English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 17/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day
Second Letter of Peter 03/01-09/:”This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour spoken through your apostles. First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!’ They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the godless. But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 16-17/2020

Paris Criticizes Lebanese Leaders, Says Still Time to Form Govt.
Adib Tries to Resolve Hurdles as Ibrahim Launches Mediation
Adib Postpones Baabda Visit as Paris Seeks to Break Deadlock
Geagea Says Foiling French Initiative would be a 'Crime'
Hariri, Jumblat Issue Warnings as Govt. Formation Deadline Missed
4 Held in France for Voicing Support for Hizbullah, Other Groups
Zoaiter, Judge Testify in Blast Probe as 3 Held over Fire
After Beirut Blast, a Young Surgeon Finds New Sense of Duty
Dockside Dealings: Smuggling, Bribery and Tax Evasion at Beirut Port
Lebanon’s epic post-explosion leadership failure/Jessy El-Murr/Arab News/September 16/2020
At Iran’s behest, Hezbollah undermines Macron’s initiative in Lebanon/The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
Dire warning from Jumblatt as Lebanese cabinet is blocked/The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 16-17/2020

Historic peace agreement signed between UAE, Bahrain and Israel
UAE, Bahrain have more influence to help Israel solve the Palestinian issue: Kushner
Oman official attended UAE-Israel-Bahrain ceremony: White House official
US will do all it needs to do to ensure Iran sanctions enforced: Pompeo
US threatens to sanction arms manufacturers that sell to Iran
Trump vows '1,000 times greater' response to any Iran attack
Iran summons German envoy over tweet on executed wrestler
Iran’s axis worried about Israel-Saudi ties/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 16/2020
Iran’s axis worried about Israel-Saudi ties/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 16/2020Syria calls US ‘rogue state’ over Trump remark on wanting to kill al-Assad
Rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone housing US embassy: Reports
For insulting Erdogan, over 3,800 sentenced to prison in Turkey in 2019: Report/Emily Judd, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 16 September 2020
EU describes Turkish row with Cyprus as ‘grave situation, backs Nicosia
Turkey’s arrest of lawyers slammed as ‘intimidation’
UN agency says 2 dozen migrants presumed dead after boat capsizes near Libya
EU chief pledges to defend Cyprus rights in Turkey standoff
UN tourism body UNWTO opens regional Middle East office in Riyadh

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 16-17/2020

Iran regime’s paranoia over future widespread protests/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/September 16/2020
Time for the Palestinian people to take the initiative/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/September 16, 2020
Losing hope in the Middle East is not an option/Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab news/September 16/2020Oman has no complex with Israel, its complex lies with Iran/Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
Realising one Bahraini’s vision of Arab-Israeli peace/Jason Isaacson/The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
Nineteen years on, we face a resilient Islamist threat/Ilan Berman/The Hill/September 16/2020
Why the Iranian Regime May Have Just Signed Its Own Death Warrant/Michael Rubin/The National Interest/September 16/2020
We still have time to act against US election vulnerability/Gen. (Ret) Keith B. Alexander and Jamil N. Jaffer/The Hill/September 16/2020
Pompeo’s Cyprus Visit a Sign of U.S. Reengagement in the Eastern Mediterranean/Aykan Erdemir/FDD/September 16/2020
The Best (Cyber) Defense Is a Good (Cyber) Offense /Jamil N. Jaffer/Newsweek/September 16/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 16-17/2020

Paris Criticizes Lebanese Leaders, Says Still Time to Form Govt.
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 16/2020
France regrets that Lebanese political leaders “have not been able to honor their pledges to French Presidency Emmanuel Macron” regarding the formation of a new government, the French Presidency said on Wednesday.
“It's not too late for forming a government in Lebanon and working for Lebanon’s interest,” the Presidency added in a statement. The statement called on officials to help Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib "form a government that is up to dealing with the gravity of the situation." "We are continuing to closely follow the situation and pursue our contacts with Lebanese political leaders to renew our insistence in this matter," Macron's office said. The French stance comes after the expiry of a mid-September dateline set by Macron, who has set himself up as a broker for finding common ground among Lebanon's rival political factions.Macron had announced in early September that Lebanese political leaders had promised him to form a government within two weeks. The French leader is pushing for a revamped cabinet that will address urgently needed overhauls to get Lebanon's economy back on its feet, and address the deep public anger over the August 4 port blast that killed 191 people. For many Lebanese, the disaster resulted from longstanding corruption and ineptitude among a political class that has failed to establish a functioning state or uphold the rule of law. The French president has visited Beirut twice since the disaster to try to forge a working consensus for a reform-minded government, warning that he will block recovery funds from donors if no progress is made.

Adib Tries to Resolve Hurdles as Ibrahim Launches Mediation
Naharnet/September 16/2020
Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib was the one who called President Michel Aoun and asked for 24 more hours to try and find solutions for the obstacles delaying the formation of the new government, al-Jadeed TV reported Wednesday afternoon. General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has meanwhile launched mediation efforts at Aoun’s request and will communicate with Hizbullah, the AMAL Movement and France in a bid to resolve the finance portfolio obstacle, al-Jadeed quoted unnamed sources as saying. As for the stance of ex-PM Saad Hariri, who on Wednesday said that “the finance ministry and all ministerial portfolios are not an exclusive right to any sect,” the sources said that Hariri “will not offer concessions this time.”“He is not willing to reverse his stance on the rotation of portfolios,” the sources added, denying reports that senior French official Bernard Émié has visited Lebanon.
“He is rather holding contacts with political parties in Lebanon,” the sources noted. Aoun has meanwhile said that he supports the rotation of all portfolios on the condition of “national consensus” on such a move, the sources said. Referring to the consultations that the president held with parliamentary blocs on Monday and Tuesday, the sources said the blocs told Aoun that they will not grant their vote of confidence to a government that they do not approve of. “They will not accept that the ministers be exclusively named by the PM-designate,” the sources added, pointing out that “the problem lies in the PM-designate’s failure to directly communicate with the parties concerned.”“He has not communicated with the ‘Shiite duo’ over the interior portfolio,” the sources also noted.

Adib Postpones Baabda Visit as Paris Seeks to Break Deadlock
Naharnet/September 16/2020
Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib will not visit Baabda on Wednesday and has postponed the appointment to Thursday to allow for further political contacts over the new government, al-Jadeed TV has reported. LBCI television meanwhile said that French official Bernard Émié -- who is the head of the Directorate-General for External Security and an ex-ambassador to Lebanon -- has carried out a series of contacts aimed at resolving the impasse. “The French initiative has accordingly been given an additional 24 hours for further contacts aimed at reaching an exit to the governmental file,” LBCI added. The TV network also noted that “the atmosphere in Ain el-Tineh indicates that the course of the government formation negotiations has been rectified.” The main obstacle reportedly delaying the formation of the new government is Speaker Nabih Berri’s insistence on retaining the finance portfolio.

Geagea Says Foiling French Initiative would be a 'Crime'
Naharnet/September 16/2020
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday decried that “what is happening in the issue of the formation of the government is a real farce,” as he said that thwarting the French initiative for Lebanon would be a “crime.”
“We are again hearing theories that had led to the country’s ruin in the first place,” Geagea tweeted. Some are saying that “the parliamentary blocs will not grant their confidence to the government unless they are consulted over the names of its members and unless the portfolios are distributed to them,” Geagea said.“This is what was happening over the past 15 years before we reached the current situation,” the LF leader added. Noting that the French initiative is a “major and serious attempt to rescue Lebanon,” Geagea warned that “frustrating it and the attempt to end it in this manner is a crime.” “Day after day, it becomes evident that no hope can be sought with the presence of this ruling group,” the LF leader added. “The country can only be rescued through organizing early parliamentary polls quickly, in order to reach a new parliamentary majority and a new ruling group,” Geagea went on to say.

Hariri, Jumblat Issue Warnings as Govt. Formation Deadline Missed
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 16/2020
Lebanese politicians have missed a 15-day deadline to form a crisis Cabinet, with many remaining deadlocked on Wednesday on which political faction gets to have the key portfolio of the finance ministry. The deadline was set as part of a French initiative by President Emmanuel Macron who has been pressing the leaders in Lebanon to form a Cabinet made up of specialists who can work on enacting urgent reforms to extract the country from a devastating economic and financial crisis. The crisis has been worsened by the Aug. 4 explosion at Beirut's port caused by the detonation of thousands of tons of ammonium nitrates, which killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands and caused losses worth billions of dollars. The French leader has described his initiative, which includes a road map and a timetable for reforms, as "the last chance for this system."While initially committing to the plan and naming a new prime minister-designate who promised to deliver a Cabinet within two weeks, Lebanese politicians have been unable to meet the deadline amid divisions over the initiative itself and the manner in which the government formation is being carried out, away from the usual consultations and horse-trading among political factions.
Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib's French-supported efforts to form a government of experts without party loyalists hit snags the last few days, particularly after the U.S. administration slapped sanctions on two former Cabinet ministers and close allies of Hizbullah, including Ali Hassan Khalil, the top aide to the powerful Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Berri, who heads the Hizbullah-allied Shiite Amal Movement, is now insisting on retaining hold on the Finance Ministry, which has been held by a Shiite close to Berri and Hizbullah for the past 10 years. He has also objected to the way the Cabinet formation was being undertaken, apparently angered that Adib has not been consulting them.A government opposed by Lebanon's two main Shiite groups would find it difficult to pass a vote of confidence in parliament. Local reports said Adib, a Sunni according to Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system and former diplomat who is supported by Macron, got the backing of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and was appointed to form a Cabinet on Aug. 31. Local reports said he was inclined to step down if no breakthrough was achieved in the next 24 hours.
Hariri, in a tweet, said the Ministry of Finance and other ministerial portfolios "are not an exclusive right for any sect" and that the insistence on retaining the ministry for one sect was a "flagrant violation" undermining "the last chance to save Lebanon and the Lebanese."Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat said some people "did not understand or do not want to understand that the French initiative is the last chance to save Lebanon and prevent its demise."
Macron has visited Lebanon twice in less than a month, trying to force change on its leadership amid the crises and last month's massive explosion in Beirut's port.
Lebanon, a former French protectorate, is mired in the country's worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history. It defaulted on paying back its debt for the first time ever in March, and the local currency has collapsed, leading to hyperinflation and soaring poverty and unemployment. The small, cash-strapped country is in desperate need of financial assistance but France and other international powers have refused to provide aid before serious reforms are made. The crisis is largely blamed on decades of systematic corruption and mismanagement by Lebanon's ruling class.

4 Held in France for Voicing Support for Hizbullah, Other Groups
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 16/2020
Four former directors of a major Shiite Muslim center in France have been arrested on suspicion of continuing to run the association despite its dissolution over alleged support for armed jihad, a judicial source said Wednesday.
The Zahra Center in northern France was founded in 2009 by Yahia Gouasmi, a religious figure who has spoken in support of Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hizbullah. It was shuttered in March last year by the French government for alleged calls to armed jihadism and condoning violence by Hizbullah and other organizations classified as “terror” groups. The center is also alleged to have disseminated hate speech, anti-semitism and to have incited violence. The judicial source told AFP that four former leaders of the center were taken into custody on Tuesday, though one has been freed for health reasons. Prosecutors are investigating the group for "participation in or maintenance of a dissolved association." The four are accused of preaching on site and on social media, the prosecution service said. In October 2018, French police launched a dawn anti-terror raid on the center as well as the homes of its directors, yielding a cache of illegal firearms.

Zoaiter, Judge Testify in Blast Probe as 3 Held over Fire
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 16/2020
Judicial Investigator Judge Fadi Sawwan on Wednesday heard the testimony of former public works and transport Minister Ghazi Zoaiter as part of the ongoing probe into the catastrophic Aug. 4 blast at Beirut port.
According to the National News Agency, Zoaiter appeared before Sawwan as a "witness."Judge Jad Maalouf, who was the Beirut urgent matters judge around three years ago, also appeared before Sawwan as a witness. NNA said Sawwan asked him about the memos that he exchanged with certain authorities about the presence of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate at the port. Sawwan is scheduled to hear the testimony of Higher Defense Council chief Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Asmar on Thursday. Beirut's chief prosecutor, Ziad Abu Haidar, meanwhile charged three Lebanese and a Palestinian with negligence over a huge fire last week at Beirut's port that badly polluted the air and traumatized the city's residents, still reeling from the August explosion. The fire also heavily damaged a warehouse where the International Committee of the Red Cross stores thousands of food parcels and cooking oil, the state-run National News Agency reported. There were no casualties in the blaze, which was the second fire at the port since last month's massive blast. Two of the three Lebanese and the Palestinian were ordered arrested, the report said, without elaborating.

