English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 22/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
The priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 28/11-15/:”While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, ‘You must say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 21-22/2020
Dangerous games/Dr.Walid Phares/Face Book/April 21/2020
The Trojan Lebanese politician/Elias Bejjani/April 21/2020
Lebanese Health Ministry Says Zero Coronavirus Cases Tuesday
No New Coronavirus Cases in Lebanon in Past 24 Hours, Infections Spike in Morocco Jail
Israeli Strike Kills 9 near Syria's Palmyra, Says War Monitor
Gunman Shoots 9 People Dead in Lebanese Mountain Village
9 People including Children Murdered in Baakline
Lebanon: MPs OK Corruption Law, Bekaa-Beirut Tunnel, Send Amnesty Law to Committees
Salameh Allows LBP Withdrawals from Bank Accounts Exceeding $3,000
Lebanese Depositors to Get 'Market Rate' Dollars in LBP, Says Central Bank
Lebanon becomes first Arab country to legalise cannabis for medical use/Joyce Karam/The National/April 21/2020
Lebanese Protests, Politics Resume With a New, Virus Twist
Protesters stage sit-in at Tripoli's Abdel Hamid Karami Square
Convoys of protesters in Tyre against simmering economic conditions
Bassil: Passing anti-corruption law good but not enough
Army launches call center devoted for social aid distribution
Israel and Hezbollah's tug of war/Hanin Ghaddar/Al Arabiya/April 21/2020
US Zeroes in on Shadowy Lebanese Hezbollah Playmaker in Iraq
Lebanon poised to grant amnesty to thousands of prisoners/Timour Azhari/Al Jazeera/April 21/2020
Lebanon's protest movement is far from over/Michael Young/The National/April 21, 2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 21-22/2020
Global coronavirus cases passed 2.5 million
Israeli strike in Syria kills nine pro-regime fighters: Monitor
Assad Facing Mounting Criticism from Russia
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Threaten to Attack Nuclear Aircraft Carries
Iran Extends Zaghari-Ratcliffe's Temporary Release as Virus Toll Mounts
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Threaten to Attack Nuclear Aircraft Carries
Israel's Gantz Says to be Defense Minister in New Govt.
U.S. Oil Futures End in Positive Territory at $10.01/Barrel
Italy's Conte Signals Longer Lockdown
U.N. Food Agency Chief: World on Brink of 'a Hunger Pandemic'

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 21-22/2020
Coronavirus: Uncle Sam, the world really needs you/Gavin Esler/The National/April 21 2020
Coronavirus pandemic has thrown the world order into a tailspin/Raghida Dergham/The National/April 21/2020
The Next Iranian Revolution/Why Washington Should Seek Regime Change in Tehran/Eric S. Edelman and Ray Takeyh/FDD/April 20/2020
Iran's regime will develop nuclear submarines says navy commander/Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/April 20/2020
Iran Seeks to Block Investigation of January’s Ukrainian Airliner Crash/Talia Katz/FDD/April 21/2020
Regime in Iran Exploits Canada’s Policy of Engagement Without Pressure/Alireza Nader/FDD/April 21/2020
Arrests in Germany highlight reach of Islamic State’s Central Asian network/Thomas Joscelyn/FDD/April 21/2020
Iran’s new frontline with America in the Gulf and Syria/Seth Frantman/Jerusalem Post/April 21/2020
Erdoğan's Turkey Is Not Coming Back/Daniel Pipes/National Interest/April 21/2020
This Pandemic Will Lead to Social Revolutions/Andreas Kluth/Bloomberg/April 21/2020
The Road to Reopening the Economy Is Still Long/Mark Gongloff/Bloomberg/April 21/2020
Finding Europe's Hidden Conservatives/Daniel Pipes/Gatestone Institute/April 21/2020
How “the Evil Called Barack Obama” Enabled the Genocidal Slaughter of Nigerian Christians/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/April 21/2020
Why global leaders are right to avoid giving deadlines to lift coronavirus lockdowns/Omar Al-Ubaydli//Al Arabiya/April 21/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 21-22/2020
Dangerous games
Dr.Walid Phares/Face Book/April 21/2020
Pro Iranian operatives are whispering in the ears of Lebanese politicians to cut a deal with Hezbollah, before November, "because President Donald Trump could lose the elections, and Biden would return immediately to the Iran Deal. And thus Iran's influence in Lebanon is expected to be consolidated."
To those politicians, an advice: Do not play that dangerous game. The October revolution was merciful. The first Trump Administration was busy. But the next Lebanon revolution and the next Trump Administration won't be that merciful with any terrorist ally.

The Trojan Lebanese politician
Elias Bejjani/April 21/2020
These rotten and Trojan Lebanese politician did commit the same treason act when they elected Aoun on the basis that Trump will lose. They will repeat their stupidity in a bid to keep Hezbollah happy and not bothering them. All the current Lebanese politicians and particular the Maronite ones are sadly mere mercenaries, opportunist and want only to server their own interests and not that of Lebanon

Lebanese Health Ministry Says Zero Coronavirus Cases Tuesday
Naharnet/April 21/2020
The Health Ministry announced zero coronavirus cases on Tuesday, keeping the number of people infected at 677. The number of deaths remains at 21, while recoveries rose to 103.
Health Minister Hamad Hassan assured the Lebanese on Monday that the crisis “is nearing its end.”On the date of ending the so-called state of general mobilization, the minister said it is up to Cabinet to take the decision.

No New Coronavirus Cases in Lebanon in Past 24 Hours, Infections Spike in Morocco Jail
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
Lebanon recorded no new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours for the first time during the country's outbreak, the health ministry said in its daily report on Tuesday. It said that after 487 tests conducted in the last 24 hours the number of infections stood at 677, with 21 deaths.
Under Lebanon's lockdown since mid-March, people can only leave their homes to buy food or medicine, with most businesses closed. An overnight curfew also bans going outside between 8 pm and 5 am, with security forces enforcing curbs. Meanwhile, in Morocco, 68 people, mostly staff, have come down with the coronavirus at a prison in the southern city of Ouarzazate, prison authorities said on Tuesday, without reporting any deaths. Earlier this month Morocco released 5,645 prisoners - some of them in poor health - to help reduce the risk of the coronavirus spreading in its prisons as has happened in other countries.At the Ouarzazate facility, at least six inmates were among those to have contracted the coronavirus and all were now undergoing testing, a prison statement said. Morocco has confirmed 3,186 cases of the COVID-19 lung disease including 144 deaths. It has imposed a lockdown on public life that has been extended until May 20, and made the wearing of face masks in public compulsory. Morocco’s prime minister said on Tuesday the rise in cases despite weeks of lockdown restrictions is due to transmission within families, factories and commercial centers, where food shops remain open.

Israeli Strike Kills 9 near Syria's Palmyra, Says War Monitor
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
An Israeli airstrike in central Syria killed nine fighters, including six who were not Syrians and some who were loyal to the Lebanese Hezbollah party, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday.
The Britain-based monitor gave no nationalities for the foreigners who were killed on a military post in the desert near the historic central town of Palmyra. Israel says it has been behind a series of airstrikes mainly targeting Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria that have joined the country’s war fighting alongside the regime. It rarely confirms the attacks and did not comment on Monday's airstrike. Syrian state TV reported the country’s air defenses shot down several missiles launched by Israeli warplanes Monday night. The station gave no further details about the attack, the latest of several to hit central Syria in the past three weeks. The Observatory said late Monday the Israeli strikes targeted Iranian and Iran-backed fighters in the desert near Palmyra. It added that Israeli warplanes were also flying over neighboring Lebanon. The strikes came hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was in the Syrian capital Damascus, where he met with regime leader Bashar Assad and his Syrian counterpart.

Gunman Shoots 9 People Dead in Lebanese Mountain Village
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
A gunman shot dead at least seven people Tuesday, including five Syrians, and left their bodies in three locations in a mountain village southeast of the capital Beirut, state news and a legislator from the village said. A motive for the killings was not immediately known, said the state-run National News Agency. A security source told Reuters the suspect was arrested soon after he fled to nearby fields. Such shootings in Lebanon, where many people keep rifles or pistols in their homes, are rare. Lebanon is home to more than a million Syrian refugees and other Syrians who are residents.
A security source told Reuters that it was a suspected "honor killing". NNA said a pump action rifle and a Kalashnikov assault rifle were used in the shootings. Two Lebanese and five Syrians were found dead in three locations in the village of Baakline, local LBC TV reported. The station later reported the number of fatalities had risen to nine, including two children and their parents. Prime Minister Hassan Diab condemned the “horrific crime”, urging the security and judicial agencies to immediately investigate the incident and hold the perpetrators accountable. “It is similar to the shootings that happen in America,” Marwan Hamadeh, a member of parliament from Baakline, told reporters in Beirut. He urged security forces to detain the shooter, saying “there are some indications that he might be a mentally unstable person.”Baakline's mayor, Abdullah al-Ghoseini, told the daily An-Nahar newspaper that the motive behind the shooting was unclear, adding that it took place in an area that includes housing units for Syrian workers. The shooting comes as Lebanon experiences its worst economic and financial crisis in decades. A crash in the value of the local currency against the US dollar has led to a sharp increase in prices.
Anti-government protests resumed Tuesday calling on the cabinet to work on improving living conditions in the nearly bankrupt country.

9 People including Children Murdered in Baakline
Associated Press/Naharnet/April 21/2020
The Chouf town of Baakline witnessed a mysterious massacre on Tuesday in which at least nine people were killed in separate locations.
The victims include a Syrian couple and their two children, a Syrian man, a Lebanese woman and three Lebanese men. They were identified by the National News Agency as five Syrian workers, a Lebanese woman from the al-Timani family, Lebanese national Karim Nabil Harfoush and two Lebanese men who hail from the border town of Arsal. Citing preliminary unconfirmed reports, NNA said the killings were carried out by the brothers M. and F. Harfoush with the aim of taking revenge on a Syrian man. "After M. Harfoush killed his own wife (the woman from the al-Timani family) and four Syrians, his brother (Karim Harfoush) followed him to calm him down so he shot him dead. He then went to an agricultural area where two people from Arsal were cultivating land and he killed them after believing that they were Syrians. Accompanied by his brother, he later killed another Syrian man," NNA added. It had earlier reported that a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a pump-action shotgun were used in the killings. “The assailant fled through Baakline's forests near the river area and security forces are pursuing him,” the agency said. The bodies of the dead were found in three separate locations in Baakline, LBCI TV reported. It said the killings started at an under-construction house near the river which lies on a dead-end road surrounded by trees. “A couple and their two children were shot dead there,” LBCI added. “Lebanese neighbor Karim Harfoush, 27, heard the gunshots and headed to the site on his motorbike to determine the source of the gunfire before being shot dead by the killer, or the gang, who committed the crime,” the TV network said. “The shooter, or several shooters, then walked around a kilometer to the river where they encountered Lebanese nationals Mohammed and Mahmoud Awdi, who hail from Arsal and were cultivating a grove there,” LBCI added, noting that the two were killed by a shotgun. The gunman later killed a Syrian worker at a distant agricultural land, the TV network said. “The crime has confused the area's residents as well as security forces,” LBCI added.
MP Talal Arslan later tweeted that "what happened in Baakline was a personal and family dispute that escalated into a horrible massacre," citing "preliminary information." MP Marwan Hamadeh of the Democratic Gathering, who hails from the town, said there are indications that the killer could be "mentally disturbed.""He must be pursued, arrested and put on a quick trial," he added."It is similar to the shootings that happen in America," Hamadeh told reporters in Beirut. TV networks later said that army helicopters were flying over the Baakline forests in search of the shooter. Baakline's mayor, Abdullah al-Ghoseini, told the daily An-Nahar newspaper that the motive behind the shooting was unclear, adding that it took place in an area that includes housing units for Syrian workers. Such shootings in Lebanon, where many people keep rifles or pistols in their homes, are rare. Lebanon is home to more than a million Syrian refugees and other Syrians who are residents.

Lebanon: MPs OK Corruption Law, Bekaa-Beirut Tunnel, Send Amnesty Law to Committees
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 21/2020
Lebanon's parliament sat Tuesday in a conference hall in Beirut to allow for social distancing between lawmakers amid the coronavirus pandemic, while outside anti-government protesters demonstrated in a car convoy.
As the country struggles with a battered economy, MPs approved a $120 million loan from the World Bank to help fight COVID-19, which has officially infected 677 people and killed 21 nationwide.
Parliament also approved a law for establishing a national commission for combating corruption and another for constructing a tunnel that would link the Bekaa region to the capital Beirut.
Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil tweeted that the approval of the corruption commission law is a "good but insufficient" step.
"The laws that remain relate to: 1- Lifting bank secrecy, 2- Lifting immunity, 3- Establishing a financial crimes court, 4- Recovering stolen funds and 5- Unveiling bank accounts and properties, which is the quickest and most efficient way," Bassil said.
Parliament meanwhile voted against approving a contentious general amnesty law in an urgent manner and sent the bill to parliamentary committees for reevaluation. The committees have been granted a 15-day deadline to complete the task.
Bassil voiced rejection of the proposed amnesty bill, stressing that the coronavirus pandemic "should not provide cover for crime."
"It is unacceptable to pass the amnesty under the excuse of coronavirus and we reject to discuss the amnesty in this manner," he added.
Speaker Nabih Berri responded, saying parliament "has the right to legislate," after Bassil said penal policies should be decided by the government.
Speaking earlier at the session, Berri hit back at "those who are accusing parliament of shortcomings and failure to perform its role."
"Parliament is performing its duties to the fullest. Everyone knows when this session had been scheduled and how it was postponed. Parliament's bureau put all the draft laws and proposals on its agenda, but unfortunately some colleagues believe what is being said about parliament's role," Berri said. "Parliament is performing its role as to legislation and monitoring no matter what they said or will say," the Speaker added.
Outside the venue, dozens of protesters drove a noisy convoy of cars covered in slogans, drivers honking their horns and passengers brandishing the national flag and leaning out of the windows in face masks.
They defied a stay-at-home order to protest deteriorating living conditions and maintain pressure on a political elite under fire since mass protests erupted last October. Lebanon is grappling with its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, compounded by the lockdown, and poverty has risen to 45 percent of the population according to official estimates.
Discord over amnesty plan
The lawmakers met in a conference hall at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut, with a capacity of up to 1,000 people, as part of measures to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus. Supporters of the amnesty law -- which include pro-government Hizbullah and AMAL Movement as well as the opposition al-Mustaqbal Movement -- say an amnesty could lessen overcrowding in jails housing 9,000 prisoners. But its detractors, including the president's Strong Lebanon bloc, allege the bill is merely an attempt to boost popular support. "From the very first moment we were clear on the need to issue an amnesty law that would exclude all those who have blood on their hands," al-Mustaqbal leader ex-PM Saad Hariri tweeted.
"Some are standing against it today in a bid to sectarianize the issue or because they think that they would regain popularity that they have lost among their confessional community and other communities," Hariri said.
"This is an unethical and inhumane stance that will fire back against its advocates," he added. The amnesty has long been a demand of the families of some 1,200 so-called "Islamist detainees", most of whom hail from the Sunni-majority city of Tripoli, where Mustaqbal has clout.
They are accused of carrying out crimes including fighting and assaulting the army, taking part in clashes in the city, and planning explosives attacks.
Families have also clamored for the release of thousands more detainees from the eastern regions of Baalbek and Hermel, where Hizbullah and the parliament speaker's AMAL are powerful.
Most of these are accused of drug-linked crimes including growing hashish illegally, or other offenses such as stealing cars.

Salameh Allows LBP Withdrawals from Bank Accounts Exceeding $3,000
Naharnet/April 21/2020
Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh on Tuesday issued a memo asking banks to allow depositors with foreign currency accounts exceeding $3,000 in value to withdraw their savings in Lebanese pounds at the "market rate," likely to signify 2,600 pounds to the dollar.
He had issued a similar memo in recent weeks related to accounts containing less than $3,000 each. Salameh said he issued the memo “out of keenness on the public interest amid the current extraordinary circumstances that the country is going through,” noting that the resolution is valid for six months. The memo says each bank would apply its own “measures and limits” in implementing the resolution. A liquidity crisis had seen banks gradually restrict access to dollars and halt transfers abroad since late 2019, leading the value of the Lebanese pound to plummet on the black market. For decades, the Lebanese pound has been used interchangeably with the dollar at a fixed exchange rate of 1,507 pounds to the greenback. A dollar is now worth more than 3,000 pounds on the black market and prices have shot up in recent months.
On March 30, banks suspended dollar withdrawals until the airport reopens, after authorities grounded flights to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus. Those with dollar accounts had been frustrated at their inability to take out most of their cash to exchange it at a better rate from unofficial money changers, with some banks already capping withdrawals at as low as $400 a month. Lebanese banks stand accused of transferring millions of dollars abroad while preventing others from doing so after the start of mass protests against the political elite last October.

