LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 27/19

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’
First Letter to the Corinthians 01/26-31: ‘Consider your own call, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on January 26-27/19
Lebanese Mafia Brothers Arrested over Berlin Kidnapping Plot
Tehran: Arrested American Investigated on Security-Related Charges
Lebanon Signs Deal with Russian Firm to Operate Oil Installations in Tripoli
Bukhari Says SA 'Keen' on Lebanon's Sovereignty
Al-Mustaqbal: Hariri Won’t Step Down
Report: Nasrallah ‘Dissatisfied’ with Bassil’s Govt. 'Initiative'
Hariri, Geagea meet in Paris
Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah Doesn’t Need Tunnels to Invade Galilee!
Musa al-Sadr’s Disappearance: 4 Decades of Judicial Setbacks, Political Accusations
The summit Iran did not want
Till when can Lebanon’s economy avoid collapse?
Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
The moral hazard of supporting Lebanon
Firas Maksad/Al Arabiya/January 26/19

Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 26-27/19
Tehran: Arrested American Investigated on Security-Related Charges
Iran Holds Infantry Drill in Isfahan
Moscow Proposes Adana Pact as Alternative to US Security Zone
Iran accuses France of ‘destabilizing’ the region
One dead after protesters storm Turkish military camp in north Iraq
Coalition strikes kill 42 in ISIS Syria holdout
Foreign troops to quit Afghanistan in 18 months under draft deal-Taliban officials
Tunisia calls for Arab League to readmit Syria
Hodeidah Governor: Houthis Recently Recruited 1,000 Child Soldiers
Libya: Haftar Forces Take Control of Sabha Citadel
Qatari Proposal to Host Palestinian Talks Met with Fatah's Reservation
Egypt Expects New Oil Investments in Red Sea Region
MiSk Global Forum Participates in Davos Economic Forum
Spain, France, Germany Give Venezuela's Maduro Ultimatum

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 26-27/19
Lebanese Mafia Brothers Arrested over Berlin Kidnapping Plot/ Raghida Bahnam/Asharq Al-Awsat/January 26/19
Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah Doesn’t Need Tunnels to Invade Galilee!/Almanar Hezbollah web site/January 27, 2019
Musa al-Sadr’s Disappearance: 4 Decades of Judicial Setbacks, Political Accusations/Youssef Diab/Asharq Al Awsat/January 26/19
The summit Iran did not want/Ali Al Amin/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
Till when can Lebanon’s economy avoid collapse?/Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
The moral hazard of supporting Lebanon/Firas Maksad/Al Arabiya/January 26/19
Analysis/Two Years In, Gulf States Disappointed in Trump on Everything From Iran to Peace/Amir Tibon/Haaretz/January 26/19
Analysis/Trump, Terror and Tomatoes: As U.S. Eyes Iraq Buildup, Iran May Stand to Gain/Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/January 26/19
Iran's Kidnapping Industry/British Mother Held in Prison/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 26/19
Brexit and Pressure on Finances of England’s Universities/Chris Bryant/Bloomberg View/January 26/19
Under pressure, Iran might let go of Syria but not of Iraq/Mohamad Kawas/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
Israel, Iran edge closer to wider confrontation in Syria/Mamoon Alabbasi/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
Arab presence is essential to solving the Syrian crisis/Bassam Barabandi/Al Arabiya/January 26/19
Bandar bin Sultan: Obama’s policies took the region 20 years back/Al Arabiya English/Al Arabiya/January 26/19
Syria is Israel and Iran's battleground/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/January 26/19

Latest LCCC English Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on January 26-27/19
Lebanese Mafia Brothers Arrested over Berlin Kidnapping Plot
 Raghida Bahnam/Asharq Al-Awsat/January 26/19
The younger brother of one of Berlin's most notorious Arab mafia bosses has been arrested in Denmark on suspicion of plotting to kidnap the children of a famous rapper. German authorities are now seeking the extradition of 37-year-old Yasser Abou-Chaker, who is of Lebanese descent. His elder brother and clan boss Arafat Abou-Chaker, 42, was arrested in Berlin last week. Both suspects have been accused of plotting to abduct the children of German-Tunisian rapper and former business partner Bushido. According to investigators, the brothers had been actively looking for people ready to carry out the kidnapping. This was apparently to be an act of revenge after Bushido cut ties with the Abou-Chakers in March last year. Bushido is currently under police protection. Another rapper, Capital Bra who was signed to Bushido's label, this week angrily accused his boss of working "intensively" with the police and left the label.The Abou-Chaker clan is among 10 Lebanese families involved in organized crime in Berlin and put under police surveillance.
Musa al-Sadr’s Disappearance: 4 Decades of Judicial Setbacks, Political Accusations
Youssef Diab/Asharq Al Awsat/January 26/19 Lebanon and Libya have had tense relations under late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as a result of the disappearance of the Shiite religious authority, Imam Musa al-Sadr, and two of his companions during an official visit to the Libyan capital Tripoli in late August 1978. But recent tension between the two countries has culminated to breaking point, as Tripoli authorities hinted at the possibility of severing relations with Lebanon after Amal supporters took to the streets of Beirut, to protest Libya’s participation in the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit earlier this month. Protesters removed Libyan flags placed along Beirut’s seaside avenue, as part of Arab League preparations to welcome countries attending the summit, and replaced them with their movement’s green flag.
In response, Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) announced it would boycott the summit, because Lebanon was unable to guarantee “the appropriate climate” for it, according to a statement by its foreign ministry. Escalatory statements issued by Amal head Speaker Nabih Berri, in addition to street slogans that have long been used in wartime, raised fears of unannounced desires to destabilize the country under a religious and political pretext. A statement by the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council threatened to cut off roads if the government insisted on Libya’s participation in the summit. For the protesters, there is sufficient justification to prevent the representation of Libya in the summit, mainly its continuous concealment of the truth about Sadr’s disappearance, as explained by Judge Hassan al-Shami, a member of the Lebanese follow-up committee on the disappearance case. The Lebanese committee accuses its Libyan counterpart of “prevarication and trying to manipulate the case to use it in financial deals.”“This stalling led us to sign an MoU on March 1, 2014,” Shami said, noting that the Libyan side “recognized under this agreement that the kidnapping took place in Libya by Muammar Gaddafi and the elements of his regime, and that Sadr did not leave Tripoli to Rome, as claimed by the Gaddafi regime.”
“The memorandum included three main clauses: first, a joint investigation that will allow us to interview security detainees; second, a search in all Libyan prisons; and third, permanent communication and exchange of information,” the judge explained. Shami stressed that the Libyans have failed to implement the deal. “Because of this delay, I went to Libya in March 2016. I met some of the detainees who are close to Gaddafi and asked some questions, but I did not get enough answers. As soon as I returned from Tripoli, they cut off all contact with us,” he recounted. The judge added that when Fayez al-Sarraj (head of the Libyan Government of National Accord) came to power, “he did not take any positive step toward” the issue.
He revealed that Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Eltaher Siala sent a warning letter to the Lebanese Embassy in Tripoli in response to Beirut’s repeated demands for clarifications on the case. The dispute with Libya over Sadr’s disappearance did not stay confined to bilateral relations between the two countries. It triggered a political crisis in Lebanon, which began between President Michel Aoun and Berri; then between the speaker and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, who strongly criticized the actions of Amal movement supporters.
Berri was quick to respond. He said: “The regret, all of this regret, should not be for the absence of the Libyan delegation (from the economic summit in Beirut), but for the absence of the ‘Lebanese delegation’ in facing the great offense to Lebanon committed almost four decades ago,” in reference to Sadr’s disappearance. But former Justice Minister Chakib Qortbawi stressed during a meeting with Asharq Al-Awsat that the Lebanese state “has done everything possible” to resolve the mystery of Sadr’s disappearance. “It appointed a judicial and security committee to follow up on the case, and moved to Libya several times and met with Libyan officials, but the result was not as we all wished for,” he said. Qortbawi sought to calm the tensions, saying Sadr’s disappearance shouldn’t turn into an internal Lebanese conflict. He also asked: “Why do we hold the current Libyan authorities responsible for the tragedy? They are already overwhelmed with internal chaos.”

Tehran: Arrested American Investigated on Security-Related Charges
Tehran - London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/An American detained in Iran in July 2018 is being investigated on possible security charges, an Iranian prosecutor was quoted as saying on Friday, in a case that could further strain turbulent relations between Iran and the United States. Several Americans have been detained in Iran in recent years, mostly on security-related charges including espionage, Reuters reported. Gholamali Sadeqi, prosecutor in the northeastern city of Mashhad, said authorities were investigating security-related accusations against Michael White, according to the official news agency Mehr. Sadeqi also said White, a 46-year-old US Navy veteran, had been arrested because of a “private complaint” filed against him. In the past, “private complaints” filed by the Revolutionary Guards or other security bodies have led to arrests of activists and closure of newspapers. Iran confirmed White’s arrest earlier this month after the New York Times reported that White was arrested in July while visiting his Iranian girlfriend. London-based news website IranWire has reported that White was being poorly treated in prison, but Tehran has denied this, according to Reuters.

Lebanon Signs Deal with Russian Firm to Operate Oil Installations in Tripoli
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/Lebanon has signed a deal with Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, to upgrade and operate storage installations in the northern city of Tripoli, caretaker Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil said Friday. Abi Khalil told reporters that Rosneft will manage storage operations. He said they will start with the development of 450,000 metric tons of capacity, likely to be expanded to 1.5 million metric tons in the future. The facilities were built about 90 years ago and were used to store oil shipped through a pipeline from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The minister spoke in the presence of Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin.

Bukhari Says SA 'Keen' on Lebanon's Sovereignty
Naharnet/January 26/19/Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari on Saturday stressed his country's keenness on Lebanon’s "sovereignty, stability and prosperity,” media reports said on Saturday. Bukhari’s remarks came at the launching of “Bridges 3”, a Saudi embassy initiative concerned with communicating with the entire Lebanese regions, in the office of ex-PM Fouad Saniora in Sidon. Bukhari stressed that Saudi diplomacy “is beginning to witness a change in direction towards the human being. Last year, Saudi Arabia embarked on a mini-strategy, a sustainable diplomacy in Lebanon that is based on Lebanese people regardless of their affiliations, sect or whereabouts.”He concluded: “We are here to listen and see how we can cooperate more. The Kingdom is now heading towards Vision 2030, which includes many investment opportunities available between the two countries," he said.

Al-Mustaqbal: Hariri Won’t Step Down
Naharnet/January 26/19/After Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri declared that he is going to take a final decision on the stalled government formation, al-Mustaqbal Movement stressed that the Premier “is not planning to step down,” al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday. “Stepping down is out of question at the current stage. Genuinely, there are several endeavors that could ease the government impasse,” al-Mustaqbal sources told the daily. However, they assured that the representation of the Consultative Gathering is the “real stalemate hampering the formation.”
Hariri’s latest announcement that he is going to make a “final decision” next week has been subject to debate, amid reports interpreting his statement as an intention to step down shall the consultations reach a dead end. Sources close to Hariri said: “His recent contacts have led to the fact that everyone is convinced about the need to form the government, given the current situation.”

Report: Nasrallah ‘Dissatisfied’ with Bassil’s Govt. 'Initiative'
Naharnet/January 26/19/Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has reportedly been “not too pleased” with an initiative made by Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil regarding the government formation, al-Liwaa daily reported on Saturday. Nasrallah has reportedly described Bassil’s initiative as an “invention,” and expressed his “surprise at the way his ally used the government file; especially when he tried to sneak the name of Jawad Adra in accordance with Hariri; which caused embarrassment to all and prompted Nasrallah to blame (General Security chief Abbas) Ibrahim on the way he managed the file,” the daily quoted unnamed sources. It added that “Hizbullah does not seem optimistic about the government formation,” pointing to some attempts “aiming to prolong the government impasse further.” According to a senior Hizbullah source, “circles of the March 8 alliance expect Nasrallah to clearly define our position on everything going on in the government.”He added that "President (Michel) Aoun is not in a position to allow (Prime Minister-designate Saad) Hariri and the rest of the parties to continue procrastinating in the formation of the government.”

Hariri, Geagea meet in Paris
Sat 26 Jan 2019/NNA - Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri met this evening with Lebanese Forces Chief, Samir Geagea, who visited him at his residence in the French capital, Paris, in the presence of Caretaker Culture Minister, Ghattas Khoury. Discussions centered on the government formation issue and latest political developments.

Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah Doesn’t Need Tunnels to Invade Galilee!
Almanar Hezbollah web site/January 27, 2019
Marwa Haidar and Sara Taha Moughnieh
Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah made fun on Saturday of the Israeli claims regarding the so-called “Northern Shield” operation on the border between Lebanon and the occupied territories. In a long-awaited interview on Al-Mayadeen, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah is not in need of tunnels to invade Galilee, noting that the Israelis will never know from where Hezbollah fighters will get into Galilee. His eminence told Al-Mayadeen’s Ghassan Bin Jiddo that the Israeli border operation proved the Zionist intelligence failure, noting that the occupation army was late in discovering the tunnels. Meanwhile, Hezbollah S.G. reiterated threats against any Israeli miscalculation in Lebanon, stressing that the Israeli enemy will pay high price in case of aggression Lebanon. Sayyed Nasrallah also affirmed that the resistance is capable of hitting targets across the Palestinian occupied territories with precision missiles. His eminence said that Syria is now at its best, pointing out that the crisis now is in Idlib. On the other hand, Sayyed Nasrallah voiced Hezbollah’s readiness to discuss Lebanon’s defense strategy without preconditions.
Rumors on Sayyed Nasrallah’s Health
Asked about the cause behind his two-month media absence, Sayyed Nasrallah dismissed allegations regarding his health situation, stressing that he is fine and did not suffer deterioration in his health condition. “My media absence has no relation with my health condition. All rumors about my health are baseless lies,” Sayyed Nasrallah told Ghassan Bin Jiddo. “Thank God I don’t suffer any health problem. It’s funny to hear that some news websites are talking about my death.”Explaining further about his media absence, Sayyed Nasrallah said that he usually delivers speeches during specific occasions, noting that between November 10 (his last appearance) and today there have been no occasions to talk except for the so-called “Northern Shield” operation.
Hezbollah Tunnels
Talking more about the Hezbollah’s silence on the Israeli border operation, Sayyed Nasrallah said that the resistance preferred to stay away from the Israeli media campaign over the issue. “(Ghadi) Eizenkot announced that the operation was over, but the operation has not been finalized yet. Weeks earlier, rumors emerged on my health condition. Following consultation, we have estimated that the Israeli enemy through such rumors was trying to arouse us in a bid to talk about the operation at a time set by him.”Sayyed Nasrallah noted meanwhile, that he is not obliged to talk everything about the issue, or whether Hezbollah was the party responsible for digging the tunnels. “In this issue Hezbollah prefers the constructive obscurity policy,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. His eminence confirmed that there have been tunnels at the border between Lebanon and the occupied territories, noting that he was not surprised that the Israeli enemy has discovered the tunnels. “I wasn’t surprised that the Israelis discovered the tunnels, but surprised because it took Israeli so long to discover them.”Hezbollah S.G. then revealed that one of the discovered tunnels was dug 14 years ago. “One of these tunnels was set up in the Palestinian occupied territories before 2006 July war, and all the Israeli technics did not discover it.”
Quoting the Israeli defense minister as saying that the Zionist entity discovered the tunneks two years ago and that Tel Aviv was lying on the Israeli people, Sayyed Nasralla asked the Israeli settlers: “Do you think that (Israeli Premier, Benjamin) Netanyahu is lying on you regarding the tunnels issue?”“Netanyahu earlier hold a press conference and said that one of the tunnels’ goals is to prepare for the Galilee operation by Hezbollah. Actully Netanyahu has served us since his remarks caused fear among Israeli people.” Sayyed Nasrallah said that Israeli measures along the border with Lebanon represent the Zionist entity’s fear of the Galilee operation. “Since the start of the ‘Northern Shield’ operation whenever Israelis hear the sound of a hammer they directly inform the Israeli army about it, and for that we kept silent recently.” Sayyed Nasrallah meanwhile, dismissed Netanyahu and Eizenkot remarks that the Zionist entity has discovered all Hezbollah tunnels at the border with Lebanon. “Netanyahu and Eizenkot fooled the Israelis about accomplishing the mission of discovering tunnels. I laughed when I heard Netanyahu announcing the end of the ‘Northern Shield’. How can they discover all the tunnels?”“Hezbollah doesn’t need tunnels to invade Galilee. When we will decide that we will get into Galilee, Israelis will never know from where we will enter the occupied territories.”
“Israel to Regret Aggression”
Tackling Israeli threats, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed it is the resistance’s right to resort to all sources of power. “It’s our right to take all required measures in order to defend our country,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, revealing that Hezbollah is capable of invading Galilee in any future war.
“Following Syria war it has been easier for Hezbollah to get into Galilee, we have find solutions to deal with the Israelis walls.” Hezbollah S.G. affirmed that the Israeli enemy will regret any miscalculation regarding any future war with Lebanon, noting that the price of Israeli aggression against Lebanon will be high. “We will deal with any Israeli operation to hit targets in Lebanon as an attempt to change rules of engagements. And we will deal with any large-scale operation as a declaration of war against Lebanon.” His eminence pointed out that Netanyahu has no problem to favor his impunity at the expenses of the Israelis’ security in the occupied territories’ north.
He noted that the Israeli “Northern Shield” operation didn’t need that propaganda, and it won’t affect Hezbollah’s Galilee operation. Talking more about the coming war with the Zionist entity, the resistance leader said that the battlefield of such war will be entire Palestinian territories.
Sayyed Nasrallah then addressed the Israelis as joking: “It’s in the Israelis’ favor that Hezbollah possesses precision missiles so that only military targets will be hit and not civilians.”His eminence said that Hezbollah has enough number of precision missiles and is capable of hitting any target across the Zionist entity in the future war.
“Syria at Its Best”
Turning into Syria, Sayyed Nasrallah said: “Syria today is at its best comparing to the situation in 2011, but we can’t talk about an inclusive solution to the crisis.”“The deadlock in Syria today is in east Euphrates River between US, Kurds and Turkey,” he said further, adding that the Syrian army can win the battle in the country’s north. In this context Sayyed Nasrallah said that the Syrian army should be deployed east of Euphrates River, noting that contacts are taking place between the Syrian government and Kurdish militants. Talking about Idlib, Sayyed Nasrallah said that the northern province has been controlled by Nusra Front Takfiri terrorists, stressing in this context that Turkey “should find a solution there or else leave the issue for the Syrian leadership in order to cleanse its territory from the terrorists.” Sayyed Nasrallah then revealed that the United States told Russia that Washington is ready to fully withdraw from Syria in return of Iran’s withdrawal from the crisis-hit country, but noted that Tehran refused such demand, stressing that its presence in Syria was under the request of Damascus. Sayyed Nasrallah considered that the US pullout from Syria is a new “Trump” strategy that reveals failure and defeat, noting that the US president’s decision scared Saudi and Emirates who considered that Turkey was the real threat not Iran. He further pointed out that President Omar Bashir of Sudan sent a letter to Syrian President Bashar Assad, asking him to rejoin the Arab League but the latter clearly noted that Syria was pulled out of the Arab League. “Syria did not choose to get out of it in order to return to the league on its own, so that who pulled it out is the one who should bring it back… Syria will return to the Arab world with dignity,”Sayyed Nasrallah cited President Assad as saying.
Afghanistan
On the other hand, Sayyed Nasrallah told Ghassan Bin Jiddo that the US had left Afghanistan to Taliban, and it was totally defeated there. “Trump will not wage a war for the sake of anyone, and his country is not in that position right now.”Hezbollah S.G. noted meanwhile that President Assad assured that he will stay loyal to everyone who stood by the side of Syria against terrorism.
Netanyahu’s Failure
As for Netanyahu, who continuously displays himself as the triumphant in several fields, Sayyed Nasrallah said that his project and wagers have failed in Syria. “He failed to topple the regime. He failed to pull Iran out of Syria despite of all his efforts in Russia and the US. In contrast, Syria today is much stronger than before, it has an air force that is stronger than ever, and it will not abandon its national Arab responsibilities. No one knows when Syria would change its attitude toward the Israeli assaults, therefore they should be careful not to go too far with them, because the priority in the past was ending the internal Syrian battle, but now the situation is different, Syria could respond, and Israel should never underestimate the response of the resistance axis, on top of which is Damascus.”
“Deal of Century”
Concerning the “deal of the century”, Sayyed Nasrallah noted that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is one of its pillars, stressing that he is unable to hold this deal anymore. “The price which Bin Salman is getting for going for this deal is staying in rule for 50 years,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. Regarding the Palestinian stance of the so-called deal, Sayyed Nasrallah assured that none of the Palestinian factions will accept this deal, indicating that Hezbollah is on good terms with all the Palestinian factions, even the Palestinian Authority. He noted that Syria’s relation with the Palestinians is good, it only has a problem with Hamas.
Bahrain and Yemen
On the Bahrain file, His eminence declared that the Bahraini opposition has requested the mediation of some Arab states like Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait to solve the crisis, but revealed that Saudi Arabia is preventing any dialogue in the Gulf island. Regarding Yemen, Sayyed Nasrallah dubbed the Yemeni steadfastness in the face of the Saudi aggression as legendary, and said that what the Yemeni people have been through should be taught.
Lebanon
On the Lebanese level, Sayyed Nasrallah considered that holding the economic summit in Beirut was a good step on the political level, and talking about Al-Quds during it was excellent. “So were the statements about returning Syria to the Arab League, and about Imam Moussa Al-Sadr,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. His eminence reaffirmed his strong trust and good relationship with Lebanese President Michel Aoun. Also locally, he assured that neither Hezbollah nor the Shiite groups in Lebanon aim at making changes to the Taef accord, and rumors about that only aim at raising concerns among people. Sayyed Nasrallah meanwhile affirmed Hezbollah’s persistence on forming a government as soon as possible for the Lebanese sake, reiterating that neither Iran nor Syria had interfered in the government formation file. As for the corruption, his eminence stressed Hezbollah’s consistency in solving the economic situation and fighting corruption, noting that “it is a long and complicated battle that requires changes in several legislations, so it is not just a matter of months for the situation to change, it requires much more time.”

Musa al-Sadr’s Disappearance: 4 Decades of Judicial Setbacks, Political Accusations
Youssef Diab/Asharq Al Awsat/January 26/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71520/%d9%82%d8%b6%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%85-%d9%85%d9%88%d8%b3%d9%89-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b5%d8%af%d8%b1-4-%d8%b9%d9%82%d9%88%d8%af-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b9%d8%ab%d9%91/
Lebanon and Libya have had tense relations under late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as a result of the disappearance of the Shiite religious authority, Imam Musa al-Sadr, and two of his companions during an official visit to the Libyan capital Tripoli in late August 1978.
But recent tension between the two countries has culminated to breaking point, as Tripoli authorities hinted at the possibility of severing relations with Lebanon after Amal supporters took to the streets of Beirut, to protest Libya’s participation in the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit earlier this month. Protesters removed Libyan flags placed along Beirut’s seaside avenue, as part of Arab League preparations to welcome countries attending the summit, and replaced them with their movement’s green flag.
In response, Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) announced it would boycott the summit, because Lebanon was unable to guarantee “the appropriate climate” for it, according to a statement by its foreign ministry. Escalatory statements issued by Amal head Speaker Nabih Berri, in addition to street slogans that have long been used in wartime, raised fears of unannounced desires to destabilize the country under a religious and political pretext. A statement by the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council threatened to cut off roads if the government insisted on Libya’s participation in the summit.
For the protesters, there is sufficient justification to prevent the representation of Libya in the summit, mainly its continuous concealment of the truth about Sadr’s disappearance, as explained by Judge Hassan al-Shami, a member of the Lebanese follow-up committee on the disappearance case. The Lebanese committee accuses its Libyan counterpart of “prevarication and trying to manipulate the case to use it in financial deals.”
“This stalling led us to sign an MoU on March 1, 2014,” Shami said, noting that the Libyan side “recognized under this agreement that the kidnapping took place in Libya by Muammar Gaddafi and the elements of his regime, and that Sadr did not leave Tripoli to Rome, as claimed by the Gaddafi regime.”
“The memorandum included three main clauses: first, a joint investigation that will allow us to interview security detainees; second, a search in all Libyan prisons; and third, permanent communication and exchange of information,” the judge explained. Shami stressed that the Libyans have failed to implement the deal. “Because of this delay, I went to Libya in March 2016. I met some of the detainees who are close to Gaddafi and asked some questions, but I did not get enough answers. As soon as I returned from Tripoli, they cut off all contact with us,” he recounted.  The judge added that when Fayez al-Sarraj (head of the Libyan Government of National Accord) came to power, “he did not take any positive step toward” the issue. He revealed that Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Eltaher Siala sent a warning letter to the Lebanese Embassy in Tripoli in response to Beirut’s repeated demands for clarifications on the case.
The dispute with Libya over Sadr’s disappearance did not stay confined to bilateral relations between the two countries. It triggered a political crisis in Lebanon, which began between President Michel Aoun and Berri; then between the speaker and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, who strongly criticized the actions of Amal movement supporters. Berri was quick to respond. He said: “The regret, all of this regret, should not be for the absence of the Libyan delegation (from the economic summit in Beirut), but for the absence of the ‘Lebanese delegation’ in facing the great offense to Lebanon committed almost four decades ago,” in reference to Sadr’s disappearance. But former Justice Minister Chakib Qortbawi stressed during a meeting with Asharq Al-Awsat that the Lebanese state “has done everything possible” to resolve the mystery of Sadr’s disappearance. “It appointed a judicial and security committee to follow up on the case, and moved to Libya several times and met with Libyan officials, but the result was not as we all wished for,” he said.  Qortbawi sought to calm the tensions, saying Sadr’s disappearance shouldn’t turn into an internal Lebanese conflict. He also asked: “Why do we hold the current Libyan authorities responsible for the tragedy? They are already overwhelmed with internal chaos.”

