LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
December 21/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man
Colossians03/01-17/:” 1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory. Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. For these things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. You also once walked in those, when you lived in them; but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth. Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator, where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, or free person; but Christ is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do. Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on December 120-21/2019
Hale Meets with Aoun, Berri and Hariri, Urges Reform
Paris Urges 'Competent' Lebanese Govt. to Implement Reforms
Hariri receives Japanese official
Lebanon's New PM Says He Plans Technocratic Cabinet
Lebanon’s new PM designate says govt will be formed within a six-week period
Diab Vows No Time Waste, Intensification of Consultations
Hariri Receives Diab
Diab Expects Full Western Support
Hassan Diab, Lebanon's 'Technocratic' PM-Designate
Roadblocks Across Lebanon as Anger Mounts Over PM Pick
Hariri: Listen to the People
Hariri Urges Supporters Not to Block Roads, Calls for Calm
Clashes Renew between Army, Mustaqbal Supporters in Corniche al-Mazraa
Hariri Supporters Scuffle with Army over Road Blocking
Clashes Renew between Army, Mustaqbal Supporters in Corniche al-Mazraa
Public Outcry, Roadblocks across Lebanon over PM Pick

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2019
UN Experts Slam Reported 'Torture' of Detained Iran Protesters
US will ‘curb malign Iranian behavior’ if it doesn't stop
UN Adopts Resolution Condemning Iran’s Human Rights Violations
Japan briefs Iran on plan to send forces to Middle East
Japan PM Pushes Iran's Rouhani to Stick to Nuclear Deal
Iraq's Sistani Urges Elections to End Crisis
Russia, backed by China, casts UN veto on Syria to block cross-border aid
Arab League Slams Brazil for Trade Office in Jerusalem
Abbas Insists on Holding Elections in Jerusalem
Algerian President Pledges ‘Extensive Constitutional Reforms’
LNA Forces Strengthen Advances in Tripoli, Threaten Turkey
Egypt’s Army Looks Forward to More Cooperation With African Countries
First Direct British Flight Arrives in Sharm El-Sheikh
Cyprus rallies neighbors to buck Turkey-Libya maritime deal
Erdogan says Turkey will retaliate against possible US sanctions
More than 80 dead in latest Syria clashes: War monitor

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2019
Lebanon's Vital Tourism Industry Takes Huge Hit amid Turmoil/Associated Press/Naharnet/December 20/2019
Beirut's Duty-Free operator fined for violating Dollar-Lira peg/Christina Farhat/Annahar/December 20/2019
HRW calls for investigations on the use of violence on protesters/Tala Ramadan/Annahar/December 20/2019
Lebanon: Sunni Majority’s Abstention to Nominate Diab Renews Talks on National Pact/Mohammed Shokair/ Asharq Al-Awsat/December 20/2019
U.S. Releases Aid to Lebanon Despite Fears Money Could Help Hezbollah Terrorists/Adam Kredo/The Washington Free Beacon/December 20/2019
*A Piece of Meat”: How Some Muslim Men See White Women/Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/December 20/2019
Cursed Democracy/Dr. Amal Moussa/Asharq Al Awsat/December, 20/2019
Britain: Flushing Out the Corbynista/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/December, 20/2019
Iran’s disastrous year in political risk analysis/Dr. John C. Hulsman/Arab News/December 20, 2019
Daesh is down but still not out/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arab News/December 20, 2019
Globalization’s values are being held hostage by right-wing populism/Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/December 20, 2019
Turkey Pivots to Tripoli: Implications for Libya’s Civil War and U.S. Policy/
Soner Cagaptay and Ben Fishman/The Washington Institute/December 19/ 2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on December 20-21/2019
Hale Meets with Aoun, Berri and Hariri, Urges Reform
Naharnet/December 20/2019
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale arrived in Beirut to meet with a broad range of Lebanese officials, the U.S. embassy said in a statement on Friday. Hale held talks with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace after which he read a statement saying his visit to Lebanon came at the request of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Hale did not directly comment on Hassan Diab's appointment as PM-designate, saying only that the United States "has no role in saying who should lead" a Cabinet in Lebanon or anywhere else. "I'm here to encourage Lebanon's political leaders to commit to, and undertake, meaningful, sustained reforms that can lead to a stable, prosperous and secure Lebanon," he said after meeting with Aoun. "It's time to put aside partisan interests and act in the national interest, advancing reforms and forming a government that is committed to undertaking those reforms and capable of doing so," he added. As for the popular uprising that has been rocking Lebanon since October 17, Hale said "the unified, non-sectarian, and largely peaceful protests over the last 65 days reflect the Lebanese people’s longstanding and frankly legitimate demand for economic and institutional reform, better governance, and an end to endemic corruption." "America calls on the security forces to continue to guarantee the safety of protesters as they engage in peaceful demonstrations, and for restraint by all. Violence has no place in civil discourse," he added. "America wants Lebanon and its people -- all of its people -- to succeed, and we will remain a committed partner in that effort," Hale went on to say. Later, Hale and the accompanying delegation met with caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the Center House. Discussions focused on the latest developments in Lebanon and the region and continued over lunch, Hariri's media office said. According to an English-language statement issued by Hariri's office, Hale said the U.S. is ready to help Lebanon "enter a new chapter of economic prosperity" if Lebanese leaders show a "visible and demonstrable commitment to reform." He then met with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh. Speaking after the talks, he said he is "disturbed by evidence that there have been groups who are seeking to undermine this non-violent" protest movement through "intimidation and physical attacks."During his visit, Hale, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon from 2013-2015, will underscore America’s commitment to its partnership with the state of Lebanon, a U.S. embassy statement.

Paris Urges 'Competent' Lebanese Govt. to Implement Reforms
Naharnet/December 20/2019
The French foreign ministry on Friday said that it is “up to the Lebanese officials” to form the new government, refusing to comment further on the appointment of Hassan Diab as PM-designate. A spokeswoman for the ministry however said that the formation of the new government should respect “the public interest of all Lebanese.”“The only criterion should be the competence of this government in order to serve the reforms that the people are awaiting,” she added.

Hariri receives Japanese official
NNA/December 20/2019
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri received this evening at the Center House the Japanese Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Keisuke Suzuki, accompanied by the Japanese Ambassador to Lebanon Takeshi Okubo. Discussions focused on the situation in Lebanon and the region and the bilateral relations between the two countries.

Lebanon's New PM Says He Plans Technocratic Cabinet
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Lebanese prime minister-designate Hassan Diab said Friday he wants to form a government of independent technocrats that can tackle the spiraling economic crisis as protests against his nomination spread. Speaking as visiting US envoy David Hale called for reforms, the Hezbollah-backed premier vowed to form an inclusive cabinet that would secure much-needed foreign aid. Diab, a little-known 60-year-old engineering professor, was designated on Thursday with the endorsement of Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies but without the backing of Lebanon's main Sunni bloc. The nomination of the independent former education minister and self-professed "technocrat" ended nearly two months of wrangling among lawmakers. But it fuelled anger among Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, who said the prime minister-designate did not enjoy the community's backing for a post reserved for a Sunni by a power-sharing system in force since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.The Sunni community's objections to Diab's nomination fly in the face of the non-sectarian ethos of the two-month-old protest movement, which has demanded an end to the communal power-sharing system it blames for entrenching cronyism and incompetence. For a second straight day, security forces in the capital scuffled with crowds of young men -- mainly supporters of former prime minister Saad Hariri -- trying to block roads in a Sunni district to condemn Diab's designation. In the mainly Sunni northern city of Tripoli, schools were closed and Diab opponents blocked roads, calling for a general strike, an AFP correspondent reported. The unrest prompted Hariri to call on his supporters to refrain from taking to the streets, in the second such appeal in two days.
Technocrat government
Diab on Friday met Hariri and other Sunni political figures who did not endorse his nomination the previous day. Following the meeting with Hariri, Diab said he wants to form "a government of independent technocrats" -- a key demand of protesters. "Hariri is giving his full support to the formation of this government," said Diab, who is also a vice president at Lebanon's prestigious American University of Beirut. Hariri had been tipped in recent days to return to his job, seven weeks after an unprecedented wave of protests condemning corruption and sectarianism forced him out. But the 49-year-old two-time premier bowed out on Wednesday, claiming that his political rivals were opposed to a technocrat-dominated government that he planned to form. On Thursday, his party stopped short of throwing its weight behind Diab, raising fears that a government lacking the support of all of Lebanon's factions could struggle to secure desperately needed foreign support to rescue an economy teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. But in an interview with Deutsche Welle aired on Friday, Diab said that he expected "full support from Europe and the US".He rejected suggestions that the support his nomination received from Hezbollah, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Washington, would hinder the disbursement of much-needed Western aid. "Everyone is willing to cooperate so that Lebanon can have an exceptional government that is not like its predecessors in the number of technocrats and women included," he said."I think the Americans, when such a government is formed, will lend support because it is a government that aims to rescue Lebanon."
US visit
The international community, which has been pressuring Lebanon to accelerate the formation of a new government, has yet to respond publicly to Diab's nomination. Hale, on a visit Friday to Beirut, did not directly comment on Diab's appointment, saying only that the United States "has no role in saying who should lead" a Cabinet in Lebanon or anywhere else. "I´m here to encourage Lebanon´s political leaders to commit to, and undertake, meaningful, sustained reforms that can lead to a stable, prosperous and secure Lebanon," he said after meeting with Michel Aoun. "It´s time to put aside partisan interests and act in the national interest, advancing reforms and forming a government that is committed to undertaking those reforms and capable of doing so." Picking a new premier was only the first step and agreeing on a full cabinet line-up could take time, with Diab himself giving a timeframe of four to six weeks. Diab is scheduled to begin consultations on Saturday. Following a meeting with President Michel Aoun, the former US ambassador to Lebanon urged authorities to "act in the national interest, advancing reforms and forming a government that is committed to undertaking those reforms."
Hale later met with parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Hariri. Hale is the most senior foreign diplomat to visit the country since mass protests erupted in mid-October. The sustained, leaderless protests forced Hariri's resignation within days but politicians were later unable to agree on a new prime minister. Friendly nations, including France, have made clear they will not support the heavily indebted nation before a reform-minded Cabinet is formed. While the huge crowds that filled the squares of Beirut and other Lebanese cities two months ago have dwindled, the protest movement has remained vibrant. Tensions have been heightened by the looming bankruptcy of the debt-burdened Lebanese state. The Lebanese pound, officially pegged to the US dollar, has lost around 30 percent of its value on the black market, while companies have been paying half-salaries for the past two months and laying off staff.

Lebanon’s new PM designate says govt will be formed within a six-week period
Reuters, Beirut/Friday, 20 December 2019
Lebanon’s new Hezbollah-backed Prime Minister Designate Hassan Diab said in an interview with Deutsche Welle he will work on forming a government within a period that does not exceed six weeks to help pull the country out of a deepening economic and political crisis.
Diab, an academic and former education minister, was designated on Thursday as the country’s next prime minister with the support of Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies. “Previous governments in the last decade took a year to form and I seek to form a government in the next four weeks or a period that does not exceed six weeks,” Diab said. The designation set the stage for a cabinet that excludes allies of the United States and Sunni Gulf Arab countries while underlining the influence of Iran’s friends in Lebanon. The move would complicate efforts to secure Western financial aid, analysts say. Senior US State Department official David Hale, who arrived on Friday to underline Washington’s support for Lebanon’s stability, urged the country’s bickering political leaders to implement speedy economic reforms. “I am here to encourage Lebanese political leaders to commit and undertake meaningful, sustained reforms that can lead to a stable, prosperous, secure Lebanon,” Under-Secretary David Hale said after meeting President Michel Aoun at Lebanon’s Baabda palace. “It’s time to put aside partisan interests and act in the national interest, advancing reforms and form a government committed to undertaking these reforms and capable of doing so,” Hale added. Lebanon, in its worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war, has been seeking a new government since Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on Oct. 29 in response to protests against the ruling elite. Diab, who failed to get the support of Hariri under a sectarian political system that leaves the post of premier to a Sunni Muslim, dismissed accusations that the government would be under the thumb of Hezbollah. Hariri is the country’s main Sunni politician. “This matter is silly because the new government will not be a government of a political grouping chosen from here or there,” Diab added.

Diab Vows No Time Waste, Intensification of Consultations
Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab on Friday warned that the situation in Lebanon “does not allow for any waste of time,” vowing to “intensify consultations to reach the result that the Lebanese are hoping for.” “The responsibility for Lebanon’s rise is huge and everyone is aware of the economic and financial challenge that the country is going though. Let us begin a new journey that resembles the will of the people,” Diab tweeted. “Your demands are rightful and they represent a groundwork for building a new state,” Diab added, addressing citizens and protesters. Diab’s non-binding consultations with the parliamentary blocs on the shape and line-up of the new government are scheduled for Saturday. Earlier on Friday, Diab said that he plans to form a government of experts and independents to deal with the country's crippling economic crisis. Diab spoke to reporters following a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a day after he was asked by the president to form the country's next government. Diab, a university professor and former education minister, won a majority of lawmakers' votes after receiving backing from the powerful Hizbullah and its allies. However, he lacks the support of major Sunni figures, including the largest Sunni party headed by Hariri. That is particularly problematic for Diab, who as a Sunni, lacks support from his own community. Diab, however, emerged from Friday's meeting with Hariri saying the atmosphere was "positive.""As an expert and an independent, my inclination is to form a government that is truly made up of experts and independents" Diab said. Shortly after he spoke, scuffles broke out between Hariri's supporters protesting on a Beirut street and army units, underlying the tension on the ground. "I ask them (protesters) to give us a chance to form an exceptional government" that can work on resolving the country's many problems, accumulated over the past 30 years, Diab said. Diab faces a huge challenges in trying to form a consensual government that would also satisfy protesters who have been on the streets since mid-October, seeking to sweep away an entire political class they deem as corrupt. He also faces a mammoth task of dealing with the country's economic and financial crisis in one of the most indebted countries of the world. Support from the Iran-backed Hizbullah guarantees Diab a thorny path, potentially inviting criticism from Western and Gulf nations that had supported Hariri.Friendly nations, including France, have made clear they will not support the heavily indebted nation before a reform-minded Cabinet is formed.

