English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For July 14/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.july14.20.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10/13-16:”‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 13-14/2020
General Ashraf Rifi Is a Patriotic Lebanese Genuine Political Figure.. Al Machnouk’s Attempt To Blemish His Reputation Is So Mean And Cheap/Elias Bejjani/July 13/2020.
One Soldier Dead as Gunmen Attack Army in Northeast Lebanon
85 New Coronavirus Cases in Lebanon
Hasan Says Country, Airport Won't be Shut Down over Virus Resurgence
‘Repression’ threatens free speech in Lebanon, warns rights groups
Rights Groups Denounce Lebanon 'Repression'
Report: Ibrahim's Visit to Kuwait Reflects 'Serious Attempt to Rescue Country'
Big Drop in Dollar's Black Market Rate Linked to Several Factors
Argentine federal judiciary extends freeze of Hezbollah funds
Rai: Calls for Dissociation are for Lebanon’s Interests
IMF Warns Lebanon of High Price of Delaying Reforms
Hizbullah Files Complaint at Foreign Ministry against U.S. Envoy
15 years later: will justice be served for Rafik Hariri?
New Sanctions on Assad Regime Hit Lebanese Accomplices/Tony Badran/FDD/July 13/2020
Out of Respect for the 'Resistance Community'/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/July 13/2020
Lebanese farmers sow seeds for new cannabis growers’ syndicate/Najia Houswsari/Arab News/July 13/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 13-14/2020
Explosion at gas company in northeast Iran
Iran could use road-mobile missiles to target Saudi Arabia amid escalation: Report
Ankara Sets Libya Ceasefire Preconditions
Hamas’ Qassam Launches Probe after a Field Commander Flees to Israel
Iraq Security Committee Wants PM to Have Clear Position on Foreign Forces
GERD Talks Await Last-Minute Agreement
Four Dead as Fighting Resumes on Azerbaijan-Armenia Border

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 13-14/2020
Why reassessing Israel’s risky relationship with China matters/Mark Dubowitz, Richard Goldberg/ynetnews/July 13/2020
Get Ready for a New Type of Israeli War/Jacob Nagel and Jonathan Schanzer/The National Interest/July 13/2020
COVID-19 and Erdogan’s Power Consolidation/Aykan Erdemir/FDD/July 13/2020
Sabotage in Iran Is Preferable to a Deal With Iran/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/July 13/2020
Good Riddance to the World Health Organization/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/July 13, 2020
Where Are the Borders of Israel, Turkey and Iran?/Ghassan Charbel//Asharq Al Awsat/July 13/2020
Slain analyst al-Hashemi’s final paper was set to expose Hezbollah’s Iraq network/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Al Arabiya English/July 13/2020
Turkey’s gambit in Libya may backfire/Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Ar5ab News/July 13, 2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 13-14/2020
General Ashraf Rifi Is a Patriotic Lebanese Genuine Political Figure.. Al Machnouk’s Attempt To Blemish His Reputation Is So Mean And Cheap
Elias Bejjani/July 13/2020.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/88210/elias-bejjani-general-ashraf-rifi-is-a-patriotic-lebanese-genuine-political-figure-al-machnouks-attempt-to-blemish-his-reputation-is-so-mean-and-cheap-%d9%85%d8%ad%d8%a7%d9%88%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%aa/
It is very sad that the majority of the media facilities in Lebanon, as well as almost 99% of the journalists from all walks of life and political affiliations are mere mean conscienceless trumpets and gongs for who finances them.
In general they are thugs and a bunch of trojans and they never change.
At the present time the terrorist Iranian Hezbollah who occupied Lebanon is the one who feed them with piece of news and analysis that they publish under their names and via their media facilities.
The most recent such a dirty and fake fed Hezbollah report was published yesterday (Sunday 12/July) in Nouhad Al Machnouk’s wesite (ASAS Mediaأساس ميديا).
This fabricated and defaming report targeted the patriotic and decent reputation of General Ashraf Rifi due to fact that that Rifi is openly in full support of the UN resolution 1559 and against the terrorist Hezbollah and its Iranian masters.
The false and faked report tried hardly and badly to blemish General Rifi’s patriotic and national reputation as well his solid loud rhetoric national stances.
General Rifi released a hash press release in which he stripped naked Nouhad Al Machnouk and fully exposed his lies as well as his shameful and dirt national record.
We take this opportunity to salute Genera Rifi and hail his stubborn and solid stances against the terrorist Hezbollah and its Iranian rotten and criminal Mullahs.
In conclusion: Lebanon’s 990% Media Facilities And Journalist are practically trojans and Trumpets to who pays them more.

One Soldier Dead as Gunmen Attack Army in Northeast Lebanon
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
Gunmen opened fire on several army positions and a patrol in northeast Lebanon’s Baalbek region overnight, killing one soldier, the military command said on Monday. "A number of armed (men) fired at a patrol belonging to the army and military centers...which led to the martyrdom of one of the soldiers," it said in a communique. The attack took place on the same day a wanted individual, identified as Abbas al-Masri, opened fire in the air at the Doures military checkpoint, said the army command. The guards at the checkpoint fired back, injuring al-Masri and another man who was in the same vehicle with him, it stated.They were taken to a hospital in Baalbek, the communique added.

85 New Coronavirus Cases in Lebanon
Naharnet/July 13/2020
Lebanon recorded 85 more COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Monday. Twenty of the local cases were recorded in the Beirut southern suburb of al-Laylaki while eight cases were recorded among expats coming from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Iraq and Syria.
The cases raise the country's overall tally to 2,419 -- among them 36 deaths and 1,425 recoveries. Three of the local cases were meanwhile recorded in Beirut, three in Beirut's southern suburbs, one in Northern Metn, five in Aley district, one in Western Bekaa's al-Marj, three in Tyre district's al-Bazouriyeh, one in Nabatieh's Kfar Tibnit, while the locations of 40 local cases are still under investigation.

Hasan Says Country, Airport Won't be Shut Down over Virus Resurgence
Naharnet/July 13/2020
Health Minister Hamad Hasan announced Monday that the government has no imminent plans to reimpose a broad lockdown despite the spike in coronavirus cases. “The airport and the country won’t be shut down, life will go on and the measures must be followed responsibly,” Hasan said. He also called for slapping fines on those who violate quarantine rules and contribue to the spread of the pandemic, while urging citizens and residents to avoid mixing as much as possible. Transport Minister Michel Najjar for his part stressed to MTV that the airport will not be shuttered. Lebanon on Sunday recorded 166 virus infections, the highest daily tally of confirmed cases since the first case was recorded on February 21. Hasan said Sunday that high tallies were expected over the coming days, blaming the surge on infections among the workers of a major cleaning services company.

‘Repression’ threatens free speech in Lebanon, warns rights groups
AFP/Tuesday 14 July 2020
A coalition of rights groups said Monday that “repression” and “intimidation” are threatening free speech in Lebanon, hit by an economic meltdown and months of angry protests. Since mass demonstrations erupted in October demanding the wholesale removal of a ruling class deemed inept and corrupt, authorities have cracked down on protesters, the alliance said in a statement. “Instead of heeding protesters’ calls for accountability, the authorities are waging a campaign of repression against people who expose corruption and rightfully criticize the government’s significant failings,” it said.
The alliance includes international watchdogs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch along with local groups such as the Samir Kassir Foundation. It warned that “powerful political and religious figures have increasingly used the country’s criminal insult and defamation laws as a tool for retaliation and repression against critics.”The statement urged public prosecutors and security agencies “to refrain from summoning people to investigations for exercising their right to free speech.”Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at HRW, said the group had documented “more than 60 people called in for interrogation based on things they wrote on social media” since protests started on October 17. She cited a prosecutor’s decision to investigate social media posts deemed to be insulting to the president, as well as army intelligence officers stopping reporters filming on the streets of Beirut last week. “All of this is creating a climate of intimidation in Lebanon where people don’t feel they are safe to speak their mind any more,” she said. Debt-laden Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, with almost half its population now living in poverty.
Banks have severely restricted dollar withdrawals and the Lebanese pound has plummeted to record lows on the black market, sparking price hikes and fanning public anger. The novel coronavirus, which has infected over 2,300 people and killed 36, has forced lockdown measures that further exacerbated the economic crisis. Protests in recent months have been smaller and largely peaceful, but some have spiralled into clashes between demonstrators and security forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Ayman Mhanna, the director of the Samir Kassir Foundation, said 21 journalists were “directly physically assaulted” while covering the demonstrations. “Working on the ground has become a nightmare,” said Doja Daoud, a member of the Alternative Media Syndicate that joined the coalition. “Security forces interrogate correspondents and ask them about the reasons behind their coverage,” he added.

Rights Groups Denounce Lebanon 'Repression'
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
A coalition of rights groups said Monday that "repression" and "intimidation" are threatening free speech in Lebanon, hit by an economic meltdown and months of angry protests. Since mass demonstrations erupted in October demanding the wholesale removal of a ruling class deemed inept and corrupt, authorities have cracked down on protesters, the alliance said in a statement. "Instead of heeding protesters' calls for accountability, the authorities are waging a campaign of repression against people who expose corruption and rightfully criticize the government's significant failings," it said.
The alliance includes international watchdogs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch along with local groups such as the Samir Kassir Foundation. It warned that "powerful political and religious figures have increasingly used the country's criminal insult and defamation laws as a tool for retaliation and repression against critics".The statement urged public prosecutors and security agencies "to refrain from summoning people to investigations for exercising their right to free speech".
Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at HRW, said the group had documented "more than 60 people called in for interrogation based on things they wrote on social media" since protests started on October 17. She cited a prosecutor's decision to investigate social media posts deemed to be insulting to the president, as well as army intelligence officers stopping reporters filming on the streets of Beirut last week. "All of this is creating a climate of intimidation in Lebanon where people don't feel they are safe to speak their mind anymore," she said. Debt-laden Lebanon is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, with almost half its population now living in poverty. Banks have severely restricted dollar withdrawals and the Lebanese pound has plummeted to record lows on the black market, sparking price hikes and fanning public anger.
The novel coronavirus, which has infected over 2,300 people and killed 36, has forced lockdown measures that further exacerbated the economic crisis. Protests in recent months have been smaller and largely peaceful, but some have spiraled into clashes between demonstrators and security forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Ayman Mhanna, the director of the Samir Kassir Foundation, said 21 journalists were "directly physically assaulted" while covering the demonstrations. "Working on the ground has become a nightmare," said Doja Daoud, a member of the Alternative Media Syndicate that joined the coalition. "Security forces interrogate correspondents and ask them about the reasons behind their coverage," he added.

Report: Ibrahim's Visit to Kuwait Reflects 'Serious Attempt to Rescue Country'
Naharnet/July 13/2020
General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim’s ongoing visit to Kuwait reflects “a serious attempt to rescue the country,” informed sources said. “The visit’s atmosphere is positive and it is aimed at organizing means that contribute to overcoming the crisis,” sources informed on the visit told LBCI television. Expressing optimism over the expected results from the visit, the sources noted that “there is a serious attempt to rescue the country, away from traditional methods.”“This path is being carved at the directions of President Michel Aoun,” the sources added.
Ibrahim had arrived in Kuwait on Sunday and is scheduled to hold meetings on Monday. His visit to the Gulf nation reportedly follows phone talks between Aoun and Kuwait’s ruler Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah.