After Beirut Blast, a Young Surgeon Finds New Sense of Duty
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 16/2020
It was a night Dr. Bassam Osman says changed his life. At around 6 p.m. on Aug. 4, the 27-year-old surgical resident was about to leave his daily hospital shift. Then a massive explosion shook Beirut. The floodgates opened and hundreds of wounded poured into the American University of Beirut Medical Center, one of Lebanon's best hospitals. The medical staff of around 100 doctors, nurses and aides juggled priorities and space in treating the torn-up and bloodied men, women and children. They sutured wounds by mobile phone lights when electricity conked out. The wounded kept streaming in because several other hospitals closer to the port were knocked out of service by the blast. Veteran doctors who had worked through Lebanon's civil war said they'd never seen anything like it. In six hours, they used up a year and a half's worth of emergency supplies. Osman ended up working the next 52 hours straight. He treated more than two dozen patients. He lost one. "There was no moment in my life where I felt more in touch with my own and my surrounding humanity," Osman said of those 52 hours in a tweet afterward. Osman, at the beginning of his career, finds himself in a medical field far different from what he expected when he entered the profession. Lebanon's health facilities were once considered among the region's best. In a short time, they have been brought to near collapse, battered by Lebanon's financial meltdown and a surge in coronavirus cases, then smashed by the Beirut explosion.
But the blast has also given Osman a greater sense of duty. That day's trauma, he says, forged a deeper emotional bond between doctors and patients, left with no one else to trust in a country where politicians and public institutions take no responsibility.
The disaster, caused by explosive chemicals left untended for years at Beirut's port, has stoked anger at Lebanon's corrupt officials, who are also blamed for driving the country of 5 million into near bankruptcy. More than 190 people were killed in the explosion, thousands hurt, and tens of thousands of homes were wrecked. "Day by day, these (crises) are becoming our normal life," Osman told the AP. "We are tired... It feels like one long marathon."
Harder days may be ahead, he feels.
The blast exacerbated shortages in medical supplies caused by the financial crisis. Replacement supplies are not coming fast enough.
In one of Osman's recent operations, lack of supplies nearly turned a small but critical procedure into invasive surgery. Osman and the other surgeons didn't have the right size balloon to expand the patient's arteries and were about to open her chest, before they found a way to improvise a replacement.
Medical facilities hit by the economic meltdown are laying off staff. More doctors are emigrating. Osman's salary, denominated in Lebanese pounds, dropped in value from nearly $1,300 to just around $200 a month because of the local currency's crash.
It will cost nearly $30 million to repair health facilities damaged by the blast, the World Health Organization estimates. Eight hospitals and 20 clinics sustained partial or heavy structural damage. Two hospitals remain largely out of service. One, deemed totally unsafe, has to be leveled and rebuilt.
The blast damaged the WHO's main warehouse for medical supplies, destroying a shipment of COVID-19 protective equipment. It destroyed an COVID-19 isolation center used for migrant workers and vulnerable groups, and damaged centers for HIV and tuberculosis. The strained health system faces a coronavirus surge. Since the Aug. 4 blast, there has been a 220% increase in reported infections, according to the International Rescue Committee. COVID-19 patients are filling hospital and ICU beds. More than 25,000 confirmed cases have been reported, and 8% of all tests are coming back positive, according to the lead COVID-19 doctor Firas Abiad. More than 250 people have died. The number is expected to rise, with 115 patients in ICU, up from single digits before July. The increase is partly due to the explosion's after-effects, including overcrowding in health facilities, displaced people sheltering with family and friends, and disrupted water networks and loss of hygiene items, said Christina Bethke, a WHO coordinator of the emergency response. Hit by the financial crisis, many cannot afford medical treatment. In the weeks preceding the explosion, Osman said he and his colleagues thought things had hit their worst when they saw people leaving the hospital because they couldn't pay for admission.
Then the blast came.
Osman can't forget the patient he lost that day.
The young man came in with a hole in his heart and was whisked to the operating room. When the hole was closed, the team noticed bleeding in the abdomen and tended to that. But he also had a brain hemorrhage. In the chaos, the doctors had no time for imaging to detect it. The patient died. Osman knows only the first digits of his medical number: Patient AAA. He's trying to find out his identity -- at least his name, or where he was when the blast went off, or whether he has family looking for him. "I feel like I need to find closure for this operation, especially because we tried so hard," he said. Since the blast, there is a new "intensity of emotion" between doctors and patients, Osman said. One woman reached out to Osman on social media, seeking advice for a plastic surgeon because her wounds were stitched badly on the day of the blast -- not realizing he was the one who did the stitching. Osman admitted responsibility, saying the sutures were done under mobile phone lights. He invited her to return. She did, for coffee. He got to apologize in person, and she, in an Instagram post, thanked him for "putting her back together" and saving her life. Osman called it one of the most rewarding and heartwarming experiences. Another difference: Patients want to talk. Needing to unburden themselves, they talk about how they lost their homes, what happened to them in the blast, how they can't afford treatment -- "then they start talking about the whole situation in the country," he said. "People can trust us, not only with their health but also their emotions ... I think the emotional injury is much more severe than the physical one," he said. Osman said he welcomes it. "I try to make it personal with patients," he said. "I'm not here just to do my job and leave." Osman has two more years in his residency, then he plans to go on a fellowship abroad. He said that previously it was "a question mark" whether he would return to Lebanon when it was over. After the explosion, he is certain he will. "After I witnessed how much potential there is to give as a doctor in a country like Lebanon ... I realized that the question marks have all gone away."

Dockside Dealings: Smuggling, Bribery and Tax Evasion at Beirut Port
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 16/2020
The huge explosion at Beirut's port last month laid bare a dockside institution riddled with graft which critics say is a microcosm of a corrupt Lebanese state. Smuggling, customs tax evasion and widespread bribery are just a few common violations at the port, which like all public institutions is riddled with the kind of corruption that has become characteristic of Lebanon's under-fire ruling elite. Hizbullah has a "free pass" there because of its ties to customs and port officials, according to a former judicial official. But Hizbullah is not alone. Lebanon's top political parties, including the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), founded by President Michel Aoun, the AMAL Movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the al-Mustaqbal Movement, headed by former prime minister Saad Hariri, all share the spoils, according to experts and security officials. "The port is one of the (state's) most corrupt institutions, both within the management and the customs service," said Mohammed Chamseddine of the Beirut-based research and consultancy firm Information International. After Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, the port's management was handed to a temporary public commission that was never replaced. To this day, it runs the seaport as if it were a "private business," Chamseddine said. As is the common practice in the multi-confessional country, Lebanon's political parties shared out the commission's seven seats among themselves in line with a broader power-sharing arrangement.
Direct links between the political elite and members of the commission have allowed for the port to be managed in the same corrupt way as the state. "There is no efficient government oversight, whether on income or expenses," Chamseddine told AFP.
"Everybody profits because the system of sharing the spoils of government also applies to the port." The port's management has come under increased scrutiny after the August 4 blast, which killed more than 190 people, wounded thousands and ripped through large parts of the capital, making it the country's deadliest peacetime disaster. Lebanese at home and abroad were outraged when it emerged authorities had been aware for years of the huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate that blew up. A month later, it is still unclear what started the initial blaze that set the highly explosive fertilizer alight, but an ongoing probe has led to the arrest of the head of the port commission and its customs director. According to media reports, FBI investigators taking part in the Lebanese probe have concluded that fireworks placed with the ammonium nitrate in the same hangar provided the needed shock to detonate the fertilizer. Commission chief Hassan Qureitem is linked to the al-Mustaqbal Movement, while customs chief Badri Daher is allied with the FPM.
- 'Free pass' -
Hizbullah meanwhile exerts sizable influence over the port to help it ship and receive its own cargoes, multiple sources confirmed to AFP. Shukri Sader, a judge who used to head the State Shura Council, a government legal body, said that it is "well known that there are goods belonging to The Resistance (Hizbullah) that pass through the port and airport." Hizbullah gets a "free pass" to transport goods thanks to its ties with customs officials and port employees, he added. Hizbullah security official Wafiq Safa, who serves as a Hizbullah interlocutor to the Lebanese security forces, was sanctioned in 2019 by the U.S. Treasury because he allegedly used this network of ties to facilitate smuggling. "Safa has exploited Lebanon's ports and border crossings to smuggle contraband," including "illegal drugs and weapons," the Treasury said at the time. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has denied his movement has any illicit involvement at the port. But it would not be the only one. Sader said that corruption at the dockside institution is so ubiquitous that "there is no need for evidence." A recent report by the State Security agency, seen by AFP, names five customs inspectors it says "cannot be replaced" because of their political ties.
Each of them is either backed by the FPM, the al-Mustaqbal Movement, the AMAL Movement and Hizbullah, or Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, the report said.
- 'Everybody knows' -
Built in 1894, Beirut's port was a crucial hub for a country that relies heavily on imports, including for 85 percent of its food needs. Up to 70 percent of Lebanon's imports transited through the port before the explosion, but only a fraction of its revenues ever reached state coffers, Chamseddine said. "The rest is supposed to go towards salaries and port development... but we really don't know where it ends up," he said. An estimated one to two billion dollars is lost in evasion of customs duties each year in Lebanon, mostly at the port, Chamseddine added. Had it been collected, that money could have gone toward balancing the country's vast public debt. This fraud, facilitated by officials with clear political allegiances, mainly benefits businessmen and companies allied with political forces. Chamseddine said businessmen affiliated with parties in control at the port smuggle goods, including "through imaginary charitable associations exempted from paying customs fees," he said. "Everybody knows what's going on."
- Bribes and smuggling -
According to the State Security report, port employees at every level, as well as Lebanese security officers, regularly receive bribes to speed up shipments, slash customs fees or simply pretend they never saw them. Allowing in counterfeit luxury goods, waving through drones without permits, ignoring a blatant hidden compartment in a container: everything has a price. The more illicit the goods are, the more spoils the port barons have to share among themselves. The report cited an example of a bribe worth 200,000 Lebanese pounds (around $130 at the official exchange rate), paid to officials overseeing the main entry of the port, to speed up the clearance of used imported vehicles. Customs officials also take bribes to lower those vehicles' valuations so as to slash duties on them, the report said. When imported vehicles contain illicit goods like arms and drugs, officials are bribed to limit inspections to manual searches, ensuring the goods are not found, said the security report. But for more than a year, manual searches have become the norm because the port's only scanner is out of service. "The scanner has been out of service since April 2019 because of a technical failure," said a customs official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak on the issue. The scanner "is very old and the cost of repairing it and replacing its parts exceeds its original value," he told AFP. It was not replaced due to political wrangling over which party would get the contract, he added.
- 'The Benjamins' -
Investigative journalist Riad Kobaissi for years has documented sketchy dealings at the port by Lebanon's customs authority. "Customs is the most corrupt institution, and its biggest operations take place in the port," he told AFP. "All they care about are the Benjamins," he said: dollars. Smuggling, bribe-taking and selling abandoned imports in shady auctions are just a few of the violations committed by customs authorities there, he added. In one video Kobaissi published on the al-Jadeed TV station this year, customs chief Badri Daher appears standing near containers of home supplies at the port as a crowd of men around him cast bids. Daher strikes a deal with a man who agrees to pay half the highest bid and forget about 23 motorcycles owed to him by the customs authority from a previous auction. But given the amount of shady dealings at the port, Kobaissi said, "this is only one simple example."

Lebanon’s epic post-explosion leadership failure
Jessy El-Murr/Arab News/September 16/2020
Only a few hours after the March 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: “The person who has perpetuated this violence against us… has no place here. There is no place amongst us for such acts of extreme and unprecedented violence.”
The attacker had chosen a mosque and an Islamic center for his heinous crime, in which he used six guns, including two semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles, to kill 51 Muslim civilians during prayer time, while broadcasting the attack live on his Facebook page. It was an unprecedented attack that shook public opinion worldwide. The next day, Ardern — the youngest prime minister to assume office in New Zealand in more than 150 years and the youngest female world leader at the time — dressed in black and wore a head scarf to visit victims’ families and other members of the Muslim community to personally offer her condolences and say “the whole country is united in grief.”
Her ability to show empathy as a leader was swiftly followed by strict laws to ban most semi-automatic weapons and restrict access to guns in the country. Her promise to seek justice for the victims’ families was fulfilled when the attacker, Brenton Tarrant, a white supremacist, was in August jailed for life with no possibility of parole. Facing such an unprecedented tragedy with decisive decision-making and swift responses turned the young prime minister into one of the most popular leaders in international politics.
Comparing Lebanon to New Zealand wouldn’t really be fair for obvious reasons. However, in the days and weeks following the largest explosion to ever hit Lebanon’s capital — the Aug. 4 Beirut port blast that killed close to 200 civilians, injured thousands and destroyed more than 300,000 homes and businesses — I have searched in vain for just one responsible, decisive, empathetic, angry statement from any Lebanese leader. The utter lack of leadership qualities shown in the aftermath of the disaster is yet another tragedy in Lebanon.
So I have decided to list some of the statements that were made. Most of them came in the days immediately after the massive blast hit the port, where 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate was illegally stored for years without any accountability.
President Michel Aoun said: “I don’t have direct authority to intervene in the port.”
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said: “We don’t operate nor control nor intervene in the port, nor do we know what it contains nor what takes place inside its premises.”
Then-Prime Minister Hassan Diab said: “I promise the Lebanese that I will not allow this disaster to pass without holding those responsible accountable. The investigation will not take long and will include all those who are involved.”
Free Patriotic Movement leader and former Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said: “The authorities cannot say they didn’t know. Of course they knew… Now if Hezbollah proves to be involved in this, of course it should be held accountable.”
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri called for an Arab or international investigation into the explosion.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said: “The reforms needed must be implemented. For my part, I am now more committed to implementing it.”
The head of the Lebanese Forces party, Samir Geagea, said: “Our resignations are ready in our pockets.”
MP Walid Jumblatt said: “If we submit our resignations today, which electoral laws will be used in the next elections? What is the new law? We demand a new non-sectarian electoral law.”
For the record, six weeks after the catastrophic blast, only one of the officials mentioned above has resigned. None of the others have taken an ounce of responsibility or apologized to the people of Lebanon. Keep in mind that all of them have held various positions in the government since the ammonium nitrate was first received at the port in 2013.
In fact, the above statements went out of their way to deflect any direct responsibility or accountability, throw vague accusations at others, and some of the so-called leaders refused to resign before having the audacity to demand a safe transition for their seats into the near political future.
During times of crisis, be it political or business, here are the top three qualities a leader or corporate executive must prove to his people/company.
1. The ability to empathize: Not just with genuine, compassionate statements like Ardern’s immediately after the terrorist attack in her country, but also with the ability to physically be present in the field. In the case of Lebanon, not one official showed up in Beirut’s destroyed streets and neighborhoods, while people were shoveling the rubble away from their ruined homes. Not one official went to help with the makeshift humanitarian initiatives launched by civilians.
2. Communication skills: A leader managing a crisis must show their ability to relate to and communicate with the people. This will restore some of the inevitable loss of trust by keeping them in the loop with the latest information. In Lebanon’s case, a daily press conference should have been held to keep people up to date with rescue efforts, the humanitarian situation and the economic repercussions.
3. Decision-making powers: A compassionate leader during a time of crisis who lacks decision-making powers will no doubt fail to impose solutions or change the status quo, thus losing the trust of his employees/people. Such a loss will certainly lead to his demise, much like the Lebanese officials who are currently in power.
Some of the leaders managed the crisis by uttering irresponsible and provocative statements.
All the Lebanese party leaders in current and past governments have failed to show these top three leadership qualities during times of crisis and beyond. In fact, some of them managed the crisis by uttering irresponsible and provocative statements, threatening the Lebanese with the lifting of subsidies on wheat or fuel, plunging the country into additional economic despair. In addition, other party officials have resorted to bringing back old sectarian fears by provoking armed clashes in several parts of the country.
From the painfully slow and dodgy start to the investigation into the Beirut blast to the questionable forensic and financial audit and the questions surrounding the tendering process, as well as the provocative visit to Beirut of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his threats to Israel from Lebanese soil (despite the Foreign Ministry’s official refusal of his visit, as reported in local media), Lebanese officials have succeeded in showing one unique quality: Combining excess official titles with a complete and utter lack of leadership skills.
*Jessy El-Murr is a certified media trainer and a multilingual digital journalist who spent over 18 years writing and presenting political, military and digital news stories for international news outlets. Twitter: @jessytrends
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