The summit Iran did not want
Ali Al Amin/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
The Arab Economic Summit concluded January 20 in Beirut. Nineteen heads of state were absent and only two attended. The emir of Qatar was at the opening session but quickly left. The other head of state was Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who stayed for the whole meeting because his country will be hosting the next summit. The situation in the Arab world is not good and there is nothing in the history of the Arab summits to appease the anxieties of citizens. The Beirut summit, however, hit a record low in attendance by heads of state.
Of course, all countries invited did send delegations to the summit but the level of representation remained below the top echelons of authority. So naturally, the summit outcomes were rather insipid. It was as if the whole point of attending was just to figure on the list so the summit could be archived properly by the Arab League.
And yet, the Beirut summit caused a stir inside Lebanon. Lebanese President Michel Aoun tried to save the summit in the context of an internal Lebanese confrontation. There were vigorous attempts by Lebanese forces, led by Lebanese parliament Speaker and head of Amal Movement Nabih Berri, to have the summit postponed. A crisis was fabricated in which Berri opposed the participation in the summit of the Libyan delegation. It escalated to the point of having members of Amal militia breach the security perimeter around the summit venue and replace the Libyan flag with Amal’s flag. The “flag incident” was a serious security breach considering the tight security measures taken by the Lebanese Army. No wonder that many heads of state declined to attend the summit.
Aoun was keen on securing the success of the summit. After all, he was going to head his first Arab summit and perhaps his last. He wanted to inject a bit of brightness to the otherwise dark era of his presidency. For eight months, Lebanon has been surviving without a formal government. Aoun undoubtedly wanted the Beirut summit and its eventual success to constitute a boost for Lebanon and his presidency. He had hoped that the country would initiate a new phase free of political hurdles. Apparently, Berri was unhappy about not inviting Syria to the summit and he was opposed to the participation of Libya. However, let’s not forget that Berri is one of Aoun’s staunchest opponents. This is why observers considered Berri’s attempts to disturb the summit process as motivated by political differences between him and Aoun and their mutual dislike of each other. This interpretation does not necessarily eliminate the possibility that Berri’s inappropriate and even illegal actions were dictated by loyalty considerations to, if not direct instructions from, Berri’s Big Brother, Hezbollah.
The logic is simple: A successful Arab summit in Lebanon, even just at the level of representation, is something that Tehran would want to prevent. Obviously, Iran was not going to stand by and watch Lebanon and its capital, Beirut, be yanked away from its grip by any Arab initiative.
When Iran boasts that it controls four Arab capitals, the first of these capitals that comes to mind is Beirut, where Tehran’s political influence is much more visible than in Damascus, Baghdad or Sana'a. So, considering Arab resistance to Iranian influence in the region, we are bound to see Iranian attempts to disrupt the Arab summit in Beirut. Berri might have been the public tool for this disruption but the decision must have come from Tehran.
It was still possible to salvage the Arab Economic Summit in Beirut but the Iranian message was successfully delivered as well. There is an unprecedented and intense displeasure in the Lebanese presidential camp as well as in the Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement regarding Hezbollah’s behaviour and its policy towards the president. The Arab Economic Summit in Beirut revealed how Aoun could be easily targeted by those who call themselves his strategic allies, while his traditional adversaries were the ones who stood by him in his efforts to preserve a minimum level in Lebanon’s relationship with its Arab environment. Obviously, Hezbollah was not willing to allow even this minimal level.
*Ali al-Amin/Ali al-Amin is a Lebanese writer.

Till when can Lebanon’s economy avoid collapse?
Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
BEIRUT - “Lebanon is different from Washington and London. We should maybe teach them how to run a country without a budget.” With these words, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil dismissed claims that his country was on the verge of economic collapse.
What the Lebanese foreign minister did not address, however, were his country’s worsening economic signs, including that more than 2,200 Lebanese firms and businesses recently filed for bankruptcy and that many other firms might soon follow suit.
Incidentally, Bassil’s statement came on the same day that Lebanon’s credit ranking was downgraded by financial services company Moody’s from “stable” to “negative” because of risks it could default on its debt.
The Lebanese economy’s downturn was likely exacerbated by Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil’s recent slip of the tongue that Lebanon was looking into restructuring, rather than rescheduling, its debt, which led to a market frenzy that was hardly able to be contained.
While alarming, Moody’s downgrade is not surprising to experts monitoring Lebanon’s downward economic spiral, which many say was brought on by a lack of political vision and populist economic measures.
One of the most reckless measures, analysts said, was the country proceeding with public sector pay raises last year, which cost the state $917 million and further inflated the country’s $83 billion debt. For many experts, the question is not if the Lebanese economy will collapse but when. One international financial expert with intimate knowledge of the Lebanese economy said such a collapse is ongoing.
“If someone told you five years ago that economic growth is close to nil, deposit rates are at 15% on a plain vanilla deposit, a few thousand companies shut down in 2018, budget deficit will be north of 10% of GDP last year, confidence is evaporating and unemployment and underemployment [are] rampant, wouldn’t you say that this is an economic crisis?” asked the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Associate Professor of Economics at the Lebanese American University Walid Marrouch said: “The Lebanese public sector is large and inefficient and used by political groups to extract rents in favour of their partisans.”
He added that there is no quick fix to the problem but that the government must “cease hiring in the public sector and freeze some of the benefits but most important… kick start economic growth, which will increase tax revenue and greatly address the stubborn and ballooning budget deficit.”Lebanon’s ruling elite has proven unwilling to implement such unpopular reforms and the administration of Lebanese President Michel Aoun, which is allied with Hezbollah, has not been loth to take sides in the Gulf schism.
Indeed, Bassil’s remarks at the Arab summit in Beirut clearly antagonised Arab countries aligned against Qatar, putting further pressure on a somewhat isolated Lebanese state.
Despite his trip to Beirut to attend the Arab summit, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani did not commit to any significant financial aid to help Lebanon’s struggling economy. In fact, all Qatar announced was its intention to buy $500 million worth of Lebanese bonds, a pledge quickly matched by Saudi Arabia.
Despite the country’s economic woes, some analysts say Lebanon stands a chance of recovering. Tony Ghorayeb, founder and chairman of Levant Investment Bank-LIBANK, said Lebanon’s “banking sector is resilient” because it has “a strong treasury and still receives funds from the diaspora in general and from other clients… because of the excellent regulatory system and the professional quality of the bank employees.”Ghorayeb added, however, that the state’s finances were “unfortunately in poor condition and we might face a crisis of great magnitude. This is a contradictory statement but it is a shocking reality.”
Since the founding of modern Lebanon, the country’s political elite have wagered that their version of a rentier economy would always steer them away from economic collapse. However, with the country’s economic and political condition growing more dire by the day, a collapse appears imminent.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. He is the author of A Campus at War: Student Politics at the American University of Beirut, 1967-1975.

The moral hazard of supporting Lebanon
Firas Maksad/Al Arabiya/January 26/19
In an interview conducted on the sidelines of Davos this week, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil boasted to CNN’s Becky Anderson that, despite his country’s chronic financial and political woes, he and his fellow Lebanese politicians can teach Washington and London “how to run a country without a budget.”In the same breath, seamlessly transitioning from hubris to humility, Bassil pleaded for “Saudi Arabia and other countries to help Lebanon stay stable” by pledging additional financial aid. The foreign minister, and a resourceful yet deeply corrupt Lebanese political establishment, are desperate to forestall an impending financial collapse that is largely of their own making. In a lightly veiled attempt at extortion, primarily targeting European donors who fear that a financial meltdown in Lebanon could send waves of refugees into Europe, Bassil warned that “a collapsed model of Lebanon would result in more terrorism, extremism, and violence.”
The foreign minister also took aim at the deep pockets of Lebanon’s traditional financial saviors, the oil-producing Arab Gulf states. He praised Qatar for a recent pledge to buy $500 millionworth of Lebanese government debt, describing the Qataris as “good investors.” He added that Riyadh ought to do the same. Bassil and and his fellow Lebanese politicians have taken advantage of Qatar’s largesse as it tries to undermine the Arab Quartet’s diplomatic and economic boycott against it. He is now pushing further, attempting to secure funds by playing Qatar off against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
It is a bald-faced maneuver by politicians who have perfected the art of exploiting geopolitics to stay in business— but one that may already be bearing fruit. Speaking from Davos, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister pledged to “support Lebanon all the way” when asked whether his country would be willing to help Lebanon in light of the Qatari aid package.
While the impulse to preserve Lebanese and regional stability is understandable in this otherwise turbulent part of the world, continuing to pump money into an increasingly corrupt political order will not solve Lebanon’s structural problems and will, at best, provide only short-term relief.
Furthermore, such unconditional aid only deepens and further entrenches the culture of nepotism and exploitation that is leaving Lebanese citizens to contend with falling incomes and a rising public debt, without the provision of even the most basic public services. It is no coincidence that the rise in corruption has been accompanied by increasingly dire warnings from international donors and rating agencies about Lebanon’s financial and economic outlook. Corruption in Lebanon has reached unprecedented levels. In 2012, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Lebanon as the 128th most corrupt nation out of 176; by 2017, Lebanon had dropped another fifteen slots to 143rd. It is no coincidence that the rise in corruption has been accompanied by increasingly dire warnings from international donors and rating agencies about Lebanon’s financial and economic outlook. The country’s debt is roughly $83 billion, equivalent to 150 percent of Lebanon’s GDP and the third highest in the world. Moody’s now considers Lebanon to be a “very high credit risk.”
So despite the temptation to follow Qatar’s lead and bail out Lebanon’s political class in the name of stability, it is imperative that good money not be thrown after bad. There is an alternative path out of this crisis, however. It is one that could spare Lebanon’s people the hardship of financial collapse but stops short of empowering the deeply flawed and rotten model Lebanon has come to represent.
The more sustainable approach is to insist that politicians deliver on the basic economic and structural reforms they pledged to undertake at the April 2018 Paris IV donor conference. If implemented, these reforms will unlock $11 billion in aid, a much more significant pot of money than the one just offered. They would also help limit the graft that traps Lebanon in the vicious cycle of ballooning financial obligations. Alas, Lebanon’s path to financial salvation has been blocked by eight months of political paralysis, the result of its politicians’ inability to compromise over the formation of a new cabinet. They are looking for foreign handouts while they continue their wrangling over ministries which provide them with patronage opportunities. Meanwhile, the average Lebanese citizen suffers in silence.
*Mr. Bassil, who’s parliamentary coalition was dubbed one of “Reform and Change,” should understand that the collapsed model of Lebanon he warns about is entirely of their making, and that only they- Lebanon’s political elites- can truly save it.

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on January 26-27/19
Tehran: Arrested American Investigated on Security-Related Charges
Tehran - London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/An American detained in Iran in July 2018 is being investigated on possible security charges, an Iranian prosecutor was quoted as saying on Friday, in a case that could further strain turbulent relations between Iran and the United States. Several Americans have been detained in Iran in recent years, mostly on security-related charges including espionage, Reuters reported. Gholamali Sadeqi, prosecutor in the northeastern city of Mashhad, said authorities were investigating security-related accusations against Michael White, according to the official news agency Mehr. Sadeqi also said White, a 46-year-old US Navy veteran, had been arrested because of a “private complaint” filed against him. In the past, “private complaints” filed by the Revolutionary Guards or other security bodies have led to arrests of activists and closure of newspapers. Iran confirmed White’s arrest earlier this month after the New York Times reported that White was arrested in July while visiting his Iranian girlfriend. London-based news website IranWire has reported that White was being poorly treated in prison, but Tehran has denied this, according to Reuters.

Iran Holds Infantry Drill in Isfahan
Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/The Iranian army has launched an annual infantry drill involving 12,000 troops, some 340 kilometers south of the capital Tehran. State TV quoted Gen. Nozar Nemati as saying the two-day exercise will unfold over about a 500-square kilometer area in the central Isfahan province. He said the ground forces will practice new offensive tactics. Iran regularly holds exercises to display its military preparedness and has vowed to respond strongly to any attack by Israel or the United States, both of which view it as a regional menace.

Moscow Proposes Adana Pact as Alternative to US Security Zone
London - Ibrahim Hamidi /Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/Moscow has proposed to Ankara the activation of the 1988 “Adana Pact” to allow the Turkish Army to infiltrate 5 kilometers deep into northern Syria as an alternative to a plan reached between Turkey and the US on setting up a 32 kilometer safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border. The Adana agreement, which was originally designed to help restore bilateral relations between Ankara and Damascus, avoided a war after Ankara hinted it would launch an offensive following the deployment of its forces along the Syrian border. Under the pact, Damascus worked actively to resolve Turkey's concerns regarding the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara. The Syrian regime had agreed that it would not allow the PKK to operate on its soil. According to Western diplomats, Moscow plans to activate the Pact in order to push Ankara and Damascus to offer 10 concessions. “Turkey would be offered the right to pursue the PKK five kilometers deep in the north of Syria,” according to the new proposal. Also, Damascus would abandon any requests related to the Sanjak of Alexandretta, incorporated into Turkey in 1939 and later renamed the province of Hatay. Under the proposal, Syria would also consider the PKK a terrorist organization. In return, Ankara would admit the legitimacy of the Syrian government and both sides would reopen their embassies. The two countries would also establish a joint committee and activate a hotline between their security apparatuses. They should also appoint a security liaison officer at each embassy. “The Syrian forces might deploy along the Turkish borders under the guarantee of the Russian police,” the Pact noted.

Iran accuses France of ‘destabilizing’ the region
AFP, Tehran/Saturday, 26 January 2019/Iran accused France of being a destabilizing force in the region after its foreign minister threatened new sanctions against Tehran over its missile program. “The Islamic republic has always called for the strengthening of peace and stability in the region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement released overnight Friday.As such Iran “considers the mass sales of sophisticated and offensive weapons by... France as a factor in destabilizing the balance of the region,” the statement said. It came after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Friday said Paris was ready to impose new sanctions on Tehran if talks on its missile program and its regional influence fail to make progress. “We have begun a difficult dialogue with Iran... and unless progress is made we are ready to apply sanctions, firmly, and they know it,” Le Drian said. Le Drian also demanded that Iran change its behavior in the region, specifically regarding its military presence in Syria. The Iranian foreign ministry responded saying “Iran’s missile program is not negotiable” and warned that “any new sanction by European countries will lead to a review of our relations with them”. In May, the US withdrew from a nucleur deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran. Tehran has continued to develop its ballistic missile technology, but says it has no intention of acquiring atomic weapons and that its missile development programs are purely defensive.