Hariri Receives Diab
Naharnet/December 20/2019
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri received on Friday at the Center House, Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab. “The meeting with Prime Minister Hariri has a special flavor. Yesterday he affirmed his keenness on the country’s stability. These stances express the position of a statesman. Hopefully, there will be continuous communication and cooperation for the benefit of the country," Diab told reporters after the meeting. He said the “atmosphere was positive with everyone,” noting that Hariri “is expressing all cooperation to form the government.”Asked about the difficulty to persuade the international community, that considers Diab “Hizbullah candidate,” of the formation of a rescue government. He said: “I was asked this question more than once. I stress that I am a specialist and an independent. My approach is to have a government of specialists and independents to serve this country and solve the problems.” Whether Dar el-Fatwa, the highest religious Sunni authority, refused to give Diab an appointment, Diab noted: “Dar al-Fatwa is for everyone and hopefully after this tour there will be a meeting with the Mufti of the Republic.”

Diab Expects Full Western Support
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 20/2019
Lebanon's new prime minister-designate, Hassan Diab, said in an interview with Deutsche Welle aired Friday that he expected full European and US support for his government. He rejected suggestions that the support his nomination received from Hizbullah, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington, would hinder the disbursement of much-needed Western aid. "The goal is to form a government of independent technocrats," Diab, a former education minister who is also a vice president at Lebanon's prestigious American University of Beirut, told Deutsche Welle. "Everyone is willing to cooperate so that Lebanon can have an exceptional government that is not like its predecessors in the number of technocrats and women included," he said. "I think the Americans, when such a government is formed, will lend support because it is a government that aims to rescue Lebanon." According to the sectarian-based power-sharing system that has prevailed since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, the position of prime minister is held by a member of the Sunni Muslim community. Saad Hariri had been tipped in recent days to return to his job, seven weeks after an unprecedented wave of protests condemning corruption and sectarianism forced him out. But the 49-year-old two-time premier bowed out on Wednesday, claiming that his political rivals were opposed to a technocrat-dominated government that he planned to form. His party stopped short of throwing its weight behind Diab, who was endorsed by Hizbullah and its political allies. The move raised fears that a government lacking the support of all of Lebanon's factions could struggle to secure desperately needed foreign support to rescue an economy that is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
"It is silly" to argue the upcoming government will be Hizbullah-dominated, Diab told Deutsche Welle. "This government will carry the face of Lebanon, and will not be the government of one political faction only," he said. "I expect full support from Europe and the US."
Diab held a meeting with Hariri on Friday, hours after demonstrators -- many of them Hariri supporters -- took to the streets to voice their displeasure at Diab's nomination. The incoming premier's interview with the German broadcaster came as the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, David Hale, was in Lebanon for meetings with top officials.

Hassan Diab, Lebanon's 'Technocratic' PM-Designate
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 20/2019
Lebanese academic and former minister Hassan Diab, named Thursday as protest-hit Lebanon's new premier, is a self-described "technocrat" propelled to the helm of government by the endorsement of Hizbullah and its allies. The little-known 60-year-old engineering professor at the American University of Beirut (AUB) replaces outgoing premier Saad Hariri after nearly two months of intense political wrangling. But while his appointment was backed by Hizbullah-allied parliamentary blocs, he did not win the backing of parties from his own Sunni community. That suggests divisions that will complicate the challenge of forming a cabinet and could fuel sectarian tensions on the streets. He will take office amid nationwide anti-government protests demanding a technocratic government, amid the worst economic crisis since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. A two-month-old protest movement demanding a government of technocrats will also pose him serious challenges. A father of three, Diab is an independent who had shied away from the political limelight since leaving his post as education minister in 2014. He is a career academic with a PhD in Computer Engineering from Britain's University of Bath, and is currently a professor of electrical and computer engineering at AUB. Diab has held several academic and administrative posts at the university -- including that of vice president -- since joining it as an assistant professor at the age of 26. He is a self-styled advocate for educational reform in Lebanon, authoring books and several papers on the subject. "I am certain that the solution to most of our economic, unemployment, social, financial, and even political challenges, lies in education in all its forms," he writes on his website. His brief previous experience in politics came at a time of political polarization in Lebanon. His tenure as education minister between 2011 and 2014 was in a government formed after Hariri's cabinet was brought down by Hizbullah and its political allies. Observers now say history may be repeating itself. "The coming government will be dominated by Hizbullah (and its allies) without political cover from Hariri and the Sunnis," said Imad Salamey, a political science professor at the Lebanese American University. "This will drive Lebanon towards a Sunni-Shiite schism."
'Rare technocrat minister' -
Repeating the sequence that made him a minister eight years ago, Diab rose to the post of premier as a result of Hariri bowing out. Hariri had been seen as the most likely choice to head a technocrat-dominated government but the 49-year-old announced late Wednesday he was no longer in the running. Hariri resigned on October 29, nearly two weeks into a nationwide cross-sectarian protest movement demanding the wholesale removal of a political elite seen as corrupt and incompetent. Diab is not an established party member, nor a vocal supporter of any particular group. He described himself on his website as "one of the rare technocrat ministers since Lebanon's independence" in the 1940s. On October 20, three days after the start of unprecedented nationwide demonstrations, he called the protests a "historical and awe-inspiring scene." "The Lebanese people have united to defend their rights to a free and dignified life," he wrote on Twitter. But activists and demonstrators have criticized him for previously participating in what they see as a government of inept and corrupt politicians. Some on social media have criticized a glossy book the education ministry released after his tenure, outlining his main achievements as minister. But Samar Hamdan, who has been his neighbor for 15 years, said she has "only seen good things from him.""He is a prominent academic... who remained humble when he became a minister," she told AFP.She said she hoped his appointment will be a "blessing" for the country.

Roadblocks Across Lebanon as Anger Mounts Over PM Pick
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Protesters blocked roads across crisis-hit Lebanon Friday to condemn the designation of Hezbollah-backed Hassan Diab as prime minister in a divisive vote that sparked uproar among members of the Sunni community. Diab, a little-known 60-year-old engineering professor at the American University of Beirut, was designated on Thursday with the endorsement of Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies but without backing from Lebanon's main Sunni bloc. The nomination of the independent former education minister and self-styled 'technocrat' ended nearly two months of political wrangling among lawmakers. But it fueled anger among members of Lebanon's Sunni community who said the prime-minister-designate did not enjoy the sect's backing for a post reserved for Sunni Muslims by a power-sharing system enshrined after the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. In the mainly Sunni city of Tripoli in north Lebanon, which was already rocked by rallies and roadblocks Thursday, schools were closed and opponents of Diab again blockaded roads amid calls for a general strike, said an AFP correspondent there. Roads were also closed in the neighboring Akkar district and several other parts of north Lebanon early Friday, said the state-run National News Agency, while burning tires and garbage bins also stopped traffic on roads in east Lebanon and main arteries connecting the capital to the south.
- 'Fear for the country' -
The mobilization, including by supporters of former prime minister Saad Hariri, whom Diab is slated to replace, comes ahead a planned meeting between the two political figures later Friday. Hariri -- who had in recent days been seen as the most likely candidate to head the next government -- did not endorse Diab as his successor, stripping him of critical Sunni political cover. This raised fears that Diab's nomination as the leading Sunni representative will yield a lopsided government that observers warn could fuel sectarian tensions and complicate efforts to secure international aid needed to pull Lebanon back from the brink of default. Hariri late Thursday said that the crisis facing Lebanon requires cooperation among members of the political class. "It's not me who will form the next government, but I am concerned because I fear for the country," he told local television station MTV.
Hariri on Friday was also set to meet with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, who is in Lebanon to meet with top officials including President Michel Aoun. Lebanon has since October 17 been rocked by unprecedented anti-government protests demanding a complete government overhaul. Tensions have been heightened by the looming bankruptcy of the debt-burdened Lebanese state. The Lebanese pound, officially pegged to the US dollar, has lost around 30 percent of its value on the black market, while companies have been paying half-salaries over the past two months and laying off employees.

Hariri: Listen to the People
Naharnet/December 20/2019
Former PM Saad Hariri said in a telephone interview Thursday evening on Sar al-Waqt MTV program that salvation of Lebanon can be attained through the formation of a government of specialists, urging everyone to join efforts and listen to the demands of the revolution in light of the economic and political crisis. Hariri commented on the remarks of the audience that he will return as PM even though lawmakers have named on Thursday AUB professor Hassan Diab as the new PM. “I just want for Lebanon to return,” he answered. “We should always be optimistic,” said Hariri answering a question if it has become difficult for Lebanon to be in a better position that it is today. “Of course one has to show himself to the worst, but optimism is imperative. I have to admit that we as authority have failed in many places. Did we solve the electricity, power and telecommunications crisis? We have done nothing of that,” said Hariri.
“We failed to listen to the people’s aspirations. They went down to the streets and we have all heard their crises. But today we have to go on and form a government of specialists,” he said. The decisions taken in the cabinet were “all politicized,” said Hariri explaining that decisions taken during his government meeting were later “interpreted “according to each minister’s political interests. How can the people trust such a Cabinet?!” he said. Hariri stressed the need to pull the efforts together and listen to the demands of the revolution “which personally taught me so much.”Asked about the reason that made him withdraw his candidacy despite the efforts of Speaker Nabih Berri, he said: “Frankly, I was surprised by the stance of the Lebanese Forces on one hand. On the other hand, I prefer that there is peace among the sects because I am always moderate. I said let us have a few days to think about it. This is the whole story.”Whether he will receive Diab, Hariri said: “Of course I will. Why not? Prime Minister designate Hassan Diab will do his round and his job and we will see.”

Hariri Urges Supporters Not to Block Roads, Calls for Calm
Naharnet/December 20/2019
Caretaker Prime Minister and al-Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri on Thursday urged his supporters not to take to the streets or block roads, in the wake of the appointment of the academic and ex-minister Hassan Diab as PM-designate. “I call on all supporters and enthusiasts to reject any call for taking to the streets or blocking roads,” Hariri tweeted, after his supporters blocked roads in several Lebanese regions and rallied outside Diab’s house in Tallet al-Khayat. “Calm and national responsibility are our priority and the crisis that Lebanon is facing is dangerous and does not allow for any tampering with stability,” Hariri added. Diab served as minister of education from 2011-2014 when Hizbullah and its allies forced the collapse of a former Cabinet headed by Hariri at the time.

Clashes Renew between Army, Mustaqbal Supporters in Corniche al-Mazraa
Naharnet/December 20/2019
Fresh clashes erupted Friday evening between the army and Mustaqbal Movement supporters in Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa area. The confrontation erupted after troops reopened a key highway in the area. The protesters then retreated to the area’s internal streets and started hurling stones and firecrackers at the soldiers. They also started burning tires.The army responded by firing tear gas and was chasing the pro-Mustaqbal protesters. The road had been blocked since morning and minor scuffles had erupted in the afternoon. An army statement said seven soldiers were injured in the afternoon confrontation after protesters pelted them with stones. The army said the protesters sought to empty a truckload of rocks and sand to block the road but were prevented by the military. Clashes ensued afterwards which resulted in the injuries. The Mustaqbal supporters are protesting the appointment of Hassan Diab as PM-designate.

Hariri Supporters Scuffle with Army over Road Blocking
Naharnet/December 20/2019
Scuffles erupted between the Lebanese army and supporters of ex-PM Saad Hariri in Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa street on Friday, over the designation of AUB professor Hassan Diab for PM. The protesters blocked the road and brought in a truck loaded with dirt mounds to empty in the middle of the buzzing major street of Beirut. The army prevented the truck from unloading. Hariri called on his supporters to leave the street. “If you really love me, leave the streets now,” he tweeted.

Clashes Renew between Army, Mustaqbal Supporters in Corniche al-Mazraa
Naharnet/December 20/2019
Fresh clashes erupted Friday evening between the army and Mustaqbal Movement supporters in Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa area. The confrontation erupted after troops reopened a key highway in the area. The protesters then retreated to the area’s internal streets and started hurling stones and firecrackers at the soldiers. They also started burning tires. The army responded by firing tear gas and was chasing the pro-Mustaqbal protesters. The road had been blocked since morning and minor scuffles had erupted in the afternoon. An army statement said seven soldiers were injured in the afternoon confrontation after protesters pelted them with stones. The army said the protesters sought to empty a truckload of rocks and sand to block the road but were prevented by the military. Clashes ensued afterwards which resulted in the injuries.The Mustaqbal supporters are protesting the appointment of Hassan Diab as PM-designate.