Big Drop in Dollar's Black Market Rate Linked to Several Factors
Naharnet/July 13/2020
Lebanese political sources have expressed optimism over the possibility of positive financial and economic developments, after the dollar exchange rate dropped dramatically on the black market in recent days. The upbeat expectations come after the dollar slumped below the LBP 6,000 mark after having reached around LBP 10,000. The sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday that the major drop can be attributed to a host of local, regional and international factors. They cited the resumption of Lebanon’s talks with the International Monetary Fund, the latest U.S. stances that expressed readiness to help Lebanon, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s upcoming visit to the country, and expectations that Gulf nations topped by Kuwait and Qatar will offer assistance to Lebanon.Official sources meanwhile told al-Joumhouria that a part of the dollar exchange rate’s surge in recent weeks had been aimed at “embarrassing the government and turning the people against it in an attempt to topple it.”The sources also said that technical factors such as the subsidization of 300 essential foodstuffs items and the return of some dollar-carrying expats have contributed to the drop in the dollar exchange rate on the black market.

Argentine federal judiciary extends freeze of Hezbollah funds
Jerusalem Post/July 13/2020
"Judiciary determined that Hezbollah was the perpetrator of the attacks on the AMIA and the Israeli embassy."
Argentina’s federal judiciary last week froze Hezbollah’s finances for an additional year.According to a report in La Nacion, the court “froze the funds for Hezbollah; its external security organization, Islamic Jihad; its boss, Hassan Nasrallah; Salman El Reda, who faces an arrest warrant for the AMIA attack; and the Barakat clan, the family of merchants based in the Triple Frontier who are accused of money laundering and terrorist financing.”
In 1994, a joint Iranian-Hezbollah operation blew up the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Arias, resulting in the deaths of 85 people and wounding hundreds. “The judge who extended the Hezbollah designation should be commended because Hezbollah’s illicit finance activities continue in the country and in the tri-border area,” Toby Dershowitz, a senior vice president for government relations and strategy for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Jerusalem Post on Friday. “The key now will be to ensure aggressive enforcement so that these activities are stemmed and Hezbollah coffers that fund terrorism dry up.” “Argentina must ensure the judge’s personal protection, given the physical harm done to those who have spoken out against the dangers emanating from Hezbollah and its Iranian backers,” she said. “Harm has also come to judicial witnesses and those working in law enforcement in other cases.” La Nacion reported that “the verdict, made by federal Judge Miguel Angel Guerrero of El Dorado, Misiones, extended the freeze on the financial assets of Hezbollah and 22 more people for another year. These funds were frozen by administrative orders from the Financial Information Unit (UIF) during the administration of Mauricio Macri, then again last January by the Alberto Fernandez administration.” “Both orders were for six months and have since expired, but Judge Guerrero’s decision extends them for another year. The United States and Israeli governments were awaiting this ruling because of the political implications of financially crippling one of their greatest enemies [Hezbollah],” the report said. According to the Spanish-language paper, “The judiciary determined that Hezbollah was the perpetrator of the attacks on the AMIA and the Israeli Embassy. Some witnesses who testified in the case referred to the participation of people from the Triple Frontier, and one of them even mentioned the Barakat brothers as implicated in the preparation of the attacks.”“Judge Guerrero has been investigating the Barakat clan with the help of the Economic Criminality Prosecutor, the UIF and the Gendarmerie since 2015, when it was reported that one of its members exchanged million-dollar prizes in the casino of Puerto Iguazu and he was suspected of involvement in money laundering, especially since his name appeared on a list of suspected international terrorists. Reports determined that his family was suspected of financing Hezbollah’s terrorist activities in the Triple Frontier,” the report said.

Rai: Calls for Dissociation are for Lebanon’s Interests
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai said that his call last week to the international community to stress Lebanon’s neutrality was for the sake of the country and the best of all its components. “The Lebanese do not want any party to unilaterally decide the fate of Lebanon, along with its people, territory, border, identity, coexistence formula, system, economy, culture and civilization,” Rai said during a Sunday Mass sermon. “They want a free state that speaks in the name of the people and returns to them with regard to fateful decisions, rather than a state that abandons its decision-making and sovereignty,” he added.
The patriarch stressed that calls he made last Sunday on the need to dissociate Lebanon from external and regional conflicts were based on the country’s supreme interests and national unity. He said he made the call “in order to protect Lebanon from the dangers of the fast-moving political and military developments in the region and in order to avoid involvement in the policy of regional and international axes and struggles, prevent external interference in Lebanon’s affairs, and out of keenness on its supreme interest, national unity and civil peace … and its adherence to the resolutions of international legitimacy and Arab unanimity.” He also underscored “the rightful Palestinian cause” and demanded “the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Shebaa Farms, the Kfarshouba hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar, in addition to the implementation of the relevant resolutions of international legitimacy.”

IMF Warns Lebanon of High Price of Delaying Reforms
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020 -
The International Monetary Fund warned Monday of the high cost of holding up reforms in Lebanon, two months into bailout talks to redress its nosediving economy. After Lebanon for the first time defaulted on its sovereign debt in March, the government pledged a financial rescue plan and in May started talks with the IMF on unlocking billions of dollars in aid. But sources familiar with the talks say they have hit a wall, with alleged lack of political commitment to reforms and disagreements over the scale of financial losses for the state, central bank and commercial banks.
Lebanon's government has estimated losses at around 241 trillion Lebanese pounds, which amounts to around $69 billion at an exchange rate of 3,500 pounds to the greenback. In contrast, a parliamentary committee has quoted much lower figures using the old currency peg of 1,507 pounds to the dollar.
"For productive discussions to continue, it is very important that the authorities unite around the government's plan," said Athanasios Arvanitis, the IMF's deputy director for the Middle East and Central Asia. "We are also worried that attempts to present lower losses and postpone difficult measures to the future would only increase the cost of the crisis by delaying the recovery and also hurting particularly the most vulnerable," he said during a press conference streamed online. Lebanon is grappling with its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, with deteriorating living conditions sparking widespread protests since October and plunging almost half the population into poverty. Banks have severely restricted dollar withdrawals and the Lebanese pound has plummeted to record lows on the black market, sparking rapid price hikes.

Hizbullah Files Complaint at Foreign Ministry against U.S. Envoy
Naharnet/July 13/2020
Hizbullah's parliamentary bloc on Monday lodged an official complaint with Lebanon's Foreign Ministry over recent statements made by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had mentioned in a recent speech that the bloc would do such a move. "We asked Minister (Nassif) Hitti to take the measures that he sees appropriate to rein in the U.S. ambassador's behavior, statements and meddling in our domestic affairs," bloc chief MP Mohammed Raad said at the Foreign Ministry. "The ambassador must stop interfering in our internal affairs and she must stop the rhetoric that incites the Lebanese," Raad added. "In the name of the Loyalty to Resistance bloc, we lodged with Minister Hitti an official protest letter against the statements and violations of the U.S. ambassador," the lawmaker went on to say. "We consider that respecting diplomatic rules and norms would reflect positively on the reputation of the ambassador and those whom she represents," Raad added. During a recent interview with Saudi-owned news channel Al-Hadath, Shea said that the United States had "grave concerns about the role of Hizbullah," describing it as "a designated terrorist organization."
"It has siphoned off billions of dollars that should have gone into government coffers so that the government can provide basic services to its people," she charged. "It has obstructed some of the economic reforms the Lebanese economy so desperately needs," she added.

15 years later: will justice be served for Rafik Hariri?
The National/July 14/2020
If those who assassinated Lebanon’s prime minister can get away with their crime, they may well be able to get away with anything
The Lebanese state is going after social media activists
In the heart of Beirut, a massive placard of Rafik Hariri, the country’s slain statesman – whose name is synonymous with an era of reconstruction and relative prosperity – no longer bears the slogan “We want the truth”.
After his assassination on February 14, 2005, supporters of the former prime minister had put up a counter on the placard, marking the days since he was murdered. The counter, too small to display the digits, now in their thousands, froze up and was later removed. The slogan demanding justice faded from placards and from public memory. Fifteen years on, no one has been held accountable for Hariri’s killing. The investigation, led by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, is set to reveal its verdict next month. The five prime suspects in the killings, all of them Hezbollah operatives, were tried in absentia. Evidence of a political assassination is overwhelming and the identity of those behind his murder is an open secret. Hariri’s killing was part of a wave of assassinations targeting public figures opposed to the Syrian regime in Lebanon. More than 22 people were killed, including the journalist Samir Kassir and Communist Party leader George Hawi. Hariri himself was forced to step down from the premiership in 2004 as Damascus’ hold over Beirut intensified.
Syrian tutelage was overthrown by the Cedar Revolution of 2005, a popular revolt that came as a reaction to the killing of Hariri. But since those days, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime have only grown stronger as their decades-long crimes have gone unpunished. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has refused to hand over the suspects to the court. Nasrallah himself was never interrogated. Nor was his close ally, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. While the court’s verdict is long overdue, its timing reveals just how pivotal the statesman’s killing was for Lebanese history. In January 2005, Lebanon was like a phoenix rising from ashes of wars past. Beirut attracted investors, tourists from the Gulf and beyond. Most importantly, it was a beacon of hope symbolising better days to come. Today, it has become increasingly difficult for Lebanese to hold on to that hope. Since last November, the country has plunged into an economic crisis. According to the World Bank, 60 per cent of Lebanese will be destitute by 2021.Those who opposed Hariri have now found new allies, including President Michel Aoun, who returned to Lebanon in May 2005 after a long exile.
To keep the country from delving into complete chaos, Hariri’s son Saad, who was prime minister twice, went as far as compromising with those who had a hand in his father’s killing. In keeping with his father’s tradition, Saad Hariri tried everything possible to maintain consensus politics to protect Lebanon. But Hezbollah and its allies turned their backs on the country. While the court’s verdict is long overdue, its timing reveals just how pivotal the statesman’s killing was for Lebanese history
If the killers of a country’s prime minister can get away with their crime, they may well be able to get away with anything. On August 7, the Tribunal has a chance to show that justice will prevail for Hariri. But Detlev Mehlis, the first commissioner appointed by the UN to investigate Hariri's killing, warned in a 2016 interview with the Carnegie Institute that a more robust international mechanism is needed to prosecute suspects in the case. With no means of enforcing their verdict, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah-backed government unlikely to hand any suspects to The Hague, the result of the investigation is set to be a disappointment. Hariri’s murder robbed Lebanon of a great statesman and denied Beirut the stability and prosperity it deserves. If nothing else, the long-awaited verdict of the Special Tribunal shows that unpunished crimes will be repeated. In the words of Mr Melhis, “justice delayed is justice denied.”