One dead after protesters storm Turkish military camp in north Iraq
Reuters, Dohuk/Saturday, 26 January 2019/One protester was killed and at least 10 others wounded when they stormed a Turkish military camp near Dohuk in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Saturday, burning two tanks and other vehicles, residents and Kurdish officials said. Najib Saeed, the chief health official in the area, said it was not yet clear what caused the death. He said Turkish soldiers had shot at protesters and that the burning of vehicles and equipment had caused several explosions. Turkey’s Defense Ministry wrote on Twitter: “An attack has occurred on one of the bases located in northern Iraq as a result of provocation by the PKK terrorist organization. There was partial damage to vehicles and equipment during the attack.”“Necessary precautions are being taken regarding the incident,” the ministry said, without naming the base. Turkish officials could not be reached for further comment.
Turkey carries out regular air raids near the border against the PKK insurgent group which has bases in northern Iraq and has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. A Kurdish official in the region of Dohuk said the crowd was demonstrating over a recent Turkish air raid that killed four civilians. He did not want to be named. A second Kurdish official, who also did not give his name, said Turkish troops at the camp in Shiladze, east of Dohuk, had initially shot at the protesters and then left the camp. Kurdish security forces are trying to control the situation, he said. The surprise announcement last month that U.S. forces would withdraw from neighboring Syria, where they have been directing the fight against Islamic State, raised fears that Turkey would move against US-backed Kurdish forces which it views as terrorists.Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia is an extension of the PKK. Trump has threatened economic ruin for Turkey should it attack the YPG, however.

Coalition strikes kill 42 in ISIS Syria holdout
AFP, Beirut/Saturday, 26 January 2019/Coalition missile strikes have killed 42 people including 13 civilians in what remains of ISIS’s last holdout in eastern Syria, a war monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces, with backing from a US-led coalition, are battling to expel the last extremists from hamlets in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said short-range missiles late Friday hit homes on farmland near the village of Baghouz, killing 42 people. Among them were 13 civilians, the Britain-based monitor said. They included seven Syrians linked to ISIS, including three children from the same family, as well as six Iraqi non-combatants, it said. The coalition was not immediately available for comment, but has in the past said it does everything to avoid targeting civilians. “The area is a launchpad for extremist counterattacks,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. The SDF have since September been battling to expel ISIS from their last pocket of territory on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in Deir Ezzor. The SDF has advanced swiftly in recent weeks, taking control of a series of key villages, with ISIS scrambling to retaliate. On Thursday, ISIS failed to retake Baghouz from the SDF in one counterattack that left a total of 50 fighters dead on both sides, the Observatory said. Thousands of people, mostly women and children, have fled into SDF-held territory in recent days, according to the Britain based Observatory, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria for its information. ISIS overran large swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a “caliphate”, but it has since lost almost all of its territory to various offensives. But it maintains a presence in Syria’s vast Badia desert. Syria’s civil war has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Foreign troops to quit Afghanistan in 18 months under draft deal-Taliban officials
Reuters/January 26/19/KABUL/PESHAWAR: Taliban officials said US negotiators on Saturday agreed a draft peace deal stipulating the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan within 18 months of the agreement being signed. The details were given to Reuters by Taliban sources at the end of six days of talks with US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Qatar aimed at ending the United States’ longest war. While neither side released an official statement, Khalilzad tweeted later that the talks had made “significant progress” and would resume shortly, adding that he planned to travel to Afghanistan to meet government officials.“Meetings here (in Qatar) were more productive than they have been in the past. We have made significant progress on vital issues,” he wrote, adding that numerous issues still needed work. “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and everything must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive cease-fire,” he said in the tweets.
A US State Department spokesperson declined further comment.It was not clear if the draft described by the Taliban sources is acceptable to both sides or when it will be completed and signed. According to the sources, the hard-line extremeist group gave assurances that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used by Al-Qaeda and Daesh militants to attack the United States and its allies — a key early demand of Washington. They said the deal included a cease-fire provision but they had yet to confirm a timeline and would only open talks with Afghan representatives once a truce was implemented.
Up until now, the Taliban has repeatedly rejected the Afghan government’s offer of holding talks, preferring instead to talk directly to the US side, which it regards as its main enemy. “In 18 months, if the foreign forces are withdrawn and cease-fire is implemented then other aspects of the peace process can be put into action,” a Taliban source said, quoting from a portion of the draft. More talks on the draft are expected in February, again in the Qatari capital Doha, the Taliban sources said. They expect their side to be led by new political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the movement’s co-founder and a former military commander who was released from prison in Pakistan last year.While they said his appointment had boosted momentum for a deal, it was unclear if he joined the talks. Taliban officials believe the US was keen to get Baradar — who was captured in a joint Pakistani-US intelligence raid in 2010 — to the table so they could be sure of speaking to the movement’s most powerful figures.
NEAR-DAILY ATTACKS
Other clauses in the draft include an agreement over the exchange and release of prisoners, the removal of an international travel ban on several Taliban leaders by Washington and the prospect of an interim Afghan government after the cease-fire is struck, the Taliban sources said. The suggestion to appoint an interim government in Afghanistan comes at a time when top politicians including Ghani have filed their nominations for the presidential polls in July this year. Ghani has repeatedly rejected the offer to agree to the formation of an interim government. News of progress on a deal comes as the Taliban continues to stage near-daily attacks against the Western-backed Afghan government and its security forces. Despite the presence of US-led foreign forces training, advising and assisting their Afghan counterparts 17 years after the US-led an invasion to drive them from power, the Taliban controls nearly half of Afghanistan.
Ghani said last week that 45,000 members of the country’s security forces had been killed since he took office in 2014. The United States has some 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led mission, known as Resolute Support, as well as a US counter-terrorism mission directed at groups such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda. Despite reports in December last year that the United States was considering pulling out almost half of its forces, a White House spokesman said that US President Donald Trump had not issued orders to withdraw the troops. However, the administration has not denied the reports, which have prompted fears of a fresh refugee crisis. The Taliban sources also confirmed provisions in the draft that have broader implications for Afghanistan’s ties with its neighbors, particularly Pakistan, India and China. They said the deal included provisions that Baloch separatist militants will not be allowed to use Afghan soil to target Pakistan.Balochistan, a resource-rich yet often-neglected province in south west Pakistan, has been the source of separatist insurgencies for more than 60 years.

Tunisia calls for Arab League to readmit Syria
AFP, Tunis/Saturday, 26 January 2019/Syria’s “natural place” is within the Arab League, Tunisia’s foreign minister said Saturday, ahead of the organization’s annual summit in Tunis in March. “Syria is an Arab state, and its natural place is within the Arab League,” Khemaies Jhinaoui said during a news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who is on a tour of North African countries. The Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011 as the death toll in the country’s civil war mounted.“The question of Syria returning to the Arab League does not depend on Tunisia but on the Arab League,” Jhinaoui said. “The foreign ministers (of member states) will decide on this subject,” he added. “What interests us is Syria’s stability and security.”Persistent divisions between the Arab League’s member states have worked against Syria’s readmission. Russia’s intervention in Syria’s war since 2015 in favor of President Bashar al-Assad has turned the tide of the conflict in the regime’s favor. The UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus in December, the same month as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made the first visit of any Arab leader to the Syrian capital since the start of the war. But Qatar earlier this month rejected normalizing ties with Assad. Lavrov backed overtures to readmit Syria. “As we have discussed in Algeria and Morocco over the past few days, we would like Tunis to also support Syria’s return to the Arab family, the Arab League,” Russia’s foreign minister said in Tunis, according to Interfax news agency. Lavrov, who has also visited Morocco on his tour, also said Tunisia and Russia agreed to ramp up “anti-terror cooperation”. Russia’s foreign minister is due to meet Tunisia’s president and prime minister on Saturday.

Hodeidah Governor: Houthis Recently Recruited 1,000 Child Soldiers
Jeddah - Saeed al-Abyad/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/Hodeidah governor al-Hassan Taher accused on Friday Houthi militias of recently deploying around 1,000 child soldiers on the northern front of the Yemeni province. In a telephone call with Asharq Al-Awsat, the governor said that since the arrival of Dutch General Patrick Cammaert in Hodeidah, “government apparatuses have documented a rising level of violations” of the Stockholm Agreement. Cammaert chairs the Redeployment Coordination Committee tasked with implementing the provisions of the Swedish agreement struck last month between Yemen’s warring sides. According to the governor, Houthis are bringing new fighters, mainly about 1,000 children, to the city. “Militias have also worked on redeploying their fighters in several positions in Hodeidah,” Taher said, adding that lately, Houthis have failed to recruit children from the province and the Tihama region, where residents strongly disapprove of the militias’ plans. Meanwhile, the Yemeni government stressed on Friday its keenness on implementing the Stockholm Agreement. "This does not mean our support and cooperation are unconditioned, rather it is conditioned by implementing the agreement fully in accordance with correct explanations understood by the whole world and approved by Yemeni law and supported by the UN Security Council," Director of the Presidential Office and Deputy Head of the Government Delegation in Sweden Consultations, Dr. Abdullah al-Alimi said, according to the Saba news agency.He made it clear that 37 days after the declaration of the Stockholm Agreement and 32 days after the arrival of Commaert to Yemen, the situation has not changed. "Until now, we have not got any timetabled mechanism for implementing the agreement," Alimi said. He stressed that continued military mobilization by the insurgents, digging trenches, hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid and daily arrests of opponents are clear signs that Houthis reject peace efforts.

Libya: Haftar Forces Take Control of Sabha Citadel
Cairo - Jamal Jawhar/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/The Libyan armed forces have tightened their grip on several strategic targets that fall under the control of “criminal groups,” notably Sabha International Airport, the city's historic citadel and the Mountain Hotel. This comes as part of the offensive that the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, has launched to liberate the southern cities from terrorist groups. Military battalions announced that the Tariq bin Ziad battalion, 106th brigade and Buhliqa’s 128th and 21st battalions, as well as several military units, captured various locations south of Sabha. Flights at Sabha International Airport were suspended in January 2014 due to repeated clashes in the vicinity of the 6th Brigade based in the Citadel. The southern operations command announced on Thursday that it had entered the airport after pursuing criminal gangs. It handed the airport’s control to Tariq bin Ziad battalion, which was confirmed by Colonel Mohammed Abdul Salam al-Misnaie. In addition, the LNA’s 119th Infantry Division announced Friday that, after capturing the airport and fortress, the military units moved south to seize the rest of the camps, which the Chadian opposition has taken as a safe haven. LNA spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Mismari announced that army units advanced in “several areas in the south” from an airbase 650 kilometers from the capital, Tripoli, pointing out that the main target is “to ensure security of residents in the southwest and protect them from terrorists,” whether ISIS, al-Qaeda or criminal gangs. In the meantime, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRCG) Ghassan Salame continued his efforts to hold a unifying national Libyan conference, the date for which has not been set yet. On Thursday, Salame met with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome for an in-depth discussion on the situation in Libya. The Italian official expressed strong support for the UN-facilitated political process, announced the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) The SRCG believes the national convention is very crucial, saying: “It is vital that the National Conference is held under the right conditions, with the right people, and that it is capable of concluding with an outcome that is agreeable to the broad majority.”“We are working night and day to pull together these various elements to ensure the most productive event," Salame told the United Nations Security Council. While the UNSMIL did not give further details on the Salame and Conte meeting, former Italian Interior Minister Marco Minetti said Libya was “not a safe harbor” for immigrants. Minetti told AKI News Agency that Libya's instability is due to its failure to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention. Palermo's mayor Loluca Orlando also criticized Tripoli’s efforts in dealing with immigrants, and described Libya as an “open-air detention camp” for migrants. Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG) and Humanitarian Coordinator in Libya Maria Ribeiro discussed with Local Government Minister Milad Taher cooperation to provide humanitarian and development support to Libyans in the east, west and south, including the launch of the Humanitarian Response Plan 2019.

Qatari Proposal to Host Palestinian Talks Met with Fatah's Reservation
Ramallah - Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/Fatah movement has nixed an implicit Qatari suggestion to host an inter-Palestinian dialogue in Doha, revealing that reconciliation will only happen through Egypt. Member of Fatah's central committee Hussein al-Sheikh stressed that Egypt is spearheading the talks. Qatari envoy Mohammed Al-Emadi said in a press conference in the Gaza Strip that Qatar is willing to host all the Palestinians to come out with a unified vision against challenges. The Palestinian-Qatari dispute on reconciliation is part of a wider conflict in what the Authority sees as a Qatari intervention in the internal Palestinian affairs by supporting Hamas with funds. The Authority has never approved Qatar transferring money to Hamas through Israel. The Qatari grant to the Gaza Strip will go to humanitarian and infrastructure projects and impoverished families after Hamas refused to receive the money, Emadi said. He continued that in the coming days an accord will be signed for investments by Qatar, totaling 20 million dollars, in projects tied to electric utilities and healthcare in cooperation with the United Nations. "The main goal of the Qatari grant is to ease the suffering of the Palestinian people," he said. "Some parties have interpreted the humanitarian aid as 'calm in return for dollars' and this is not true." Emadi continued, "there are other parties that are exploiting the humanitarian aid for the internal elections and to score political gains." Last month, Qatar transferred USD15 million in luggage held by Emadi, a matter that spurred a debate in Israel and a rage in Ramallah that accused Qatar of backing a plot to separate the Gaza Strip through providing financial support to Hamas.