Public Outcry, Roadblocks across Lebanon over PM Pick
Associated Press/Naharnet/December 20/2019
Protesters blocked roads across crisis-hit Lebanon Friday to condemn the designation of Hizbullah-backed Hassan Diab as prime minister in a divisive vote that sparked uproar among members of the Sunni community. In the Bekaa region, roads blocked with burning tires and dirt mounds late on Thursday are still inaccessible today, and include: Qob Elias, Dahr al-Baydar, Jdeita, Bwerij and Majdal Anjar. In Zahle, Saadnayel, Taalbaya, al-Marj, Bar Elias, Hosh al-Harimeh, Ghaza and Jeb Jennin. In Beirut neighborhood of Corniche al-Mazraa, the road was blocked partially at the intersection of Abdul Nasser Mosque. In the northern city of Tripoli calm prevailed after night marches and protests against the naming of Diab, but schools were closed. On Thursday, protesters rejecting the appointment took to the streets in several regions. Diab, a little-known 60-year-old engineering professor at the American University of Beirut, was designated on Thursday with the endorsement of Shiite group Hizbullah and its allies but without backing from Lebanon's main Sunni bloc. The nomination of the independent former education minister and self-styled 'technocrat' ended nearly two months of political wrangling among lawmakers. But it fueled anger among members of Lebanon's Sunni community who said the prime-minister-designate did not enjoy the sect's backing for a post reserved for Sunni Muslims by a power-sharing system enshrined after the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. In the mainly Sunni city of Tripoli in north Lebanon, which was already rocked by rallies and roadblocks Thursday, schools were closed and opponents of Diab again blockaded roads amid calls for a general strike, said an AFP correspondent there. Roads were also closed in the neighbouring Akkar district and several other parts of north Lebanon early Friday, said the state-run National News Agency, while burning tyres and garbage bins also stopped traffic on roads in east Lebanon and main arteries connecting the capital to the south.
'Fear for the country'
The mobilisation, including by supporters of former prime minister Saad Hariri, whom Diab is slated to replace, comes ahead a planned meeting between the two political figures later Friday. Hariri -- who had in recent days been seen as the most likely candidate to head the next government -- did not endorse Diab as his successor, stripping him of critical Sunni political cover. This raised fears that Diab's nomination as the leading Sunni representative will yield a lopsided government that observers warn could fuel sectarian tensions and complicate efforts to secure international aid needed to pull Lebanon back from the brink of default. Hariri late Thursday said that the crisis facing Lebanon requires cooperation among members of the political class. "It's not me who will form the next government, but I am concerned because I fear for the country," he told local television station MTV. Hariri on Friday was also set to meet with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, who is in Lebanon to meet with top officials including President Michel Aoun. Lebanon has since October 17 been rocked by unprecedented anti-government protests demanding a complete government overhaul. Tensions have been heightened by the looming bankruptcy of the debt-burdened Lebanese state. The Lebanese pound, officially pegged to the US dollar, has lost around 30 percent of its value on the black market, while companies have been paying half-salaries over the past two months and laying off employees.

Lebanon's Vital Tourism Industry Takes Huge Hit amid Turmoil
Associated Press/Naharnet/December 20/2019
Lebanon's unprecedented economic and financial crisis has taken a huge toll on the hospitality sector, a mainstay of the Lebanese economy, with hundreds of restaurants closing and hotel occupancy plummeting. There have been talks about the tiny Mediterranean country heading toward economic bankruptcy akin to Greece's 2009 crisis in recent years. But business owners said they really began to feel the economic crunch after protests swept the country on Oct. 17, paralyzing businesses with road closures and strikes as the crisis intensified. The protests were initially ignited by new taxes, but are largely about the three-decades long corruption and mismanagement stemming from the ruling political elite. At a news conference in Beirut on Thursday, Pierre Achkar, president of the Lebanese Hotel Federation for Tourism, said more than 150,000 hotel owners, partners, employees and their families face an imminent threat due to the economic crisis. "We dropped overnight from 100% to 4% occupancy (in October). November was the first full month after the unrest started, and we ended up with 10%," said Rami Sayess, regional vice president of Four Seasons Hotel, speaking to The Associated Press after the conference.
Since a 1997 dollar peg set by the Central Bank, Lebanese pounds have been fixed at an exchange rate of 1,500 pounds to the U.S. dollar. But since the protests erupted, dollars have grown increasingly scarce as anxiety over political instability has caused more people to withdraw, fueling the worst financial crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. The dollars were often brought into the country by affluent investors who made large deposits for high interest rates and have been used interchangeably with the Lebanese pound. Local banks have also imposed unprecedented capital controls, exacerbating the economic condition and making it difficult for businesses to transfer salaries to employees.
As prices have risen amid the liquidity crisis, many business owners who used to pay their employees in U.S. dollars have switched to the Lebanese pound, or have cut back on their employees' salaries.
"We have a lot of foreigners and expats working here and we couldn't pay them in U.S. dollars, so they've been suffering a lot. There's been a reduction in tips, too," said Henri Farah, owner and CEO of Japanese sushi restaurant Kampai. Farah's restaurant has dropped 50% in revenue over two months.
Today's climate is starkly different compared to the "golden period" from 2009-2011, when the hospitality sector boomed, the number of tourists reached a record 2.16 million, and revenues and turnovers soared to $9 billion, with 6,000 outlets spread across the country, according to Tony Ramy, president of Lebanon's Syndicate Owners of Restaurants, Cafés, Night-Clubs and Pastries in Lebanon. Since then, instability related to the Syria war has contributed to the country's ailing economy, which has affected the hospitality sectors in Lebanon. Tense ties between Lebanon and the Gulf countries who banned their nationals from visiting Lebanon in February 2016 also negatively affect business. In September, 130 businesses permanently closed, while in October, the number increased to 135 shutdowns. November witnessed another 200, said Ramy, citing the restaurant aggregator and food delivery startup Zomato, with whom he has a partnership. December is typically a busy month for the tourism industry because of Christmas and holiday festivities. Many Lebanese expatriates who typically flock to Lebanon at this time of year are now reluctant because of the unrest. And because of the lack of bookings, brand hotels in Lebanon, such as Sheraton and Four Seasons, have begun sending Lebanese staff to other hotels in the region to lower expenses. In the restaurant sector, business was down 70%, according to Maya Noun, general secretary of the syndicate of restaurant owners. Middle-end and high-end restaurants have been most damaged. Some outlets in the higher end Beirut districts of Gemayzeh and Mar Mikhael are still making it because their clients are mainly youths who go out on a low budget for a drink or for a wallet-friendly meal. Low-end restaurants are sustaining the least amount of losses largely because of delivery services, which many people consider less expensive. Itidal al-Batal, owner of a small bakery in Beirut, said she's "surviving" but had to cut her employees’ salaries by as much as 60% since the protests started. She said she has never seen so many hungry people. She put out bread and a sign on her restaurant's doorstep that reads: "If you don't have money don't be embarrassed and leave your family without food. You're welcome to take what you need."Soon after, people have been coming and making donations to the bakery for those in need.

Beirut's Duty-Free operator fined for violating Dollar-Lira peg
Christina Farhat/Annahar/December 20/2019
BEIRUT: Lebanon's Ministry of Economy has fined the company in charge of managing Beirut Airport's Duty-Free area for setting the exchange rate of the dollar to Lebanese pound at 1,750 LB as opposed to the official rate of 1507. In the black market, the Lebanese Pound is trading at 2000 to 1 USD. “With the recent economic challenges in our country and to ensure consistent supply of all our imported products, and to satisfy our customers needs, the exchange rate from USD to LB is 1,750 LBP (temporarily) in order to maintain business continuity of supply and to deliver on our promise,” the company in charge of Beirut's Duty-Free had said in a statement.

HRW calls for investigations on the use of violence on protesters
Tala Ramadan/Annahar/December 20/2019
BEIRUT: The Human Rights Watch reported today that Lebanon’s national security forces committed serious human rights violations on December 14 and 15, including excessive use of force against protesters.
“Instead of addressing protesters’ very real grievances, Lebanon’s authorities deployed security forces who unnecessarily shot rubber bullets and teargas and beat protesters,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, and highlighted that in order for the public to have confidence in the investigations, the process should be transparent and disciplinary measures should be taken.
After December 14's failed attempt to access the parliament area, thousands of demonstrators gathered once more at the entrance of Nejmeh Square on December 15, protesting the excessive use of force the night before and rejecting the expected nomination of Hariri as prime minister.
Human Rights Watch found compelling evidence that police used excessive force to respond to protesters on both mentioned days, injuring thousands of people.
The report included that the security forces have used teargas, rubber bullets, and water cannons to evacuate the area. Some protesters were left injured. Local media reported that Parliament Police were behind the attack.
The Human Rights Watch called for a credible independent investigation into the allegations of the excessive use of force, brutality, and vandalism that took place on the two dates and urged for responsible parties to develop a better communication strategy among the multiple security agencies, including riot police, other Internal Security Forces units, the army, and units responsible for the security of parliament.
During a meeting with the Human Rights Watch, Interior Minister El-Hassan acknowledged that “mistakes were made." She added that long working hours, exhaustion, stress, and lack of appropriate training contributed to the Riot Police abuses.
In parallel, the Lebanese Red Cross and the Civil Defense reported that they treated 87 injured people at the scene and transported 46 to hospitals. The Internal Security Forces said that 20 of their men were transported to hospitals as well as 3 injured officers.

Lebanon: Sunni Majority’s Abstention to Nominate Diab Renews Talks on National Pact
Mohammed Shokair/ Asharq Al-Awsat/December 20/2019
Discussions that preceded Thursday’s binding parliamentary consultations to name a new head of government showed that the preparation for the nomination of former minister Hassan Diab began four days before. Many saw in his appointment a disruption of the balance of sects and a breach to the country’s National Pact, which stipulates that the presidency should be occupied by the strongest figure within the Maronite community so is the case for the speakership among the Shiites and the premiership among the Sunnis. Meanwhile, observers said that resigned Prime Minister Saad Hariri was the only one to respond to the street protests. They noted in this regard that since his resignation, Hariri sought to protect the demonstrators by maintaining communication with the Lebanese Army and Security Forces and insisted on forming a technocrat cabinet to face economic and financial challenges and meet the protesters’ demands. Hariri did not object to the names that were put forward to head the government, and kept repeating, from the first day of resignation: “Not me but someone else.” He maintained his position and rejected all proposals to form a techno-political government, despite all facilitations provided to him, including the appointment of only four to six “political” ministers who will not hold key ministerial portfolios. But when Hariri found that the horizon was blocked, he announced his withdrawal from the race out of his conviction that only a government of specialists could prevent near collapse. The surprising move came from caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who declared last week that his “Strong Lebanon” bloc would not participate in a techno-political government, nor would it support a technocrat cabinet headed by Hariri. Today, in the wake of Diab’s nomination, observers ask about the fate of the National Pact, as the new government will not be presided by the strongest figure within the Sunni community. “The prime minister’s post is not a technical position for a technocrat figure to occupy,” they noted. Accordingly, the observers noted that the appointment of a prime minister who does not enjoy wide Sunni representation will disrupt the balance of powers and will deprive the new government of the factors of continuity and stability.