Lebanese Depositors to Get 'Market Rate' Dollars in LBP, Says Central Bank
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
Depositors with dollar accounts in Lebanon will be paid cash in local currency at a “market rate” within each bank’s withdrawal limits, the central bank said on Tuesday, as a hard currency crunch piles pressure on the official peg. The move widens the scope of banking operations based on a stipulated exchange rate announced by banks rather than the peg that has been in place since 1997 and is still used to provide dollars for vital imports, reported Reuters. The Lebanese pound has lost around 50% of its value on a parallel market since October as Lebanon has sunk deeper into a financial crisis that has hiked prices, fueled unrest and locked depositors out of their US dollar savings. One of the world’s most heavily indebted states, Lebanon last month declared it could not pay its foreign currency debt. The government vowed to keep foreign currency reserves - which fell to “dangerous” levels - for key imports.
The new circular does not apply to fresh funds transferred from abroad, which can still be withdrawn in US dollars, banking sources said. The directive, effective for six months, said depositors who wished to do so could take out dollars in Lebanese pounds within the limits that each bank sets. Before Lebanon went into coronavirus lockdown in March, banks had cut withdrawal limits to as little as $100 a week. Since then, they have stopped dispensing dollars to depositors altogether.
Nasser Saidi, a former economy minister and ex-vice central bank governor, said the move was an effective formal devaluation in excess of 50% and represented the “lirasation” of deposits. The step would lead to runaway inflation and impoverishment, he added. “Time for accountability for failed monetary & exchange rate policies,” he wrote on Twitter. Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank, said it “shows the lack of dollar liquidity in the market, and the fact that the government has yet to announce a credible plan emanating from the crisis of confidence and liquidity”. A decision earlier this month marked the first such official transaction away from the peg, allowing depositors with $3,000 or less to cash out - in Lebanese pounds - at the “market rate”. Lebanese banks have so far announced they will pay out 2,600 pounds per dollar for those operations.
At that rate, savers lose close to 18% of the value of their money relative to a parallel market, where street dealers said scarce dollars traded at 3,150 Lebanese pounds on Tuesday. The informal market has become a main source of cash for most people during the crisis, with the Lebanese pound slipping to 3,000 to the dollar last week for the first time. A draft of a government crisis plan, floated this month and still under debate, saw the exchange rate weakening to 2,979 in 2024 from the official peg. The peg of 1,507.5 pounds to the dollar remains in place for bank transactions and critical imports of wheat, fuel and medicine.

Lebanon becomes first Arab country to legalise cannabis for medical use
Joyce Karam/The National/April 21/2020
The Lebanese parliament approved a law on Tuesday legalising the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and industrial use. The decision making Lebanon the first Arab country to do so offers economic incentives for the debt-ridden state. It makes the state the sole proprietor for trading cannabis, which has been grown illicitly for decades in Bekaa, east of the country. The Lebanese parliament voted in its session on Tuesday passing the bill despite opposition from the Hezbollah representatives. Hezbollah’s allies in the government, including President Michel Aoun’s and Speaker of the House Nabih Berri’s representatives, supported the decision. A study by the global firm McKinsey in 2018 recommended the move as a way to revitalise the Lebanese economy. It estimated according to Bloomberg that it could generate as much as $1 billion in revenue annually. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranked Lebanon in 2018 as world's top five producers of cannabis. Firas Maksad, a policy analyst and professor at George Washington University, saw the decision as net positive for the country but a lot will hinge on the implementation.
“If regulated and taxed properly, this is a net positive for Lebanon,” Mr Maksad told The National. But the decision is a policy reversal. “It is important to note that Lebanon spent many millions of foreign assistance dollars in the nineties to fight cannabis farming in the Bekaa,” the expert said.On Hezbollah’s public opposition to the bill, Mr Maksad suggested it may be only posturing. “Hezbollah took a principled position against it given the party's claimed Islamic credentials, but practically it signaled to its allies that they can vote for the legislation.”
The party has strong presence in the Bekaa valley where most of the cultivation occurs.

Lebanese Protests, Politics Resume With a New, Virus Twist
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat and Paula Astih/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
Lebanese lawmakers convened Tuesday at a cavernous Beirut theater so that parliament members can observe social distancing measures imposed over the coronavirus pandemic. Anti-government demonstrators, meanwhile, also obeyed the health safety measures - driving around the city in their cars to protest the country's spiraling economic and political crisis. As lawmakers wearing face masks arrived at the theater, known as the UNESCO palace, white uniformed paramedics sprayed them with disinfectant before they filed in one at a time through the gate. The staggered, three-day session is the first by parliament since Lebanon imposed a lockdown more than a month ago to limit the spread of the virus and after meetings that were scheduled last month were postponed. The novel coronavirus has infected at least 677 people and killed 21 in Lebanon. On the lawmakers' agenda are dozens of laws, including fighting corruption in the country's bloated public sector, a controversial draft about general amnesty, restoring looted public funds and allowing the plantation of cannabis for medical use. Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that there were two proposals pertaining to the general amnesty. The first was submitted by Speaker Nabih Berri’s Development and Liberation Bloc and is based on a reform paper announced by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government. The Future bloc put forward the second proposal. To coincide with the session, hundreds of protesters drove around Beirut in cars in a show of rejection for the political leadership that they blame for the crisis roiling the country.
"All they care about is a general amnesty law. We want to know amnesty for whom? There´s no need for that," said Dana Al Hajj, a protester. "We need laws for economic reforms, this is what the country needs. We are in an emergency and we need to know what the government and the legislators are doing about it." Lebanon has been facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with unemployment figures soaring and the local currency losing more than half of its value against the dollar. Protests broke out nationwide in October against government corruption, further deepening the economic slump.
Over the past months, the protests lost some of their momentum and were subsequently interrupted by the outbreak or the pandemic. Activists, however, said they were resuming the movement but would protest inside their cars, in line with safety measures.
Some of the protesters wore masks with Lebanon's red and white flag with a green cedar tree as they drove around in convoys in major cities. In some cases, protesters gathered on foot, violating government-imposed health safety measures.
"We are here to tell them that the revolution will stay, the revolution will not die," said Hassan Makahal, a protester. "We are going back to the streets and stronger than before."

Protesters stage sit-in at Tripoli's Abdel Hamid Karami Square
NNA/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
A number of protesters staged a sit-in at Abdel Hamid Karami’s Square in Tripoli, and blocked the highway near Tripoli Serail for a short period, NNA Correspondent reported on Tuesday. Protesters chanted slogans denouncing the high dollar exchange rate and the high cost of food commodities, demanding the recovery of looted funds and the holding the Corrupt accountable, amid heavy army deployment in the Square’s vicinity.

Convoys of protesters in Tyre against simmering economic conditions
NNA/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
Protesters have rallied in the city of Tyre and drove their vehicles in convoys through the various streets of the city, in protest against the simmering economic conditions, NNA Correspondent reported on Tuesday. Protesters called for the recovery of public looted funds, independence of the judiciary, developing an economic plan, and holding the corrupt accountable. Demonstrators also protested against rampant corruption and the high dollar exchange rate. The protest march set out from Al Alam Square in Tyre, waving the Lebanese flags. Protesters adhered to the general mobilization measures in terms of social distancing, amid heavy security measures by the army and security forces.

Bassil: Passing anti-corruption law good but not enough
NNA /Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
Head of the Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc, MP Gebran Bassil, said via Twitter: "The Parliament has approved the law relevant to the National Anti-Corruption Committee, which is good but not enough! Some laws remain pending: 1- Lifting bank secrecy, 2- Lifting immunity, 3- Financial Crimes Court, 4- Recovering looted funds, 5- Accounts and property statement. Those would be the fastest and most effective! 1 down, 5 to go. Our journey is long and rugged, but we will make it."

Army launches call center devoted for social aid distribution
NNA/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
The LAF announced via Twitter that "Military Council member, Major General Elias Al-Shamieh, has inspected the Directorate of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), where he launched the work of the call center devoted for the process of distributing social aid, and relayed to officers and personnel the Army command’s directions for the proper implementation of said operation, reviewing its different stages and the challenges it faces." "The Army Command had established the aforementioned center in order to follow up on the aid distribution carried out by its units, and bridge the gaps immediately. The center also includes telephone lines reserved for civilians' inquiries, reviews and complaints, if any," the Tweet read.

Israel and Hezbollah's tug of war
Hanin Ghaddar/Al Arabiya/April 21/2020
حنين غدار/شد حبال الحرب بين إسرائيل وحزب الله
Despite the coronavirus pandemic that has engulfed the world, and has also consumed the efforts of the governments in Lebanon and Israel for more than a month, it seems that Israel and Hezbollah still have time to carry out security and military operations, albeit cautiously.
Last week, Hezbollah said an Israeli drone destroyed one of its vehicles in Syria near the Syria-Lebanon Masnaa border crossing. Lebanon has also reported more Israeli drones flying over Beirut recently. A few days later, Israel accused Hezbollah of provocative activity along the Lebanese-Israeli border and said it would complain to the UN Security Council.
In a statement, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Hezbollah of multiple attempts to breach the border after the Israeli military said its military fence that lies just inside Israeli territory was damaged in three places.
Earlier this month, a senior Hezbollah commander was killed in southern Lebanon. Ali Mohammed Younis was pulled from his car, stabbed, and shot on a road near the city of Nabatieh. Younis was in charge of operations to locate spies and collaborators in the group, according to Iran’s Fars news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
A number of reports surrounding his killing have emerged. Hezbollah’s media first accused Israel of assassinating Younis. However, other reports indicated that it was an internal job.
In any case, this incident shows a certain weakness within Hezbollah’s security apparatus. If it was an Israeli operation, this would mean that Hezbollah’s security has been breached. If it was an internal job, it indicates that Hezbollah has serious issues within its supposedly tight operations and security organization.
This series of operations could develop into a more serious confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, but it is unlikely. However, three pertinent issues need to be addressed.
First, these incidents indicate that the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel – which has played out in Syria for a number of years – is moving back to Lebanon, opening a wide range of scenarios and possibilities that might move Lebanon into a new conflict zone. Israel has worked relentlessly to weaken and diminish Iran’s presence and power inside Syria. And despite the major losses that Hezbollah has suffered in Syria due to continuous Israeli strikes on its personnel, military facilities, and arms depots, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed Shia militias have not retaliated – at least militarily – to these Israeli strikes. The fact that Hezbollah damaged Israel’s security fence on the Lebanese-Israeli border – despite the insignificance of the damage – is a sign that Hezbollah could retaliate from Lebanon, which is a new development.
Second, the drone incident demonstrates that Israel is still watching Hezbollah, and the Lebanese group seems to be continuing its work on the Precision Missiles Project. Developing precision missiles that would help Iran attack specific targets and infrastructure inside Israel has been Hezbollah’s main priority for a few years, and they don’t seem to have slowed down because of the pandemic or its own financial crisis. In fact, Hezbollah has proved that it prefers spending its resources on these missiles rather than on serving its Shia constituency. However, this project is also Israel’s main priority regarding Hezbollah, and they won’t turn a blind eye to this risk, no matter how distracted they are internally.
Third, Hezbollah has been walking a fine line. They cannot stop developing the precision missiles because Iran demands they continue work, but they also cannot risk a war with Israel. They know they will probably lose in any military conflict with their southern rival.
Hezbollah lacks the money and resources to fund a new war with Israel, which seems to be more eager to hurt Hezbollah during the next round of confrontation. But Hezbollah has also lost many of its senior commanders in Syria. Having lost IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani when he was killed in January as well, it will take years to restore its leadership and military apparatus. Militarily, Hezbollah is also not ready. But most significantly, Hezbollah is mostly worried about the post-war reconstruction. With the current pro-Hezbollah Lebanese government, and the many ongoing wars in the region, it is highly unlikely that the international community – mainly the Gulf States that helped reconstruct Lebanon after the 2006 July war – would help reconstruct Lebanon this time around.
And without the bags of cash coming from Iran, Hezbollah will not be able to do the job itself. With the additional financial and economic crises that Lebanon is facing, which could lead to another wave of protests after the coronavirus lockdown is over, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government would have to acknowledge this growing discontent locally, weakening further their ability to respond to Israel.
While walking this fine line, Hezbollah is continuing to send messages to Israel, without provoking it, and without allowing this tug of war to develop into a full-fledged conflict. However, mistakes can be made, and if Hezbollah falls off the edge and Israel fires the first bullet, it won’t necessarily mean that Israel has started the war. By bringing Iran’s Precision Missiles Project to Lebanon, Hezbollah started the war a while ago.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the inaugural Friedmann Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute's Geduld Program on Arab Politics, where she focuses on Shia politics throughout the Levant.

US Zeroes in on Shadowy Lebanese Hezbollah Playmaker in Iraq
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April/2020
Months after the United States killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad, it has offered millions for any details on the mysterious man filling his boots -- Hezbollah power-broker Mohammad Kawtharani.
Washington charged last week that Kawtharani had "taken over some of the political coordination of Iran-aligned paramilitary groups" formerly organized by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani.
In fact, when a US drone strike in January killed Soleimani and others in a small convoy outside the Baghdad airport, the little-known but powerful official from Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement was initially rumored to have died alongside him.
It was quickly confirmed that Kawtharani, who has long spearheaded Hezbollah's Iraq policy, was not among those killed in the attack that brought arch enemies Tehran and Washington to the brink of war.
But rumors of his demise only proved his place among the shadowy pro-Iran brokers steering politics in Iraq, the oil-rich but poverty-stricken country torn by unrest since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Keen to curb Iran's influence in Iraq, the United States last week announced the reward of up to $10 million for any details on Kawtharani's activities or associates.
The State Department accused him of inheriting part of Soleimani's role coordinating among pro-Tehran factions that have attacked foreign diplomatic missions and "engaged in wide-spread organized criminal activity".
'The conductor'
Washington had first sanctioned Kawtharani as a "terrorist" in 2013 for providing "training, funding, political, and logistical support to Iraqi Shiite insurgent groups".
Born in Iraq in the late 1950s, Kawtharani studied in Najaf and is married to an Iraqi woman with whom he has four children.
Little is known about his early political work, but his rise to prominence began following the US-led invasion.
"Kawtharani was appointed to head Hezbollah's Iraq file in 2003 and has reported directly to its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah," said a source close to Hezbollah's senior ranks, according to AFP.
In that role, the slender cleric travelled frequently between Baghdad and Beirut to negotiate with Iraqi figures, particularly during politically turbulent times like government formation and elections.
He was often in the Prime Minister's Guesthouse, an ornate resort in Baghdad hosting officials and foreign dignitaries, in his traditional white turban and black robe.
"In that role, he was like a copy of Soleimani," a senior Iraqi official who met with him several times told AFP, referring to the Iranian general's infamous shuttle diplomacy.
Kawtharani fluently speaks Iraqi dialect, which differs markedly from Lebanese Arabic.
"He's got a lot of experience and is the only foreigner, after Soleimani, to know the Iraqi political scene inside out," another Hezbollah source said.
Iraqi political expert Hisham al-Hashemi said Kawtharani wore multiple "hats". "He's the conductor in the Shiite loyalist orchestra," said Hashemi, referring to the collection of Iraqi Shiite parties that see Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as their main reference.
As such, he painstakingly builds consensus among Iraq's varying Shiite political and armed factions -- but he has also worked on bringing Iraq's Sunnis on board with their traditional Shiite rivals.
A growing profile
Following the US strike that killed Soleimani and top Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Kawtharani saw his portfolio balloon further to include coordination with Kurdish parties.
"He became responsible for all the political factions," said Hashemi.
At the same time, he crafted ties between Iraq and Lebanon, where Hezbollah has strained under financial pressure from US sanctions.
"Kawtharani held sway over Iraqi politicians -- so much so that he asked for millions of dollars from Iraq last year to solve Lebanon's financial crisis," a diplomatic source told AFP.
The request was made outside the formal state-to-state channels and it was unclear if it was ever processed.
And while a second Iraqi official confirmed Kawtharani made the request, a source close to him in Beirut denied the overture.
The US's renewed spotlight on Kawtharani was worrying, another source close to him said.
"Seeking information about him now may be an introduction to a possible attempt at his arrest, or his assassination," the source said.
When approached by AFP regarding Kawtharani, numerous Iraqi and Lebanese sources declined to comment on his activities, hinting at fears their information would be used by the US to target him.
Given the backlash the US faced internationally following its assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis -- both key officials in their respective countries -- the US may target someone with a relatively lower profile.
"Assassinating the new Quds Force chief Esmail Ghaani isn't among Washington's options right now. That's why they turned to Kawtharani. He's a party official but not a government one," the source said.