At Iran’s behest, Hezbollah undermines Macron’s initiative in Lebanon
The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
Lebanese political sources said this leaves the prime minister-designate with just one option, and that is to tender his resignation to the president.
BEIRUT – On Tuesday, Hezbollah torpedoed the French initiative led by President Emmanuel Macron in Lebanon to form a mini-government that includes experts from outside political parties.
The task of undermining the French initiative fell to MP Mohamed Raad, head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, during his meeting with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace.
In the meeting, which was summoned by Aoun as part of consultations to prepare for the formation of a Lebanese government, Raad emphasised that Hezbollah insisted that the finance minister be Shia and that the Shia ministers in the new government headed by Mustapha Adib be nominated by the two Shia parties, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.
Lebanese political sources said that Hezbollah’s position, generally believed to have been instigated by Iran, leaves the prime minister-designate with just one option -- to tender his resignation to the president due to his inability to form a government.
The president had called, in clear violation of the Lebanese constitution, for Lebanese factions to hold consultations at Baabda Palace in order to form a new government headed by Adib.
Lebanese politicians saw this as a clear assault on the powers of the prime minister-designate. They indicated that the Lebanese constitution explicitly stipulates that consultations should be conducted by the prime minister in charge of forming a government who later submits a list of the members of the proposed government to the president. Under the constitution, the president can make observations about the government formation and can also refuse to sign the decree forming the new government.
It was noteworthy that Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced a few days ago their readiness to “cooperate” to form a Lebanese government in which parties would not be represented. But Berri, who heads the Amal movement, quickly reversed his position, calling for the finance minister to be from the Shia community.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned France on Tuesday that its efforts to resolve the crisis in Lebanon could be wasted if the issue of arming the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group was not dealt with immediately.
The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, but France believes that the party can be dealt with as "an existing reality" in Lebanon.
The United States last week expanded its Lebanon-related sanctions by blacklisting two former ministers, accusing them of aiding Hezbollah. This raised questions about the extent of coordination between the United States and France at a time when the Lebanese factions are facing difficulties in agreeing to form a new government. “We are going to act in a way – and we have acted in a way – that will prevent Iran from being able to purchase Chinese tanks and Russian air defence systems and resell weapons to Hezbollah to undermine the very efforts that President Macron is ably trying to lead in Lebanon,” Pompeo told France Inter radio. “It’s irreconcilable that you would permit Iran to have more money, more wealth, and more arms, and still be working to try and help disconnect Hezbollah from the disaster that they have created inside of Lebanon” he added.
On his September 1 visit to Lebanon, one month after a devastating explosion in the port of Beirut, Macron said that Lebanese politicians had agreed to form a new government by the fifteenth of September, which is an ambitious date given that this process in Lebanon usually takes months.
French officials said the priority was to form a government that could quickly implement reforms, while the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons was not urgent.
French newspaper Le Figaro reported in August that Macron had met with Mohamed Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, and told him that the group should distance itself from Iran and withdraw its forces from Syria.
The French presidency did not deny that the meeting, the first between a French leader and a member of Hezbollah, had taken place.
“It is a double-edged sword for Macron,” a French diplomatic source said. “Hezbollah is part of the core of the ruling system that needs to be changed, and I am not sure that it would be possible to deal with the political wing of Hezbollah without dealing with its armed wing as well.”
Another French diplomat said the French initiative had always carried risks. “The danger has always been that you tell them that is enough, but they do nothing. What would happen then?” he added.

Dire warning from Jumblatt as Lebanese cabinet is blocked
The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
A September 15 deadline that Lebanese leaders agreed upon with Paris to establish the new cabinet has already been missed.
BEIRUT – A French initiative is the last chance to save Lebanon from its deep crisis but some people do not seem to understand this, Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt said, echoing a warning from Paris that the country risks disappearing without reform. Lebanon is in the throes of a crippling economic and financial meltdown posing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. The crisis was compounded by a devastating Beirut port explosion on August 4.
France has been leaning on fractious Lebanese politicians to set up a new government to start reforming the corruption-ridden state, but a September 15 deadline they had agreed to with Paris for establishing the new cabinet has already been missed. “It appears that some did not understand or did not want to understand that the French initiative is the last opportunity to save Lebanon and to prevent its disappearance, as the (French) foreign minister said clearly,” Jumblatt, the main leader in Lebanon’s Druze community, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said last month that Lebanon risked disappearing without critical reforms.
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib has been seeking to form a cabinet to enact reforms set out as part of the French roadmap. Sources say he has been trying to switch control of ministries, many of which have been held by the same factions for years.But major Shia and Christian players in the sectarian power-sharing system have complained that Adib, a Sunni Muslim, has not been consulting them.
The most significant objections have come from Shia Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of the Iran-backed Shia group Hezbollah. He has insisted on naming the finance minister, a post he has decided on since 2014.
Hezbollah, a heavily armed militant group backed by Iran, supports his position, telling President Michel Aoun on Tuesday that Shia ministers must be approved by Shia parties and the finance minister should be a Shia, sources say.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni whose support was critical to Adib’s nomination, said no sect had the exclusive right to the finance ministry or other portfolios. In a tweet, Hariri said rejecting the idea of switching control of ministries was frustrating “the last chance to save Lebanon and the Lebanese,” referring to the French initiative. Simon Abi Ramia, a lawmaker in the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, said on Twitter Lebanon faced a critical 24 hours in which either the “logic of reason” would win and a government would emerge or Adib would step down.
France, which is sponsoring the formation of the new government, has expressed resentment at how the country’s ruling trio – Hezbollah, Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement, has dealt with cabinet formation efforts. On Monday, France’s foreign ministry said that all Lebanese political parties had endorsed the government formation plan and agreed to work towards urgent reforms. When it comes to Lebanon, the US and France have similar outlooks, but one major point of difference involves the Hezbollah movement — shunned by Washington but tolerated by a pragmatic Parisian leadership.
While the United States seeks to isolate and curb the influence of the Iran-backed group it has designated a “terrorist” organisation and punished with sanctions, France recognises it as a key political actor whose cooperation is needed to lift Lebanon out of the crisis. Lebanon’s government stepped down last month amid popular anger over a massive blast at Beirut’s port on August 4 that killed 191 people, wounded thousands and ravaged large parts of the capital.
Both Western powers have agreed Lebanon needs a cabinet different from its predecessors but all consensus seems to end there.
The US view is that Hezbollah — the only group not to have disarmed after the 1975-1990 civil war — holds excessive influence in Lebanon, “which needs to be contained,” analyst Karim Bitar said.
But Paris recognises “Hezbollah in Lebanon is a major political actor, that it has a wide captive constituency in Lebanon’s Shia community, that it is here to stay,” he added. US Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker, visiting Lebanon last week, told Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar that the US appreciated the French initiative, but differed on a few points, especially regarding Hezbollah. While France views the Shia group’s political wing as a legitimate organisation, the US labels Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.
“Hezbollah has been given ample opportunity since 2005 to really involve itself in the state and has not changed its behaviour,” Schenker said.
Responding to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s call for Hezbollah’s weapons to be dealt with as a priority, Jumblatt said in a televised interview last week that the solution would come through politics.
“Let Pompeo forget the rockets for now. That matter will be solved through politics when the time is right,” he said.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 16-17/2020

Historic peace agreement signed between UAE, Bahrain and Israel
The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
Referring to other Arab countries possibly entering into peace agreements with Israel, Trump said: “We’ll have at least five or six countries coming along very quickly.”
WASHINGTON –In a festive mood on the sun-washed South Lawn of the White House, the UAE, Bahrain and Israel signed historic peace agreements in the presence of US President Donald Trump.
Observers described the Washington ceremony as a major breakthrough after a long history of animosity between Israel and its Arab neighbours. They pointed out that the optimistic atmosphere that prevailed in the ceremony is likely to open the way for similar agreements with other Arab countries.
“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history,” Trump said from a balcony overlooking the South Lawn.
“After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East,” he added, expressing confidence that the event “will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region.”
In front of a crowd of several hundred people, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani signed the peace agreements with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli premier described the day as “a pivot of history. It heralds a new dawn of peace.”
The UAE foreign minister said: “Today, we are already witnessing a change in the heart of the Middle East — a change that will send hope around the world.”
Zayani expressed the same sense of unprecedented achievement. “Today is a truly historic occasion,” he said. “A moment for hope and opportunity.”
Both the Emirati and Bahraini foreign ministers made a point to mention Palestinian rights in their remarks before the signing ceremony.
“Thank you for choosing peace and halting the annexation of Palestinian territories,” the UAE’s foreign minister told Netanyahu. “I stand here today to extend a hand of peace.”
The Bahraini foreign minister said a “just, comprehensive and enduring two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” would be the “bedrock” for lasting Middle East peace.
Referring to other Arab countries possibly signing peace agreements with Israel, Trump said earlier in the oval office: “We’ll have at least five or six countries coming along very quickly” to forge their own accords with Israel.
He later told reporters that Saudi Arabia would strike an agreement with Israel “at the right time.”
“I held talks with the Saudi monarch (King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) and with the Crown Prince (Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz), and they have an open mind and will join peace,” said the US president.
Trump revealed that Israel, the UAE and Bahrain will exchange ambassadors and cooperate with each other as friendly countries, and that the agreement will allow Muslims from around the world to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
He further promised that the Palestinians would join the peace effort at the appropriate time. He also said that Iran is suffering with its economy in shambles and that it too desires an agreement. But “I said, ‘Wait until after the elections’,” Trump added.
In addition to bilateral agreements signed by Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, all three signed a document dubbed the “Abraham Accords” after the patriarch of the world’s three major monotheistic religions.
The “Abraham Accords” and the bilateral agreement signed by Israel and Bahrain fell short of more detailed formal treaties that are the diplomatic norm. Both documents were made up of general statements pledging to advance diplomacy, mutual cooperation and regional peace.
Trump used the historic momentum of the day to go beyond US hesitation and Israeli objections about selling F-35 fighters to the UAE, declaring earlier in the day that he had “no problem” with the sale.
“I would have no problem in selling them the F-35, I would have absolutely no problem,” Trump told Fox News in an interview, noting that this would secure “tremendous jobs at home.”
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said on Tuesday that the purchase is part of his country’s effort to modernise its military and that its request for US F-35 warplanes had been under discussion before the normalisation agreement with Israel. The signing of the peace agreement also constituted a rare moment of bipartisan consensus in Washington. “It is good to see others in the Middle East recognising Israel and even welcoming it as a partner,” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in a statement released Wednesday night. “A Biden-Harris Administration will build on these steps, challenge other nations to keep pace, and work to leverage these growing ties into progress toward a two-state solution and a more stable, peaceful region.”

UAE, Bahrain have more influence to help Israel solve the Palestinian issue: Kushner
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 16 September
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain will have more influence to help Israel solve the Palestinian issue as allies, according to Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner, after both Arab countries signed the historic Abraham Accords normalizing ties with Israel. “I will say that if you look at what the United Arab Emirates did today and what Bahrain did today, they will have more influence to help Israel solve the Palestinian issue as allies and normalize countries of Israel, than they would have no say at the table,” Kushner told Al Arabiya’s Washington DC Bureau Chief Nadia Bilbassy on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain officially normalized relations with Israel at a signing ceremony at the White House on Tuesday. The agreements “will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region,” said US President Donald Trump in an opening speech at the signing ceremony at the White House. Trump hosted UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the landmark deal.
Speaking on the US-brokered efforts, Kushner said it was possible given new leadership and thinking in attempting to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. “People point to the Arab Peace Initiative, which was a very noble effort when it was done in 2002. But if it would have worked, then there would have been peace 15-20 years ago. So the reality is that was not a viable pathway to make it things through,” Kushner told Al Arabiya. When asked about Trump’s invitation to sit down with the Iranians without any preset conditions, Kushner reiterated Washington’s “maximum pressure” strategy as longstanding until Tehran complies with US demands. “Trump will keep the maximum pressure campaign going until we have an outcome that is appropriate… quite frankly, their situation in Iran is getting more and more dire by the day. But he does want a situation where they can, again, give their people freedom and give their people opportunity,” Kushner said.

Oman official attended UAE-Israel-Bahrain ceremony: White House official
Emily Judd, Al Arabiya English/Tuesday 15 September 2020
Oman's Ambassador to the US was present at Tuesday's signing of agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain in Washington, a senior White House official told Al Arabiya English on Wednesday. Oman’s fellow Gulf countries, Bahrain and the UAE, finalized agreements to normalize relations with Israel. The deals make them the third and fourth Arab states to normalize ties with Israel. Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani signed agreements alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. US President Donald Trump hosted the ceremony. US President Donald Trump talks with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Oman welcomed both the UAE and Bahrain’s decisions to build bridges with Israel when the agreements were first announced, on August 13 and September 11, respectively. Oman said earlier this month that it hoped the “new strategic path taken by some Arab countries will contribute to bringing about a peace based on an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and on establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as capital.”Oman’s foreign minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah spoke to his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi four days after the UAE-Israel deal was announced, on August 17.
Former US Ambassador to Oman Richard Schmierer told Al Arabiya English at the time that he believed Oman “will support and try to advance the step taken by the UAE in its decision to seek normal relations with Israel.”

US will do all it needs to do to ensure Iran sanctions enforced: Pompeo
Agencies/Wednesday 16 September 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday the US would return to the United Nations to reimpose sanctions on Iran next week and would do all it needed to do to make sure those sanctions are enforced. Pompeo made the comments in a joint news conference in Washington with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.Pompeo said last month he had triggered a 30-day process to reimpose all UN sanctions on Iran by lodging a complaint with the Security Council accusing Tehran of breaching a 2015 nuclear deal. Pompeo has said sanctions should be reimposed from Sunday. But 13 of the 15 council members said the US move is void because Washington withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal two years ago. Pompeo said Tuesday that America’s “European friends” did not support the proposed US resolution of extending the UN arms embargo on Iran - put forward by the US last month - because of fear and political calculations. “Our European allies fear that if they hold Iran accountable for its destabilizing behavior, Iran will violate the [nuclear deal] even more in response,” he said in statements to the US Virtual Iran Embassy. “This strategy of appeasement does nothing but play into Iran’s grand strategy,” Pompeo said.

