English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 24/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
Mark 10/17-27: “As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’””
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 23-24/2020

Hezbollah has destroyed Lebanon, must disarm: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman
France Urges 'Strong' Int'l Pressure for New Lebanon Govt.
Aoun Vows Reform, Asks U.S. to Help Finalize Sea Border Demarcation
Report: Govt Negotiations Grew at Night after Hariri’s Initiative
Adib Promises 'Mission Govt.' that 'Satisfies All Lebanese'
Berri Reportedly Expects Progress on Govt. in Coming Hours
Lebanon’s deputy Speaker sees signs of breakthrough in cabinet standoff
France Supports Hariri’s Initiative to End Lebanon Cabinet Deadlock
Lebanon's Hariri Proposes Naming Independent Shiite at Finance Ministry
Lebanon Asks World's Help 'Trying to Rise from its Rubble'
Jumblat Calls for Capitalizing on Hariri's Initiative
Lebanon: Hospitals Reach Full Capacity Amid Lack of Decision-Making to Face Pandemic
Coronavirus cases soar past 350 in Lebanon's largest prison
The Port Came to Us': Story behind AP Photo of Beirut Blast
In Blast-hit Beirut, Armenian Elders Determined to Stay
The Iranian Regime and the Grammar of Deceitful Maneuvering/Charles Elias Chartouni/September 23/2020
How Hezbollah Collaborates With Latin American Drug Cartels/Emanuele Ottolenghi/FDD/September 23/2020
Political 'Maronitism' and 'Shiism'/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
Prospects for Lebanon’s future dim as the worst is yet to come/Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/September 23/2020
In Lebanon, Iraq, top clerics call for Iran's proxies to be disbanded/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Al Arabiya/September 23/2020
Iraq, Kurdish politicians denounce Hezbollah move to partner with pro-Iran militias/Zana Gulmohamad/Al Arabiya/September 23/2020
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 23-24/2020

Another country will sign a peace deal with Israel in ‘next day or two’: US diplomat
Saudi Arabia extended hand to Iran in peace ‘but to no avail’: King Salman
Khartoum discusses Arab-Israeli peace and terrorism list with Washington
Not proper for Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be returned to detention in Iran, says UK’s Raab
Eastern Libyan forces say they killed ISIS leader
Egypt's Sisi committed to ridding Libya of militia, regional interference
Angered by Arab-Israel ties, Palestine quits chairing Arab League sessions
Security Official Killed Near Damascus
Amman: EU-Sanctioned Company ‘Has No Presence’ in Jordan
Search Continues for Kidnapped Iraqi Activist Amid Massive Security Deployment
US Envoy to Syria Reassures Kurds on Turkish Infiltration
Sarraj Discusses LNA Oil Agreement Fallout in Turkey
Israel and Italy finalize arms deal

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 23-24/2020

Khamenei Uses Iraq War Anniversary to Reinforce Iranian Steadfastness/Omer Carmi/The Washington Institute/September 23/2020
After Abraham Accords, time to look at Palestinian-Israeli conflict with fresh eyes/Clifford D. May/Washington Times/September 22/2020
Venezuela and Iran Buck U.S. Sanctions Again to Export Crude/Lucia Kassai/Bloomberg/September 23/2020
Could Iranian Missiles Be Soon Headed To Venezuela?/Josh Chang/The National Interest/September 23/2020
Turkey: Erdoğan's Soft Spot for Hamas/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/September 23/2020
Mueller Team Corruption Contaminates Justice/Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute/September 23/2020
Trump’s Two Contradictory Messages to Iraq and Syria/Robert Ford/Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
Republicans Would Regret Replacing Ginsburg Before Election/Noah Feldman/Bloomberg/September, 23/2020
Biden’s Bipartisanship Is Good for Democrats — for Now/Francis Wilkinson/Bloomberg/September, 23/2020
History Proves John Kerry Wrong ... Again/A.J. Caschetta/JNS/September 23/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 23-24/2020

Hezbollah has destroyed Lebanon, must disarm: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 23 September 2020
Hezbollah’s hegemony over Lebanon has destroyed the country’s constitutional, state institutions and the only way to break out of this is for the Iran-backed group to be disarmed, Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz said Wednesday. King Salman said the catastrophic Aug. 4 Beirut blasts were a result of the “hegemony of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization affiliated with Iran.”He added that Saudi Arabia stands with the Lebanese people who are experiencing a “humanitarian catastrophe” due to Hezbollah’s control over the decision-making process in Lebanon “by force of arms.”
This had led to disabling state institutions and the only way for Lebanon to achieve security, stability and prosperity is for “this terrorist organization [to] be disarmed,” the Saudi king said. King Salman also criticized Iran for turning down chances for peace. He said Tehran “time and again” used its terrorist networks to intensify its expansionist activities and destabilized several countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Lebanon. “The Kingdom will not hesitate to defend its national security, nor will it abandon the fraternal people of Yemen until they regain their complete sovereignty and independence from Iranian hegemony,” King Salman said.
Arab-Israeli conflict
As for the Arab-Israeli conflict, King Salman voiced Saudi Arabia’s support for all efforts to advance the peace process. “Peace in the Middle East is our strategic option,” he said. A just solution must be reached where the Palestinian people have their “independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” King Salman said. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia supports the efforts of the Trump administration to achieve peace in the Middle East and bring the Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiation table, King Salman said.

France Urges 'Strong' Int'l Pressure for New Lebanon Govt.
Naharnet/September 23/2020
France on Wednesday urged the international community to apply strong and unified pressure on Lebanon to form a new government, as frustration grows with the pace of reform in the wake of the giant Beirut port explosion. "The political forces have still not succeeded in agreeing to form a government," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a videoconference meeting on Lebanon on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. "Strong and convergent pressures are therefore needed from us to push Lebanese officials to respect their commitments," he added, according to the text of his speech. "These convergent efforts must continue as long as necessary," he said. The meeting gathered members of the International Support Group for Lebanon including U.N. chief Antonio Guterres, World Bank head David Malpass and world powers including France, Germany, Britain, Italy, the United States, Russia, China, the EU and Arab League. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has visited Lebanon twice in the wake of the explosion, had repeatedly urged the Lebanese not to waste any more time in forming a government. Prime minister-designate Mustafa Adib is under pressure to form a fresh cabinet as soon as possible, so it can launch reforms required to unlock billions of dollars in foreign aid. Adib's efforts to form a government have been effectively blocked by the two main Shiite groups in Lebanon's usual power-sharing arrangement -- Amal and Hizbullah. The two groups argue that an unwritten agreement was reached at the 1989 Taef conference that allocated the finance ministerial portfolio to the Shiite sect, claims disputed by many parties including some MPs who attended the Taef meetings. The August 4 explosion of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port killed more than 190 people, wounded thousands, and ravaged large parts of the capital, prompting the previous cabinet to step down.

Aoun Vows Reform, Asks U.S. to Help Finalize Sea Border Demarcation
Naharnet/September 23/2020
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday told the 75th meeting of the U.N. General Assembly that Lebanon is “committed to administrative, financial and economic reforms.”“Lebanon stresses its full rights to its maritime resources,” Aoun added, addressing the Assembly via videoconference. He also noted that Lebanon is counting U.N. efforts and a long-running U.S. mediation to to finalize the demarcation of its maritime border with Israel. “Lebanon reiterates its call for the international community to stop Israel's violation of Lebanese sovereignty,” Aoun said, while stressing that Lebanon is committed to the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah. Aoun added: “Lebanon welcomes the decision to renew UNIFIL's mandate and sees in it a strong message of support.” And warning that the continued Syrian refugee crisis aggravates Lebanon's woes, the president said Lebanon “calls for intensifying efforts to ensure a safe and dignified return.” As for the investigations into the catastrophic August 4 blast at Beirut port, Aoun said “entire Lebanon wants to know the truth and fulfill justice.”“Today Beirut is trying to rise from its rubble, and through the solidarity of all Lebanese and your support, it will close its wounds and rise as it repeatedly did throughout history,” Aoun told the U.N. General Assembly.

Report: Govt Negotiations Grew at Night after Hariri’s Initiative
Naharnet/September 23/2020
Contacts between Lebanon’s political parties on the government formation stalemate reportedly “intensified” Tuesday night after ex-PM Saad Hariri proposed an initiative aimed at finding a solution to the deadlock over the finance ministerial portfolio, al-Liwaa newspaper reported Wednesday.
Hariri suggested to help PM-designate Mustafa Adib name a Shiite finance minister after the insistence of Amal Movement and Hizbullah to retain the portfolio. The daily said negotiations gained momentum at night yesterday “to put the final touches on the cabinet lineup.”
It said in the event that a final form of Lebanon’s crisis government was drafted, Adib will likely “visit President Michel Aoun this afternoon in Baabda to present the cabinet format, amid a French and European urgency.”Hariri said in a written statement Tuesday that he “decided to help Adib find an exit through naming an independent finance minister from the Shiite sect who would be chosen by him, similarly to the rest of ministers, on the basis of competency, integrity and non-partisanship.”The French foreign ministry on Tuesday had urged competing political forces in Lebanon to agree on forming a government "without delay" as it ramped up pressure for a new cabinet in the crisis-hit country. Adib has been unable to form a new cabinet, which is required to unlock billions of dollars in foreign aid, because of disagreements between political parties.Adib's efforts have been effectively blocked by the two main Shiite groups in Lebanon's usual power-sharing arrangement -- Amal and Hizbullah.

Adib Promises 'Mission Govt.' that 'Satisfies All Lebanese'

Naharnet/September 23/2020
Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib on Wednesday stressed his keenness on forming a "mission government" that would "satisfy all Lebanese" and be comprised of "competent specialists."“It will work on implementing the French initiative’s economic, financial and monetary reforms to which all parties had agreed,” he added in a statement. Adib noted that he had maintained silence throughout the past period out of his sense of the “great responsibility” resting on his shoulders and in order to present a line-up in consultation with the President and within the constitutional framework. Reiterating his commitment that the government will be comprised of “competent specialists who can win the confidence of the country and the Arab and international communities,” the PM-designate pointed out that that would “open the door before Lebanon to get the necessary foreign assistance to rescue the sinking economy.” Adib also urged all parties anew to “cooperate for the sake of Lebanon and its sons” and “seize the opportunity of rescuing the country.” The PM-designate’s remarks come a day after ex-PM Saad Hariri presented an initiative aimed at resolving the deadlock over the finance ministerial portfolio. Hariri said he has decided to “help PM-designate Adib find an exit through naming an independent finance minister from the Shiite sect who would be chosen by him, similarly to the rest of ministers, on the basis of competency, integrity and non-partisanship.”

Berri Reportedly Expects Progress on Govt. in Coming Hours
Naharnet/September 23/2020
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday reportedly revealed that positive developments will take place in the coming hours regarding the formation of the new government. Quoting sources, MTV said Berri answered an MP’s question during the weekly Ain el-Tineh meeting by saying: “It won’t take long, because we can no longer withstand the situation.” Speaker to reporters from Ain el-Tineh, Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli said “pessimism is no longer dominant.” “There are promising efforts to achieve a major progress towards forming a government, but we must wait,” he added, while calling ex-PM Saad Hariri’s initiative a “significant development” that should be “appreciated and taken into consideration.” Al-Jadeed TV meanwhile reported that Hizbullah and Berri’s Amal Movement “have not yet taken a decision and are still mulling Hariri’s initiative and suggesting modifications through contacts with those concerned with the formation process.”MP Alain Aoun of the Strong Lebanon bloc for his part told al-Jadeed that Hariri’s initiative represents a window of opportunity.“We are counting on expanding this window in order to reach a new government,” he said.