Lebanon poised to grant amnesty to thousands of prisoners
Timour Azhari/Al Jazeera/April 21/2020
Even proponents of the measure are calling it an attempt at 'political bribery' by the ruling elite.
Beirut, Lebanon - Lebanon's parliament is set to vote on legislation this week that would pardon thousands arrested or wanted for non-violent crimes and also reduce prison sentences.
Two separate laws are up for a vote at a three-day legislative session that begins on Tuesday, though they will likely be compiled into a single piece of legislation.
The vote would see thousands of people arrested or wanted for misdemeanours and criminal offences - including drug use, cannabis production and celebratory gunfire, among other crimes - set free.
Families of detainees and those wanted for crimes have called for such legislation to be endorsed for over a decade.
Member of Parliament (MP) Michel Moussa, the co-sponsor of one of the bills, said that fears the coronavirus would spread through Lebanon's massively overcrowded prisons gave an added sense of urgency.
"The Lebanese state has failed to solve the overcrowding problem for a long time. Prisoners are not being afforded their rights as citizens, and we can't let them pay a very high price for the failure of successive governments," Moussa told Al Jazeera. "This is a humanitarian issue."
Longtime proponents of an amnesty say that the timing of the bill has much more to do with a crisis of confidence in the country's establishment than a sudden humanitarian urge.
The amnesty would mainly affect people from impoverished rural areas of Lebanon such as the Bekaa Valley - where the bulk of Lebanon's cannabis is grown illegally - and Tripoli and Akkar, where many stand accused of being affiliated with extremists.
These are the traditional support bases for establishment parties, most of which are led by former warlords who were allowed to enter politics after a 1991 general amnesty for all those who took part in the country's 15-year civil war.
In October 2019, those sectarian parties were rattled by the biggest uprising in the country since its independence in 1943, with hundreds of thousands filling streets to call for the fall of a political class.
Moussa's amnesty bill was submitted to the parliament on October 30, two weeks after the uprising broke out.
Moussa is a member of the parliamentary bloc led by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri.
Berri was a main target of the protesters, who see the octogenarian warlord-turned-politician as a cornerstone of corruption in the country.
"The political class needs the amnesty because it is reeling from the blows of the October 17 revolution. It's an attempted political bribe," Hasan Mazloum, founder of a committee that has advocated for an amnesty since 2004, told Al Jazeera.
"If they cared about humanitarian issues, they wouldn't have plundered this country and left the Lebanese to beg, go hungry and be forced into illegal [activities]," he said.
All prisoners affected
The legislation would still be a huge event in the country, affecting all of Lebanon's roughly 9,000 detainees.
It would also affect a big percentage of the tens of thousands of outstanding arrest warrants in the country.
Both pieces of legislation would reduce all prison sentences by either half or two-thirds, and convert death sentences to hard labour for 25 years.
Only prisoners convicted of a small number of crimes are eligible for release. However, anyone who killed or kidnapped soldiers or civilians, produced, transported or used explosives or poisonous materials, or recruited or trained "terrorists" or funded "terrorism" will not be eligible for a release. Both laws also exempt crimes of money laundering, trading in artefacts, human trafficking, illicit enrichment and crimes involving public money or property.
Only one of the bills, submitted by MP Bahia Hariri, also exempts environmental crimes and crimes covered by Lebanon's 2014 domestic violence law.
But instead of naming specific crimes subject to pardon, both bills seek to exempt all crimes and then delimit the extent of the amnesty via exceptions, leaving dangerous gaps.
Herein lies one of the main issues, according to Nizar Saghieh, a leading Lebanese legal expert.
Notably, Moussa's proposed law would not pardon those who committed environmental crimes of all kinds, in addition to financial crimes in a country that is suffering from its worst-ever financial crisis, a result of decades of corruption and mismanagement, Saghieh said.
He said Hariri's bill was better but pardons those who have illegally occupied public maritime property, worth millions of dollars.
It also does not grant a pardon to people accused of theft "which is strange if your goal is to help poor people", Saghieh, who is also founder of the non-governmental organisation The Legal Agenda, said.
Both bills seek to pardon all prisoners who have served their sentences but remain in prison because they have not paid outstanding fines.
Anyone pardoned would see their release overturned if they commit a similar crime again, with Hariri's law setting a five-year probation period for criminal offences and two years for misdemeanours.
Moussa said that even if the bill became law, judges would review each case, a process that would take several months given the large numbers of people involved.
'Opposite of accountability'
For Saghieh, the amnesty bills enshrine "the opposite of accountability" while doing little in the way of reforms to change the circumstances that led to these crimes.
If the issue is the poverty and lack of development in rural areas that led people to enter illicit activities, those must be addressed first, he said.
"Otherwise, the same crimes will be committed again, and you will be sending a clear message: 'Don't fear, the laws are only here for appearances, and every few years we'll have a new amnesty'."
Mazloum, a longtime pro-amnesty campaigner, agreed that without deeper reform, those who receive pardons would have little hope of starting afresh, especially during this crisis that has seen tens of thousands losing their jobs as half the population falls under the poverty line.
"These prisoners will come out to a world of social crisis - no life, no work, no bread," Mazloum said. "They will come out and either join the protests on the streets or be forced to do something wrong again."

Lebanon's protest movement is far from over
Michael Young/The National/April 21, 2020
When coronavirus lockdowns end, Lebanese protesters will come back angrier than ever – and for good reason.
In Lebanon, there has been a belief recently that the confinement due to the novel coronavirus pandemic has benefited corrupt politicians in the country. Because people have not been allowed into the streets, this view goes, the protest movement that began last October has been deflated.
There is a major problem with such a judgment. As the Lebanese economy continues to collapse, with the pound having lost more than half of its value since the protests began, the idea that people will remain passive is wholly unrealistic. Indeed, in the past two weeks protests have taken place in poorer areas of Lebanon, albeit with people wearing masks. And protests in which people remain in their cars are continuing this week.
Many Lebanese earn daily wages and the enforced confinement has meant that large numbers of people have been without any income for weeks. It has become a common refrain to hear the poor say they would prefer to die from the coronavirus than from hunger. A social explosion is inevitable unless the economic situation in the country starts showing the possibility of amelioration.
A stronger case could be made that Lebanon’s political class is far more worried by what the consequences of coronavirus are for its lock on the political and economic system than it is reassured by the resulting containment measures on a disgruntled population.
The reason is that most politicians are now trapped.
The pandemic has imposed economic burdens on societies all over the world, in the form of the opportunity costs of lost or delayed business and the heightened direct costs of dealing with the disease. In Lebanon, the situation is even more dire, which means that the Lebanese authorities now have no realistic alternative but to go to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.
This is a step many politicians would have liked to avoid. If Lebanon is dependent on outside financial assistance, this can be leveraged in return for genuine economic reforms. That could mean the political class would have less control over Lebanon’s economy, which has served as its cash cow and instrument of patronage. Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful party, expressed its uneasiness many weeks ago, warning that the IMF would not be allowed to “manage” Lebanon’s financial crisis.
Today, such protests sound absurd. With Lebanon in vital need of foreign currency to import food, medicine, and fuel, there is no latitude to avoid going to the IMF, unless the political class wants to face a social backlash, with no prospect that the situation will improve in the coming years. The implications for the ability of the political elite to maintain its control could be catastrophic.
One individual who may be more vulnerable than most is the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri. When the protests began, Mr Berri was accused by protestors in the south of embodying the worst features of the political elite, and a rest house in the city of Tyre owned by his wife was burned down. Since then, the speaker has gone overboard in portraying himself as a defender of the people.
Mr Berri, unlike his communal partner (and sometimes rival) Hezbollah, does not have the means to absorb popular discontent. His principal method of patronage was to place people in state institutions. Yet the state today is bankrupt and the salaries of most of his political clients have shrunk. Mr Berri would likely have much more trouble dealing with popular displeasure than Hezbollah.
Nor is Mr Berri alone. The reaction against the political class for having plundered the country and impoverished much of the population has spared very few leaders. They are aware of this, which is why if the situation deteriorates further, their hold on the levers of the state will slip. An IMF bailout could at least inject needed liquidity into the economy, improving matters somewhat.
Yet to say that the politicians are cornered fails to tell the whole story. With many countries in urgent need of IMF assistance due to the coronavirus, Lebanon is one among a long list requiring aid. Unless it can formulate a reform programme that can convince the fund's board, the Lebanese will be on their own. If that happens, Beirut's politicians may have to approve of serious reform measures that eat into their networks of corruption.
This is not necessarily a cause for optimism. What is likely to transpire is that each politician will try to protect his own slice of the national pie, to the detriment of the others. That means that reform will proceed chaotically. The ultimate result may be an improvement in the economy, but the absence of a consensus around a reform programme will mean that the Lebanese will suffer needlessly.
Lebanon’s protests have not ended. As dark times settle in, they may not even have truly begun. By forcing the politicians to make tough choices, the coronavirus has created a dilemma from which they may not escape. They will be squeezed by the IMF, but without it their power will erode amid burgeoning distress.
*Michael Young is editor of Diwan, the blog of the Carnegie Middle East programme, in Beirut

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 21-22/2020
Global coronavirus cases passed 2.5 million
The National/April 21/2020
Global cases pass 2.5 million as Lebanese protests defy Covid-19 lockdown measures.Global coronavirus cases passed 2.5 million on Tuesday as Brent, the international crude benchmark, fell to its lowest since 2002. The UAE confirmed a further 490 cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, after 30,000 new tests. A further 83 people have recovered and three more have died. In the region, Lebanese protesters defied coronavirus lockdown measures as politicians meet for first time in six months. In Saudi Arabia, authorities confirmed the ban on public attendance of prayers at the Grand Mosque in Makkah would remain in place throughout Ramadan. More than 170,000 people have died around the world and about 660,000 have recovered as of Tuesday evening.

Israeli strike in Syria kills nine pro-regime fighters: Monitor
AFP, Beirut/Tuesday 21 April 2020
Israeli air strikes late Monday in the area of the central Syrian city of Palmyra killed nine fighters loyal to the Iran-backed Damascus regime, a war monitor said Tuesday. Those who died in several missile strikes included three Syrians and six foreigners of unknown nationalities, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria targeting government troops as well as allied Iranian forces and fighters from Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syrian state media had said that Syrian air defenses late Monday downed Israeli missiles over Palmyra in the central Homs province before they could reach their targets. Contacted by AFP, an Israeli army spokesperson declined to comment. Israel has repeatedly vowed to impede any Iranian encroachment in war-torn Syria across its border. Monday’s attack came hours after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Last week, an Israeli drone targeted a Hezbollah car in Syria near the Lebanese border, a source from the group said. Late last month, Syrian air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile attack also targeting Homs province in the center of the war torn country. The Observatory said the target was a military airport where Iranian forces were present.

Assad Facing Mounting Criticism from Russia
Moscow - Raed Jaber/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April/2020
Russia has continued to mount its criticism of the Syrian regime, with a former ambassador releasing a scathing critique of Damascus. Last week, Moscow published a survey that showed a sharp dip in regime leader Bashar Assad’s popularity and exposed doubts over his ability to reform and rebuild Syria.
In the same vein, former Russian ambassador Aleksandr Aksenenok said: “Damascus is not particularly interested in displaying a far-sighted and flexible approach continuing to look to a military solution with the support of its allies and unconditional financial and economic aid like during the old days of the Soviet-US confrontation in the Middle East.”
Throughout the war “it is often difficult to differentiate between the anti-terrorist struggle and violence on the part of the government toward its opponents in that country,” he stated in the article, which was published on the Russian Affairs Council website.
“Thus, tensions have again escalated in the southwestern regions of Syria (the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra), which have been freed under the agreements with a part of the armed opposition on actually the semi-autonomous local power sharing. ‘Mysterious’ murders, threats and abductions have become more frequent against the backdrop of outrages by Syrian secret services,” he International wrote.
Aksenenok referred to the regime’s touting of imminent “victory” and threat to continue the fighting to regain control of all Syrian territories. The former envoy dismissed such rhetoric as divorced from reality. "Despite the tactical successes, achieved mostly with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the military campaign in Idlib has illustrated the limits of what’s possible. During the war years, the Syrian army sustained big losses in troops and equipment. The strength of the combat capable elite troops, being restored with Russia’s assistance, has also declined. High level statements on the use of force if Turkish and US troops do not leave Syria appear divorced from reality."
The regime's drive to quickly establish sovereignty over the country’s entire territory less than fully commensurate with the military and economic resources of Damascus and its allies and the real situation on the ground, continued Aksenenok. "Syria has sustained the biggest losses of all the conflicts in the Middle East. From 2011 through 2018, GDP fell by almost two thirds from $55 billion to $22 billion a year. This means that recovery costs (that amount to at least $250 billion) are equal to 12 times the current GDP. According to the World Bank, about 45 percent of housing has been destroyed, including a quarter of it that was razed to the ground. Over half of health facilities and about 40 percent of schools and universities are out of operation," he noted.
"Since the war, the living standards of 80 percent of the Syrians have dropped below the poverty line, and their life span has decreased by 20 years. Syria is short of doctors and nurses, teachers, technicians and qualified government officials," he added.
"The economic challenges now faced by Syria are even more serious than during the active phase of hostilities. It is in the economy that a web of old and new problems has emerged, and this is not just due to the catastrophic destruction during the war or US and European sanctions, although the humanitarian consequences are very sensitive, especially for the majority of the population." "In the course of military de-escalation it is becoming increasingly obvious that the regime is reluctant or unable to develop a system of government that can mitigate corruption and crime and go from a military economy to normal trade and economic relations. According to prominent Syrian economists, the central government in Damascus is failing to restore control over economic life in the more remote provinces."
"Local 'law' continues to prevail even in the government-controlled areas, including kickbacks in trade, transit, transport shipments and humanitarian convoys in favor of a chain consisting of privileged army units, security services, commercial mediators and related loyal big-time entrepreneurs, both those that are traditionally close to the president’s family and those that have become rich during the war," said the ambassador.
"The war produced centers of influence and shadow organizations that are not interested in a transition to peaceful development although Syrian society, including business people and some government officials, have developed requirements for political reform," he added.
"The situation in Syria, which is being aggravated by non-military, albeit no less dangerous, challenges, is compelling the Syrian government to properly assess the current risks and draft a long-term strategy with consideration for the fact that the main components of a conflict settlement are closely linked. A new military reality cannot be sustainable without economic reconstruction and the development of a political system that will rest on a truly inclusive approach and international consent. This is particularly important because the next presidential election in 2021 is not far off," he concluded. Meanwhile, in Damascus, regime leader Bashar Assad received Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Damascus said talks focused on efforts to combat the new coronavirus.
Assad used the opportunity to criticize Washington, saying its refusal to lift sanctions against Syria and Iran during the pandemic was "inhumane". He added that the outbreak has also demonstrated the West's moral failure.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Threaten to Attack Nuclear Aircraft Carries
London- Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander, Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, slammed on Monday the presence of US aircraft carriers and military ships in the Arabian Gulf, saying that his forces now possess surface-to-surface and subsurface anti-warship missiles with a range as high as 700 kilometers. "Now we have a variety of surface and sub-surface missiles with a range of 700 kilometers which have been produced by domestic military experts,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the Iranian commander as saying. Tangsiri’s statement came following the recent confrontation between IRGC and US forces in the Persian Gulf. The US military said on Wednesday that 11 vessels from the IRGC navy had come dangerously close to US Navy and Coast Guard ships in the Gulf, calling the moves “dangerous and provocative.”The IRGC Navy issued a statement on Sunday calling the US claims “fake” and likening them to some “Hollywood” scenarios. "US forces violated international regulations and blocked the way of Iranian vessels but they were faced with our harsh response,” Tangsiri said, adding that no foreign vessel can trespass regional waters unless it is identified by the Iranian Army and IRGC forces. “Our pride is that all of our military equipment is produced domestically, and we are not dependent on any other country,” he said. The Commander said wherever the “Americans have been, there has been insecurity. We do not know of a place where American presence has brought security.” Tangsiri warned that if anything is to happen to the nuclear warships in the Arabian Gulf, there will not be any living things or clean water in the region for at least 10 to 12 years. Also on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that foreign forces’ presence in the region is the source of insecurity, instability, and tension. “We consider the presence of the foreign forces, especially forces of the United States, in the region a source of tension, instability, and insecurity. Their presence is illegal and illegitimate. This is our region and our armed forces must be able to patrol without hurdle,” Mousavi said in a press conference held through video conference.

Iran Extends Zaghari-Ratcliffe's Temporary Release as Virus Toll Mounts
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Comman
Iran announced on Tuesday 88 new deaths from the novel coronavirus as the country said it had released more than 1,000 foreign prisoners over the outbreak. According to health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour, the latest fatalities in the past 24 hours brought the total to 5,297, in one of the world's deadliest outbreaks. The foreign prisoners were among 100,000 inmates temporarily released in several stages since March. They included British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she headed back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit. She was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran's clerical establishment. "Zaghari's furlough was until April 18. But it has been extended until May 20," her lawyer Mahmoud Behzadirad told IRNA. "What Iran has done in guaranteeing prisoners' health and granting furlough to them is a significant move" compared with what other countries had done, said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili. A panel of UN human rights experts last week called on Iran to expand the list of inmates it has temporarily released over the COVID-19 outbreak to include "prisoners of conscience and dual and foreign nationals". It also raised concerns about the spread in detention facilities of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. In response, Esmaili said Iran should not be criticized for "discriminatory conduct" as it had an "excellent" track record compared with Britain and the United States. According to Jahanpour, an additional 1,297 cases of COVID-19 infection detected in the past 24 hours brought the overall total to 84,802. But more than 60,900 of those admitted to hospital had already recovered, he said, describing it as a "significant" number. Iran had so far carried out more than 365,700 COVID-19 tests, the ministry official said. The country has struggled to contain the virus outbreak since reporting its first cases on February 19. Some officials and health experts in Iran and abroad have said the country's casualty figures may be higher than those it declared. Iran has allowed businesses to reopen after shutting most of its economy down in mid-March, except those with "high-risk" like restaurants and gyms. The reopening of the economy has drawn criticism from health experts and even some officials from the government.
Officials have urged Iranians to refrain from using public transportation as they go back to work and lifted some traffic restrictions in the capital Tehran. Tehran city council's transportation deputy Mohammad Alikhani said Tuesday that so far 19 taxi drivers have died from the virus and 317 have been infected. He added that 147 bus drivers and "between 40 to 50" metro workers had also been infected, semi-official news agency ISNA reported.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Threaten to Attack Nuclear Aircraft Carries
London- Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 21 April, 2020
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander, Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, slammed on Monday the presence of US aircraft carriers and military ships in the Arabian Gulf, saying that his forces now possess surface-to-surface and subsurface anti-warship missiles with a range as high as 700 kilometers."Now we have a variety of surface and sub-surface missiles with a range of 700 kilometers which have been produced by domestic military experts,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the Iranian commander as saying. Tangsiri’s statement came following the recent confrontation between IRGC and US forces in the Persian Gulf. The US military said on Wednesday that 11 vessels from the IRGC navy had come dangerously close to US Navy and Coast Guard ships in the Gulf, calling the moves “dangerous and provocative.”
The IRGC Navy issued a statement on Sunday calling the US claims “fake” and likening them to some “Hollywood” scenarios. "US forces violated international regulations and blocked the way of Iranian vessels but they were faced with our harsh response,” Tangsiri said, adding that no foreign vessel can trespass regional waters unless it is identified by the Iranian Army and IRGC forces. “Our pride is that all of our military equipment is produced domestically, and we are not dependent on any other country,” he said.
The Commander said wherever the “Americans have been, there has been insecurity. We do not know of a place where American presence has brought security.” Tangsiri warned that if anything is to happen to the nuclear warships in the Arabian Gulf, there will not be any living things or clean water in the region for at least 10 to 12 years.Also on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that foreign forces’ presence in the region is the source of insecurity, instability, and tension. “We consider the presence of the foreign forces, especially forces of the United States, in the region a source of tension, instability, and insecurity. Their presence is illegal and illegitimate. This is our region and our armed forces must be able to patrol without hurdle,” Mousavi said in a press conference held through video conference.