U.S. Releases Aid to Lebanon Despite Fears Money Could Help Hezbollah Terrorists
Adam Kredo/The Washington Free Beacon/December 20/2019
Sources say 'deep state' officials blocking Trump mandate to crackdown on Hezbollah
The Trump administration released hundreds of millions in key American aid dollars to Lebanon this week despite growing concerns in Congress that these taxpayer funds are bolstering the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group, according to U.S. officials and congressional sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.
The administration informed Congress this week that a tranche of aid money being held up by Trump loyalists at the U.S. Agency for International Development would be sent to the Lebanese government, which has long been penetrated at the highest levels by senior Hezbollah operatives. Hezbollah is a U.S. designated terror group that is funded, armed, and directed by Iran's military leadership.
U.S. officials who spoke to the Free Beacon dating back as far as 2017 expressed concern U.S. aid dollars could fuel Hezbollah's next war against Israel. Now, leading lawmakers are calling on the Trump administration to end this aid until a review of Hezbollah's likely interception of the funds can be conducted.
Hezbollah has had near total control of Lebanon following the surprise resignation of the country's prime minister in October. Hezbollah operatives remain in place across the government, enabling the terror group to carry out orders from its Iranian benefactors. This has also meant that millions in U.S. aid sent to the Lebanese government and armed forces are at risk of being pilfered by Hezbollah leaders.
Congressional officials and regional experts familiar with the matter told the Free Beacon that frustrations are mounting over both the economic and military aid the United States sends Lebanon. The policy, these sources say, is at loggerheads with the administration's "maximum pressure" campaign to deny the Iranian regime the cash it needs to conduct terror operations, particularly through Hezbollah, which has amassed a vast array of sophisticated weaponry on Israel's northern border.
In Congress, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has been pushing for American aid dollars to Lebanon to be nixed due to Hezbollah's pervasive role in the country's government. The lawmaker will soon be introducing legislation that would force the Trump administration to halt the taxpayer funds.
"Sen. Cruz has long called for an uncompromising strategy toward Lebanon that recognizes Iran's pervasive influence in Lebanon through its terrorist proxy Hezbollah," a spokesperson for Cruz told the Free Beacon. "Instead the United States has continued sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Lebanon, a policy that by any measure is failing right now. Sen. Cruz believes that we should not be funding Iran-backed terrorist groups that want to kill us and our allies, and he will soon introduce legislation prohibiting sending American taxpayer money to any Lebanese government controlled by Hezbollah."
Multiple sources familiar with the dispute accused career officials in the State Department of waging a targeted leak campaign against Trump appointees who have sought to block the aid. Anonymous officials told Bloomberg News that Trump loyalists at USAID had orchestrated a recent hold on economic aid for Lebanon.
"We're three years into the Trump administration, and yet the State Department is still running the old Obama playbook of sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon," one senior GOP congressional aide who works on Middle East issues told the Free Beacon. "Every time one of Trump's appointees tries to reverse course, they get blocked and leaked against by the Deep State. Nevertheless, it seems increasingly obvious there are deep divisions inside the administration and it's no surprise you're finding those same divisions up here on the Hill."
Sources said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intervened in the matter, ordering USAID to release the funds last week. Congress was informed Dec. 12 that more than $114 million in economic aid would soon be making its way to Lebanon, according to a copy of the notification obtained by the Free Beacon.
The State Department confirmed the aid dollars are no longer blocked.
"The United States remains committed to strengthening the capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces," a State Department spokesperson told the Free Beacon. "U.S. assistance for the LAF is a key component of our policy to reinforce Lebanon's sovereignty and secure its borders, counter internal threats, and build up its legitimate state institutions."
"Since 2006, the United States has invested over $2 billion to help expand the capacities and capabilities of the Lebanese Armed Forces," the official said. "The United States provided $105 million in FY 2019 Foreign Military Financing for the Lebanese Armed Forces. This FY 2019 allocation remains unchanged from FY 2018."
The economic aid provided by USAID will fund Lebanon's government, including millions for the country's education system, which is plagued by institutionalized anti-Semitism.
For this reason, pro-Israel organizations in the United States have been pressing the Trump administration to reevaluate its aid to Lebanon.
"The LAF cannot receive U.S. aid devoid of enhanced oversight and accountability. Hezbollah has infected not just the army but also the government in Beirut, and we're now even seeing that anti-Semitism is being taught in Lebanese schools," Sandra Parker, chair of the Christians United For Israel (CUFI) Action Fund, told the Free Beacon.
CUFI, one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the United States, is lobbying the Trump administration to change its course on Lebanon, particularly in light of Iran's growing role in the country's affairs.
"Lebanon has to make a choice: turn towards tolerance and prosperity or continue to be subjugated by Iran and its terrorist proxy," Parker said. "CUFI supports legislation conditioning a portion of US aid on the LAF's progress in countering and diminishing Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon. If Beirut fails to use American aid to take their country back from Hezbollah, that aid will dry up. American taxpayer dollars should not benefit terrorists or their enablers—it's that simple."
Veteran regional experts also have been perplexed by the Trump administration's desire to keep aid flowing to Lebanon.
"The zeal with which the State Department pushed for the release of the aid to Lebanon, in particular the $115 million in USAID money, is strange," said Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank with close ties to the White House. "There are a lot of question marks about what and where this money goes to—never mind what policy objective it's supposed to help achieve."
Badran said the administration's policy had been riddled with inconsistencies. While it has sanctioned Lebanese institutions penetrated by Hezbollah, it has failed to consider the ways in which U.S. aid dollars bolster the terror group.
"It was only a few months ago this past summer, after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Jammal Trust Bank for being Hezbollah's ‘bank of choice,' that it emerged that U.S. aid programs to Lebanon had been entangled with the Hezbollah bank," Badran said. "Rather than pause and reconsider these programs, the State Department doubled down. But several of those U.S.-funded programs support partnerships with municipal governments in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa—regions where Hezbollah and its allies directly control municipalities."
*Adam Kredo is senior writer reporting on national security and foreign policy matters for the Washington Free Beacon. An award-winning political reporter who has broken news from across the globe, Kredo’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary Magazine, the Drudge Report, and the Jerusalem Post, among many others. His Twitter handle is @Kredo0. His email address is kredo@freebeacon.com.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2019
UN Experts Slam Reported 'Torture' of Detained Iran Protesters
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
A group of independent UN rights experts strongly criticized Tehran Friday, warning thousands could still be detained after a deadly crackdown on mass protests last month and voicing alarm at reports that inmates have been tortured. The UN expert on the rights situation in Iran, along with more than a dozen experts -- on issues ranging from torture to freedom of assembly -- said they were "shocked at reports of the ill-treatment of those detained during the protests". The UN rights office said earlier this month that at least 7,000 people had reportedly been arrested in Iran since the mass demonstrations erupted in November. In a statement Friday, the rights experts said they believed thousands were still being held and called for their release. "Reports suggest that detainees are being tortured or are suffering other forms of ill-treatment, sometimes to extract forced confessions," said the independent experts, who are appointed by the UN but who do not speak on behalf of the world body. "Some are also reportedly being denied medical treatment, including for injuries caused by the security forces' use of excessive force," they said, adding that yet others were being held "incommunicado or subjected to enforced disappearances". The experts voiced deep concern at the lack of due process, warning that many of the detainees would likely be denied their right to a fair trial. The protests began on November 15 following a surprise hike in fuel prices. Iran has yet to give overall figures for the number of people killed or arrested when security forces moved in to quell the unrest that saw buildings torched and shops looted. Amnesty International said earlier this week that at least 304 people were killed during just three days of the crackdown. Iran has dismissed such figures as "utter lies", but the UN experts said Friday they had "credible sources" confirming that figure, adding that at least 12 of those killed were children. And they said that unconfirmed reports suggested the toll could be above 400. "The number of deaths appears to be particularly high in some provinces with large ethnic minority populations," Friday's statement said.
'Aiming to kill'
The experts pointed to reports and footage showing Iranian security forces "not only fired live ammunition at unarmed protesters, but also aimed at their heads and vital organs." "Targeting these parts of the body shows that the security forces were aiming to kill or at least cause serious injury," they said, adding that they were "extremely disturbed that the Iranian authorities would use such tactics against peaceful protesters." The experts also criticized Iran for continuing to suppress people's right to free expression, even after easing an initial internet shutdown. "Most disturbingly, the families of individuals killed by security forces have allegedly been threatened not to speak out," they said. At the same time, Iranian journalists have been "ordered not to criticize the government response, while the relatives of journalists working for Farsi-language news outlets abroad are being pressured in an effort to silence their reporting," they said.

US will ‘curb malign Iranian behavior’ if it doesn't stop
The Associated Press/ United NationsFriday, 20 December 2019
The United States renewed its offer to engage in talks with Iran on Thursday but warned it will do everything in its power “to curb malign Iranian behavior” if Tehran continues to destabilize the Middle East. The US ambassador at the United Nations, Kelly Craft, said the Trump administration also “rejects Iran’s use of nuclear brinkmanship to normalize its destabilizing behavior.”She commented at a UN Security Council meeting on implementation of a resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and key world powers. Iranian Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi called the US offer of unconditional talks “disingenuous.” The US wants to enter dialogue from a position of strength from maintaining sanctions and maximum pressure, “and not based on equal footing,” he said. “Iran does not negotiate under the threat of a sword,” Ravanchi said. He said US implementation of the council’s 2015 resolution endorsing the international Iran nuclear deal “will pave the way for a genuine dialogue to start.”Ravanchi said that in negotiations on the nuclear deal, Iran rejected attempts to include its legitimate defense capabilities and its role in the region. He said that “under no circumstances will Iran compromise on its security.”The UN political chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, told the Security Council that tensions in the region “have worryingly escalated” during 2019. “We witnessed attacks against oil tankers, strikes against a civilian airport, and a highly sophisticated and synchronized attack against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “Combined with acrimonious rhetoric, these developments have dangerously brought the region closer to a serious confrontation.”DiCarlo warned that “such an eventuality would be devastating and must be prevented at all costs.”The meeting followed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ recent report saying the United Nations has not been able to independently corroborate that cruise missiles and drones used in attacks earlier this year on an airport and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia “are of Iranian origin” - or were transferred from Iran “in a manner inconsistent” with the 2015 UN resolution. DiCarlo reiterated that finding, saying the UN is still collecting and analyzing additional information on the drones and cruise missiles.

UN Adopts Resolution Condemning Iran’s Human Rights Violations
Brussels, New York- Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019 - 15:30
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution on December 18 calling on Iran to end its ongoing human rights violations. The resolution passed with a vote of 81 to 30 and 70 abstentions. The draft resolution proposed by Canada had been approved by the Third Committee of the General Assembly on November 14. The resolution has called on Iran to release persons detained solely for taking part in peaceful protests or the exercise of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. According to Amnesty International at least 304 protesters, including 18 children, were killed by security forces during the protests against a three-fold hike in the price of gasoline. Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi today condemned the UNGA resolution and said that “it is based on selective approaches, is partial, confrontational, and meant to serve political objectives”.
Amnesty International and civil society organizations urged the UN member countries to publicly condemn the grave human rights violations committed by the Iranian authorities who have not even announced the death toll of the recent protests.
In Brussels, members of European Parliament (MEP) denounced Iran for the repression of November protests, urging Iran to adhere to its international obligations and disclose the number of protester casualties. On Thursday, in the European Parliament, a resolution was put to vote concerning the “disproportionate use of force” by Iranian security forces against protesters. The MEPs said that “tens of thousands of people from all over Iran and representing all segments of society have exercised their fundamental right to freedom of assembly.... in the largest-scale unrest in 40 years”.
Nationwide protests in Iran began on Friday, November 15, after the Iranian government announced a 300% increase in petrol prices despite the fact that Iranians are already facing difficult financial circumstances due to US sanctions against the regime. Under increasing economic pressure, partly as a result of US economic sanctions, and with more than 70 percent of the population in need of government support, thousands of people took to the streets. Protesters, however, were met with brutal repression, along with a full internet blackout in the country to hide the crackdown. According to Amnesty International, at least 304 people were killed and thousands more injured between November 15 and November 18. Several thousand people were arrested and many of them subjected to torture, according to Iranian human rights organizations. “MEPs strongly condemn Iran’s decision to shut down internet access to global networks, as this is preventing communication and the free flow of information for Iranian citizens and is a clear violation of the freedom of speech,” read a press release about the European Parliament resolution. “Calling on Iranian authorities to live up to their international obligations, MEPs urge EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell to continue raising human rights concerns with Iranian authorities at bilateral and multilateral meetings.”

Japan briefs Iran on plan to send forces to Middle East
Reuters, Tokyo/Friday, 20 December 2019
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday briefed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tokyo’s plan to send naval forces to the Middle East to protect Japanese vessels, a Japanese official said. Rouhani said in response that he understood Japan’s intention to contribute to navigational safety, the official told a media briefing after the two leaders met in Tokyo. “I’m highly concerned about tensions running high in the Middle East,” Abe told Rouhani at the start of the meeting. Friction between Tehran and Washington has increased since last year when US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions on the country, crippling its economy. In May and June, several attacks took place on international merchant vessels, including Saudi tankers, in Gulf waters which the United States blamed on Iran. Tehran denies the accusations. In July, Iranian forces seized a British tanker in the Gulf after British marines captured an Iranian vessel in the Strait of Gibraltar. Both ships were later released. The planned Japanese operation is set to cover high seas in the Gulf of Oman, the northern Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but not the Strait of Hormuz. According to a draft plan approved by parties in the ruling coalition, Japan will deploy a destroyer and P-3C patrol aircraft for gathering information in the Gulf region - source of nearly 90 percent of Japan’s crude oil imports. If an emergency situation arises, a special order will be issued by the defense minister to allow the forces to use weapons to protect ships under attack, according to the draft plan. Japan, a US ally maintaining friendly ties with Iran, is looking to launch its own operation rather than joining a US-led mission to protect shipping in the region. Local media have said the plan will be approved by Abe’s cabinet as soon as next week. In the Tokyo meeting, Abe asked Rouhani to stick to commitments made in the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement and said Japan would do what it can to ensure stability in the Middle East. In turn, Rouhani asked Abe to work with other countries to help keep the nuclear deal alive.
“I hope Japan and other countries in the world will work hard to help keep the nuclear agreement in place.” In response to re-imposed sanctions, Iran has gradually scaled back its commitments to the deal this year. A European operation to ensure safe shipping in the Gulf will get underway next month when a French warship starts patrolling there. The French government has pushed for a European security alternative after ruling out taking part in the US-led mission.