New Sanctions on Assad Regime Hit Lebanese Accomplices
Tony Badran/FDD/July 13/2020
طوني بدران: عقوبات على نظام الأسد سوف تضرب أيضاً المتواطئين معه من اللبنانيين
The departments of State and Treasury announced the designation of 39 sanctions targets, including two Lebanese firms, when the Caesar Act went into effect last month. The inclusion of these two firms reflects the essential role that Lebanese facilitators play in propping up the Bashar al-Assad regime; it also suggests the U.S. government will target many others within the Assad regime’s Lebanese networks.
Known formally as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, the new sanctions law bears the name of a Syrian military photographer who fled the country with extensive digital evidence of the regime’s systematic torture and execution of political prisoners. The law went into effect on June 17.
The first round of Caesar designations included Nader Kalai, a Syrian national who has permanent resident status in Canada and is a “regime insider with ties to Assad,” according to Treasury. The government also invoked Executive Order 13582, which authorized many of the early sanctions on the Assad regime in 2011, to designate a range of companies that Kalai controls, including two Lebanon-registered firms, Castle Invest Holding and Telefocus SAL Offshore.
Lebanon has served for decades as a hub for Syrian commerce with foreign partners, including illicit activities for the purpose of skirting U.S. sanctions. In 2018 and 2019, Treasury sanctioned a number of Lebanon-based companies involved primarily in the importation of fuel and other commodities but also in procurement for Syria’s chemical weapons program.
The European Union previously sanctioned Kalai in January 2019 for his role in supporting Assad. Kalai is also awaiting trial in Canada, where he became the first individual charged with violating Ottawa’s sanctions on the Syrian regime.
Kalai is an associate of Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s maternal cousin who served as the regime’s key economic power broker until a recent falling out with Assad. Kalai worked as a top executive at Syriatel, the country’s top mobile service provider, which Makhlouf founded. A closer examination of the Lebanese companies under Kalai’s control offers a window into the breadth of the Syrian regime’s business interests in Lebanon.
Kalai’s wife, Miriam al-Hajj Hussein, is also his business partner and holds leadership positions in blacklisted firms, although she was not personally designated. In addition to being a shareholder, director, and authorized signatory with Castle Invest, Hussein is listed as the director and secretary/treasurer of Telefocus Consultants Inc., the Canadian sister of Telefocus SAL Offshore, which was also designated. Hussein holds Canadian citizenship. She is also a co-founder, along with Kalai and two others, of a Lebanon-based holding company that is the majority owner of a real estate investment company in which Hussein holds key positions, including chairman. Finally, she is a co-founder of a Lebanon-based trading firm.
Firms under Kalai’s control also have ties to Makhlouf and his network. Kalai is the co-founder and majority owner of Beirut-based Siloserv SAL Offshore and is a co-founder of STS SAL Offshore, which some have alleged are front companies for Makhlouf, although there is no publicly available evidence to support this assertion. Nevertheless, many of the names on the Siloserv and STS corporate records also appear on the corporate record of Beirut-based Middle East Law Firm SAL, of which Rami Makhlouf and his brother Ihab (also on Treasury’s blacklist) are co-founders.
In addition, Issam Anbouba, who has been on the EU sanctions list since 2011, is a shareholder in Siloserv. Anbouba is a Makhlouf associate and a co-founder and partner in Cham Holding, which Treasury has identified as a Makhlouf front company. Muhammad Hassan Abbas, Makhlouf’s cousin and associate whom Treasury designated in 2017, is the majority shareholder of STS. Abbas is a co-founder of Barly Offshore SAL, which the Treasury Department designated in 2017 as a “front company used to move Rami Makhluf’s financial earnings out of Syria,” and which shares board members, lawyers, and auditors with STS.
The list of companies in this network is longer. Given the number of Lebanese firms with explicit ties to sanctioned individuals close to Assad, there is a high probability that Treasury will scrutinize these firms’ activity to assess whether they are vulnerable to designation under the Caesar Act. These companies are likely to have used the Lebanese financial system – which is another reason why a full audit of the Lebanese banking sector, not to mention accountability, is necessary.
*Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). and foreign policy.

Out of Respect for the 'Resistance Community'
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/July 13/2020
In his latest speeches, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General reiterated his narrative about his supporters, also known as the “resistance community”. The idea he restated, speaking to the Americans and his other enemies, was the following: nothing will rattle this community or shake its conviction, come what may. The community’s absolute loyalty to Hezbollah will not be undermined by economic or security conditions, others’ perceptions, or anything else. This is not the place to discuss the accuracy of this assessment. With that, I would hope that it is not accurate. This preference does not stem from political opposition to Hezbollah or a desire to see it weakened as its community drifts from it. On the contrary, this preference stems from my respect for this community and my assumption that, like any other vibrant and lively community, it is affected by the state of the world.
We know that polls assessing public opinion are conducted frequently in democratic societies, recording a decline of support for a certain politician or a surge in support for another. These changes come as a result of this or that politician’s policies and their effect on citizens’ lives: on their economy, finances, public health and education, the environment, etc… In this sense: politics cannot exist when there is no change, only a death-like stagnation. However, the claim that Hezbollah’s victories are the reason for its community’s absolute devotion to it and its leader raises two questions.
First, even if we were to concede the point and agree that Hezbollah had indeed been victorious, these victories cannot compare the victory over fascism in the Second World War. This is a matter of fact that, one would assume, Hezbollah itself would not deny.
Reminding reading of the British elections of 1945 has become a cliché of political history, as Winston Churchill, who provided the British with their extraordinary victory in that war, was nevertheless defeated in the following general election. The majority of voters punished his Conservative Party for its economic performance before the war and were skeptical about its ability to carry out post-war reconstruction. Here, the British did not say that the victorious Churchill "had the British raising their head high", a phrase that had been said of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had the Arabs raising their head high after his unambiguous defeat in 1967. Second, the party is almost 40 years old. Throughout these years, several minor and major wars have been fought with the Israelis, and an ongoing war is being waged against the Syrians, thousands have been killed, families have been displaced, homes have been demolished, lands have been burnt, and the "resistance community’s" relationships with other sects has faced many tough tests; most recently, poverty dealing its blow and the national economy collapsing. This process, with its rich and costly experiences, ought, at least in principle, to lead to disputes and schisms, changes of opinion and loyalties stemming from divergent assessments of benefits and drawbacks and opinions over whom to hold responsible. This is natural and healthy. Its absence is not.
There is no doubt that the symbiosis between the community and its party, rather between the community and the party of its sect, is not new to the Lebanese or the people of Arab Levant in general. True, Hezbollah pushed this relationship very far, and supported it with economic, health, and educational services and by raising morale, as summed up by the famous slogan: “You are the most honorable of people.” But it is also true that the traditional sectarian leaders were keen to garner their communities’ support as well, and they used the means provided by the state’s public administration to offer them various services.
Decades before Hezbollah's people cried out "this sacrifice is to the Sayed’s (a religious title of Nassrallah’s) slippers," mothers would be heard saying that the belly brought their son, the "martyr", to life, can deliver other children to die for the family, the sect and the leader. Moreover, this absolute devotion to one’s group, in all likelihood, is reinforced by the tribal approach that characterized the Arab-Israeli conflict: 100 years of conflict without any kind of political solution on the horizon. All of us against all of them. Politics is forbidden…
But, in any case, holding on so tightly to the inherited religious affiliation or bloodline is not worthy of anyone. Even parties that are established based on ideas that one chooses voluntarily are subject to disagreements, cleavages and changes of opinion.
It may take a long time for some of the meanings of the October 17 revolution to manifest, specifically this question: to what extent was the community’s symbiosis with Hezbollah a free choice and to what extent did the symbiosis stem from a fear of the party? But the result, regardless of the reasons for it, is not good news for anyone, let alone a source of pride. Only those who change and respond to challenges and transformations are alive and progressing. What is being said here does not demonstrate a lack of principle. It is a response simultaneously commanded by one’s reason and interest. He who loves and respects the "resistance community" is required to suggest: remove the wool shirt that you have on. Wear a lighter shirt. The weather is changing, change.

Lebanese farmers sow seeds for new cannabis growers’ syndicate
Najia Houswsari/Arab News/July 13/2020
BEIRUT: A group of Lebanese farmers have sown the seeds for the setting up of a growers’ syndicate for the production of cannabis plants.
The move to establish a founding committee of agricultural sector representatives followed a decision by the Lebanese Parliament in April to legalize the use of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes.
In doing so, Lebanon become the first Arab country to pass a law allowing the cultivation of the plant for specific non-recreational uses.
Farmers from the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate in eastern Lebanon announced plans for the formation of the new committee during a press conference held at a tourist complex in the region.
Former president of the Tobacco Growers’ Association in Baalbek-Hermel, Ahmed Zaiter, told Arab News: “Through the founding committee that we intend to form from representatives of families in the region who work in agriculture in general, we wanted to move the law enforcement mechanism in preparation for obtaining licenses to start planting cannabis, knowing that there are those who grow hashish in the region and we do not yet know whether this plant is the same one that was legislated.”
The new Lebanese law will provide for the formation of a government-monitored regulatory body to manage the cultivation, production, and export of cannabis. The cultivation process produces the drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and industrially fibers from the plant can be used for making products such as clothes and cars.
A 2018 study by US consulting firm McKinsey and Co. estimated that Lebanon could generate $1 billion annually from legalizing cannabis cultivation. Zaiter pointed out “the importance of the birth of a syndicate of cannabis growers to organize this cultivation, the need to grant licenses to farmers, start preparing for seed insurance, and receive this plant from the state.” He added that farmers would be demanding that priority was given to the agricultural sector in the Bekaa Valley and the Baalbek-Hermel region and for the syndicate, when established, to join the Union of Agricultural Syndicates in Lebanon.
A body is to be set up to monitor and regulate all activities related to cannabis and its derivatives, including planting, cultivation, harvesting, production, possession, export, storage, marketing, and distribution. Cannabis is known in the northern Bekaa as “green gold” and its cultivation was active during the civil war in the 1970s in remote areas of the region where armed mafias were formed to guard and smuggle it abroad. During the early 1950s, about 300 tons of cannabis was produced every year in border regions between Lebanon and Syria.
Under international pressure, state agencies began the process of destroying cannabis crops in the 1990s.
During the press conference, farmers discussed claims circulated on social media that ministers and MPs had been buying agricultural land in the Baalbek-Hermel region. Zaiter said: “These farmers have expressed their fear that the new owners aim to engage in this agriculture in the future and monopolize its production and sale.” Baalbek official, Haider Shams, told Arab News that land purchases, especially in remote parts of the region, were on the rise. “The price of 1 meter ranges from $5 to $10. Many people are buying in Majdaloun and Taybeh, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the cultivation of cannabis.” Zaiter said: “So far, none of the MPs who legislated the law know what kind of Indian hemp (cannabis) they allowed. “One of the specialists showed us a plant with few green leaves, which is not the one grown by cannabis growers in Lebanon, which means that there are many types of this plant, and if the legalized plant is the one with few leaves, I do not think that anyone will accept its cultivation because it is a losing cultivation.” Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army Command announced on Monday that gunmen had killed one soldier during a dawn attack on an army patrol and military centers in Talia, Pretal, Al-Khader, and Douris. The military has linked the raids to an incident the day before when fugitive Abbas Al-Masri fired shots into the air at an army checkpoint in Douris while trying to drive through. Checkpoint personnel shot and injured Al-Masri and a passenger in his vehicle and both casualties were transferred to a hospital in Baalbek for treatment.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 13-14/2020
Explosion at gas company in northeast Iran
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Monday 13 July 2020
An explosion at a liquified natural gas company in northeast Iran caused extensive damage on Monday, state media reported. A gas condensate storage tank at the Petronaft company in the Kavian Fariman industrial complex caught fire causing the explosion, Javad Jahandoost, the head of the complex’s fire department, said. The explosion caused extensive damage to Petronaft and a neighboring company, the semi-official ILNA news agency said. Kavian Fariman industrial complex is situated some 32 kilometers south of the city of Mashhad, the capital of the north-eastern province of Khorasan Razavi. The incident did not cause any casualties, said Jahandoost, adding that investigations are underway to determine the cause of the incident and the extent of the damages. Iran has been witnessing multiple explosions and fires around military, nuclear, and industrial facilities since late June. On Sunday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported a fire at a petrochemical facility in southwest Iran due to a hot oil leak. Also on Sunday, an electrical substation caught fire in the Iranian capital Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran could use road-mobile missiles to target Saudi Arabia amid escalation: Report
Yaghoub Fazeli/Al Arabiya English/Tuesday 14 July 2020
While considered non-negotiable and a “red line” by Tehran, Iran’s ballistic missile program is viewed as a source of destabilization and a threat to its neighbors in the region, especially Saudi Arabia. Iran’s most recent use of ballistic missiles goes back to January, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against military bases in Iraq hosting US military and coalition personnel in response to the US drone strike that killed IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani earlier the same month. Iran, which has a long history of arming and funding its network of proxies in the Middle East to further its influence in the region, has also supplied the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi militia in Yemen with ballistic missiles and rockets.A UN report released in late June endorsed long-standing claims that weapons “of Iranian origin” were used in several attacks against Saudi Arabia last year and have been exported to the Houthi militia in Yemen. The report provides evidence for US officials in their case to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran and further calls into question Tehran’s public commitments to dialogue and the nuclear deal.
The US has been pushing to extend the arms embargo on Iran before it expires on October 18.
Iran’s ballistic missiles
Iran possesses the largest ballistic and cruise missile force in the Middle East, capable of hitting targets as far as 2,500 kilometers from its borders, according to a report published by the Centre of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in August 2019. Iran’s ballistic missiles, which have been aided by China, Russia, and North Korea, pose a serious threat to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, the CSIS report said. Iran possesses liquid-fuelled propellant missiles, such as the Shahab missiles, which are based on former Soviet Scud technology, according to the report. The Shahab missiles, with ranges of 300 to 2,000 kilometers, are the core of Iran’s missile program, according to the report. The Shahab missiles have variants such as the Qiam-1, Ghadr-1, and Emad missiles, which feature “improved navigation and guidance components, lethality, and range,” the report said. Iran has also produced homegrown solid-propellant missiles, namely the Fateh series, which is based on Chinese technology and can hit targets from 200 to 2,000 kilometers away. Iran also possesses land-attack cruise missiles such as the Soumar and the Meshkat, with a range of approximately 2,500 km, according to the report.
Threats to Saudi Arabia; directly and through proxies
Iran possesses various missiles capable of hitting important sites in Saudi Arabia. Missiles such as the Fateh-110 with a range of 300 kilometers, Zolfaghar with 700 kilometers, and Emad with 2,500 kilometers, are all capable of reaching critical infrastructure in the Kingdom, the CSIS report said. Saudi sites such as the port of Ras Tamura, Ras al-Khair power and desalination plant, and the Abqaiq processing and stabilization plant exist within range of these Iranian missiles, according to the report. Targets further from Iran’s borders, such as the refinery at Yanbu, located along the Red Sea, are also within range of Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles, the report added. Missiles and drone aircraft are seen on display at an exhibition at an unidentified location in Yemen in this undated handout photo released by the Houthi Media Office on September 17, 2019. (Houthi Media Office/Handout via Reuters)
Missiles and drone aircraft are seen on display at an exhibition at an unidentified location in Yemen in this undated handout photo released by the Houthi Media Office on September 17, 2019. (Houthi Media Office/Handout via Reuters)
Since 2015, Iran has provided the Houthi militia with increasingly advanced ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, according to CSIS. The CSIS said it identified over 250 missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other attacks against critical infrastructure and other targets in Saudi Arabia between 2016 and 2019 by the Iran-backed Houthis.
“These numbers are likely low because there may be other attacks that are unreported in the press,” the report said. “Among the attacks we were able to confirm, the attacks have included, direct fire, explosives (including from unmanned aerial vehicles), guided missiles, and indirect fire (including mortars, rockets, ballistic missiles, and unidentified projectiles),” added the report. Iran has also provided the Houthis with weapons or technology for anti-tank guided missiles, sea mines, aerial drones, ballistic missiles like the Borkan-2H, and unmanned explosive boats, according to the report. The Houthis have targeted Saudi Arabia using these systems on several occasions. The Houthis have also used Borkan-2H mobile, short-range ballistic missiles to attack the capital Riyadh and other parts of Saudi Arabia. Iran has also helped another one of its proxy groups – the Lebanese Hezbollah – improve its missile and other capabilities, according to CSIS. While Hezbollah’s primary focus may be Israel, the group's missile arsenal could be utilized to attack Saudi Arabia, the report said. Thanks to Iran, Hezbollah has amassed a range of weapons and systems, such as the Fateh-110/M-600 short-range ballistic missile, Shahab-1, and Shahab-2 short-range ballistic missiles, Karrar unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and Katyusha rocket launchers, the report said. Hezbollah has also provided training and other assistance to the Houthis, including their missile and drone programs, according to the report.