Egypt Expects New Oil Investments in Red Sea Region
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/Foreign firms are expected to operate in the Red Sea region this year as Egypt’s Ministry of Oil and Mineral Wealth plans to launch international tenders for oil and gas exploration, Minister Tariq al-Mulla announced Friday. Mulla said in a press statement that seismic data collection and management was completed. He explained that the maritime demarcation agreement with Saudi Arabia has opened new horizons for oil explorations in this pristine region, adding that international oil companies have shown strong investment interests amid potential discoveries.
The minister's remarks came as he chaired the General Assembly meeting of the Ganoub El-Wadi Petroleum Holding to approve its draft budget for the fiscal year 2019/2020. Mulla indicated that the oil sector is currently working on an integrated plan for the development of the petrochemicals industry and creating an appropriate atmosphere for attracting more investments. As part of the framework of the comprehensive vision to develop Upper Egypt and the services for residents, the sector had developed the energy power plant in Asyut, storage units, delivery of gas to homes and the establishment of new supply stations. The Minister stressed the importance of applying environmental conservation standards as an element of attracting investments. President of Ganoub El-Wadi Petroleum Holding Mohamed Abdul Azim said there are plans to drill nine new wells in the second half of the current financial and fiscal year 2019-2020, in the company's various areas of operations and joint ventures. He indicated that the plan involves producing up to 25,000 barrels of crude oil per day. He pointed out that a number of projects, including the collection of geophysical data in the Red Sea in cooperation with “WesternGeco, Schlumberger”, with $715 million worth of investments, are in the implementation phase. Abdul Azim added that the target is to refine about 4 million tons of crude at Asyut refinery, and establish 11 new supply and service stations, as part of the projects of Nile Company, a Ministry-affiliated firm, aiming to reach 77 stations by the end of the fiscal year 2019-2020. He concluded by announcing that one of the company’s targets is to deliver gas to about 100,000 housing units in Upper Egypt.

MiSk Global Forum Participates in Davos Economic Forum
Davos - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 26 January, 2019/For the second year in a row, MiSk Global Forum participated at Davos Economic Forum displaying the Saudi culture and holding daily discussions exploring future opportunities and challenges. The MiSk pavilion showcased various works of art by young Saudi artists and presented a virtual tour of the country's leading creations. In line with this year's Economic Forum, MiSk held daily sessions since the launch of Davos last Tuesday, and organized informal meetings between businessmen and young leaders to discuss future skills, global citizenship values and the role of entrepreneurship.The MiSk Initiatives Center of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz concluded its events with “Architects of Future's Economy”, which focused on the role young people can play in creating a better economic situation in light of the globalization challenges.
Hub Culture Editor-in-Chief Eddie Lush, led the Friday session along with Neom CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr, Diversity and Inclusion officer at SAP Technology Judith Williams, and Adecco CEO Alain Dehaze among others. This session was attended by various entrepreneurs and a number of influencers in the financial, education, employment and health sectors. Executive Manager of MiSk Global Forum Shaimaa Hamidaddin, said that it is important to empower young people to become the architects of the future economy. Nasr also stressed that Neom addressed young people primarily to meet the global challenges that accompany the Fourth Industrial Revolution, through the establishment of 16 economic sectors including health and biotechnology related to the medical field, education and others. Neom’s CEO said that his mission is to “turn dreams into reality” and that despite challenges, his team of people from around the world is working to realize this dream and build a future that provides opportunities for young talent. He also stressed the need to change mindsets and work to build bridges between generations. Nasr gave an example of how to train young talents, speaking of an initiative launched by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where a group of 11th grade students at the age of 15, were enrolled in a program that allows them to work alongside top scientists. Also speaking at the session, Roland Berger CEO Charles-Edouard Bouee agreed that young people deal with what we consider problems as opportunities. But at the same time, he pointed out that the age group ranging from 16 to 24 years suffers from loneliness. He added that part of the training of young talents is to encourage them to communicate with others, rather than consuming a long time on their electronic devices.
Adecco CEO Alain Dehaze chose to focus on ways to create, support and maintain young talent in the workplace, by attracting the best talents and minds in universities, coordination between international companies and universities to provide specialized education that meets the needs of the market. He also said governments and local authorities must encourage the establishment of incubators for young entrepreneurs.

Spain, France, Germany Give Venezuela's Maduro Ultimatum
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 26/19/Spain, France and Germany on Saturday gave embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum, saying they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days.
The ultimatum comes as international pressure mounts on the Maduro regime to agree a new vote, with the United States, Canada and major South American players already recognising Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president of Venezuela during massive street rallies this week. After four years of economic pain that has left Venezuelans short of food and medicine and driven more than two million to flee, Guaido is trying to oust Maduro following controversial elections that saw the socialist leader sworn in for a second term. "If within eight days there are no fair, free and transparent elections called in Venezuela, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president" so that he himself can call such polls, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised announcement. French President Emmanuel Macron followed suit in a tweet, saying "the Venezuelan people must be able to freely decide on their future," as did German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz. The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries as the 28-member bloc struggles to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the crisis in Venezuela.
'Not looking to impose'
Spain had wanted the EU to take a tough line on Maduro by calling for immediate elections, failing which the bloc as a whole would recognise Guaido, the 35-year-old head of Venezuela's National Assembly. But countries like Austria, Greece and Portugal are much more reluctant. In fact Greece's ruling party Syriza has publicly backed Maduro, with party secretary Panos Skourletis voicing "full support and solidarity" to what to he called "the legal president."President Donald Trump's administration has spearheaded the international pressure on Maduro, who accuses Washington of being behind an attempted "coup," by declaring his regime "illegitimate."On Saturday at a UN Security Council meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will urge members to recognise Guaido as interim president, the State Department said. Washington's support for Guaido led Maduro to close the US embassy and consulates and break diplomatic ties. US diplomats in Venezuela have until Saturday to leave the country, but Washington has refused to fully comply fully with the exit order. Guaido is instead urging the US diplomats to stay and keep the embassy's doors open. Maduro's reelection last year was contested by the opposition and criticised internationally -- but he has until now retained the loyalty of the powerful military. Spain is closely linked to Venezuela, a former colony, as some 200,000 of its nationals live there. Sanchez insisted Saturday that Spain is "not looking to impose or remove governments in Venezuela, we want democracy and free elections in Venezuela."

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 26-27/19
Analysis/Two Years In, Gulf States Disappointed in Trump on Everything From Iran to Peace
تحليل من الهآرتس لأمير تيبون: بعد سنتان لترامب في البيت الأبيض هناك خيبة في دول الخليج العربي من كل شيء بدءاً بإيران وحتى السلام
Amir Tibon/Haaretz/January 26/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71510/amir-tibon-haaretz-two-years-in-gulf-states-disappointed-in-trump-on-everything-from-iran-to-peace-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A2%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%B3-%D9%84%D8%A3/
Optimism has been replaced by confusion as Arab officials admit they have no idea what the U.S. president is trying to achieve, whether it’s Israeli-Palestinian peace or a sound strategy against Iran.
WASHINGTON – When Donald Trump became U.S. president exactly two years ago, most Arab governments expressed optimism and hope. Leaders in the Gulf were described in articles as counting down the minutes to the end of Barack Obama’s presidency and the rise of Trump, who promised a tough line against Iran, the main enemy of the Sunni Arab world.
Unlike Obama, who stressed the promotion of human rights and democracy in the region, Trump made clear that his main priority was stability, and if that meant strengthening autocratic leaders, all the best. For some Arab leaders, it seemed like a match made in heaven.
Two years later, the optimism has been replaced by confusion and concern. Current and former Arab officials, as well as experts on the region, describe Trump’s policies in the Middle East as incoherent, confusing and even alarming.
“Many people still think that he is preferable over Obama, who openly aligned with Iran,” said one Arab official who spoke with Haaretz on condition of anonymity, “but we have no idea what he’s trying to achieve – and I suspect that neither does he.”
A recent example of the bewildering policies was on display this week as administration officials commented on a Middle East summit planned for next month in Poland. The summit was originally framed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as an effort to help counter Iran; then, the acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Jonathan Cohen, said the gathering would focus on promoting peace in the region, not on one country.
Russia, probably the most influential power in the Middle East these days, announced that it would not take part; the participation of key European and Middle Eastern countries isn’t certain either. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that “some European diplomats speculated that Mr. Pompeo might even cancel the conference last minute due to low attendance or attendance by junior-level officials.”
Middle Eastern diplomats who spoke with Haaretz mentioned the uncertainty around the Warsaw summit to illustrate the difficulties of working with Trump’s team. One source said it had become “almost impossible” to make long-term policy plans because of the volatile administration.
A region without ambassadors
Another obstacle for Arab countries is that key diplomatic posts related to the Middle East remain unfilled two years into Trump’s tenure. Earlier this month, when Pompeo visited nine Mideast countries to address concerns in the region over Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, Foreign Policy magazine noted that in five of those states there was no full-time U.S. ambassador at the time of the visit. These countries are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt.
In the absence of Senate-confirmed ambassadors, the top diplomatic posts in these states – which are all close and influential U.S. allies – are temporarily filled by career diplomats who weren’t chosen by Trump or Pompeo, and don’t necessarily have their ear.
In addition, the candidate for the top Middle East position at the State Department, David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has become the victim of partisan battles on Capitol Hill; his nomination has been stuck for months. The appointment of Schenker, who previously served in senior positions at the Pentagon, is being blocked by Sen. Tim Kaine; the Virginia Democrat disagrees with the administration over Congress’ role in approving military action in Syria.
“This is not the fault of the Trump administration, they don’t control Tim Kaine,” one diplomat told Haaretz. “But the fact that this has been dragging on for months, and that it hasn’t been solved in some kind of backroom deal, says something about priorities.”
In the first months of Trump’s presidency, governments all over the world tried to overcome the administration’s staffing shortages by fostering close relationships with the president or his closest advisers, such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Some leaders, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were more successful than others.
But Trump’s Syria withdrawal proved that even those leaders could be blindsided by the hectic and mismanaged administration. For leaders who haven’t built such close relationships with the president’s closest confidants, the absence of effective mid-level U.S. officials to work with, such as ambassadors, is even more frustrating.
Arab NATO? ‘It’s a nonstarter’
One of the grand policy ideas the administration has floated a number of times is the creation of an “Arab NATO” – a joint Arab military force that would strive to push back against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. Such an alliance could even, theoretically, work with Israel against the common Iranian enemy.
The only problem is that a year and a half after Trump’s first foreign trip as president, which took him to Saudi Arabia and Israel, these two countries appear to be the only ones in the region that actually like the idea. Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister, told The New York Times last week that the idea is “a nonstarter” for the majority of Arab countries, which don’t want to enter a full-scale military conflict with Iran.
“I also don’t see a small country like Jordan, with limited resources, participating in a military alliance,” he said, adding that “Iran is not seen in a good light among many of the countries of the region, but that is different from participating in a military alliance against it. I don’t think this is an idea that will gain a lot of traction in countries other than Saudi Arabia.”
An Arab official who spoke with Haaretz expressed a similar sentiment: “There is mistrust between different countries in the region on security affairs. No one would be willing to involve other countries in decisions of when to go to war.”
Another complication has been the dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which has created a division in the Sunni bloc since the summer of 2017. The administration’s reaction to the Saudi blockade of Qatar has been a mixed bag. Trump initially expressed support for the Saudis, while a number of senior officials who no longer work in his administration, such as previous Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and previous Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, stressed the importance of the U.S. relationship with Qatar, which hosts a large American military base.
“Mattis was the last person in the administration who truly cared about this issue,” another source said. Three weeks after Mattis’ resignation over the Syria withdrawal, another retired general, Anthony Zinni, quit the administration as well. Zinni was appointed by the State Department to handle the Qatar dispute; his resignation was interpreted in the region as a sign of despair.
Weakening Iran – then giving it a prize in Syria
The main reason that Arab rulers, especially in the Gulf, were optimistic about Trump’s presidency was his tough election-campaign rhetoric against Iran. After Obama’s tenure, which included the signing of the Iranian nuclear deal and a sense of a renewed (if limited) relationship between Tehran and Washington, countries in the region that consider Iran a threat were happy to see a president who views the Islamic Republic as a sworn enemy, not a potential partner.
“The beginning of his administration was very encouraging for everyone in the region who is threatened by Iran,” said Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defected from the Syrian Embassy in Washington at the beginning of the Syrian civil war and became a voice for the Syrian opposition.
“Trump promised to leave the Iranian nuclear deal and warned Iran to stop interfering in other countries in the region. He bombed targets in Syria after the Assad regime used chemical weapons. It was clear that this is not the Obama administration anymore, and a lot of people were happy about that.”
Barabandi, who said he still appreciated “many of Trump’s steps against Iran over the past few months,” expressed concern that the withdrawal from Syria will empower Iran and reverse months of effective American pressure on Tehran.
“This is giving Iran and Assad the upper hand, unfortunately,” he said. “The administration is right to identify Iran as the source of the problems in the region, but the day-to-day managing of the policy, especially when it comes to Syria, could be better.”
During Obama’s presidency, a peculiar alliance emerged in Washington between the organizations broadly described as “the pro-Israel lobby” and key Arab states, based on a shared opposition to Obama’s Iran policy. One part of the unofficial alliance, the pro-Israeli groups, came out swinging against Trump’s Syria withdrawal, attacking him for “abandoning” regional allies and warning that he was harming his own anti-Iran strategy.
The Arab states, as much as they dislike the decision, have been much more cautious in their criticism. And as an Israeli official told Haaretz, “nobody wants to appear in an early-morning tweet.”
Arab officials noted that a similar dynamic took place in 2015 when Obama was about to sign the nuclear agreement: Pro-Israel groups were much more vocal in their opposition to the deal, while Arab countries usually saved their criticism for behind-the-scenes conversations and closed-door briefings. Still, the sense of disappointment is clear – not just over the decision, but also over the lack of credible information on the timeline and scope of the withdrawal.
The missing peace plan
Confusion and uncertainty are also prevalent regarding the administration’s mysterious plan for Middle East peace, which was supposed to be presented to the world this winter but has been delayed until after Israel’s April 9 election.
The peace plan is more concerning for countries that share a border with Israel, the West Bank and Gaza such as Egypt and Jordan; countries in the rest of the Middle East have their own problems to handle. But the Trump administration has been hinting for almost two years now about a plan to improve Israel’s relations with much of the Arab world and unveil a secret alliance between Israel and the Gulf states hitherto focusing on clandestine intelligence ties.
But officials in the region shrug about that possibility, noting that it’s impossible to asses whether the plan will bring Israel to close contacts with the Gulf states, because no one has any idea what the plan includes. Pompeo said this week that the administration would soon begin sharing details of the plan with allies in the region. One source noted that similar headlines about “sharing the details” were already published last summer before a visit to the region by Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy.
Eventually, that visit didn’t lead to any breakthrough because a number of Arab leaders said their ability to move forward on peace was limited as long as the Palestinian Authority continued to boycott the Trump administration over the moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Hady Amr, a former State Department official who worked on Middle East policy in the Obama administration, said Arab countries viewed Trump’s Middle East policy as a continuation of his internal politics.
“It took these countries time to reach this conclusion, but they realize today that policies in the Middle East, whether it’s the approach towards Iran, the withdrawal from Syria or the peace plan, are heavily influenced by domestic political considerations, and not by actual national security goals,” he said.
“In the beginning of the administration, you could hear diplomats from the region look for a certain logic behind the decisions and the statements. People would say ‘there must be a reason behind this. There must be some hidden goal.’ Today these countries realize that’s not the situation. Trump sends out a tweet and the government runs after him to adjust the policy. The result is an incoherent strategy.”
Amr cites as examples the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem while trying to forge a peace deal, and the decision to withdraw from Syria in the midst of a campaign against Iran.
“It doesn’t make sense, but it’s not supposed to make sense,” he said. “It’s supposed to appeal to his voters, and the leaders in the region have now realized it.”

