometimes it looks like the country can be better managed without the [Rouhani] government.” The day after that, Mohammad Dehghan, a member of parliament close to the IRGC, echoed this sentiment, saying, “If the government really feels that it is unable to manage the country, it should let competent people do the job.”
Several subsequent attempts were aimed similarly at casting doubt on the president’s ability to handle the looming economic crisis. On September 6, the Supreme Leader spoke out publicly against removing Rouhani from power or undermining his authority: “Creating organizations parallel to government will not succeed, and experience proves that the job should be done by those who are in charge through legal channels.” Yet Zarghami, in explaining Khamenei’s position, said the Supreme Leader was not opposing the activities of such unelected institutions, but rather arguing against the idea that they should “take over the whole management and replace the government.” In other words, Ayatollah Khamenei is reluctant to make institutions under him fully responsible for economic management in place of the Rouhani government.
This stance is reflective of Khamenei’s broader hedging in response to the economic situation. In one such recent example, on June 21, he refused to undertake the steps necessary to keep Iran off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist—namely, by changing its countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) system. But, as with Khamenei’s flexible attitude toward the JCPOA, after voicing opposition to FATF compliance, he ultimately gave the Majlis the green light to adopt the measures, evidently through a letter to Majlis speaker Ali Larijani. At the same time, he empowered hardliners both inside and outside the Majlis—including the Kayhan newspaper, which serves as his mouthpiece—to radically attack the moves by describing them as “self-sanctions.” So, just as with the nuclear deal, he allowed the move to proceed but gave himself leeway to criticize the arrangement in the future as contrary to his true desires.
CRACKDOWNS ON CRIME, CIVIL SOCIETY
On August 11, in an extra-constitutional move, Ayatollah Khamenei approved a request by the judiciary to set up “special courts” to address financial crimes against the backdrop of a deteriorating national economy. As the Supreme Leader put it in his statement, “Punishments for those accused of economic corruption should be carried out swiftly and justly.” And the subsequent two and a half months have indeed seen dozens of individuals quickly tried in these special courts and sentenced to death or lengthy prison terms. This has all come amid Iranian officials blaming “enemies” for the rial’s plunge and for meddling with the country’s financial and banking system.
Among those sentenced during this fast and furious roundup have been Vahid Mazloomin, known as the “King of [Gold] Coin,” and Esmail Ghasemi. On October 21, the Supreme Court approved their life sentences for “corruption on earth through sabotage in the economic system” and for creating an illegal trade network in foreign currency and gold coins. In particular, the judiciary has accused these “corrupters” of having a strong relationship with government officials and collaborating with institutions like the Central Bank. On August 4, Ahmad Araqchi, a currency administrator at the Central Bank, was sacked; he was arrested the next day. (He is a nephew of Abbas Araqchi, the nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister.) On September 23, judiciary spokesman Qolam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei announced that Valiollah Seif, former Central Bank governor, had been barred from leaving the country. Reportedly, Seif holds an Australian permanent residency card and his family lives in Australia.
Outside the financial sector, the government has widened a security crackdown against strikers such as teachers and tanker drivers. In recent months, in a bid to intimidate, Tehran has carried out hundreds of arrests targeting the business community, syndicates and student associations, human rights and environmental activists, protest organizers and advocates for mental health, subsequently issuing lengthy prison sentences to demoralize these citizens. Some have even been murdered without account, such as Farshad Makki, a prominent activist whose burned corpse was found in the trunk of his car on October 17.
NEXUS OF REGIONAL AND DOMESTIC POLICY
With respect to the U.S. sanctions, some officials close to Khamenei have been pushing for a strategy of greater “resistance,” aimed at getting Washington to back off. One perceived victory on that front came after the September 23 attack, attributed to the Islamic State (IS), on a military parade in Ahvaz, in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan, which left more than two dozen dead. The IRGC responded by targeting “terrorist” bases—the Iranian claim of IS targets remains unconfirmed—in Syria with surface-to-surface missiles and drones. In the following days, the dollar’s value relative to the rial fell for the first time in many months, the world price of oil rose, and the United States decided to withdraw Patriot missiles that had been protecting U.S. military forces in Bahrain and Kuwait. Although most observers saw these developments as unconnected to the Iranian action, the hardliners begged to differ. On October 10, a Kayhan editorial, “Economic Security Through Missile Supremacy,” suggested that this reaction had led to extraordinary economic benefits: “The depreciation of the dollar and oil price rise demonstrated that the Iranian people’s resistance and the IRGC’s missile launch had reversed the result of U.S. threats. More important, it proved that in the real field of international and regional confrontation, resistance is the only way to counter threats, not negotiation.” The editorial continued, “When the enemy’s secret agents were talking about negotiation, the U.S. dollar’s value was on the rise, but when missiles hit near American forces in Syria, that value declined.” In the paper’s view, the “Westoxicated” faction’s claim that resistance leads to war and economic problems had been proven wrong. To the contrary, the missile attack had confirmed that effective resistance leads to economic security, likewise demonstrating a direct link between military capability and economic resilience.
As for another apparent benefit, the “missile launch sent a clear message to the region’s countries. It made sheikhdoms of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf understand that any cooperation with the United States related to sanctions on Iran would affect not only the security of their countries but also their economy.” Furthermore, the passive U.S. reaction to the launch was seen to indicate the seriousness with which Washington took the intended message. As proof, advocates of stronger resistance cited the tagline of a Wall Street Journal article dated October 1: “Even as Trump warns of the Islamic Republic’s threat, America shifts air and sea power away from region.” The United States, in this interpretation, was continuing to show its aversion to intervening in the region, explaining the oft-repeated statement by Khamenei that “due to Iran’s defense capability, there will be no war.”
The hardline Iranian camp sought to highlight other signs of purported success. As the same Kayhan editorial explained, “on the day of the collapse of the dollar in Iran, the Turkish prosecutor issued a detention order indicting 417 suspects, including 126 Iranians charged with money laundering and the transfer of dollars to the United States”—evidently through Turkey. “Most of dollar recipients,” the piece claimed falsely, “are Iranian-American Jews.” The editorial concluded by affirming “Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement: ‘submission is much costlier than resistance.’”
QUANDARY FOR WASHINGTON
Khamenei and the hardliners have a long history of reading any developments as proving the wisdom of their favored policy of resistance rather than a policy of negotiation and compromise. Not surprisingly, that has been their reaction to increased U.S. economic pressure. Once again, it appears that the adage of many Iran watchers holds true: Tehran does not respond to pressure, it only responds to great pressure. Washington will have to sustain and likely increase (smarter) pressure on Iran’s decisionmaking centers before the hardliners reluctantly agree to allow negotiations, which they will criticize even while allowing them to go forward.
**Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute.

European Human Rights Court Backs Sharia Blasphemy Law
سورين كارن: محكمة حقوق الإنسان الأوروبية تدعم قانون الشريعة الخاص بالتجديف
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/October 29/2018
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68479/soeren-kern-european-human-rights-court-backs-sharia-blasphemy-law-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%83%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%88%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5/
 

Is Canada's Government Funding Terrorism?
Tom Quiggin/Gatestone Institute/October 29/2018
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68482/tom-quiggin-is-canadas-government-funding-terrorism-%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%85-%D9%83%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%86-%D9%87%D9%84-%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A9-%D9%83%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D9%85%D9%88%D9%84/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13137/canada-funding-terrorism