Ankara Sets Libya Ceasefire Preconditions
Ankara - Saeed Abdulrazek/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
Turkey said it will back any attack carried out by the militias of Libya's Government of National Accord on the city of Sirte and Jufra airbase after the Libyan National Army failed to control the capital Tripoli. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu revealed to Britain’s The Financial Times that the GNA is ready to resume its offensive on the LNA of Khalifa Haftar if he doesn’t withdraw his forces from Sirte and Jufra.
Russia had proposed a ceasefire with different timelines but the GNA insisted on LNA’s withdrawal from Sirte and Jufra first, he said. He stressed that Haftar’s forces should accept the preconditions to reach a permanent ceasefire.
On July 3, warplanes struck the Watiya airbase that had been recaptured by the GNA with help from Turkey. Those standing behind the operation will pay the price, Cavusoglu warned in his remarks to The Financial Times.
Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar was in Tripoli for meetings with the GNA when the attack took place. Also Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated that his country thwarted Haftar’s plans to occupy Tripoli.
He told a Turkish magazine that the GNA was able to push back the LNA in a short period of time.

Hamas’ Qassam Launches Probe after a Field Commander Flees to Israel
Ramallah – Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement in Gaza, has launched a wide internal investigation after one of its officials was found to be working for and after another recently fled to Israel. Palestinian sources close to Hamas told Asharq Al-Awsat that the official in charge of the air defense system in Jabalia had fled to Israel in June. This raised the alarm within the Qassam, which launched a probe over what prompted his escape. The investigations led to a separate case and arrest of the Qassam official responsible for the of communications networks for the Gaza City neighborhood of Shajaiya who turned out to be working for Israel since 2009. This is not the first time that Israel successfully infiltrates Palestinian factions, but it has been doing so for decades. The Israeli Security Agency (Shabak) is actively involved in recruiting Palestinians. Israeli media detailed the latest infiltration of the Qassam, saying a “major military commander” has been collaborating with Israel and fled Gaza with trove of information. It also reported on Hamas’ arrest of another major military commander on suspicion of his collaboration with Israel. It identified him as Mahmoud, saying he was responsible for the communications networks in the Shajaiya neighborhood. It added that he had also trained Hamas members on spying and on information gathering. The breaches prompted Hamas to take a series of measures, including summoning members for questioning and changing communications networks and telephone numbers of several senior figures. Israeli media said the developments led Hamas into a “state of hysteria”. Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat the Qassam had widened its probe, but was still making light of the developments, saying it was taking strict security measures. They said that the Brigades always keeps in mind that Israel constantly tries to breach it and so, every official within its ranks is privy to limited information and plans are constantly being changed. The breach did not reach dangerous levels, top officials or sensitive secret information, they said. The investigations are ongoing and the situation is under control.

Iraq Security Committee Wants PM to Have Clear Position on Foreign Forces
Baghdad/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
Iraq’s security and defense parliamentary committee will be discussing the presence of foreign forces in the country with Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, before his upcoming meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington. MP Badr al-Ziyadi said the committee intends to hold a meeting with Kadhimi within the next two days. He explained that the Prime Minister plans to discuss with US officials the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. Ziyadi, who is a member of the committee, pointed out that the parliament’s demand for the pullout of foreign forces from the country is binding and not subject to discussion or procrastination. He added that the committee will hold any party trying to violate that decision accountable. The Fatah bloc led by Hadi al-Amiri began pressuring the Iraqi government to file a lawsuit against the US over the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, earlier this year. In a related development, unidentified gunmen attacked a convoy of trucks carrying US logistical equipment on Diwaniyah southern highway. A security source said the gunmen were in two cars and forced three trucks to stop on the highway, asking the drivers to leave their vehicles before setting them on fire. The source added that the trucks were carrying equipment for the US army and the international coalition forces, noting that the gunmen escaped before the security forces arrived at the scene to question the drivers.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi forces launched phase four of the “Iraqi Heroes” operation against terrorist organizations in Diyala governorate on the border with Iran, along with the government’s operation to control border crossings with Iran, under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister.
The Tribal Mobilization Forces also started pursuing ISIS terrorists in the western Anbar province, and the Media cell announced that the operation aims to comb several areas in the desert and prevent terrorists from infiltrating the cities. In Nineveh, the Interior Ministry’s intelligence unit arrested an ISIS commander wanted in line with the provisions of Article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law. The ministry issued a statement explaining that the detainee held an administrative post in ISIS and admitted during investigations that he is a member of the terrorist organization.

GERD Talks Await Last-Minute Agreement
Cairo - Mohammed Abdo Hassanein/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 13 July, 2020
Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan have not yet reached an agreement on the technical and legal issues of rules for filling and operating Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) even though the deadline granted by the African Union (AU) to the three countries is nearing. Tripartite negotiations continued for the 10th day in the presence of the Ministers of Water Resources of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, under the auspices of the AU. Egypt previously rejected an Ethiopian proposal to postpone contentious issues until signing the agreement, where they would be referred to a technical committee. In return, Cairo presented alternatives hoping to reach a breakthrough in any of the outstanding legal or technical issues.Despite its late interference in the nearly 10-year issue, the AU held a virtual summit last June with the participation of Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Sudanese leaders, as well as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the  current president of the Union. The talks led to the formation of a committee to resolve legal and technical issues and reach an agreement within two weeks. The technical and legal talks are scheduled to be concluded on Monday, with each country submitting its final report on the results of the negotiations to South Africa. Cairo says the dispute with Addis Ababa is not only related to the issue of Egypt's water share, but also to other matters that include the safety of the dam and its damages. Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced that Cairo offered alternatives during the technical committee meeting, which witnessed talks between each country with the observers and experts. The observers made some inquiries that were addressed and explained by the technical and legal committees. The spokesman for Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Mohammed al-Sibai, announced that Ethiopia said it would study the Egyptian proposals and respond to them during the final GERD meeting. Sibai added that, in accordance with the 2015 agreement, Ethiopia has no right to start filling the Dam which can’t be done unless all three countries agree. The negotiations are taking place in the presence of observers from the United States, the European Union, South Africa, and legal experts from the African Union Office and the African Union Commission. Cairo fears the potential negative impact of GERD on the flow of its annual share of the Nile's 55.5 billion cubic meters of water, while Addis Ababa says the dam is not aimed at harming Egypt or Sudan’s interests, stressing that the main objective is to generate electricity to support the development process.