Israel's Gantz Says to be Defense Minister in New Govt.
Agence France Presse/April 21/2020
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former rival Benny Gantz announced Tuesday he was set to become defense minister, a day after the two signed a hard-won unity government deal. The agreement, ending a 16-month political deadlock, sees Netanyahu serve as premier for the first half of a three-year term as he faces trial on corruption charges, which he denies. The premiership would then pass to Gantz in October next year, with elections 18 months later. The deal comes as Israel, already mired in political crisis after three inconclusive elections in less than a year, faces the coronavirus pandemic. "This is the biggest health, social and economic crisis in the history of this country at a time of the worst political crisis since the creation of the state," Gantz said during a televised address Tuesday evening. "I have chosen to protect democracy and fight against the coronavirus by forming an emergency unity government with the prime minister."Both men had tried multiple times in recent months to form governments but neither could summon the support in Israel's 120-seat legislature to form a government -- until Monday evening. Under the agreement, the pro-Netanyahu camp led by his Likud party will share ministerial posts equally with Gantz's bloc, led by his Blue and White alliance. Netanyahu's supporters will take the finance and health ministries, while Gantz backers will control the defense and justice ministries. Gantz, who replaces hardliner and Netanyahu supporter Naftali Bennett at the defence ministry, is a career soldier who headed the army during Israel's last two wars against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip in 2012 and 2014. His decision to seek a deal with Netanyahu prompted high-profile defections from his Blue and White alliance. Gantz's former deputy, bitter Netanyahu foe Yair Lapid, on Tuesday slammed it as "the worst act of fraud in the history of this country". "I apologise to all those people I convinced to vote for Benny Gantz and Blue and White this past year," he said.
"I didn't believe that they would steal your vote and give it to Netanyahu, that they would use your vote to form the fifth Netanyahu government."

U.S. Oil Futures End in Positive Territory at $10.01/Barrel
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 21/2020
A day after its historic slide into negative territory amid a supply glut, U.S. oil futures finished in positive territory Tuesday although the market remained under heavy pressure. Futures of U.S. benchmark contract West Texas Intermediate for delivery in May ended at $10.01 a barrel after finishing Monday's session at -$37.63 a barrel. But WTI futures for delivery in June plunged 43 percent to $11.57 a barrel, the lowest ever since the contract was established in 1983.

Italy's Conte Signals Longer Lockdown
Agence France Presse/April 21/2020
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte prepared Italians for a longer lockdown Tuesday despite a second successive drop in the number of registered coronavirus cases. Italy is approaching a fateful decision on whether to lift stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses for the first time in nearly two months on May 4. Its virus death total of 24,648 is still Europe's highest and second globally after the United States. Conte is being pushed into erring on the side of caution by leading doctors -- and to think more about the economic toll by big business leaders and some regional chiefs. Governments across the world fear that premature lockdown exits could set off a second pandemic wave that requires another economically devastating closure. Waiting for another few weeks or even months could potentially avert that cost. But many businesses warn that they will not be able stand idle much longer and Italy's push for a comprehensive economic rescue from the European Union is running into resistance in Brussels. Conte has convened a taskforce comprised of leading economists and health experts to weigh all the pros and cons. But he indicated Tuesday that Italians will probably have to put up with various forms of restrictions for some time to come. "I would like to be able to say, let's open everything. Right away," Conte wrote on Facebook. "But such a decision would be irresponsible."
'Virus is still there'
Conte said he will spell out the details of the next stage of Italy's battle against outbreak as more data come in over the coming days. But the latest figures showed that the existing measures were producing the desired results. The number of people who are officially being treated for COVID-19 -- either at home or in hospital -- is falling in every region. The number dropped by 528 nationally on Tuesday to a total of 107,709. The new daily infections rate is down to a low of just 1.5 percent. Conte's advisers appear to sense Italians' eagerness to get going -- especially as other European nations are starting to gradually open up. "We must not make any hasty decisions," Conte's coronavirus commissioner Domenico Arcuri said Tuesday. "The virus is still among us -- a little less strongly, but it is still there." Conte's decision could also be influenced by the outcome of an economic response teleconference that EU leaders have scheduled for Thursday. Italy is pushing the bloc to put aside its misgivings and start issuing a form of joint debt dubbed "coronabonds". Conte hopes that the pooled instruments could lead to either low-interest loans or outright grants from Brussels that his government can use to rebuild the economy once the pandemic subsides. He told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would accept "no compromises" at the conference. "The EU and the eurozone cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes they made in the 2008 financial crisis, when it not possible to offer a joint response," he said. "Either we all win, or we all lose."
Conte's push for the issuance of mutualized EU debt has run into opposition from countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.

U.N. Food Agency Chief: World on Brink of 'a Hunger Pandemic'
Associated Press/Naharnet/April 21/2020
The head of the U.N. food agency warned Tuesday that, as the world is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it is also "on the brink of a hunger pandemic" that could lead to "multiple famines of biblical proportions" within a few months if immediate action isn't taken.
World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley told the U.N. Security Council that even before COVID-19 became an issue, he was telling world leaders that "2020 would be facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II." That's because of wars in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, locust swarms in Africa, frequent natural disasters and economic crises including in Lebanon, Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia, he said. Beasley said today 821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world, a further 135 million people are facing "crisis levels of hunger or worse," and a new World Food Program analysis shows that as a result of COVID-19 an additional 130 million people "could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020."
He said in the video briefing that WFP is providing food to nearly 100 million people on any given day, including "about 30 million people who literally depend on us to stay alive."Beasley, who is recovering from COVID-19, said if those 30 million people can't be reached, "our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period" - and that doesn't include increased starvation due to the coronavirus. "In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation," he said. According to WFP, the 10 countries with the worst food crises in 2019 were Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria and Haiti. Beasley said in many countries the food crisis is the result of conflict.
But he said he raised the prospect of "a hunger pandemic" because "there is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself." The WFP chief said lockdowns and economic recession are expected to lead to major income losses for the working poor. He pointed to a sharp drop in overseas remittances that will hurt countries such as Haiti, Nepal and Somalia; a loss of tourism revenue which, for example, will damage Ethiopia where it accounts for 47 percent of total exports; and the collapse of oil prices which will have a significant impact in lower-income countries like South Sudan where oil accounts for almost 99 percent of total exports. As the U.N.'s logistics backbone, Beasley said WFP has played a major role in tackling COVID-19 by delivering millions of pieces of protective equipment, testing kits and face masks to 78 countries on behalf of the World Health Organization and by running humanitarian air services to get doctors, nurses and humanitarian staff into countries that need help. He urged greater humanitarian access, coordinated action to deliver aid, an end to trade disruptions, and accelerated and increased funding including $350 million to set up a network of logistics hubs and transport systems to keep supply chains running worldwide. "The truth is, we do not have time on our side, so let's act wisely - and let's act fast," Beasley said. "I do believe that with our expertise and partnerships, we can bring together the teams and the programs necessary to make certain the COVID-19 pandemic does not become a humanitarian and food crisis catastrophe."

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 21-22/2020
Coronavirus: Uncle Sam, the world really needs you
Gavin Esler/The National/April 21 2020
I grew up in a time when the US wanted to lead the world, and indeed it did, but its current leader is overseeing a retreat just when we need it to stay the course
The US has always been an indispensable ally. That could be changing – not because America’s friends want it to change, but because President Donald Trump does not value alliances. Co-operation with others does not suit his "America First" mindset.
What a pity.
As a teenager in Scotland, I had American friends, sons and daughters of officers at a US Air Force base. One friend’s mother made us a snack, a sandwich that lives in my memory. It was enormous. The sandwiches at my Scottish home had cheese or meat but this American sandwich was four centimetres thick, stuffed with chicken, cheese, tomatoes and pickles – simply wonderful. That was the beginning of my love for America.
As children, we learned that the US Air Force was part of Nato defending us against communism, and that together with our European allies we were stronger. There was so much to admire. American businesses, music, movies, writers all seemed to lead the world. American people were among the friendliest I met anywhere. The western US – Wyoming, Arizona and the likes – really did have cowboys on horses.
And it is still true. From Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos to Google and Facebook, many of America’s greatest entrepreneurs, musicians, movie directors and novelists are world beaters.
But the America I fell in love with years ago seems destined to avoid leading the world in any of the great battles that affect us all. The US still has the most powerful military machine, but does anyone look to American leadership to solve the biggest of our problems? The global pandemic? Climate change? Providing an example of good health care for all Americans? Good governance?
Even if you disagreed with specific policies or foreign military interventions, America always tried to be – in former president Ronald Reagan’s striking phrase – a “shining city on a hill". But now? Viewing Mr Trump’s daily news conferences, the shining city on a hill looks and sounds more like grumpy, eccentric muttering to himself behind a wall.
Bill Gates among America's heroes
There are good reasons to discuss with Beijing a better way to manage trade, revitalise the world economy and other multilateral relationships. But instead of cool-headed (and quite boring) discussions, this has now evolved – at least as far as the White House is concerned – into a blame game about coronavirus and the biggest economic slowdown of our lives.
Every country is learning lessons in dealing with the disease. Perhaps America’s superb scientists will be first with a vaccine. But Mr Trump has taken his dislike of China and multilateral international institutions to new levels by cutting US funding for the World Health Organisation. The WHO now joins the United Nations, the European Union and even Nato as an organisation that he clearly finds tiresome.
In historical terms, this is like a rerun of the worst of 1920s American isolationism. It did not end well. After helping create the League of Nations, the US refused to join, pursuing an "America First" policy that only truly ended when Japan bombed the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
When US isolationism previously ended
America out of its isolationism. The rest is history. Corbis
Now in 2020, the person whose office once proudly boasted of the President of the United States being “the leader of the free world” may be offering some kind of leadership – but the world is not following. It is no surprise that a popular US board game is called Fortress America, in which North America fights against the world. It is a strangely negative mindset for the world’s strongest military power.
With Mr Trump attacking state governments run by Democrats, we are in for a nasty presidential election at the same time as scientists fear Covid-19 will be a disaster for poorer countries. It is thought likely to mutate and hit the rich world again in a second wave, perhaps this autumn. That is why international co-operation and the WHO is so necessary. That is why if American leadership fades and Mr Trump takes away American dollars, the vacuum could be filled by the very country Mr Trump is trying to punish, China.
Trump's divisive politics
In difficult times, most of us need friends. Mr Trump seems to need enemies. And listening to his daily news conferences, berating journalists for asking necessary questions, offering answers that America’s scientific experts then patiently correct, it made me think of an American crooner from the past, Jim Reeves. He once sang: “Make the world go away / Get it off my shoulder / Say the things we used to say / And make the world, make it go away.”
But the world will not go away. The global economic shock and coronavirus will not go away. And much of the world would like to have our indispensable ally back.
In November, American voters can show that their country’s influence does not have to decline just because its current leader is out of his depth. But for now, an American president on the brink of an economic slump who did not take coronavirus seriously at first and who still does not take climate change seriously is not a leader. He is a liability.
*Gavin Esler is a journalist, author and presenter

Coronavirus pandemic has thrown the world order into a tailspin
Raghida Dergham/The National/April 21/2020
It will not be possible for nations to return to the policies that had been put in place before Covid-19
Whether they continue the lockdown and prioritise public health, or ease measures to avoid an economic collapse that will be devastating for their current and future financial and psychological wellbeing, nations and their leaders will be forced to reinvent themselves. Certainly, it will not be possible for them to return to the broad-based policies that had been put in place before Covid-19, with the virus having already altered the globalised landscape and upended nations’ geopolitical plans.
Even as the large, rich and powerful countries currently struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned of its dire consequences on the future of vulnerable countries in the Middle East.
A medical worker prepares to check the temperature of an AFP photojournalist before a COVID-19 coronavirus test in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. AFP
The ICRC has also noted that these nations are vulnerable not just due to their poor health and social infrastructure, but also because they are susceptible to violent social and political unrest as a reaction to their respective governments’ inadequate response to the crisis.
Iran, despite being one of the first countries in the Middle East to be hit by the coronavirus, has discovered that even in these circumstances, the US will not lift sanctions and Europe will not circumvent them. Tehran could well be upset by this reality, but it may also have concluded that unless it changes its regional policies, as well as its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, the sanctions will remain in place.
The question, therefore, is whether the pandemic will force the region’s countries to reconsider their policies and reinvent themselves in order to save themselves. One problem is that global powers will be less capable of coming to their rescue due to their focus on the devastation in their own backyards.
In the post-Covid-19 brave new era, countries such as China, Russia and the US – as well as members of the EU and the G20 – will be forced to submit to radical reforms, both locally and globally.
Reform could also be waiting to happen within global institutions, such as the United Nations and its various agencies – including the World Health Organisation. President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend US funding for the WHO – in a protest against its alleged bias towards China – has been met with positive and negative responses within that country. The reaction outside the US has mostly been negative – irrespective of whether Mr Trump was justified or not in taking such action – given the realisation that we are all in this together.
Supranational groups such as the European Union have also been seen to be wanting in their ability to deliver solutions. The 27-nation bloc can no longer pretend as if nothing has changed following Brexit and the spread of Covid-19. Few will doubt the EU is facing huge economic, political and social challenges at the moment.
The dynamics that prevailed before the pandemic within the Group of 20, or G20, cannot continue to exist either, while the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will find an opportunity to review some of its policies amid shrinking oil prices – due in large part to the glut in oil supplies, which can be attributed to a collapse in the demand for hydrocarbons in the wake of the global viral outbreak.
Dr Andrei Fedorov, former deputy foreign minister of Russia and chairman of the Fund for Political Research, expects oil reservoirs to be nearly full in Russia, the US and everywhere else in the world – to the extent that these countries will be “obliged to get rid of it at any price even if the oil price goes down to zero” and the reason is that “you cannot stop production in the pipelines”. He added that this could happen in four weeks, and therefore, “by the end or mid-May, there will be a new oil crisis if it is not possible to go back to oil production”. He warned that if we get to the zero-point in May, “there will be no chance to restart the world economy without heavy losses”.
Most world leaders are moving with extreme caution, fearing they could squander a chance to restart the world economy, and expedite collapse.
May seems to be the month when most leaders hope to see a return to work and a gradual reduction in unemployment that has especially been devastating for the US, where more than 20 million people are claiming jobless allowances. The stakes are high, including Mr Trump’s re-election chances later this year. There is also concern of the adverse impact of America’s continued lockdown on other economies around the globe. “If the US economy is not reopened soon, this will kill the world economy,” Dr Fedorov said.
For its part, he added, “Russia is unable to play a role in the global economic agenda because of oil as well as the impact of the global economic crisis”. For this reason, there is talk in Moscow about reformulating the priorities of Russian foreign policy as the global conversation focuses on assessing how the coronavirus has impacted globalisation and the world economy. There is, of course, an opportunity to restart the economy between the months of May and September – instead of keeping everything on lockdown indefinitely. But with fears of a second wave of the pandemic in China in the autumn season, many world leaders will be expected to formulate plans accordingly but also fearing for the future.
*Raghida Dergham is the founder and executive chairwoman of the Beirut Institute