Lebanon’s deputy Speaker sees signs of breakthrough in cabinet standoff
Reuters/Wednesday 23 September 2020
There are promising possibilities that could help end a deadlock over forming Lebanon’s new cabinet, the deputy parliament speaker said on Wednesday after France backed a proposal to resolve the crisis. “There are promising possibilities that can be built on, but we have to wait a bit,” Deputy Parliament Speaker Elie Ferzli said in televised comments. He was also quoted by Lebanese broadcaster MTV as saying that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shia Muslim whose demand to choose the finance minister have been at the center of the standoff, was “no longer pessimistic.” On Mondays President Michel Aoun said that the country is going “to hell” if a government is not formed. Aoun also said that Lebanon faced a crisis over forming a government and proposed annulling sectarian quotas in the main Cabinet ministries that routinely cause squabbles during the Cabinet formation process and can make the process take months.

France Supports Hariri’s Initiative to End Lebanon Cabinet Deadlock
Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
France backed on Wednesday a proposal made by Lebanon's former Prime Minister Saad Hariri to end a stalemate preventing the formation of the new cabinet. Paris has been pressing Lebanese politicians to form a government quickly but the process hit a logjam over a demand by Lebanon's two main Shiite parties – Hezbollah and Amal movement - that they name several ministers, including the finance minister. Hariri, a Sunni, proposed in a statement on Tuesday that Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib name an "independent" Shiite candidate to the finance portfolio. A Shiite picked by Amal chief Nabih Berri, who is also the parliament speaker, has run the finance ministry for years. Adib aimed to shake up ministerial posts. The French Foreign Ministry welcomed the "courageous declaration" by Hariri. It said: "This declaration represents an opening and all parties should understand its importance so that a government of mission can now be established."President Michel Aoun said on Monday Lebanon was going "to hell" if it could not form a government to tackle a crisis that has paralyzed the banks, sent Lebanon's pound into freefall and plunged many into poverty. The country's problems were compounded by a devastating explosion on Aug. 4 at Beirut port. Hariri said his idea was to name "a finance minister from the Shiite sect, who would be independent" but said this did not mean he accepted that the post should always be held by a Shiite. France had said on Tuesday Lebanon risked collapse if politicians did not form a cabinet quickly, after they missed a mid-September deadline agreed with Paris.

Lebanon's Hariri Proposes Naming Independent Shiite at Finance Ministry
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 23 September, 2020
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri proposed on Tuesday a solution to the cabinet crisis, saying he would help PM-designate Mustapha Adib choose an independent Shiite minister at the Finance Ministry. “I decided to help Prime Minister Adib find a way out, by naming a finance minister from the Shiite sect, who would be independent and whom he chooses, like all other ministers on the basis of competence, integrity and non-affiliation to ant party,” Hariri said in a statement issued by his office.
However, the head of al-Mustaqbal Movement said this doesn’t mean in any way recognition that the finance ministry is the exclusive right of the Shiite sect or any other sect. “It should be clear that this is a one-time decision and does not constitute a norm upon which to form future governments,” the statement said. Hariri asserted that his initiative came to stop the collapse of the government formation, which would entail the risk of political, socio-economic, and security chaos. He said it has become clear that obstructing the formation of the government threatens to eliminate the opportunity to achieve the reforms demanded by all the Lebanese, a condition that opens the way for French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for an international conference to support Lebanon at the end of next month. He said Adib was named PM by a large majority of deputies to form a small government composed of specialists known for their competence and integrity, none of them belonging to any political party, and with a task to achieve economic, financial and administrative reform to stop the collapse. “It was the request of Amal Movement and Hezbollah to name the Shiite ministers and to limit the Ministry of Finance to a Shiite candidate based on the claim that this is a constitutional right that stems from the Taef Accord, while it is a heresy that does not exist neither in the Constitution nor in the Taef Accord,” Hariri said. The former PM asserted that the survival of Lebanon, the livelihood and dignity of the Lebanese remain greater than the sectarian and political conflicts, and deserve to keep the opportunity to save Lebanon away from the differences no matter how big they are. “With this step, the responsibility rests with the opponents to form the government. If they respond and facilitate, Lebanon and the Lebanese will gain, and if they continue to obstruct it, they will bear the responsibility of wasting Lebanon’s opportunity to stop the collapse,” he said.

Lebanon Asks World's Help 'Trying to Rise from its Rubble'
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 23 September, 2020
Facing an economic meltdown and other crises, Lebanon’s president on Wednesday asked for the world's help to rebuild the capital's main port and neighborhoods that were blown away in last month’s catastrophic explosion.
President Michel Aoun made the plea in a prerecorded speech to the UN General Assembly’s virtual summit, telling world leaders that Lebanon's many challenges are posing an unprecedented threat to its very existence.
Most urgently, the country needs the international community’s support to rebuild its economy and its destroyed port. Aoun suggested breaking up the damaged parts of the city into separate areas and so that countries that wish to help can each commit to rebuilding one. “Beirut today is trying to rise from its rubble, and it is with the solidarity of all the Lebanese and your support that it will heal its wounds and rise as it has previously risen repeatedly throughout history,” Aoun said. “There is a great need for the international community to support the reconstruction of destroyed neighborhoods and facilities.”The massive Aug. 4 explosion happened when about 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrates — which had been rotting in a port warehouse for more than six years — ignited. Nearly 200 people were killed, 6,500 injured and a quarter of a million people were left with homes that were not fit to live in.
The cause of the blaze that ignited the chemicals still isn't known, but the explosion is widely seen as the culmination of decades of corruption and mismanagement by Lebanon's ruling class, many of whom knew about the dangerous stockpile and did nothing about it. It came on top of an unprecedented economic crisis which has seen the local currency lose up to 80 percent of its value and decimated people's savings, feeding despair among a population that has long ago given up on its leaders. Poverty and unemployment are soaring, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.
A local investigation into the blast is underway, but no one has been held accountable so far. Aoun said Lebanon had requested technical assistance from certain countries, particularly soil samples and satellite images from the moment of the explosion. “Teams from several countries came for technical assistance and to carry out the necessary research and we are still waiting for their information... as well as the satellite images to clear the ambiguity in this part of the investigation,” he added. Earlier Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for swift formation of a government to be followed by tangible steps to implement economic, social and political reforms. Lebanon’s government resigned under pressure in the wake of the port explosion, and Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib has been unable to form a new government amid a political impasse over which faction gets to have the Finance Ministry, as well as other disputes.

Jumblat Calls for Capitalizing on Hariri's Initiative
Naharnet/September 23/2020
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Wednesday called on the political parties to meet ex-PM Saad Hariri’s initiative in a positive manner. “It is time to seize the opportunity provided by yesterday’s paper and capitalize on it in order to facilitate the government’s formation away from narrow calculations,” Jumblat tweeted. Warning that “every minute that passes” without a new government is “not in Lebanon’s interest,” Jumblat urged: “Don’t give the government of pandemic and current disasters more time.”Hariri had on Tuesday presented an initiative aimed at resolving the deadlock over the finance ministerial portfolio. He said that he has decided to help PM-designate Mustafa Adib “find an exit through naming an independent finance minister from the Shiite sect who would be chosen by him, similarly to the rest of ministers, on the basis of competency, integrity and non-partisanship.”

Lebanon: Hospitals Reach Full Capacity Amid Lack of Decision-Making to Face Pandemic
Beirut - Enass Sherry/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 23 September, 2020
Lebanon’s rising cases of the novel coronavirus has increased warnings that the authorities were losing control of their ability to contain the pandemic. “There are fears that the country could face a real catastrophe,” the head of the parliamentary health committee, MP Issam Araji, told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday. In the last 24 hours, Lebanon registered 851 new coronavirus cases, which raises the total since February 21 to 30,838, including 307 deaths. “The high number of COVID-19 cases across the country has exhausted the health sector,” said Araji. “There are no more than 65 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds, and 250 pre-care beds equipped with oxygen left,” Araji said, adding that Lebanon reached this situation due to lack of respect to precautionary measures and also because some ministries failed to accomplish their tasks in fighting the pandemic. As an example, the MP said the Tourism Ministry was not monitoring tourist institutions while the Interior Ministry was unsuccessful to ban wedding parties and gatherings. his week, Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan said he had made a recommendation to the government's coronavirus committee about the necessity to re-impose a two-week lockdown amid the surge in the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide. The committee preferred not to approve his proposal, but instead decided to impose a lockdown on specific areas to contain the virus. Araji said a decision to impose a lockdown is necessary. “However, any lockdown would be useless if it is similar to the last one Lebanon imposed in the absence of any monitoring or respect to precautionary measures,” the MP explained. For his part, Abdul Rahman Bizri, an infectious disease specialist and member of the emergency committee on the coronavirus, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the main problem lies in the lack of any decision or plan to face the pandemic due to the absence of a cabinet. “Lebanon is now at a sensitive phase: The virus is present everywhere even if at uneven rates,” he said.

Coronavirus cases soar past 350 in Lebanon's largest prison
AFP/Thursday 24 September 2020
Lebanon's largest prison has more than 350 cases of Covid-19, according to new figures released Wednesday by the police. The internal security forces issued a statement noting that testing on 956 inmates at Roumieh prison had returned 352 positive results. Visit our dedicated coronavirus site here for all the latest updates. The grossly overcrowded prison has witnessed mounting discontent among inmates over a recent surge in coronavirus cases. Videos from inside the prison circulating on social media show some of them threatening a mutiny in the absence of enhanced safety measures. They want Lebanon's fractious ruling political class to agree an amnesty that would reduce the population in Roumieh. The prison holds around 4,000 inmates, more than three times its intended capacity. Seven infected inmates were hospitalised, the police said, "but all those who remain in prison are in a stable condition." The head of the country's doctors' union had told AFP on Thursday that coronavirus cases at the prison had exceeded 200. Speaking to AFP earlier this month, Beirut Bar Association head Melhem Khalaf called the outbreak in Roumieh a "humanitarian time bomb." Covid-19 infections have surged in Lebanon in recent weeks, especially after a massive explosion at Beirut port on August 4 that killed more than 190 people, wounded thousands and ravaged large parts of the capital. Since February, Lebanon has recorded a total of 30,838 Covid-19 cases, including 315 deaths.