Four Dead as Fighting Resumes on Azerbaijan-Armenia Border
Agence France PresseNaharnet/July 13/2020
Four soldiers were killed as troops from Azerbaijan and Armenia clashed on their border for a second day Monday in a new escalation of their decades-long territorial dispute. Four Azerbaijani soldiers have been killed in the artillery fire that erupted on Sunday near Tavush region, Azerbaijan's defense ministry said, with three deaths on Sunday and one on Monday. Armenia's defense ministry said Azerbaijan resumed shelling its positions on Monday morning after a night of clashes. The countries have traded accusations over which side started the fighting.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a cabinet meeting that Azerbaijani "provocations will not be unanswered." His defense minister David Tonoyan warned that Yerevan "will be reacting to Azerbaijani actions, including by taking advantageous positions" in their territory. He said Armenian forces "do not shell civilian targets in Azerbaijan and only target the engineering infrastructure and technical facilities of the Azerbaijani armed forces." Armenia's foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan discussed the crisis over the phone with the head of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Moscow-led military bloc. Referring to the military alliance, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's office said on Sunday that Armenia's "military adventure" was aimed at drawing CSTO into the fighting. Turkey's foreign ministry issued a statement, backing its Turkic-speaking ally Baku. "Turkey will continue, with all its capacity, to stand by Azerbaijan in its struggle to protect its territorial integrity," the ministry said. All-out war between the two countries could drag in regional powers including Armenia's military ally Russia and Azerbaijan's patron Turkey, which compete for geopolitical influence in the strategic region. Former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan have for decades been locked in a simmering conflict over Nagorny Karabakh, a breakaway territory which was at the center of a bloody war in the 1990s.The ongoing clashes are far from Karabakh and are directly between the two Caucasus states, which happens rarely.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 13-14/2020
Why reassessing Israel’s risky relationship with China matters
Mark Dubowitz, Richard Goldberg/ynetnews/July 13/2020
Analysis: Beijing's full-throated defense of the Islamic Republic should set off alarm bells for any Israeli who fears a nuclear-armed Iran with advanced ballistic and cruise missiles capable of bringing a second Holocaust
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently called on the United Nations Security Council to reimpose, or “snapback,” international sanctions and restrictions on the Islamic Republic of Iran – a terror-sponsoring regime that seeks to wipe Israel off the map.
Just as the prime minister was speaking, another country was addressing the Security Council in defense of Iran: the People’s Republic of China.
Most Israelis would be shocked to learn this. According to a December 2019 Pew research poll, 66 percent of Israelis hold a favorable opinion of China against 25 percent who hold an unfavorable view.
As support for the Chinese Communist Party plummets worldwide, Israel is one of only nine countries where positive views of Beijing recently increased.
Sino-Israeli comity is particularly evident in the economic sphere: China accounts for roughly 10 to 15 percent of the Israeli economy. Sino-Israeli trade stood at $15.3 billion in 2018, an almost 4,400 percent increase in real dollar terms since 1995.
Admittedly, other American allies have strong ties to China. Chinese trade with Germany, for example, stood at $231 billion in 2018, an almost 2,000 percent increase in real dollar terms since 1992. But trade hasn’t made Beijing popular in Deutschland. Only 34 percent of Germans, according to the same Pew poll, hold a favorable view of China compared to 56 percent that do not. This is one of the lowest favorability ratings for China in Europe.
Something apart from commerce might be at play. Israelis love Asian culture. After their mandatory military service, many young Israelis backpack through Asia, including in China.
They bring back stories of the Middle Kingdom and how much Israelis and Jews are admired there. That stands in stark contrast to Europe where anti-Semitic attacks have soared and Israelis are often treated with hostility.
Less romantic Israelis, attuned to the vagaries of power politics, worry about America’s desire to leave the Middle East. They believe that Western Europe has already turned against Israel.
They have thus adopted a hedging strategy that includes ties with Beijing and Moscow, hoping this can translate into greater influence in a multipolar world. This would be particularly important in countering Iran.
But for any Israeli who fears a nuclear-armed Iran with advanced ballistic and cruise missiles capable of bringing a second Holocaust, China’s full-throated defense of the Islamic Republic should set off alarm bells.
Speaking at the virtual UN Security Council meeting, China’s ambassador Zhang Jun emphasized that the fatally-flawed Iran nuclear deal “is legally-binding and should be effectively implemented.”
He opposed any attempt to extend the arms embargo on Iran that is scheduled to expire this October. He vowed that China would not recognize attempts by the United States to “snapback” UN sanctions.
Even more shocking: Zhang defended recent Iranian space launches, which the United States, Europe and Israel all know are part of Iran’s development of long-range ballistic missiles. China endorsed the launches as purely commercial and scientific in nature.
China’s continued illicit barter transactions with Iran, including the import of Iranian oil in violation of U.S. sanctions, explains much of this. But, despite offers from Saudi Arabia to replace every barrel of Iranian crude, China has opted to keep the Islamic Republic and the Iran nuclear deal afloat. The question for every Israeli should be, “why?”
The answer: China stands to benefit from the expiration of sanctions on Iran. A Pentagon report warns that China (and Russia) are set to sell Iran fighter jets, battle tanks, attack helicopters, and modern naval capabilities once the UN arms embargo expires.
When missile restrictions expire in 2023, China’s long-time illicit transfers of missile-related parts will become robust and overt commercial trade. If past is prologue, Tehran will share these capabilities with its terrorist proxies like the Lebanese Hezbollah, Shiite militias in Iraq, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen.
China has already incorporated Iran into its global Belt and Road Initiative to build a transportation, energy, and communications network running from China through Central Asia and the Middle East into Europe. In fact, some reports traced Iran’s coronavirus outbreak to a Chinese infrastructure project in Qom.
Even amidst a widening pandemic, direct flights flew daily between Iran and several cities throughout China, due to pressure from Beijing. China now sees the legalized arms trade as the logical next step in its expanding this relationship.
If China embraces and protects the world’s most anti-Semitic regime – even arming it with weapons to attack the world’s only Jewish State – perhaps it’s time for Israelis to reexamine ties with Beijing. Does the People’s Republic have Israel’s best interests at heart, or is Israel a pawn on the chess board to achieve Beijing’s global ambitions?
The United States has finally grasped the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Flooding them with cash and integrating them into the global economy made China’s leaders rich, but not moderate.
Israel may have had good intentions in strengthening financial and other ties. But now, Israelis need to abandon their delusions: China is supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran, a revolutionary regime that denies the Holocaust and is building the weapons to bring about another one. This is Israel’s wakeup call.
*Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan think tank focused on national security issues; Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official, is a senior advisor at the FDD

Get Ready for a New Type of Israeli War
Jacob Nagel and Jonathan Schanzer/The National Interest/July 13/2020
The focus until now has been on when and where Israel strikes, and not what is being destroyed. But that is now changing.
string of credible reports suggest that Israel recently targeted Iranian forces and infrastructure in Syria. Reporters broadly describe these strikes as a continuation of the “War Between Wars,” a campaign whereby Israel erodes the capabilities of its enemies to forestall the next major conflict.
In a December interview shortly before he retired, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot revealed that Israel had destroyed thousands of military targets in Syria, taking credit for very few. Open-source reports suggest that Israeli strikes have continued apace since then. One high-ranking Israeli official, when asked for the exact number, responded: Who’s counting?
The focus until now has been on when and where Israel strikes, and not what is being destroyed. But that is now changing.
The strike locations are not hard to determine. The majority are in Syria, which is in a state of chaos after years of civil war and now the coronavirus crisis. Iran continues to exploit this chaos by deploying personnel and weapons to the country, in an attempt to prepare for a conflict with Israel. This includes Iranian military brass and Shi’ite militias, but also advanced, lethal weapons. According to current Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, the top concern (second only to Iran’s nuclear threat, which appears to have been targeted in recent days) is Iran’s provision of Precision Guided Missiles (PGMs).
Entire rockets, but sometimes just the components and technology to manufacture or convert “dumb rockets” into “smart missiles,” are transiting by way of a “land bridge” from Syria to Lebanon, where Hezbollah seeks to build a formidable PGM arsenal. The terrorist group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is candid about this. Israel’s military strikes are an effort to prevent this arsenal from growing. Both Hezbollah and Israel have been careful to not spark another conflict, wary of an escalation that could have devastating effects. But as Israel has warned, if Hezbollah acquires enough PGMs to pose a strategic threat from Lebanese soil, or acquires the capabilities to produce them, there will be a devastating conflict.
The Iranian missile program started during the Iraq-Iran war (1980–1988), as Iranian forces and civilians came under fire from Iraqi missile salvos. Seeking similar capabilities, then-speaker of the Iranian Majlis Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani led efforts to obtain missiles from Libya, Syria, and North Korea.
In 1985, Iran procured its first Scud-Bs from Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi Muammar. Iran has developed additional capabilities with help from rogue states like China, Russia, North Korea, and Pakistan. China and Russia played an outsized role in helping Iran obtain missile engines, while North Korea provided Iran with whole ballistic missile systems.
As Iran gained a handle on technology and production, it began to export the know-how, parts, and sometimes the missiles themselves to allies across the Middle East. Notably, it armed proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah with a range of projectiles with varying capabilities, but not yet with PGMs. The goal was to threaten Israel with overwhelming and potentially crippling waves of missile attacks. Israel, however, developed remarkable missile-defense systems to neutralize that threat.
Frustrated by Israel’s technology, Iran began to export precision-guided munitions to its proxies around 2013. Some may have evasive capabilities, to outmaneuver Israel’s existing missile defense systems. All have the capability to strike within ten yards of their intended target. This is lethal accuracy, representing what Israeli officials call a “game-changer” they vow to prevent.
Iran’s leaders understood that PGMs could be a “game-changer” because they offer terrorists non-state actors, like Hezbollah, the means to achieve air superiority without airbases or combat aircraft. Conveying this technology to proxies, however, is a significant violation of existing norms. No non-state actor had adopted the doctrine, policies, and technology of PGMs, including the accompanying intelligence and navigation capabilities. Israeli officials also worry that the introduction of a PGM strategy in the region could bring about a dangerous new era of conflict.
The PGM program is a high priority for Iran. In a 2018 interview in Tasnim News, Iran’s IRGC Aerospace Force commander, Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, recounted how in 2009 he presented the Iranian leadership with a plan to modernize the country’s missile program. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei overruled his entire plan and ordered him to focus on the development of precision-guided missiles.
Grasping the dangers, Israel is interdicting and destroying PGM materials wherever and whenever possible. This explains Iran’s decision in 2016 to change its modus operandi. It mostly halted the transfer of full missiles, electing instead to convert existing unguided missiles into accurate ones. The regime is now transferring the smaller parts (navigation, wings, command and control, and more) via Syria to Hezbollah. The terror group is exploiting a wide array of smuggling routes from Syria to Lebanon (air, ground, and sea) to evade Israeli interdiction.
Early on, the Israelis were deliberately vague about what they were targeting. But Israel has recently adopted a new strategy, exposing Hezbollah’s PGM program and explicitly calling out Iran for proliferating PGMs in the Levant. Last year, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exposed a Hezbollah PGM facility in Lebanon. That one was shuttered. However, Israeli intelligence officials assume that Iran has successfully established new facilities.
Until January, the effort was led by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in January. But the PGM smuggling operations continue without him, and therefore so do the Israeli strikes. With every strike, the potential for a broader conflagration grows.
Israel currently lacks credible partners to negotiate the removal of Iran forces and PGMs from Syria and Lebanon. Israel mounted an effort to convince the Russians to usher the Iranians out of Syria, explaining to them how that would be in Moscow’s interests. Indeed, Israel has made it clear to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and his inner circle that so long as the PGM threat continues, and so long as Iran violates Israel’s “red lines” in Syria and Lebanon, strikes will continue. There will be no stability in Syria, and the Russian investment there is at risk. This is a continued source of tension between Tehran and Moscow.
In Lebanon, tensions are also rising. The country is on the verge of a financial collapse after the country defaulted on more than $4 billion in Eurobonds, and hyperinflation threatens. The country could plunge into chaos. The country’s leadership, corrupt as it may be, understand that the last thing Lebanon needs is another war.
With Israeli warnings growing louder, the PGM threat is likely to play a major role in the coming debate at the United Nations on lifting the Iranian arms embargo. It may also play a role in the debate about a financial bail-out for Lebanon. But it is not inconceivable that Israel would decide to neutralize this big problem before either is negotiated. The PGM crisis is nearing a decision point.
*Brig. Gen. (Res.) Professor Jacob Nagel is a senior visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a Visiting Professor at the Aerospace faculty, Technion Haifa. He is the former Israeli acting national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel’s national security council.
*Jonathan Schanzer is a senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former terrorism finance analyst at the United States Department of the Treasury.