US threatens to sanction arms manufacturers that sell to Iran
Reuters/Wednesday 16 September 2020
The Trump administration vowed on Wednesday to impose the “full force” of US sanctions on any international arms manufacturers who deal with Iran once Washington sees a United Nations arms embargo on Tehran as reimposed. Elliott Abrams, US special envoy on Iran, issued the warning in a briefing with reporters hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would return to the UN to try to reinstate sanctions on Iran next week, despite a lack of support within the UN Security Council.The Security Council resoundingly rejected a US attempt on August 14 to extend an international arms embargo on Iran beyond its expiration in October, but the United States is pressing ahead with its efforts based on its own legal interpretation.
 

Trump vows '1,000 times greater' response to any Iran attack
AFP/September 16/ 2020
US President Donald Trump on Monday vowed that any attack by Iran would be met with a response "1,000 times greater in magnitude," after reports that Iran planned to avenge the killing of top general Qasem Soleimani.
A US media report, quoting unnamed officials, said that an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa was planned before the presidential election in November. "According to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination, or other attack, against the United States in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Soleimani," Trump tweeted. "Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!" Relations between Washington and Tehran have been tense since the Iranian revolution, and have spiralled since Trump unilaterally pulled out of a landmark international nuclear deal with Iran in May 2018. In January, a US drone strike killed Soleimani in Baghdad, and Washington is pushing to extend an arms embargo on Iran that starts to progressively expire in October as well as reimposing UN sanctions on the Islamic republic. The Iranian navy last week said it drove off American aircraft that flew close to an area where military exercises were underway near the Strait of Hormuz. The military said three US aircraft were detected by Iran's air force radars after they entered the country's air defence identification zone.

Iran summons German envoy over tweet on executed wrestler
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) /September 16/2020
Iran on Monday summoned Germany’s ambassador following his embassy’s criticism of the execution last weekend of a wrestler after President Donald Trump asked for the 27-year-old man’s life to be spared. The official IRNA news agency said a foreign ministry official told Ambassador Hans-Udo Muzel at the meeting that the tweet about the wrestler, Navid Afkari, amounted to an “intervention” in Iran’s domestic affairs and strongly protested the move. “Intervention in Iran’s independent judicial affairs is not acceptable,” the statement quoted the unnamed official as saying, adding that the ambassador was advised the embassy should not go “beyond its diplomatic” duties. The embassy had earlier on Monday said on its Twitter account that it was “deeply surprised” about the execution and suggested the wrestler was executed as part of Iran’s efforts to “silence opposing voices.”
Later, Germany’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet that the German ambassador in Tehran had phoned the Iranian Foreign Ministry to again “express the German government’s position in the case of the Iranian athlete Navid Afkari, and its horror over the carrying out of the death sentence.”
Iran on Saturday executed Afkari, who was convicted of murder, despite an international outcry to stop the execution and following Trump’s plea. Afkari’s case had drawn attention after a social media campaign portrayed him and his brothers, who remain in prison, as victims who were targeted because they participated in protests against Iran’s Shiite theocracy in 2018. Authorities accused Afkari of fatally stabbing a water supply company employee in the southern city of Shiraz amid the unrest. Earlier in September, Iran broadcast the wrestler’s televised confession. The segment resembled hundreds of other suspected coerced confessions aired over the last decade in the Islamic Republic. The case revived a demand inside the country for Iran to stop carrying out the death penalty. Even imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, herself nearly a month into a hunger strike over conditions at Tehran’s Evin prison amid the coronavirus pandemic, passed word that she supported Afkari. The International Olympic Committee in a statement shortly after Saturday’s execution said it was shocked and saddened by the news of the wrestler’s execution, and that the committee’s president, Thomas Bach, “had made direct personal appeals to the Supreme Leader and to the President of Iran this week and asked for mercy for Navid Afkari.” Germany, alongside other world major powers, signed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran aimed at capping Iran’s nuclear activities in return of sanction relief. Trump pulled out the U.S. from the deal and reimposed sanction on Iran in 2018 but European powers including Germany remain in the deal. In Geneva, The U.N. human rights experts condemned the execution and raised the alarm that it was the latest “in a series of death penalty sentences handed down in the context of protests” in Iran. “Such flagrant disregard for the right to life through summary executions is not only a matter of domestic concern,” said the U.N. experts’ statement on Monday. “We call on the international community to react strongly to these actions by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Iran’s axis worried about Israel-Saudi ties
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 16/2020
Five years of Iranian aggression in Syria and Yemen have backfired for Tehran as Israel and the Gulf have become closer.
Iran is concerned about the next steps Israel and its new Gulf partners will take in the wake of the Abraham Accord signed in Washington on Tuesday.
Tehran’s displeasure is difficult to measure, but the overall context and hints in pro-Iranian media give away the sense that the regime and its allies and proxies in the Middle East view the potential Saudi-Israel relationship with concern. Iran has been zig-zagging between hyperbolic condemnation of the UAE and Bahrain for working with Israel, and trying to ignore the setback that its threats have caused. Iran’s threats and its attempt to leverage the Iran Deal of 2015 so it can act with impunity throughout the region have fueled the Israel-Gulf relationship.
Iran believed incorrectly that it had a blank check after the JCPOA signing to basically take over the Middle East. It sent drones and missiles in increasing numbers to Yemen in 2015, forcing Riyadh’s hand and bringing Saudi Arabia and the UAE into Yemen’s civil war. The kingdom didn’t want an Iranian-backed proxy on its doorstep.
Once Saudi Arabia was in Yemen, the Iranians rapidly increased production of technical assistance for the Houthis. Soon, ballistic missiles and drones were raining down on southern Saudi Arabia and even targeting Riyadh.
But Iran wasn’t satisfied even with this apparent accomplishment. It targeted the Saudi Arabia's oil pumping station at Al-Duadmi in mid-May 2019 using drones allegedly sent to Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq.
Then Iran ordered the Houthis to strike at Shaybah oil field near the UAE border. The attack was a message and it was sent in August 2019. In September 2019, Iran went one step further, using 25 drones and cruise missiles to attack Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq facility. Iran, for some reason, has believed that the more it attacks Saudi Arabia the more it will pressure Riyadh, but then is surprised that the Kingdom and its Gulf allies would become more willing to look to potential talks with Israel.
SIMILARLY, Iran began to increase its role in Syria after the nuclear deal. This included construction of facilities and support for missile factories in Syria. By the fall of 2017, Iran had agents to Masyaf and other sites, such as Kiswa south of Damascus.
Those sites were targeted by airstrikes in 2018 and 2019. Iran began to pour resources into the T-4 base and also the Albukamal border crossing area in 2018.
Airstrikes hit Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, in Syria’s Albukamal in June 2018. By 2019, Iran had built a whole base called Imam Ali near Albukamal. In April 2018, Iran even tried to unload a third Khordad air defense system at T-4, according to a Ynet report.
These Iranian projects – trafficking weapons to Hezbollah and building up a footprint in Syria to threaten Israel, while threatening Saudi Arabia from Yemen – have been Tehran’s main strategies. Iran also funds Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Riyadh is concerned about Iran’s role in Lebanon, having summoned Lebanese Sunni leader Saad Hariri for consultations in 2017.
Now pro-Iranian media, such as Al-Mayadeen, are reporting about potential Saudi-Israel relations. “In the time of normalization there is no place for neutrality, with or against Palestine,” shouts a headline at Al-Mayadeen on September 16. “The day is recorded for those who would compromise,” say the Houthis, according to Fars News reports. The headlines are all basically the same. The Houthis, Hezbollah, Iran, Kataib Hezbollah and all the proxies, pieces and tentacles of the Tehran octopus across the region are being told to repeat the same mantra.
That is why Kataib Hezbollah is mobilizing a protest in Basra, not far from Kuwait and the Saudi border, to show off its strength, according to reports. Basra was the center of Iraq protests for a year that were demanding more employment and investment. Now the only investment they get is anti-Israel and anti-Saudi propaganda.
IRAN'S TANSIM news also reports that, while Saudi Arabia supports the Palestinians, it could work with Israel in the future. This leaves little doubt that after five years of Iranian attacks, threats and pressure against Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s main concern is the next moves in Riyadh.
Iran’s Press TV on September 16 said that Saudi Arabia is part of the “plots against Muslims,” highlighting Saudi air raids on Yemen as well as alleged Saudi nuclear facilities and a Saudi challenge to Qatar.
You don’t put five headlines against Saudi Arabia on your site the day after the UAE-Bahrain deal unless that is your main concern.
While Iran wants to downplay the UAE-Bahrain deal in its media and highlight Saudi Arabia, it quietly knows that it has suffered a setback. Five years of trying to dominate Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen have encouraged Israel and the Gulf to work more closely together and have brought a string of successes to the Trump administration’s transactional deal-making foreign policy. Last year, it used drone strikes and pushed rocket attacks on US forces in Iraq, as well as mining ships in the Gulf of Oman. It still has an expanding drone and missile arm and clandestine networks to move its weapons all across the region.
Even though Iran has operationalized its lobby in the West to talk about how it is “surrounded,” Tehran knows that its aggression has had blow-back and has potentially backfired. It must now weigh the next step.

Iran’s axis worried about Israel-Saudi ties
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 16/2020
Five years of Iranian aggression in Syria and Yemen have backfired for Tehran as Israel and the Gulf have become closer.
Iran is concerned about the next steps Israel and its new Gulf partners will take in the wake of the Abraham Accord signed in Washington on Tuesday.
Tehran’s displeasure is difficult to measure, but the overall context and hints in pro-Iranian media give away the sense that the regime and its allies and proxies in the Middle East view the potential Saudi-Israel relationship with concern.
Iran has been zig-zagging between hyperbolic condemnation of the UAE and Bahrain for working with Israel, and trying to ignore the setback that its threats have caused. Iran’s threats and its attempt to leverage the Iran Deal of 2015 so it can act with impunity throughout the region have fueled the Israel-Gulf relationship. Iran believed incorrectly that it had a blank check after the JCPOA signing to basically take over the Middle East. It sent drones and missiles in increasing numbers to Yemen in 2015, forcing Riyadh’s hand and bringing Saudi Arabia and the UAE into Yemen’s civil war. The kingdom didn’t want an Iranian-backed proxy on its doorstep.
Once Saudi Arabia was in Yemen, the Iranians rapidly increased production of technical assistance for the Houthis. Soon, ballistic missiles and drones were raining down on southern Saudi Arabia and even targeting Riyadh.
But Iran wasn’t satisfied even with this apparent accomplishment. It targeted the Saudi Arabia's oil pumping station at Al-Duadmi in mid-May 2019 using drones allegedly sent to Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq.
Then Iran ordered the Houthis to strike at Shaybah oil field near the UAE border. The attack was a message and it was sent in August 2019.
In September 2019, Iran went one step further, using 25 drones and cruise missiles to attack Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq facility. Iran, for some reason, has believed that the more it attacks Saudi Arabia the more it will pressure Riyadh, but then is surprised that the Kingdom and its Gulf allies would become more willing to look to potential talks with Israel.
SIMILARLY, Iran began to increase its role in Syria after the nuclear deal. This included construction of facilities and support for missile factories in Syria. By the fall of 2017, Iran had agents to Masyaf and other sites, such as Kiswa south of Damascus.
Those sites were targeted by airstrikes in 2018 and 2019. Iran began to pour resources into the T-4 base and also the Albukamal border crossing area in 2018.
Airstrikes hit Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, in Syria’s Albukamal in June 2018. By 2019, Iran had built a whole base called Imam Ali near Albukamal. In April 2018, Iran even tried to unload a third Khordad air defense system at T-4, according to a Ynet report.
These Iranian projects – trafficking weapons to Hezbollah and building up a footprint in Syria to threaten Israel, while threatening Saudi Arabia from Yemen – have been Tehran’s main strategies. Iran also funds Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Riyadh is concerned about Iran’s role in Lebanon, having summoned Lebanese Sunni leader Saad Hariri for consultations in 2017.
Now pro-Iranian media, such as Al-Mayadeen, are reporting about potential Saudi-Israel relations. “In the time of normalization there is no place for neutrality, with or against Palestine,” shouts a headline at Al-Mayadeen on September 16. “The day is recorded for those who would compromise,” say the Houthis, according to Fars News reports. The headlines are all basically the same. The Houthis, Hezbollah, Iran, Kataib Hezbollah and all the proxies, pieces and tentacles of the Tehran octopus across the region are being told to repeat the same mantra.
That is why Kataib Hezbollah is mobilizing a protest in Basra, not far from Kuwait and the Saudi border, to show off its strength, according to reports. Basra was the center of Iraq protests for a year that were demanding more employment and investment. Now the only investment they get is anti-Israel and anti-Saudi propaganda. IRAN'S TANSIM news also reports that, while Saudi Arabia supports the Palestinians, it could work with Israel in the future. This leaves little doubt that after five years of Iranian attacks, threats and pressure against Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s main concern is the next moves in Riyadh.
Iran’s Press TV on September 16 said that Saudi Arabia is part of the “plots against Muslims,” highlighting Saudi air raids on Yemen as well as alleged Saudi nuclear facilities and a Saudi challenge to Qatar.
You don’t put five headlines against Saudi Arabia on your site the day after the UAE-Bahrain deal unless that is your main concern. While Iran wants to downplay the UAE-Bahrain deal in its media and highlight Saudi Arabia, it quietly knows that it has suffered a setback. Five years of trying to dominate Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen have encouraged Israel and the Gulf to work more closely together and have brought a string of successes to the Trump administration’s transactional deal-making foreign policy.
Last year, it used drone strikes and pushed rocket attacks on US forces in Iraq, as well as mining ships in the Gulf of Oman. It still has an expanding drone and missile arm and clandestine networks to move its weapons all across the region.
Even though Iran has operationalized its lobby in the West to talk about how it is “surrounded,” Tehran knows that its aggression has had blow-back and has potentially backfired. It must now weigh the next step.
 