The Port Came to Us': Story behind AP Photo of Beirut Blast
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 23/2020
When Mustafa Kinno felt the ground shake and heard the deafening blast toward the port, he frantically called his brother living nearby.
No reply. He tried a neighbor, who said the family was sitting outside their apartment across from the port when it exploded. Terrified, Mustafa ran more than two miles (four kilometers) to his brother, glass crunching under his feet.
When he arrived, first he spotted his niece Sedra's head poking out of the rubble. He collapsed and crawled toward her but couldn't move her. Then he found his younger niece, Hoda, slung her over his shoulder and started walking.
An image of the two, captured by Associated Press photographer Hassan Ammar, has come to symbolize the devastation of the Aug. 4 blast at the Beirut port, which took 193 lives and wounded 6,500. In the photo, a dust-covered Hoda, 11, holds her body stiffly against her uncle's shoulder, a gash bleeding from her forehead, eyes half-closed and face set in a grimace. The story behind the photo reflects the particular pain of Syrian refugee families like Hoda's. At least 43 Syrians were among those who died in the explosion, plunging a war-weary community into further misery. Lebanon now hosts nearly one million Syrian refugees — about one in five people. "It was always bad even before the explosion, but we were getting by," said Mahmoud, the girls' older brother. "Now, life is unbearable."
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Ali Kinno, 45, moved from the Aleppo region of Syria to Lebanon in 2008 to find work, determined to provide a better life for his family. The residential tower facing the port was still under construction then, and he soon got a job as a concierge.
In 2011, after Syria's civil war erupted, he fretted for his family's safety. A year later, after northern Aleppo became a frontline, he asked them to join him in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon.
But the family never quite settled there. Syrian refugees faced resentment and discrimination — his daughter was harassed on the street, and his sons found it increasingly difficult to get jobs, he said. The situation got worse as the country's economic crisis set in, culminating in a local currency collapse.
Ali was so protective and scared for his children, especially the two girls, that he didn't let them go to school, despite Sedra's pleas. Cooped up in their tiny apartment, the children grew closer. The girls became inseparable. Because their mom suffered back pain and asthma, they took care of the apartment, especially Sedra. "She cooked, made tea, she looked after her younger brother Ahmad, gave him his bath. She was everything," said Ali's wife, Fatima, choking on the last sentence.
It was just after 6 p.m. on Aug. 4 when Ali Kinno asked his son Qoteiba to turn off the generator which provides electricity to their 20-floor residential building. He also asked 15-year-old Sedra to prepare the tea.
It was that time at the end of the day when the sun begins to soften, and Ali and his family sit outside the building where he works as a concierge, drinking tea and watching the highway that runs parallel to the port. Only this time, smoke was pouring out of the facility.
Sedra brought the tea and put it on a small table but didn't pour it - the family was animatedly discussing the pink-tinged smoke. The flames grew bigger, and the fire began making popping sounds. A convoy of red fire engines, sirens screaming, zipped past on the highway.
Alarmed, Ali's wife called for them to go inside the apartment. That's when they heard the first explosion. But it was the second blast seconds later that seemed to lift the earth under the port and throw it in their direction.
"It was as if the port came to us," says Ali.
In a flash, the middle-class neighborhood housing the headquarters of one of Lebanon's most famous fashion designers turned to a hell on earth, tossing everyone and everything in the air and showering them with debris.
"Tiles, stones, aluminium, glass. Everything fell on us," said Ali, who suffered brain hemorrhage, several broken ribs, loss of vision in his left eye and damaged hearing in his right ear that day.
Sedra, who was standing near the entrance to the apartment, died instantly, pinned by tile cladding that rained down from the building. Hoda suffered a fracture in her neck and other injuries. Fatima fractured her spine, shattered a leg and could not move. That was the scene Mustafa saw when he arrived from across town and carried Hoda away. Another of Ammar's photos captured Sedra's dead body, in a long flowered dress, carried by her older brother Qoteiba and brother-in-law Fawaz. In the chaotic aftermath of the explosion, the Kinno family separated, each of them taken to a different hospital.
A man with a scooter offered to take Sedra to the hospital, and Fawaz jumped behind him with Sedra in the middle. But she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Mustafa put Hoda in an army vehicle that was ferrying the injured to the hospital. But the hospital was so overwhelmed with victims that they couldn't operate on her neck and advised that he take her elsewhere. Eventually he took her in a taxi to a hospital in the Bekaa region, miles away.
Later that night, a Syrian man sat on the pavement in tears outside the hospital where Hoda was initially taken. He said one of his sisters was killed, another sister's neck was fractured. He didn't know where his injured mother and father were taken and was making calls trying to track them down. It was Mahmoud, Ali and Fatima's eldest son.
He had been at his job as a foreman in Kfour, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Beirut. Unable to reach any of his family in the wake of the explosion, he sat in a taxi for 45 minutes to Beirut. When the traffic got blocked, he abandoned the car and ran the remaining few miles home.
"I saw people dead in their cars along the way... The more I saw the more I imagined something horrible has happened to the family," he said.
That's when Fawaz called him and broke the news that Sedra had died.
A month after the explosion, the family has been reunited in temporary shelter in an apartment south of Beirut. They are devastated, still getting treated for injuries and trying to make ends meet as the medical bills pile up.
Hoda, wearing a neck brace, barely speaks. She says she doesn't remember the explosion and its aftermath.
Fatima, her mother, says Hoda is obsessed with watching video clips of the blast on social media. She wakes up several times at night, sometimes crying.
Fatima is dealing with her own demons.
"Everything scares me now, I see a door and imagine it will collapse on me," she says, seated on a sofa with a bandaged leg and a back brace.
Mahmoud, the 21-year-old eldest brother, is saddled with responsibilities, now that his father has lost his job. With his own 4-year-old son to worry about, he says he is looking to smuggle himself out of Lebanon, joining others escaping poverty who recently began attempting to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe.
"I don't want to stay here another day," he says.
The youngest child, 6-year-old Ahmad, was sleeping at the time of the blast, and miraculously escaped virtually unscathed even though the glass in the apartment shattered and his room was badly damaged. But he is now very quiet. He told his father that when the family gets well, they will go back home and bring Sedra. Ali keeps going back in his mind to that moment when he lost control over his family's life, feeling utterly helpless. Ten days after the explosion, he went to the building, stood in front of it and cried for his daughter.
"She was always in the kitchen. She loved to cook," he said. "I imagined her there."

In Blast-hit Beirut, Armenian Elders Determined to Stay
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 23/2020
Beirut resident Vany Bandikian once dreamt of travelling outside Lebanon, but after a massive explosion wrecked her neighbourhood, all she wants is to stay in the home her father built. "Never will I leave this home," said the Lebanese Armenian retiree as she sat in her windowless living room.
"The walls speak to me," she said, the endless din of reconstruction work ringing from outside. The August 4 blast at Beirut's port killed more than 190 people, injured thousands and ravaged dwellings in large parts of the capital. Some of the worst-hit areas are home to the city's century-old Armenian community. More than a month since the explosion, construction workers trudge up and down the stairs of Bandikian's 1930s villa. Its tall white columns and cast-iron balconies are still standing, but its windows, now covered with sheets of white plastic, have been blown clean of glass.
Doors cracked in half lie on the tiled floor, and window frames have been dislodged from the walls. "A lot of people rang me and said: 'Come and live with us'. But I can't. How am I supposed to leave an open house?" said the former French-language teacher, who lives with her sister. Relatives in the United States have urged her to emigrate, but she is not interested.
"I really feel rooted in Lebanon," said Bandikian.
'It will pass'
Some 140,000 Armenians live in Lebanon, mostly descendants of those who escaped the mass killings of their people under the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917. They are the largest such community in the Middle East, and have their own schools and university as well as seats in the Lebanese cabinet and parliament.In Beirut, many live in the Bourj Hammoud neighbourhood, but also in the heavily damaged districts of Geitawi and Mar Mikhail close to the port.
Shop signs in the area are often in Armenian, residents use their own dialect, and the elderly often speak halting Arabic. Though some members of the Armenian community -- like many young Lebanese -- have emigrated in recent years because of the economic crisis, the older generation is bent on staying.
Berjouhi Kasparian, a frail 90-year-old with short white hair, said that even though she had three children living abroad, she would not leave the Geitawi apartment where she has lived on and off since she was 10. "It will pass. Every country has problems," she said sitting in her living room, surrounded by family photos and handmade crochet doilies. A scar to the side of her mouth is the only visible sign of the nightmare she experienced on the day of the explosion, four days before her birthday. She was standing in her kitchen when a cascade of plates and glasses fell on top of her. With Beirut's hospitals overwhelmed, she had to wait a whole day for someone to dress her wounds.Bandikian and Kasparian have received help to repair their homes from the Lebanese branch of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), a century-old non-profit diaspora organisation.
The charity has fixed 100 homes and started work on 80 others in blast-affected areas, AGBU's Lebanon director Arine Ghazarian said. It hopes to restore 600 homes in total, not all of them belonging to Armenians.
'Where else can we go?'

In areas around the port, the explosion dealt a further blow to households already reeling from Lebanon's worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. Three times a week, AGBU distributes a total of 1,500 meals in the Bourj Hammoud and Mar Mikhail neighbourhoods, Ghazarian said. At a home for the elderly in Bourj Hammoud, its manager Sebouh Terzian said he was grateful a donor had pledged $22,000 to fix the damaged building. "Hopefully they will come next week and do all the repairs," said the head of the institution, which also relies on non-governmental organisations to feed its 119 residents. But for others in the community, the pain of the blast is still very raw. In Mar Mikhail, Dikran Geuzubeuyukian, 58, and his teenage children have received food aid and help to renovate their damaged flat. But the cast-iron craftsman said he had mixed feelings about moving back in after the repairs have been finished. From the kitchen, he can see what remains of the port's grain silos, while in the corridor, there is the place where he found his wife Liza, who died in the explosion. Geuzubeuyukian said they had no choice but to move back in.
"Where else can we go?" he said. "It's a bit tough for the kids, but I don't know what else to do."
 

The Iranian Regime and the Grammar of Deceitful Maneuvering
Charles Elias Chartouni/September 23/2020
شارل الياس شرتوني: النظام الإيراني وقواعد المناورات الخادعة

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/90653/charles-elias-chartouni-the-iranian-regime-and-the-grammar-of-deceitful-maneuvering-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86/
Biding time is the key word to understand the nature of Iranian juggling before the forthcoming American Elections ( November 3, 2020 ). The only hotspot where they keep stoking the embers of civil strife is Lebanon with its volatile equilibriums and lingering hazards, otherwise, its simulated quiescence betrays future destabilization strategies and terrorist actions along different geopolitical spectrums. The equivocations of the Islamic regime in Teheran antedates its disagreements with the current US administration and traces back to its millenarian political eschatology, paranoid worldview, and the vested interests of a cynical dictatorship fighting for its survival amidst compounded systemic crises which question the rationale of the Islamic regime and its meta-narrative. The chances of overseeing international political normalization is preempted by the gnawing legitimacy crisis and its liberalization subtexts and overtones.
The trickiest part of this unresolving dilemma is the sturdiness of the ideological panopticon and its inability to overcome the inherent restrictions and self defeating normalization propensities. The equivocations are far from being circumstantial and tied to momentary considerations, they are systemic and relate to the survival of this bankrupted bloody dystopia. Realistic calculation of interests and diplomatic accommodations resort to wishful thinking and skewed political voluntarism, disproved by the hard nosed malevolence of an imperial dystopia, the fickleness of ramschackle geopolitics and the nihilistic drifts of radical Islam in its different variants. The chances of normalization in the case of this operational violent dystopia relies on strong containment politics, eroding internal legitimacy, unswerving military dissuasion, total war scenarios, political conditionality and war diplomacy.
The wily clerics are drawing on a legacy of religious prevarication, millennial survival strategies and a cynical world-vision which leaves no room to Human Rights, liberalization, democratization and development as the main narratives of State reformation, transitional justice and contemporary peace making, We are in a typical scenario of a communication breakdown between clashing world-views and disparaging interactions. The self reforming proclivities of the Islamic regime in Iran are reduced to ashes, and its international maneuvering is idle gesticulation meant to outmaneuver its sundry nemeses, be it domestically or internationally. Any diplomacy should reckon with prevarication, double speak and intentional malfeasance as premisses and mental predicates, lest we lose our ground for fallacies and deliberate self deception.