COVID-19 and Erdogan’s Power Consolidation
Aykan Erdemir/FDD/July 13/2020
Since the rise to power of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002, its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used successive crises as pretexts to consolidate power that has facilitated his increasingly autocratic rule. From Turkish history’s biggest corruption scandal in December 2013 to a failed coup attempt in July 2016, Erdogan—first as prime minister and then as president—has succeeded in turning existential threats to his rule into an opportunity to eliminate political opponents, undermine checks and balances, and amass greater personal power. It is, therefore, no surprise that the Turkish president exploited the COVID-19 pandemic as yet another pretext for strengthening hyper-centralist rule—a development likely to exacerbate rampant authoritarianism at home and belligerence abroad.
POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION
Turkey reported over 174,000 cases of COVID-19 as of June 12 and is the second worst-hit country in the Middle East behind Iran, and the 12th-worst worldwide. Following the onset of the novel coronavirus, the Turkish government’s first impulse, like that of Iran, was to delay announcing the first official case and underreport infection and fatality figures.
Following suit with other authoritarian regimes, the Erdogan government employed tactics of scapegoating and repression to silence critics and deflect responsibility for the COVID-19-induced public health and economic crises. Turkey’s religious minorities and LGBT+ individuals received blame for the pandemic, leading to a spike in hate crimes.
Turkish authorities have arrested over 400 individuals for allegedly inflammatory social media posts about the coronavirus outbreak. They have also detained and interrogated journalists for reporting on COVID-19. Erdogan even filed a criminal complaint against the anchor of Fox TV’s Turkish subsidiary for “spreading lies and manipulating the public on social media,” after the anchor suggested in a tweet that the government might require all bank account holders to provide contributions to the campaign against the coronavirus.
The Turkish president also targeted elected officials, removing eight opposition mayors from office on March 24 and stripping three opposition lawmakers of their parliamentary status before arresting them on June 4. Despite passing a bill on April 14 to release some 90,000 inmates, including mob bosses, racketeers, and looters, to reduce the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak in crowded prisons, the Turkish government has kept political prisoners behind bars, including former presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and scores of other HDP lawmakers, mayors, and party officials.
Erdogan and his ultranationalist allies in the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) also saw the crisis as an opportunity to change Turkey’s election laws and further tilt the uneven electoral playing field to their advantage. In May, the MHP suggested amendments to make it more difficult for newly established parties to run in elections, a move that aims to prevent two splinter parties established by Erdogan’s former colleagues—former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s Future Party (GP) and former Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan’s Remedy Party (DEVA)—from diverting votes from Erdogan’s AKP–MHP alliance in the event of a snap election. In June, the government took a further step to start drafting a bill which aims to introduce three separate electoral thresholds at the local, national, and electoral alliance levels to further restrict opposition parties’ and electoral alliances’ ability to win seats in parliamentary elections.
Turkey’s parliamentary-cum-presidential elections are not due until June 2023 and Erdogan is known to dislike calling early elections, which he sees as a sign of weakness. Nevertheless, he has given in to such pressure before. In June 2018, Erdogan’s ultranationalist partners, fearing the potential consequences of Turkey’s imminent economic downturn, convinced him to hold early elections, although they were not due until November 2019. The ruling Islamist-ultranationalist alliance managed to secure a new mandate six weeks before the country’s currency meltdown on Aug. 10, 2018, known as Black Friday, which resulted in the Turkish lira losing 44 percent of its value from the beginning of the year.
Erdogan’s steps to consolidate political power go beyond moves to manipulate election calendars and laws, disenfranchise the opposition, and extend into repressive measures. On June 11, the Turkish government pushed a bill through parliament that granted greater powers to over 20,000 “neighborhood watchmen,” a loyalist force outside regular military and police units, which analysts compare to Iran’s Basij and Venezuela’s Colectivo.
Given Erdogan’s move to annul Istanbul’s mayoral election, which his candidate lost in March 2019, and hold a rerun, which the AKP again lost two months later, there are growing concerns that the Turkish president is preparing not to concede defeat even if he loses the next parliamentary-cum-presidential elections. The Turkish president’s systematic campaign through media and courts to criminalize the entire opposition is a worrying sign about the dark turn Erdogan’s ongoing consolidation of power can take in the near future.
ECONOMIC RUIN
Turkey’s economy was in dire straits long before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as mismanagement by Erdogan and his unqualified son-in-law, Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak, resulted in a currency meltdown in 2018 and a recession in 2019. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s tapering of quantitative easing in 2018 led to a dollar liquidity squeeze, ending the global liquidity glut, which until then allowed Turkey to access cheap capital made available in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.
As a result, Ankara—just like its emerging market peers—has found international capital markets less willing to fund its chronic current account deficit. Ankara’s economic woes prevented Erdogan from offering substantial assistance to Turkish citizens, prompting him to declare, “Turkey is a country that needs to continue production and keep the wheels turning under all conditions and circumstances,” a move that exacerbated the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Turkish president’s near-total control over the central bank means his unorthodox economic views end up dictating Turkey’s monetary policy. Erdogan, who denounced interest as “the mother and father of all evil” in 2018, not only sees interest rates as a “tool of exploitation” and compares them to “heroin trade,” but also insists that high interest rates lead to higher inflation. In keeping with his anti-Semitic and conspiratorial worldview, the Turkish president even believes an “interest-rate lobby” led by Jews is aiming to tank Turkey’s economy.
Add to this his son-in-law’s fixation with defending the Turkish currency’s exchange rate, first at 6 and then at 7 liras to the dollar, by forcing Turkey’s state banks to sell about $44 billion of hard currency in the first four months of 2020 and some $77 billion since the beginning of 2019. Albayrak’s ineffective defense of the currency has proved catastrophic as Turkey’s central bank depleted its net international reserves (excluding swap lines) in April. Ankara’s $15 billion lira-riyal swap deal in late May with Qatar, one of its last remaining allies, and the central bank’s borrowing of $17 billion from local lenders through its swap facility year-to-date were futile attempts to mask the significant decline in the country’s foreign reserves.
A week after Ankara reported its first COVID-19 case, economy czar Albayrak—who shares Erdogan’s unorthodox economic approach—appeared irrationally exuberant in stating that he had no concerns about meeting the government’s growth, budget, and inflation targets for 2020, predicting 5 percent growth for the year. Turkey’s central bank, similarly downplayed the pandemic’s threat, declaring, “With its dynamic structure, the Turkish economy will be among those that will get over this process with minimum damage and in a short time.”
International observers could not have disagreed more. On April 30, the German daily Die Welt warned about the possibility of a Turkish sovereign default. As of May 10, the price of Turkey’s 5-year credit default swaps (CDS), which insure against a default on Turkish sovereign debt, rose to 643, its all-time high, implying over 10 percent probability of default. Turkey’s debt ranked as the world’s third riskiest at the time after Venezuela and Argentina. The Wall Street Journal cautioned on May 12 that the pandemic threatened to push Turkey into a full-blown balance-of-payments crisis.
The Erdogan-Albayrak team’s dismal economic policies have eroded investor confidence, triggered capital flight, and scared away potential capital inflows. Over the past 12 months, foreign investors have withdrawn more than $10 billion from Turkey’s local-currency bond and equity markets, the biggest outflow since January 2016. This year alone, international investors have sold $7.9 billion worth of Turkish government bonds, more than halving their holdings. Although this trend spells disaster for Turkey, an economy increasingly disconnected from the global markets provides Erdogan an opportunity to bring the commerce further under his command and continue its transformation into state-cum-crony capitalism.
WITHDRAWING FROM THE WEST
For decades, analysts have argued that Turkey’s great fortune was not to be afflicted by the resource curse of its neighbors in the Middle East, whose rentier economies, dependent on hydrocarbon revenues, precluded institutionalization of democratic governance and competitive free market economies. Turkey’s need to finance its chronic current account deficit through an export-oriented economy and tourism, many believed, would provide an antidote to the authoritarian ambitions of the likes of Erdogan.
Furthermore, many hoped, steady Western investment in the Turkish economy would not only keep Western finance and business professionals vested in the country’s financial governance and prospects, but also keep Western officials vested in the country’s democracy and rule of law. This no longer seems to be the case as Erdogan’s erratic policies have already pushed a significant number of foreign investors out, and as a Reuters report argued in May, Turkey’s “diminished importance for investors in developing economies … has greatly reduced the risk of contagion across emerging markets.”
Turkey’s ongoing drift from the Western politico-economic sphere and free market principles has limited Erdogan’s ability to exploit the threat of economic contagion and play the “too big to fail” card in relations with the country’s treaty allies in the transatlantic world. But it has offered the Turkish president greater ability to consolidate economic alongside political power. Erdogan appears open to the idea of being in charge of a poorer country, as long as it is more strictly under his Islamist tutelage. Turkey’s GDP per capita in current U.S. dollars has been declining consistently from its all-time high of $12,519 in 2013 to $8,958 as of 2019, 75th in the world. During the same time, the world’s GDP per capita rose from $10,771 to over $11,300.
As part of his push for greater control of the economy, the Turkish president has already taken steps to introduce protectionist measures, pick business winners from among his loyalists, and reshuffle wealth in the country from Turkey’s pro-Western business elite to his cronies. On May 20, Ankara imposed an additional tariff of up to 30 percent on imports of more than 800 items, including steel and iron products, spare parts, and work and agriculture machinery, in a move analysts interpreted as Turkey’s return to its policy of import substitution, characteristic of its Cold War economy until early the 1980s.
Erdogan also started probing the idea—for the fourth time within the past two years—of taking over Turkey’s largest private bank, which has so far protected its reputation for good governance and a pro-secular ethos. There are also reports that Erdogan might nationalize a number of his vanity projects, in which the Turkish government’s leasing, purchasing, and turnover guarantees to public-private partnership companies amounting to $142 billion were beginning to develop into a financial quagmire.
Meanwhile, the Turkish president continues to use Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund as a parallel budget not subject to audit by parliament or the Court of Final Accounts. Overall, these steps and others have the potential of providing Erdogan with greater control over the workings of the Turkish economy, offering him greater opportunity to bolster his patronage networks and hyper-centralized rule, and paving the way for greater consolidation of political power.
GRIM OUTLOOK
Together with his ultranationalist allies, Erdogan’s ongoing monopolization of political and economic power have further undermined Turkey’s already weak checks and balances, eroding what little is left of his government’s accountability. The resulting impunity on the home front has also led to a more belligerent and irredentist position in foreign and security policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Ankara’s assertive stance in the Eastern Mediterranean even prompted the Turkish Foreign Ministry on May 12 to identify France, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates as an “alliance of evil.” The Erdogan government today appears more emboldened to use gunboat diplomacy, military deployments, and proxy forces to push its Islamist-cum-ultranationalist agenda to the detriment of its neighbors and treaty allies in NATO.
Erdogan’s consolidation of a hyper-centralist regime that gives him sweeping power over domestic politics, economics, and foreign and security affairs will inevitably prove disastrous for Turkey. The current trend is likely to exacerbate capital flight and brain drain, and pivot Turkey further away from NATO allies and transatlantic values. It is possible that Erdogan can entrench himself and his circle of cronies despite his weakening electoral support, but the Turkey he would end up dominating would inevitably be poorer, highly volatile, and more isolated, following a well-established pattern with other Islamist and authoritarian regimes.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and the senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Aykan on Twitter @aykan_erdemir.

