LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 19/19

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection
Letter to the Romans 12/09-21: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on February 18-19/19
Lebanese President Boycotts Sharm El-Sheikh Summit
Expanded Meeting at Grand Serail Launches ‘First Step’ of CEDRE Projects
Report: Cabinet Facing Three-Month Grace Period
Lassen, al-Hassan Discuss Women's Rights, Freedom of Expression
Bou Saab: Each Minister Is Free to Visit Syria
PSP Defends Civil Marriage as Jumblat Says 'Stop Using Religion to Divide'
Gharib 'Pleased' after Syria Visit over Refugees
Dar al-Fatwa Comments on Civil Marriage Controversy
Controversy as al-Hassan Revives Debate over Civil Marriage
Differences Between Lebanese MPs at Kataeb Party Congress
Industry minister briefs Aoun on trade deficit
Are Hezbollah’s Attack Tunnels the Future of Warfare?
In Lebanon, New Chance or Another Missed Opportunity?
Iran ‘shouldn’t Bite Off More Than They Can Chew’, Hezbollah Needs To Be ‘wary’: Ex-Lebanon PM Siniora

Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 18-19/19
Netanyahu: Arabs Not Rushing to Normalize Ties with Israel
Votel in Iraq to Discuss Long-Term ISIS Threat
Prince Turki al-Faisal: Iran should let go of its ‘extra-territorial ambitions’
Iran arrests three ‘terrorists’ for suicide bomb attack
I am a human rights professor,’ Iranian FM Zarif responds to question on rights abuses
Jordan asks Iran to release three jailed nationals
Commander: US cannot back forces who align with Syria’s Assad
Twin bombing kills 17 in Syria’s Idlib
US-backed force won’t release extremists, but warns they could escape
Besieged ISIS militants in eastern Syria refuse to surrender, ask for an exit
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan affirm Palestinians’ right to establish own state
Nineteen Palestinians, Israeli soldier wounded in Gaza clashes
Israel trims funds to Palestinians over militant stipends
Egypt Army Seizes Weapons While Chasing Terrorists
Iraqi Kurds Elect First Woman Speaker as Stop-Gap
US Stresses Continued Support for Arab Coalition in Yemen

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 18-19/19
Are Hezbollah’s Attack Tunnels the Future of Warfare/Michael Peck/The National Interest/February 18/2019
In Lebanon, New Chance or Another Missed Opportunity/Edward Gabriel/The Hill/February 18/19
Iran ‘shouldn’t Bite Off More Than They Can Chew’, Hezbollah Needs To Be ‘wary’: Ex-Lebanon PM Siniora/Ibrahim Shukralla and Nour Salman/UrduPoint/February 18/19
Analysis Saudi Arabia's New Weapon Against Women/Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/February 18/19
The European Election Won’t Break the EU/Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg View/February 18/19
From 'Baghdadi’s State' to 'Lone Wolves'/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 18/19Will Iran yield in the face of growing US pressure/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab news/February 18/19
A Month of Multiculturalism in Germany: January 2019/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/February 18/19/
As Iran sinks financially, Iraqi militias generate funds via protection rackets/Michael Flanagan/Al Arabiya/February 18/19
Why is Russia propping up Sudan’s Bashir/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/February 18/19
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s bid to change regional politics/Ahmed Quraishi/Al Arabiya/February 18/19

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on February 18-19/19
Lebanese President Boycotts Sharm El-Sheikh Summit
Asharq Al Awsat/February 18th, 2019/Prime Minister Saad Hariri will lead Lebanon’s delegation to the Arab-European Dialogue Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, while sources said that President Michel Aoun has decided not to attend in response to the Egyptian president’s absence from the Socioeconomic Development Summit in Beirut earlier this year. According to informed sources, Hariri will grab the opportunity to urge the heads of Arab and European delegations to give impetus to the projects that received funding at the CEDRE Conference held in Paris last April. Meanwhile, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Affairs Federica Mogherini will visit Beirut on Feb. 25-26, to discuss with the concerned officials the roadmap for supporting Hariri’s government and to address socioeconomic challenges, and institutional reforms. In the same context, a diplomatic source said that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will visit Beirut after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, while contacts between Beirut and Paris are underway to set an official date for the trip, during which Le Drian will convey French President Emmanuel Macron’s compliments on the formation of the new government. Moreover, Lebanese ministerial sources pointed to communication between Beirut and Riyadh to revive the bilateral joint committee, as 23 draft agreements and MoUs are waiting to be signed on cooperation in the fields of defense, justice, trade, maritime transport, land, customs and culture.

Expanded Meeting at Grand Serail Launches ‘First Step’ of CEDRE Projects
Naharnet/February 18/19/Prime Minister Saad Hariri chaired an expanded meeting at the Grand Serail in a first practical step towards launching the CEDRE Conference projects. The meeting was held in the presence of Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and representatives from the World Bank and the Arab and European funds.Hariri’s adviser for Economic Affairs Nadim al-Munla told reporters after the meeting that “the financial institutions have confirmed commitment to the pledges made at CEDRE conference.”Munla added that “the Finance Minister has affirmed the State’s commitment to complete the state budget as soon as possible.”Lebanon's economy has looked on the brink of collapse for some time but a Paris conference dubbed CEDRE in April earned it $11 billion in aid pledges.The amounts pledged in Paris were unexpectedly high and other conferences have also mustered support for Lebanon, whose economy has been in a downward spiral for years due to political divisions and corruption.

Report: Cabinet Facing Three-Month Grace Period
Naharnet/February 18/19/Lebanon’s newly formed government launches its first meeting on Monday after gaining the Parliament’s confidence amid local, regional and international observation for the promises it vowed to achieve in its Policy Statement, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday. Well-informed sources said the government has “seriously given itself, internally and externally, a grace period of three-month to prove an ability for achievement, otherwise it will expose its failure in addressing critical issues considered dangerous for the country’s future mainly at the economic and financial levels.”
“One of the biggest challenges facing the cabinet is corruption,” added the sources on condition of anonymity. “It has reached a dangerous level. It would be difficult to achieve economic and financial rescue without fighting it.”“What necessitates the practical and rapid initiation of the fight against corruption is that donor countries and international financial institutions are demanding this fight in order to provide any new aid or loans,” they told the daily. In order to ensure there is no waste in the disbursement of funds allocated to projects, “these institutions have started requiring to directly supervise their implementation,” added the sources. A conference dubbed CEDRE in the French capital in April pledged aid worth $11 billion (9.5 billion euros), promising to stave off an economic crisis. Lebanon is one of the world's most indebted countries, with public debt estimated at 141 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2018, according to credit ratings agency Moody's. Annual economic growth averaged 9 percent over the last two full years before the war broke out in Syria, but has since plummeted to little more than one percent in recent years. At the Paris conference, Lebanon committed to reforms including slashing public spending and overhauling the electricity sector. In exchange, the international community has pledged major aid and loans, mostly for infrastructure projects that need to be signed off by the new government

Lassen, al-Hassan Discuss Women's Rights, Freedom of Expression
Naharnet/February 18/19/EU Ambassador to Lebanon Christina Lassen met Moday with Minister of Interior and Municipalities Raya al-Hassan and “congratulated her on her new post, being the first woman to head a Ministry of Interior in the region,” the EU Delegation said. Lassen assured al-Hassan of the European Union's “full commitment to support the Government in safeguarding Lebanon's security while preserving the citizens' rights, with women's rights and fighting gender based violence as important priorities,” the Delegation said in a statement. Lassen also highlighted “the importance of the freedom of expression in Lebanon and the need to monitor and address any challenges to it.”The ambassador also tackled the various areas of EU support for reforming Lebanon's security sector and assisting the Internal Security Forces, including with the implementation of a community-oriented policing model, better conditions in prisons, and stronger human rights capacities of prison staff. “The EU further actively supports the drafting of a National Cybersecurity Strategy and Integrated Border Management,” the EU Delegation said. Moreover, Lassen and al-Hassan discussed promoting local development, infrastructure and access to services in regions most affected by the economic crisis. “The meeting reviewed the good cooperation between the European Union and the Lebanese authorities during the 2018 parliamentary elections. Ambassador Lassen presented the European Union's Election Observation Mission (EOM) report to Minister al-Hassan and highlighted the need for ongoing close cooperation with the Ministry of Interior in working towards the implementation of the EOM recommendations,” the EU Delegation said.

Bou Saab: Each Minister Is Free to Visit Syria
Kataeb.org/Monday 18th February 2019/Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab on Monday defended the re-establishment of cooperation with Syria, saying that there is no option other than resuming talks with Damascus. “Whether we like it or not, Assad is the president of Syria. There is no option other than communicating with him,” Bou Saab told Al-Mayadeen channel. “There are diplomatic ties with Damascus and contacts are ongoing between our two countries. Therefore, each minister is free to visit Syria,” he said. Speaking one day earlier at the Munich Security Conference, Bou Saab argued that a solution to the Syrian crisis can only be reached by cooperating with Damascus, warning that any solution that does not take this point into consideration will create a problem.

PSP Defends Civil Marriage as Jumblat Says 'Stop Using Religion to Divide'
Naharnet/February 18/19/The Progressive Socialist Party on Monday threw its support behind calls for legalizing civil marriage in Lebanon. “The Progressive Youth Organization regrets that so far there is no national consensus on devising a clear mechanism and measures for holding and registering civil marriages in Lebanon,” the PYO -- the PSP's youth organization -- said in a statement. The organization accordingly called on the relevant authorities to draft a “clear law,” noting that “the country has acknowledged its soundness and rightfulness.”“Marriage is a basic right and the method in which couples choose to wed is a right guaranteed by the Lebanese constitution,” the organization stressed. PSP leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat had earlier tweeted about the issue. “Can we voice our opinion without being accused of apostasy? Yes, I'm a supporter of volitional civil marriage and I call for a civil personal status law. Enough with using religion to divide citizens,” Jumblat said. MP Faisal al-Sayegh of the PSP meanwhile lauded Interior Minister Raya al-Hassan's call for launching a “serious debate” on the topic.“We call for showing openness towards this proposal and discussing its aspects and conditions objectively, without overbidding and bigotry, seeing as we see in it a gateway for further positive interaction among the various components of the Lebanese society,” al-Sayegh tweeted. In the first comment by a religious authority over the renewed controversy, Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon's highest Sunni Muslim authority, said its stance that “categorically rejects and opposes civil marriage in Lebanon has been well-known for years.”“It fully contradicts with the rules of Islamic sharia and also violates the stipulations of the Lebanese constitution in terms of the need to respect the personal status law that is applied by the religious courts of the Lebanese,” Dar al-Fatwa's press office said. In an interview with Euronews, Minister al-Hassan said she is personally in favor of having a “framework for civil marriage” in Lebanon. “I will talk about this issue and seek to open the door for serious and profound dialogue over the topic with all religious authorities and other officials, supported by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, so that civil marriage can be acknowledged,” al-Hassan said.

Gharib 'Pleased' after Syria Visit over Refugees
Naharnet/February 18/19/State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib visited Syria on Monday at an official invitation to discuss the refugee file. Speaking after a meeting with Syria’s Local Administration and Environment Minister Hussein Makhlouf, Gharib said he was “pleased” by Damascus' viewpoint on the refugee file. “They believe that the failure to return the displaced Syrians would be a blow to the victory of the Syrian state,” the minister said. “The local administration and environment minister showed further cooperation to resolve this file,” Gharib added, noting that he is willing to “work with all the relevant parties to secure the return and guarantee the interest of the Lebanese state.”The Syrian minister for his part said he is implementing “the instructions of President Bashar al-Assad” in this regard. “As a government, we are working on securing the return means, seeing as we have taken all the necessary measures to facilitate the entry of Syrians into their country through easing the border measures in coordination between the relevant authorities from the two sides,” Makhlouf added. “All the necessary services will be offered to them after they enter Syria, such as relief, health and education, so that they can return to normal life and enjoy the same rights and duties,” the minister added. “We are rehabilitating the infrastructure and thousands of schools, electricity grids, sewage systems, water and telephone services have been repaired and what is important is the return of the Syrian citizen,” Makhlouf went on to say. Gharib's visit to Syria comes three days after Saad Hariri's new government won a vote of confidence in parliament and ahead of first Cabinet meeting. Coordination between Lebanon and Syria on the return of Syrian refugees is a highly controversial issue in Lebanon. Lebanese officials are divided over the conditions needed for them to return back.