The Next Iranian Revolution/Why Washington Should Seek Regime Change in Tehran
Eric S. Edelman and Ray Takeyh/FDD/April 20/2020
“Regime change” is a toxic phrase in Washington. It conjures up images of the Iraq war, with the United States trapped in a quagmire of its own making. That is why those who favor a coercive U.S. approach to Iran are routinely charged with secretly supporting regime change. In response, the accused almost always deny it. They don’t want regime change, they insist: they just want the Islamic Republic’s theocrats to change their behavior.
But no such transformation will ever take place, because the Iranian regime remains a revolutionary movement that will never accommodate the United States. That is why regime change is not a radical or reckless idea but the most pragmatic and effective goal for U.S. policy toward Iran—indeed, it is the only objective that has any chance of meaningfully reducing the Iranian threat.
Backing regime change emphatically does not mean advocating a military invasion of Iran, but it does mean pushing for the United States to use every instrument at its disposal to undermine Iran’s clerical state, including covert assistance to dissidents. The United States cannot overthrow the Islamic Republic, but it can contribute to conditions that would make such a demise possible. The regime is weaker than many Western analysts believe; a campaign of external pressure and internal resistance could conceivably topple it. Recent years have witnessed explosions of broad-based public opposition to the regime. Iranians are hungry for better leadership. The question for Washington should be not whether to embrace regime change but how to help the Iranian people achieve it.
We Are Never Ever Getting Together
For the past 40 years, almost every U.S. president has tried to reach some kind of accommodation with Iran. Ronald Reagan’s attempt led him to the greatest scandal of his presidency, when he traded arms for Americans held hostage in Lebanon by the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. Bill Clinton unsuccessfully sought to develop a road map for détente with Tehran. George W. Bush came into office displaying moral contempt for the clerical autocracy, only to have his administration spend a considerable amount of time talking to Iran’s leaders about the future of Afghanistan and Iraq. And then came Barack Obama, whose desperation to make a deal with Tehran produced an agreement that granted Iran sanctions relief and paved its path to the bomb.
In 2018, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of that deal and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran that went beyond any that had come before. Trump has repeatedly denounced the regime, and earlier this year, he ordered the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the famed commander of the elite Quds Force, a unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). But for all this surface antagonism, the internal logic of the Trump administration’s approach resembles that of its predecessors: inflict pain on Iran in order to gain leverage in prospective negotiations. Trump still wants to make a deal—and in fact, he is the first U.S. president to propose meeting with Iranian leaders.
All these administrations have failed to understand that the Iranian regime remains, at heart, a revolutionary organization. Once in power, revolutionaries often yield to the temptations of moderation and pragmatism. The requirements of actually running a government and addressing domestic concerns eventually lead them to adapt to the prevailing international order. But four decades after its birth, the Islamic Republic continues to avoid that fate. Its elites still cling to the revolution’s precepts even when they prove self-defeating. That is because the revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, did not rely on secular principles; he made religion his governing creed. Khomeini’s ideology rested on a politicized and radicalized version of Shiite Islam, one that often contradicts long-standing traditions of the faith. But for its most dedicated core of supporters, the Iranian theocracy remains an important experiment for realizing God’s will on earth. Led by Khomeini’s successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, these true believers retain control of the most powerful branches of Iran’s government and have successfully resisted the reformist efforts of various presidents and parliaments.
For Khomeini and his disciples, the continued vitality of their revolution mandated its relentless export. This was to be a revolution without borders; its appeal would not be limited by cultural differences or diverging national sensibilities within the Muslim world. Khamenei has faithfully carried out that mission, backing proxy militias throughout the Middle East with the goal of advancing Iranian-style Islamism and undermining the U.S.-backed regional security order. In the mullahs’ preferred narrative, the imperialist United States seeks to exploit the region’s resources for the aggrandizement of the industrial West. Achieving that goal requires Washington to subjugate the Muslim world by backing corrupt Arab monarchies and an illegitimate Zionist entity. The Iranian regime sees resisting that American dominance as a divine imperative.
That is why the Islamic Republic will never evolve into a responsible regional stakeholder. It will never permit genuine political contestation or allow an organized opposition to take shape. It will never abandon its nuclear ambitions for the sake of commerce. And it will never recognize any U.S. interests in the Middle East as legitimate. The revolutionaries will never give up their revolution.
Carpe Diem
Since there is no prospect of a sustainable accommodation with the theocrats, the only U.S. policy that makes sense is to seek regime change—that is, to do everything possible to weaken the government and strengthen those inside Iran who oppose it. The aim should be to help the large number of Iranians who want to restore the original promise of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah—a movement that drew support from a broad base of groups, including liberal and pro-democratic ones, before it was hijacked by Khomeini and his Islamist faction. The United States should be modest about its capabilities and understand that it cannot always shape events. But given the theocracy’s domestic vulnerabilities, Washington can still carve out a considerable role in attenuating the regime’s power. The United States cannot choose the precise mechanics of how the regime might fall or the exact contours of what would replace it. But it can exercise a good deal of influence on both.
Today, the Islamic Republic is at an impasse. The regime faces a disaffected populace that is losing its sense of fear and becoming more willing to confront the government’s security services on the streets. No one is sure what a post-theocratic future would look like, but an increasing number of Iranians seem willing to find out. And despite the revolution’s spirit of intransigence, postrevolutionary Iran has not been without its share of reformers. By the early 1990s, an eclectic group of politicians, clerics, and intellectuals sought to reconcile faith and freedom. Recognizing that a rigid definition of religious governance would threaten the entire system, the reformers wanted to create a new national compact that would preserve Iran’s Islamic traditions and also uphold democratic values. The reform movement captured both the presidency and the parliament in the late 1990s but was thwarted by Khamenei and the hard-liners. Still, courageous movement leaders of that era, such as Abdollah Nouri, Mostafa Tajzadeh, and Saeed Hajjarian, continue to struggle within Iran for an accountable government.
Iranians are losing their sense of fear and becoming more willing to confront the government’s security services on the streets.
Their views found potent expression during the so-called Green Movement of 2009, which saw Iranians demonstrating in support of reformist figures running for president that year and demanding good governance and the restoration of Iran’s place in the international community. When it became clear that the regime had rigged the outcome in order to guarantee the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative firebrand, the movement vastly expanded, capturing the national imagination and bringing unprecedented numbers of people into the streets. The regime had to resort to brute force to regain control. Today, more than a decade later, the leading figures of the movement, the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the dissident cleric Mehdi Karroubi, still languish under house arrest.
The Green Movement may be a distant memory for the Western commentariat, but it haunts the regime. In a speech he gave a few months after the crackdown, Mohammad Ali Jafari, then the head of the IRGC, conceded that the protests had brought the regime “to the border of overthrow.” In 2013, Khamenei told an audience of university students that the Green Movement had posed “a great challenge” and brought the government to “the edge of the cliff.” After the uprising, the regime decided that it could no longer tolerate reformers in its midst. In a remarkable act of self-sabotage, the regime purged itself of some of the country’s most popular politicians.
In the past two years, Iran has been rocked by the most serious demonstrations since the 1979 revolution, outstripping even the Green Movement. Compared with earlier episodes of mass dissent, today’s protests pose a far greater threat to the theocracy, because they represent a revolt of the working classes and the poor, which have accounted for the majority of demonstrators in recent years. During earlier protests, the regime discounted the participation of university students (whom the mullahs saw as the spoiled offspring of the wealthy classes) and middle-class protesters (who the clerics believed were motivated less by ideological opposition than by a desire for Western-style material comforts). But the clerics saw the poor as the regime’s backbone, tied to the theocracy by piety and patronage.
That bond has weakened, however, owing to Iran’s economic collapse. Inflation and unemployment are skyrocketing. Oil exports, which were at 2.5 million barrels a day prior to the reimposition of U.S. sanctions in 2018, have now fallen to as little as 248,000 barrels a day. This has forced the regime to cut fuel subsidies, and the loss of oil income has made it hard for the state to meet its pension obligations and maintain its affordable-housing programs. With the welfare state under pressure, appeals for sacrifice from corrupt mullahs ring hollow. “Clerics with capital, give us our money back!” was a popular chant at protests last year.
But working-class and poor demonstrators have gone beyond expressing economic grievances and have embraced political slogans with an alacrity that has shocked the regime. In December 2017, for example, protests engulfed Iran after the prices of basic goods soared. Marchers in major cities openly chanted “Death to Khamenei!” and “The clerics should get lost.” The demonstrations faded after the regime unleashed its security forces. But last November, a sudden increase in fuel prices provoked riots in hundreds of cities; some 1,500 people died at the hands of the police and security forces. This time, the demonstrators did not just call for the death of their leaders; they also decried Iran’s involvement in conflicts elsewhere. (“Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran!” “Leave Syria, think about us!”) Even as the regime condemned American imperialism, Iran’s leaders always assumed that their own imperial projects would burnish their legitimacy. But it appears that many Iranians no longer want to waste their resources on Arab civil wars.
Marchers in major cities openly chanted “Death to Khamenei!” and “The clerics should get lost.”
In January, after the U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani, massive crowds of mourners flooded the streets of Iran’s cities, and many believed that the attack had united Iranians behind their regime. Just weeks later, however, the illusion of solidarity was shattered by large-scale popular protests that erupted when the government admitted, after days of official denials, that Iranian air defenses—on high alert for U.S. incursions—had accidentally shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner departing Tehran’s airport, killing 176 people. Far from rebounding to the mullahs’ advantage, the regime’s latest confrontation with the United States reminded Iranians of the costs of their government’s belligerence.
The government’s legitimacy took another hit with the outbreak of COVID-19. As the novel coronavirus spread, the Islamic Republic not only failed to protect the health and safety of its citizens but actively impeded their ability to protect themselves by withholding information and hiding the extent of the problem—a response that will diminish the regime’s credibility even further and add fuel to the outrage and anger that have been building for years.
How Can I Help You?
Although Iran is brimming with dissidence, no coherent resistance movement has emerged. Washington cannot create one, but by overtly weakening the regime and covertly aiding forces inside Iran that can foment popular demands for change, the United States can help the currently disconnected strands of opposition to consolidate. Washington should seek to further drain Iran’s economy, invite defections from the ranks of the regime’s enforcers, and surreptitiously enable those who dare to challenge the regime. But it cannot go any further than that: regime change itself—that is, the removal and replacement of the theocracy—must be undertaken by the Iranians themselves.
Adopting the goal of regime change will not be terribly costly, but it will require a stepped-up program of covert action to aid those elements within Iranian civil society that are contesting the regime’s legitimacy. Chief among those are professional syndicates, such as labor unions and teachers’ unions, which have gone on strike to protest government policies and actions, and student groups, which have organized protests on college campuses. Purged reformers routinely write open letters protesting the regime’s abuses, and they have continued to do so in the aftermath of the crackdown on demonstrations. Last November, from under house arrest, the Green Movement leader Mousavi published a statement on the website Kaleme.com in which he compared the regime’s conduct to an infamous massacre conducted by the shah’s troops in September 1978. Also in November, the reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, whom the regime has tried to silence, denounced the crackdown, writing on Instagram that “no government has the right to resort to force and oppression in confronting protests.” These powerful messages were widely reported by international media outlets and reposted on social media. But it is difficult to assess how many Iranians were aware of them, since the government actively blocks Internet access. That is why it is essential for the United States to supply the regime’s critics and opponents with technology and software that they can use to evade censorship, communicate with one another, and get their messages out.
Such covert technical assistance is critical, but it is not the only way that Washington can help foster opposition. Direct (but secret) financial support must also play a role. Iranian trade unions should be a particular focus of U.S. efforts. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, strikes carried out by oil and transportation workers were essential to paralyzing the shah’s regime. In recent years, steelworkers, truckers, bus drivers, railway workers, teachers, and sugarcane workers have called strikes to challenge the current regime. By secretly channeling funds to groups that could carry out similar strikes, the United States can further cripple Iran’s economy.
In addition to taking such covert steps, Washington should make adjustments to its public diplomacy regarding Iran. U.S. officials should take every opportunity to highlight the regime’s human rights abuses and to warn that violators—especially those involved in the use of force to repress popular protests—will be held accountable by the international community when there is a new order in Iran. At the same time, Washington should stress that any member of the Iranian regime who wishes to defect will be guaranteed sanctuary in the United States. The CIA should establish a mechanism for contacting and extracting all who wish to leave. Even a small number of defectors can sow distrust in the system, forcing the security services to constantly look for unreliable elements among its ranks and conduct periodic purges. This would hamper operational efficiency by eliminating some cadres on whom the security services rely and creating distrust and suspicion in the state’s apparatus of repression.
Beyond such policies and official rhetoric, the United States must do more to overcome the regime’s propaganda by making accurate information and honest analysis available to the Iranian people. Currently, Washington spends $30 million a year on Farsi-language media outlets run by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including Radio Farda and Sedaye America, which offer news and entertainment programming via radio, television, and the Internet. According to the agency, this programming reaches nearly a quarter of all Iranian adults. The U.S. government should augment that effort by openly funding radio and television programming created by Iranian exiles living in the United States. And although traditional forms of media are important, the U.S. government could bring even more attention to the regime’s corruption and economic mismanagement by using Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, and other social media platforms to highlight specific instances of graft and name the regime insiders responsible for them.
Under Pressure
Aiding dissidents inside Iran is only half the battle, however. To weaken the regime’s grip on the country and create an opening for other forces to take power, the United States must also expand the Trump administration’s highly successful campaign of “maximum pressure” against the Iranian economy. Critics of the Trump administration were quick to dismiss the plan, insisting that unilateral sanctions would not do much to strain Iran’s finances. But they overestimated the willingness of foreign corporations to risk their ability to do business in the United States. Even though the governments of their home countries have not sanctioned Iran, firms such as the French energy company Total, the German manufacturing conglomerate Siemens, and the Danish shipping giant Maersk have stayed out of Iran in order to avoid Washington’s sanctions. Going forward, the United States should blacklist Iran’s entire financial sector, pressure the global financial messaging platform SWIFT to expel all remaining Iranian banks from its network, fully enforce all sanctions on Iran’s non-oil exports (including petrochemicals), and require auditors who certify the financial statements of any company doing business with Iran to adopt stiffer due diligence measures.
The United States must also increase the price that Iran pays for its military adventurism in the region. The strike against Soleimani was an important first step toward directly imposing costs on Iran rather than merely targeting its proxies. Iran’s meddling has already made it vulnerable to blowback in places where its proxies have wreaked havoc. In Iraq in recent months, people have taken to the streets in huge numbers to protest Tehran’s overweening influence. Outrage over Iran’s long reach has also driven recent protests in Lebanon, where many are fed up with Hezbollah, the militia and political group that Iran backs. Washington should capitalize on Tehran’s failing fortunes in the region by aiding the forces that are standing up to Iran—including by providing financial support via covert means, if appropriate—and by using naval and air assets to interdict the flow of Iranian military supplies to the regime’s proxies.
The need to intensify the pressure on Iran should also inform U.S. military strategy and posture in the region. The United States should maintain a small military presence in Syria to observe and obstruct Iranian efforts to convert Syrian territory into a “land bridge” through which to supply its proxies. And Washington should encourage Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to cooperate on developing shared early warning systems and defenses against the cruise missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles that Iran would likely deploy in any conflict with its neighbors. Steps such as these would further weaken the Iranian regime by thwarting its bid for military dominance in the region, neutralizing the value of some Iranian military investments, and imposing additional costs on the country.
What The Critics Miss
There are many objections to a regime-change agenda. One is that U.S. assistance to pro-democracy forces, human rights activists, and regime critics in Iran would discredit them in the eyes of other Iranians. But surely, Iranian dissidents themselves are the best judges of that risk; Washington should identify the most promising recipients of U.S. aid and let them decide for themselves whether to receive it. And it is worth noting that in all the protests that Iran has witnessed in the past decade, the United States has never been the subject of condemnation. Indeed, in 2009, many Green Movement demonstrators called on Obama, in vain, to publicly embrace their cause. Even Trump didn’t become a target of any street protests last year. And some of the most viral Internet content to emerge from those protests were videos showing demonstrators going out of their way to avoid walking on American flags that the authorities had painted on the ground in public spaces in order to force people to disrespect the United States by treading on its flag.
Other skeptics of regime change might object that the Algiers Accords of 1981, which ended the crisis over the U.S. hostages that Iran seized in 1979, obligates Washington to refrain from interfering in Tehran’s internal affairs. The United States should publicly make clear that it no longer believes itself to be bound by that agreement, which was negotiated under duress and which Iran has repeatedly and egregiously violated by abducting and killing U.S. officials, sponsoring proxy attacks on American forces, and supporting terrorist groups.
The era of arms control diplomacy between the United States and Iran has essentially ended.
Some critics might contend that openly pursuing regime change would dash any hope of restricting Iran’s nuclear program through negotiations. But that assumes that there is the possibility of a reliable arms control agreement with the current regime; there is not. The nuclear deal that Iran entered into with the United States and other powers was fatally flawed: it did not proscribe the domestic enrichment of uranium on Iran’s part or the development of advanced centrifuges, and all its most important terms were saddled with sunset clauses. And since the Trump administration pulled out of the agreement, Iran’s leaders have made it clear that they will not negotiate a new deal or extend the expiring restrictions of the existing one.
The truth is that the era of arms control diplomacy between the United States and Iran has essentially ended. Still, to maintain international pressure and congressional support for an aggressive policy, the United States should remain open to negotiations even after it embraces regime change as a goal. For their part, the Iranians might see virtue in engaging in talks with a hawkish administration in the hope that doing so might persuade the administration to abandon regime change as a specific objective.
Another common objection to a U.S. strategy of regime change in Iran is the notion that any government that followed the theocracy would be even worse. Some advocates of this view insist that a successful regime-change policy would lead only to the rise of unsavory leaders from the ranks of the IRGC. In this account, Iran would go from a belligerent theocracy to a fascist military dictatorship. This argument wrongly assumes that the IRGC has carved out an identity for itself separate from the cleric-led regime it serves. In reality, the clerical oligarchs and the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards are indivisible. They believe in the same ideology and confront different facets of the same predicament: the mullahs anguish about why young people pay no attention to their revolutionary exhortations; the IRGC’s generals face the daunting task of sending conscripts drawn from the lower classes to their old neighborhoods to beat up and shoot their protesting peers.
Finally, critics of a policy of regime change sometimes warn that if the Islamic Republic fell, Iran would become a failed state along the lines of Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of 2003 or Libya in the years since the U.S.-led intervention in 2011. But there are significant differences between Iran and those countries. An Iranian state and polity have existed for thousands of years: unlike Iraq and Libya, Iran is not an invention of European postcolonial cartography. What is more, although ethnic tensions do exist in Iran and the regime in Tehran does repress religious minorities, Iranian society is overwhelmingly Shiite and not riven by the ethnic and sectarian divisions that plague Iraq or the tribal factions that make Libya difficult to govern. Finally, even under the theocracy, Iranian civil society has flourished, and it has not been atomized as its counterparts were by the dictators who long ruled Iraq and Libya.
Of course, those characteristics do not guarantee that Iran would develop into a liberal democracy if the theocracy were to fall, and it is impossible to predict with precision what would happen in the event of a revolution. The unrealized hopes of the Arab Spring provide a strong cautionary example. But compared with many Arab countries, Iran has a deep history of vibrant politics, an informed civil society, a lively press, a creative intellectual scene, and a large and literate middle class.
Indeed, the history of Iran since the beginning of the twentieth century is the tale of a long struggle between people seeking freedom from monarchs and mullahs determined to preserve the prerogatives of power. The constitutional revolution of 1905 established the country’s first parliament, and in the years that followed, feisty parliamentarians boldly imposed restraints on monarchs. Reza Shah Pahlavi challenged that system after he came to power, in 1925, and momentarily imposed his will on it. But after his abdication, in 1941, Iran returned to a more pluralistic path, with prime ministers and parliaments that once again mattered. In 1953, Prime Minster Mohammad Mosaddeq sparked a crisis by moving to nationalize the oil industry; the coup that removed him from office is often seen as a U.S.-British plot to prevent Iranian autonomy. In fact, Mosaddeq was himself trying to derail Iran’s democratic evolution with his own brand of autocracy, and his overthrow was mostly an Iranian initiative. And then came a quarter of a century of dictatorship under the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was eventually overthrown in 1979 by a populist revolutionary movement that contained many coalitions but whose main aim was to create a representative government that was sensitive to Iran’s traditions.
Now it is the mullahs’ turn. In every decade of its existence, the theocratic regime has faced a rebellion. The liberals were the first to object to the mullahs’ power grab, in the 1980s. University students, always a political vanguard in Iran, gave up on the theocracy with their own uprising in 1999; ten years later, another wave of youthful rebellion hit the regime. And in the past few years, Iranians have once more pushed back. Students, workers, clerics, and merchants are agitating against despotic rule, just as they have for much of the last century. The people protesting in the streets today are the ones who will lead Iran tomorrow, and their struggle is worthy of Washington’s embrace.
A Change Is Gonna Come
The Iranian people want an accountable government and do not share their leaders’ animus toward the West. But things don’t always happen just because they should. To avoid outcomes such as those in Iraq and Libya, a U.S. policy of regime change must include plans for steering a post-theocratic Iran in the right direction, since Washington would share a large degree of responsibility for the outcome. After a collapse of the regime, the United States would have to immediately lift all sanctions and set up an international donors’ conference to inject money into Iran’s economy and bring its oil back to the market. Even if the United States helped get rid of the old regime, it would have influence over a new Iranian government only if Washington were prepared to make a long-term commitment to the rehabilitation of the country. Doing so would require an initial injection of U.S. financial assistance to stabilize the Iranian economy and pave the way for further contributions by others. The U.S. president and congressional leaders would have to make the case to the American public that such aid was critical to regional stability and U.S. national security. And Washington would have to make clear to Iran’s new rulers that any aid would depend on their complete abandonment of the country’s nuclear weapons program.
Governing Iran would be a difficult task for any new leaders. Although there would inevitably be purges in the aftermath of the collapse, Washington would have to press the new rulers of Iran to make room for members of the old elite who wished to be part of the new order. Iran’s nuclear program would leave behind dangerous detritus. Ideally, a robust effort led by the International Atomic Energy Agency would account for all of Iran’s nuclear technology and enriched uranium. But failing that, the U.S. military would need to take unilateral action to remove the more sensitive aspects of the program to prevent them from falling into dangerous hands.
Regime change in Iran would not be pretty. It would not immediately solve all the problems between Washington and Tehran, much less immediately stabilize the Middle East. But the United States should at the very least attempt to empower the Iranian people to get the kind of government they deserve. Otherwise, Washington is doomed to repeat its past mistakes: pretending that it is possible to negotiate with the mullahs and blindly expecting that a theocratic revolutionary movement will somehow produce “moderates” willing to steer the regime away from its recklessness—or naively hoping that a popular revolt will succeed without any support from the outside. That approach has failed for more than 40 years. It’s time to try something different.
*Eric Edelman is a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
*Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Iran's regime will develop nuclear submarines says navy commander
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/April 20/2020
“None of the international pacts ban using peaceful nuclear energy but the peace we are talking about doesn’t find meaning without maintaining defense readiness," Rear Admiral Khanzadi said.
BERLIN – The head of Iran’s navy announced on Thursday that the Islamic Republic will build nuclear submarines.
“It’s a kind of neglecting if the Islamic Republic does not think about using nuclear propulsion in submarines… this domestic capability exists in the Defense Ministry regarding the production of submarines bigger than Fateh – and certainly, the developing of submarine propulsion is on the agenda of the Navy,” Rear Adm. Khanzadi said, according to a report by the state-controlled Mehr news agency.
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Khanzadi said that “None of the international pacts ban using peaceful nuclear energy, but the peace we are talking about doesn’t find meaning without maintaining defense readiness.”
He continued that “when there is no deterrence and readiness for a defense, no peace and stability will be established – and so the Armed Forces of the country are present to ensure sustainable peace.”
Writing in the National Interest online in early April, Caleb Larson said that in 2018, Iran notified the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that it was seeking to “construct naval nuclear propulsion in the future.”
He noted that “To this day, only a handful of countries are in the nuclear submarine club – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and India (although it should be pointed out that the Indian nuclear submarines are on lease from Russia, with the option of purchase after the lease is up).” Larson wrote that “Iran would likely beg, borrow or steal tech from another country to have any chance of a viable nuclear sub.”
The Jerusalem Post has documented Iran's illicit nuclear proliferation efforts in Germany since 2015, after reviewing numerous German intelligence reports.
The Post reported last week that the prestigious Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security published a report on its website outlining a newly revealed Iranian-regime nuclear weapons plant that was discovered by Israel.
The authors of the report indicate that, “Iran should declare this site to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and allow its inspection, since the facility was designed and built to handle nuclear material subject to safeguards under Iran’s comprehensive safeguards agreement.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s activities at the Shahid Mahallati facility show deception, according to the report. “Iran has clearly been dishonest with the IAEA. During discussions in September 2015, ‘Iran informed the Agency that it had not conducted metallurgical work specifically designed for nuclear devices, and was not willing to discuss any similar activities that did not have such an application,'" the report read, however, that the “activities at Shahid Mahallati and Shahid Boroujerdi are a dramatic contrast to that statement."
The United States government has repeatedly classified Iran's regime as the worst state-sponsor of terrorism.