Sabotage in Iran Is Preferable to a Deal With Iran
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/July 13/2020
Whoever wins the U.S. presidency in November, there is a good chance he will try to negotiate a stronger nuclear deal with Iran in 2021. But events of the last few weeks show that there are better ways to frustrate the regime’s nuclear ambitions.
Both President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, favor talking with Iran. “I would rejoin the agreement and use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it,” Biden told the New York Times last winter. Trump, meanwhile, was on Twitter last month urging Iran to “make the Big deal.”
The logic of a deal goes like this: Except for war, the only sustainable way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons is to reach an agreement with its leaders. That has been the basic assumption underlying U.S. nuclear policy on Iran for the last 20 years. With the right mix of carrots and sticks, the thinking goes, Iran will negotiate away a potential nuclear weapon.
But a nuclear deal with Iran would have to rely on a partnership with a regime that oppresses its citizens, preys on its neighbors, supports terrorism on three continents and has shown contempt for international law. And the alternative to a deal is not necessarily a costly and dangerous war. The West can delay and foil Iran’s nuclear ambitions by other means.
Since late June, explosions have rocked at least three Iranian military facilities. The latest appears to have targeted an underground research facility for chemical weapons. Earlier this month, a building at Iran’s Natanz centrifuge site burst into flames.
Much remains unknown about this latest spate of explosions. A relatively new group calling itself “Homeland Panthers” has claimed credit for the attack on Natanz. Iranian officials have blamed it on Israel. David Albright, the former nuclear inspector and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, told me his organization — which has studied satellite imagery of the facility before and after the explosion — cannot rule out that it was an accident. But “it looks more like a deliberate act,” he said.
There are several good reasons to think all of this was an act of Israeli sabotage. To start, the Israelis have done this kind of thing before. In the early 2010s, Israel’s Mossad conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Before that, Israel and the U.S. cooperated on a cyberattack on Natanz that sped up its centrifuges, causing them to break down.
More recently, Israeli spies broke into a Tehran warehouse and stole a technical archive of Iran’s nuclear program, demonstrating that they have “human networks that have penetrated Iran’s security structure,” said David Wurmser, a national security expert who most recently worked as an adviser to the National Security Council.
Whoever is responsible for the attack — and to be clear, the Iranians say they are prepared to retaliate against Israel, though they have yet to do so — the damage at Natanz alone has significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program. The facility there was an assembly center for more advanced and efficient centrifuges, which Iran was allowed to produce under the flawed 2015 deal. “This was a crown jewel of their program,” Albright said.
And the damage may be to more than just the centrifuges — it could also destabilize the Iranian regime itself. “The more Iran’s government looks impotent, and the impression is left the Israelis are everywhere, the more high-level Iranian officials will calibrate their survival by cooperating with Americans or Israelis, which itself creates an intelligence bonanza,” Wurmser said.
The attacks could also undermine the regime’s legitimacy among the Iranian public more generally. Sabotage of this sort shows that Iran’s leaders are not nearly as powerful and all-knowing as they say.
At the very least, the fact that someone was able to explode a “crown jewel” of Iran’s nuclear program should make clear that the civilized world can delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions without conferring legitimacy to the regime.

Good Riddance to the World Health Organization
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/July 13, 2020
China was malicious, and there is plenty of evidence of planning.
"Whether WHO can reform effectively is directly tied to the accountability issue," wrote Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin, former lab director of the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, to Gatestone. The structure of the organization defeats accountability he argues, because its leaders report to many member states and therefore to no one. As a result, unacceptable conduct goes unpunished.
To make matters worse, the WHO is a UN body, and the UN is composed of some of the world's most malign actors. Accountability in such an organization is extremely unlikely as long as China, for instance, is considered a legitimate participant in issues of global concern, such as public health.
America should have forced a review of the WHO years ago, but the religion of multilateralism dies hard. We can be sure that the forces of "one worldism" will be working with Director-General Tedros to keep the U.S. in his organization.
No, President Trump, abandoning a dangerous organization, is giving the world a chance to succeed and save lives.
World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, whose role in covering up three outbreaks of cholera in Ethiopia had already made him suspect, was elected to his current position thanks to a massive effort by China, and he will almost certainly continue to allow China to dictate his actions. Pictured: Tedros pays a visit to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on January 28, 2020.
A tearful Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday pleaded for international cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus. "The COVID-19 pandemic is a test of global solidarity and global leadership," said the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). "The virus thrives on division, but is thwarted when we unite."
At the same time, Tedros publicly thanked Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former president Liberia, for agreeing to serve as co-chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
It is no surprise the embattled Tedros has been active in recent days. He has, after all, begun what is a long-term campaign to keep his organization going. The Trump administration gave formal notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday that the United States was withdrawing from the WHO. The withdrawal is scheduled to take effect July 6, 2021.
The withdrawal may never happen, however: Tedros is not the only party mobilizing to prevent the WHO's biggest contributor from leaving. Joe Biden, sitting on a long lead in the polls, tweeted he will reverse the withdrawal "on my first day as President."
Nonetheless, President Donald J. Trump's decisive action was justified, furthering the interests of both America and the global community.
Why? The WHO was complicit with China in the spread of the coronavirus around the world and is not capable of meaningful reform.
"Not every adversary is intentionally malicious," writes Erik Gartzke of the University of California, San Diego on the website of the National Interest, referring to China. "There is little evidence that they planned a pandemic."
China was malicious, and there is plenty of evidence of planning. Doctors in Wuhan knew COVID-19 was transmissible by humans no later than the second week of December. A Harvard Medical School study suggests they might have known far earlier: the disease was infecting people in that city in August. Others believe authorities knew of the disease in the fall. On June 10, Fox News reported that Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a Hong Kong virologist and immunologist and one of the first researchers outside mainland China to study the virus, charges that Beijing for weeks covered up evidence of the human-to-human transmissibility of COVID-19. Yet only on January 20, Beijing for the first time admitted that COVID-19 could be transmitted from one human to another.
Beijing had been trying to convince the world that human-to-human transmissibility was not possible, and the WHO was assisting in propagating this line with its January 9 statement and its now-infamous January 14 tweet.
The WHO, however, either knew or had to know that China's position was erroneous. Taiwan on December 31 informed the health body that the coronavirus looked to be human-to-human contagious. WHO professionals also knew that to be the case. Maria Van Kerkhove, a senior WHO doctor and a virus expert, said at a virtual press briefing in April that "right from the start" she thought the novel coronavirus was transmissible by humans. The senior WHO leadership nevertheless disregarded the evidence when it issued its statement and tweet.
Despite its knowledge of transmissibility, the WHO in public statements, including one issued on January 10, supported Beijing's attempt to prevent the imposition of travel bans and quarantines on arrivals from China. It was, of course, these travelers who brought the disease to more than 200 countries and territories, thereby turning an epidemic in China into a global pandemic.
China and the WHO also conspired to underplay the severity of the disease and delay official warnings of its spread around the world. Together, these two parties were up to no good.
In April, Trump correctly said the World Health Organization had failed its "basic duty and must be held accountable."
Unfortunately, the WHO clearly cannot be fixed. Even after President Trump's threat to defund the organization in the spring, nothing of substance has been done to remedy the problems plaguing the global health body.
"Whether WHO can reform effectively is directly tied to the accountability issue," wrote Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin, former lab director of the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, to Gatestone. The structure of the organization defeats accountability, he argues, because its leaders report to many member states and therefore to no one. As a result, unacceptable conduct goes unpunished.
To make matters worse, the WHO is a UN body, and the UN is composed of some of the world's most malign actors. Accountability in such an organization is extremely unlikely as long as China, for instance, is considered a legitimate participant in issues of global concern, such as public health.
As Lin points out, it is telling that the failure of the WHO to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic followed its failure to handle the Ebola outbreak beginning in 2014, despite "reforms" in the interim.
This unaccountable, unreformable system means the great work of the WHO's dedicated doctors and other professionals is often nullified by the senior leadership of the body, as is evident from Tedros, for no good reason, ignoring Van Kerkhove.
Tedros, whose role in covering up three outbreaks of cholera in Ethiopia had already made him suspect, was elected director-general thanks to a massive effort by China, and he will almost certainly continue to allow China to dictate his actions. As the world saw, China forced the WHO to sideline Taiwan, which had, by many accounts, the best response to the coronavirus outbreak. Politics in this case took precedence over health.
Even though everyone agrees that something must be done, President Trump is still taking heat because not everyone agrees something must be done now. In fact, almost nobody thinks that now is the time to reshape the global health architecture. As Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Health Committee, argued in a statement on Tuesday:
"Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it."
On the contrary, now is precisely the time to deal with the WHO. The coronavirus is not going away anytime soon, and countries need assistance from an effective global health system, such as the alternatives Trump has talked about. The sooner the international community is forced to deal with an unfixable World Health Organization, the better. In any event, countries are extremely unlikely to get that help from an organization complicit in spreading the disease to all corners of the planet.
Furthermore, when the coronavirus pandemic has passed, there will be no pressure to make meaningful reforms. There may never be a good time to tackle an issue like this, but delay is certainly not going to help.
America should have forced a review of the WHO years ago, but the religion of multilateralism dies hard. We can be sure that the forces of "one worldism" will be working with Director-General Tedros to keep the U.S. in his organization.
The counterattack will be fierce. "With millions of lives at risk," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted, "the President is crippling the international effort to defeat the virus."
No, President Trump, abandoning a dangerous organization, is giving the world a chance to succeed and save lives.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow, and member of its Advisory Board.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Where Are the Borders of Israel, Turkey and Iran?
Ghassan Charbel//Asharq Al Awsat/July 13/2020
The Iraqi politician said that difficult years await his country – a country that is longing to become a normal sovereign state and to devote itself to development and the future of its people.
However, he noted that the process of restoring Iraq appears to be thorny and booby-trapped. Neither the United Nations provides a protective umbrella, nor is the United States ready to prioritize the Iraqi file.
The experienced politician saw that regional authorities have unleashed their lusts in interests and roles, benefiting from the decline in the prestige of major powers and international law.
He said that the forces currently defying Mustafa Al-Kadhimi’s government were relying on Iranian support, which “has created parallel institutions to those of the Iraqi state.” He also pointed out that Turkey gives itself the right to interfere in Iraqi soil, disregarding Baghdad’s complaints.
The region lives without a policeman. In the absence of true international power, the repressed desires arose.
Here is Recep Tayyip Erdogan pushing the Turkish offensive into the Libyan territories, forcing Cairo to diverge from its traditional dissociation approach and to note that it has an army capable of defending its stability and interests.
Whoever reads the reports published by some Turkish media about Libya’s “tremendous mineral wealth”, in addition to its oil and gas, recalls previous experiences in international relations that allowed such practices.
Erdogan went too far in his policy of misunderstanding towards the world. He obviously chose military intervention to secure a role for his country, not only in the future of Libyan contracts, but also in exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
International management is absent in the Middle East. The United States is no longer ready to be an international policeman. Some even believe that Washington is unable to assume such a mission, even if it wanted to.
It is a costly and risky task. It is financially expensive and sometimes leads to bloody military interventions.
The current US Administration does not find itself forced to send its army to uproot a leader, who is considered a tyrant by his people. Sowing democracy through military intervention is no longer on the agenda.
America is also no longer interested in portraying the image of a superpower that disciplines outlaws or those who threaten the stability of their neighbors. Moreover, great powers were never charitable societies driven by these noble motives that are repeated in official statements.
It is not only a matter of disappointment left by the US military intervention in Iraq; but also about the US preoccupation with other regions. It is clear that America has been concerned for years with China’s rise, more than it is worried about the trembling Middle East and the rifts in some of its maps.
This does not mean that Washington has retreated from the region and no longer has interests in it. The Middle East is always present in its calculations, but perhaps within different methods and approaches.
The best evidence for what we say is the sanctions that the United States re-imposed to Iran during Donald Trump’s era after it withdrew from the nuclear agreement with Tehran. Some experts believe that this policy of maximum pressure has caused great damage to Iran’s economy and its ability to support its allies in the region.
This pressure is accompanied by attempts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, through “mysterious strikes” on Iranian soil, at a time when the Israeli war on Iran’s “military presence” in Syria continues.
Although the US is concerned about Iranian nuclear enrichment and destabilizing policies, we cannot talk about an imperative US role – that of a policeman who rewards and reprimands.
In parallel, Russia cannot aspire to play a role of such kind and size. Russia’s economic capabilities do not allow it to assume a mission with such costs.
There is no doubt that Moscow is watchful of any US mistake or failure. It is also interested in selling weapons and attracting allies or friends, but, on the other hand, it is unable to develop solutions to thorny files.
A good example is that Russia, which managed to save the Syrian regime, does not have the ability to launch the file of reconstruction in Syria.
Europe, for its part, is becoming weaker and more reserved, while China is adopting a conservative approach when it comes to imposing its role in the international scene.
The Iraqi politician believes that the problem in the Middle East lies in the absence of an international deterring force. This increases the appetites of the three countries that refuse to operate within their maps under various pretexts, taking advantage of the weakness of international legitimacy and the absence of the American policeman.
Israel prepares to annex more lands. Turkey, which has forces in Syria and Iraq and military bases in Qatar and Somalia, is now intervening militarily in Libya and threatening Europe with waves of refugees and the infiltration of terrorists. Iran has almost made the violation of maps a common practice.
The Iraqi politician said that the region “will not be stable before its people can know the answer to an evident question: Where are the borders of Israel, Turkey, and Iran?”