Dar al-Fatwa Comments on Civil Marriage Controversy
Naharnet/February 18/19/Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon's highest Sunni Muslim religious authority, on Monday waded into the renewed debate in the country over the thorny issue of legalizing civil marriage. The heated discussion was revived by remarks by newly-appointed Interior Minister Raya al-Hassan, who is Lebanon's and the Arab world's first female interior minister. “The stance of (Grand) Mufti (Sheikh Abdul Latif) Daryan, Dar al-Fatwa, the juristic council and the council of muftis, which categorically rejects and opposes civil marriage in Lebanon, has been well-known for years,” Dar al-Fatwa's press office said in a statement. “Because it fully contradicts with the rules of Islamic sharia and also violates the stipulations of the Lebanese constitution in terms of the need to respect the personal status law that is applied by the religious courts of the Lebanese,” the office added. “Accordingly, the draft law cannot be approved in parliament without taking into consideration the viewpoint and stance of Dar al-Fatwa and the rest of religious authorities in Lebanon,” Dar al-Fatwa's press office said. It also called for “refraining from debating and discussing the issue of civil marriage,” saying “it falls under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese republic's Dar al-Fatwa, which is entrusted with the religion of Islam and the interest of Muslims.”Al-Hassan's statement has sparked debate between the supporters and opponents of civil marriage in Lebanon. In an interview with Euronews, the minister said she is personally in favor of having a “framework for civil marriage” in Lebanon. “I will talk about this issue and seek to open the door for serious and profound dialogue over the topic with all religious authorities and other officials, supported by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, so that civil marriage can be acknowledged,” al-Hassan said.

Controversy as al-Hassan Revives Debate over Civil Marriage
Naharnet/February 18/19/Divisions in Lebanon over the controversial issue of authorizing civil marriage lingers on, as Interior Minister Raya al-Hassan vowed "with Prime Minister Saad Hariri to raise the issue with religious authorities."Debate over the issue has not subsided since Friday when Hassan vowed in an interview to Euronews to raise the issue. Polls created by activists on social media showed broad support for “optional civil marriage.” Although deliberations showed encouragement, but everyone doubted a solution would be found, given that clerics would oppose it. “I will try to open the door to a serious and deep dialogue on this issue with all religious and other authorities, and with the support of PM Hariri until civil marriage is recognized,” Hassan said in her weekend interview to Euronews. In 2015, former Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq refused to approve the registration of contracts of civil marriage performed in Lebanon despite coming under pressure. Most faiths in Lebanon have their own regulations governing marriage, divorce and inheritance, and mixed Christian-Muslim weddings in Lebanon are discouraged unless one of the two converts. In 2013, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel took the unprecedented step of registering the civil marriage contract of Nidal Darwish and Kholoud Sukkarieh. Lebanese authorities have all along recognized civil marriages registered abroad, and it has become common for mixed-faith couples to marry in nearby Cyprus.

Differences Between Lebanese MPs at Kataeb Party Congress
Asharq Al Awsat/February 18th, 2019/A fiery statement made by deputy Nadim Gemayel during the 31st Kataeb Congress this weekend unveiled immense divisions within the party and disputes with its leader MP Sami Gemayel, who was reelected for a second mandate in an uncontested vote. On the third day of the party’s Congress 16 new members, out of 29 candidates, were elected for Kataeb’s politburo. But on Saturday night, MP Nadim Gemayel lashed out at the party’s recent performance, saying Kataeb was more concerned with preserving the environment than confronting Iran’s influence in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s arms. The deputy also hinted into possible corruption within the party, wondering about some of its expenditures and calling on the election of the party’s head by all Kataeb members. His comments raised several questions on possible divisions among party members. The Kataeb won only three seats in last May’s parliamentary elections, the first such low outcome since 2005. The party is also not represented in the new cabinet. However, party members downplayed alleged disputes, describing them as part of the democratic process. Kataeb deputy leader Salim al-Sayegh said: “Maybe we haven’t gotten used to such congresses.”During the three-day Congress, “there were more fiery speeches than the one delivered by MP Nadim Gemayel,” he added.

Industry minister briefs Aoun on trade deficit
The Daily Star/February 18/19/BEIRUT: Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour Monday briefed President Michel Aoun on what he described as Lebanon’s “big and unacceptable deficit in the balance of trade,” and proposed possible solutions to the problem. Citing statistics from the Industry Ministry for 2018, he told reporters after the meeting that exports were valued at about $2.3 billion while imports exceeded $18 billion, according to a statement from Aoun’s office. Abu Faour said he suggested several procedures that could be taken to protect Lebanon’s industrial sector, including giving local companies an advantage in open tenders. “There cannot be a strong economy if the numbers remain like this. ... Lebanese products are not given the place they deserve in the state’s agenda,” Abu Faour said.

Are Hezbollah’s Attack Tunnels the Future of Warfare?
Michael Peck/The National Interest/February 18/2019
Israel has faced many threats during its tumultuous seventy-five-year existence: ballistic missiles, tanks, hang-gliding terrorists, suicide bombers.
But now Israel faces a new threat that doesn’t go through Israeli defenses, but under them. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, has dug tunnels under the border between Lebanon and the Galilee region of northern Israel. Israel says the tunnels have a deadly purpose: to allow Hezbollah fighters to enter Israel in a surprise attack to capture Israeli border communities, a feat that Arab armies have not been able to accomplish since 1948.
“The plan entails fighters from Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit infiltrating Israel from Lebanon, entrenching themselves in Israeli communities near the border while taking hostages and using Israeli citizens as human shields,” according to Israel’s Ynet News . The tunnels were sophisticated, with electricity and ventilation systems.
This is not the first time that Israel has faced tunnels. Hamas tunneled from Gaza into southern Israel, most famously emerging to capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, who was held captive for five years until exchanged for Hamas prisoners in 2011. This has spurred the Israel Defense Forces to develop new technology and techniques for detecting tunnels.
The work seems to have paid off. Last month, Israeli troops began destroying the Hezbollah tunnels. So far, Israel has destroyed five tunnels, though given the nature of subterranean warfare, there may very well be more.
Which raises the question: Are Hezbollah’s tunnels a template for the future of warfare? It’s not that tunnels are a new weapon. The Viet Cong used them to hide from and ambush American soldiers, while North Korea is famous for building numerous tunnels under the DMZ as invasion routes into South Korea, with some wide enough for tanks to cross.
Hezbollah cannot be under any illusions that it could hold the Galilee against Israeli firepower (though such firepower would kill Israeli hostages). Hezbollah “conquering” the Galilee would not be conquest in the conventional sense. It would be more like terrorists or bank robbers taking hostages.
But if Israel’s estimation is correct, then permanent conquest doesn’t matter. Hezbollah would use these tunnels to capture enemy territory in a surprise attack, to seize territory, humiliate the enemy and demonstrate their impotence before the world. Hezbollah has always displayed a keen sense of public relations, like almost destroying an Israeli warship with a missile on live television. Capturing a few Israeli towns would be even more impressive, reminiscent of the Tet Offensive, which sought to demonstrate the powerlessness of the Saigon government and its American backers by mounting a nationwide offensive across South Vietnam.
So is Hezbollah’s tunnel strategy the future of warfare? It could be—if certain conditions are met. For starters, you would need a non-state organization that’s actually more powerful than the army of the state it resides in (such as Lebanon.) That actor would be so powerful because of generous military and financial assistance from a foreign nation (such as Iran), including access to advanced weapons such as ballistic missiles.
That organization would also need to control a border territory (such as southern Lebanon), so that it would be free to build tunnels with minimal interference from a cowed central government or UN peacekeepers too weak and timid to interfere. It would also help to face an enemy such as Israel, which is sensitive to losing the lives of its citizens. If these conditions exist, then any guerrilla or militia organization could do what Hezbollah does. The problem is finding places where these conditions apply. Syria or Yemen are not conflicts where the lives of hostages seem to matter much. Muslim rebels in the Philippines don’t have ballistic missiles. The Iraqi government wouldn’t give political cover to ISIS if it dug attack tunnels into Iran.
In other words, Hezbollah’s tunnels are a clever idea because of the unique conditions along the Israel-Lebanon border. Which doesn’t mean they would work anywhere else.

In Lebanon, New Chance or Another Missed Opportunity?
Edward Gabriel/The Hill/February 18/19
Following Lebanon’s parliamentary elections in May 2018, and almost nine months of negotiating, the various elected parties finally have formed a government. This comes just before the one-year anniversaries of three international conferences in which billions of dollars in aid were pledged to Lebanon for refugees and infrastructure and military support. Most of the aid was contingent upon the formation of a government passing significant reforms, which happened just as international donors were about to give up on their pledges of support.
This could spell good news for the country if it is able to take the necessary steps to maintain the support of international donors, and separately, show that the government can operate independently despite the apparent growing role of Hezbollah.
Last March, some 40 countries participated in a meeting, along with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, to reaffirm their commitment of aid “in support of the stability, security, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon.”
At the Friends of Syria donor conference in Brussels in May, donor countries pledged $4.4 billion in refugee humanitarian support to Lebanon and other neighboring countries. Most importantly, Lebanon won aid pledges exceeding $11 billion in April 2018 at a Paris CEDRE conference aimed at rallying international support for an investment program to boost its economy.
Two important actions could take advantage of these international commitments and jump-start an otherwise deteriorating Lebanese economy and debilitating growth rate. The government must show that it can manage more than $11 billion in concessionary loans and grants in a transparent manner according to international standards, and properly administer major infrastructure projects, free of corruption. Lebanon also must privatize a number of government-run businesses, such as energy and electricity. Privatizing these government responsibilities will reduce the Lebanese budget deficit by $2 billion.
Some analysts say, however, that the effort to reform government is fraught with major hurdles as the new government represents the same political factions guilty of exploiting public funds to strengthen their bases and maintain their electorates. As they say, old habits die hard.
In the newly formed government, Hezbollah has increased its responsibility by taking control of the minister of health position, a ministry with the fourth-largest public budget, which gives it the resources to bestow patronage jobs and subsidized health care benefits to constituents. The United States already has imposed sanctions on known terrorists associated with Hezbollah and could ratchet it up further, if it finds that resources or services of the ministry are supporting Hezbollah.
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut has made its position clear: “[Insisting on the Health Ministry] is yet another example of Hezbollah openly holding Lebanon’s security and prosperity hostage,” said Rachel Mikeska, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Lebanon. She added that the United States is “prepared to take whatever actions are necessary to protect the interests of the Lebanese people.”
Curbing the influence of Hezbollah requires deftness on the part of the Lebanese government and its supporters, such as the United States. It will require a scalpel, not a shotgun approach, since it’s in the interest of both the United States and Lebanon to control the increasing influence of Hezbollah in such a way that will not destabilize the country and will support other key U.S. interests in the region.
At the same time, the United States understands it must be careful in its approach. By strengthening Lebanese civil society and educational institutions free of Hezbollah influence — such as the two American universities of higher education, the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University — and remaining the major supplier of military aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces, it provides a counterbalance to Hezbollah. The United States also has tightened banking restrictions against specific Hezbollah members, but preferred not to target the organization as a whole. In doing so, it has helped to preserve the important banking sector while weeding out bad actors.
Lebanon already is in a tenuous situation, economically and politically. The U.S. tempered response thus far has avoided further destabilizing the country but achieved its anti-terrorism goals in the country.
America’s patience won’t last forever, however. The Lebanese government must take steps to pull factions together in common cause for good governance, open reforms, security and rejection of terrorism. Hezbollah represents a minority of the Lebanese people. It is time for Lebanese citizens to refuse to tolerate the status quo. This is an opportunity, and Lebanese citizens should expect their government to retake its historic role in the Middle East as an island of peace, tolerance and prosperity.