How Hezbollah Collaborates With Latin American Drug Cartels
Emanuele Ottolenghi/FDD/September 23/2020
إيمانويل أوتولينغي/مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديموقراطية: طرق تعاون حزب الله مع عصابات المخدرات في أمريكا اللاتينية
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/90656/emanuele-ottolenghi-fdd-how-hezbollah-collaborates-with-latin-american-drug-cartels-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%88%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%ba%d9%8a-%d9%85%d8%a4/
Plus, an explanation of “black cocaine” and why authorities should worry about charcoal exports.
Last month, Dutch authorities raided a lab in a small village where Colombian cartels turned charcoal-camouflaged cocaine briquettes back into drugs. The charcoal that most Americans burn in their barbecues is not the stuff they would normally associate with organized crime, yet evidence is mounting that in recent years charcoal—a key Latin American and African export—is fast becoming a cover to masquerade cocaine. In particular, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah’s involvement in moving black cocaine—a term referring to this particular disguise—is well-documented.
The global charcoal trade constitutes an ideal cover for drug smuggling and terror finance.
Drug traffickers constantly devise new ways to conceal drugs. Black cocaine—the compound used to turn cocaine into charcoal briquettes—needs to undergo a chemical process in order to appear similar to the actual product, before traffickers hide it at random in larger bags of authentic charcoal.
Sometimes cocaine is hidden inside large chunks of charcoal, but increasingly, traffickers shape the cocaine like charcoal briquettes and color it black, requiring chemical engineers at both ends of the trade.
Once the disguised cocaine is delivered, experts transform it back to powder before it hits the streets. It is an ingenious cover.
Authorities have seized black cocaine shipments for years. In March 2012, Spanish and Portuguese police seized 380 kilograms of cocaine disguised as charcoal in a cargo from Argentina.
In May 2013, Spanish authorities seized 50 kilograms of cocaine hidden in charcoal bags coming from Latin America through the Spanish port of Valencia. Peruvian authorities seized a record six tons of cocaine hidden in a cargo of charcoal in August 2014. In December 2014, Spanish authorities again seized 390 kilograms of cocaine in Santiago de Compostela.
The charcoal came from Paraguay. In March 2015, Guyanese authorities found cocaine hidden in a US-bound 40 feet container of charcoal bags. Colombian authorities seized 306 kilos of coca paste disguised as charcoal in Barranquilla, on April 10, 2015.
In June 2015, Colombian authorities seized another 634 kilograms of cocaine disguised as charcoal briquettes, whose destination was Belgium.
Two of the containers were seized in Barranquilla, again, and the third in Cartagena. In February 2016, Spanish authorities in Valencia raided a lab in charge of separating cocaine from charcoal.
In February 2017, Australian authorities seized cocaine and amphetamines hidden in charcoal worth $186 million Australian dollars.
In January 2019, Canadian authorities seized almost five kilograms of cocaine hidden inside bags of charcoal in transit from Panama to Israel. And in September 2019, Malaysian authorities seized twelve tons of cocaine hidden in charcoal bags.
Policymakers should worry about charcoal exports for a variety of reasons. Its production is one of the many factors driving deforestation in both Africa and Latin America—especially Paraguay, the seventh-largest exporter of charcoal in the world with a 3.6 percent share of the global market. Even if it weren’t contributing significantly to climate change, it’s also a cover for drug trafficking. Perhaps most ominously, evidence ties this activity to Hezbollah financiers who, in the past, used charcoal shipments from Latin America as a cover for cocaine.
Hezbollah’s involvement in the drug trade is well-documented. American law enforcement discovered Hezbollah’s direct involvement by coincidence in 2007, when Colombian wiretaps monitoring a Medellin-based cartel picked up Arabic conversations.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) brought in a translator, who quickly realized that Hezbollah was arranging multi-ton shipments of cocaine to the Middle East.
In the ensuing investigation, codenamed Operation Titan, the DEA realized it had opened a Pandora’s box, leading to Project Cassandra, a decade-long U.S. operation that sought to stop Hezbollah from trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.
Hezbollah’s conduct was not a small sideshow by loosely affiliated individuals but a multibillion-dollar worldwide operation orchestrated by top officials within Hezbollah’s inner circle that involved close cooperation between the terrorist group and the cartels.
The DEA revealed the full extent of Hezbollah’s terror-crime nexus and its centrality to Hezbollah’s organizational structure in 2016, when Operation Cedar, a DEA joint effort with European law enforcement agencies across seven countries, came to fruition in January 2016.
The operation targeted a large Hezbollah money-laundering network that included Hassan Mohsen Mansour, a Lebanese-Canadian charcoal merchant operating out of Colombia. French court documents reveal that Mansour used his trade as a cover to move dope and launder cash back to Colombian cartels. Mansour is also implicated in a drug-trafficking and money laundering investigation by Canadian authorities, and he has been indicted in Florida.
Inexplicably, French authorities released him and he remains at large. Regardless, when French authorities arrested Mansour, we can assume that Hezbollah lost access, at least temporarily, to his contacts in Colombian customs and ports who protected his containers from inspection. But the terrorist group already had similar arrangements in Paraguay off of which it could build.
With cartels constantly trying to outsmart authorities in their game of hide-and-seek, it is possible that, after temporarily losing Mansour’s cover in Colombia, Hezbollah saw the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, with its well-established money-laundering infrastructure, as the ideal place to rebuild the black cocaine supply lines that Operation Cedar had temporarily disrupted. The region has been described as having “the largest illicit economy in the world.”
Hezbollah, after all, continues to be a key partner to cartels in Latin America. When it comes to such business connections, Hezbollah is “the Gambinos on steroids,” as a former DEA official described the organization. Yet one law enforcement operation, no matter how disruptive, will not deter Hezbollah’s ongoing dealings with criminal cartels.
Other criminal organizations are adept at producing drugs, running protection rackets, and monopolizing illicit businesses, but they lack global networks for shipping and distributing goods and laundering the proceeds. That is where Hezbollah comes in, along with its willing collaborators in various Lebanese diaspora communities around the world.
There are good reasons to believe that this area is fast becoming an important hub for black cocaine operations. Paraguay is a large exporter of charcoal—and so is nearby Argentina.
Evidence of this emerged in July 2018, when Paraguayan authorities raided a lab run by three Colombians whose specialty was turning cocaine into charcoal briquettes. They were getting ready to send a shipment of these briquettes to Latakia, a Syrian port under the nominal control of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and frequently used by Hezbollah. While their case was never conclusively tied to Hezbollah, it clearly indicated that Colombian cartels viewed Paraguay as a significant enough opportunity to set up a cocaine-to-charcoal lab in country.
In 2016, a Lebanese drug trafficker was arrested in the Tri-Border Area and later extradited to Miami. The culprit, Ali Issa Chamas, revealed in court documents that his boss was based in Colombia, though he operated out of Paraguay. Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine production have also been on the rise for years, and with Brazil becoming an important consumer, as well as transshipment point, Paraguay—which borders Bolivia and has very porous frontiers with all its neighbors—is an ideal transit country.
Turning to Paraguay’s charcoal production as a cover for cocaine shipments is, therefore, a no-brainer for Hezbollah.
Much like with other disguises, this is first and foremost a problem of increasing border and customs controls at both ends of shipments when it comes to certain products. Charcoal, much like other disguises (cartels have also used pineapples, bananas, and avocados in recent years to smuggle cocaine from Ecuador, Colombia, and Belize) is not the type of merchandise that draws suspicion. Yet it should.
More fundamentally, a change of mindset is needed from authorities. Interdicting these shipments is not just part of the war on drugs and the battle against transnational criminal networks in America’s backyard.
It is about disrupting terror finance as well—the lifeblood of terror plots that have killed and threaten to kill more Americans. Black cocaine looks like charcoal. We would do ourselves a disservice if we did not take a second look.
**Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/09/22/how-hezbollah-collaborates-drug-cartels/

Political 'Maronitism' and 'Shiism'
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
“Political Maronitism” “and Political “Shiism” are two terms that lack precision. They do not mention which Maronites and Shiites are being referred to, nor do they call attention to the differences between Maronites and other Maronites or Shiites and other Shiites, just as they do not account for divergences of epochs and social conditions or these divergences’ ramifications for them all.
With that, merely for the sake of argument, we will use the term “Maronitism” to refer to the epoch (1975-1943) during which this sect governed Lebanon, and for “Shiism”, their control over decision-making extended from partial control beginning with the Taif Agreement in 1989, then a more robust grip with the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, and it finally reached its apex with President Michel Aoun’s ascension to the presidency in 2016.
There is a tendency in Lebanese historical literature to discuss these two eras as eras of “Maronite rule” and “Shiite rule”, though some of us would undoubtedly prefer to be able to define these periods and regimes through the social groups they represented and their ideological inclinations.
Nevertheless, we can say that the era of “Shiite rule”, behind facades, most prominently Emile Lahoud and Michel Aoun, was dark first and foremost for Shiites. During the period that preceded Hezbollah’s rise, the latter was the most dynamic of the sects because of its ties to administration, education, and emigration, thereby producing a great number of modern cadres. For this reason, one could bet, at least theoretically, that the Shiites would culminate the Lebanese national project after the Maronites and Christians withered and had little left to offer. This withering was reflected in choosing Sulieman Frangieh, in 1970, to be president of the republic and their cultural production being weighed down by the burdens of rhetoric, romanticism, ruralism, and nostalgia.
Making this bet was not out of place, accompanied by a promise or potential for moving along a path that ends with weakening sectarianism and the centrality of Mount Lebanon, in favor of a state that is simultaneously more democratic and modern.
The Shiites had a very solid relationship with the state and its administration at the time, and the majority of their weighty bloc had moved from rural areas to urban ones. And they seemed to have surpassed Maronites and Sunnis at two aspects: they were less romantic and had less of a tendency to clutch on to the old rural conception of patriotism than the former, and less susceptible to Arab nationalism and its implications than the latter. And while their association with Najaf, and to a lesser extent Qom and Sayyida Zaynab in Damascus, broke their isolation and reticence, the link’s limitation to a cultural and spiritual dimension did not weaken their Lebanese patriotism.
Moussa al Sadr, during his early days in Lebanon, personified this tendency, and he continued to do so until Sulieman Frangieh shot down each of Sadr’s attempts to make changes and introduce reform. Thus, Sadr leaped into the Assad embrace and Palestinian training camps, and the path of degradation that was later crowned with Hezbollah and Iran began. The Shiites, instead of being the sect that resumes and renews the Lebanese project, became the faction that hinders it, and the majority were transformed into tools for destroying it. In other words: instead of the potential for communication and the continuity of republican history, a radical and sharp rupture arose.
In a historical overview, equivocating between the two sects, merely because they are two sects, does not seem justified. There are at least three reasons to distinguish them from one another: Firstly, according to its own narrative, “political Maronitism” is defensive: it is the offspring of a fear that prompted a request for protection before the independence of 1943, and another for “guarantees” or “privileges” after that. “Political Shiism”, on the other hand, is inherently offensive. Also according to its narrative about itself, it is the product of resistance action that reached into politics through the vehicle of rifles and missiles. However, the second, perhaps more important, reason is that the “political Maronitism” arose with the state’s establishment, and through it, while “political Shiism” prospered by dismantling the state and establishing a parallel state, the backbone of which is an arsenal. Finally, the “political Maronitism” emulated the West, or at the very least, it claimed that it did, while “political Shiism” was woven along the lines of Khomeinist Iran.
“Maronite rule” was, therefore, not merely a military or security grip, as it traditionally entailed an advanced position in building institutions and playing significant roles in education, economy, and finance which resulted in the emergence of the broadest middle class in the Middle East. “Shiite rule,” on the other hand, remained limited to arms through which it dictated to others a will that does not resemble them; indeed they unanimously concur its dangers. The public institutions, universities, and political life that had been built in the first phase were dismantled in the second. The country that the first phase had placed on the map was removed from it in the second phase.
The mood changed internationally as well: the first phase coincided with the Cold War and grand ideologies. In society, even though it was not the case of political echelons, shame with associating with smaller identities, in the favor of one form of nation or another, had become widespread. The second phase coincided with an explosion of small identities and boastful expression of them. At the time, what had been required was a city that merchants, tourists, and bankers, as well as intellectuals and the educated, could brag about. Subsequently, a suburb that is governed by gunmen and glorifies them was required.
On the other hand, “Political Maronistim” degenerated into Aounism, a degeneration that perhaps compelled Christians to rid themselves of it after the port explosion; the fear is that it might be too late for the Christians, and with them, the rest of the Lebanese.