Slain analyst al-Hashemi’s final paper was set to expose Hezbollah’s Iraq network
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Al Arabiya English/July 13/2020
حسين عبدالله: التقرير الأخير الذي أعدة الشهيد هشام الهاشمي قبل اغتياله كان يعري ويفضح شبكة حزب الله العراقي
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/88240/hussain-abdul-hussain-slain-analyst-al-hashemis-final-paper-was-set-to-expose-hezbollahs-iraq-network-%d8%ad%d8%b3%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%b9%d8%a8%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%87-%d8%a7/
Shortly before his assassination in Baghdad, Iraqi expert Hisham al-Hashemi told his friends about a study that he was working on. Based on declassified documents from Iraq’s military intelligence, records of calls, and interviews with officers, al-Hashemi had stumbled on little known information: Lebanon’s Hezbollah was operating a money laundering cell in Iraq, with which the pro-Iran party funded its activities to the tune of $300 million a year. The party also helped fund other pro-Iran militias in Iraq.
Al-Hashemi profiled four people whom he thought were running Hezbollah’s network: Mohamed Kawtharani and his brother Adnan Hussein, Ali al-Momen, and Yasin Majid. The Kawtharani brothers are both dual Iraqi-Lebanese nationals who the US has designated as terrorists. In fact, Mohamad, a Hezbollah veteran, has a $10 million US bounty on his head, or for any information that might lead to his capture.
Al-Momen, whom al-Hashemi described as the captain of the network, is an Iraqi “tabaiyah” – an Iraqi national whose Nationality Certificate says that he has Iranian origins. In 1980, late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein rounded up all tabaiyah and deported them to the Iranian border. Al-Momen, who was 16 years old at the time, lived in Iran until a decade later, when he moved to Lebanon and started working for various Hezbollah media outlets. After the collapse of Saddam’s regime in 2003, al-Momen stayed in Beirut, and only moved to Baghdad in 2010.
The fourth operative in Hezbollah’s money laundering activities in Iraq, Majid, was once a member of the Islamic Daawa Party, but now manages a global commercial network that extends from East Asia to Scandinavia, and includes Central Asian and Arab countries.
Kataib Hezbollah Iraqi militia gather ahead of the funeral of the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport, in Baghdad, Iraq, January 4, 2020. (Reuters)
Kataib Hezbollah Iraqi militia gather ahead of the funeral of the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport, in Baghdad, Iraq, January 4, 2020. (Reuters)
Hezbollah’s network embezzled public funds from the Iraqi ministries of agriculture, industry, migration and the displaced, transportation, and communication. Hezbollah also kidnaps members of wealthy Shia and Sunni families for ransom, and siphons oil off official Iraqi meters. The network trades in junk metal, from the vast debris from Iraq’s many wars.
Al-Hashemi said that Hezbollah — together with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the pro-Iran militias in Iraq — uses the laundered money to fund “terrorism in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen.” The murdered Iraqi expert also said that, because Hezbollah is legal in Iraq, it maintains accounts in several Iraqi banks, and uses the Iraqi financial system as its gateway to the world.
Iran has created a global terrorism network to project influence, hunt down Iranian opposition worldwide, and blackmail the US and the West. But that’s not all. When in distress because of global or US sanctions, Tehran has found in the countries where its militias operate an alternative through which it can circumvent sanctions. Iran has also found it beneficial to have its militias — especially the most loyal ones like Lebanon’s Hezbollah — financially self-sufficient.
Al-Hashimi, who was well connected and aware of the content of the strategic talks between Baghdad and Washington, knew that the Americans were going after financial networks working for Iran in Iraq. Al-Hashemi was also an Iraqi nationalist who saw Iran and its influence in Iraq as a net negative.
Al-Hashemi was not alone in his nationalism. Shia religious leaders in Najaf have similarly expressed their dismay with Iran and its militias, with Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani withdrawing his limited support for and tacitly criticizing pro-Iranian militias.
Many of the militias boast of defeating ISIS, but now that the terrorist organization is nearly decimated, the militias are not winding down. On the contrary, the pro-Iran militias have been flourishing with a redefined purpose. Media reports quoted the Iranian Ambassador in Baghdad Airj Masjidi as saying that these militias “counter any attempts to distance Iran from Iraq.” Masjidi was clear. The militias are nothing but pawns of the Iranian regime inside Iraq.
The religious Shia leadership reflects a general Iraqi Shia mood that has turned against Iran and its militias. That was why, after so many failed attempts to install yet another pro-Tehran prime minister, Iran had to concede and let Iraqi nationalists choose one. Mustafa Al-Kadhimi thus won the job, and has since been trying to rid Iraq of Iran’s militias.
Part of al-Kadhimi’s plan is to go after Iranian money laundering networks inside Iraq. Doing so was is only to leave the militias to dry, but also to regain international trust in the Iraqi financial system and avoid a Lebanon style economic collapse.
Al-Hashemi therefore played an instrumental role in connecting the dots and shining the light on Hezbollah’s and Iranian illicit financial activities that undermine Iraq’s sovereignty, and its economy. For doing so, al-Hashemi paid with his life.

Turkey’s gambit in Libya may backfire
Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Ar5ab News/July 13, 2020
Turkey’s intervention in Libya has made the conflict there more intractable and destructive. It runs against UN Security Council resolutions and the UN’s efforts to mediate the crisis. Critics see the move as transparently expedient, as Turkey aims to use Libya’s riches to address its energy dependency and its dangerously deteriorating economic crisis.
In Libya, Turkey is borrowing a page from Iran’s playbook of Middle Eastern interventions, despite international and regional criticism of Tehran’s modus operandi. Turkey has used similar tactics to buttress its meddling in Libya. It has trained and armed local militias, as Iran has done in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. It has brought in Syrian fighters as mercenaries to fight in Libya, similar to Iran’s practice of bringing Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries into Syria. Despite having fewer religious credentials, Turkey, like Iran, has also used religion to cover its Libyan adventure, taking advantage of its close links with Islamist and extremist groups. Within Turkey, the Libyan invasion has been portrayed as a patriotic victory to restore its past glory as a colonial power there.
Until recently, Turkey was thought to be supportive of UN efforts to restore peace, security and stability in Libya. It took part in several important meetings on Libya and made the right statements about the need for a UN-mediated political solution. Last September, Turkey took part in a foreign ministers’ meeting on Libya in New York, which was hosted by Germany and France. That meeting launched the “Berlin Process,” of which Turkey was a part, to mediate the conflict in Libya and support the UN’s role. This remains perhaps the most promising international effort to end the crisis.
Germany’s efforts culminated in January with the Berlin Conference, convened by Chancellor Angela Merkel to “create new political impetus and rally international support for finding a solution to the conflict,” and pave the way for a “Libyan-led and Libyan-owned political process that can end the hostilities and bring lasting peace.” Among those attending were the heads of states and high representatives from 12 countries, including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and several international and regional organizations.
The participants, including Turkey, agreed that the conflict could only be ended by a political, rather than a military, solution and they adopted a blueprint prepared by the UN for that purpose. According to documents Germany sent to the UN, they reaffirmed their “strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity of Libya. Only a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned political process can end the conflict and bring lasting peace.”
They stressed that the conflict in Libya represented a “threat to international peace and security by providing fertile grounds for traffickers, armed groups and terrorist organizations,” including Al-Qaeda and Daesh. The participants committed to “refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya and urge all international actors to do the same.”
Regrettably, in March, Ghassan Salame resigned as UN mediator in Libya, thus creating a diplomatic vacuum and an opening for Turkey to openly intervene in the Libyan conflict.
Global and regional political competitions are undoubtedly an important factor in Turkey’s Libyan gambit — including competition with Russia, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Europe to name a few. Ankara has been humiliated by a defeat in Syria and its inability to crush the Kurds in Turkey or across the border in northern Syria. However, Turkey’s economic crisis also figures prominently as a motive in Libya. Turkey had been facing an acute economic crisis long before the onset of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). As far back as 2018, Turkey was in the most fragile position of all major emerging markets. That summer, Turkey’s currency accelerated its downward fall and its trade and budget deficits were in the danger zones. It became difficult for Ankara to borrow on the international capital markets as the price of its credit default swaps, which insure against a default on Turkish sovereign debt, rose to its highest level since the global financial crisis of 2008.
After Turkey’s economy took several hits over the past two years, its debt ranked as the world’s fourth-riskiest after Venezuela, Argentina, and Ukraine. COVID-19 has led to additional blows to the value of the lira and the size of Turkey’s foreign revenues, deepening its economic crisis.
While Turkey was scrambling to avoid default earlier this year, international financial markets questioned the credibility of its economic management, as the central bank’s autonomy was compromised and foreign reserves dwindled. They also disagreed with Turkey’s finance minister, who happens to be a son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and who appeared to dangerously underestimate the country’s economic crisis; he predicted that Turkey's economy would grow by 5 percent in 2020, while the IMF expects it to shrink by 5 percent.
The participants, including Turkey, agreed that the conflict could only be ended by a political, rather than a military, solution.
Turkey also has an energy crisis. In 2019, Turkey imported 99 percent of its natural gas needs and 93 percent of petroleum. About 40 percent of its fossil fuel energy came from Russia. Energy imports represent probably the biggest economic vulnerability of the country. They cost more than $40 billion in 2019, accounting for about 20 percent of the value of its total imports, and are a major contributor to its current account deficit and debt problems.
Libya may have appeared as an ideal target. It is rich in energy and able to finance Turkey’s intervention. However, judging by the earlier failure of NATO to impose a military solution, Turkey may also find out that only a political solution can resolve this conflict. A national, regional and international consensus is needed to advance the cause of peace. Libyans themselves have to decide the future of their country. That national consensus has to be refereed and supported by the Arab League, representing the regional consensus, and the UN as the international arbiter of conflicts. Unilateral moves such as Turkey’s are doomed to fail. They are sure to increase the suffering of Libyans and could cause irreparable damage to Turkey’s standing in the Arab world and the entire rest of the world.
*Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the Gulf Cooperation Council’s assistant secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation, and a columnist for Arab News. The views expressed in this piece are personal and do not necessarily represent those of the GCC. Twitter: @abuhamad1