Japan PM Pushes Iran's Rouhani to Stick to Nuclear Deal
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday asked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to stick to commitments made in a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and said Japan would do what it can to ensure stability in the Middle East. “Japan would like to do its utmost to ease tensions and stabilize the situation in the Middle East,” Abe told Rouhani at the start of a meeting between the two leaders in Tokyo. “As for Iran, I strongly hope the country will fully implement the nuclear agreement and play a constructive role for peace and stability in the region.”Iran, the United States and other countries in 2015 signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which Tehran curbed its uranium enrichment capacity and won sanctions relief in return. President Donald Trump later withdrew the United States from the deal, which sought to head off any pathway to an Iranian nuclear bomb, and increased sanctions on Iran to pressure its economy by ending its international sales of crude oil. Iran, for its part, has gradually scaled back its commitments to the deal this year. At their meeting, Rouhani asked Abe to work with other countries to help keep the nuclear deal in place. “The nuclear agreement, needless to say, is a very important agreement for Iran. That is all the more reason for me to criticize strongly the United States’ unilateral and irrational departure,” Rouhani said through a translator. “I hope Japan and other countries in the world will work hard to help keep the nuclear agreement in place.” Japan was a leading buyer of Iranian oil for decades before the US-led sanctions.Iran says it has enriched uranium only for civilian purposes, but the United States and the UN nuclear watchdog believe it once had a nuclear weapons program that it ended.

Iraq's Sistani Urges Elections to End Crisis
Baghdad- Hamza Mustafa/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called Friday for early elections to end the months of political paralysis that have gripped the protest-hit country. "The quickest and most peaceful way out of the current crisis and to avoid plunging into the unknown, chaos or internal strife ... is to rely on the people by holding early elections," said a representative of Sistani, who never appears in public. The revered 89-year-old cleric urged lawmakers to "form a new government as soon as possible" which should then speedily pave the way for new, free and fair elections, according to his representative, Abdel Mahdi al-Karbalai. Iraq has been rocked by two months of anti-government protests, the worst wave of unrest since a US-led invasion ended the reign of dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. The demonstrators, many of whom came of age after Saddam's death, have condemned the government for being inept, corrupt and beholden to powerful neighbor Iran and demanded the ouster of the entire political class. About 460 people have been killed and 25,000 wounded in street clashes in Baghdad and across the Shiite-majority south. Former premier Adel Abdul Mahdi quit in November in the face of the mass protests and after a sharp spike in deadly violence, and the deeply divided parliament has since struggled to find a replacement. Sistani, who is said to have made and undone all Iraqi prime ministers since 2003, has been keeping his distance from the politicians who have been booed by protesters since the start of October.
Inner circle
Parliament had been due to propose a new candidate by the end of Thursday.But with deep divisions remaining, authorities agreed to push the deadline back to Sunday, a source within the presidency said. However, deputies from various parliamentarian blocs signed a petition nominating Mohammed Allawi and handed it to Iraqi president Barham Salih. MP Mohamed al-Khalidi, head of Bayariq Al-Khair bloc, stated to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that 175 deputies in the parliament didn’t abide by their parties’ leaders and named Allawi. He added that the MPs who submitted the petition represent the majority.
Lawmaker Faiq al-Sheikh Ali warned of a political plot to persuade the president of appointing a weak figure for the premiership. He officially presented his candidacy for the post of PM to Salih. The current parliament witnesses the greatest division in the modern history of Iraq – deputies failed on Wednesday to agree over restructuring the elections law, which is the biggest reform offered by the authorities to the protesters. While the gap widens between the officials and protesters after around two months and a half, the missiles that strike military bases and wound US soldiers every now and then raise concern in Washington. In Baghdad's Tahrir Square, the center of the protest movement, demonstrators have put up large-format portraits of the official candidates with their faces crossed out in red. "They can keep pushing the deadline back by one day, two days, even a year -- we're still on the streets. It hurts them more than it hurts us," said Ghassan, a 35-year-old demonstrator. Talks have continued between parliamentary group leaders, party bosses and Iranian and UN envoys. Outgoing higher education minister Qusay al-Suhail has for several weeks been presented by officials as the candidate of Iran. A former key member of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's movement, Suhail rejoined the State of Law Alliance of former premier Nuri al-Maliki, who is close to Iran and an enemy of Sadr. Other names are circulating, all of them former ministers or officials from the inner circle who are likely to be rejected on principle in the streets.
'Last minute'  Once a name is proposed, lawmakers can submit it to President Barham Saleh for a vote in the 329-member parliament. If that person fails to gain a majority, Saleh has the right to put forward his own candidate. If parliament rejects that candidate, the constitution stipulates that Saleh would become the de facto head of the outgoing cabinet for 15 days. Saleh is betting on "a last-minute decision," an official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. If no party's candidate obtains a majority, the official said, the president intends to propose intelligence chief Mustafa al-Kazimi, who is seen to have US backing. Angered by chronic youth unemployment, the young demonstrators have rallied against the entire political establishment and its institutions, especially the parliament headed by speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi. On Friday they chanted: "Barham Saleh, Mohammed al-Halbusi, your turn has come."

Russia, backed by China, casts UN veto on Syria to block cross-border aid
Reuters, United Nations/Friday, 20 December 2019
Russia, backed by China, on Friday cast its 14th UN Security Council veto since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 to block cross-border aid deliveries from Turkey and Iraq to millions of Syrian civilians. The resolution drafted by Belgium, Kuwait and Germany would have allowed cross-border humanitarian deliveries for another year from two points in Turkey and one in Iraq. But Syrian ally Russia only wanted to approve the two Turkish crossings for six months. Russia and China vetoed the draft resolution. The remaining 13 members of the Security Council voted in favor. A resolution needs a minimum nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, Britain or France to pass. Deputy UN aid chief Ursula Mueller had warned the council on Thursday that without the cross border operations “we would see an immediate end of aid supporting millions of civilians.” “That would cause a rapid increase in hunger and disease, resulting in death, suffering and further displacement - including across-borders - for a vulnerable population who have already suffered unspeakable tragedy as a result of almost nine years of conflict,” Mueller said. Since 2014 the United Nations and aid groups have crossed into Syria from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan at four places annually authorized by the Security Council. In a bid to compromise with Russia, the Jordanian crossing point was dropped by Belgium, Kuwait and Germany from their draft. The current authorization for the four border crossings in Turkey, Iraq and Jordan ends on January 10, so the Security Council could still attempt to reach an agreement, though some diplomats acknowledged this could now be difficult. Russia has vetoed 14 council resolutions on Syria since a crackdown by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to civil war. ISIS militants then used the chaos to seize territory in Syria and Iraq. Indonesia’s UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani told the council on Thursday: “The world is watching. The international community is watching. But we are not here to just watch ... we are here to help and take action ... It is not about us. It is all about saving Syrian people on the ground.”

Arab League Slams Brazil for Trade Office in Jerusalem
Cairo- Sawsan Abu Hussein/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
The Arab League condemned Brazil’s opening of a trade office in the occupied city of Jerusalem and called on all countries of the world to abide by Security Council resolutions in this regard. At an emergency meeting in Cairo on Thursday, representatives from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq, among other states, criticized Brazil’s move as a violation of international law and voiced their continued support for the Palestinian cause. In a statement, the Council expressed “deep regret” that the Brazilian government had reversed its decades-long Mideast policy. Permanent Saudi Representative at the Arab League Osama bin Ahmed Naqli, stressed that the Palestinian issue was the Kingdom’s priority, calling on the international community to “put an end to this conflict according to the foundations of a permanent and comprehensive solution.” He expressed the Kingdom’s stance, saying that any unilateral move in violation of international legitimacy would further complicate the Palestinian cause and increase the sufferings of the Palestinian people. Naqli underlined “Saudi Arabia’s refusal to change the demographic reality of Jerusalem and its legal status.” Egypt also affirmed its rejection of Brazil’s move and expressed its willingness to engage with all Arab countries to stand against these measures, stressing its “supportive stance on the Palestinian issue, whether at the bilateral level or in all international forums until the establishment of the Palestinian State.”It declared its firm rejection of the opening of any offices or official missions in the occupied city of Jerusalem, stressing that such actions “constitute a harmful step to the peace process.”

Abbas Insists on Holding Elections in Jerusalem
Ramallah- Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed that he would not hold elections if the people of Jerusalem could not vote in “the heart of the city but only in its suburbs... whatever the pressure that will be exerted on us.”During a meeting of Fatah Movement’s Revolutionary Council on Wednesday evening, Abbas said: “We will never allow and accept that pressure comes from here or there. Our decision is clear. Without elections in Jerusalem, elections will not be held. ” Abbas’ words appear to be aimed mainly at the Hamas movement, which is pressing him to issue a presidential decree for the elections, regardless of Israel’s position on holding them in Jerusalem. The Palestinian president has yet to issue the relevant presidential decree, pending the Israeli position. This has constituted a point of dispute with Hamas, which attacked Abbas and considered that linking the decree to the issue of Jerusalem would threaten the holding of the elections. Hamas Political Bureau Member Moussa Abu Marzouq said that the president’s decision to postpone the presidential decree pending the Israeli position “means in practice that this decree may never be issued.” Officials in the movement said that it was possible to find mechanisms to overcome the Israeli rejection. However, the Palestinian Authority insists that Jerusalemites cast their votes in the city’s Post offices, as was the case in previous times. The PA has directly addressed Israel, the United Nations, the European Union, and other countries to allow the holding of elections in Jerusalem, as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli security and political mini-cabinet should resolve this controversy through a final decision in a forthcoming session. Abbas confirmed that Israel had not yet responded to the Palestinian request.

Algerian President Pledges ‘Extensive Constitutional Reforms’
Algiers - Boualem Goumrassa/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune made big promises as he was sworn in as the president, vowing to bring them to reality during his five-year term. Tebboune also named Kamel Beljoud as interior minister, and instructed the rest of the government ministers to continue ruling in a caretaker capacity. The new constitution will reduce the powers of the president and “guarantee the separation and balance of powers,” he said. It will also curtail the immunity of parliamentarians and executive officials for the sake of empowering the judiciary to pursue them in case they were involved in corruption or crimes. "The constitution guarantees the right to protest," Tebboune added. In his first presidential speech, he promised to tackle the corruption that the protesters decry, to curtail his own powers, and to rescue the country’s economy that is on the verge of collapse. Among the new president’s pledges are to hold workshops to reform education, universities, and the health treatment system. He also vowed to make the judiciary independent and distanced from officials’ meddling and power. The new president affirmed that this delicate phase requires rearranging priorities to avoid vague repercussions. He clarified that the country’s conditions necessitate enhancing governance via tackling the weak points of Algeria and creating a suitable atmosphere to revive economic growth. Tebboune said a comprehensive strategic plan must be laid to pass the current political situation and begin reforming the country’s economy and position among nations. He stressed the importance of collaboration to achieve the dream of Algerians in building a new and strong republic. Notably, he took 58 percent of the vote in last week's election, approximately 5.9 million votes.

LNA Forces Strengthen Advances in Tripoli, Threaten Turkey
Cairo- Jamal Jawhar and Khalid Mahmoud/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, has secured more advances towards the heart of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Reports spoke of LNA army units arriving at one of the capital’s largest districts, known as the Abu Salim neighborhood-- army spokesman Ahmed Al-Mismari called on militias in the area to surrender. On the other hand, Major General Faraj Mahdawi, head of the LNA Naval Forces, said that his forces are cooperating with the Greek navy to monitor Turkish ships around the clock. Mahdawi vowed to “immediately deal with any ship suspected of heading to west Libya cities, in particular, Misrata and Tripoli.” Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Mahdawi said that although sinking suspicious Turkish ships remains an open option, it is much better to seize those vessels along with their cargo. “The arrest of these irregular ships will prove to the world the seriousness of our warnings against Turkey transferring weapons and terrorist elements to Libya.” “Out of our belief in our capabilities and strength, as well as the experiences and competencies that our ranks hold, we issued our warnings to target and drown any ship that threatens our national security,” he added. Libya's Tripoli-based government, headed by Fayez Al-Sarraj, had activated a new pact for military cooperation with Turkey. It held an emergency meeting with military commanders on confronting the wide-scale offensive by LNA troops seeking to regain control of Tripoli. After the meeting, the officials unanimously accepted the activation of the pact. On Nov. 27, Ankara and Tripoli reached two separate memorandums of understanding (MoU), one on military cooperation and the other on maritime boundaries of countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. Following the military cooperation deal, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara might consider sending troops to Libya if the Tripoli government made such a request.

Egypt’s Army Looks Forward to More Cooperation With African Countries
Cairo- Waleed Abdurrahman/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Egyptian Minister of Defense Gen. Mohamed Zaki reaffirmed Egypt's permanent aim for more military and security cooperation with countries of the African continent. Zaki also voiced aspirations to expand strategic partnerships with African partners to accelerate the path towards achieving peace, security, and stability for all peoples of the continent. It is worth noting that Zaki has just concluded heading the 12th convention of the specialized technical committee for African defense, safety, and security in Cairo. The convention’s meetings were hosted by the Egyptian Government for the first time during the period from December 15-19. Members of the African Union for Peace and Security Commission and African experts in the field of defense, security, and safety partook in the meetings. “The meetings come within the framework of Egypt's constant eagerness to enhance joint cooperation between African countries, and its complete belief that the African continent is capable of addressing the challenges it faces, in order to achieve stability and peace for its people, and to consolidate the pillars of sustainable development,” Egypt's military spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said. The meetings included several sessions discussing a number of important issues related to defense, security, and safety in Africa. The committee concluded its meetings by drafting a detailed report on the results of the discussions to be presented at the African countries' chiefs of staff meeting. These meetings come within the framework of the political efforts to bring security, peace, and development to the African continent, especially with Egypt taking over the presidency of the African Union. They also aim to stop any hostilities in Africa. Zaki, on the convention’s sidelines, met with his Somali, Chadian, South Sudan, Kenyan, and Cameron counterparts.