Analysis/Trump, Terror and Tomatoes: As U.S. Eyes Iraq Buildup, Iran May Stand to Gain
تحليل من الهآرتس لزفي بارئيل: ترامب والإرهاب والبندورة: مع تطلع الولايات المتحدة إلى تعزيز وجودها في العراق ، قد تقف إيران في طريقها وتحقيق مكاسب
Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz/January 26/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71517/zvi-barel-haaretz-trump-terror-and-tomatoes-as-u-s-eyes-iraq-buildup-iran-may-stand-to-gain-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A2%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%B3-%D9%84%D8%B2/
Washington has announced an intent to build more bases in Iraq as part of its strategy of containing Iran, but that might simply empower anti-American forces in the country
Iranian tomatoes, not Iranian missiles or unemployment, are what inflamed tempers in southern Iraq’s Basra region this month. The flooding of Basra’s markets with thousands of tons of Iranian tomatoes got hundreds of farmers onto the streets to demand that the government stop the red tide, which sent prices plunging and caused Iraqi growers heavy losses.
The tomato market had admittedly suffered from a mysterious plague that created a shortage of the vegetable and raised prices. But the farmers claim there are enough tomatoes in the country, so there’s no need to import them from Iran. Iraqi law states that products shouldn’t be imported from other countries if a local alternative exists, and the farmers are merely demanding that the law be implemented.
The farmers say the plague that damaged their crops is part of an Iranian plot. Some even insist that Iran spread the disease.
This isn’t the first time southern Iraq has been hit in its soft economic underbelly. In October, Iran slashed its supply of electricity to Iraq because of the Iraqi government’s huge debt to it. And three months earlier, it cut off the flow of water to the Basra region.
An enormous Iranian water project that’s about to be completed could compound Iraq’s economic woes and increase its dependence on the Iranian government. The project includes enormous dams that have diverted some of Iraq’s water sources.
The interests that bind these two countries, which fought a terrible war that ended 30 years ago, has made them, at least in the West’s eyes, virtual twins. Bilateral trade between Iran and Iraq is estimated at about $12 billion a year. Iran provides 40 percent of Iraq’s electricity and is also its main natural gas supplier.
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said it was possible to increase bilateral trade to $20 million, and that “nobody can sever the historical ties between Iran and Iraq.” This statement was his response to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s demand that Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi strictly comply with American sanctions on Iran now that Iraq has received an exemption for imports of Iranian natural gas.
But Iraq has no realistic alternative to its commercial ties with Iran, and certainly not in electricity, water and natural gas. The American strategy, which seeks to mobilize the Mideast’s Arab states against Iran and reduce its regional influence, offers no solution that could let Iraq transfer its dependency from Iran to other countries.
And certainly this isn’t possible in the little time until March, the expiry of the extension Washington gave a raft of countries that said they needed more time to adjust to the sanctions. Alongside Iraq, these countries include India, Turkey and South Korea.
While these other countries’ dependence on Iranian oil could be solved by importing the stuff from other producers, severing Iraq from Iran would be an existential threat to Iraq in a way untrue for any other country that Iran is involved with.
The paradox is that Iraq, which is considered an American ally in the war against the Islamic State and even announced that it would obey the sanctions against Iran despite its opposition to them, is forced to maintain and even expand its commercial ties with Iran. It needs these no less, and perhaps even more, than its strong ties with the United States.
Don’t play the religion card
The accepted wisdom, especially in the West, is that Iran’s ties with Iraq stem from the common denominator of their Shi’ite faith, so severing Iraq from Iran is essential to prevent the latter from forging a “Shi’ite axis” linking Tehran with Damascus and Beirut via Baghdad. This theory is attractive in its simplicity, but it suffers from several flaws.
First, a shared religion doesn’t necessarily create a commonality of interests, much less a willingness to obey another country’s supreme leader. The many rifts between Sunni states, including the schisms between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Morocco and Algeria and Egypt and Turkey, completely refute the theory of a religious axis.
Iraq is controlled by a Shi’ite majority, but it hasn’t adopted the Iranian system of government. It has a democratic constitution that, at least on paper, guarantees significant political rights to the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Every Iraqi government understands, as one of the lessons from both the Iraq War and the war against the Islamic State, that without full participation by Sunnis in the government, the country might descend into civil war once again.
Iran also understands Iraq’s political needs very well, and it has actually encouraged successive Iraqi governments to give Sunnis an honorable place in Iraqi politics to maintain stability. Moreover, key political blocs in Iraq oppose Iranian political and military involvement in Iraqi affairs.
The popular militias, which are supported and funded by Iran, have admittedly been granted an official role in Iraq’s army. But they’re still politically controversial in Iraq, even though they fought effectively against the Islamic State.
Moreover, the political battle that has raged over the past three months over the government’s makeup currently revolves around the appointments of the defense and interior ministers. Iran is trying to dictate these important appointments, but the country’s strongest political bloc, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, opposes Iran’s nominees.
That doesn’t mean Sadr supports Washington’s policy, however. On the contrary, he has demanded that American forces leave the country.
A member of the Iraqi parliament’s defense committee has said he plans to submit a bill to require all foreign forces to leave Iraq, including U.S. forces, which comprise about 70 percent of the approximately 8,000 foreign soldiers in the country. The bill would cancel the defense pact Iraq signed with the United States before Washington’s withdrawal of its forces from the country in 2011, and would let only a limited number of military advisers remain.
The pesky Islamic State
The timing of this proposal is no coincidence. It’s a response to Washington’s announcement of its intent to build more military bases in Iraq as part of its strategy of containing Iran.
But for now, expanding America’s military presence in Iraq is an empty slogan because it’s not based on any plan that could explain the goals of this presence. Continuing the war against the Islamic State might provide a good excuse, but using it would contradict former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s declaration that the Islamic State has been defeated in Iran.
That assertion, incidentally, proved baseless. According to The New York Times, since Abadi’s announcement, the Islamic State has committed more than 1,200 attacks in Iraq. It remains active in the south and also poses a threat in areas near the Iraqi-Syrian border.
The U.S. special envoy for the war against the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, who resigned to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria, told CNN that the Islamic State hasn’t yet been defeated, and that finishing the war while U.S. troops were leaving would be a mission impossible.
Expanding America’s force in Iraq wouldn’t just contradict Trump’s claim that the Islamic State had been defeated, it would diametrically oppose his policy of bringing the troops back home. But Trump’s bipolar policies shouldn’t surprise anybody anymore.
Iraq’s concern is that deeper American involvement in the country would actually be counterproductive, as it would empower anti-American forces in Iraq and bolster Iran’s status. Even more importantly, Trump’s policy offers no hints on how a larger military presence, regardless of its size, could stop Iran’s economic entrenchment in Iraq.
This week, parts of a study by Gen. Ray Odierno about America’s failures during the Iraq War were published. The bottom line of the study, which was barred for publication back in 2016, is that Iran was the only winner.
Millions of words on why this is so have been written in the 16 years since that war began. But the inescapable conclusion is that even a massive American military presence in Iraq, as it had when the war was at its height, couldn’t stop Iran from entrenching itself in that country.
If Washington has no solution for Iraq’s economic and political dependence on Iran, its goal might be at least to prevent Iraq from becoming a launching pad for Iran to fire missiles at the West. This would certainly be a worthy goal, but it’s impossible to separate it from the broader relationship between Iraq and Iran. There’s no guarantee that Iraq won’t let Iran build missile bases on its territory. But it also wouldn’t want to turn itself into a battleground between the United States and Iran, à la the Syria where Israel is fighting Iran.
Still, it’s not unreasonable to think that such a scenario could come to pass. And if it did, America might find itself in a war not just against Iran, but against Iraq.

Iran's Kidnapping Industry/British Mother Held in Prison
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 26/19
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13542/iran-kidnapping-hostages
This international breach of justice should be a lesson to the UK and other governments: It does not matter if the mullahs reach out their hands out in peace; the Islamist regime of Iran will continue to harm innocent victims on a daily basis.
In response to the snub, the British government should consider bringing to a halt its appeasement policies toward the ruling mullahs. The more they are appeased, the more emboldened and empowered they become to continue violating human rights.
It must be made clear to Iran that, apart from its unacceptable nuclear and ballistic missile build up, the UK -- and every country -- will also not stand for the capture, torture and imprisonment of the innocent. If the British government speaks in actions rather than words, perhaps these captives could be free to resume the life they deserve again, and the world could be free of a major nuclear threat.
Two of the hostages Iran is holding are an innocent British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and her helpless four-year-old daughter, Gabriella. Pictured: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard Ratcliffe in 2011. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
"Sometimes when I come back from the visit with Gabriella, after saying goodbye to her, I feel as if I cannot live without her, I want to go back and hold her. She kisses me so hard. It is hard to say goodbye to her. She blows kisses all the way as she goes up the stairs, and everyone stands there watching." These are the words of a grieving British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, held in prison in the Islamic Republic of Iran, as she describes saying goodbye to her child.
In 2016, the relationship between the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Obama administration seemed to have reached a euphoric level. Many exorbitant concessions were made by the United States to the Islamic Republic. The argument for these concessions was that such policies of appeasement would inspire Iran to change its malignant behavior, and that the freedoms that resulted would trickle down to the Iranian people. People began to think it would be safe to travel to Iran again. As tourism began to increase, however, it soon became clear that there was still rampant danger. People started becoming the new hostages of Iran.
Two of these victims are an innocent British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and her helpless then-22-month-old daughter, Gabriella. Zaghari-Ratcliffe traveled with her baby to Iran to visit her family on Norowz, the Iranian New Year, in 2016. With the change in political climate Zaghari-Ratcliffe, employed as a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Canadian news agency, Thomson Reuters, assumed they would be safe. As she boarded the plane, she had no idea what she would face at the Khomeini Airport. She was surrounded by The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and arrested.
Immediately, the IRGC confiscated both her and her daughter's passports. Gabriella does not have an Iranian nationality; she was born in Britain. Despite her foreign citizenship, she has not been allowed to return to their. As is true in many Iranian court cases authorities are not required to, and did not offer, any reason to detain or arrest Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her child.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe not only had her baby taken from her, she was faced with the confusion of why she had even been arrested in the first place. Later, ambiguous and vague charges surfaced. Although the authorities never presented any evidence, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was accused of "plotting to topple the Iranian government." With no ability to defend herself, and no requirement for actual proof that such a crime had occurred, she was sent to prison. The entire situation looks like another instance of Iranian serial kidnapping and hostage taking, starting with the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81, in which 52 American citizens and diplomats were held for 444 days. When President Ronald Reagan – expected not to look kindly upon the situation – was elected, the hostages were immediately released.
The Iranians proceeded to kidnap more Americans, five of whom were released by then-President Barack Obama for an illegal ransom of $1.7 billion
Former FBI agent Robert Levinson, about whom a "proof-of-life" video from 2010 was released in 2012, is still missing.
In 2007, Iranians seized five Britons from a government ministry building in the Baghdad in May 2007, apparently to stop Iran's diversion of $18 billion to Iraq from being exposed. "Just one, Peter Moore, made it out of Iran alive," according to the Guardian.
In 2016, Iran seized two US Navy boats with their crews, and in 2017, a Saudi fishing boat.
In 2018, Iran kidnapped 58 members of a Qatari royal falcon-hunting party; the government may have paid $1 billion for their release and then have captured two Qatari boats.
Even though the United Kingdom has been providing assistance to the Iranian regime by arguing in its defense to save the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the "nuclear deal"), Iranian leaders evidently feel no obligation to return the favor. Instead, they continue to hold an innocent citizen of the United Kingdom, and imprison her mother under fabricated charges -- presumably in the hope of yet more ransom money or possibly the continuation of the never-signed nuclear deal that would enable it to advance to deliverable nuclear capability.
The British government and the United Nations have repeatedly reached out to the ruling mullahs of Iran and asked that Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her baby be allowed to return to their home in the United Kingdom. Despite countless attempts made to help Iran, it has ignored their requests. Ms. Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, as well as Mr. José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, have called on Iran to release Zaghari-Ratcliffe:] "We consider that Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been arbitrarily deprived of her liberty and that her right to a fair trial before an independent and impartial tribunal has been violated, she pointed out ... These are flagrant violations of Iran's obligations under international law".
Even though the British government has sometimes come to her defense, the 41-year-old Zaghari-Ratcliffe has faced a worsening situation. The conditions of her imprisonment continue to deteriorate. Her legal rights have been completely scuttled.
With no fair and due process in the Sharia court, she has been consistently denied access to her lawyer. The Iranian regime has even refused to allow the British authorities to have access to her. The Sharia court then sentenced her to five years in prison.
Currently the treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has exceeded 1,000 days in prison as of January 2019, amounts to torture. From what information her family has been able to gather, her situation as a prisoner in Iran is dire, and she has said she will go on a hunger strike.
They explained this while pleading for the United Nations to intervene in her case to free her from the torment she is forced to endure. Although the prison's doctor has promised her medical care, the Iranian authorities are refusing to provide it. The Labour MP for Hampstead, Tulip Siddiq, urged the British government to act because Zaghari-Ratcliffe treatment is "becoming a matter of life and death".
This international breach of justice should be a lesson to the UK and other governments: It does not matter if the mullahs reach out their hands out in peace, the Islamist regime of Iran will continue to harm innocent victims on a daily basis. In response to that snub, the UK should consider bringing to a halt its appeasement policies toward the fundamentalist mullahs. The more the ruling mullahs are appeased, the more emboldened and empowered they become to violate human rights.
The British government should also level appropriate economic and political sanctions against Iran to pressure the regime into agreeing to stop all human rights abuses, and also to release an innocent mother, and her baby, so that they may be reunited and return home. It must be made clear to Iran that, apart from its unacceptable nuclear and ballistic missile build up, the UK -- and every country -- will also not stand for the capture, torture and imprisonment of the innocent.
If the British government speaks in actions rather than words, perhaps these captives, just two of many who endure such unspeakable hardship, could be free to resume the life they deserve again, and the world could be free of a major nuclear threat.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
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Brexit and Pressure on Finances of England’s Universities
Chris Bryant/Bloomberg View/January 26/19
April is the cruelest month. It’s not just English literature professors who’ll tell you that: Their university’s treasurers probably think T.S. Eliot had a point too.
Nowadays most of the English universities’ income arrives via student fees, instead of direct government grants. Half the money is released to them by the UK’s Student Loans Company each May, whereas costs for stuff like paying lecturers and keeping the lights on are spread out over the year; so things are often pretty tight by April.
This all creates an inherent imbalance in how cash flows in and out of the institutions, which isn’t helping to ease the pressure on the finances of England’s universities (with Brexit partly to blame). One unnamed establishment has already had to go cap in hand to the regulator, the Office for Students, for a temporary loan. If the universities’ latest published accounts are any guide, it won’t be the last. While large institutions have gone on a 12 billion-pound ($15.4 billion) borrowing binge, it’s the smaller, less well-funded ones we really need to worry about.
In an apparent effort to lift standards by fostering competition, English universities are free nowadays to recruit as many students as they can. As I’ve explained before, this process of turning higher education into a market-based business has created unhappy consequences, including massive pay-hikes for university bosses, easier admission requirements and rampant grade inflation. With each student representing about 28,000 pounds of potential income over a three-year course, there’s been an almighty battle to boost their numbers.
Hence universities are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on shiny new equipment, lecture halls and sports complexes, which the largest have financed in part by issuing long-duration public bonds at extraordinarily low yields. (Others have turned to private placements).
The trouble is, there aren’t enough students to go around right now. A British demographic dip doesn’t bode well for the overall undergraduate intake between now and 2021. Lower recruitment is doubly painful because it reduces rental income from student lodgings too. Meanwhile, Brexit will probably dry up EU research funding and put off European students. Wage inflation and giant pension deficits are another drag.
This perfect storm could get worse. The government has already put a stop to fees rising in line with inflation, and a review of university funding might result in the 9,250-pound maximum fee being slashed. Students would love that, but it’s not clear how universities would fill the funding gap. Unlike in the US, most British institutions don’t have big endowments — with two-thirds of the assets held by just eight institutions. Oxford and Cambridge are in no danger of going bust.