Prospects for Lebanon’s future dim as the worst is yet to come
Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/September 23/2020
Lebanon’s agony continues. President Michel Aoun’s comment that Lebanon is going “to hell” if a new Cabinet is not formed soon has made it worse. And if a Cabinet is not formed, things will continue to get worse and a bad economic situation will become even more unbearable.
This statement, which was widely criticized on social media, reflected the obstacles that remain in pushing forward the French reform initiative that President Emmanuel Macron set forth for Lebanon after the August explosion at the Beirut port.
The 15-day period to create a new government that was promised by Lebanese politicians to Macron expired September 15, with no progress made at all. Now, Hezbollah and Amal, the two largest Shia political parties, insist on securing the Finance Ministry for a Shia party, saying this was verbally agreed upon in the 1989 Taif agreement. Other parties argue that agreeing to this narrative will pave the way for a new tripartite distribution of power between Christians, Sunnis and Shias, contrary to the current formula that gives Christians and Muslims equal representation, regardless of demographic indicators show that Muslims have outnumbered Christians. Despite no formal census being taken since 1932, voters’ preferences reveal sectarian shares of the population.
While politicians bicker, Lebanon’s economy continues its free fall. Moody’s report on Lebanon on September 18 mentioned that “the decision not to assign an outlook to the rating is based on the very high likelihood of significant losses for private creditors and the fact that Lebanon’s C rating is the lowest on our rating scale.”It seems as if it cannot get worse.
The country has never witnessed in its modern history such an impasse. Political deadlocks have always stood in the way of permanent solutions to recurring crises and have crippled the economy. However, Lebanon has always had friends around the world willing and capable to support it during its difficult times. But those days are over. After the port explosion that underscored the government’s negligence and corruption, coupled with new peace agreements in the region, Lebanon’s competitive advantages have withered away.
The banking system that was once a privilege for depositors, bank owners – and the economy in general – has lost all credibility and can no longer attract new depositors and their fresh money, or even investors. Now, the crippled sector can no longer satisfy depositors who have lost their life savings and are subsequently paying the price for crimes they have not committed.
Poverty rates are on the rise, inflation rates hit hyperinflation in July – though the rate has stabilized down recently – purchasing power for the Lebanese citizens is disintegrating, unemployment has reached unprecedented levels, and coronavirus has aggravated the situation further.
Yet, with all this despair, Lebanese citizens have to worry about what will happen when the central bank can no longer afford to subsidize fuel, flour, and medicine.
Estimates show that the bank’s reserves shall be consumed before the end 2020. When that time arrives, Lebanon’s fall will accelerate, reaching unknown depths.
Already, the Lebanese market has seen shortages of some medications and drugs. This will worsen with time, and will ultimately lead to a shortened life span for many of the country’s elders. The Lebanese Order of Physicians warned that the medical sector is passing through difficult times and Lebanese doctors are emigrating abroad in search for better jobs. The long-earned reputation of Lebanon as “the hospital of the Middle East” no longer applies. A sharp decline in medical services is to be a new reality soon in the upcoming months.
As for fuel, lifting subsidies will automatically lead to a price hike. Getting to and from work will become more difficult for average Lebanese employees, and factories will struggle to keep their production cycles running. More jobs will be lost and unemployment rates will rise again.
Many businesses have already closed, but more will be forced to shutter. Going out of business will become the norm; business continuity will be the exception. Forbes unveiled a correspondence between the European Union and the outgoing Lebanese government mentioning that it still considers the Cabinet’s rescue plan as a base for reform provided it is updated to include a way to address the Beirut port blast. The memo described Lebanon’s politicians and their myriad ways of avoiding reform as “wishy-washy.”
At this point Lebanon is incapable of boot-strapping and desperately needs aid from abroad. France has tossed the country numerous lifelines, including the 2018 donor conference where over $11 billion in aid and soft loans was promised contingent on reforms. But so far, reforms have not been launched.
Prospects for Lebanon’s future are dim, and the worst is yet to come.

In Lebanon, Iraq, top clerics call for Iran's proxies to be disbanded
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Al Arabiya/September 23/2020
After Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai, Iraqi Grand Shia Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani became the second top cleric to call for disbanding Iranian proxies across the Middle East and restoring state sovereignty.
Following his meeting with UN representatives in Iraq, al-Sistani issued a statement in which he offered his view for the country. The aging Shia cleric called on the government to “control border crossings, improve the performance of security forces, restore sovereignty by collecting all unauthorized weapons, and not allow the emergence of districts under the control by armed groups using various excuses to violate laws.”
Al-Sistani’s statement contradicted his earlier fatwa, or edict, in which he supported the formation of militias to fight ISIS under the pretext of “defensive jihad.”
The Iraqi ayatollah added: “The government is required to uncover all those who have carried out criminal acts of killing, wounding, or otherwise against protesters, security forces, or innocent citizens, or who have assaulted public or private property, since the start of the popular movement last year.” He also called for apprehending “those who carried out kidnappings or recent assassinations.” Al-Sistani argued that such measures were required for the holding of early parliamentary elections before June, when the current Parliament’s term expires, in a free and fair setting.
Perhaps because Iran has bought all the corrupt politicians in Lebanon and Iraq, or has made sure that all anti-militia voices – whether politicians, journalists or activists – be muffled through threats or even assassinations, religious clerics, who relatively enjoy more immunity from harm than other dissidents, have become the only voices capable of expressing popular outrage against Iran and its lawless militias. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has been the exception, but as the chief of the executive power, his role is to disband the militias, not only demand they be dissolved.
Yet despite al-Rai and al-Sistani’s demands for the disbanding of Iran’s proxies, world powers have yet to capitalize on such calls. In fact, European powers have not only ignored anti-Iran voices in Lebanon and Iraq, but have offered Iran an off ramp, asking Beirut and Baghdad to embark on reforms and work toward good governance, as if such reforms are ever possible in the presence of lawless thugs like Lebanese Hezbollah and its Iraqi counterpart Kata’ib Hezbollah.
The three European powers known as the E3 – Britain, France and Germany – have gone out of their way to oppose America’s unilateral sanctions on Iran and appease the mullahs. The Europeans even defied their NATO ally, America, when Washington tried to extend a UN arms embargo on Iran. But why?
Between the time the nuclear deal entered into effect in January 2016 and America’s reimposition of unilateral sanctions in May 2018, the Europeans found lucrative business in Iran. The Franco-German aircraft giant Airbus, whose engines are made by Britain’s Rolls Royce, won a $25 billion contract with Tehran to sell the Iranians over 100 airplanes in January 2016. French energy company Total also secured a fat contract with the Iranian government in 2017, but the French company pulled out of the contract in 2019 after sanctions were put back in place. At the time, Total invested $5 billion in the South Pars Phase 11 project that was expected to produce 400,000 barrels of oil a day at the world’s largest gas field.
And thus, European capitals have been trying to blunt President Donald Trump’s policy on Iran and wait him out, hoping that if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is elected in November, the nuclear deal will be reinstated and the Iranian market reopened.
In America, Biden published an op-ed on CNN’s website in which he wrote that after rejoining the nuclear deal, “America will also work closely with Israel to ensure it can defend itself against Iran and its proxies.” Biden seems to believe that proxies will continue to be present if he believes that America should help Israel defend itself against them.
Back in Lebnaon, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Beirut in the aftermath of the port explosion and amid the ongoing economic free fall. After urging “fundamental change” during his first visit, Macron walked back his demand and on his second visit called for state reforms that steered clear from aaddressing the issue of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which needs corruption in Lebanon and Iraq to reward loyal oligarchs and finance its illicit networks. As Cabinet formation has stalled in Lebanon, Hezbollah has demanded that a Shia party control the finance ministry.
It is unfortunate that the interests of America’s Democrats and European powers do not align with those of the people of Lebanon, Iraq, Syria or Yemen, whose patriarchs are now calling for an end to the Iran-imposed “resistance state” model in their countries. It is also unfortunate that while patriarchs in Lebanon and Iraq call for disbanding Iranian militias in their countries, Macron and Biden – if he makes it to the White House – will settle for coexisting with, rather than eradicating, Iran’s terrorist proxies. Macron once called on Iran to disband those militias, but seems to have balked when push came shove. Biden never called for an end to proxies. It is unlikely that he will.