Iran Seeks to Block Investigation of January’s Ukrainian Airliner Crash
Talia Katz/FDD/April 21/2020
Radio Farda reported on Tuesday that Tehran sent Ukraine a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) that, if signed, would protect the Iranian government from judicial action for the downing of a Ukrainian jetliner in January. The move indicates that Tehran continues its effort to deflect responsibility for the deaths of the 176 passengers onboard.
According to the MOU, in exchange for Iran compensating victims and releasing the black box – the flight data recorder and voice recorder in the cockpit of the plane – Kiev would recognize that mere “human error” led to the airliner’s downing. The MOU would thereby absolve the Iranian government of any wrongdoing.
This MOU is just the latest in a series of attempts to prevent families of the victims and the international community from seeking justice.
After the crash, Iran’s deflection campaign began with Iran’s chief justice, Ebrahim Raisi, who led a pseudo-investigation into the incident. As Canada’s former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said in January 2020, Raisi’s past role in the Iranian regime’s mass executions of 1988 should have disqualified him from leading this internal investigation. This so-called investigation resulted in no arrests and ignored recordings demonstrating the regime’s and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ negligence.
Following this sham investigation, Tehran spread conspiracy theories to deflect blame for its offense. On April 5, Hassan Norouzi, a member of the Iranian parliament’s Legal and Judicial Commission, announced, “The Iranian military did well by downing the passenger plane,” because the plane “was in Israel the week before the incident and appeared to have been tampered with and manipulated there.” He also alleged that the Ukrainian airliner “was no longer under the control of the tower and appeared to have come under America’s control.”
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Vadum Prystaiko criticized these narratives, tweeting, “We expect an immediate explanation from Iran on this statement. It shows full disrespect for human lives.” Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted that discussions of Tehran’s role is just “politicization of this tragedy.”
To shore up its propaganda campaign, the regime has also harassed, tortured, and sexually assaulted the victims’ family members to dissuade them from seeking legal action against the regime. A report from Zeytoun, a foreign-based Persian website, revealed that the regime pressured victims’ families to appear on state television and reiterate their support for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran has also targeted victims’ family members by sending threatening messages from fake Facebook accounts. Iranian government officials have called some of these family members, berating them for criticizing the regime online.
Coupled with these public relations tactics is an ongoing effort by the regime to preclude an independent investigation into the incident by withholding the airliner’s black box. On March 29, Mohammad Eslami, the Iranian minister of roads and transport, claimed that the regime has ceased decoding the black box due to the outbreak of COVID-19. However, Farhad Paravaresh, the Islamic Republic’s representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization, had promised to give the black box to Ukraine days before, by March 25. Today, more than 100 days after the crash, the black box recordings remain exclusively with the Islamic Republic.
Ukraine should reject Iran’s MOU so that the international community may properly investigate the incident and hold Tehran accountable.
*Talia Katz is a government relations analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where she also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from Talia and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Talia on Twitter @TaliaGKatz. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Regime in Iran Exploits Canada’s Policy of Engagement Without Pressure
Alireza Nader/FDD/April 21/2020
Canada has little to show for its government’s conciliatory approach to the Islamic Republic of Iran following the death of 57 Canadian-Iranians on January 8, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752.
Ottawa has engaged in lengthy negotiations without putting serious pressure on Tehran, so the clerical regime has predictably refused to allow an independent and credible investigation of the Flight 752 atrocity.
To change this dynamic, the Canadian government ought to impose sanctions on the responsible parties and launch a comprehensive inquiry into the Islamic Republic’s illicit activities within Canada itself.
Three months after the downing of Flight 752, the plane’s flight recorder, or black box, remains in Tehran, its contents unexamined. The Trudeau government appears to have calculated that diplomatic appeasement would lead to better behavior by the regime, including the transfer of the black box to a neutral third party for evaluation.
Trudeau and his foreign minister have met repeatedly with Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif in order to “get answers,” as the prime minister promised Canadians. Rather than oblige Trudeau, Tehran publicized the prime minister’s timid and deferential approach by releasing video footage of a February meeting in which Trudeau warmly grasped the hands of a smiling Zarif. For good reason, this led to widespread derision of Trudeau by Canadian journalists and Canadian-Iranian human rights activists.
The Islamic Republic’s contempt for Canada’s efforts to hold it accountable is visible most clearly in the regime’s efforts to intimidate the family of an Iranian student at the University of Alberta who died in the crash. His parents, brother, and aunt sought refuge in Edmonton after the IRGC threatened them for speaking publicly about the crash.
Ottawa should respond to this stonewalling and intimidation by designating the entire IRGC as a terrorist organization. In addition, Ottawa should launch a full investigation of the clerical regime’s lobbying and money laundering network in Canada, which is one of its largest and most effective in the Western world.
Canada is home to one of the largest Iranian diaspora communities, numbering at least 200,000. Motivated by commercial interests, Ottawa has at times been eager to maintain good relations with Tehran. Canada’s Liberal Party has historically pursued a policy of positive inducements toward the regime, including the re-establishment of formal bilateral relations and increased investment in Iran. However, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has consistently pocketed rewards from Ottawa, only to pursue an even more aggressive policy toward Canada.
Ottawa’s soft policy has also left an opening for the Islamic Republic to conduct influence operations from within the Canadian-Iranian community. Canadian-Iranians, many of whom fled the Islamic Republic to escape persecution, are one of the most successful Iranian diaspora communities. However, the regime has exploited Canada’s freedoms to establish its own lobbying and influence network there. Several human rights activists told the author that many wealthy Iranians with ties to the regime have settled in Canada in recent years, especially in Toronto and Vancouver. According to one activist, former regime officials, including those from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, live openly in Canada with their families and even travel regularly between the two countries.
Furthermore, a number of “grassroots” and religious non-governmental organizations and even politicians are suspected of actively lobbying for the Islamic Republic by pushing for greater diplomatic and business ties between Ottawa and Tehran. The extent of the sympathy for the regime was on display in January when many Canadian-Iranians demonstrated in support of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Qods Force, the IRGC’s external operations branch, after his death in a U.S. air strike.
Canada is also reportedly a base for the regime’s money-laundering. Iran’s inability to access the global banking system has forced the regime to rely more heavily on the hawala informal banking mechanism to move money around the Western world. The profusion of informal Iranian currency exchanges in cities such as Toronto may also be a worrying indicator, although the extent of the regime’s illicit financial activities remains unclear given Ottawa’s habit of looking the other way. Some Canadian officials may be tempted to view the large inflow of funds from Iran as beneficial for the Canadian economy.
The Islamic Republic’s actions over the past few months, from the massacre of 1,500 peaceful Iranian protesters in November to the downing of Flight 572, demonstrate that only a policy of pressure can protect Canadian interests in the face of this malign regime. Moreover, it will have to be sustained pressure. One or two gestures will not persuade the regime that Canada has gotten tough. The regime is also likely to test Canada’s resolve with new provocations to see if Ottawa returns to its old ways at the first sign of danger. Yet in the midst of a deep, multi-year recession and domestic unrest – both brought on by American sanctions – the Islamic Republic has to pick its fights carefully.
Ottawa’s first step in this new direction should be the designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist organization. So far, Canada has designated only the IRGC’s Qods Force as a terrorist organization, despite a parliamentary motion recommending that the entire IRGC be designated as such.
The U.S. designation of the entire IRGC has improved Washington’s ability to punish those who provide material support to the Guard, making banks, businesses, and other financial institutions even more careful in their transactions with the Islamic Republic. Similarly, Ottawa’s designation of the entire IRGC would prohibit Canadian companies from engaging with entities affiliated with the Guard, which controls most of the Iranian economy. The terrorist designation would also pave the way for enhanced investigation of the Guard’s assets and networks in Canada under the Anti-terrorism Act. Designating the entire IRGC will send an unmistakable message that Canada’s government will no longer placate the Islamic Republic as it increasingly targets Canadian security in Canada and abroad.
*Alireza Nader is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from Alireza and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Alireza on Twitter @AlirezaNader. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Arrests in Germany highlight reach of Islamic State’s Central Asian network
Thomas Joscelyn/FDD/April 21/2020
Last week, German authorities announced the arrests of four alleged Islamic State members. The suspects — identified as Azizjon B., Muhammadali G., Farhodshoh K. and Sunatullokh K. — are accused of planning attacks on U.S. military facilities and personnel. All four are from Tajikistan, a country the former caliphate has long targeted for recruiting purposes. And the recent arrests highlight the global dimension of this Central Asian network.
According to a report by the Associated Press, German prosecutors say the quartet joined the Islamic State in Jan. 2019, well after the peak of the group’s strength. Their ringleader, another Tajik identified as Ravsan B., was jailed in Mar. 2019. But this didn’t stop their plotting. The accused first considered an attack inside their home country, but then shifted their attention to U.S. Air Force bases and “a person they deemed critical of Islam.” Their plot was allegedly financed with $40,000 Ravsan B. received for an aborted assassination in Albania.
The AP reports that the cell members “are alleged to have been in contact with two high-ranking ISIS figures in Syria and Afghanistan.” If this is verified, then ISIS has retained a command and control structure that is still capable of influencing or directing international plots — even though the organization’s plans are routinely foiled.
The role of Tajiks in this purported plot is noteworthy. The Islamic State has had cells in Tajikistan for years, while also recruiting Tajiks to fight in Afghanistan.
On July 29, 2018, five young men, or adolescents, drove their vehicle into foreign cyclists. They then jumped out of the car and started stabbing the cyclists with knives – killing four people, including two Americans. Islamic State members and followers have executed similar operations everywhere from Ohio to London.
Shortly afterwards, Amaq News Agency, the so-called caliphate’s daily reporting shop, released a video of the youth swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before their hour of attack. The video followed the same format as numerous others produced by Amaq after terrorist operations around the globe.
ISIS-K identified one of the two terrorists for a Mar. 6 attack in Kabul as Ahmad al-Tajiki.
One year later, in July 2019, a UN expert monitoring team released a report that documented the Islamic State’s efforts to recruit a base of Tajiks in Afghanistan. UN member states identified one Tajik, Sayvaly Shafiev (also known as “Mauaviya”), as a senior member of the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch (ISIS-K). At the time, Shafiev was assessed to be operating in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, where he led a “contingent of approximately 200 fighters” from Central Asia. Shafiev also served on the ISIS-K’s “leadership body, or shura” council. The UN report’s authors also noted that Shafiev was recruiting “Tajik fighters” while raising “funds using online propaganda in the Tajik language.”
thnic Tajiks have carried out terrorist operations inside Afghanistan. For instance, on Mar. 6 of this year, ISIS-K assaulted a memorial service in Kabul for Abdul Ali Mazari, an ethnic Hazara leader who was killed by the Taliban in 1995. Dozens were killed or wounded in the terrorist attack. ISIS-K identified one of the two terrorists responsible as Ahmad al-Tajiki – an alias indicating his Tajik nationality.
*Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
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Iran’s new frontline with America in the Gulf and Syria
Iran wants to remove the US from Iraq and Syria while also carrying out pinprick threats in the Gulf.
Seth Frantman/Jerusalem Post/April 21/2020
Iran is threatening the US in the Persian Gulf through new harassment of US naval vessels and messages demanding the US leave the region. It is part of Tehran’s Middle East game plan to try to remove the US from Iraq and Syria while also carrying out pinprick threats in the Gulf. Iran has harassed US ships in the Gulf for decades but the new rhetoric is designed to turn up the heat on this front. In Syria Iranian media is also messaging against the US, claiming the US “trains terrorists.”
With oil prices declining, the Gulf has less strategic value, but Iran nevertheless wants to stir up tensions. Last week eleven Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fast boats approached several US ships, including a ship conducting helicopter drills and a destroyer. The IRGC fast boats made dangerous maneuvers with 10 yards of the US navy and America released details about the incident.
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Over the next days IRGC said that US “terrorists” are the source of regional instability. Then Iran announced new armed drones and new long distance radar. It also unveiled new anti-tank rounds that it says can be dropped from drones. This was designed to up the pressure. Iran went further over the weekend, announcing new naval missiles it says can reach 700km and also urging “foreign forces to leave after incident.” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani phoned his Kuwaiti counterparts and informed them of Iranian anger about the US presence.
This is a full court press by Iran. The IRGC threatens the US and the Iranian foreign ministry also releases statements against the US “illegitimate” presence. “We want them to leave the region as soon as possible,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi. The IRGC warns the US that even the slightest mistake will be “the last one.” The IRGC Navy accuses the US of “adventurism” and Iran claims the US has interdicted 550 oil tankers in the Gulf. To show off its willingness to confront the US the Iranian website Tasnim published videos of US warships taken at night on April 7.
In Syria Iranian media is also on a full-court press, claiming the US is “training terrorists” at a base where US troops are located called Tanf. This narrative asserts a conspiracy theory that Iran and Russian media have pushed in the past. Tasnim news claimed over the weekend that the US was training ISIS. As part of the rhetoric against the US presence in Syria Iran claims that Syrian regime members found US ordnance in Quneitra’s countryside, a remnant of US support for Syrian rebels during the civil war.
To undermine the US presence in Syria Iran’s media spreads rumors about the Syrian regime’s successes. Press TV claims that “members of the last remaining US-backed military group in Syria have fled an occupied American military base…defecting to the Damascus army that is on the verge of winning the war against Takfiri terrorists.” At the same time Iranian media pushes reports that the US is paying Syrians in eastern Syria up to $350 a month to guard oil wells. These oil fields now are less relevant due to declining oil prices. However, Iran has a sophisticated information warfare department that pushes various rumors about the US presence in Iraq and Syria. All of this is designed to undermine the US presence.
To cement its close relationship with the Syrian regime, which Iran has backed, Tehran sent foreign minister Javad Zarif to Syria on Monday. Wearing a facemask to hide his usual smile he met with the Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad. They slammed US sanctions on Iran as inhumane. Zarif’s visit was marred by airstrikes that occurred in on the night after his visit. Otherwise, he and Assad basked in the feeling that Iran is slowly rolling back the US presence in the region and able to threaten US forces at a time of their choosing over several thousand miles of frontline from the Gulf to Syria.