Under pressure, Iran might let go of Syria but not of Iraq
Mohamad Kawas/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
Something has accelerated modification of the rules of the game between Iran and Israel. Tel Aviv talked of intercepting a missile fired by an Iranian unit in Syria directed at the Golan Heights. Media outlets close to Damascus and Tehran boasted about the attack.
It looked as though Tehran was baiting Israel to act and Israel was more than willing to accommodate. There seemed to be some convergence in the behaviour of Tehran and Tel Aviv amid the tensions over Syria, which does not rule out that the game in Syria was rigged.
Previous Israeli attacks in Syria were carried out without official announcement by the Israeli military or political authorities. Israel was sure to be discrete about its raids. Some would say Israel didn’t want to embarrass the regime in Damascus, which has so often promised to respond to Israeli attacks at an “opportune time.” Others would say that Israel didn’t want to embarrass Russia, which controls the skies over Syria. The latest raids, however, mark a new phase in Israel’s dealing with Iran in Syria and possibly in Iraq at a later stage. The military operations were announced by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, perhaps for electoral calculations, and details were given later by the Israeli military. Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz talked about a full-blown confrontation with Iran. Tel Aviv has chosen to prepare the Israeli public for a possible major war.
While Iran might have invited the Israeli retaliation for tactical reasons, it probably did not anticipate the extent of the response and the change in the Israeli political spin. Tehran is unlikely to respond to the raid but that doesn’t prevent Iranian Air Force Commander General Aziz Nasirzadeh from declaring that Iran is eager to remove Israel from the map.
Just like that — in the blink of an eye — Tehran wiped out the public relations efforts of Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who in December told French magazine Le Point that Iran has never called for the destruction of Israel. It is increasingly clear that the balance of power in Syria does not favour Iran. It is in favour not just of Israel but also of Russia, Turkey and the United States and whatever they are cooking up for Syria. By firing a missile at Israel, Tehran knew that Israel would react. Iran might have hoped for this reaction so it could add it to the cards to take to the negotiating table during their next talks with Washington, hoping to have enough leverage to stay in Syria.
Iran realises that its exit from Syria has become a Russian demand, before being an Israeli and American demand, and that the need of the Damascus regime, under Russian patronage, to normalise relations with Arab countries is conditional on this withdrawal. Iran must carefully examine statements US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made during his tour of the Middle East, in which he reiterated his country’s hard-line stance against Iran, in a way to prevent any misunderstandings of US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from Syria. US national security adviser John Bolton visited Israel to reassure Tel Aviv and perhaps even encourage it to cross the line by playing games with Iran in Syria. It was reported that, while in Baghdad, Pompeo demanded that Iraq dissolve terrorist groups belonging to Iran, hinting at the possibility of Israel expanding its targets to groups in Iraq as well. Tehran, however, loves to play the game of arrogance and defiance, sometimes by launching space satellites to demonstrate its missile capabilities, other times by threatening to remove Israel from the face of the Earth. It does not realise the magnitude of the changes on the international scene, which began to emerge in Europe and seems to be laying the foundations for a new direction that may be announced in the Warsaw Conference in February.
So, if the development in the Israeli approach is based on the backdrop of this transformation, then Iran would be suggesting to the international community its priorities in the region and clarifying what is permanent and what is shifting in its strategies.
Iran responded to Pompeo’s tour by sending Zarif to Iraq. Over five days he met with the leaders of the three branches of power, in addition to most of the others in power in the Iraqi political scene. It was as though he was touring an Iranian province and, in his meetings with most of the decision makers in Iraq, he sought to confirm Iran’s intention to keep its dominance of Iraq forever. Tehran seemed to suggest to Washington that Iraq was a fundamental asset in Iran’s strategy in the region, while Syria was a sideshow that could be negotiated. Tehran is aware that it has lost its Yemeni card and that Hezbollah’s inflexibility on the issue of the composition of the next Lebanese government suggests that Lebanon is going to be the only haven after Iran’s withdrawal from Syria.
Iran has never been a suicidal state, however, and Tehran knows very precisely its limits. It is aware it is losing its cards outside its borders, especially in Syria and Yemen. During street protests in Iran, there were repeated slogans denouncing Iran’s presence in Gaza, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon on the grounds that those places had nothing to do with Iran. Tehran could be suggesting that, while it may be forced to give up the distant capitals it controls, it will never renounce its right to interfere in Iraq. Didn’t some Iranian say that “Iran is an empire whose capital is Baghdad”? It might be that if Baghdad falls, the empire of the velayat-e faqih will be the next to go.
*Mohamad Kawas/Lebanese writer.

Israel, Iran edge closer to wider confrontation in Syria
Mamoon Alabbasi/The Arab Weekly/January 26/19
LONDON - Israel and Iran are threatening to escalate military action against each other, risking widening the confrontation between Tel Aviv and Tehran in Syria, which is already host to multiple conflicts. Israel said it carried out air strikes January 21 against Iranian targets in Syria in response to a missile fired by Iran’s al-Quds Force a day earlier from Syria towards the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. “We are acting against Iran and against the Syrian forces who are tools of Iranian aggression,” said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli raid killed 21 fighters in Damascus: 12 Iranians, three Iran-backed militiamen and six Syrians loyal to President Bashar Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Netanyahu signalled Israel’s military action against Iranian targets in Syria would continue. “The [Israeli military] is the only military that is fighting the Iranian Army in Syria. I am certain in our ability to defeat the enemy.”Israeli officials have been increasingly open about carrying out air strikes in Syria, in a marked change to Israel’s policy of ambiguity regarding military action outside its borders. Israel’s outgoing military chief, Lieutenant-General Gadi Eisenkot, said Israel had struck “thousands” of Iranian targets in Syria “without claiming responsibility.”Israeli military analyst Yoel Guzansky said Israel wants Iran to know that US plans to withdraw its 2,000 troops from Syria would not weaken Tel Aviv’s resolve to counter Tehran there. “The Iranians are persistent. We have to be persistent, too,” Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think-tank, told the Associated Press.
By going public about the strikes, Israel has pushed Iran to escalate its rhetoric about a possible response. “We assure the Iranian people that we are ready to retaliate against any threat,” said Iranian Air Force commander Brigadier-General Aziz Nasirzadeh. “Our current and future generations are eagerly and full-heartedly ready for battling with the Zionist regime and eradicating them from the face of the Earth.”Former US senior official Martin Indyk said the showdown could spill out outside of Syria. “It’s in Israel’s interest to keep the conflict in Syria, where Israel has an overwhelming advantage,” he told the New York Times. “Iran may look elsewhere, where [it has] more leverage and that includes terrorist activity.”The Israeli air strikes drew criticism from Russia, which — like Iran — is supportive of the Assad government but also fosters good ties with Tel Aviv. “The practice of arbitrary strikes on the territory of a sovereign state, in this case, we are talking about Syria, should be ruled out,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Russian news agency TASS. “We should never allow Syria, which has suffered years of armed conflict, to be turned into an arena where geopolitical scores are settled.”
Israeli officials assured Russia that Israel would not target Syrian troops but asked Moscow to make sure that Iranian forces or Tehran’s proxy militias don’t get too close to the Israeli border.
The Russians have maintained good relations with most of the adversaries in the Syrian war, using their strong presence in the country to prop up the Assad regime. Moscow expressed “understanding” towards the security concerns of Israel and Turkey when those concerns do not threaten Damascus itself.
Russia has supported Hezbollah against Syrian rebels yet looked the other way when Israel bombed the Lebanese militia. Russia has also supported the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia, which is backed by the United States in the fight against the Islamic State, but Moscow turned a blind eye when Turkey bombed the militiamen in Syria.
Israel has continued hitting Iranian targets in Syria with impunity but analysts warned the escalation might get out of control. “Despite Israel’s apparent control of the situation, a sense of failure could well make Qassem Soleimani, commander of al-Quds Force in Syria, respond irrationally,” wrote Alex Fishman in Ynetnews.com. Iran’s retaliation is likely to be carried out by — and at the expense of — its proxies in the region. “[Iran] could conduct an effective campaign against Israel from the Lebanese front through Hezbollah, or from Iran or western Iraq. Yet all of these options, in particular the Lebanon option, would be a declaration of war on Israel that a country like Lebanon simply cannot afford,” wrote Fishman. To counter Iranian influence in the region, the US Treasury announced sanctions against two of Iran’s proxy militias in Syria: the Fatemiyoun Division and the Zaynabiyoun Brigade. The move, however, is unlikely to deter the Afghan and Pakistani militiamen from fighting Iran’s battles in Syria. Not only does the Syrian war appear far from over but what was a side conflict in the chaos, the Israeli-Iranian enmity, is increasingly becoming a dominating feature of hostilities there.
*Mamoon Alabbasi is Deputy Managing Editor and Online Editor of The Arab Weekly.