First Direct British Flight Arrives in Sharm El-Sheikh
Cairo- Waleed Abdurrahman/Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 20 December, 2019
Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh on Thursday received the first direct British flight that departed from Birmingham with 110 passengers on board, the Egyptian government announced. According to Egypt's cabinet Facebook page, the airplane was welcomed by a water salute. Also, a group from the public relations in the airport presented flowers and gifts to the passengers on the occasion of Christmas and the New Year. In October 2019, Egypt welcomed the UK’s decision to lift the ban on flights to the Egyptian resort city. Egypt’s Minister of Tourism Rania al-Mashaat said that Egyptian authorities have led consistent efforts in order to place the country back on the tourism map. Commercial flights to the airport were banned in November 2015, soon after a Russian Metrojet airliner that had departed from Sharm el-Sheikh was brought down. Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed into the Sinai peninsula shortly after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh. Terror group ISIS claimed to be behind the attack, and said it was caused by a bomb hidden inside a drink can. The government said improved security procedures, and close cooperation between the UK and Egypt on aviation security, meant commercial airlines could now be allowed to operate flights.
Sharm el-Sheikh had previously been one of the most popular holiday destinations with Britons, in particular for the chance of winter sun at the biggest Red Sea resort. Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Younis al-Masry said in a statement on Thursday that Egyptian airports apply all international security measures and safety standards and are working to improve services for passengers. Masry added that the ministry is keen to cooperate with other agencies to increase inbound and outbound travel, noting that "the aviation sector is one of the most important sectors contributing to the national economy." MP Ahmed Idris told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Egypt took into account all the remarks made by the countries concerning the advanced security equipment and insurance. Relevant authorities also allowed several foreign delegations to inspect the airports’ security.

Cyprus rallies neighbors to buck Turkey-Libya maritime deal
The Associated Press, Nicosia, Cyprus/Friday, 20 December 2019
The president of Cyprus said on Friday that he’s in touch with the leaders of Egypt, Israel, Greece and Lebanon to formulate joint diplomatic action aimed at countering a Turkey-Libya maritime border deal that they say flouts international law and ratchets up regional tensions. President Nicos Anastasiades said joint action doesn’t include a military option, but rather a concerted effort on a diplomatic level to negate the the aims of the “unlawful” agreement. Anastasiades said the agreement has also been condemned by Arab nations, European Union member states and other countries he didn’t specify, adding that announcements on specific actions could be expected shortly. Turkey says its deal with Libya’s UN-recognized government grants it economic rights to a large swath of the eastern Mediterranean. But other countries in the region, including Greece and Cyprus, say the deal unlawfully truncates their own economic zones and impedes their rights to offshore exploration for hydrocarbons. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said the agreement means that no oil and gas exploration or any other “projects” can proceed in the area without Ankara’s permission. One such project Erdogan may have been alluding to is an envisioned gas pipeline conveying gas from Israeli and Cypriot offshore deposits to mainland Europe via Greece. The results of a feasibility study on the pipeline dubbed East Med are still pending. Cyprus’ government spokesman, Kyriakos Koushios, said on Friday that in a telephone conversation with Anastasiades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recommended that his country, Cyprus and Greece immediately sign an agreement to get work started on the East Med pipeline. Turkey doesn’t recognize EU-member Cyprus as a state and claims 44 percent of its exclusive economic zone. It has dispatched drill ships to search for hydrocarbons off Cyprus, including in an area where the Cyprus government has licensed a consortium made up of Italian energy company Eni and French Total to carry out exploratory drilling. Turkey says it’s acting to protect its interests and those of Turkish Cypriots in the breakaway northern third of ethnically split Cyprus to the area’s energy resources. The EU has called Turkey’s actions illegal and has imposed sanctions against the country.

Erdogan says Turkey will retaliate against possible US sanctions
Reuters, Ankara/Friday, 20 December 2019
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Friday that Ankara would retaliate against potential US sanctions over its purchase of Russian defense systems and a natural gas pipeline. US Congress has moved to impose sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of S-400 defense systems from Russia and related to Russia’s TurkStream pipeline, which will carry Russian gas to Turkey. Asked about the various sanctions against Ankara, Erdogan repeated that the S-400 deal was already completed. “Now they are saying, ‘we will impose sanctions against this’ regarding TurkStream,” he was quoted as saying. “This is a breach of our rights in the fullest sense. We will of course have our own sanctions against all of these.”

More than 80 dead in latest Syria clashes: War monitor
AFP, Beirut/Friday, 20 December 2019
Clashes between Syrian regime forces and armed groups in the country’s last major opposition bastion have killed more than 80 on both sides in the past 24 hours despite UN calls for de-escalation, a war monitoring group said Friday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 42 extremists and allied groups had been killed in battles with regime forces in the northwestern province of Idlib since Thursday night. The fighting near the extremist-held town of Maaret al-Numan also killed 30 Syrian regime loyalists, the Observatory said.
Russian warplanes, meanwhile, pounded areas around Maaret al-Numan and the nearby town of Saraqib with a series of air strikes, according to the war monitor. The flare-up triggered a wave of displacement from nearby areas, said an AFP correspondent there.
Yasser Ibrahim al-Dandal said he was fleeing with his family to olive groves in northern Idlib, where they would sleep out in the open. “Hundreds of rockets hit Maarat al-Numan,” he told AFP. “The situation is very bad.”The Idlib region, which is home to some three million people including many displaced by Syria’s civil war, is controlled by the country’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate. The Damascus regime has repeatedly vowed to take back control of it. Pro-government forces launched a blistering offensive against the region in April, killing around 1,000 civilians and displacing more than 400,000 people from their homes. Moscow announced a ceasefire in late August, but the Observatory says deadly bombardment and skirmishes have persisted. The United Nations this week condemned a deadly rise in violence in the area after the Observatory reported that regime air strikes and artillery fire had killed 23 civilians on Tuesday. Najat Rochdi, senior humanitarian adviser to the UN’s Syria envoy, called for “immediate de-escalation”. Syria’s war has killed over 370,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since it began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2019
A Piece of Meat”: How Some Muslim Men See White Women
Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/December 20/2019
A British girl was “passed around like a piece of meat” between Muslim men who abused and raped her between the ages of 12 and 14, a court heard earlier this month. Her problems began after she befriended a young Muslim man who, before long, was “forcing her to perform sex acts on other [and older] men,” and receiving money for it. When she resisted, he threatened her and her family with death and destruction. Speaking now as an adult, the woman explained how she eventually “lost count of how many men I was forced to have sex with” during two years of “hell” when she often considered suicide. Among other anecdotes, the court heard how the young “girl was raped on a dirty mattress above a takeaway and forced to perform [oral] sex acts in a churchyard,” and how one of her abusers “urinated on her in an act of humiliation” afterwards.
Although her experiences are akin to those of many British girls, that she was “passed around like a piece of meat” is a reminder of the experiences of another British woman known by the pseudonym of Kate Elysia. The Muslim men she encountered “made me believe I was nothing more than a slut, a white whore,” she said. “They treated me like a leper, apart from when they wanted sex. I was less than human to them, I was rubbish.”
What explains this ongoing exploitation of European women by Muslim men—which exists well beyond the UK and has become epidemic in Germany Sweden, and elsewhere? The answer begins by understanding that, although these sordid accounts are routinely dismissed as the activities of “criminals,” they are in fact reflective of nearly fourteen centuries of Muslim views on and treatment of European women.
For starters, Muslim men have long had an obsessive attraction for fair women of the European variety. This, as all things Islamic, traces back to their prophet, Muhammad. In order to entice his men to war on the Byzantines—who, as the Arabs’ nearest European neighbors represented “white” people—the prophet told them that they would be able to sexually enslave the “yellow” women (an apparent reference to their fair hair).
For over a millennium after Muhammad, jihadi leaders—Arabs, Berbers, Turks, Tatars et al—also coaxed their men to jihad on Europe by citing (and later sexually enslaving) its women. As one example, prior to their invasion into Spain, Tarek bin Ziyad, a jihadi hero, enticed the Muslims by saying, “You must have heard numerous accounts of this island, you must know how the Grecian maidens, as beautiful as houris … are awaiting your arrival, reclining on soft couches in the sumptuous palaces of crowned lords and princes.”
That the sexual enslavement of fair women was an aspect that always fueled the jihad is evident in other ways. Thus, for M.A. Khan, an author and former Muslim, it is “impossible to disconnect Islam from the Viking slave-trade, because the supply was absolutely meant for meeting [the] Islamic world’s unceasing demand for the prized white slaves” and for “white sex-slaves.”
Just as Muslim rapists see British and other European women as “pieces of meat,” “nothing more than sluts,” and “white whores,” so did Muslim luminaries always describe the nearest European women of Byzantium. Thus, for Abu Uthman al-Jahiz (b. 776), a prolific court scholar, the females of Constantinople were the “most shameless women in the whole world … [T]hey find sex more enjoyable” and “are prone to adultery.” Abd al-Jabbar (b. 935), another prominent scholar, claimed that “adultery is commonplace in the cities and markets of Byzantium”—so much so that even “the nuns from the convents went out to the fortresses to offer themselves to monks.”
But as the author of Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, explains:
Our [Arab/Muslim] sources show not Byzantine women but writers’ images of these women, who served as symbols of the eternal female—constantly a potential threat, particularly due to blatant exaggerations of their sexual promiscuity. In our texts [Arab/Muslim], Byzantine women are strongly associated with sexual immorality . . . .While the one quality that our sources never deny is the beauty of Byzantine women, the image that they create in describing these women is anything but beautiful. Their depictions are, occasionally, excessive, virtually caricatures, overwhelmingly negative…The behavior of most women in Byzantium was a far cry from the depictions that appear in Arabic sources.
The continuity in Muslim “dealings” with European women is evident even in the otherwise arcane details. For example, the aforementioned Kate “was trafficked to the North African country of Morocco where she was prostituted and repeatedly raped.” She was kept in an apartment in Marrakesh, where another girl no more than 15 was also kept for sexual purposes. “I can’t remember how many times I’m raped that [first] night, or by who,” Kate recounts.
This mirrors history. By 1541, the Muslim Barbary State of “Algiers teemed with Christian captives,” from Europe that “it became a common saying that a Christian slave was scarce a fair barter for an onion.”
According to the conservative estimate of American professor Robert Davis, “between 1530 and 1780 [alone] there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast,” of which Morocco—where Kate was abducted to in the modern era—was one. Women slaves—and not a few men and boys—were always sexually abused. With countless European women selling for the price of an onion, little wonder by the late 1700s, European observers noted how “the inhabitants of Algiers have a rather white complexion.”
It was the same elsewhere. (The number of Europeans enslaved by Muslims throughout history is closer to 15 million.) The slave markets of the Ottoman sultanate were for centuries so inundated with European flesh that children sold for pennies, “a very beautiful slave woman was exchanged for a pair of boots, and four Serbian slaves were traded for a horse.” In Crimea—where some three million Slavs were enslaved by the Muslim Tatars—an eyewitness described how Christian men were castrated and savagely tortured (including by gouging their eyes out), whereas “The youngest women are kept for wanton pleasures.”Such a long and unwavering history of sexually enslaving European women on the claim that, they are all “pieces of meat,” “nothing more than sluts,” and “white whores,” should place the ongoing sexual abuse of Western women in context—and offer a dim prognosis for the future.
(Note: All historical quotes and facts in this article are sourced from the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.)

Cursed Democracy
Dr. Amal Moussa/Asharq Al Awsat/December, 20/2019
There is an abundance of theorizing on populism. This abundance is symptomatic of an intellectual confusion about this rising phenomenon. If we examined it carefully, we would find that the discussion today on populism, whether in politics, theory, and the media, associates it to the word return, i.e., the return of populism.
Bringing up this idea of return, especially by politicians and journalists, is likely to carry the historical significance of the populism that Europe knew early on and overcame. The impression of populism that has persisted in peoples' minds is that it is a movement that was based on a clear and explicit idea that is based on sanctifying people and victory and enthusiastically following what is popular.
In his supposedly outdated book, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Le Bon, the main characteristic of the crowd is that individuals melt into one spirit and common emotion that eliminates distinctions between them and dulls their mental faculties. Le Bon suggested a new explanation for populism associating it with hypnotism. Le Bon considers that changes that happen to an individual in a crowd are similar to that in hypnotism.
The question worth asking in this crucial historical moment is: Is populism reproducing itself as it is or differently?
Before trying to answer that question, there seems to be a problem that warrants quick reflection. The broader acceptance of democracy as a means to reach power and the rotation of elites in power have both contributed to the rise of populism in some countries and its return in countries where it did not exist. There are common aspects of democracy and populism. Is democracy, in its simplest definition, not the rule of the people? Or, more so, the rule of the majority?
Raising such questions for the sake of contemplation and inquiry is important. They allow us to dig into the right places, especially that this encounter between democracy and populism in some Arab countries, such as Tunisia, produces a multi-dimensional tension and a collision with rationalism and its commitments. Of course, this space does not allow us to dig deep enough, and perhaps it would be better to put forth some critical comments that may stimulate thinking and discussion. First, a mismanaged democracy, despite transparency in elections, pushes people to make the wrong choices. A governor mistakenly chosen will resort to populism as they do not have a political action plan to produce tangible and realistic solutions that can be measured and examined.
Democracy as the best way of rule historically is not fruitful or distinct if those competing over power have clear political identities and action plans that are ready to be implemented.
The weakness of the political field affects democracy negatively and tarnishes its name. It becomes a curse, such as the case among large sections of the Tunisian people. The problem is not democracy itself but the fragility of the political field. Democracy, according to the Italian sociologist Pareto, allows the elite to take turns. The political elite has certain characteristics, capabilities, and competences, and if lacking, it would damage democracy and fuel populism. The fragility of the political domain leads to a transition from the rule of the majority to a populism that is the product of electoral dysfunction that produces a deformed situation.
Second, new populism is distinguished from old populism. The people in new populism have material demands and expectations that are of an economic persuasion. This turns it into a rational populism with clear goals. According to Max Weber, an act is rational when a clear purpose guides it.
What does this mean? And how will the populist politician, in this situation, express their sanctification of the people and follow their tendencies like a spoiled child? In this instance, yesterday's illusory populism falls, and a materialist populism with its direct and indirect negative consequences rises, putting pressure on populist politicians to realize their fragility. They do so by either sanctifying the people's economic and material demands or resorting to democracy. The populist politician is punished, and the people mature more and learn the differences between political elites, their ways, keys, and characteristics.
This is how democracy becomes gradually consecrated. It is true that populism wastes time and accumulates frustrations, but it is this fire that will cook democracy and take it from its embryonic phase into its youth. This is also how we will gain valuable knowledge that will cost money, time, and mental energy in the study of elites that run the democratic process and that gradually secure its immunity without unexpected crises.