Syria calls US ‘rogue state’ over Trump remark on wanting to kill al-Assad
AFP/Wednesday 16 September 2020
Damascus on Wednesday hit back at Donald Trump and likened the US to a “rogue” state or “terrorist group,” after the US president said he had wanted to assassinate Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad. “Trump’s admission of such a step confirms that the US administration is a rogue... state,” Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.“It pursues the same tactics as terrorist groups such as murder and assassination,” it said, one day after Trump made the remarks to the morning show Fox & Friends. The US president said his then-secretary of defense Jim Mattis opposed the assassination of al-Assad in 2017. “I would have rather taken him out. I had him all set,” Trump said. “Mattis didn’t want to do it. Mattis was a highly overrated general, and I let him go.” Trump was reportedly mulling assassinating al-Assad after the Syrian president allegedly launched a chemical attack on civilians.In April 2017, a sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun killed more than 80 people. Trump unleashed missile strikes against the regime’s Shayrat airbase, from where the gas attack was allegedly launched. However, Trump’s remarks to Fox & Friends contradict other comments he made to reporters in the Oval office on September 5, 2018, when he said that killing Assad “was never even contemplated.”In April 2018, the US, France and Britain launched retaliatory strikes after another alleged regime chemical attack on the then rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus. After nine years of war, the al-Assad government controls some 70 percent of Syria. The conflict has since 2011 killed at least 380,000 people and displaced around half of Syria’s pre-war population.

Rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone housing US embassy: Reports
Tamara Abueish, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 16 September 2020
A Katyusha rocket was launched toward the Green Zone in Baghdad, home to the US Embassy, from the Amil District, the Iraqi News Agency (IQA) reported on Wednesday. No damages or casualties have been reported, IQA said.
Sirens sounded from the US embassy in southwestern Baghdad, according to an Al Arabiya correspondent. “A Katyusha rocket landed inside the Green Zone, specifically on the residential building No. 31 in the al-Qadisiyah Residential Complex. It did not cause damage or lead to human losses. I was launched from the Amil District near al-Hadi Mosque,” the Iraqi News Agency reported citing a statement from the Iraqi Security Media Cell.

For insulting Erdogan, over 3,800 sentenced to prison in Turkey in 2019: Report
Emily Judd, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 16 September 2020
الدكتاتور والإخونجي والإرهابي أردوغان سجن 3800 مواطن تركي خلال سنة 2019 بتهمة شتمه
Over 3,800 people in Turkey received prison sentences for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last year, according to a new report. The Turkish judicial system handed out over 3,831 prison sentences for the charge, up 87 percent from 2018 when 2,046 people were sentenced, according to the Turkish news outlet BirGun on Tuesday. Turkey’s penal code criminalizes insulting the president, with an offender typically facing a prison term of up to four years. The sentence can be increased if the insult is expressed in the public sphere. As arrests have continued to increase over the past four years, human rights organizations have called on Turkey to end prosecutions for acts of “insulting the president,” and accused the government of using the law to silence dissenting voices. The Turkish judicial system is “under tremendous pressure to prosecute any criticism of Erdogan,” according to Henri Barkey, a fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.“The most important problem is that the judicial system is no longer independent in Turkey - it basically follows directives from the presidential palace,” Barkey said in an interview with Al Arabiya English.
Criticism or insult?
The Turkish government under Erdogan has drawn a thin line between a critical comment and an insult, according to exiled Turkish journalist Bulent Kenes. Kenes was indicted and given three life sentences plus 15 years in prison in Turkey after writing a column critical of Erdogan in July 2016. He escaped the punishment and now lives in Europe. “I received a number of prison sentences since 2015 for allegedly insulting Erdogan just because of my ordinary criticism against him,” said Kenes in an interview with Al Arabiya English.“I can promptly underline the fact that the overwhelming majority of the so-called ‘insult’ cases have nothing to do with a real insult,” he added.
‘Chilling effect on society’
The Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member, issued an opinion on Turkey’s Article 299 – which criminalizes insulting the head of the government - arguing that “a clear distinction should be made between criticism and insult.”The large number of investigations on the premise of insulting the president “are very likely to create a chilling effect on society as a whole,” the 2016 opinion said. The council also voiced concern for the large number of convictions of journalists, like Kenes, and the widespread practice of self-censorship. Kenes said the so-called insult cases are unsurprising given that “the current regime in Turkey is neither liberal nor democratic.”“It would be extremely unusual and abnormal to see 3,831 people given prison sentences in a year in a democratic country just because they criticized their president,” said Kenes. “But it is the norm of the Erdogan regime to persecute any dissent through sham trials in his kangaroo courts,” he added. A total of 36,066 people faced criminal investigation in 2019 for allegedly insulting Erdogan, who was first elected in 2014 to the position of president. One of the thousands sentenced was Turkish politician Figen Yuksekdag, a member of the opposition pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), who received a sentence of one year and six months in prison. “These investigations and sentences are just a method of persecution and intimidation of those in opposition,” said Kenes.

EU describes Turkish row with Cyprus as ‘grave situation, backs Nicosia
The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
“I believe we must be very firm when it comes to defending the rights of all member states, including Cyprus”, said European Council chief Charles Michel
Michel’s visit to the island comes a day after Turkey said its Yavuz drillship would continue its search for oil and gas off Cyprus until October 12, despite international calls to withdraw. The top EU official is in Cyprus ahead of an emergency meeting of EU leaders next week that will address Turkish actions in the Eastern Mediterranean with sanctions a distinct possibility.
“The European Union stands in solidarity with Cyprus as it faces a grave situation. That is why we have decided to call a summit on relations with Turkey,” Michel told reporters after meeting Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.
“I believe we must be very firm when it comes to defending the rights of all member states, including Cyprus.”Turkey, Greece and Cyprus have been locked in a dispute over offshore energy rights and maritime borders in the region, with Ankara infuriating the EU allies by sending research ships with naval escorts to work in contested waters. Although Cyprus has been an EU member since 2004, its jurisdiction is not recognised by Turkey, which dismisses the island’s internationally recognised government as an exclusively Greek Cypriot administration.
There have been fears of conflict erupting and Cyprus is pressing the rest of the EU to impose fresh sanctions on Ankara over the drilling.
Michel said Brussels did not want to send the message that this was a dispute involving only Greece and Cyprus with Turkey as it affected the “rights of the EU.”
Cyprus’s president said Michel’s visit comes at an “extremely worrisome” time as “Turkey continues to violate our maritime zones” with “illegal” drilling.
He said the bloc should show its readiness to take action to protect its members’ rights. “Respect for the sovereignty of all member states should remain a rule that no one can ignore or show contempt for,” Anastasiades said.
“As long as there are illegal actions against member states, the EU’s response should be immediate.”Turkey said the Yavuz will be accompanied by three other Turkish ships, according to a maritime notice that added “all vessels are strongly advised not to enter” the area. Nicosia said such maritime notices within its jurisdiction were illegal. Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup in Nicosia seeking to unite the whole island with Greece. A breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island is recognised only by Ankara. Turkey insists that the minority community’s interests must be protected and has called for the exploitation of offshore oil and gas reserves to be put off until an agreement on reunifying the island has been reached in UN-backed talks.
Also on Wednesday, the European Commission’s president said the EU’s distance with Turkey “is growing.”
Ursula von der Leyen, who took over as EU chief last year promising to make the bloc more “geopolitical,” said the EU needed to take “clear and swift” foreign policy decisions instead of getting bogged down in internal horse-trading.
She used her annual State of the EU speech to warn Turkey not to bully Greece and Cyprus over energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.
“Turkey is and will always be an important neighbour, but while we are close together on the map, the distance between us appears to be growing,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
“Yes, Turkey is in a troubled neighbourhood. And yes, it is hosting millions of refugees, for which we support them with considerable funding. But none of this is justification for attempts to intimidate its neighbours”.

Turkey’s arrest of lawyers slammed as ‘intimidation’
The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
The Ankara state prosecutor’s office ordered the detention of 60 people on Friday, including 48 lawyers.
ISTANBUL- Turkish and international lawyers’ groups have voiced concern over the arrest of dozens of lawyers, saying they had been doing their job when representing clients accused of links to the network Turkey blames for an attempted coup in 2016.
The Ankara state prosecutor’s office ordered the detention of 60 people on Friday, including 48 lawyers and others in the legal sector, suspected of operating in support of the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The suspects were part of a structure within the Gulenist network which sought to “steer investigations in favour of the group under the guise of attorney activities,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The Istanbul Bar Association described the arrests as intimidation. In a statement released on Monday, it said the allegations related to the execution of their duties as lawyers, representing clients accused of Gulen links.
“A lawyer cannot be identified with their client,” the association said. “Intimidation which hopes to restrict the lawyers’ duty … will impact the public as much as lawyers and gradually destroy confidence in justice.”
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) also expressed concern, saying the arrests breached Turkey’s obligations under international law.
“Lawyers should never be arrested or sanctioned for representing their clients, or identified with their clients causes,” said Roisin Pillay, director of the ICJ Europe and Central Asia Programme. In a crackdown since the failed coup, in which 250 people were killed, tens of thousands of people have been arrested. Gulen, a former ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has denied involvement in the putsch.
On Tuesday, prosecutors in the western province of Izmir ordered the arrest of 66 suspects, including 48 serving military personnel, in an investigation of the armed forces, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.
In the post-coup crackdown, more than 20,000 people had been expelled from the Turkish military.

UN agency says 2 dozen migrants presumed dead after boat capsizes near Libya
The Associated Press, Cairo/Tuesday 15 September 2020
The UN migration agency said Tuesday that a boat carrying migrants bound for Europe capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya, leaving at least two dozen people drowned or missing and presumed dead, the latest shipwreck off the North African country. Safa Msehli, a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration, told The Associated Press that Libya’s coast guard intercepted three boats on Monday, and one of them had capsized. She said the coast guard retrieved two bodies, and survivors reported 22 others were missing and presumed dead. At least 45 survivors on the three boats were returned to the shore. All migrants were men, with a majority from Egypt and Morocco, she said. “This new tragedy signals yet again the need for increased search and rescue capacity in the Mediterranean. Instead, we are seeing restrictions on NGOs and long, unnecessary stand-offs,” Msehli said. The shipwreck was the latest maritime disaster involving migrants seeking a better life in Europe. In August, a boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized leaving at least 45 people drowned or missing and presumed dead, marking the largest number of fatalities in a single shipwreck off the coast of the North African country.
Libya, which descended into chaos following the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has emerged as a major transit point for African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty to Europe.

EU chief pledges to defend Cyprus rights in Turkey standoff
AFP/Wednesday 16 September 2020
European Council chief Charles Michel pledged Wednesday that the bloc will defend the rights of member state Cyprus in its standoff with Turkey over maritime and energy rights. Michel’s visit to the island comes a day after Turkey said its Yavuz drillship would continue its search for oil and gas off Cyprus until October 12, despite international calls to withdraw. The top EU official is in Cyprus ahead of an emergency meeting of EU leaders next week that will address Turkish actions in the eastern Mediterranean with sanctions a possibility. “The European Union stands in solidarity with Cyprus as it faces a grave situation. That is why we have decided to call a summit on relations with Turkey,” Michel told reporters after meeting Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades. “I believe we must be very firm when it comes to defending the rights of all member states, including Cyprus.” Turkey, Greece and Cyprus have been locked in a dispute over offshore energy rights and maritime borders in the region, with Ankara infuriating the EU allies by sending research ships with naval escorts to work in contested waters. Although Cyprus has been an EU member since 2004, its jurisdiction is not recognized by Turkey, which dismisses the island’s internationally recognized government as an exclusively Greek Cypriot administration. There have been fears of conflict erupting and Cyprus is pressing the rest of the EU to impose fresh sanctions on Ankara over the drilling. Michel said Brussels did not want to send the message that this was a dispute involving only Greece and Cyprus with Turkey as it affected the “rights of the EU.” Cyprus’s president said Michel’s visit comes at an “extremely worrisome” time as “Turkey continues to violate our maritime zones” with “illegal” drilling. He said the bloc should show its readiness to take action to protect its members’ rights. “Respect for the sovereignty of all member states should remain a rule that no one can ignore or show contempt for,” Anastasiades said. “As long as there are illegal actions against member states, the EU’s response should be immediate.”Turkey said the Yavuz will be accompanied by three other Turkish ships, according to a maritime notice that added “all vessels are strongly advised not to enter” the area. Nicosia said such maritime notices within its jurisdiction were illegal. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup in Nicosia seeking to unite the whole island with Greece. A breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island is recognised only by Ankara. Turkey insists that the minority community’s interests must be protected and has called for the exploitation of offshore oil and gas reserves to be put off until an agreement on reunifying the island has been reached in UN-backed talks.