Iran ‘shouldn’t Bite Off More Than They Can Chew’, Hezbollah Needs To Be ‘wary’: Ex-Lebanon PM Siniora
Ibrahim Shukralla and Nour Salman/UrduPoint/February 18/19
Lebanon’s former Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, has said that Iran has to stop meddling in the internal affairs of Arab countries, urging the country to not "bite off more than they can chew". Siniora, who was prime minister from 2005-2009, also said that he had not seen, so far, decline in the Iranian military and political role in the Arab World despite the U.S sanctions, which came into effect three months ago. "Past and current events have shown us that there are people who do not understand their limits," Siniora said, referring to Iran, in an exclusive interview with Emirates news Agency, WAM.
"A flood can swallow one, two or three barriers until a huge barrier stops it. They (Iran) have carried out their authority (over other countries) many times, but ultimately when you try to bite off more than you can chew, you end up vomiting," he added, referring to Iran's continued meddling in the affairs of states.
When asked whether he observed any decline in the Iranian political and military role in the Arab World after the US sanctions came into effect, Siniora simply answered, "No". "I hope that Iran matures, it is a neighbour, and I hope that one day we can extend our hand to them on the premise that it stops interfering in Arab affairs, and for us to build ties between each other," he added. On January 31st, the new Lebanese government was formed after a nine-month deadlock; three ministers are affiliated with Hezbollah. This increased representation by the Iran-backed militant group is causing heightened tensions, especially as countries in the West, including the US, as well as some Arab states, have dubbed the group as a terrorist organisation. "They (Hezbollah) need to act with wisdom. They have a large constituency and so they would benefit from being wary of their actions, for the sake of Lebanon as a whole," Siniora said. The newly-formed government has also seen, for the first time, the inclusion of four women ministers, doubling their representation. They include Raya Al Hassan, named as the Minister of Interior and Municipalities Affairs, Violette Safadi as the State Minister for Social and Economic Rehabilitation for Women and Youth, May Chidiac as the State Minister for Administrative Affairs and Development, and Nada Bustani as the Energy and Water Minister. "I remember Raya, as I hired her when she was a fresh graduate. She worked with me at a financial institution before I became Minister of Finance. She is the first Arab female to become minister of interior; that’s a big responsibility, but I have huge confidence in her and I wish her all the best," 75-year-old Siniora said.
"I also know May, she is a fighter who survived a bomb attack by terrorists. "I am happy that we have four women in the Cabinet, but actions are the most important part. We need results," he added. Seniora explained that the Lebanese government – from the president to members of parliament – needs to look at the next phase and its requirements, "including major sector reforms, objectives necessary for the nation to take on." "We are here now, and we must take on sector reforms, all of which are necessary," he said. "Reforms in the electricity, water, roadworks infrastructure, education, and health sectors, along with public funds, are all necessary for the renewal of economic development."We need to place our country on the right path again," he stressed. Following the Arab League’s fourth Economic and Social Development Summit in January, Syria’s absence has become the main topic of conversation, since its membership of the Arab League has been frozen since the civil war broke out in 2011. When asked on the prospects of Syria’s reinstatement, Siniora said that "we must first question why Syria’s membership was frozen" "I lived during the time when Syria played a role (in Lebanon) in the past, but that doesn’t mean I’m against Syria or its people. We need to find solutions that benefit the country and its people. I hope that there are real solutions for Syria to return (to the Arab League) even though I don’t foresee it," he added. "Syria is our neighbour; I want it back, but on a solid basis," Siniora concluded.

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on February 18-19/19
Netanyahu: Arabs Not Rushing to Normalize Ties with Israel
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 18 February, 2019/In leaked recordings from closed door meetings held on the sidelines of the Warsaw conference last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that unlike his past claims, Arab states are not rushing to normalize ties with Tel Aviv before a peace agreement with Palestinians.“Of course, it is true, if we make progress and have formal peace with Palestinians, it will help us with the Arab world," Netanyahu said. His statements were made at a time when his political fate is still unclear as he faces possible charges in corruptions cases. “I don’t think any of us should reject the plan by the American administration before it is even presented,” the Israeli PM said about US President Donald Trump’s initiative known as the ‘Deal of the Century’. Netanyahu told Arab leaders at the same meeting in Warsaw that Israel knew peace was a "one-way street.”“For Israel to be at peace or normalize relations with the broader Arab world, we must have Israel and Palestinian peace. Since peace was not forthcoming, we were stuck with no options,” he said in the leaked recordings.

Votel in Iraq to Discuss Long-Term ISIS Threat
Baghdad- Hamza Mustafa/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 18 February, 2019/Commander of US Central Command Joseph Votel, who is overseeing US forces in the Middle East, flew into Iraq on Sunday for talks with US and Iraqi officials. Talks are expected to focus on ensuring that ISIS cannot stage a resurgence after US troops withdraw from Syria. Votel made no remarks to reporters upon landing in Iraq, where he was expected to get battlefield briefings on the final push to retake the remnants of ISIS’s once vast territory in Syria. He was also expected to discuss with officials in Baghdad what impact the US withdrawal might have on Iraq, where ISIS has already shifted to guerrilla hit-and-run tactics after losing all its territory, according to Reuters. The US General has earlier said he does not expect President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of more than 2,000 troops from Syria to significantly alter US troop levels in Iraq, where the United States has more than 5,000 forces. Those force numbers would stay “more or less steady,” he said. “We will want to make sure that we get the right capabilities on ground to support the Iraqis going forward,” Votel told reporters traveling with him last week. “But I don’t necessarily think that will result in an expanded footprint by the United States or by the coalition forces.” Trump’s surprise decision in December to withdraw US troops from Syria confounded his national security team and led to the resignation of his defense secretary, Jim Mattis. It also shocked US allies and sent generals like Votel scrambling to carry out the pullout in a way that best preserves as many gains as possible. ISIS still poses a threat in Iraq and some US officials believe that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, may be hiding in Iraq. Baghdadi has led the group since 2010, when it was still an underground al-Qaeda offshoot in Iraq. The Pentagon’s Inspector General said in a report that ISIS remained an active insurgent group and was regenerating functions and capabilities more quickly in Iraq than Syria. “Absent sustained (counter-terrorism) pressure, ISIS could likely resurge in Syria within six to 12 months and regain limited territory,” the report said. In an interview on Friday, Votel told Reuters he would recommend continued arms and aid to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as needed, provided the Kurdish-led fighters keep the pressure on ISIS and help prevent its resurgence. He added that ISIS may still count tens of thousands of fighters, dispersed throughout Iraq and Syria, with enough leaders and resources to present a menacing insurgency in the months ahead. Iraq’s military has already shifted how it combats the group, moving away from major combat operations to what Votel calls “wide-area” operations. The US military has also modified the way that it supports Iraqi security forces. “We’ve adjusted our footprint as well, and where we go and where we are best located to continue to advise and assist them with their operations,” Votel said last week. “We’ve made some changes in terms of where we are, so we can be in the best locations,” he stressed.

Prince Turki al-Faisal: Iran should let go of its ‘extra-territorial ambitions’
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Monday, 18 February 2019/In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, said that the Iranian government should focus on improving the situation for its people rather than on its “extra-territorial ambitions.”The Iranian government has turned its people into “paupers,” Prince al-Faisal said, as they continue to “spend money on Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the Houthis in Yemen, on the various militias that they established in Iraq and in Syria.”He noted that the Khomeini interpretation of the Jafferite sect – that has “injected” itself into the current government’s ideology – promotes the idea that the Iranian regime must be responsible for Shia communities around the world. “People somehow thought that (the) present president, Mr. Rouhani, and his team with Mr. Zarif and others, will be reasonable to believe that they can be a positive player with the other countries in the region,” Prince al-Faisal told Al Arabiya English. “On the contrary we see them following the so-called line of Khamenei in expanding Iranian interference in the affairs of other states.”

Iran arrests three ‘terrorists’ for suicide bomb attack
AFP, Tehran/Monday, 18 February 2019/Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said Monday it has arrested three “terrorists” involved in last week’s deadly suicide bomb attack on security forces in southeastern Iran. “Safe houses in Saravan and Khash were identified and eliminated, and the terrorists based in them were arrested,” the force said on its official Sepah news agency. “Three of the terrorists were arrested and 150 kilograms of explosives and 600 kilograms of explosive materials, as well as weapons and ammunition were confiscated,” it said. The Guards said the three arrested had “produced, guided and supported” the vehicle used in Wednesday’s suicide bombing. The bombing killed 27 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards travelling on a bus in the volatile province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Pakistan. The attack was claimed by extremist group Jaish al-Adl. Iran has provided Pakistani officials with “information on the terrorist groups’ hidden and semi-hidden training centers”, army chief-of-staff Mohammad Bagheri told Tasnim news agency. Guards’ commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari has accused Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency of sheltering the extremists. On Sunday, the foreign ministry summoned the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran and urged Islamabad to “seriously confront... the terrorist groups’ active on its border” with Iran.

I am a human rights professor,’ Iranian FM Zarif responds to question on rights abuses
Staff writer, Al Arabiya/English Monday, 18 February 2019/Responding to a question regarding Iran’s human rights abuses, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran, said "I am a human rights professor, I have taught human rights for over 30 years,” at the 2019 Munich Security Conference. “I believe human rights for us [Iran] is a security requirement – not a moral nicety,” Zarif added. When pressed by BBC’s Lyse Doucet about eight environmentalists who have been imprisoned in Iran for “no reason,” Javad Zarif mentioned the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, to which Doucet said, “let’s leave that aside.”“You are still selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, why should I set aside Khashoggi?” Zarif said, without answering the question regarding the jailed environmentalists. The Munich Security Conference, which takes place in Germany, aims to contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts by sustaining dialogue. The conference is a forum for debating international security policy. Earlier this month, it was reported that the Iranian government arrested, imprisoned or executed at least 860 journalists in the three decades between the Islamic revolution in 1979 and 2009, according to documents leaked to media monitoring group Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF).

Jordan asks Iran to release three jailed nationals
AFP, Amman/Monday, 18 February 2019/Jordan on Monday called on Iran to release three of its nationals it said had strayed into Iranian territorial waters in the southern Gulf from the United Arab Emirates last December. Jordan’s parliament speaker Atef al-Tarawneh raised the case of the three Jordanians in a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to Amman, Mojtaba Ferdosipour, the official news agency Petra said. It said the ambassador had given assurances the case would be resolved “in the coming days”. The foreign ministry said last month that the Jordanians accompanied by Emirati and Egyptian friends had entered Iranian waters “by mistake” during a boat trip on December 27. Iran had said at the time the Jordanians would be tried and fined in the coastal city of Bandar Lengeh, but without giving a date, according to a ministry spokesman.