Iraq, Kurdish politicians denounce Hezbollah move to partner with pro-Iran militias
Zana Gulmohamad/Al Arabiya/September 23/2020
Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah is ramping up its efforts in Iraq and is shaping the Iran-led axis’ activities in the country. Where Hezbollah and Iran-backed Iraqi militias have cooperated for nearly two decades, coordination has increased over the last year in the wake of the deaths of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
The collaboration between Hezbollah and Iraqi pro-Iran militias is a key component of the strategy of the Iran-led axis that pursues destabilizing activities throughout the Middle East, and after losing Soleimani and al-Mohandes, Iran and Hezbollah have sought to preserve the damaged and shell-shocked nexus.
The increased coordination is part of a propaganda campaign to show the Iran-led axis’ opponents that the axis is retaliating after the deaths of two of their top leaders. Their coordination has manifested itself in their vengeance toward Iraqi protesters and activists and threats to opposing politicians. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Kadhimi’s recent efforts to curb pro-Iran malign actions are inadequate. While he has appointed independent figures in some key positions in the government to meet these ends, more must be done.
While Hezbollah has sympathizers among some Shia factions in Iraq, their presence is not welcomed by all Iraqi political factions, and certainly not by all Iraqis. And where Iraqi pro-Iran militias are continuing their malign activities, Lebanese and Iraqi protesters’ resentment is mounting against the militias.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Iraq post Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes
When Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commander Soleimani and al-Mohandes were killed, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said that soon “Iraqi resistance groups” would soon respond, one sign of increasing cooperation. Nasrallah’s comment underlines Hezbollah’s support for retaliation against the killings.
In another moment of increasing cooperation, after the assassinations, reports indicated that Mohammad al-Kawtharani, Hezbollah’s representative in Iraq, temporarily led fractious pro-Iran Iraqi Shia militias to unite them until a new IRGC-QF commander was appointed.
Al-Kawtharani, who was designated as a global terrorist in 2013 by the US, coordinated with Iraqi Shia militia leaders and violently suppressed Iraqi protesters, attacked foreign diplomatic entities, including the US embassy and forces, according to Reuters. However, a source told the Middle East Institute that Hezbollah’s role in Iraq during the aftermath of the killing was exacerbated.
It is possible that the loss of the “axis of resistance” architect Soleimani and the accompanying dramatic shock it set off in the region has led Hezbollah and other actors such as pro-Iran Iraqi Shia militias to show their solidarity and continue to collaborate, at least rhetorically.
History of coordination
While cooperation between the Lebanese and Iraqi groups has grown over the last year, initial cooperation dates back nearly two decades. In the mid 2000s, Hezbollah trained Iraqi Shia fighters in Lebanon and in Iraq, including a couple thousand fighters from the Mahdi Army, an armed group formed in 2003 and loyal to Iraqi cleric and politician Muqtada al-Sadr. The group carried out attacks against the US-led coalition, and while it was disbanded, it has remobilized under the name Saraya al-Salam. Simultaneously, Iran requested Hezbollah’s presence in Iraq, and thus Nasrallah created a clandestine unit to train and advise Iraqi Shia militias. Al-Kawtharani has also coordinated military and intelligence cooperation between pro-Iran Iraqi Shia militias and Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria, according to US-based news outlet al-Hurra. Al-Kawtharani planned the attacks against the Karbala Joint Provisional Coordination Centre in Iraq in January 2007 that killed five US soldiers.
The Syrian civil war has also been a catalyst for reinvigorated Hezbollah and pro-Iran Iraqi Shia militia coordination as some forces and operatives moved to Syria to further support the Iran-led axis. Over the last few years, reports have indicated that under the supervision of the IRGC-QF, Iraqi Shia fighters travelled from Iraq to Lebanon for training in camps in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon’s east and in the south of the country before going to the battlefields in Syria. Some of them integrated within Hezbollah in Lebanon after discussion between Iraqi Shia militia leaders and Hezbollah, Asharq al-Awsat reported.
While militia members in Iraq outnumber Hezbollah’s fighting ranks, the Lebanon-based group provides training, expertise, advice, logistical support and some equipment. Pro-Iran Shia militias such as A’saib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba follow the first Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini’s doctrine and have a strategic relationship with and mimic the model of Hezbollah in terms of propaganda and state domination from within.
In January 2018, al-Mohandes publicly announced that Iran and Hezbollah helped in the formation of Iraqi Shia militias in Iraq. In a YouTube video uploaded by Kata’ib Hezbollah’s supporters, al-Mohandes says, “Hassan Nasrallah is a leader of resistance … he is our leader too … he is motivating us.” When Iraqi militia leaders, including al-Mohandes visited Iraq, they did not shy away from openly supporting Nasrallah.
Iraq’s A’saib Ahl al-Haq has an office in Beirut and some fighters joined ranks alongside Hezbollah during the 2006 war with Israel. Further, they have collaborated in Syria to support the Syrian regime.
Financially, Hezbollah’s has sent money to Iraq and has managed to gain access to and have benefit from Iraq’s economic and financial institutions, according to a hearing at the US Congress with a number of experts in 2017.
In southern Iraq, a string of businesses in partnership with Iran-backed militias have been accused of laundering money for Hezbollah.
In early 2020, al-Kawtharani informally asked Iraq for millions of dollars as aid to help Lebanon’s economic crisis. There is a deeper level of collaboration between Iran, Hezbollah, and Iraqi Shia militias that demonstrates the long term strategy which includes creating clients throughout the public and private sector and violently suppressing its opponents.
The collaboration between Hezbollah and pro-Iran Shia militias in Iraq is essential for Iran’s Ayatollahs as it extends Iran’s security and economic leverage and activities across Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The presence of militias ensures that Iran can create its long sought after land corridor to the Mediterranean Sea. Hezbollah and Iraqi pro-Iran Shia militias are key pillars for Iran’s undisrupted land corridor, and both are crucial for Iran’s attempt at regional hegemony.
However, in Iraq, Hezbollah has not been welcomed by all, and Arab Sunnis, Arab Shia and Kurds and some circles of Iraqi and Kurdish politicians have pushed back against the group’s present. This opposition is an obstacle to Iran and Hezbollah’s ability to expand their influence in Iraq.
Additionally, protesters in Iraq and Lebanon have shown their discontent toward Hezbollah and pro-Iran Iraqi Shia militias. The nexus between Hezbollah and pro-Iran Iraqi Shia militias has limits as there are some efforts by the Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi backed by Iraqi protesters to push back against the increasing domination of Iranian proxies and clients in Iraq and to strengthen Iraqi identity.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 23-24/2020

Another country will sign a peace deal with Israel in ‘next day or two’: US diplomat
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 23 September 2020
Another Arab country will sign a peace deal with Israel in the “next day or two,” a senior US diplomat said Wednesday. “Our plan is to bring more countries, which we will have more being announced very soon … One [country will sign] in the next day or two,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft told Al Arabiya. “I know others are going to be following,” she added. The United Arab Emirates announced in August a deal with Israel to establish diplomatic ties and normalize relations. Bahrain followed suit and the three countries signed the Abraham Accords at the White House on Sept. 15. Morocco, Oman and Sudan have been reported to be among other countries looking to forge ties with Tel Aviv amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts by Washington to warm relations between the Arab region and Israel. Craft expressed US hopes that Saudi Arabia would also sign a peace deal with Israel. “Obviously, we would welcome for Saudi Arabia to be next. But what’s important is that we focus on the agreement and we do not allow the [Iranian] regime to exploit the goodwill of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, or Israel. “We want to bring everyone on board in hopes that this will allow the Iranian citizens to see that people really want peace in the Middle East, and they are part of this peace,” Craft said. Craft slammed Iran for its disruptive and malign behavior in the region. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman told the UN General Assembly earlier Wednesday that his country had extended a hand to Tehran for peace but was met with more terrorist activities.“Any time anyone extends a hand to Iran, it must be to the Iranian citizens,” Craft said, adding that countries must be “very careful and cautious” because Iran exploits other countries.

Saudi Arabia extended hand to Iran in peace ‘but to no avail’: King Salman
Reuters/Wednesday 23 September 2020
Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Wednesday called for a comprehensive solution on Iran, disarming its affiliate Hezbollah in Lebanon, and expressed support for US efforts to start talks between Israel and the Palestinians during his first address to the United Nations General Assembly. He said Iran has exploited a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers “to intensify its expansionist activities, creates its terrorist networks, and use terrorism,” adding that this had produced nothing but “chaos, extremism, and sectarianism.”
“A comprehensive solution and a firm international position are required,” he told the 193-member General Assembly in a video statement, pre-recorded due to the coronavirus pandemic.
 

Khartoum discusses Arab-Israeli peace and terrorism list with Washington
Reuters/Wednesday 23 September 2020
Sudan and the United States have discussed how Khartoum could advance Arab-Israeli peace, authorities said on Wednesday, adding the talks also covered the removal of the former hardline foe of Israel from a US list of terrorism sponsors.
Meeting in the United Arab Emirates, a Sudanese delegation and US officials held talks on how peace could stabilize the region and secure a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question, the ruling sovereign council said.
The UAE, a leading regional partner of the United States, and Bahrain normalized ties with Israel this month in deals brokered by Washington, the first Arab states in a quarter of acentury to break a longstanding taboo.
In August, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of Sudan establishing ties with Israel during a visit. Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok told him at the time he had no mandate to do so.
A Sudanese team led by General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, head of the council, flew to the UAE on Sunday to hold talks with US officials on several issues including the removal of Sudan from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Sudanese officials held “serious and frank talks” on the future of Arab-Israeli peace, which would lead to “stability in the region and preserve the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state according to the vision of a two-state solution,” a council statement said after the return of the delegation. The two sides also discussed “the role that Sudan is expected to play in achieving this peace,” it said, without giving any details. The council, made up of the military and civilians, has been in charge of Sudan since the toppling of autocrat Omar al-Bashir last year. Ties with Israel are a sensitive issue in Sudan, which was among the hardline Arab foes of Israel under al-Bashir. In February, Burhan met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Uganda, a meeting condemned by Sudanese protesters. He afterwards cast doubt on any rapid normalization of relations, though Israeli aircraft soon began overflying Sudan.
The talks also tackled lifting Sudan from the terrorism list, which hinders its ability to access foreign loans to tackle an economic crisis, the council said, without giving details.

Not proper for Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be returned to detention in Iran, says UK’s Raab
Reuters/LondonWednesday 23 September 2020
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said it would be beyond the pale for Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be returned to detention in Iran at this time. He added that Britain was still enagaged in a process of paying back a debt it owns to Iran but that this was “not linked but in parallel” to the legal case. “There’s been a process that has been ongoing,” he told Sky News about the debt dating back to 1979. “It’s not linked but it’s in parallel, where we’ve been saying look we recognize this debt and we’ll look at how we can resolve it as best we can. “Frankly that is separate from the clear and immediate obligation on the right to not to detain British nationals. “It will be beyond the pale, for her to be returned to detention at this time.”Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Eastern Libyan forces say they killed ISIS leader
Reuters/Wednesday 23 September 2020
Eastern Libyan forces said on Wednesday they killed the leader of ISIS group in North Africa during a raid in the southern desert city of Sebha earlier this month. The Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Masmari said Abu Moaz al-Iraqi was among nine militants killed during the raid but was only identified afterwards. ISIS in Libya was formed by al Qaeda militants who took advantage of the chaos after the 2011 uprising against Muammar Gaddafi to seize territory and launch attacks. The group took control of the central coastal city of Sirte in early 2015 and established a presence in the vast southern desert as well as active affiliates or cells in major cities. However, it was driven from Sirte in late 2016 and its influence since then has been limited to occasional attacks including one on National Oil Corporation's headquarters in 2018 and another at the Foreign Ministry in 2019, both in Tripoli. Masmari said Abu Moaz al-Iraqi, also known as Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi, had entered Libya in 2014 and became the group's leader in 2015 when his predecessor was killed. ISIS global threat has reduced in recent years after its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria was militarily defeated and much of its leadership killed. However, it remains capable of inspiring attacks around the world, security experts say. The LNA controls eastern and much of southern Libya and has for years been in conflict with the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

Egypt's Sisi committed to ridding Libya of militia, regional interference
Reuters/Wednesday 23 September 2020
Egypt is committed to helping Libyans "rid their country of armed militias and terrorist organizations, and put an end to the blatant interference of some regional parties," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. Libya descended into chaos after the NATO-backed overthrow of leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Since 2014, it has been split, with a government controlling the capital, Tripoli, and the northwest, while military leader Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi rules the east.Haftar is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia, while the government is backed by Turkey.