UN tourism body UNWTO opens regional Middle East office in Riyadh
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 16 September 2020
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has set up its regional office for the Middle East in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, after executive council members of the UN body approved the decision during its 112th session. The announcement was confirmed by Saudi Arabia’s Minister for Tourism Ahmed al-Khateeb on Wednesday, adding in a statement that the Kingdom’s cooperation with UNWTO was more important than ever for. “I am therefore very excited that Saudi Arabia will become home to the first ever UNWTO Regional Office, which aims to support growth at a national and regional level. We hope this will provide a model for future collaborations around the world,” al-Khateeb said in a statement. “Tourism not only boosts economies, it also builds bridges between cultures and enriches lives. It is one of the only sectors that is able to drive such tangible transformative change, on so many levels,” he added.
The new UNWTO regional office in Riyadh is expected to serve as a hub for the UNWTO to 13 countries in the Middle East. His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Saudi Arabia’s Minister for Tourism, today announced that the establishment of the UNWTO Regional Office for the Middle East in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has been approved by UNWTO Executive Council members. The announcement was made in a statement at the 112th session of the UNWTO Executive Council, hosted in Georgia, Tbilisi. The new UNWTO Regional Office will serve as a hub for the UNWTO to 13 countries in the Middle East.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 16-17/2020

Iran regime’s paranoia over future widespread protests
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/September 16/2020
Although Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has in the past admitted that people have the right to protest, the Iranian authorities have become increasingly paranoid about demonstrations erupting across the country. The Iranian leaders’ paranoia is being demonstrated through their brutal suppression of peaceful protesters and political prisoners. The judiciary has ratcheted up its harsh punishments for those who protest, even if they are peaceful, and those who dare to oppose the regime’s policies. Although the regime has, on occasions, commuted death sentences when there has been an international outcry, the theocratic establishment went ahead this week and executed champion wrestler Navid Afkari by hanging him in the southern city of Shiraz, according to Iranian state media. His execution was clearly carried out in a hurried manner and he was even denied a last visit from his family.
The Iranian leaders most likely wanted to make an example of the highly respected wrestler, to impose fear in society, and send a strong message to the people that anyone who dares to protest can face severe consequences.
Another high-profile figure that the regime has arrested and tortured is 20-year-old Ali Younesi, a student who in 2018 won a gold medal as a member of Iran’s national team during the 12th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics. He and his friend Amirhossein Moradi have been held without charge since April, accused by the authorities of having connections to the opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq.
Iran’s Revolutionary Courts and the judiciary are known for their lack of due process, forced concessions, and for denying detainees access to lawyers. As Human Rights Watch’s Deputy Middle East Director Michael Page explained: “Iranian authorities have a history of targeting dissidents’ family members on bogus charges and, after nearly two months, they have failed to provide an iota of evidence against Younesi and Moradi. The prolonged solitary confinement, lack of access to a lawyer, and the judiciary’s history of coerced confessions signal that there’s almost zero chance that the due process rights of these two students will be respected.”The Iranian regime has also been escalating its excessive punishment against minority religious groups. For example, last week, the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of seven Sunni political prisoners. They were sentenced to death on vague charges including “corruption on earth,” “acting against national security,” and “propaganda against the state.”
Last month, the judiciary also secretly hanged another protester, Mostafa Salhi. Amnesty International condemned his execution, stating that it “was carried out… despite serious unfair trial concerns including torture and other ill-treatment and the denial of access to a lawyer during the investigation phase of his case.”The Iranian leaders wanted to send a strong message that anyone who dares to protest can face severe consequences.
Since 2018, every wave of protests has questioned the legitimacy of the regime and challenged its hold on power. The regime is now particularly concerned due to the tremendous pressure it is facing. This is largely because the country’s economic outlook is extremely dire and its currency has again lost a significant amount of its value in the last few months. The rial hit a new low against the dollar last week, with one US dollar selling for about 262,000 rials in Tehran’s exchange market. A dollar was worth 200,000 rials in late June and about 85,000 rials only a year ago.
Desperate for cash, and in a rare move, the regime has even turned to other governments and international organizations to lend it money. But its attempts to secure funds have failed, mainly because of the US’ veto power or its pressure on other governments. That is why Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed out at the US on Saturday, stating: “We requested a $5 billion loan from IMF (International Monetary Fund) and all members agreed but America does not allow the payment of this loan… The White House today has no sense of humanity. Even more importantly, we have friendly countries that have our money deposited in their banks and they do not unfreeze these assets and say that America is putting pressure and threatening them against the unfreezing.”
The US’ sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and financial system, in addition to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, have crippled the country’s economy. But, even if the US sanctions are lifted and COVID-19 disappears, the damage that has been inflicted on Iran’s economy will not be undone for a long time to come because years of growth have been lost. The IMF this month estimated that Iran’s foreign exchange reserves will decrease by up to $19 billion this year (from $85 billion), with another $16 billion fall expected in 2021.
The Iranian regime is escalating its suppression due to its fears that protests could overthrow the political establishment. It is incumbent on the international community to investigate Tehran’s excessive punishment of peaceful protesters and to hold the Iranian leaders accountable for their egregious actions.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Time for the Palestinian people to take the initiative
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/September 16, 2020
As Palestinians protested against the deals signed in the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the UAE and Bahrain on Tuesday, and despite the various criticisms, those agreements should send a sign to the Palestinians that it is time to get their act together.
Many analysts offered different explanations for the drivers behind the deals and their expected results. Some said they are setting the stage for a comprehensive peace in the region. Others saw in this the death certificate of the Arab Peace Initiative that conditioned Arab normalization on a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, while Israeli analysts viewed it as the start of a new era of Arab-Israeli relations, where peace is no longer conditional on land concessions but more as a materialization of a “peace for peace” concept.
The unsolvable 70-year conflict no longer defines regional dynamics and relations. Unlike in the 1970s, when the Arab League boycotted Anwar Sadat’s Egypt for normalizing ties with Israel, the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to issue a condemnation statement of the UAE-Israel deal was quickly rebuffed by the Arab League. Arab countries now have other priorities: Namely, Iran and Turkey.
Sandwiched between what is perceived as Iranian expansionism and Turkey’s hegemonic ambitions, Israel becomes a necessary ally. To add to that, there is a general fatigue with the Palestinian cause. Arab states feel the futility of standing by the squabbling Palestinian leaders. The late Saudi monarch King Abdullah tried in good faith to bring the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas together under the Makkah Agreement, only for his attempt to fail due to the two leaderships’ ego clashes and conflicts of interest.
The UAE and Bahrain deals can be a good wake-up call for the Palestinian leaderships, who should move beyond lament, condemnation and self-pity to get in touch with reality. They should look back at their history: In 1948, they left their homes in Palestine, hoping they would go back at the head of conquering Arab armies, only for their dream to be shattered on the shores of time. This has resulted in third-generation refugees lingering in less than humane conditions in camps in neighboring countries.
It is time for the Palestinian people to get disillusioned about what they can get from Arab states. Each state has enough to worry about in the dangerous environment the region is currently experiencing. No state will forgo what it perceives as its national interest to champion the Palestinian cause. Dictators like Hafez Assad used the Palestinian cause as a narrative to justify their brutal rule and the imposition of emergency laws, where all personal freedoms and basic human and civil rights were stifled. The narrative is that human rights and economic growth should be put aside for the moment because the “dictator” is preparing for something grand and noble, which is the liberation of Palestine. The Islamic Republic in Iran infiltrated Arab societies by adopting the Palestinian cause, only to later reveal with its interventions in Syria, Iraq and Yemen that its real project is a sectarian one unrelated to Palestine. With the Arab uprising, the legitimacy of those dictators — which was based on them hiding behind the lie pertaining to the liberation of Palestine — fell.
Palestinians need to get a grip on reality and they should start by putting their own house in order. The people should no longer be fooled by Ismail Haniyeh, who leaves Gaza on a private jet after getting approval from Israeli officials to head to Lebanon and threaten the “Zionist enemy” from Hezbollah’s stronghold. No state will forgo what it perceives as its national interest to champion the Palestinian cause.
They should no longer let the corrupt leaderships in Gaza and the West Bank divide them. They should unite and prepare their own plan for the future of their nation. Whether that consists of resisting the occupation or negotiating with the occupier, it is their call to make. Whether they want political independence from Israel or they want equal rights inside Israel, that is again their call to make.
They should no longer take a back seat while others present plans to determine their fate. They should stop others from hijacking their cause for political gain. They need to have a clear vision of where they want to end up, what they want from Israel, and what they are ready to offer in return.
One thing is for sure: It is time to bypass the internal political bickering and take firm action. The Palestinians have to remember that self-determination cannot happen without self-help. It is time to reject the corrupt leaderships that do nothing but work to perpetuate their own existence. The people should start working on an alternative to the sagging leaderships. They should connect with the Palestinian citizens of Israel and with the wider diaspora to come up with a plan of action that will determine their fate.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is the co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building (RCCP), a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She is also an affiliated scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Losing hope in the Middle East is not an option
Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab news/September 16/2020
Foreign Policy magazine this month ran a provocative piece titled, “The End of Hope in the Middle East,” which concluded that the region “has always had problems — but it’s now almost past the point of recovery.”
Author Steven Cook, from the Council on Foreign Relations, justified his pessimistic outlook by pointing out that the region “has become a dystopia marked by violence, resurgent authoritarianism, economic dislocation, and regional conflict, with no clear way out.”
The article fits into a long tradition of dystopian pronouncements about the Middle East. After all, the best-known apocalyptic view about the end of the world came from our region. There are similar dystopian traditions in the West and elsewhere, and numerous books, films, songs and works of art that have pronounced the end of the world, the end of “Western civilization,” the end of Europe or the end of America, only to be proven wrong every time. So far.
Cook’s piece is more nuanced and well-argued than many of those works, but it is also just as gloomy and inaccurate.
While attaching greater weight to internal factors, Cook correctly points to another source of despair: How different powers have disturbed the delicate balance that existed in the region until recently. He mentions the “Russians in Syria and Libya, the Turks in the same two countries, or Iran in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.” He also mentions the destabilizing role that the US has, at times, unwittingly played. One clear example is the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was waged against the advice of its Gulf partners.
Cook also appears critical of the “permissive international environment” that has tolerated and even aided sources of destabilization in the region.
He correctly identifies several internal and external sources of Middle Eastern instability and deprivation, but then gives up on how to deal with them. Losing hope dangerously denies the people of the region the agency to change their current predicament, as they have done many times before.
This region has lived through tougher times than the present situation and survived. There have been high peaks and very deep troughs during its 6,000-year recorded history, from cruel wars to disease and devastating natural disasters. During those millennia, the region beat all others to the invention of writing, the alphabet, agriculture and many other innovations that we take for granted today. It was the birthplace of great religions that are followed by most people around the globe today. The Middle East and North Africa region is today home to nearly 600 million people, mostly young. It is rich with diverse and vibrant cultures, and is endowed with more than its share of natural resources. It is unlikely that such resilient people are going to succumb to hopelessness and die, as Cook seems to suggest at times.
During the past 1,000 years, the region has managed to beat and survive multiple attacks, which at the time seemed like they might be fatal. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, it faced and defeated fanatical Crusaders from the West. During the following two centuries, it was overrun by marauding hordes from the East, who controlled much of the region and destroyed whole cities. Then there were the waves of colonial powers, which until recently dominated political and economic life in the region.
But the Middle East survived. No matter how dark things look now, they are not as dark as matters looked during the Crusades or when Genghis Khan’s hordes attacked. Nor is the region as seemingly hopeless as it was during the time of colonial rule by successive foreign powers. This region has shown great resilience and has been able to rebound after every shock and thrive.
During its darkest hours, the Middle East has never reached the bottomless depths of the European experience of endless wars and destruction that culminated in the most destructive wars in human history, the First and Second World Wars. Just as Europe was able to pull itself back together against crippling odds, so can the Middle East.
Losing hope, as Cook suggests we should do, means that we stop searching for a way out. In indirect ways, Cook implies that the failures are innate, could not be helped, and it is futile to search for the causes of and any ways out of the current morass affecting the Middle East.
However, giving up is not an option for the people who live in this region. In almost every conflict that he cites in his article, it is possible to point out the precise causes and a clear timeline of the missteps and mistakes that were made by internal and external powers. In nearly every conflict, the international community has, in one way or another, prescribed a plausible and equitable solution. It is also possible, in most conflicts, to identify the spoilers who have obstructed those solutions.
This region has shown great resilience and has been able to rebound after every shock and thrive.
Leaving the Middle East alone to deal with its problems should not be an option for outsiders either. Continued instability in this region, which straddles many trade routes, negatively affects the rest of the world. That it is rich in energy sources highlights its essential role in global prosperity. The 600-million-strong population of this region, with its growing needs and spending habits, could represent a thriving market. It could also provide the manpower for business and industry once stability is restored.
Cook cited Libya as evidence for hopelessness and despair, but in recent weeks and days the Libyans have been proving him wrong. They ceased fighting and began in earnest a process toward peace and reconciliation. Other parts of the Middle East could follow suit, as the formulas for success have been identified for nearly every other conflict. The international community should play a supporting role and deal with the spoilers effectively.
*Dr. 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
 

Oman has no complex with Israel, its complex lies with Iran
Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
There is no room for old complexes in today’s era of enormous challenges, be they complexes towards Israel, Iran or the region in general.
Oman has no complexes with its relationship with Israel. The Sultanate was quick to welcome the Bahraini-Israeli agreement in a statement that, from how it was distributed and broadcast, clearly showed that Muscat wants to pave the way for itself to be the next Gulf country in line to normalise with Israel. When will the Omani move come? It is still highly speculative, but most likely it will be soon. With the background of already established contacts with Israel under the reign of the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the new Omani leadership is open to the idea.
Oman’s problem, therefore, lies elsewhere. It lies in its relationship with Iran.
How will the new Omani government deal with Iran? Sultan Haitham bin Tariq has been taking clear steps towards more openness. The recent changes in ministerial portfolios gave an initial, but strong, indication of his endeavour to put his touch on all files early on. Perhaps the most striking change introduced by the sultan was in the ministry of foreign affairs with the dismissal of veteran minister Yusuf bin Alawi. Bin Alawi was the embodiment of Oman’s quiet diplomacy, but he was also one of the symbols of the political complexes there.
In a meeting I had years ago with the former minister of foreign affairs in Muscat, during a visit by invitation of the Omani ministry of information, I asked bin Alawi about the secret of Oman’s strong relationship with Iran. His answer was surprising. I had expected a rather standard diplomatic response from a man who had decades of diplomatic and political experience behind him, but the minister gave me a simple, matter-of-fact response.“We owe Iran a great debt from the 1970s, as it helped us counter the rebellion against the government and the attempt to secede,” he said.
There are two complex problems in bin Alawi’s response. I do not know by which yardstick the Omani minister was measuring his country’s relationship with Iran, because Iran of the 1970s was the Iran of the shah and there is no way to match that era with the eras of Khomeini and Khamenei. We are not talking here about a western country like Britain, where stability in international relations is not affected much by a change in the ruling party. Post-1979 Iran has nothing to do with the shah’s Iran. Perhaps the only common denominator of the two eras is Iranian ambitions. The shah had imperial ambitions of being the policeman of the Gulf, while under the Islamic Republic, these ambitions acquired the label of “exporting the revolution” and became a regional expansionist project that slowly invaded the region in stages after threatening its stability since day one.
The second problem is related to the minister’s character. Bin Alawi criticised the rebellion against the government and praised Iran’s role in confronting it. But we know that the minister himself was among the rebels calling for the secession of Dhofar, and we do not know whether his tribute to Iran’s role was part of a self-re-examination or a desire to be in line with the official version of history of that difficult stage in Oman’s modern history. It is true that the former minister was one of the first to abandon the separatist rebellion movement, after Sultan Qaboos assumed power in the wake of his 1970 coup against his father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, but this does not mean his separatist history should simply be written off and forgotten. Political pragmatism is one thing, and personal convictions are another.
We do not wish to enter into the intricacies of the interpretation of the first complex, as its regional dimensions are linked to traditional Omani sensitivities towards Saudi pressures on governance and stability at one stage. The Imamist rebellion, the Green Mountain revolution, the Buraimi Oasis issue and the recent case of Yemen’s Mahra governorate are all considerations that weigh on the Omani political mind, as it thinks of a regional power that could counterbalance Saudi pressure. This is a problem that dates back over half a century, and a lot has changed during this period. But this Omani complex has continued to be present and shape Omani policy, perhaps even to this day. Is it not high time for Oman to come to terms with this complex?
The second problem is personal, and we leave it to whom it concerns to work it out.
Sultan Haitham seems intent on opening a new page. Iran, for example, is acting to advance its own political and strategic motives, and one should not for a moment believe that its leadership takes into account the opinions of friends. Saudi Arabia today is not the Saudi Arabia of the recent past, and it seems more concerned with its own project for internal reform.
Regional crises have drained the region, and the collapse of oil prices combined with the coronavirus pandemic came as two dangerous warning signs of upcoming difficulties. Young Omanis are focused more on their country than they are on what is happening around them in the region.
Furthermore, we can see an important sign of stability and continuity in the assignment of a high and prominent position to the son of the sultan, Sayyid Dhi Yazan bin Haitham. Both of the sultan’s sons are close to their father, and we will see them grow more involved in the process of internal reform that their father is leading very seriously. In Oman today, there are sure signs of a determination to break off from the former state of stalemate and routine that characterised the country’s administration and society during the period of Sultan Qaboos’s illness and before.
There is no room for old complexes in today’s era of enormous challenges, be they complexes towards Israel, Iran or the region in general. Sultan Haitham has an opportunity to introduce new adjustments and changes in Oman’s visions and policies, and it is part of his full right to put his own stamp on things, in addition to undertake urgently needed reforms to adapt to new realities.
**Haitham El-Zobaidi is chairman of Al Arab Publishing House. He is also chairman and publisher of The Arab Weekly and Al-Jadeed magazine.