Commander: US cannot back forces who align with Syria’s Assad
Reuters, Baghdad/Monday, 18 February 2019/The United States will have to sever its military assistance to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling ISIS if the fighters partner with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or Russia, a senior US general said on Sunday. The remarks by Army Lieutenant General Paul LaCamera, who is the commander of the US-led coalition battling ISIS in Iraq and Syria, underscore the tough decisions facing the SDF as the United States prepares to withdraw its troops from Syria. Syrian Kurdish leaders have sought talks with Assad’s state, hoping to safeguard their autonomous region after the withdrawal of US troops currently backing them. They fear an attack by neighboring Turkey, which has threatened to crush the Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara sees the Syrian Kurdish fighters as indistinguishable from the Kurdish PKK movement that has waged an insurgency inside Turkey. But LaCamera warned that US law prohibits cooperation with Russia as well as Assad’s military. “We will continue to train and arm them as long as they remain our partners,” LaCamera said, praising their hard-won victories against ISIS militants. When asked if that support would continue if they aligned themselves with Assad, LaCamera said: “No.”“Once that relationship is severed, because they go back to the regime, which we don’t have a relationship with, (or) the Russians (...) when that happens then we will no longer be partners with them,” LaCamera told a small group of reporters. President Donald Trump’s surprise December decision to withdraw all of the more than 2,000 US troops from Syria has triggered deep concern among US allies about the risk of a resurgence of ISIS. With US-backing, the SDF has routed ISIS and is on the verge of recapturing the final bits of its once sprawling territory. But ISIS still has thousands of fighters, who, now dispersed, are expected to turn to guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks. On Friday, the four-star US general overseeing US troops throughout the Middle East, General Joseph Votel, told Reuters that he backed supporting the SDF as needed, as long as it kept the pressure on ISIS militants. But LaCamera’s comments make clear that the SDF may have to choose between backing from Assad, Russia or the United States. Kurdish forces and Damascus have mostly avoided combat during the war. Assad, who has vowed to recover the entire country, has long opposed Kurdish ambitions for a federal Syria. Earlier on Sunday, Assad warned the United States would not protect those depending on it, in reference to the Kurdish fighters. “We say to those groups who are betting on the Americans, the Americans will not protect you,” he said without naming them. “The Americans will put you in their pockets so you can be tools in the barter, and they have started with (it).”Reuters has reported that Trump’s decision was in part driven by an offer by Turkey to keep the pressure on ISIS once the United States withdrew. But current and former US officials warn Ankara would be unable to replicate the SDF’s success across the areas of Syria that the militias captured with US support including arms, airstrikes and advisers. Brett McGurk, who resigned in December as Trump’s special envoy to the US-led coalition against ISIS, warned last month that the SDF could not be replaced as the provider of stability in areas of Syria formerly held by the militant group. He also cautioned that Turkey, a NATO ally, was not a reliable partner in the fight in Syria. “The Syrian opposition forces (Turkey) backs are marbled with extremists and number too few to constitute an effective challenge to Assad or a plausible alternative to the SDF,” McGurk wrote.

Twin bombing kills 17 in Syria’s Idlib
AFP, Beirut /Monday, 18 February 2019/A double bomb attack in Syria’s extremist-held city of Idlib on Monday killed 17 people, including four children, a war monitor said. The first blast was caused by a bomb planted under a car in the main city of the Idlib region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. After ambulances arrived at the site, a motorcycle bomb then detonated, the Britain-based monitoring group said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which the Observatory said also wounded at least 51, updating an earlier casualty toll. Idlib, the last major part of Syria still outside the control of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is held by an alliance led by Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. HTS took administrative control of the whole of the region last month, after overpowering smaller Turkey-backed factions. The ISIS extremist group also has sleeper cells in the area. A local office of the “Salvation Government”, an administrative body created by HTS, is located on the street targeted by Monday’s attack. Idlib has been protected from a massive regime offensive since September by a buffer zone deal agreed by regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey. But it has been hit by sporadic government shelling. Eight years into the conflict that has killed more than 360,000 people, the government controls nearly two-thirds of the country.

US-backed force won’t release extremists, but warns they could escape
Reuters, Beirut/Monday, 18 February 2019/US-backed force in north Syria said on Monday they would not free foreign ISIS detainees but countries must take responsibility for them, after US President Donald Trump said extremists would be freed unless Europe takes them back. Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the Kurdish-led region, said around 800 foreign fighters were being held in prisons, along with around 700 wives and 1,500 children in camps for the displaced. Dozens more detainees and relatives were arriving by the day. He described the detainees as a “time bomb”, saying fighters could escape if the Kurdish-led autonomous area were attacked. The official also added that the Kurdish-led authority cannot bear burden alone, and that there is not enough prisons for all ISIS fighters.

Besieged ISIS militants in eastern Syria refuse to surrender, ask for an exit
AP, Al-Omar oil field base/Monday, 18 February 2019/More than 300 ISIS militants besieged in a tiny area in eastern Syria are refusing to surrender to US-backed forces and are trying to negotiate an exit, Syrian activists and a person close to the negotiations said Monday. The militants are bottled up in the village of Baghouz, where they are hiding among hundreds of civilians and preventing them from leaving. The stalling tactics are likely to further delay a declaration of the end of the ISIS extremist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate, which the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces were hoping to make last week. A person familiar with the negotiations said the militants are asking for a corridor to the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, and demand that they be allowed to leave along with the evacuated civilians. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the talks, which he described as taking place indirectly. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that monitors the civil war in Syria, said another request by ISIS to be evacuated to neighboring Iraq was also rejected. ISIS released 10 SDF fighters it had been holding on Sunday, but it was not clear what, if anything, the extremists would get in return, the Observatory said. The speck of land in Syria’s remote eastern desert, near the border with Iraq, is all that remains of a self-styled caliphate that once sprawled across a third of both countries and included several major towns and cities. In that tiny patch on the banks of the Euphrates River, the militants are holed up in what SDF officials describe as a small tented village atop a network of tunnels and caves. There are civilians inside as well, possibly including hostages. The SDF and the US-led coalition have been fighting ISIS in the surrounding region since September. In recent years, they and other forces have steadily driven ISIS from nearly all the territory it once controlled, in battles that have killed tens of thousands of people and left entire towns and neighborhoods in ruins.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan affirm Palestinians’ right to establish own state
Staff writer, Al Arabiya/English Monday, 18 February 2019/Saudi Arabia and Pakistan expressed their hope in achieving a comprehensive and long-lasting peace in the Middle East in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative. Both sides also stressed the need for the Palestinians to establish their own state based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. In a joint statement on Monday released after the conclusion of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s state visit to Pakistan, both countries also agreed that dialogue with India is the only way to ensure peace and stability in the region to resolve outstanding issues. During the Saudi Crown Prince’s visit, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed seven memorandums of understandings worth $20 bln across several sectors including oil, mining and energy. “We believe that Pakistan has huge opportunity. In 2030, Pakistan will be next to really two huge economies. One, China will be the largest economy in 2030, and two, India will be the third largest economy in 2030. So Pakistan will definitely benefit from these neighbors if there is great leadership to put Pakistan in the right position,” said the Crown Prince during a joint press conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
For his part, Pakistan’s Khan said that the seven MoUs signed would signify the start of “enhanced relationships” between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He also offered the Crown Prince a special thanks for an earlier announcement confirming the release of 2,107 Pakistani prisoners in Saudi Arabia with immediate effect. Earlier in the day, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received Pakistan’s highest civilian honor, the Nishan-e-Pakistan, from President Arif Alvi. The two-day visit to Pakistan kicked off the Crown Prince’s Asian tour that will include further visits to India and China. He is expected to land in India tomorrow.
Upcoming visit to India
Counter-terrorism and energy security are expected to top the agenda for discussions during the two-day trip. Saudi ambassador in New Delhi said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to India is a “historic opportunity” to expand collaboration in all sectors, according to Indian media outlets. “India and Saudi Arabia have historically enjoyed close and friendly relations anchored in mutually beneficial partnership and extensive people to people contacts. In recent years, there has been significant progress in bilateral cooperation in key areas of mutual interest, including energy security, trade and investment, infrastructure, defense and security,” a statement released by India’s Ministry of External Affairs read. “Our bilateral trade was $27.48 bln during the last financial year 2017-18, making Saudi Arabia our fourth largest trading partner. Saudi Arabia contributes significantly to our energy security needs by supplying about 20% of crude requirements to India,” the statement added. Besides holding talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Saudi Crown Prince will also meet President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu during his two-day visit.

Nineteen Palestinians, Israeli soldier wounded in Gaza clashes
AFP, Gaza City/Monday, 18 February 2019/Nineteen Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were wounded Sunday during clashes in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army and Palestinian medical sources said. “IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldier injured when an explosive device was thrown during Gaza riots on Israel’s border fence,” the army said on Twitter. It added that Israeli tanks struck “two Hamas military posts in Gaza in response to the explosive device”. In Gaza, the health ministry of the Hamas movement that runs the enclave said 19 Palestinians were wounded by live ammunition during the clashes. Palestinians have, for nearly a year, gathered at least weekly in various spots along the Gaza border for often violent protests. They want to be able to return to the homes their families fled from in the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948, and are calling for an end to the Jewish state’s blockade of Gaza. At least 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since March 30, the majority during border protests but also by tank fire and air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed during the same period. Israel says its actions are necessary to defend the border and stop mass incursions into its territory.

Israel trims funds to Palestinians over militant stipends
Reuters, Jerusalem/Monday, 18 February 2019/Israel will cut around five percent of the tax handovers to the Palestinian Authority over its financial support for jailed Palestinian militants, the Israeli security cabinet said on Sunday, following similar US legislation last year. Under interim peace deals, Israel collects taxes on behalf of the Palestinians, who put the current sums at $222 million a month. With negotiations stalled since 2014, Israel has at times withheld money as a measure of protest or pressure. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, though facing steep aid cuts by Donald Trump’s administration that he has boycotted over perceived bias, has held to paying stipends to the families of Palestinians jailed as security offenders or killed by Israel. Israel and the United States say the policy, which is scaled to give greater monthly payouts for prisoners serving longer sentences, fans Palestinian violence. Abbas describes the slain and jailed Palestinians as “heroes” of a national struggle. Citing the around $138 million that Abbas’ administration reported paying in prisoner stipends in 2018, the Israeli security cabinet said the same amount would be “frozen” from within the taxes collected for the Palestinian Authority.
“Abu Mazen (Abbas) continues each month to transfer fat salaries to murderers who are in prison,” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told Israel’s Reshet 13 TV. “We must find a way of stopping this money.”The Palestinians condemned the Israeli decision as “piracy”. “It is an attempt to pressure us and blackmail us,” Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior official with the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), told Reuters. “Even if left with just one dollar, we will pay it to the families of the martyrs, of the prisoners and of the wounded.”The United States passed legislation last year to sharply reduce aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it stopped the stipends. The measure, known as the Taylor Force Act, was named after a 29-year-old American military veteran fatally stabbed by a Palestinian while visiting Israel in 2016. The Palestinians last month declined some $60 million in US annual funding for their security forces, worried about exposure to lawsuits under new US anti-terror laws. The Trump administration has further slashed hundreds of millions of dollars to humanitarian organizations and UN agencies, which aid the Palestinians as it seeks to pressure Abbas to come back to the negotiating table. Some security experts voiced concern that the fiscal blows could destabilize the Palestinian Authority, an interim self-government body set up following the 1993 Oslo peace accords and which helps Israel keep order in the occupied West Bank in the face of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist rival. “If he (Abbas) chooses to collapse by keeping up payments to the murderers, then let him collapse,” said Shaked, a far-rightist in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative coalition government.

Egypt Army Seizes Weapons While Chasing Terrorists
Cairo- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 18 February, 2019/Egyptian army's border guards seized a number of weapons within the framework of its war on terrorist organizations. Border guards seized two automatic rifles, 29 shotguns, 5,000 bullets, and 24 explosive devices, as well as 29 metal detectors, 2,200 kilograms of a rock from which gold ore is extracted and 73 vehicles used for smuggling during the period from January 16 until February 12. The guards also managed to arrest 2,770 people while attempting to illegally cross the western and southern borders, according to armed forces spokesman Tamer al-Rifai, adding that the army detected and destroyed four tunnel openings on the border strip in North Sinai. On Saturday, the army announced that seven terrorists and 14 others were injured in North Sinai in fire exchange after they attacked a force concentration. According to the army, 15 Egyptian soldiers were killed and injured during the attack, which ISIS claimed the responsibility for. Since the army's overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, a number of soldiers have been killed in attacks by extremist groups. The General Secretariat of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned the terrorist attack on a security checkpoint in North Sinai. OIC Sec-Gen, Yousef bin Ahmed al-Othaimeen, expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the victims and to the Egyptian Government. He stressed the OIC solidarity and stand with Egypt in the face of terrorism aimed at destabilizing its security and stability and support for all the measures Cairo would take to protect security and stability, and the safety of its citizens against the schemes of the terrorist organizations and groups. Othaimeen reiterated the Organization’s principled position condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Also, Arab Parliament Speaker Mishaal bin Fahm al-Salami condemned a deadly terrorist attack that targeted the security checkpoint in Arish. In a statement on Sunday, Salami strongly condemned the attack in North Sinai and asserted the support of the Arab Parliament to Egypt in its war against terror.
Salami lauded the Egyptian Armed Forces and their efforts to maintain stability in the country.