Erdoğan's Turkey Is Not Coming Back
Daniel Pipes/National Interest/April 21/2020
دانيال بيبس: تركيا أردوغان لن تعود
TNI title: "8 Policy Recommendations for Dealing With the 'New' Turkey."
From 2002, when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party reached power, until about 2016, a debate raged among Turkey-watchers in the United States: Is Ankara still an ally?
Actually, due to nostalgia, that debate dragged on long after it was obvious that Turkey no longer was an ally. That issue, happily, is now closed; NATO membership notwithstanding, nobody seriously makes this claim anymore.
But a new debate has opened up: Is Turkey's hostility a temporary aberration or the long term new normal? Is it more like Necmettin Erbakan's coming to power in 1996-97 and Mohammed Mursi's in Egypt in 2012-13, or more like the Iranian Revolution, now in its fifth decade?
Opinion in Washington is divided. Broadly speaking, the president, Defense, State, and business interests argue for it being an aberration; they expect this unfortunate interlude to end with a cheery return to the good old days. Congress and most analysts argue for long-term change; that's my argument here.
To understand the American debate, one needs to go back to those good old days. The period from Turkey's accession to NATO in 1952 to the key election of 2002 lasted a round 50 years; U.S.-Turkish relations, though not without hitches (most notably mutual fury over Cyprus in 1964), were simple and good: Washington led, Ankara followed.
I had the opportunity to spend a week as a guest at the Foreign Ministry in Ankara in October 1992; my most distinct memory is the paucity of decision-making. Officials hung out by the fax machine for the Turkish embassy in Washington to send policy guidance. I exaggerate, but not by much. This arrangement worked well for both sides for a half-century; Turkey enjoyed protection from the Soviet Union, the United States could count on a reliable ally.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry is much busier than it used to be.
Two developments eroded this stability in the 1990s: the Soviet collapse and mainstream Turkish political parties declining into corruption and incompetence. Islamists, a minor force since the days of Atatürk, took advantage of these changes, coming briefly to power in 1996-97. The military shoved them aside without addressing underlying problems.
Then followed the wild 2002 election. The AK Party came out of nowhere to benefit from a peculiarity in the Turkish constitution establishing a 10 percent threshold of the total vote for a party to enter parliament. Only two parties exceeded the 10 percent minimum that year; the others, literally, won 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 percent. This oddity permitted the AKP, with one-third of the vote, to control two-thirds of parliament. The resulting shock devastated the opposition, which remained demoralized until finally rallying to a victory in Istanbul's mayor's race in 2019.
As for relations with the United States, the turning point came soon after the AKP's accession. On Mar. 1, 2003, the Turkish parliament refused to allow American troops to use Turkish territory as a base for war on Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. However stunning a change after 50 years' stalwart alliance, American officialdom shrugged off this rejection. President George W. Bush continued his close relations with Erdoğan, whom he personally helped get over a judicial ban and become prime minister. Barack Obama called Erdoğan one of his five favorite foreign leaders. Donald Trump flattered and appeased him.
The consistent friendliness of these three dissimilar presidents demonstrates the reluctance in the White House to acknowledge the fundamental changes in Turkey. Likewise, the DoD tried to keep the good old days going, the State Department conciliated, Boeing and other corporations wanted to keep selling.
In this spirit, the Executive Branch downplays that Turkey is ruled by an Islamist strongman who controls Turkey's most powerful institutions: the military, the intelligence services, the police, the judiciary, the banks, the media, the election boards, the mosques, and the educational system. More: Erdoğan has developed a private army, SADAT. He cracks down at will on whoever publicly disagrees with him; for instance, dare to sign a mild petition, you might be labeled a terrorist and end up in jail. As his popularity has waned, he has increasingly relied on electoral fraud, jailing opposition leaders and having his goons attack the offices of rival parties.
Not only are Erdoğan and the AKP entrenched in power but they have molded an entire generation and are transforming the country. It helps to see Turkey undergoing a version of Iran's Islamic revolution. We are witnessing in slow-motion a second Iran in the making, less violent and dramatic, more sophisticated and potentially more enduring. Using computer terminology, Khomeini was Islamism 1.0, Erdoğan is 2.0, maybe even 3.0.
A massive shift in Turkish attitudes towards the West in general, the United States in particular, has followed. In 2000, shortly before Erdoğan came to office, polls showed slightly over half of Turks favorable to America; this plummeted to 18 percent during his term. Anti-Americanism is now rampant in politics, the media, movies, school textbooks, mosque sermons, and beyond.
The hostility has become mutual. Anger over Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system led Congress to exclude it from the F-35 program. After decades of avoiding a vote on an Armenian genocide resolution out of concern for Turkish sensibilities, the House in 2019 voted 405 to 11 in favor of it; the Senate passed the bill by a voice vote.
There is little reason to expect that Americans will find a friendlier reception in Ankara after Erdoğan goes. Yes, he is sixty-six years old and reputedly suffers from various illnesses. But candidates bruited as his successor (such as Süleyman Soylu) adhere closely to his outlook. Further, the other major political strands in Turkey, the nationalists and leftists, are even more hostile than Erdoğan's party. With the exception of the Kurdish HDP, all the other parties sitting in Turkey's parliament; (MHP, CHP Iyi) are more anti-American than the AKP. They actually accuse Erdoğan of being pro-American.
In conclusion, American policies must not be based on the hope that Turkey will come back. It is gone, as Iran is gone. Not forever, but for the duration. The U.S. government needs to prepare long term for a nasty, perhaps a rogue Ankara. Here are eight policy recommendations, starting with the least consequential, to deal with the new Turkey:
Fethullah Gülen must not be sent back to Turkey.
1. Complain, condemn, and to some extent take action over a range of foreign issues such as the Turks supporting ISIS, invading Syria, depriving of Syria and Iraq of riverine water, mounting an expedition to Libya, and drilling in the Cypriot exclusive economic zone.
2. Publicly reject the extradition request for Fethullah Gülen, Erdoğan's former ally and now his mortal political enemy who lives in Pennsylvania.
3. Invite Kurds, Gülenists, opposition parliamentary figures, and others, to high-level meetings in Washington, to signal support for them.
4. Disengage economically. For example, prohibit the purchase of Turkish sovereign debt, exclude Turkish energy companies, and issue anti-dumping duties on steel.
5. Add Turkey to the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) as a response to Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system.
6. Remove nuclear weapons from Incirlik, a NATO air base in Turkey. Access to the base is sometimes restricted. The weapons cannot be loaded on the planes stationed there. The Turks could seize the weapons.
7. Remove U.S. troops from Turkey.
8. Expel Turkey from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although NATO bylaws do not offer a means to oust members, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties allows a unanimous majority to throw out a rogue state. It's just conceivable that this can be done. So, let's do it.
*Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2020 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

This Pandemic Will Lead to Social Revolutions
Andreas Kluth/Bloomberg/April 21/2020
The most misleading cliche about the coronavirus is that it treats us all the same. It doesn’t, neither medically nor economically, socially or psychologically. In particular, COVID-19 exacerbates preexisting conditions of inequality wherever it arrives. Before long, this will cause social turmoil, up to and including uprisings and revolutions.
Social unrest had already been increasing around the world before SARS-CoV-2 began its journey. According to one count, there have been about 100 large anti-government protests since 2017, from the gilets jaunes riots in a rich country like France to demonstrations against strongmen in poor countries such as Sudan and Bolivia. About 20 of these uprisings toppled leaders, while several were suppressed by brutal crackdowns and many others went back to simmering until the next outbreak.
The immediate effect of COVID-19 is to dampen most forms of unrest, as both democratic and authoritarian governments force their populations into lockdowns, which keep people from taking to the streets or gathering in groups. But behind the doors of quarantined households, in the lengthening lines of soup kitchens, in prisons and slums and refugee camps — wherever people were hungry, sick and worried even before the outbreak — tragedy and trauma are building up. One way or another, these pressures will erupt.
The coronavirus has thus put a magnifying glass on inequality both between and within countries. In the US, there’s been a move by some of the very wealthy to “self-isolate” on their Hamptons estates or swanky yachts — one Hollywood mogul swiftly deleted an Instagram picture of his $590 million boat after a public outcry. Even the merely well-heeled can feel pretty safe working from home via Zoom and Slack.
But countless other Americans don’t have that option. Indeed, the less money you make, the less likely you are to be able to work remotely (see the chart below). Lacking savings and health insurance, these workers in precarious employment have to keep their gigs or blue-collar jobs, if they’re lucky enough still to have any, just to make ends meet. As they do, they risk getting infected and bringing the virus home to their families, which, like poor people everywhere, are already more likely to be sick and less able to navigate complex health-care mazes. And so the coronavirus is coursing fastest through neighborhoods that are cramped, stressful and bleak. Above all, it disproportionately kills black people.
Even in countries without long histories of racial segregation, the virus prefers some zip codes over others. That’s because everything conspires to make each neighborhood its own sociological and epidemiological petri dish — from average incomes and education to apartment size and population density, from nutritional habits to patterns of domestic abuse. In the euro zone, for example, high-income households have on average almost double the living space as those in the bottom decile: 72 square meters (775 square feet) against only 38.
The differences between nations are even bigger. To those living in a shantytown in India or South Africa, there’s no such thing as “social distancing,” because the whole family sleeps in one room. There’s no discussion about whether to wear masks because there aren’t any. More hand-washing is good advice, unless there’s no running water.
And so it goes, wherever SARS-CoV-2 shows up. The International Labor Organization has warned that it will destroy 195 million jobs worldwide, and drastically cut the income of another 1.25 billion people. Most of them were already poor. As their suffering worsens, so do other scourges, from alcoholism and drug addiction to domestic violence and child abuse, leaving whole populations traumatized, perhaps permanently.
In this context, it would be naive to think that, once this medical emergency is over, either individual countries or the world can carry on as before. Anger and bitterness will find new outlets. Early harbingers include millions of Brazilians banging pots and pans from their windows to protest against their government, or Lebanese prisoners rioting in their overcrowded jails.
In time, these passions could become new populist or radical movements, intent on sweeping aside whatever ancien regime they define as the enemy. The great pandemic of 2020 is therefore an ultimatum to those of us who reject populism. It demands that we think harder and more boldly, but still pragmatically, about the underlying problems we confront, including inequality. It’s a wake-up call to all who hope not just to survive the coronavirus, but to survive in a world worth living in.

The Road to Reopening the Economy Is Still Long
Mark Gongloff/Bloomberg/April 21/2020
Last week, which was 84 years ago, we wrote the pandemic-gripped world is like that kid on the long car ride asking “Are we there yet?” The analogy was off by just a bit, at least in the US: Here, that impatient kid is actually driving the car.
President Donald Trump has obviously been itching to end lockdowns, and yesterday he released guidelines on how states could do it. These were surprisingly deferential to governors, but that didn’t last long. This morning he was on Twitter, calling on Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia to “LIBERATE” themselves from sheltering orders imposed by Democratic governors. His reopening plan emphasizes caution, but it’s full of loopholes, notes Max Nisen, and now Trump is screaming at the top of his Twitter-lungs that states should use them.
The question of lockdown vs. no lockdown is not the simple trade-off skeptics claim, writes Noah Smith. Impatience will end up both killing more people and hurting the economy even more. And though we may have begun to flatten the curve of the pandemic, data from Italy and Spain suggest we’ve just climbed to the top of a flat but very long hill that slopes gradually downward, writes Cathy O’Neil. It’s far too soon to declare victory.
Over all of this hangs our main problem, which is that we can’t safely reopen anything without much, much more testing. Michael Lewis profiles a scientist in San Francisco who built a lab on the fly to run thousands of tests a day quickly, but even he is limited by a lack of equipment, particularly the long swabs you jab up a patient’s nose to get a sample.
An effective treatment would be the best way to get people back to work quickly, and yesterday we got hopeful news on that front, from a small study of a Gilead Sciences antiviral drug. It was one of what Faye Flam calls this week’s four big scientific advances against the disease. But the study was small, lacked a control group and had other limitations that make it way too early to declare this a miracle drug, writes Max Nisen. The stock market of course went ahead and added many billions to Gilead’s market cap. Impatience is also contagious.
Investor optimism in general is out of control, in fact. Stocks capped a second week of rallying today, merely on the promise of a reopening plan. But we still have no idea how bad the pandemic will get, how long it will take to get things close to normal and how much all of this will destroy earnings, writes Marcus Ashworth. Without insight on all of the above, this rally isn’t durable.
Among the biggest market winners are health-insurance companies, which are thriving during the pandemic because they’re not having to pay as much for delayed surgeries and other procedures, notes John Authers. Investors also seem just a little too confident the current health-care system will come out of this intact — an iffy bet when the prospect of 20% unemployment has people questioning the wisdom of employer-based health care.
The pandemic and its accompanying economic crisis will spare no country, rich or poor. But the rich ones have a duty to help out the poor ones, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it will make fighting both the disease and the recession easier. With that in mind, rich countries should enforce a one-year moratorium on debt payments by emerging and middle-income countries, applied to all creditors, write George Soros and Chris Canavan. Otherwise we face a wave of sovereign defaults not seen since the 1930s. And that would help nobody.
Unfortunately, unlike in past crises, we can’t count on China to be the economic tractor pulling the rest of Asia out of the mud, warns Dan Moss.
But there are glimmers of a private-sector revival of the sense of patriotism and community that helped the recovery from World War II, writes Joe Nocera. Companies are rediscovering that helping their customers is ultimately good for business, which will hopefully be the end of a toxic fealty to shareholders above all else. In fact, shares of industrials focused on good environmental, social and governance practices are outperforming their peers during this crisis, writes Brooke Sutherland. Maybe companies can serve both society and shareholders at the same time.
Further Helpful Reading: One easy fix to the problems with the $2 trillion stimulus package: Give all working people a raise of $600 a week. — Karl Smith