Realising one Bahraini’s vision of Arab-Israeli peace
Jason Isaacson/The Arab Weekly/September 16/2020
Normalisation of relations between two Gulf states and Israel will begin replacing fear with partnership, mistrust with understanding.
In 1995, a young Bahraini diplomat recently returned home from his first posting in Washington was assigned to accompany a small delegation of American Jews who had secured an invitation to visit his island nation.
The itinerary he assembled included meetings with the long-serving minister of foreign affairs, minister of labour and minister of oil and gas. The delegation visited the Bahrain National Museum, had lunch with a diverse and curious group of businessmen and met with the US ambassador.
The young diplomat assured that the delegation was greeted with respect and openness at every stop of the two-day visit. It was almost four years after the Madrid Peace Conference, two years after the Oslo Accord and a year after the Jordan-Israel treaty. Peace seemed just over the horizon. No question was out of bounds.
I was privileged to have organised and accompanied that first American Jewish Committee (AJC) visit to Bahrain – in fact, the first visit to the country by any Jewish advocacy group. I remember asking many questions about Bahraini aspirations, regional coordination with the United States, Iranian ambitions in the Gulf, fallout from the (first) Gulf War and Bahrain’s role in the Multilateral Working Group on the Environment, a Madrid conference spinoff.
But the question we raised again and again, a question the young Bahraini diplomat knew was our dominant concern – but could never be fully answered – was this: When and how can Bahrain and Israel, two small states in troubled neighbourhoods, realise the promise of peace?
We left Manama hopeful but uncertain, committed to returning annually. In time, the young Bahraini diplomat was promoted, and promoted again. In 2005, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa appointed the then-45-year-old diplomat, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa as minister of foreign affairs. From that moment, through the nearly 15 years he served as Bahrain’s chief diplomat until becoming the king’s diplomatic adviser early this year, he never lost his interest in, nor his commitment to, expanding the circle of Arab-Israeli peace.
The September 11 announcement by US President Donald Trump that Bahrain and Israel would establish full diplomatic relations, following on the heels of the August 13 breakthrough between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, was the product of many factors – strategic, political and economic – and of many players: a determined US administration, tireless and resourceful Israeli diplomats and other officials and far-sighted and pragmatic Bahraini leaders. AJC bridge-building over a quarter-century played a supporting role.
But the constant beacon of encouragement and inspiration throughout the long years of striving for a new Middle East paradigm was Sheikh Khalid. He told a pan-Arab newspaper 11 years ago that Israel should be included – along with Iran and Turkey – in a new Arab forum as a way to solve regional problems. He took to Twitter on multiple occasions to defend Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorist attacks. He proudly posted press releases and pictures of his meetings with AJC delegations, knowing he would have to explain those encounters to critics wary of any overture to Israel and its supporters.
Sheikh Khalid is by no means Bahrain’s or the Arab world’s only brave visionary. He reflects the grounded views of King Hamad and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. His approach will be carried forward by his respected successor, Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani.
In the UAE, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and the country’s Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, have steered a creative and practical course in partnership with the United States. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, who addressed AJC’s Global Forum in June, laid out potential areas of cooperation with Israel. The late Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Muscat almost two years ago, and Oman’s then-foreign minister, Yusuf bin Alawi, spoke openly of Israel’s place in the region.
What these and other leaders have grasped, and have been bold to not only say but to pursue as policy objectives, is that their people and the cause of regional peace, stability and prosperity will benefit from a forthright, above-the-table relationship with Israel – standing together against extremism and Iranian aggression and seizing together the rich rewards of cooperation.
What they also have grasped is that a fair, secure, negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will never be reached in a climate of fear and mistrust, nor can it be achieved by not talking to Israel, or by pretending Israel doesn’t exist.
Normalisation of relations between two Gulf states and Israel will begin replacing fear with partnership, mistrust with understanding. It will lay the foundation for enduring peace between the Jewish state and all its Arab neighbours – a dream that a visionary young Bahraini diplomat shared with his American Jewish visitors a quarter-century ago.
**Jason Isaacson is the American Jewish Committee’s Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer.

Nineteen years on, we face a resilient Islamist threat
Ilan Berman/The Hill/September 16/2020
Last week marked the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon that ushered in what has come to be known as the “global war on terror.” The occasion provides an opportune moment to take stock of the prevailing trends in America’s longstanding struggle against Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, the news is anything but encouraging.
ISIS is resurgent. A year-and-a-half after the destruction of its physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the world’s most notorious terrorist group is showing alarming new signs of life. While the Coronavirus has dominated the news, this year has also seen a surge of Islamic State-directed violence in both Iraq and Syria, and the group is now estimated to have more than 10,000 active fighters in those countries — and thousands more embedded in various franchises abroad. The organization also retains hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from various sources, enabling it to fund global operations on an ongoing basis.
Al-Qaeda is making a comeback. In recent years, a pitched ideological competition with its onetime franchise, ISIS, has left the Bin Laden network on the back foot globally. But an overwhelming focus on the Islamic State on the part of the international community has provided al-Qaeda with the breathing room necessary to regroup and reconstitute, and it has used this time wisely. As counterterrorism experts Asfandyar Mir and Colin P. Clarke note in Foreign Affairs, the group “has improved relationships with local power brokers from the Levant to the Indian subcontinent, fusing local and transnational aims in an effort to strengthen cohesiveness and broaden its support base.” The results are noteworthy — and worrisome. Al-Qaeda has now “reconstituted its network in South Asia and Syria, and it appears more unified than before,” Mir and Clarke lay out.
Local jihads are on the rise. At the height of its popularity nearly half-a-decade ago, close to three dozen separate radical groups made common cause with, or formally pledged allegiance to, the Islamic State. Since the collapse of the “core” caliphate, however, these factions have reverted back to their previous patterns of activity — and religious conflicts have surged in the home countries and regions where those groups are active.
Africa has been particularly hard hit in this regard. As a new study from the National Defense University notes, violent Islamist activity surged by more than 30 percent throughout Africa last year, and has spiked in particular in four distinct regions on the continent: Somalia, the Lake Chad Basin, the western Sahel, and Mozambique. That last locale represents a particular area of concern; incidents of violent Islamic activity in Mozambique have surged sevenfold in the last year, and now represent 42 percent of all Islamist violence on the continent as a whole.
Jihadi messaging, and recruitment, is resilient. The Islamic State’s meteoric rise to power in 2013 and 2014 was attributable, in large part, to a sophisticated media presence that exploited digital platforms, social media and a variety of messaging applications to disseminate its ideological vision. That vision has persisted, despite the destruction of the group’s physical presence. Conversations with regional officials throughout the Middle East and North Africa in recent months make clear that there has been no substantive change to patterns of recruitment, radicalization and mobilization in the broader Muslim world, despite ISIS’ decline.
Woodward: Trump's downplaying of virus a 'monumental, catastrophic... In fact, against the backdrop of the global coronavirus pandemic, the extremist message may be gaining more resonance than ever before. Counterterrorism experts worry that captive audiences trapped at home as a result of national lockdowns and social distancing measures now have greater opportunity (and time) to imbibe radical messaging online. At the same time, deteriorating economic conditions in countries hard hit by the pandemic could lead to social instability and provide greater fuel for extremist causes in the near future.
All of which should serve as a sobering reminder that, while America may now be pivoting toward other priorities (such as “great power competition” with China), the conflict that former CIA Director James Woolsey once termed “the long war of the 21st century” remains precisely that. It is a protracted struggle which, like it or not, the United States will be forced to fight.
*Ilan Berman is Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, a non-profit dedicated to supplying expert analysis to those who make or influence U.S. foreign policy and to assisting world leaders with building democracies and market economies.

Why the Iranian Regime May Have Just Signed Its Own Death Warrant
Michael Rubin/The National Interest/September 16/2020
Author: "Afkari may be gone, but historians will look at his execution as the day Khamenei ended the Iranian and Western hope for internal reform and instead signed the death warrant for the Islamic Republic."
Early on the morning of September 12, 2020, Iranian authorities in Shiraz hanged Navid Afkari, a twenty-seven-year-old wrestling champion whom a security court had sentenced to death for allegedly stabbing a man during unrest two years ago. Few believe there was merit to his conviction. Security forces detained and tortured Afkari, his brothers, and hundreds of others for participating in the 2018 anti-government protests. Exculpatory evidence existed. While his captors broadcast a forced confession, Afkari was able to smuggle out a recording professing his innocence. Ordinary Iranians are outraged not only by the brutality of Afkari’s execution, but by its speed. Iranian authorities killed Afkari before his family could visit him to say goodbye.
Over the course of its forty-one-year existence, the Islamic Republic has executed tens of thousands of prisoners and dissidents. The late Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri revealed in memoirs smuggled out of the country by his son that, in 1988 alone, his regime executed several thousand prisoners. Amnesty International recorded the names of at least 2,000 victims, but Iranian dissidents say that when peripheral provinces are counted, the number could be an order of magnitude higher. While some diplomats and politicians counseling outreach to Iran may place hope in the Islamic Republic’s so-called reformers, a sad irony of Iranian political culture is that execution rates are higher under reformist or moderate administrations than under the so-called hardliners. While security agencies (rather than elected leaders) govern death squads and the penal system, Western officials tend to let their guard down and relieve pressure when trying to engage with their Iranian counterparts. Many of those killed have just become statistics given the sheer scale of Iranian human rights abuse, but Afkari’s murder may haunt the regime more than most.
The two most popular sports in Iran are wrestling and soccer. Both are widely followed across society but a class difference exists: Soccer is favored by the educated and the elite, while wrestling is embraced more by the working class. Like all reactionary revolutionary regimes, the Islamic Republic dismisses those with a more internationalist outlook but bases its claims to legitimacy on the support of the poor and the working class. Indeed, from the Islamic Revolution to the present day, Iran’s revolutionary authorities have infused their rhetoric with calls for social justice and addressing the have-nots and working class within society. Afkari’s execution suggests, however, that the regime has abandoned the effort to win the hearts of minds of its core constituency, and instead believe it must rely on brute force.
On an international level, Afkari’s death will also have ramifications: International anti-Israel animus may have undercut past pressure on the International Olympics Committee and other sporting bodies to investigate or punish Iran for ordering their sportsmen to forfeit matches against athletes from the Jewish state. But executing a star athlete on such flimsy grounds is harder to ignore and may lead to Iran’s ban from international forums once the coronavirus pause is over.
Many diplomats, dignitaries, and athletes also had asked Iran to put aside its death sentence, only to be ignored. Here, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s disdain for these entreaties is reminiscent of the case of Farzad Bazoft. Bazoft was a thiry-one-year-old Iranian-British journalist whose work had appeared on the BBC and in London’s Observer. Arrested in September 1989 at a time many Western diplomats continued to court Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a moderate, Iraqi authorities subjected Bazoft to a show trial and sentenced him to death. Pleas poured into Baghdad to spare Bazoft, but Saddam ignored them all. The Iraqi leader refused to even take phone calls from British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. On March 15, 1990, Iraqi authorities executed Bazoft. To add insult to injury, the Iraqi government shipped Bazoft’s body back to Heathrow Airport with a terse statement, “Mrs. Thatcher wanted him. We’ve sent him in a box.” It was only then that the media which had generally treated the Iraqi regime with kid gloves definitively turned. U.S. News and World Report, for example, branded Saddam “The Most Dangerous Man in the World.”
Within Europe and the United States, on college campuses and in news rooms and foreign ministries, academics, journalists, and diplomats have embraced the idea that its critics fundamentally misunderstood Iran. They believed that reformers were both sincere and able to affect change. Afkhari’s execution should put that notion to rest. The regime response to the 2018 protests showed its fear of reform and accountability. Its execution of Afkari, meanwhile, shows it fears the Iranian people and any living heroes around which they might rally. As Khamenei ages and transition looms, the Iranian regime rightly assumes that the next generation of Iranian leaders may arise from Iran’s prisons, much as they once did when transitions came to Chile, Czechoslovakia, India, and South Africa. Khamenei may believe killing Afkari will intimidate those willing to take to the streets, but they instead show just how weak, fearful, detached, and dismissive Iran’s leaders have become. Afkari may be gone, but historians will look at his execution as the day Khamenei ended the Iranian and Western hope for internal reform and instead signed the death warrant for the Islamic Republic.
*Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