Iraqi Kurds Elect First Woman Speaker as Stop-Gap
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 18/19/The parliament in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on Monday elected its first ever woman speaker as a temporary stop-gap while deep political rifts persist more than four months after legislative elections. During the body's first session since the September polls deputies chose Vala Farid from former regional leader Massud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The head of the KDP bloc Haimim Hawrami said Farid was appointed "temporarily" until a deal can be reached with the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party on a permanent appointment. Lawmakers from the PUK, the party of former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, boycotted Monday's session. The PUK has asked for more time to hash out thorny issues with its rival including the leadership of the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk. Iraqi Kurdistan has faced political instability since a September 2017 referendum for independence backfired after it was rejected by Baghdad and international powers. Iraqi forces took back oil-rich regions from Kurdish control in the wake of the vote, dealing a hammer blow to the authorities in the semi-autonomous region.

US Stresses Continued Support for Arab Coalition in Yemen
Abu Dhabi - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 18 February, 2019/US forces will continue supporting the Saudi-led Arab Coalition in Yemen and fighting al-Qaeda, said a US military official in Abu Dhabi. The US continues to “provide support to the coalition, in particular to help them ... be discriminative in targeting and to minimize the risk of civilian causalities,” AFP quoted Deputy Commander of US Army Central Major General David Hill as saying. In other remarks on the sidelines of the International Defense Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi, Hill said the US Central Command remains focused on fighting al-Qaeda and ISIS in the Middle East. US forces have been providing support to the Arab Coalition in Yemen since 2015 in facing Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Regarding the US pullout of its forces from Syria, where it has been fighting ISIS, Hill said Washington is set to withdraw its troops after allied Kurdish-led forces capture ISIS’s last holdout in the war-torn country. “We will continue to work closely with our partners across the region here to do just that.”“We are conducting a withdrawal from Syria ... but I am confident that we remain postured to continue fighting against ISIS,” Hill explained.
The extremist group has suffered major losses in the past two years after a several-year brutal rule in both Syria and Iraq. Supported by the Washington-led international coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces launched in September a massive military operation to finish off ISIS in its last eastern Syrian enclave. In December, US President Donald Trump shocked allies when he announced he would withdraw all 2,000 US troops from Syria because ISIS had already been “beaten”.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 18-19/19
Analysis Saudi Arabia's New Weapon Against Women
Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/February 18/19
Government-sponsored app Absher, downloaded over 11 million times, allows male guardians to set restrictions on women's travel visas
It’s been more than 40 years since Princess Mashaal bint Fahd was shot in the head, executed in a parking lot in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The princess, who was close to the royal household (her great uncle was King Khaled), was apprehended at the airport as she was about to leave the country with her lover — the brother of the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon.
Princess Mashaal, who had refused to marry a young man whom her parents had chosen for her, disguised herself as a Saudi man, falsified her travel documents and set out on a trip that would lead to her death, which then prompted an international storm of controversy.
The princess’ story was also the subject of a film entitled “Death of a Princess” that was shown in Britain. The Saudis flew into a rage over the film, recalling its ambassador from London, sending the British ambassador in Riyadh packing and banning the Egyptian actors who portrayed the film’s leads from entering the country.
The Saudis issued a false account of events, claiming that the princess had drowned at sea. They even dispatched search parties in an effort to demonstrate that the story was true.
Britain apologized to Saudi Arabia. Mobil Oil published a full-page ad in the New York Times condemning the film, and the kingdom itself offered $11 million to stop it from being shown.
But British journalist Antony Thomas of the Independent newspaper, who had by chance witnessed the brutal execution, filmed it with a tiny camera and distributed the footage around the world. The Saudis’ story was then shown to be demonstrably false.
Since then, there have been changes in the world. The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October prompted condemnation and even sanctions against the kingdom and the standing of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, has been diminished in the West. But Saudi women who dare to fall in love without permission, or just want to go abroad without the say-so of their male guardians, put their lives in danger and travel restrictions are being enforced against them to an increasing extent.
And now there's a phone app designed to keep an eye on Saudi women planning to go abroad. Called Absher, it has been downloaded more than 11 million times on Google Play alone. It’s a government app that allows citizens and foreigners to check on the status of their visas, find out what medical services are available near them and how they can extend their visas so they can remain in the kingdom.
But the app features another function as well. It can be used to provide permission to a wife or daughter to travel abroad, and to specify which countries can be visited and for how long. The details are transferred to a government monitoring system and to airport computers.
As a result, when a woman arrives at passport control, the terms of the permit granted by her guardian to leave the country appear on a computer screen. She will be allowed to depart only subject to the conditions provided by the guardian. And she won’t be allowed to leave at all if that is what her husband, brother or even her son — if he is the only one “authorized” by the family — has decided.
The app has given men in Saudi Arabia a means of control that spares them hiring private detectives and ostensibly shifts responsibility to the state in preventing their daughters or wives from leaving the country, because from the moment the information is entered into the app, the border police are required to act accordingly. The day will probably come relatively soon when the government will require guardians or potential guardians to use the app to demonstrate their intent to fulfill their legal obligations regarding the women.
But in the meantime, the app has stirred up a storm in the West and it isn’t clear that it will continue to be downloadable from Apple and Google. Members of the U.S. Congress have asked the companies to remove the app. Congresswoman Katherine Clark called it a “patriarchal weapon,” in a tweet in which she said it “allows Saudi men to track women, restrict their travel, and enable human rights violations. #Apple and #Google must stop facilitating this dangerous tool of control.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote to the CEOs of Apple and Google demanding that the app be removed immediately. “American companies should not enable or facilitate the Saudi government’s patriarchy,” he wrote.
The two CEOs promised that they would scrutinize the requests to see whether the app violates their companies’ policies, but none of these very intelligent people contacted the Saudi government directly to demand that the guardianship laws governing Saudi women be abolished. And the laws will indeed persist, with or without the app.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed is making efforts to demonstrate openness and willingness to improve the status of women somewhat. His decision to allow them to drive is considered a showcase of Saudi liberalism.
In 2017, King Salman issued an order abolishing the requirement that women get their guardians’ approval to obtain government services other than under extraordinary circumstances. The order was directed mainly at a regulation that barred women from receiving medical care without male approval. Recently women were also allowed to attend sporting events and entertainment performances.
But the new legal provisions have not been able to withstand the power of tradition and custom in the kingdom, which provide the restrictive setting respective of the letter of the law, because few women would dare sue their male warders.
Since the execution of Princess Mashaal, no other Saudi woman is known to have been executed for fleeing home, but women who have left their homes either for elsewhere in Saudi Arabia or another country and who are caught are usually moved to government shelters, where they are closely supervised. These facilities are similar to prison but the inmates have no possibility of being pardoned and their detention is open-ended in time.
Now what Saudi women really need is an app that would allow women to eliminate the restrictions imposed upon them by the male app.

The European Election Won’t Break the EU
Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg View/February 18/19
Just how anti-European Union will the next European parliament be? Latest polls suggest that that populist, often euroskeptic parties, could do well enough in May’s vote to get a disruptive blocking minority — but that would require an improbable degree of cooperation on their part.
Given the difficulty of placing dozens of parties in 27 countries on a single political spectrum and then gauging their strength more than three months before the election, there is, understandably, a range of projections. Then there’s the added complication of matching up how the parties perform domestically with which umbrella groups they join in the European Parliament.
Europe Elects predicts that the three groupings uniting various flavors of populism and euroskepticism — Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) and European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) — should win 176 seats out of the total of 705 left after Brexit.
But that excludes Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, which is a member of a more mainstream center-right faction, and its far-right rival Jobbik, which is unaligned on the European level. If you add those two, the populists would gain another 15 seats, bringing their share to 27 percent, up from 22.5 percent in the current parliament. That still leaves open the question of what grouping a rising star like Spain’s Vox party will join, let alone what Italy’s erratic Five Star movement may decide.
Susi Dennison and Pawel Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations analyzed the data at the national level — probably the better method, for now — using Jan. 3 data from Poll of Polls, a Vienna-based aggregator. In a report published last week, they predicted that more than a third of seats in the parliament could go to “anti-Europeans” — a charged term. For Dennison and Zerka, it refers to members of the extreme left as well as populist, nationalist movements.
If you plug the latest Feb. 11 data from Poll of Polls into their model, and then add other populist-tinged parties such as Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Fidesz, the Sweden Democrats and Belgium’s New Flemish Alliance, the grand total of “anti-Europeans” from both left and right would come to about 220, close enough to a third of all seats in the parliament, which would be necessary for qualitative change.
It would be enough to block the EU’s efforts to punish Hungary and Poland for undermining the rule of law. The parties would be able to stop committees rubber-stamping appointments to the European Commission. They could even play a key role in shaping the EU’s budget — if the mainstream parties can’t unite (a likely scenario).
Serious disruption would be possible if all the extreme forces formed what the ECFR report describes as an “‘all against the establishment’ alliance of the far right, euroskeptics, and the far left.”
Dennison and Zerka point out that anti-establishment forces have cooperated in the European Parliament on some issues before: “Love of Russia, hatred of sanctions, and strong protectionist inclinations can unite the far left and the far right,” they argue. An alliance wouldn’t need to be formal, or even stable: “Unplanned alignment” in key votes would be enough to make the mainstream parties’ control of the European Parliament precarious, forcing them to build coalitions to a degree that hasn’t been necessary.
Even if the populist parties fail to win enough seats to swing key votes, the nationalist ones among them are already shaping the pre-election debate. Immigration is a key issue in almost all EU member states. Mainstream parties have had to engage, and are in the unenviable position of explaining complicated matters to voters while the populists bombard them with simple slogans.
The ECFR report recommends that the centrists make the election about other issues — European values, tax justice, climate change, or the Kremlin’s attempts to undermine the EU. I doubt, though, that any of these have the electoral potency of immigration.
In the election, however, complexity isn’t just the political center’s enemy — it can also help. Putting diverse parties from different countries into baskets such as “anti-Europeans,” “far right” or “anti-establishment,” as the ECFR has done, can be overly simplistic. Many of these groups on the fringe of the political spectrum aren’t really opposed to the EU and aren’t calling for their countries to pull out of it; some would like a less empowered EU, but that’s part of a legitimate discussion — not necessarily an attack on European values.
Mental experiments like imagining ad hoc anti-establishment coalitions can be useful for more than scaring centrists into greater cooperation. They also show the depth of the divides between the forces unhappy with the status quo. For them, winning seats in the European Parliament can be a useful reality check; some — such as Greece’s Syriza or Spain’s Podemos, not to mention Fidesz — have found it more natural to vote with the center than with the nationalist fringe on many issues.
I find it hard, then, to work myself into a state of fear about the election. Even if the various anti-establishment parties do get the number of seats the polls suggest, the European project looks safe.