Arab presence is essential to solving the Syrian crisis
Bassam Barabandi/Al Arabiya/January 26/19
The Syrian crisis is as much a manifestation of an old conflict between Persians and Ottomans as it is the outcome of a new one between the US and Russia.
By convening Astana and Sochi talks, Russia, along with Iran and Turkey, tried to eliminate all armed opposition backed by the West and start a political process that would secure its goals and those of its allies, which is of dividing Syria into different areas of influence that are key to these countries’ interests. An example of this is what happened in Idlib, where Turkey was given the responsibility to resolve the problem in the area, which it covertly considers an extension of the territories that lie under its control. Similarly, Damascus’ suburbs (such as Reef Dimashq) have fallen under Iranian control, and the Syrian coast in Russian hands. The US-Russian conflict over resolving the Syrian conflict, might take two paths. The first may be through the UN and its resolutions, especially through the formation of a constitutional committee, which will decide the new construct of the country and the societal, economic, and political compact following, which all foreign forces will have to leave Syria.
All of this will go in accordance with the will of a group of countries interested in Syria, such as the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, France, Britain and its allies. This was made clear in their announcement on 17 September 2018, in which they said they will contribute to rebuilding Syria. Through its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has proven its inability to understand the historical and social complexity of these countries’ people. The US did not know how to deal with them in a way that would yield positive results
The second way is through Astana, something that Russia and its partners want. In this solution, the constitutional committee will impose a political solution by picking a great number of the participants, which will ensure their control over the final outcome. Until now, it is unclear who will have the final say in this matter. The Syrian territory under the control of US-led coalition forces to fight ISIS remains the main stumbling block for the Iranian project, because it covers large tracts of fertile land and has a diverse population consisting of Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, and Assyrians – all of them suspicious of Russian intentions and apprehensive of Iranian occupation as well as Turkish control. At the same time, this area’s reality depends on the Kurds’ desire to achieve more political and economic independence, which comes at the cost of its Arab neighbors.
Through its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has proven its inability to understand the historical and social complexity of these countries’ people. The US did not know how to deal with them in a way that would yield positive results.
Despite spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presence of its military troops and the raising of national armies and international civil institutions, it failed to achieve stability in both countries, fight extremism, put an end to Iranian domination and create a coherent civil society and a stable government.
After US troop withdrawal
Hence, Saudi Arabia has a major role to play in Syria, which must not be left to face regional and international competition without a strong Arab presence, especially after the US decision to withdraw from Syria and amid ongoing negotiations for the phase following the withdrawal.
Talks now focus on protecting the Kurds from Turkish attacks. It is surprising that nobody is talking about the Arab majority in that area, which is the party that truly fought ISIS from within the Syrian Democratic Forces and stood up against Iran’s threat. Saudi Arabia knows more about the structure of the Syrian Jazira area than do all members of the international coalition, and it’s the closest among them to local citizens, particularly towards Arabs. The kingdom can play a major role in resolving the conflict between different denominations, especially between Arabs and Kurds. It can also protect Christian minorities simply because it does not have ambitions in Syrian territories, and because it has had good and historic relations with all parties and does not need to send its troops as part of the international coalition to combat terrorism.The Saudi kingdom has donated large sums of money to support projects that bring about stability. Saudi companies should participate in executing the projects agreed upon among the international coalition members. This will provide Saudi Arabia with the tools needed for effective communication with ordinary people and will confirm the kingdom’s major role in the final solution on Syria.
Saudi presence will reflect Arab presence and Arab concern towards resolving this crisis in a way that achieves Arab interests that are represented in implementing international legitimacy resolutions that pertain to Syria and for putting an end to the Iranian project in the region.

Bandar bin Sultan: Obama’s policies took the region 20 years back
Al Arabiya English/Al Arabiya/January 26/19
Independent Arabia, the newly-launched news service from London, published its inaugural interview with Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The former Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to the United States spoke candidly about several sensitive issues in the Arab region. During the interview, Prince Bandar remarked that an ignorant man was his own enemy and narrated events surrounding Saddam Hussein, Khomeini and the Shah. History would have been very different if only the Shah had not forced Saddam to expel Khomeini - who was then under house arrest in Iraq - to Paris, according to the prince. Prince Bandar also spoke about the consequences of President Obama’s misplaced policies towards the Middle East leading to the present crisis in Syria as well as his double-standard policy towards Iran which led to the Saudi mistrust with the US regime.
He said that he does not regret not meeting with Barack Obama because he took the region 20 years back due to his policies in the Middle East. In the coming days, further excerpts of the interview - lasting more than 14 hours - held at his palace in Obhor in Jeddah, west of Saudi Arabia, would be published by Independent Arabia. Prince Bandar had served as director general of the General Intelligence Presidency and also as the secretary general of the National Security Council. In the interview, he also touched on his stint of almost a quarter of a century - from 1983 to 2005 - in Washington as the Saudi envoy to the United States.
Qatar
On Qatar, Prince Bandar described former Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim as an “expert in half-truths”. Prince Bandar cited the leaked recording of the conversation between Qatar’s former Emir Hamad bin Khalifa and Hamad bin Jassim with late Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi in which bin Jassim spoke about schemes to target Saudi Arabia. Bin Jassim’s justification of this audio “tells half the truth,” Prince Bandar said. The truth was that it the conspiracy and plan was real and not what Doha sought to portray when it tried to justify what transpired as an attempt to bait Qaddafi.
Prince Bandar also added that Qatar suffers from schizophrenia in terms of its policies, and noted that the presence of an American base does not mean protection for the regime in Doha, as the base was solely for American use and not for Qatar. On the Turkish troop presence, Prince Bandar said their role was to help maintain security in Qatar, adding that Doha had previously enlisted the help of Yemen, Sudan and Saudi Arabia to preserve its security. Prince Bandar described Bashar al-Assad as a “kid”. Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad was capable of being decisive and making decisions, unlike Bashar who suffered from a complex that he hasn’t been able to overcome and which is called “Bashar Hafez al-Assad.”
Prince Bandar also narrated how he interceded with the British government for Bashar al-Assad after he graduated so that he could enroll in a specialized course in ophthalmology in London. The former chief of General Intelligence Presidency also narrated the details of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Syrian revolution when Assad began to shell civilians. Putin told him that it was the Saudis who had “inflated Assad’s ego” when they arranged meetings for him with former French President Jacques Chirac and White House officials, when he became President. President Putin also told him during the meeting that he had invited Bashar more than once to visit Moscow but he did not respond. “Now, he will come crawling for my help,” quipped Putin. Prince Bandar said the reason behind the Syrian regime’s exaggerated media coverage of his appearance or role and linking it to developments inside Syria, is personal. “It’s because I know Bashar before he became something, and after he thought he became something,” he said. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets with Saudi Secretary-General of the National Security . He also denied claims that he had a hand in the establishment of ISIS and strongly refuted the accusations made against him in this regard.
Iran
Prince Bandar described Iran’s Shah as a rational enemy, adding that he was better than an ignorant friend, although there was “no friendship between us”, in reference to Iran’s current regime and the issues that have arisen since Khomeini came to power. He said that it was the Saudi effort under the leadership of King Faisal that managed to convince the Shah of abandoning his move to annex Bahrain.Prince Bandar remarked that an ignorant man was his own enemy citing the events surrounding Saddam Hussein, Khomeini and the Shah. Khomeini was under house arrest in Iraq when Saddam Hussein’s regime was in power and he circulated cassettes inciting rebellion against the Shah, leading the latter to threaten Saddam with invasion of the Shatt al-Arab if he did not expel Khomeini out of Iraq.Prince Bandar said that Saddam tried to convince the Shah not to do so and told him that he would prevent Khomeini from further issuing inciting cassettes. Not placated, the Shah insisted that Khomeini be expelled to Paris. Commenting on Khomeini’s rise and the establishment of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist regime in Iran, Prince Bandar said Saudi Arabia waited until after Khomeini attained power and did not take a stance until he threatened to invade Iraq and later threatened Gulf countries. Prince Bandar said that at this point, Riyadh chose one of the bad options which was to support Saddam in his war against Iran, adding that Riyadh had also secretly sponsored negotiations in Geneva between Baghdad and Tehran as well as in the palace of late Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minister. The former Saudi envoy to Washington also narrated how he met Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, during a visit to Tehran to meet Ali Larijani, Iran’s Parliament Speaker. Prince Bandar said: “A coincidence led me to getting to (see) Soleimani face to face. Until then, we had (only) heard of him without seeing him.”
Obama’s policies emboldened Russia, Iran
It was former American President Barack Obama’s lenient policies which emboldened Russia and Iran to interfere in Syria, Prince Bandar said. He revealed details of the last phone call between late Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and Obama, during which the King told Obama: “I did not expect that (after) this long life, I would see (the day) when an American president lies to me.”This was in reference to the famous red lines which Obama spoke of when he made a media statement on August 20, 2012, in the White House promising to stop the Syrian regime’s violations against civilians, i.e. when the regime troops used chemical weapons against them. President Obama “would promise something and do the opposite,” Prince Bandar revealed, and this was the reason behind the tense relations between the US and Saudi Arabia during the last days of Obama’s term. Prince Bandar noted that Obama spoke of curbing Iran’s role in the region and at the same time he secretly negotiated with it, leading to the Saudi mistrust with the Obama government. Prince Bandar said that he does not regret not meeting with Barack Obama because he took the region 20 years back due to his policies in the Middle East.
On Palestine
Prince Bandar spoke extensively about the Palestinian cause and said former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat committed a crime against the Palestinian cause and the Palestinians when he rejected the peace initiative and solutions advocated by former American President Bill Clinton.
US President George W. Bush meets with then Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the US Prince Bandar bin Sultan at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. (AFP) He also narrated details of the disagreement around Palestine between late Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and former American President George W. Bush at the latter’s ranch in Texas.The former envoy to the US also narrated several other interesting incidents and anecdotes that transpired between him and a number of American presidents - from Jimmy Carter to George Bush Jr.

Syria is Israel and Iran's battleground
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/January 26/19
For some time now there has been a sense of inevitability that the conflict between Israel and Iran, currently taking place in Syria amidst a fog of (im)plausible deniability, will turn into open hostilities conducted in daylight, both literally and figuratively. Ever since the civil war in Syria began, Iran has steadily increased its menacing military presence in Israel’s war-torn northeastern neighbour. However, the clashes last weekend were extraordinary and set some dangerous precedents. After years of carrying out attacks under the cloak of night, Israel not only conducted a series of rare daylight air strikes in the Damascus area, but also unprecedently made these public in real time, reportedly killing 12 Iranians. Moreover, although the response—an Iranian-made ground-to-ground missile fired into northern Israel at a time when many Israeli tourists were visiting the snow-covered Hermon mountain—may have been intercepted by an anti-missile system, the situation is nevertheless in danger of quickly spiralling out of control. For most of the eight years of the Syrian civil war, Israel has been cautious not to admit to its actions in that country, though it has worked hard to ensure that everyone knows it is able to hit Iranian and Hezbollah targets when and where it wants. This constructive ambiguity was aimed partly to prevent Iran and its proxies from building a threatening military presence, and partly, by not bragging about it, to avoid forcing the other side to retaliate. In return, government-controlled Iranian media reports of Israel’s actions against Iranian targets in Syria have been very restrained, with the similar aim of avoiding domestic pressure to respond.
Over the last year Israel has gradually become less opaque about its aerial attacks in Syria, and in the last two weeks the outgoing Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot has told the New York Times about striking thousands of Iranian targets “without claiming responsibility or asking for credit,” while Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has publicly claimed responsibility for attacking Iranian weapons and ammunition stores in Syria. It might be the case of a retiring general boasting about his legacy, or a prime minister scoring points during a tough election campaign. For most of the eight years of the Syrian civil war, Israel has been cautious not to admit to its actions in that country, though it has worked hard to ensure that everyone knows it is able to hit Iranian and Hezbollah targets when and where it wants. However, it also the case that the Israeli leadership feels it is safer to be to more blunt in deterring Iran, believing rightly or wrongly that Iran or its proxies won’t risk a war with Israel, and also sending a message to Russia and the United States that the growing involvement of Iran, directly or indirectly, so very close to Israel’s border, should be a source of grave concern to the two global powers, and they had better do something about it, otherwise Israel will.
If the former Israeli military chief is right—and there is no reason to doubt his claim of intense attacks on Iranian targets over the years—it raises the question of whether Israel’s strategy is to completely eradicate the Iranian presence in Syria, and if this is the case, what is it ready to do to accomplish this objective?
Or, alternatively, will Jerusalem be content with only containing Tehran’s spearhead, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ((IRGC) led by Qasem Soleimani, and its allies the Hezbollah and the Fatemiyoun Division, an IRGC-led militia of Shi’ite Afghans? With Hassan Nasrallah constantly threatening to open a new (old) front from Lebanon, there are tough decisions to be made by Israel’s leaders. What makes the situation even more of a knife-edge is not only that Israel is increasingly operating more openly against Iran, but that the latter is constantly and openly transferring sophisticated weapons directly to Lebanon. Yet, thus far, either due to a decision by its leaders or because of Israel’s constant military pressure, Iran hasn’t managed to establish naval or air bases in Syria, something that lessens its ability to become a major threat to Israel.
Another conundrum for the Israelis, and for every other observer of the Syrian conflict as it approaches some sort of conclusion, concerns Russia’s long-term strategy in Syria and the extent to which Moscow is interested in policing events there. For all its muscle flexing it doesn’t look as if Russia has aspirations beyond ensuring that the Assad regime remains intact, and establishing its own air base and port on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
After the rift with Israel following the downing of the Russian aeroplane last September, it seems as if Moscow has given Israel a green light to operate in Syrian airspace as long as Israel’s air force steers clear of the Russian airbases in the country’s northwest. The combination of not preventing Israel from attacking Iranian targets, but also of reneging on its promise to keep Iranian forces at least at least 60 kilometers away from Israel’s border, is an indication that averting conflict between Israel and Iran is not high on Putin’s agenda. There is general agreement that no one involved in Syria, Israel and Iran especially, is interested in an all-out war between these two sworn enemies. Nevertheless, the military and verbal provocations flying back and forth between the two have all the hallmarks of an unintended and miscalculated disaster waiting to happen. It doesn’t help that all of this is taking place amidst election fever in Israel, where the current prime minister, who is also the defence and foreign minister, is battling both to survive in power and to avoid going on trial over corruption allegations. As a vote winner, Netanyahu might be tempted to increase his ‘Mr. Security’ image with a ‘splendid little war’ against Iranian forces and their allies in Syria. Such a scenario could destabilise the entire region, and it is for Russia and the United States to send a clear message to both sides that they will not tolerate it.