We still have time to act against US election vulnerability
Gen. (Ret) Keith B. Alexander and Jamil N. Jaffer/The Hill/September 16/2020
With less than two months remaining until Election Day, now is the time to closely examine threats to our electoral system. We’ve heard from politicians on both sides that this election is in jeopardy, whether because the Russians or the Chinese may interfere to cause chaos and undermine our confidence in our system, or because the coronavirus pandemic and our response to it may lead to balloting issues. Regardless why, there is little question that our elections are under significant pressure and that our adversaries are looking to take advantage.
This is not a new problem. We’ve known about foreign covert influence efforts, including election-related efforts, for decades. What is fundamentally different about the current threats is that they occur at a time of extreme vulnerability for the United States as a nation. We are witnessing massive economic turmoil caused by COVID-19 and the partial shutdown of the global economy. At the same time, cities across our nation are in flames over issues of race and inequality. And this doesn’t even account for the toxic political hostility between the two major parties that has become much worse in the past four years.
Not only are we more vulnerable to manipulation by our adversaries, but their methods have become significantly more effective. Back in the day, if a foreign government wanted to interfere in a U.S. election, it had to recruit willing human assets to place articles in newspapers and stoke anger at rallies. Today, the ability to communicate globally provides huge benefits and brings economic opportunity and political freedom to hundreds of millions across the globe. But significant challenges come with these benefits. Americans and others across the globe are becoming increasingly self-radicalized as we read extreme messages on social media — and see reporting from increasingly polarized news outlets — often from those who agree with us or share our own political views and biases. Rather than stoking critical conversations by expanding access to diverse views in our society, the information revolution has allowed us to burrow ever deeper into our own social groups and harden our political views.
Our enemies know they can have a direct effect on us and, perhaps even worse, believe that there is little cost to doing so. After all, the entire globe saw Russia clearly interfere with our political process in 2016 (and since) and pay little if any price. To be sure, this was not the first time Russia or another nation has sought to play in American elections. But it has been, perhaps, the single-most effective covert influence operation ever conducted.
How do we know? One need only look at how our own nation’s views of the federal government and rule of law institutions, such as the Justice Department, FBI and intelligence community (not to mention local police forces), have been fundamentally undermined in the past few years. To be sure, some of our faith was lost because of individual and systemic failures in many of these institutions. But make no mistake, much of our dissatisfaction with these critically important rule of law organizations has been gaslighted by foreign nation-states who would like nothing more than to see us lose faith in our government, its institutions and its processes.
And it’s not just the standing government and its processes that have been undermined. The American people now have little faith in our elected leaders in the executive branch, and even less in Congress. Rather than seeking to restore this faith by getting the work of the American people done, our institutions have been beset by partisan infighting and bitterness. Recent events suggest that our political branches are fundamentally broken, unable to reauthorize critically important national security authorities and failing to pass further economic measures to address the very real crisis facing American workers and businesses.
The intelligence community has made clear that key adversaries, including Russia, China and Iran, are seriously considering how to get even more aggressive in the cyber arena in coming months. Of course, these issues come as part of a continuously rising cyber threat environment; indeed, we’ve already seen a massive uptick in cyber attacks targeting our financial services institutions, the energy industry, the technology sector and health care institutions, including drug manufacturers and hospitals, as well as the government.
The question is: What might be done at this point, with the elections so close? The answer, surprisingly, is fairly straightforward. U.S. politicians of both parties should assure the American people that they are doing everything necessary to ensure free and fair elections. The executive branch should make clear to any nation considering interference in our elections that — regardless of who wins the White House — the consequences of interfering will be severe. Congress, as its highest priority, ought to pass necessary legislation to restore lapsed national security authorities, provide economic relief for citizens, and offer appropriate investment incentives to restore jobs and protect American innovation.
American mayors, likewise, must restore order to their cities while taking action to address the very real, longstanding grievances that have become all too apparent in recent months. And, perhaps most importantly, the American people should vote — and do so with an eye toward not only their own interests, but those of the nation as well.
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This is not hard, but it will take significant fortitude. It will require elected leaders to put aside crass political agendas and actually do the work of the American people, even in the heat of election campaigns. It will require voters to think not just of themselves and their families, but also of their communities and our larger society. What better time than now to begin these efforts?
*Gen. (Ret) Keith B. Alexander is the former director of the National Security Agency and founding commander of United States Cyber Command, and currently serves as chairman, president and co-CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity. He is on the board of advisers for the National Security Institute at GMU’s Scalia Law School (NSI).
*Jamil N. Jaffer is the former chief counsel and senior adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and served in senior national security roles in the Bush Justice Department and White House. He is senior vice president for strategy, partnerships and corporate development at IronNet Cybersecurity and the founder and executive director of NSI.

Pompeo’s Cyprus Visit a Sign of U.S. Reengagement in the Eastern Mediterranean
Aykan Erdemir/FDD/September 16/2020
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the Cypriot capital of Nicosia on Saturday to address both Turkey’s ongoing oil and gas exploration in Cypriot and Greek waters as well as Russia’s efforts to exploit tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean. Pompeo’s last-minute decision to add Nicosia to his itinerary reflects Washington’s recognition that U.S. leadership will be necessary to prevent conflict and contain Russia’s growing footprint in the region.
Pompeo’s impromptu stopover came five days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Cyprus to mark 60 years of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Nicosia. The president of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, awarded Lavrov the highest order of merit presented by his country. In Nicosia, Lavrov criticized the “deplorable” U.S. bid to stir up trouble in the Eastern Mediterranean and then invited his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides, to Russia.
Russian outreach to Cyprus has exploited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s provocative exploration for hydrocarbons in waters claimed by both Cyprus and Greece. During a July phone call, the Cypriot president appealed to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to personally step in so Turkey “is convinced to cease its unlawful actions,” prompting the latter’s pledge to intercede with the Turkish president. During his September 7 visit, Lavrov reiterated Russia’s commitment to “contribute to building good neighborly relations in the event this is requested of us by those involved.”
U.S. concern for Cyprus has grown as Russia has increased its military footprint in the Eastern Mediterranean by starting to expand its naval base in Syria’s Tartus and deploying attack jets and carrying out combat missions in Libya. Last week, U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus Judith Garber accused Russia of “playing a very destabilizing role in the region” and encouraged Nicosia to deny port services to Russian warships, a requirement Pompeo waived on September 1 in his partial lifting of the U.S. arms embargo against Cyprus, which had been in place for more than three decades. During his visit, Pompeo warned about “nations that don’t share our values trying to obtain footholds in the region,” and added, “We know that all the Russian military vessels that stop in Cypriot ports are not conducting humanitarian missions in Syria.”
Pompeo’s Cyprus visit is a sign not only of greater U.S. engagement in the region but also of greater U.S. coordination with transatlantic allies. Ahead of Pompeo’s visit, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt reiterated Washington’s “commitment to continued leadership, continued engagement, working with our European allies.” In his remarks to the press on Friday, Pompeo stated that his visit complements phone calls by President Donald Trump with both Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Pompeo then praised Germany’s diplomatic efforts to get Ankara and Athens to “begin their conversations about how to proceed.”
Historically, the greatest progress in defusing Turkish-Greek tensions and solving the Cyprus conflict took place when the United States played a mediating role in close coordination with its European allies. The rise of tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, which provides dividends for autocrats such as Putin and Erdogan, can only be defused with a similar transatlantic response led by Washington. This case yet again shows that retaining U.S. engagement in the region is key to maintaining peace and containing Russian ambitions.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from Aykan, the Turkey Program, and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Aykan on Twitter @aykan_erdemir. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Best (Cyber) Defense Is a Good (Cyber) Offense
Jamil N. Jaffer/Newsweek/September 16/2020
We are at war in cyberspace. While lawyers might quibble about the definitions of armed attacks and other niceties of international law, the fact of the matter is that, for around a decade, we've been in series of consistent—albeit small-scale—conflicts in cyberspace. These conflicts have intensified recently, particularly since the start of the COVID pandemic, and have had a massive impact on the American public and private sectors. One can hardly pick up a news magazine today without being assaulted by headlines about data breaches, ransomware, cyber-enabled financial crime or social media-spread misinformation and disinformation. Standing alone, cyber-enabled economic warfare conducted by China drains the American private sector of billions of dollars a year, with total damages estimated in the trillions. Former NSA Director Gen. Keith B. Alexander described this concerted effort as "the greatest transfer of wealth in human history," and former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI)—nearly a decade ago—called out the ongoing cyber economic war.
Even worse, in the last six years alone, we've seen our adversaries undertake attacks tantamount to acts of war. For example, we've seen North Korea and Iran engage in the affirmative destruction of data and the bricking of computer systems here in the United States. And the threat level continues to grow. Just last year, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats told Congress that Iran is actively "preparing for cyber attacks against the United States and our allies" and is "capable of...disrupting a large company's corporate networks for days to weeks." During the same testimony, the DNI noted that "China has the ability to launch cyber attacks [in the U.S.] that [could] cause...disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks." Of course, we all know about Russia's wildly successful covert influence campaign that has undermined public confidence in our elections and rule of law institutions. While the Russian activities are likely to go down in history as among the most effective covert influence operations ever, what sometimes goes missed in all the election talk is the DNI's assessment that Russia is also actively "mapping our critical infrastructure with the long-term goal of being able to cause substantial damage," including by "disrupting an electrical distribution network for at least a few hours."
Notwithstanding the significant costs imposed on the American people and our economy by these activities, the Russians and others have paid little price for their actions. While we've imposed limited sanctions against Russia (primarily because Congress pushed for them), have indicted some key actors in both Russia and China and imposed some limited trade measures against China, the continued pace of activity from our adversaries in cyberspace makes clear that they are largely undeterred. This is especially clear, given the frenetic activity we've seen in the recent months as threat actors have sought financial and strategic gains in the post-COVID environment, including targeting institutions conducting cutting-edge vaccine research. And there is little question that cyber-enabled covert influence activity will only increase as we get closer to election day.
And yet, even in light of all this, there are those who would have us unilaterally disarm—or at least significantly constrain ourselves—when it comes to responding to cyber activities. These advocates of restraint have myriad reasons why we ought to handcuff ourselves. First, they argue that taking such actions unfairly harms others in foreign states. Second, they argue that cyber activities could cause physical damage to people and property. Third, and perhaps most critically, they argue such efforts are escalatory and could push us into an actual shooting war. As a result, these advocates suggest the right approach is to reimpose constraints on our military and intelligence communities, and to raise the evidentiary bar for taking action in cyberspace. This is exactly the wrong answer.
In order to stop the current onslaught in cyberspace, we must effectively deter our opponents by making the costs of taking action against us outweigh the benefits. For far too long, we have failed to do this in the nascent cyber war and, as a result, our enemies have gotten more and more bold, testing the our outer boundaries. As such, the fact that American offensive actions in cyberspace might be painful for our adversaries is not a bug—it's a feature. Of course, it goes without saying that we should be careful to avoid unnecessarily imposing costs on civilians or causing wanton damage to people and property. But let's be clear: Our opponents have been doing exactly that to us for the better part of a decade. They have fundamentally undermined our economy, conducted deliberate and destructive attacks and are actively putting in place capabilities to conduct very real harm to our people when they choose to do so. Given all this, now is exactly the wrong time to unilaterally disarm. Rather, we ought to up our game and increase pressure on our adversaries.
It is worth noting, of course, that we have taken some amount of action to respond to the enemy in cyberspace. In late 2018, Congress removed (actual and perceived) legal barriers to U.S. Cyber Command taking action against specific nations, and President Trump is understood to have gotten rid of the Obama administration's apparent Rube Goldberg-like web of approvals required for cyber operations, replacing it with a broader delegation of authority to the military and, ostensibly more recently, the intelligence community. And the Pentagon itself has adopted a new "defend forward" strategy by persistently engaging the enemy overseas, taking the fight to them before they arrive on our (cyber) shores.
Notwithstanding these important changes to our cyber response posture, we still face a significant onslaught. There are many reasons for this, including that when we do act, our responses appear to have been fairly limited in nature and may not impose significant enough costs. Moreover, we rarely take public responsibility for our actions, making it difficult to deter more than one party. And finally, we are loath to talk affirmatively about our redlines and what kind of a response crossing them would elicit. Rather than walking back these efforts and reimposing ineffectual constraints, we ought to instead double down. We should be clear about our capabilities, put out a clear declaratory policy on cyber redlines and be earnestly willing to take swift, decisive and visible action when those lines are crossed. It's not that deterrence doesn't or can't work in cyberspace—it's that we simply don't really practice deterrence today.
And to those who say deterrence is always escalatory, one need only look back at recent history to prove them wrong. In the early part of the Syrian civil war, notwithstanding his infamous redline on chemical weapons use in Syria, President Obama waffled publicly after the Assad regime used sarin on its own people. He ultimately backed off, running towards an obviously too-good-to-be-true deal with the Russians and, in the process, demonstrating our sheer lack of resolve to maintain our commitments, significantly weakening us in the eyes of friends and foes alike. And, of course, the thousands of Syrian civilians who've suffered from relentless chlorine gas and sarin attacks by the Assad regime since our redline whiff know all too well that our unwillingness to enforce our deterrence policy in Syria has led to more death and destruction, not less.
In contrast, when the current administration responded to Iranian proxy attacks killing Americans in Iraq with a devastating blow, taking out its elite military leader, Qassem Soleimani, American newspapers were full of editorials and "news analyses" opining that we were on the precipice of full-scale war with Iran. Of course, all the hand-wringing was for nought. Rather than take us into war, the current administration's bold and forceful response got the attention of the Iranians, forcing them to rethink their decades of attacks on American forces. Of all the things that the Soleimani strike might have been, the one thing it was not was escalatory.
So what does all this tell us? First, it ought be clear that, with cyber threats at an all-time high, now is absolutely not the time to let down our guard or step back. To the contrary, we ought to provide more resources and authority to those taking the fight to the enemy in cyberspace. Second, we need to help build up our defenses here at home so that we can limit the damage caused. To that end, it is critical that the American government provide effective, real-time direct assistance to critical infrastructure providers in the private sector to help them rapidly upscale their defenses. This collective defense approach will require the government to collect and share highly classified intelligence at scale and speed and actively collaborate with the private sector on defense. If we are to succeed in this very real war, we must make clear to the world that while we did not start this fight, we will bring it to a successful close.
*Jamil N. Jaffer currently serves as senior vice president for strategy, partnerships, and corporate development at IronNet Cybersecurity and as the founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. Among other things, he previously served as chief counsel and senior advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee and in senior national security roles in the Bush Justice Department and White House.
*The views expressed in this article are the writer's own