From 'Baghdadi’s State' to 'Lone Wolves'
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 18/19
The “State of Baghdadi” is expecting an imminent collapse. It was not destined to last. After its thunderous emergence, experts expected the world to uproot it; not only because it cannot live with it, but also because terrorism makes a fatal mistake when it operates under a known title. The power of terrorism lies in the absence of a slogan, which makes it difficult to target or to capture.
ISIS struck the region as an earthquake from the depths of the past. It was clear that it was going in the opposite direction of history and age. The mysterious black army emerged from Al Qaeda’s legacy… from toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein and the policies of retaliation that infuriated Baghdad… from the bloody rift of the Syrian state… and from the open Turkish crossing, which allowed ISIS members and other militants to infiltrate into the Syrian arena.
The years of the “Baghdadi state” were violent, frightening, and full of scenes that the world did not witness in the post-World War II world. Gunmen coming from the caves of history used the latest technologies to intimidate the world with scenes of slaughtered heads, burnt prisoners, and assassinations in front of cameras. It was the longest process of destruction and intimidation in the region, loaded with cruel practices.
The years of the rule of “Baghdadi state” inflicted expensive costs on the relations between the components. Not only because it is a project of elimination and divorce, but also because it is a formula for the spread of destruction to cities, states, national partnerships and bridges of coexistence. Those years saw the erasing of the international borders between Syria and Iraq, which the world could not accept. We all remember the response to Saddam’s attempt to eliminate the borders between Kuwait and his country.
ISIS’ story has not been written yet. It is complex. It involves the roles of those who fought it, those who infiltrated it and tried to employ its brutality to serve their own agenda; and those who invoked its existence to justify strategies similar to policies that caused the emergence of ISIS.
Some people, including Syrian Kurdish Leader Saleh Musallem, believe that ISIS has turned into a supermarket used by security services. He mainly pointed to the Turkish intelligence. We have witnessed years of the “Baghdadi state” and the war against it. It imposed itself on the front pages and gripped the attention of reporters. I was one of them.
On June 10, 2014, I had a meeting in Paris with the President of Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani. Before leaving the hotel, I was interrupted by urgent news on Al-Arabiya television announcing the fall of the city of Mosul. Barzani was worried despite his usual quiet attitude. He was receiving reports and wondering why thousands of Iraqi soldiers were fleeing the city and its surroundings, leaving their arsenal of US weapons in the hands of the terrorist organization. He asserted that the Kurdistan Region “cannot live with these monsters on its borders.” He said that he drew Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s attention to suspicious activities of terrorists in Mosul, and that the latter replied that the situation was under control, hinting that Barzani ought to focus instead on concerns in his province. Barzani said: “This is the Middle East, unfortunately. We get out of a war only to see that we engaged in another one.” I saw him later on the lines of contact with ISIS. The first confrontations were very expensive because of ISIS’ military advantage due to the arsenal that they sacked in Mosul.
Curiosity is journalists' syndrome. They retire immediately after it declines. I had met with and interviewed suspects of terrorism. But I was eager to talk with an ISIS member, particularly those who came from faraway places to live under the banner of what was claimed to be the "Caliphate State." In the last week of August 2017, I asked President Barzani to intervene so that I could meet some of the ISIS members detained at the counterterrorism headquarters in Erbil. He agreed.
The headquarters official gave me an office and the detainees were brought along with an interpreter when necessary.
A Chinese man, S.Q.K., told me that he came with his family from East Turkistan to Turkey and ran out of savings, but a network working there paid the cost of his transfer to Raqqa and from there to Tal Afar, where he was enrolled in the “Abu Hajar Turkistani camp” and then underwent a “religious training,” included training on the use of weapons.
He justified joining ISIS by saying that he was promised he would find a “state” that meets his aspirations, where he could live freely according to his beliefs, unlike in China. He admitted in the end that he had been "deceived" and that he had not found what he had been promised.
Kublan Ozak Hasan came from Kazakhstan and was sent to Tal Afar, where he met with Russian speakers from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Dagestan, Turkmenistan, and Chechnya. He admitted taking part in military operations, but denied committing individual killings. He expressed his disappointment that “the Baghdadi state” was different from the picture that had been portrayed to him.
R.K., an American citizen, said he studied religious sciences in Trinidad. He saw on YouTube a video of a Syrian woman bleeding in the rubble and calling on Muslims to help. He decided to come and brought along his wife, a doctor, to Turkey. There, the network was waiting for them and took them to ISIS areas, where they underwent a “religious session.”
I also met an Iraqi from Tal Afar and resident of Baghdad. He said he had joined ISIS because of “sectarian policies that targeted the Sunnis in Iraq under Maliki.” I met a Syrian from Amouda near the area of Qamishli. He said he joined the "Free Army" and when the latter was expelled, he joined ISIS to continue to fight against the regime.
ISIS did not only attract mobile fighters searching for a theater of confrontation. It also attracted narrow-minded people through images and poisonous propaganda that drew them into what they thought to be “the land of salvation and dreams.”
Therefore, it is necessary to go back to studying the phenomenon of ISIS with the announcement of the success of the international coalition over the organization and eradicating its “state.” It is necessary to reflect on the flaws that facilitated its birth and the provision of safe passage for those wishing to join it.
The fall of the “state of Baghdadi” does not mean the end of ISIS. The organization may split in the form of “dangerous wolves” who are waiting for a new haven. Its fragmentation may help al-Qaeda to inherit some of its elements. The page of military confrontations ended. A new page of security and intelligence warfare has just begun.

Will Iran yield in the face of growing US pressure?
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab news/February 18/19
Iran has been facing a severe dilemma for nine months, ever since US President Donald Trump’s administration quit the controversial 2015 nuclear deal and decided to reimpose sanctions. This move was part of a new US strategy that aims to prevent Iran from going ahead with its plans to enrich uranium by 2025, to stop its ballistic missiles program, and to reduce its damaging project in the Middle East by preventing Tehran from imposing its expansionist agenda at the expense of the security and stability of other regional countries.
The US administration did not stop at imposing the toughest-ever sanctions on Iran last November, as its senior officials embarked on a round of shuttle diplomacy to convince other global heavyweight nations to join its efforts against the Iranian threat. This pressure entered a new stage last week, when the Trump administration convened a global conference in the Polish capital Warsaw with participants from more than 60 countries. The conference’s themes included the need to confront Iran’s threat and to curb its power in the region. While the US led the efforts to hold this conference, the European powers were keen to participate, despite keeping a relatively low profile owing to the divergence in viewpoints between the US and Europe, particularly regarding Washington’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear pact and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
Some believe, however, that the US is not putting sufficient pressure on Iran’s regime to bring it to its knees, given the ambiguity shrouding US strategy and its policies to confront Iran’s disruptive activities in the region. It is also felt that the tools used by Washington are not reflective of the enormity of the threats posed by Iran, as they suggest that there are no alternatives but to negotiate with the regime.
More importantly, the objective behind the US sanctions is ambiguous. Does Washington aim to discipline the regime? Does it want to change it? Or does it want to force it to sit down at the negotiating table and sign a new deal with new terms? This ambiguity has created a state of uncertainty and suspicion for many countries around the world, affecting their reaction to the US pressure on Iran. Another factor is Iran’s long experience in circumventing US sanctions and pressure by living on the edge, which is a key feature of the Iranian regime’s nationalist mindset.
The regime is also going through a critical stage domestically, as it faces severe challenges that threaten its survival and ability to remain in power. The most acute of these challenges is the erosion of both the revolutionary zeal on which the regime was founded and the revolution’s gains. This is beyond the control of the Iranian leadership, with all the key figures of the 1979 revolution now dead and nothing remaining but the slogans that continue to govern some institutions, headed primarily by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Due to this factor, some observers believe Iran is heading for a soft coup led by the IRGC, which could take place following Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s death — although there are leaked reports suggesting that Khamenei is now in the process of picking a successor in order to avoid any ambiguous scenario that could follow his demise.
While the leaders in Tehran are so far managing the crisis facing the country to avert further economic pressures and their impact on the already deteriorating domestic situation, the regime is going too far with its political rhetoric
Meanwhile, the Iranian political system itself is also suffering from a loss of legitimacy due to rising popular discontent. People poured on to the streets to take part in mass protests across the country in late 2017 and early 2018, demanding the downfall of the entire regime and an end to its expansionist activities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and other countries due to the massive financial expenditure, which has drained the state’s budget, leaving little to be spent on the Iranian people. The regime also suffers from factional protests that have been breaking out sporadically due to worsening socioeconomic conditions, rising unemployment and worsening living standards.
While the leaders in Tehran are so far managing the crisis facing the country to avert further economic pressures and their impact on the already deteriorating domestic situation, the regime is going too far with its political rhetoric. It claims that it is able to support a steadfast position for the longest possible period in the face of these economic pressures by depending on its domestic or “resistance” economy.
This was shown in a recent speech delivered by President Hassan Rouhani to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution. In his address delivered in Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square, Rouhani declared: “We will not let the US emerge victorious. The Iranian people have faced, and will face, some economic hardships.” Rouhani vowed that the country would continue to develop its military power and its missile program. This is considered an alarming indication of the continued threat to regional security posed by Iran through its missiles and its hard or soft interventions, paying no consideration to the principle of mutual neighborly respect or to the sovereignty of other nations.
In the same speech, Rouhani sent an implicit message to the Iranian people, warning them of the harmful consequences of responding to the US calls to protest against the regime, which he claimed had protected Iran and defended its history. Rouhani warned that those who rebelled against the regime would “face the unknown,” asserting that the revolution had come to protect the state itself from demise.
In the end, we should not rule out the possibility that Iran may yield to US pressure, however gradually. The regime is expected to accept the need to restart negotiations. This was expressed clearly in the Iranian president’s remarks last week, when he said: “We are ready for dialogue and common sense, but we refuse pressures.”
This was seen by experts as a way of setting the stage inside Iran and molding public opinion to accept the regime’s next step. This will no doubt be promoted in the media as the “heroic flexibility” proclaimed by Khamenei when he wanted the people to accept the nuclear deal in 2015. In reality, it is essential, given the current horrendous economic situation in Iran, with the International Monetary Fund’s latest figures stating that the Iranian economy had entered a phase of contraction in 2018 and predicting that gross domestic product would decline by 3.6 percent in 2019. Ultimately, it seems that the saying “Iran yields to no pressures but the tough ones” may well prove true.
• Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is Head of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). Twitter: @mohalsulami