Britain: Flushing Out the Corbynista
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/December, 20/2019
The British Conservative Party’s victory at last week’s general election has been described variously as “an earthquake” and “a triumph.” Because the party won it biggest parliamentary majority since the 1980s, the election may look like a triumph for its leader Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, the label “earthquake” is also in order if applied to the opposition Labour Party’s performance, the label “earthquake” may also appear to be in order.
A closer examination of the results, however, may provide a more nuanced picture or at least a less pixilated one. One key feature commentators have focused on was the massive switch of many traditional Labour-supporting constituencies to the Conservatives. Pundits ask: How did people who had never voted Conservative decide to do so after generations of attachment to Socialism?
What the pundits ignore is that all those constituencies had already voted Conservative in 2016 when they voted for Brexit. In other words by voting Tory in the general elections they were just confirming their previous transfer of loyalty. The Labour Party lost just one constituency that had voted against Brexit, Kensington in London, to the Conservatives. However, it won another constituency, Putney, also in London, which had voted remain.
So was last week’s election a re-run of the referendum on Brexit? Not quite. The pro-Brexit vote, headed by the Conservative Party, collected around 46 percent of the votes compared to 52 percent in the original referendum on the subject. In other words, if we keep the focus solely on Brexit, fewer voters supported leaving the European Union this time.
Looking beyond Brexit one key feature of the election may well be the dramatic rejection by voters of the Labour Party and its current leader Jeremy Corbyn. The party’s performance was the worst since the 1930s and, if opinion polls are to be trusted, its leader the most disliked since James Ramsay MacDonald, who headed a Labour government for nine months in 1924 before transforming himself into a turncoat.
However, blaming all on Corbyn, a rather mediocre politician stuck in the student politics of the 1960s, may also be unjustified.
Corbyn’s ambivalent response to anti-Semitic shenanigans in his party, his past flirtations with the IRA, his “brotherly relations” with Hezbollah and Hamas, his decade-long career as commentator for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s English-language TV, his visceral anti-Americanism and opposition to NATO, and his pathological hatred of Israel, have all been highlighted as reasons why he cannot be trusted as prime minister of a major western democracy.
Even then, blaming Corbyn as the sole cause of the collapse of Labour’s support base may not give us the full picture.
The British version of social democracy, represented by the Labour Party, has been a key player in that country’s politics since the 1930s. Under Corbyn, however, the party seemed to be redefining itself as a radical movement suffering from what Lenin dismissed as “an infantile disorder” in 1918. In the new discourse promoted by the Corbynista a new version of class struggle, this time in the form of a war of generations, genders and levels of income replaced the traditional reformist, or as critics might say, managerial, approach of the party to politics. Corbyn supporters divided society into three categories: the mass of the poor, the tiny minority of the rich, vilified as “billionaires”, and themselves in the middle as savior of the former and punishers of the latter.
They did not realize that their “poor” may not see themselves as indigents in need of neo-Stalinists saviors and that many middle-income former Labour voters may resent being classed with “the evil rich” simply because they lived a comfortable life. Moreover, that categorization missed a large chunk of the population now known as those who “just about managing” or JAM for short.
Despite his denunciation of the “infantile disorder”, Lenin himself may have been the father of a generic form of leftism that treats society as a blank page on which small elite of revolutionaries could draw their vision of an ideal society. Before seizing power in 1917, Lenin had penned many articles and leaflets against reformist social democrats, notably the Austrian Karl Kautsky and the Prussian Ferdinand Lassalle, accusing them of sabotaging the chances of working people ever to win political power and change society.
With his celebrated, though infantile, dictum “Better fewer but better”, Lenin put the emphasis on “class loyalty” and “ideological purity” even if that meant fewer people were attracted to the party.
The century that followed showed Lenin to be wrong, and Kautsky and Lassalle to be right. Since then not a single Leninist party has won a democratic election in any country while social democratic parties have shared power in almost all Western democracies and some nations beyond. Even the US Democrat Party, though certainly not socialistic, has adopted aspects of Kautskyan socialism, at least on occasions. In Britain itself, the Labour Party, in its social democratic version, has been in power for almost a quarter of the century in question.
Social democracy has been a key feature of Western life since the 1848 series of revolutions that, despite their short-term failure to secure power, transformed the political landscape of Europe. Kautsky and Lassalle insisted that the aim of social democracy should be to win the political argument by convincing enough of the voters to choose that option at the ballot boxes. Later, Antonio Gramsci, an Italian neo-Marxist denounced some Corbynista as a class traitor, developed that belief into a method of political work.
Successive British Labour governments understood that treating voters as mere objects of a grand messianic design would never bring the party to power. By adopting a pragmatic approach successive Labour governments succeeded in introducing reforms that none of the Leninist parties across the globe achieved.
The creation of the National Health Service, now turned into a secular religion for the Brits, the founding of NATO based on the Atlantic Charter, the start of decolonization and the formation of the British Commonwealth were among the earliest achievements of British social democracy in the post-World War II period. In the 1960s followed the democratization of higher education by creating dozens of new universities, the abolition of capital punishment, and the removal of residual colonial encumbrances. Between 1997 and 2010, the longest spell of government by Labour, saw the introduction of a minimum wage, the end of Irish “troubles”, devolved government for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, legal equal rights for gays and lesbians, and the independence of the Bank of England ensuring greater fiscal responsibility.
Corbyn and his cohorts did all they could to destroy British social democracy. However, I doubt if they have succeeded. In 1997, the Conservatives suffered a bigger defeat, winning 165 seats compared to the 203 seats the Labour won last week.
The beauty of democracy is that nothing is irreversible. However, democracy needs a strong opposition. The sooner Corbyn and Corbynista bow out the better for British democracy.

Iran’s disastrous year in political risk analysis
Dr. John C. Hulsman/Arab News/December 20, 2019
As I never tire of preaching to my staff as well as my clients, the best form of marketing in the business of political risk analysis is to be consistently right. Despite all the bells and whistles in my line of work, most businesses still blessedly care if — for significant fees — the political risk firm they have hired has been right about China, Donald Trump, Brexit, Europe, trade wars, macroeconomics and geopolitics. After all, getting the new world we live in right is why political risk firms are hired in the first place; giving clients a huge edge in explaining both what is, and what is to come.
What is true for businesses is even truer for political leaders and countries. Those that adapt to the times they live through — seeing the world as it is rather than as they might like it to be — tend to thrive, while those who inhabit a fantasy realm of wish fulfillment decline, never understanding the forces that cause their fall from grace.Of all the major countries in the world that I have spent time thinking about this past year, surely Iran has the absolute worst record in terms of political risk analysis (and that is saying something). It is little wonder that this disastrous analysis goes hand-in-hand with the country’s increasingly perilous geostrategic position.
There are at least four major political risk errors Tehran has made over the last 12 months. First, the Iranian elite blithely assumed that newly imposed American sanctions — following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal — would not deeply scar its economy.
Here, Iran vastly underestimated American economic power. Before the sanctions were imposed, Iran was exporting 2 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), sustaining the lifeblood of its economy. The corresponding figure is now merely 200,000 bpd, a collapse of 90 percent. The effects are crystal clear: The crippling of the country’s economy. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that the Iranian economy is set to plummet by a shocking 9.5 percent this year, while inflation has soared to a punitive 40 percent. Fully half of all Iranians are now estimated to live below the poverty line.
Second, the Iranian elite believed that the Europeans would, at best, be able to dissuade the Trump White House from following through with the sanctions and, at worst, would go their own way in continuing to build up trade with Tehran, securing its economic future. Illustrating a horrendous lack of understanding of the Trump revolution — that his Jacksonian ideology did not make him susceptible to multilateral allied pressure in the least — Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regime simply did not even begin to see the dynamics of changing transatlantic relations.
The mullahs in Tehran also betrayed a complete lack of understanding for how the free market works in the West. Whatever grand pronouncements European leaders were likely to make about getting around US-imposed sanctions, they simply could not order private businesses to follow their unsteady lead.
Faced with a choice of doing business with Tehran and endangering their access to the American market or forgoing such a suicidal effort altogether, it ought to come as absolutely no surprise that every single major European business chose to shun Iran in favor of safeguarding their future prosperity. Anyone vaguely aware of how the Western free market works would have known this; pathetically, Iran’s leaders did not.
The Iranian elite blithely assumed its own people would remain forever quiescent, no matter how badly led they were and how many political risk errors its leaders made.
Thirdly, and despite these huge economic privations, Tehran has fecklessly walked into the trap of imperial overstretch, possessing an ambitious foreign policy that is not commensurate with its limited economic means. Since 2013, US officials estimate that Iran has spent a hefty $16 billion on Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, and an additional $10 billion propping up the Assad regime in Syria. Further, it is estimated to spend $700 million a year bankrolling its close ally Hezbollah. These huge outlays are simply unsustainable, given the freefalling Iranian economy.
There has also been an increasingly negative return for Tehran on this enormous foreign policy investment into empire. Presently, there is dramatic, broad-based animosity to the Iranian allies running the governments in Iraq and Lebanon, as a huge cross section of the populace in both countries has risen up, outraged at their corruption and mismanagement, and humiliated by their utter dependence on Tehran for survival.
These local controversies that inaugurated the demonstrations and social upheaval have morphed over time into a more general uprising against what is seen as malign Iranian influence in their countries. Iran’s imperial overstretch is both unaffordable and increasingly strategically counterproductive.
Finally, all these gigantic political risk miscalculations have come home to roost in Iran itself. The Iranian elite blithely assumed its own people would remain forever quiescent, no matter how badly led they were and how many political risk errors its leaders made. Recent demonstrations in Iran itself show this simply is not true; that the people of Iran do not have infinite patience for an elite that has been so wrong, so often.
Being right or wrong in terms of political risk analysis always has consequences and cannot be wished away. The bell is beginning to toll for Iran’s clueless leadership.
*Dr. John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via www.chartwellspeakers.com.