Finding Europe's Hidden Conservatives
Daniel Pipes/Gatestone Institute/April 21/2020
Civilizationists' top concern is not battling climate change, building the European Union, or staving off Russian and Chinese aggression; rather, they focus on preserving Europe's historic civilization of the past two millennia. They worry about Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa.
That anxiety contains four elements: demography, immigration, multiculturalism, and Islamization (or DIMI, recalling the Arabic word dhimmi, the status of Jews and Christians who submit to the rule of Muslims).
Civilizationists... are already a powerful force, having advanced from a marginal position twenty years ago to a central role in many countries. They are the key opposition force in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. They have been or are part of the government in Austria, Estonia, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland. They govern in a coalition in Poland and on their own in Hungary.
On issues such as demography, immigration, multiculturalism and Islamization, the former Warsaw Pact countries, including the Visegrád Four (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary), have watched the mistakes of western Europe and resolved not to repeat them. Pictured: (From left) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini before the meeting the Visegrád Group + Austria summit on January 16, 2020 in Prague, Czech Republic. (Photo by Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images)
Does Europe have any conservatives? That is, believers in individual responsibility, national independence, free markets, a single law for all, the traditional family, and maximum freedom of speech and religion.
Seemingly not. Politicians called conservative -- such as Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacques Chirac of France, and Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden -- are often in reality mild leftists, as are their parties. One might conclude that conservatism is defunct in its homeland.
One would be wrong. A substantial conservative movement exists and is growing in Europe. It is hiding in plain sight, obscured by being tarred as populists, nationalists, extreme-right, or even neo-Nazis. I call this group by another name: civilizationists, acknowledging that (1) they focus on preserving Western civilization and (2) they forward some distinctly un-conservative policies (such as increased welfare and pension payments).
Civilizationists' top concern is not battling climate change, building the European Union, or staving off Russian and Chinese aggression; rather, they focus on preserving Europe's historic civilization of the past two millennia. They worry about Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa. Already, indigenous Europeans complain of feeling like strangers in their hometowns, of pensioners too scared to leave their houses, and of a school's few Christian and Jewish students beat up by immigrant bullies. Imagine how things will look as the proportions change.
The civilizationists' anxiety contains four main elements: demography, immigration, multiculturalism and Islamization (or DIMI, recalling the Arabic word dhimmi, the status of Jews and Christians who submit to the rule of Muslims).
DIMI's quartet are closely related: Demographic failure creates a need for Immigration which encourages a Multiculturalism that prominently features Islamization.
Start with demographics: Each year, because of its low birth rate of about 1.5 children per woman, the indigenous population of Europe declines by more than one million persons, a number that steadily increases over time. To maintain the population requires an annual immigration of more than that number (few immigrants arrive in Europe as newborns).
The potential pool of immigrants vastly exceeds that number. To cite just two figures: A former Iranian minister of agriculture predicts that, due to water shortages, up to 70% of the country's population, or 57 million Iranians, will emigrate. The population of Africa is expected to triple by the year 2100, leading to hundreds of millions seeking homes in Europe. One-quarter of the European Union's population in thirty years will be of African origin, according to Stephen Smith.
Non-Western immigration brings a variety of practical difficulties: new diseases, linguistic incomprehension, a lack of necessary work skills, and high unemployment.
Multiculturalism results from a mix of immigrant assertiveness and European guilt and self-doubts. Multiculturalism assumes cultures to be morally equivalent and sees no reason to prefer European civilization over any other. Burqas are as valid ball gowns, burkinis as bikinis.
Finally, Islamization brings a number of hostile actions and superior attitudes incompatible with existing Western ways: compulsory headscarves, partial no-go zones, taharrush (sexual predation), förnedringsrån (humiliation robberies), rape gangs, slavery, first-cousin marriages, polygyny, honor killings, female genital mutilation, the Rushdie Rules, jihadi violence, imposing Islamic law on all, and a deep nihilism.
The Establishment, or what I call the "Six Ps" (police, politicians, press, priests, professors, and prosecutors) tends to respond smugly to the DIMI quartet. Focused on the negatives in Europe's history, especially imperialism, fascism, and racism, the elite expresses a pervasive guilt and generally acquiesces to, or even encourages, a transformation of Europe away from its historic culture.
Civilizationists respond to this trend with conservative alarm and work to resist that transformation. They do not feel guilty; on the contrary, they appreciate national traditions, and they see Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa as a collapse of values and an as existential cultural threat.
The Establishment dismisses them as old-fashioned, weak, elderly, ignorant losers. Even analysts sympathetic to civilizationists, including distinguished writers such as Bat Ye'or, Oriana Fallaci and Mark Steyn, see the cause as lost, and see "Londonistan" and the Islamic Republic of France as inevitable.
But it is not. Civilizationists are already a powerful force, having advanced from a marginal position twenty years ago to a central role in many countries. They have been or are the main parliamentary opposition in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. They have been or are part of the government in Austria, Estonia, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland. They govern in a coalition in Poland and on their own in Hungary. Their failure is far from inevitable.
In this light, some predictions:
First, because no one says, "I used to worry about DIMI but no longer," the number of civilizationists will continue to grow. Within 15 or at most 20 years they are likely to dominate Europe's politics, with the possible major exception of the United Kingdom, where they are stalled. After a long and bitter struggle, this countermovement to restore traditional ways will ultimately prevail.
Second, the civilizationists have three paths to power: control of the government, as in Hungary and Poland; joining with nominal conservatives, as in Austria; or joining with the Left, as in Italy. Also, in limited ways, the Left itself can bring some conservative ideas to power, as in Denmark. Further new paths may yet appear.
Third, the former Warsaw Pact countries will lead the way toward this future. Watching the mistakes of NATO Europe, they resolve not to repeat them. This includes the Visegrád Four (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary) as well as eastern Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria. The eastern part of Europe has for a millennium lagged behind the western part, so this is a remarkable turnaround.
Fourth, civilizationists are hardly known for their intellectualism or principles, so seeing them as conservatives may come as a surprise. But they are moving erratically in that direction. What begins with instinct, raw populism, and crude majoritarianism is evolving into something more refined, as civilizationists move to the political center to win support. Experience modulates self-indulgence. Intellectuals are emerging; these include Douglas Murray (UK), Alejandro Macarón (Spain), Renaud Camus (France). Bat Ye'or (Switzerland), Thilo Sarrazin (Germany), Christian Zeitz (Austria), Viktor Orbán (Hungary), and Lars Hedegaard (Denmark).
Staving off the crisis created by demographics, immigration, multiculturalism and Islamization means preserving the continent's best features. Civilizationists represent the hope for conservatism and for the future of Europe.
*Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. This article is based on a talk presented at a conference on National Conservatism. © 2020. All rights reserved.
© 2020 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.

How “the Evil Called Barack Obama” Enabled the Genocidal Slaughter of Nigerian Christians
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/April 21/2020
Not only is Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari behind what several international observers are calling a “genocide” of Christians in his nation, but Barack Hussein Obama played a major role in the Muslim president’s rise to power: these two interconnected accusations are increasingly being made—not by “xenophobic” Americans but Nigerians themselves, including several leaders and officials.
Most recently, Femi Fani-Kayode, Nigeria’s former minister of culture and tourism, wrote in a Facebook post:
What Obama, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton did to Nigeria by funding and supporting Buhari in the 2015 presidential election and helping Boko Haram in 2014/2015 was sheer wickedness and the blood of all those killed by the Buhari administration, his Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram over the last 5 years are on their hands.
Kerry’s and Clinton’s appeasement of Boko Haram—an Islamic terror organization notorious for massacring, enslaving, and raping Christians, and bombing and burning their churches—is apparently what connects them to this “sheer wickedness.”
For example, after a Nigerian military offensive killed 30 Boko Haram terrorists in 2013, then secretary of state Kerry “issued a strongly worded statement” to Buhari’s predecessor, President Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015), a Christian. In it, Kerry warned Jonathan that “We are … deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations” against the terrorists.
Similarly, during her entire tenure as secretary of state, Clinton repeatedly refused to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, despite nonstop pressure from lawmakers, human rights activists, and lobbyists—not to mention Boko Haram’s increasingly worsening atrocities against Nigerian Christians.
“Those of you that still love the evil called Barack Obama,” Fani-Kayode added in his post, “should listen to this short clip and tell me if you still do.” He was referring to a recent Al Jazeera video interview of Eeben Barlow, a former lieutenant-colonel of the South African Defence Force and chairman of a private military company hired in 2015 by Jonathan, when still president, to help defeat Boko Haram.
“In one month,” Barlow said in the interview, “we took back terrain larger than Belgium from Boko Haram. We were not allowed to finish because it came at a time when governments were in the process of changing,” he said in reference to Nigeria’s 2015 presidential elections. “The incoming president, President Buhari, was heavily supported by a foreign government, and one of the first missions [of Buhari] was to terminate our contract.”
On being asked if he could name the “foreign government,” the former lieutenant-colonel said, “Yes, we were told it was the United States, and they had actually funded President Buhari’s campaign, and the campaign manager for President Buhari came from the US. And I am not saying the United States is bad—I understand foreign interests—but I would have thought that a threat such as Boko Haram on the integrity of the state of Nigeria ought to be actually a priority. It wasn’t.”
Fani-Kayode was quick to add in his Facebook post that it would have been the priority had Obama not been president: “I just thank God for Donald Trump,” the former minister wrote. “Had he been President of America in 2015 things would have been very different, Jonathan would have won, Boko Haram would have been history and the Fulani herdsmen would never have seen the light of day.”
Fani-Kayode and Barlow are not alone in accusing Obama of “heavily supporting” and “actually funding” a presidential candidate who, since becoming president, has increasingly turned a blind eye to the worsening slaughter of Christians at the hands of Muslims—that is, when not actively exacerbating it, including with jet fighters. In 2018, former president Jonathan himself revealed that,
On March 23, 2015, President Obama himself took the unusual step of releasing a video message directly to Nigerians all but telling them how to vote… Those who understood subliminal language deciphered that he was prodding the electorate to vote for the [Buhari/Muslim-led] opposition to form a new government… The message was so condescending, it was as if Nigerians did not know what to do and needed an Obama to direct them.
Between 2011 and 2015, and supposedly because they were angry at having a Christian president, Boko Haram slaughtered thousands of Christians, particularly those living in the Muslim majority north, and destroyed countless churches. In 2015—and thanks to Obama—Nigeria’s Muslims finally got what they want: a Muslim president in the person of Muhammadu Buhari.
As seen, however, not only did he immediately rescue Boko Haram from imminent defeat, as former lieutenant-colonel Eeben Barlow has now revealed; but atrocities against Christians have gotten significantly worse since Buhari replaced Jonathan—they are now regularly characterized as a “pure genocide”—particularly at the hands of Muslim Fulani herdsmen, the ethnic tribe whence Buhari himself happens to hail. Thus according to a March 8, 2020 report titled, “Nigeria: A Killing Field of Defenseless Christians,”
Available statistics have shown that between 11,500 and 12,000 Christian deaths were recorded in the past 57 months or since June 2015 when the present central [Buhari-led] government of Nigeria came on board. Out of this figure, Jihadist Fulani herdsmen accounted for 7,400 Christian deaths, Boko Haram 4,000 and the ‘Highway Bandits’ 150-200.”
How and why Fulani tribesman have managed to kill nearly twice as many Christians as the “professional” terrorists of Boku Haram—and exponentially more Christians than under Jonathan—may be discerned from the following quotes by various Christian leaders and others:
“They [Fulani] want to strike Christians, and the government does nothing to stop them, because President Buhari is also of the Fulani ethnic group.”— Bishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Lafia, 2018.
“Under President Buhari, the murderous Fulani herdsmen enjoyed unprecedented protection and favoritism… Rather than arrest and prosecute the Fulani herdsmen, security forces usually manned by Muslims from the North offer them protection as they unleash terror with impunity on the Nigerian people.”— Musa Asake, the General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria, 2018.
Buhari “is openly pursuing an anti-Christian agenda that has resulted in countless murders of Christians all over the nation and destruction of vulnerable Christian communities.”— Bosun Emmanuel, the secretary of the National Christian Elders Forum, 2018.
Buhari “is himself from the jihadists’ Fulani tribe, so what can you expect?” — Emmanuel Ogebe, Washington DC-based human rights lawyer, in conversation with me, 2018.
Based on all these developments, statistics and accusations, it seems clear that the Muslim president is behind the unfolding genocide of Christians in Nigeria—and Obama helped.
*Raymond Ibrahim, author most recently of Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Shillman fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Why global leaders are right to avoid giving deadlines to lift coronavirus lockdowns
Omar Al-Ubaydli//Al Arabiya/April 21/2020
In the midst of economically crippling lockdowns, global leaders are largely refraining from giving deadlines for the relaxation of social distancing measures. Uncertainty about the virus’ spread is only half of the story; after all, politicians are usually quite happy to make empty promises or baseless predictions regarding future scenarios.
A new research paper—based on the Italian experience—clarifies why the coronavirus requires a different approach. When governments publicly announce durations for social distancing which they then go on to violate, those who were heavily anchored on what was initially announced suffer a robust psychological shock, and respond by diminishing their willingness to voluntarily comply with social distancing measures. In contrast, those who were anticipating an extension are mentally unperturbed, and maintain their adherence to social distancing measures.
For this reason, governments are starting to learn—some of them the hard way—that in terms of expectations management, and therefore compliance with social distancing measures, it is preferable to make vague statements about the expected duration of restrictions.
Economist Guglielmo Briscese (the University of Chicago, USA) and his colleagues arrived at this conclusion by conducting a survey of a representative sample of Italian residents’ beliefs and intentions regarding social distancing measures over the period 18-20 March 2020, one week after the Italian government had imposed a national closure of most retail stores, restaurants, and personal services; and a few days before the suspension of all non-essential economic activities.
From the perspective of global leaders, Italy’s experience is highly valuable as a source of information on best practices, for several reasons. First, it was the first European country to experience the pandemic acutely, meaning that it yields more data from which to draw evidence-based inferences than other members of the western world.
Second, Italy’s social norms involve highly tactile interactions between people—hugs and kisses between acquaintances are common, making it more suitable for studying the challenges of social distancing compliance than countries with less tactile cultures, such as Norway or Japan. This is especially important for countries in the Middle East, where holding and shaking hands are extremely prevalent. Moreover, also like the Middle East, trigenerational households are far more common in Italy than in Sweden, also making it a more suitable source of evidence for policymakers in much of the developing world.
Third, Italy has low trust in government, ranking 122nd in the world in 2017, compared to third place for New Zealand and fifth place for Finland. Since it is the government that is demanding that citizens observe social distancing guidelines, and governments have limited coercive measures at their disposal, people’s trust in their government is a critical determinant of compliance. In this regard, Italy is much more representative of the challenges that governments typically face in ensuring compliance than the high-trust countries of Scandinavia.
Dr. Briscese and his colleagues describe a cognitive bias known as the “goal-gradient” effect: the farther one is from a goal, the less likely one is to exert effort to achieve it. In the context of the coronavirus, they predict that “moving the goalpost” of when isolation measures will be lifted creates frustration, disenchantment, and eventually non-compliance. They note the existence of similar mechanisms in airlines when flights are delayed, announcements are made about the expected delay, and then the actual delay ends up being worse; the result is significant damage to the airline’s reputation among passengers, and an elevated desire to switch to competitors.
However, in the case of airlines, the costs of a poorly-executed expectations management strategy by customer service teams is borne by the airline and aggrieved customers only; in contrast, in the coronavirus case, society ultimately shares the cost too, because of the contagion consequences of a failure to comply with social distancing measures.
In the Italian case, the survey data revealed that participants were more likely to express an intention to reduce their self-isolation effort if “negatively surprised” (meaning that their expectations turned out to be over-optimistic) by a hypothetical extension to the social distancing measures. Moreover, this intention was stronger among participants who reported higher compliance with the social distancing measures, and who were therefore making a critical contribution to the country’s efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus.
It is possible that this kind of thinking explains the Saudi Health Minister Tawfiq Rabia’s recent declaration that tackling the coronavirus will take a minimum of four months, and up to one year, deciding against providing specific short-term “reassessment” dates.
Yet notably, Rabia also chose to say something, rather than nothing at all, which reflects one of the broader lessons learned from the current pandemic: good communication is a critical component of good crisis management.
Some governments have adroitly kept their citizens abreast of their coronavirus strategies, securing trust and compliance; others continue to pay the price for the communications-analog to an ostrich burying its head in the sand. As George Bernard Shaw once quipped: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
*Omar Al-Ubaydli (@omareconomics) is a researcher at Derasat, Bahrain