A Month of Multiculturalism in Germany: January 2019
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/February 18/19/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13726/multiculturalism-germany-january
Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees reported that only 35% of the migrants who arrived in Germany since 2015 have found work.
Two Germans, both 16 years of age, were killed by an oncoming train after being pushed onto railway tracks by youths of Greek and Turkish origin. German media not only downplayed the immigration background of the suspects by describing them as indigenous Germans; they also reported that the teenagers "fell onto the tracks."
"Regional or national terms such as 'German Islam,' 'French Islam,' 'Belgian Islam' or 'European Islam' contradict the universality of Islam, which enlightens all eras and places at once." — From the final statement of the "Second Meeting of European Muslims," held at the Cologne Central Mosque.
A 25-year-old Afghan migrant was acquitted of raping a 50-year-old disabled woman in Nuremberg, Germany. The woman, a refugee caretaker, said she could not defend herself because she suffers from muscle spasticity on one side of her body. The Afghan's defense attorneys demanded an acquittal because, according to him, the sex was consensual. The Nuremberg-Fürth district court sided with the defendant, who was released and is now free. (Image source: Manfred Braun/Wikimedia Commons)
January 1. Four teenage migrants — three Afghans and one Iranian — assaulted more than a dozen passersby in Amberg. Twelve people between the ages of 13 and 42 were injured in the attacks; a 17-year-old was hospitalized for a head injury. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the four perpetrators cannot be deported for legal reasons:
"Anyone who indiscriminately beats uninvolved passersby shows that he is not seeking protection in our society. The drunken perpetrators can expect no understanding in our country, but only the full hardness of the rule of law. Currently, deportation is not legally possible in any case. We are working hard to change that."
January 2. Chief Prosecutor Claudia Vanoni, in an interview with Berliner Zeitung, said that anti-Semitic attacks are becoming commonplace in Berlin: "I have the impression that anti-Semitism is becoming louder, more open and aggressive." She blamed most of the anti-Semitic attacks on "right-wing offenders." When asked about anti-Semitism from Muslims, she said: "I hear more often in conversations with Jewish organizations that Jews view anti-Semitism among Muslims as an ever-greater problem in Germany. Statistically, one cannot prove that clearly." When asked if she was in contact with Muslim organizations, she replied: "Not yet."
January 3. A 22-year-old Libyan failed asylum seeker named Mohamed Youssef T. — who goes by the nickname "King Abode" ("Abode" as in "staying in Germany") — was allowed to return to Bautzen, a town in Saxony, after he was banned for three months due to an "unusual accumulation of punishable acts in a short period of time." The Libyan, who has become a "local celebrity," has a rap sheet of 25 criminal offenses, including theft, drug trafficking, physical assault and property damage, but has never served time in a German prison "due to procedural issues." The newspaper Bild wrote that King Abode "loves the attention" he receives from his criminal behavior. "As the asylum seeker has kept to our knowledge to the conditions, there is currently no legal basis for an extension of the existing residence ban," said Bautzen spokesman André Wucht. "King Abode" recently posted a six-minute rap video on YouTube in which he shouted: "Sh*t, back to my homeland? I'm not going. I'm staying here in Germany. Oh the sh*tty police, I have no respect for you." He cannot be deported because Libya is regarded by German authorities to be "unsafe," and also because Germany does not have a repatriation agreement with Libya.
January 4. A 31-year-old Turkish-born German shouting, "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is greater!") resisted arrest at Steintorplatz in Hamburg. More than 20 patrol cars were dispatched to subdue the man, who was ordered to undergo a medical examination.
January 5. The "Second Meeting of European Muslims" was held at the Cologne Central Mosque, a mega-mosque established by the Turkish government. The closed-door meeting, which brought together more than 100 Muslim representatives from 17 European countries, was led by Ali Erbas, head of the Turkish government's Directorate for Religious Affairs, in Turkey known as the Diyanet. After Turkish officials posted a photo of the event on the internet, reports soon emerged that the meeting had included representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and being monitored by German intelligence. Some observers said that the meeting was an attempt to make Turkey's claim to leadership of the Islamic world clear to other rival powers. The final declaration of the Cologne conference emphasized the universality of Islam and rejected national forms of religion. "Islam is a religion of peace that defends the same universal values throughout the world," the statement read. "Regional or national terms such as 'German Islam,' 'French Islam,' 'Belgian Islam' or 'European Islam' contradict the universality of Islam, which enlightens all eras and places at once." The Cologne conference emphasized that the goal was to "institutionalize the meeting of European Muslims" every two years, in a two-year cycle. The first meeting was held in Brussels in 2014.
January 6. Migrants are believed to be behind a growing number of attacks on sanitation workers in Freiburg. In certain parts of the city, the employees of the city's waste management and street cleaning now only clean during the day and in teams of two. In one instance, someone threw a bottle into the windshield of a garbage truck and kicked in the door. In another incident, a sanitation employee was attacked from behind and rendered unconscious. Another employee was punched by a stranger who tried to steal his cellphone. "It's a new dimension," said Michael Broglin, CEO of the local street cleaning company ASF. "The cleaning service is being partly reduced."
January 7. A 20-year-old Afghan migrant was cited for walking in the middle of railroad tracks in Sonneberg. Federal Police warned:
"Again and again, federal police are arresting migrants walking on railroad tracks. For this reason, the Federal Police regularly conducts prevention meetings on the subject in shelters for asylum seekers, pointing out the particular dangers on railway facilities.
"In particular, warnings are given against unauthorized access to the tracks. Depending on the speed, trains have a braking distance of several hundred meters. Especially modern fast trains are often not perceived in time. The resulting consequences can be severe."
January 8. A 19-year-old Somali migrant admitted to trying to rape a 74-year-old woman in her apartment in Halle. "My client assures me that he is very sorry," said defense attorney Björn Fehse. "He got into the apartment because he wanted sex." When the judge asked the defendant why he continued to use violence after the woman resisted, he replied, "I was just drunk." The 19-year-old is accused not only of attempted rape, but also of burglary and assault.
January 9. A 24-year-old Gambian asylum seeker went on a rampage at a bank in Ravensburg after he tried to withdraw funds but could not when a teller told him that he did not have sufficient funds. He drew a knife, threw around chairs and a radiator, and grabbed a donation fund set up at the counter. When police arrived, he resisted arrested and tried to headbutt a female officer. He was charged with attempted predatory extortion, attempted assault and insult to the detriment of police officers.
January 10. Germany deported a 23-year-old Afghan migrant named Mortaza D. but when he arrived in Kabul, Afghan authorities refused him entry and sent him back to Germany. Mortaza D., whose asylum application was rejected in 2010, is a serial criminal with more than 20 known offenses. Afghan authorities said that he is mentally ill, and, according to a bilateral agreement with Germany, "vulnerable" people cannot be deported to Afghanistan because the country lacks adequate medical facilities.
January 11. A 25-year-old Afghan asylum seeker stabbed a 25-year-old pregnant Polish woman at a hospital in Bad Kreuznach. The unborn child died in the attack. It later emerged that the two knew each other, although it unclear whether the man was the father of the child.
January 12. A 38-year-year-old Libyan man working as a doctor at a hospital in Melsung was arrested after being exposed a fraud. He was hired in early 2018 on the basis of falsified documents. A nurse became suspicious after the Libyan botched a blood transfusion, a standardized procedure. An investigation found that the man, who was previously hired by clinics in Kassel and Hildesheim, had been sentenced in May 2018 to three years and ten months in prison for forgery and fraud, in which he obtained more than 10,000 euros ($11,000) in wrongful social security payments. He was stripped of his German residency papers and ordered to be deported after serving his sentence; it remains unclear why he never went to prison, much less was allowed to practice medicine in Melsung.
January 13. A 23-year-old Afghan migrant was arrested for murdering an 87-year-old woman in Jena. The two lived in the same apartment building. Police found the woman's body in the basement after relatives reported her missing.
January 14. A 22-year-old asylum seeker was arrested after smashing the windows of the city hall in Bad Schwalbach. Police said the man, who lives in an asylum shelter in Niedernhausen, was dissatisfied with the amount of social welfare benefits he was receiving. The damage was estimated at about 5,000 euros ($5,650).
January 15. A 50-year-old German-Afghan who worked as a translator and cultural advisor for the German military was arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran. Abdul Hamid S. was accused of passing "highly sensitive information" to the Iranian secret service, MOIS. He is believed to have worked for the Iranian intelligence service for several years.
January 16. A 20-year-old Syrian asylum seeker stabbed a 22-year-old Syrian during a dispute at an asylum shelter in Guben. When employees of the shelter tried to intervene, he attacked them with an axe.
January 18. More than two dozen Turkish and Syrian youths attacked passersby at the central train station in Gelsenkirchen. The youths also emptied fire extinguishers, attacked railway employees and pressed emergency buttons to stop escalators. One suspect, who had an outstanding arrest warrant, pushed a police officer against the glass wall of a pizzeria. Both men fell through the glass into the bar. The suspect was injured and, after treatment at a hospital, was detained. The 29-year-old officer was seriously injured. Police said they would deploy more officers to the area, which, due to roving gangs of migrants, has descended into lawlessness. One officer admitted that the police are outnumbered: "Once a person is controlled or arrested in this area, they organize themselves via their smartphones. In no time, we face a larger group that impedes our work."
January 19. A 17-year-old girl was seriously injured after she was hit by a bus at the central bus station in Minden while trying to escape a 22-year-old Afghan migrant sexually harassing her. German media and police omitted the perpetrator's nationality, which was reported only by the conservative newspaper Junge Freiheit.
January 20. A court in Münster acquitted Sayed M., an 18-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, in the death of José Miranda, a Portuguese refugee helper. Sayed M. had been harassing a woman after she rejected his romantic advances. When Miranda intervened to protect the woman, Sayed M. fatally stabbed him six times in the heart. The court ruled that Sayed M. acted in self-defense and therefore was not guilty of murder, based on Paragraph 33 of the German Criminal Code, which states: "If the offender exceeds the limits of self-defense out of confusion, fear or terror, he will not be punished." The judge said that although the verdict was certainly "incomprehensible" to Miranda's relatives, "as judges we have to examine the case neutrally and without emotion." The ruling will likely be appealed.
January 21. A 22-year-old Afghan sexually assaulted a 22-year-old woman who had fallen asleep on a train in Berlin. He was arrested after passengers reported him to police.
January 22. A 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, Amir W., appeared at Stuttgart Regional Court on charges of stabbing the 53-year-old father of a 19-year-old German woman who rejected his advances. The German newsmagazine Focus wrote:
"The young refugee has failed because he was not as well integrated as many people around him wanted to believe. But even more important is that what he considered the cultural values ​​of his homeland to be closer to him than the values ​​of our Western democracy — and that he had apparently tried to impose his archaic ideas with brute force."
January 23. Ali Bashar, a 21-year-old failed asylum seeker from Iraqi Kurdistan, was formally charged with raping and murdering Susanna Feldmann, a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Mainz. Bashar (also known as Ali Bashar Ahmed Z.) is accused of raping and then strangling Feldmann in a wooded area near his refugee shelter in Wiesbaden on May 23, 2018. In an effort to escape justice, Bashar fled Germany with his family by catching a flight from Düsseldorf to Iraq via Istanbul. After a public outcry, Germany issued an international arrest warrant for him. On June 11, German federal police chief Dieter Romann personally escorted him back from Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil, where he had been arrested by local Kurdish security forces. Bashar's trial is scheduled to begin on March 12.
January 23. A 33-year-old Syrian man, who was being deported to Spain in accordance with the EU's Dublin Regulation, pulled what appeared to be a knife shortly after boarding a plane at Frankfurt Airport. He loudly demanded that he, his wife and three children not be deported. Police obliged and escorted the family off the plane. The knife turned out to be a nail file.
January 23. Mission Lifeline, a German non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, called on German citizens to enter into fake marriages with illegal migrants. A tweet read:
"Are you not yet married? Maybe you could fall in love with someone who does not have the right to stay here? It could happen, right? Keep an open mind."
Philipp Amthor of the CDU's parliamentary group described the tweet as scandalous:
"This absurd call for entering marriages shows clearly that these 'sea rescuers' are in fact pursuing a much larger agenda. They want to thwart our immigration law with their left-wing ideology and make a mockery of our constitutional state."
January 24. A 25-year-old Syrian migrant was arrested in Landshut after sexually assaulting several girls between the ages of 11 and 14 on their way to school. Police said the man had an outstanding arrest warrant but had eluded capture.
January 25. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF) reported that only 35% of the migrants who arrived in Germany since 2015 have found work. Most of those are employed in part-time jobs, internships or apprenticeships. The average monthly gross income for migrants with full-time employment was 1,564 euros ($1,750); the average monthly gross income for part-time employees was 408 euros ($460).
January 25. In Mulheim, a man speaking Turkish indiscriminately kicked a 26-year-old man in the face while exiting a train. The victim was hospitalized with bruises and broken teeth. The attacker remains at large. In Freiburg, at a refugee shelter, a 25-year-old Gambian sexually assaulted a cleaning lady. In Stendal, a 20-year-old Arab man sexually assaulted a 44-year-old German woman after breaking into her apartment.
January 26. A 33-year-old Syrian Muslim in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt shot and killed a 25-year-old Iraqi Christian who was dating the Syrian man's sister. "Presumably it was a thorn in the side of the Syrian that his sister was with an 'infidel,'" said prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters.
January 27. Two teenagers of Greek and Turkish origin were arrested after pushing three German teenagers onto the railway tracks at the Frankenstadion train station in Nuremberg. Two of the Germans, both 16 years of age, were killed by an oncoming train. German media not only downplayed the immigration background of the suspects by describing them as indigenous Germans; they also reported that the teenagers "fell onto the tracks." Some 150 witnesses were being questioned by police.
January 28. More than 14,000 people were caught trying to enter Germany illegally in 2018, according to police statistics leaked to the Rheinische Post. About 8,000 were stopped on trains and 6,000 on long-distance buses. Most of the unauthorized entries occurred at Germany's border with Austria, followed by its borders with France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Most of the migrants arrived from Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and Turkey.
January 29. A 25-year-old Afghan migrant was acquitted of raping a 50-year-old disabled woman in Nuremberg. The woman, a refugee caretaker, said she could not defend herself because she suffers from muscle spasticity on one side of her body. Prosecutors requested that the defendant be sentenced to four years in prison. His defense attorneys demanded an acquittal because, according to the Afghan, the sex was consensual. The Nuremberg-Fürth district court sided with the defendant, who was released and is now free.
January 30. A 16-year-old Nigerian migrant physically assaulted a 32-year-old female train conductor after she asked him for his ticket on a regional train. Two other passengers subdued the Nigerian and handed him over to police, who revealed that he had committed another crime earlier in the day at Magdeburg Central Station.
January 31. Three Iraqis were arrested in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. They were accused of planning a jihadi attack aimed at killing as many people as possible. Around 200 police and intelligence agents were monitoring the Iraqis around the clock before they were arrested in an early morning raid. They had arrived in Germany in the fall of 2015, after Chancellor Angela Merkel opened German borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants. The men were enjoying subsidiary refugee protection, which allowed them to live in Germany even though they did not qualify for refugee protection or the right to asylum.
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
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As Iran sinks financially, Iraqi militias generate funds via protection rackets
Michael Flanagan/Al Arabiya/February 18/19
In areas rife with corruption, lawful behavior is often punished as the forces of law enforcement do not work for the people but for the often malignant forces wielding actual power. Sadly, parts of Iraq are becoming feudal kingdoms with selective law enforcement designed to protect both the financial and the power interests of those locally in charge.
Being from Chicago, I am very familiar with this situation. The past of my city was rife with violent gangs “owning” defined territories “protected” from rival factions – “protected” at a cost to the businessman who pays and pays not to be attacked by his protectors.
Usually, the ordinary police were in on the scheme and were well paid to look the other way or even better paid to partake in the “protection” activities. Protection rackets can be very lucrative. Violence awaits those that question the local ruling gang and there is no law enforcement neutral enough or powerful enough to seriously entertain a complaint.
So, locals with money or position pay and pay the gangs because there is no alternative. Either they pay for protection from the thugs or suffer violence from them – often coupled with indifference (or even criminal cooperation) of the police.
Iraq is quietly being divided into lucrative fiefdoms where those that wish to thrive or do any business at all must pay. In the North, the Kurds and Masoud Barzani are running their protection racket. It is more benign, less violent but just as iron-clad and lucrative as the others. In the West, ISIS continues to exert undue influence and extorts monies from all comers looking to do business there. In the South, Iran exerts its influence through Iranian militias and other official and unofficial structures looking to shake down businessmen.
One of Iran’s ‘top earners’ (as they are called in the American Mafia) is Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH). AAH is an Iranian-backed militia with its origins in Muqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Amy. When Muqtada made a tentative peace with the formal Iraqi government (and the Americans as well), AAH continued its attacks breaking-away from Al Sadr. Ironically, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq translates to the “League of the Righteous.”
As Iran sinks financially, the need for its militias in Iraq to generate their own funds has acutely risen. The League of the Righteous is extorting and “protecting” its way to financial independence. Recently, Kuwaiti companies run by a daughter of the ruler Sabah IV of Kuwait paid a heavy protection price to AAH to be able to invest in the new airport complex in Diwaniyah Province. This was so open and notorious that it was actually reported in the newspapers. Better to pay than be bombed, rocketed or just killed outright.
In Baghdad, sides are being drawn in less obvious ways. The political parties are deeply involved in the protection rackets to control lucrative businesses and investments.
Recently, a prominent Baghdad restauranteur was arrested by security forces with AAH identification papers on him. This was reported by an equally prominent television station run by Amir Hakim. Amir Hakim is not of AAH but is a former leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) party when they were in power in Iraq a few years ago – a rival party to AAH.
Because it was reported that an AAH identity card was found on the man, the Iranian Party Bloc, al-Fateh, complained loudly that Hakim was using his media prominence to purposely target AAH, Iranian interests and Iran’s newest acquisition, the Popular Mobilization Forces (the PMF).
A personage no less than the President of the Republic had to be ultimately involved. He called for calm and for restraint because the two parties were on the verge of open, armed conflict over the matter. Nothing less than his involvement was required to stave off bloodshed. The upshot of this is that outside investment, already wary of the inconsistency of the ordinary rule of law in Iraq, are completely scared off by this activity. More than a few large, outside deals have utterly collapsed in the South particularly.
AAH’s violent involvement in ordinary business activities in order to raise money has made it a pariah in the South of Iraq. Because of their brutality, they are also feared and, sadly, obeyed.
Iraq is twice burdened by its corruption and now lawless protection rackets. Both plagues are a direct result of the lack of dependable and honest law enforcement coupled with a court system that is independent and capable of enforcing the law.
Until these deficiencies can be cured, outside investment will be scarce and internal economic activity will be minimal. Iraq must free itself from these twin evils.