Daesh is down but still not out
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arab News/December 20, 2019
Daesh has been one of the most “successful” terrorist organizations in history. But even though it has now lost its leader and last territorial holdings in the Levant, it would be a mistake to suppose that the world has heard the last of it.
To understand why this is the case one must understand what made it so effective in the first place. Daesh grew out of an Al-Qaeda affiliate in northern Iraq, from where it expanded into the security void created by the civil war in Syria. But Daesh was unlike any other Al-Qaeda offshoot. Where Al-Qaeda measured success by the number of terror attacks and caliber of targets it managed to hit, Daesh measured it by the amount of territory under its control. At its peak, that stood at a dazzling 34,000 square miles.
The audacity of trying to build a state from scratch, and the initial apparent success in that endeavor, completely revolutionized the global extremist movement. Success breeds success, and foreign and local young extremists flocked to join the marauding army, which soon ruled over more than 10 million people and had an annual tax income of more than $800 million.
The problem with having a territory, however, is that you are a sitting target. And while Daesh could fight off the divided, dysfunctional land armies of Baghdad and Damascus, they never really stood a chance once the US, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Gulf allies weighed in. The only reason Daesh lasted as long as it did is because all the other players on the battlefield were fighting their own fights, for their own purposes, among which Daesh was at most an incidental nuisance.
But tens of thousands of extremists who have sworn allegiance to the Daesh flag remain in the Levant and beyond, from Libya to the Philippines. It cannot be expected that they have all laid down their weapons willingly and retired to civilian life.
As the military situation deteriorates and Daesh fighters start to trickle out from the war zones, one can expect that they will simply shift toward other fronts in failed states where Daesh outposts continue to hold out. Currently, the most obvious destination is Afghanistan. But governance is extremely fragile in large swathes of the Middle East. New areas in which states are unable to assert their monopoly of force can always emerge, so these fighters are likely to have places to go for the foreseeable future.
Others will likely revert to the old Al-Qaeda rule book: Organize terrorist attacks in stable states in the Middle East and the West, combined with renewed efforts to proselytize. This route will be available especially to Western-born extremists, who can often return to their countries of origin and operate either alone or in small cells to undermine the security of these nations.
The material conditions of poor governance, social inequality, ethnic strife and demographic imbalances that have fed the endless regional conflict continue to be pervasive.
The most concerning issue is that the group still has substantial funds at its disposal, which means terror and radicalization operations in our countries will become more sophisticated and thus more likely to succeed.
Daesh is down but it is far from out. For the time being it will be forced to revert to the old tactics of Al-Qaeda — a model of extremism that continues to be successful and resilient — but the hardcore of the group will be viewing the loss of the Levant as no more than a temporary setback. They will be looking to retreat and regroup, biding their time as they wait for an opportunity to return and claim land for a “state” somewhere else in the Muslim world.
Whether they return under the label of Daesh is rather beside the point. The material conditions of poor governance, social inequality, ethnic strife and demographic imbalances that have fed the endless regional conflict continue to be pervasive.
Global extremism is a hydra, fed by a diverse array of causes. All the world has achieved is to cut off the most visible head — but the hydra yet lives.
*Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, and author of “Prospective Foreign Policy of a Corbyn Government and US National Security Implications” (Hudson: Sept 2019). Twitter: @AzeemIbrahim

Globalization’s values are being held hostage by right-wing populism
Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/December 20, 2019
On this day 28 years ago, a treaty was signed by republics within the Soviet Union that paved the way for the dissolution of the communist Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the world entered a new phase and became more interconnected.
The end of that old, bipolar world marked the emergence of new countries that previously had been isolated communist-bloc nations, and the disappearance of traditional borders. Thus began a new global era of free exchange of thoughts and ideas, and greater mobility of people. In addition, the rapid development of information, communication and transportation technology prevailed.
The Cold War era had passed and a new age of globalization took its place. However, the negative aspects of this have come to surpass the positive.
Globalization is neither a new nor a singular phenomenon. It is a complex and nuanced process with many aspects, and it has diverse meanings to different peoples depending on their ideologies and perceptions. Therefore it has both positive and negative effects.
While it has enhanced liberal values such as human rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law, it has also led to increased immigration, which has become the target of a rising right-ring populism that threatens the very universal values that globalization defends.
The end of the Cold War did not mean the end of history, just as globalization did not mean the homogenization of societies. We now understand that rather than making us all the same, or even more alike, it is instead being held hostage by a right-wing populism that has fueled a fundamental dichotomy between “us” and “them.”
The 21st century began with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and financial crises in Europe, and we have since witnessed uprisings in the Middle East and the increasing threat of transnational terrorism. Such tragic developments have led to forced immigration and a flow of refugees across borders that have become porous following the emergence of globalization. While the mobility of people and ideas was seen as a main pillar of globalization, today it is viewed from the perspective of the threats and risks it poses to security.
This week, first Global Refugee Forum was held in Geneva. The two-day meeting is the main platform for state officials to monitor the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees, which is a UN initiative. The forum, which aims to improve the lives of refugees and the communities that host them, is scheduled to take place every four years.
Europe is facing the biggest wave of refugees it has experienced since World War II, as people flee war-torn countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. They have been crossing the Mediterranean on boats since 2015 in a desperate attempt to reach the continent. Rather than tackling this humanitarian crisis through proper means, members of the EU, the world’s richest and most integrated bloc of nations, adopted restrictive security measures to manage the flow of refugees. These security-oriented policies, which were further reinforced by rising anti-immigration sentiment, nativism and populism, aimed to limit the number of refugees entering Europe.
The global refugee crisis has shaken the EU like no other crisis it has faced. It has caused Europe to abandon the values it has promoted for decades, creating fertile ground for the populist, right-wing parties that contradict liberal, democratic institutions and processes — and the very basis upon which the main pillars of European values of human rights, democracy, inclusiveness and multiculturalism is premised. The rhetoric adopted by these populist parties fuel nationalism, portraying refugees and migrants as a threat to jobs and, most importantly, to national identity.
Populism is not a new phenomenon. However, it has become much more obvious as a result of the crises Europe has experienced in the past decade, including the financial meltdown and the refugee emergency. More troubling, though, is the fact that it has become normalized. As long as the West continues to contradict its own core values, from which it believes it derives its superiority, it has no right to criticize non-Western societies, which it considers inferior, for lacking liberal values, human rights and the rule of law.
Populism is not a new phenomenon. However, it has become much more obvious as a result of the crises Europe has experienced in the past decade.
Populism and nativism justify authoritarianism by defending anti‐pluralism, and fuel a new version of orientalism by dividing nations and peoples as “us” and “others.” Where once, in the ideology of the West, communism was the “other,” now it is Islam. Both religion and migration are instrumentalized by right-wing, populist leaders in the West to polarize countries.
While populism is destroying Europe, it is also causing the Middle East to miss opportunities for liberalization. In a timely piece for the blog of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, titled “The rise of right-wing extremism in the West could be an opportunity for the liberals of the Middle East,” Turkish scholar Burak Bilgehan Ozpek writes: “It has become apparent that the West is not a unitary actor any more and has serious internal contradictions and dissensus. Moreover, the imagined congruence between Western culture and universal norms has disappeared because far-right movements argue that such norms contradict a specifically European local culture.”
Yes, populism is destroying Europe and eroding the respect for liberal institutions, minorities and values. The most obvious cases of this can be found in France, Germany, Hungary and Poland. The election of Donald Trump as president in the US, Britain’s Brexit vote and the huge victory by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in last week’s UK elections are also considered the results of different forms of populism.
While some European countries are trying to solve the populism problem by reinforcing the positions of liberal parties, the efforts are struggling to have much of an effect in the face of such a desperate situation.
*Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkey’s relations with the Middle East. Twitter: @SinemCngz

Turkey Pivots to Tripoli: Implications for Libya’s Civil War and U.S. Policy
Soner Cagaptay and Ben Fishman/The Washington Institute/December 19/ 2019
Facing pressure from General Haftar and his foreign military backers, the Tripoli government has welcomed the helping hand extended by Ankara, whose own lack of regional options has drawn it into the middle of another conflict. On December 10, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he was willing to deploy troops in Libya if the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli requested it. He reiterated the offer during a December 15 meeting with GNA prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Ankara—a visit that arose after Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who heads the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) and seeks to replace the GNA, renewed his push to take Tripoli by force.
Meanwhile, Turkey signed two controversial agreements with Tripoli over the past month: a memorandum of understanding on providing the GNA with arms, training, and military personnel, formally ratified by Tripoli earlier today; and a November 28 maritime agreement delineating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean waters separating the two countries. The latter move drew protests from Greece and Egypt and was condemned “unequivocally” by the European Council.
These and other developments indicate Libya’s emerging status as a focal point of Ankara’s foreign policy, which seemingly regards the country as an arena for Turkish proxy competition with rivals old (Greece) and new (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates). At the same time, Libya’s GNA has become increasingly dependent on Ankara for military reasons—namely, a lack of other allies willing to provide arms capable of countering the LNA’s Emirati-supplied drones, and the arrival of Russian mercenaries who have added new technology and precision to Haftar’s war against Tripoli.
Unless Washington invests more diplomatic energy and fully backs the German-led initiative to implement a ceasefire and return to peace negotiations, the proxy war in Libya will only escalate. In that scenario, Turkey and Russia—not the United States or its European partners—could be become the arbiters of Libya’s future.
TURKEY’S ONLY FRIEND IN THE REGION
Ankara’s Libya policy stems from its isolation in the East Mediterranean, which has gradually worsened since the rupture of Turkish-Israeli ties in 2010 and Erdogan’s regional policy miscalculations during the Arab Spring uprisings. On the latter front, his support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in 2011-2012 cost him dearly after that government was ousted by mass protests and replaced with a military administration. And when he refused to recognize the subsequent government of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, he alienated powerful members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who supported Sisi and were deeply concerned about the role of the Brotherhood and other political Islamist movements in regional politics. (Qatar was the lone Gulf exception, actively working with Turkey to support Islamist political parties in the Middle East and form de facto alliances against Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia on various fronts.)
Meanwhile, Turkey’s support for rebel groups in the Syria war put it at odds with Damascus and Iran, as well as Tehran’s regional allies inside Lebanon and the Iraqi government. In short, Ankara’s loss of regional partners was nearly total by the time Libya’s civil war erupted in 2014, setting the stage for Turkey’s turn to Tripoli.
At the time, Erdogan threw his support behind the Tripoli/Misratah-based “Dawn Coalition,” which opposed Haftar’s “Dignity Coalition.” For their part, Egypt and the UAE were worried about the ascent of political Islam in Libya and eager to undermine Erdogan, so they quickly backed Haftar and his avowed “anti-Islamist, anti-terrorist” agenda. Among other assistance, they carried out airstrikes on his behalf.
Today, Cairo and Abu Dhabi have vastly increased their support to Haftar’s latest offensives, including through Emirati drone-strike technology and operators. Turkey has sought to counter these moves by providing the GNA with drones of its own (though fewer than the UAE has given Haftar) as well as additional weapons and armored personnel carriers. As noted by a recent UN report, all of these multiparty weapons transfers have been conducted in blatant disregard of the Security Council’s arms embargo in Libya.
COUNTERING THE EAST MED BLOC
Turkey has recently found itself pitted against an emerging coalition of old and new adversaries across the East Mediterranean, mainly Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Israel. Given its cool-to-hostile relations with these states, Ankara is alarmed by the rate at which they have come together in strategic cooperation, including joint diplomatic, energy, and military initiatives.
Soon after coming to power, for example, Sisi opened talks with Greece to delineate their maritime economic areas. He then held a three-way summit in November 2014 to promote a deal for supplying natural gas to Egypt from undersea fields off the coast of Cyprus. Cairo also hosted the inaugural meeting of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum earlier this year, notably excluding Turkey.
On the military front, Egypt has been conducting joint air exercises with Greece since 2015. The first of these, “Medusa,” was held on the Greek island of Rhodes just twelve miles from Turkey’s coast. Cypriot forces began participating in Medusa drills in 2018; separately, they carried out three rounds of joint exercises in Israel earlier this year.
Ankara’s new maritime agreement with Tripoli was forged in part to counter such cooperation. The November 28 accord established a virtual maritime axis between Dalaman on Turkey’s southwest coast and Darnah on Libya’s northeast coast (far from the GNA’s practical area of control). In Erdogan’s view, drawing this line will allow him to cut into the emerging Cypriot-Egyptian-Greek-Israeli maritime bloc, while simultaneously pushing back against Egypt and the UAE’s pressure on the GNA.
POTENTIAL REPERCUSSIONS INSIDE LIBYA
Although Europe and the United States have warned the GNA that forming closer relations with Turkey would endanger its support in the West, authorities in Tripoli felt they had no alternative after eight months of renewed fighting. GNA military losses have increased due to Emirati drone strikes and Russian snipers, while conditions in the capital have worsened as tens of thousands of internally displaced persons seek refuge in Tripoli. (GNA supporters in Tripoli and Misratah constitute the majority of Libya’s population, but Haftar and his eastern-based allies control substantially more territory.)
With Haftar showing no interest in political compromise and the international community doing little to pressure his foreign backers, the new Turkish-Libyan defense memorandum could help deter further escalation—particularly since Egypt does not want a military confrontation with Turkey. Further escalation in Libya could open the door to Ankara and Russia supplanting the West and the UN in the battle to determine Libya’s future. Although Erdogan and Vladimir Putin currently back opposing sides in the civil war, their operational track record in Syria speaks volumes about their potential for reaching an understanding in Libya. The two leaders spoke about the Libya situation by phone on December 17, and Putin is scheduled to visit Turkey in January for a meeting focused specifically on that issue.
CONCLUSION
To date, the Trump administration has taken a back seat during Haftar’s offensive. On November 13, it hosted two senior GNA officials in Washington and issued a joint statement opposing the LNA’s military campaign. Yet when a U.S. delegation headed by Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates met with Haftar in the region eleven days later, it issued no such public warning. Two weeks after that, Haftar declared that “Zero Hour has come” for Tripoli, and the LNA reinvigorated its offensive.
U.S. indecision regarding the battle for Tripoli has allowed the Russians to gain influence on the southern flank of NATO. It has also created another unnecessary friction point with Turkey, as well as between Ankara and other U.S. allies in the East Mediterranean. Washington now has a narrow window to prevent further violence in Libya and limit Moscow’s influence there. To do so, it must fully back the German-led effort to convince all relevant outside parties—including Turkey and its regional rivals—to commit to a ceasefire and halt arms transfers. U.S. officials should also threaten to use existing sanctions authorities against violators of a ceasefire once it is signed.
Without U.S. participation, the Berlin initiative will falter as facts on the ground create more violence and stoke tensions between U.S. allies in the region. The best way to curb Moscow’s interference is not by coopting Haftar, but rather by pushing his other backers, mainly the UAE and Egypt. These countries seek positive relations with Washington, and this desire should be used as leverage to extract their support for the Berlin process and a much-needed ceasefire.
*Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow at The Washington Institute and author of the book Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East. He would like to thank Deniz Yuksel for her assistance with this analysis. Ben Fishman is a senior fellow at the Institute and former director for North Africa at the National Security Council.