Angered by Arab-Israel ties, Palestine quits chairing Arab League sessions
Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi/Reuters/September 23/2020
Palestine has quit its current chairmanship of Arab League meetings, the Palestinian foreign minister said on Tuesday, condemning as dishonourable any Arab agreement to establish formal relations with Israel.
Palestinians see the accords that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed with Israel in Washington a week ago as a betrayal of their cause and a blow to their quest for an independent state in Israeli-occupied territory.
Earlier this month, the Palestinians failed to persuade the Arab League to condemn member nations breaking ranks and normalising ties with Israel. Palestine was supposed to chair Arab League meetings for the next six months, but Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah that it no longer wanted the position. “Palestine has decided to concede its right to chair the League’s council (of foreign ministers) at its current session. There is no honour in seeing Arabs rush towards normalisation during its presidency,” Maliki said.
After initial remarks, Maliki read from a letter he said he sent to Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit informing him of the Palestinian move and criticising the UAE and Bahrain, both Gulf Arab nations that share Israeli concerns about Iran. The UAE’s deal with Israel “created a deep crisis in the Arab League” and the accord was followed “by a similar collapse by the Kingdom of Bahrain”, Maliki said, quoting from the letter. In a new move addressing internal Palestinian divisions, officials from West Bank-based President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement were due to hold reconciliation talks in Turkey on Tuesday. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 from Fatah forces during a brief round of fighting. Differences over power-sharing have delayed implementation of unity deals agreed since then.
*Editing by Jeffrey Heller, William Maclean and Mark Heinrich

Security Official Killed Near Damascus
Damascus - London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 23 September, 2020
A Syrian security official was killed while traveling in Damascus’ countryside after a number of unknown gunmen targeted his convoy. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the gunmen opened fire on the head of the “military security detachment” on al-Salam highway near Kanaker town in western Ghouta. One of his escorts was also killed in the attack. The official is from Banias city. Tensions have continued to grow in Kanaker after three women from the town were arrested by the regime's security services for unknown reasons. The Observatory noted that several young men took down a huge poster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, setting it on fire, following the arrest of the women. According to SOHR sources, the town has been witnessing rising tensions and deployment of local gunmen on main roads. The Observatory also said that unknown gunmen shot a former member of the opposition, who had been part of the “reconciliation and settlement” initiative and had later joined the ranks of regime forces. This brings the number of attacks and assassination attempts through IEDs, landmines, booby-trapped vehicles and shootings to over 678 since June. The number of deaths in the same period has risen to 449 persons, 123 of whom are civilians, including 12 women and 15 children, in addition to 209 regime soldiers and loyalists. In addition, 79 people from opposition factions, who had made “settlements and reconciliations” with the regime and joined security services, have also been killed, including former leaders, 23 members of Syrian militias affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iranian forces, and 22 members of the so-called “Fifth Brigade.”

Amman: EU-Sanctioned Company ‘Has No Presence’ in Jordan
Amman - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 23 September, 2020
Jordan denied on Tuesday ties to a shipping company that has been included in the EU sanctions list for breaching a UN arms embargo on Libya. The country said that Med Wave Shipping was not Jordanian, nor did it have any presence on Jordanian soil. Foreign Ministry spokesman Daifallah al-Fayez said in comments that the firm “is not a Jordanian company, is not registered in Jordan and is not present on Jordanian soil.”He added that the authorities found no trace of the company at the address of its supposed headquarters in the Jordanian capital. He added that Amman was committed to the UN weapons ban. “All information refuting the claim that the company has a headquarters in Amman, and all information that shows that it is not registered in Jordan, nor operating in its territory, will be sent to the concerned international authorities,” al-Fayez underlined. On Monday, the EU imposed sanctions, which it said included three Turkish, Jordanian and Kazakh companies involved in violating the UN arms embargo on Libya. The EU stressed that it had irrefutable evidence against the sanctioned companies and persons.

Search Continues for Kidnapped Iraqi Activist Amid Massive Security Deployment
Baghdad - Fadhel al-Nashmi/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 23 September, 2020
Iraqi special anti-terrorism forces continue search operations in different areas of the southern Dhi Qar governorate to find the civilian activist who was kidnapped by gunmen on Saturday. On Tuesday, video footage showed dozens of military vehicles wandering around in the streets of the southern city of Nasiriyah and other cities. However, five days after the incident, forces of the Iraqi counter-terrorism service (ICTS) have yet failed to arrest those involved in the abduction of Sajjad al-Iraqi. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi ordered Monday dispatching ICTS forces backed by the army's air force to search for al-Iraqi. Kadhimi’s orders came after the security forces and local police in Nasiriyah failed to free the activist three days after he was kidnapped. The Security Media Cell announced Tuesday the launch of the search for the kidnapped activist. “Units from the ICTS, a regiment from Dhi Qar police and a regiment from the Sumer Operations Commando Brigade started a joint duty to search for al-Iraqi and arrest the kidnappers,” it announced in a statement. Several observers raised questions over the delay in launching the operation to free the activist, although Dhi Qar Police Chief Hazem al-Waeli said on Monday that security forces were able to identify the kidnappers through the testimonies of eyewitnesses and al-Iraqi’s friends who were accompanying him when he got kidnapped. For his part, Waeli pointed out that the police also used information retrieved from the tire tracks left behind by the abductor’s vehicle. He affirmed that security forces started taking necessary measures regarding the case. Government security sources did not reveal yet the reasons preventing the release of al-Iraqi’s and the arrest of those involved. However, a security source told Asharq Al-Awsat that those involved in the kidnap belong to a tribe that has wide influence among armed factions and is allied with Hadi al-Amiri’s Badr Organization. For this reason, he stressed, forces are not rushing into its areas of influence to avoid unnecessary armed confrontations.Many tribal members have been prosecuted on kidnapping and robbery charges, the source noted, adding that, most probably, they would open fire on security forces. He also expected the activist to be released soon through a tribal settlement and without clashes. Activists in Nasiriyah have earlier accused al-Ibrahimi tribe of being behind the abduction, driven mainly by political aims, but police sources said the motives behind the kidnapping remain unclear. Iraqi was kidnapped by seven gunmen mounting a pick-up truck on Saturday evening from the al-Azirij neighborhood north of Nasiriyah. One of his companions was shot, but he survived his wounds and identified the kidnappers.

US Envoy to Syria Reassures Kurds on Turkish Infiltration
Ankara - Hasakah - Saeed Abdulrazek and Kamal Sheikho/Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that resolving the conflict in Syria should be based on the roadmap endorsed in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. Speaking on the first day of the UN High-level General Debate, the Turkish President asserted that the Syrian-owned and -led political process, initiated under UN mediation, should be brought to a successful conclusion. “This is the only way that Syria can achieve a lasting peace, while preserving its territorial integrity and political unity,” he underscored.
Erdogan called on the international community to fight the Kurdish militant PKK-YPG organization and its expansion in Syria the same way it dealt with the terrorist ISIS organization. Meanwhile, Anadolu Agency quoted local sources as saying that US special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey had claimed during a meeting on Monday with YPG/PKK leaders and Syrian Kurdish National Council (ENKS) representatives that Turkey will not launch a new military operation in the region.
During the Hassakeh meeting that included Joel Rayburn, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Levant Affairs, Jeffrey called on both Kurdish groups to reach reconciliation as soon as possible, the sources said.
Democratic Union Party spokeswoman Sama Bakdash said the Hassakeh meeting lasted around 90 minutes. “The US envoy ruled out any Turkish military operation in the area,” Bakdash noted, adding that Jeffrey informed them that US President Donald Trump had agreed with Erdogan that following the Peace Spring operation, Turkey would not infiltrate new territories. “In case Ankara does not respect the agreement, Washington would impose economic sanctions on Turkey,” the spokeswoman said. On Tuesday, Jeffrey visited Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish-Iraqi region and met with Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani. The US envoy thanked Barzani and the KRG for their positive role in the negotiations between Kurdish groups in northern Syria to come closer and to resolve their problems. He affirmed the US and Coalition would continue their support for Kurds and their partners to help them defeat ISIS militants, a statement issued by the Kurdish presidency said. Separately, commenting on talks to unify Kurdish ranks in Rojava between delegations of the Kurdish National Unity Parties (PYNK) and the ENKS, Bakdash said it was agreed that the number of the Supreme Kurdish Authority members would be 40.

Sarraj Discusses LNA Oil Agreement Fallout in Turkey
Cairo - Khalid Mahmoud/Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
Turkey launched new efforts to protect the Libyan camp it supports, especially after the head of the Government of National Accord (GNA) Fayez al-Sarraj announced his intentions to resign. The efforts follow a controversial deal arranged between Sarraj’s deputy, Ahmed Maiteeq, and the Libyan National Army (LNA) on the resumption of oil production. Sarraj kickstarted a surprise visit to Turkey on Monday. GNA-linked sources revealed that Ankara gave Maiteeq a similar invitation within the framework of consolidating the GNA camp against Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the LNA’s commander in chief. The head of the GNA’s High Council of State, Khaled Al-Mishri, also visited Turkey and met with the Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. According to a statement by the ministry, Akar told Mishri that Turkey will continue to stand by the GNA as officials exchanged views regarding the latest developments in the war-ravaged North African nation. The meetings come a few days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying that Turkey was upset by Sarraj's announcement that he planned to quit by the end of October. Nevertheless, Erdogan said that his country will continue to support the GNA, despite the announcement by Sarraj. Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin added in a statement to the Turkish Demiroren News Agency that support for the GNA, along with the signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) between both parties is set to continue both in its maritime and security sectors. He went on to explain that these agreements, will not be affected at this uncertain political period, as they were initiated between two governments, not through any single individual, adding that Turkish officials are due to travel to Tripoli within the coming days to discuss developments following Sarraj's announcement. GNA Presidential Council (PC) member Mohamed Amari, for his part, voiced his rejection of the agreement between the Maiteeq and Haftar, saying that it is unlawful and cannot be ratified. GNA Minister of Defense Salah Eddin al-Namroush also rejected the resumption of oil exports. He said the crimes committed in Libya would not be forgotten. Namroush vowed in a statement published on the site of the GNA Ministry of Defense to lodge a complaint at the UN against the perpetrators of those crimes.