Why is Russia propping up Sudan’s Bashir?
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/February 18/19
Omar al-Bashir’s regime in Khartoum has been looking increasingly fragile since popular protests erupted toward the end of last year against the dire and deteriorating economic conditions in the country.
This is not merely an eruption of discontent against the state like the “yellow vests” in France. The protesters represent a wide and diverse cross-section of the population, which includes former government officials. This movement is capable to take over the running of the country. This is now a budding revolution.
That said, more recent developments will allow Bashir to rest a little easier at night. The Kremlin entered the fray to support the incumbent regime. Media reports suggested that Russian-speaking mercenaries, likely the Wagner Group or similar, have been helping the Sudanese authorities crack down on street protests.
But why is Putin so keen to get involved in what is shaping up to be another civil war? It seems likely that on this occasion, the Kremlin would rather see this conflict resolved quickly. Russia is already dangerously overextended, and Putin must know this. So perhaps the calculation was that swift intervention through deniable assets, such as the Kremlin’s pet mercenary groups, would be enough to consolidate the regime’s hold on power in Khartoum.
On the upside, if this gambit succeeds, Putin re-establishes Russia as a player in African affairs. This is not mere Soviet-era nostalgia over Russia regaining the position of global power, rather than being a “regional player” as the Americans mocked them in the past.
If Bashir loses power, he is finished. This makes him just the kind of dependent client the Kremlin loves
There is an ongoing second “Scramble for Africa” to secure food and mineral resources. And even though Russia does have an abundance of both of those, increasing its control over the continent will allow the Kremlin to put pressure on the access to these supplies for the West and China, greatly increasing its geopolitical leverage.
And perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this entanglement is how little risk it presupposes for the Kremlin. Because the mercenary groups are supposedly independent actors, even if their intervention fails to rescue the Bashir regime that failure will not be attached to Mr Putin – at least not in the eyes of the Russian populace. Such a failure will put a dent into Russia’s ambitions to extend their influence into Africa, but it would not damage their already-established position in the region. And upholding another war criminal is hardly going to damage Russia’s international reputation at this point. Conversely, many of Africa’s other problematic regimes will be looking with interest toward Moscow if the operation succeeds. As icing on the cake, there may be financial benefits for the Kremlin for backing vulnerable kleptocratic regimes across the continent, at a time when they are in rather dire financial straits.
A mutually-beneficial protection racket would be a sensible strategy for Russia to pursue on the continent – at least so long as the Kremlin can keep away from overt political commitments to any of these regimes, like the commitments they have to the Haftar faction of the Libyan civil war. Moscow can ill-afford becoming a declared belligerent in any more civil wars.
For his part, Bashir has little choice but to take any help he can get. Unpopular at home and sought by the ICC for war crimes and genocide for his conduct during South Sudan’s wars of secession, he does not have anywhere to go.
If he loses power, he is finished. This makes him just the kind of dependent client the Kremlin loves. For Russia, this is a no-brainer.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s bid to change regional politics
Ahmed Quraishi/Al Arabiya/February 18/19
The visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Pakistan sets the stage for strategic partnership between two powerhouses of the region and the Muslim world.
The last time these two countries came together, in the 1980s, they changed the face of politics in the Muslim world and globally by leading the campaign to defeat communism in Afghanistan. Today, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Imran Khan want to reform the role of Muslims globally focus on regional connectivity and prosperity, and end militant groups that abuse religion. And this could not come at a more opportune time. A younger generation and new political leaderships are ascending to power in Riyadh and Islamabad. Officials of the two countries are casting Crown Prince’s visit as something akin to transferring the close political, military and intelligence cooperation to the next generation of Pak-Saudi leaders.
Pakistan virtually abandoned its regional role and withdrew inwards in 1991 after playing a key role with the West in decisively ending the Cold War. Islamabad appeared exhausted of spy games and wars and turned its focus to chaotic domestic politics and struggled with the aftereffects of “Afghan jihad” next door. Now, with the change of guard in Islamabad last year, and after the most important elections in three decades, Pakistanis are ready to embrace their country’s regional and international roles again under Prime Minister Khan. Saudi officials recognize Mr. Khan’s agenda and appreciate Islamabad's strategic potential. Riyadh shows willingness to be associated with Pakistan's regional and international vision of prosperity, regional connectivity and end to conflicts.
In return, Islamabad wants to hitch its wagon to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Vision 2030, Riyadh’s leading role in the Islamic world in combating extremism, as well as their role in encouraging younger Muslims to contribute to the global civilization and not be a passive consumer, all these ideas excite Pakistani leaders and public. Pakistan wants to join this grand vision and support it.
As a neighboring Muslim country, Islamabad wants good relations with Tehran but wants peaceful end to Iranian involvement in multiple regional confrontations
Pakistan has a role in the stability and security of the Arab Gulf region. This partially explains why allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are eager to help Islamabad overcome economic and political troubles.
Stability of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf impacts the largest Pakistani diaspora in the world, the biggest foreign remittances to Pakistan, and Islamabad’s ability to get its energy supplies on easy terms when necessary. Islamabad is committed to its national interests in the Gulf region. Here, Iran’s troubles and problems across the region represent both a challenge and a headache for Pakistan. Iranian involvement in multiple conflicts in the region, and its meddling in states that have close ties to Islamabad, complicates matters for Pakistani diplomacy and impacts Pakistani interests.
As a neighboring Muslim country, Islamabad wants good relations with Tehran but wants peaceful end to Iranian involvement in multiple regional confrontations.
Having said this, Pakistanis are not ready to accept Iranian pressure when it comes to Islamabad’s interests in Gulf and the Middle East. Pakistan has carefully cultivated relations across this vital region and will not abandon those interests under Iranian pressure. Pakistan's relations with Saudi Arabia and GCC are de-linked and de-hyphenated from its relations with Iran. Both are not mutually exclusive and are not a zero-sum game. Regional ties, Islamabad feels, should be based on respect and non-interference in national sovereignty.
Pakistan supports the legitimate government in Yemen, opposes the rule of militants and armed groups, and the malign foreign backing to armed groups that leads to chaos. Pakistan is watching Yemen war closely because it impacts Pakistani interests in the Gulf.
Islamabad also supports the vision of Saudi Arabia and the 41-member Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC).
Saudi and Pakistani officials agree on the idea of eliminating extremist, sectarian, terrorist ideologies and groups, and support IMCTC’s goal of harmonizing Muslims across all sects through tolerance and acceptance. If successful, this could end a major underlying cause of strife in the region.
Today, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are part of a vision that pushes for regional harmony, conflict resolution, peace, tolerance, acceptance, progress and prosperity. It is an important, ambitious agenda and one that should attract wider support across the region and the world.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia defined the 20th century by supporting freedom and defeating tyranny in Afghanistan, as part of a global coalition. Today, the two return to Afghanistan to end one of the longest wars. It’s a vision for a 21st century of regional connectivity, global integration, and end to militant ideologies.
The West and the emerging economies of the world should support this project that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have launched.