Israel and Italy finalize arms deal
Jerusalem Post/September 23/2020
Jerusalem to purchase advanced training helicopters, Rome to purchase spike missiles and simulators.
Israel and Italy have completed a reciprocal procurement agreement which will see Israel’s Defense Ministry purchase five advanced training helicopters and the Italians purchasing Rafael spike missiles and Elbit Systems simulators in exchange.
The agreement was signed on Tuesday by the director-general of the Israel Defense Ministry, Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Amir Eshel, and his Italian counterpart, National Armaments Director Nicolò Falsaperna, in a signing ceremony that took place simultaneously in the defense headquarters of each country, one in Tel Aviv and the other in Rome, and screened via secure video conference. “The agreement signed yesterday is another expression of the close security and economic relations between Israel and Italy,” Eshel said. “It enables the IDF to complete the replacement of the old training aircraft in the IAF. In addition, the reciprocal procurement agreement, which includes the purchase [of systems] from Israeli defense industries, positively affects Israel’s exports and economy.”The Defense Ministry team attending the ceremony included Production and Procurement head Avi Dadon, International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) head Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Yair Kulas, Finance Department head Victor Weiss and additional senior officials. The agreement completes the exchange between Israel and Italy that began in February 2019 which sees purchases by both countries.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz welcomed the completion of the agreement, saying that it “reflects our close and important cooperation with the Italian Defense Ministry over the years. The completion of this agreement is essential for the training of IAF helicopter pilots and for the development of Israel’s economy. It also reflects the great importance of defense industries both for Israel’s security and its economy.”The Defense Ministry will purchase a “training package” from Italian defense contractor Leonardo that includes 12 AW119KX training helicopters and two simulators for the Air Force Flight School.
The first seven helicopters were purchased a year ago, and an additional five were agreed upon today. The new aircraft will gradually replace the “Sayfan” (Bell 206) helicopters, which have been in service since the 1970s.
The Italian Ministry of Defense will purchase Spike launchers and missiles from Rafael and advanced simulators for a number of helicopter models in the Italian military, in a partnership between Leonardo and Elbit Systems.
The agreement is a continuation of another deal signed between the two countries in 2011, which saw Israel purchase 30 training aircraft in exchange for the purchase of an observation satellite and two airborne early warning systems.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 23-24/2020

Khamenei Uses Iraq War Anniversary to Reinforce Iranian Steadfastness
Omer Carmi/The Washington Institute/September 23/2020
Rather than explicitly addressing Washington’s reactivation of sanctions, the Supreme Leader sought to convince domestic listeners that Iran can ‘resist’ external pressures and the latest COVID-19 wave on its own.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech at the annual Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership gathering tends to be closely analyzed by Iran watchers for good reason. As with his yearly Nowruz speeches, he often uses the event to signal domestic and foreign audiences about his approach to international affairs. Most famously, the emphasis on “heroic flexibility” in his 2013 speech foreshadowed Tehran’s signing of an interim nuclear agreement with the P5+1 a few weeks later and the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. Last year’s speech took a different tone—Khamenei expressed confidence that the regime could cope with U.S. pressure and warned that Washington’s goal was to eliminate the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary character and force it to conform with the American global order. In doing so, he essentially previewed months of Iranian defiance on regional and nuclear issues.This year, the setting changed once again. Iran is in the midst of a third wave of coronavirus with thousands of infections per day, and the renewed outbreak apparently convinced the regime to cancel Khamenei’s in-person speech before a large IRGC gathering. Instead, he chose to deliver a video address on September 21 as the main event of “Sacred Defense” week—the anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War and a speech that is usually given by the president.
Typically, Khamenei’s speeches directly convey his response to recent episodes in Iran’s relations with the United States and the rest of the world. Yesterday, however, he refrained from even mentioning the most recent and glaring episode, namely, Washington’s September 19 declaration that UN sanctions are back in force—perhaps his attempt to minimize domestic pressures that might compel the regime to retaliate for that move. Yet the manner in which he spoke of the war with Iraq four decades ago made clear that he wanted to apply its lessons to Iran’s current situation and counter efforts to “distort” the past.
Reminding Iranians that the international community wants to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Khamenei explained that global superpowers orchestrated the 1980-1988 war, backing Saddam Hussein in an attempt to overthrow Iran’s new revolutionary regime and create a weak and “dependent” government. According to him, there was no “Eastern” or “Western” bloc driving this objective—it was a joint effort to destabilize Iran. For example, he quoted former Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini as saying that “the U.S. was worse than the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union worse than the U.S., and England worse than both of them.” Such quotes were likely Khamenei’s way of signaling that Iran’s current discord is not just with Washington, perhaps implicitly criticizing European leaders for their recent statements against Iran’s abuse of human rights.
Reiterating that resistance is the only way to deter the enemy. Khamenei reminded his audience that before the Iran-Iraq War, the country had suffered repetitive losses when the Qajari and Pahlavi dynasties held power. Even when Iran declared its neutrality during the Second World War, he argued, it was occupied and divided by the Allies, with Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin showing no respect for the country’s sovereignty or leaders during their 1943 summit in Tehran. In contrast to those losses and humiliations, he declared, the war with Iraq showed the enemy the true “cost of aggression” and provided enduring security to Iran. “When a nation shows that it has energy and power to defend itself,” he said, the aggressor “realizes that it’s not in his best interest” to attack the Islamic Republic. For him, the lesson was clear—the world interprets independence and resistance as power and respect. Still allowing for ideological concessions. Despite this defiant tone, Khamenei also reminded listeners about his predecessor’s decision to accept a ceasefire with Iraq in 1988. At the time, the late leader described this step as akin to “drinking a cup of poison,” but he nevertheless took it in the interests of “regime expediency.” By praising that decision as wise and prudent, Khamenei seemingly preserves the regime’s longstanding approach of leaving at least some room for compromise on major issues if its hold on power is at stake.
Preaching caution and obedience in response to coronavirus. Acknowledging the seriousness of Iran’s current outbreak, Khamenei demanded that listeners avoid processions or large gatherings during the upcoming Shia festival of Arbain, instead expressing their devotion at home. He urged them to listen to the government’s guidelines on fighting the pandemic, noting that current death rates are equivalent to a situation in which planes carrying 300 passengers are crashing every other day. That analogy may have been a reference to the accidental U.S. shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988, a disaster in which 290 people were killed—perhaps his way of taking another potshot at Washington’s regional track record while simultaneously arguing that external challenges from the United States are small in comparison to the pandemic’s potential domestic threat.
Noting that hardships can lead to new opportunities and innovative solutions. As he often does in major speeches, Khamenei sought to leaven all these challenges with a dash of hope. “The Iranian nation’s Sacred Defense brought blessings too,” he stated, noting that the bitter war against Saddam helped Iran develop new technologies and weapons, consolidate the newborn Islamic Republic, and elevate seminal young leaders such as Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC Qods Force commander killed earlier this year. He insisted that while “some things are seemingly impossible, if we make an effort, they are possible.” This lesson—learned the hard way via eight years of existential warfare with Iraq—was probably the ayatollah’s principal message at a time when pressures on Iran are increasing by the day.
*Omer Carmi, a former visiting fellow at The Washington Institute, previously led IDF analytical and research efforts pertaining to the Middle East.

After Abraham Accords, time to look at Palestinian-Israeli conflict with fresh eyes
Clifford D. May/Washington Times/September 22/2020

How peace was achieved and what the 'Palestinian cause' now requires
Before there was a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, there was an Arab-Israeli conflict. Last week, on the White House lawn, that older conflict was put to rest.
In normal times, we’d agree that the president deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, and that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict should be next up on Washington’s diplomatic to-do list.
But these are not normal times. Prior to the ceremony, I received an email announcing: “Over 50 Organizations/Groups to protest the UAE and Bahrain Normalization with Israel During Deal Signing at the White House.”
'All-time low': Trump-Pelosi toxicity trickles down, contaminates Capitol Hill
ABC's 'undecided' voters called Trump 'f--ing moron,' 'punk a--,' 'villain' before town hall. Would I and others exiting the White House grounds and emerging on the mean streets of Washington, D.C. be harassed or even attacked by members of the anti-peace wing of the peace movement? As it turned out, the protestors awaiting us were more Code Pink than Antifa, more annoying than threatening.
Many in the media have been reluctant to acknowledge the significance of what President Trump, assisted by Jared Kushner, his advisor and son-in-law, achieved. The ho-hum headline in The Washington Post: “Israel signs deal establishing formal ties with two Arab states at the White House.”
What really happened: The United Arab Emirates and the Bahrainis normalized relations with Israel, accepting Israel as their neighbor, implicitly acknowledging that the Jewish people have a right to a nation-state in part of their ancient homeland.
Neither would have taken this step without the tacit approval of Saudi Arabia. Other Arab nations could soon be exchanging ambassadors with Israel as well.

Venezuela and Iran Buck U.S. Sanctions Again to Export Crude
Lucia Kassai/Bloomberg/September 23/2020
After defying U.S. sanctions by shipping a cargo of oil condensate to Venezuela just last week, Iran is using the same ship to help the Latin American country export its crude.The Iran-flagged supertanker Honey, also known as Horse, is loading Venezuela’s top exported grade Merey 16 at Venezuela’s government-controlled port of Jose, according to a shipping report seen by Bloomberg. The shipments give some respite to the nation’s hobbled oil industry, as most shipowners avoid doing business with the country for fear of sanctions.
The vessel, which just discharged 2 million barrels of Iranian condensate , turned off its satellite signal to avoid detection after the U.S. was able to intercept 1.116 million barrels of gasoline going to Venezuela in August. Bloomberg reported that the ship was discharging its contents in Venezuela last week though ship-tracking signals still show the ship off the coast of Dubai.
Venezuela, owner of the world’s largest oil reserves, has been struggling to find ships willing to risk sanctions after the Trump administration announced sanctions on six vessels and its shipowners for transporting its crude. The Treasury Department eventually removed the vessels from the sanctions list without making a formal explanation but the U.S. has pursued foreign vessels carrying product to Venezuela around the world and seized more than a million barrels of gasoline while in transit.
The cargo on board of the Horse is expected to be sold in Asia, the main destination of Venezuelan crude.
PDVSA declined to comment. Venezuela’s information ministry and the U.S. State Department didn’t return an email seeking comment.
In addition to supplying condensate, Tehran has supplied 1.5 million barrels of gasoline and food. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is also weighing the purchase of Iranian missiles. Caracas has supplied gold as payment for the assistance.
— With assistance by Fabiola Zerpa, and Stephen Cunningham
As governments across the world take on record amounts of debt and ramp up fiscal stimulus, the normally profligate government of Venezuela is one of the only countries set to narrow its budget shortfall this year.
The nation’s budget deficit will shrink to 7.9% of gross domestic product in 2020, from 11% last year, according to a study published this month by Andres Bello University in Caracas. That would make Venezuela, roiled by hyperinflation and mass hunger, the only major country in the Americas to tighten its fiscal stance during the pandemic.
Belt-Tightening
Venezuela slashes spending amid pandemic
Source: Institute of Economic and Social Research - Andres Bello Catholic University
Other forecasters such as Caracas-based economic analysis firm Econometrica also predict a smaller budget shortfall this year. Notre Dame University visiting professor Francisco Rodriguez estimates that Venezuela’s budget gap could narrow to as little as 4.8% of GDP, which would be lower than Germany’s.
“These numbers may seem low, but to have a high deficit you must have a way to finance it, and no one is lending money to Venezuela,” Rodriguez said.
Venezuela is currently enduring its seventh-straight year of contraction amid the deepest depression in recent history. The economy is forecast to shrink another 20% this year as the coronavirus pandemic aggravates the downturn caused by collapsing oil revenues, economic mismanagement and U.S. sanctions.
As the nation’s economic crisis deepened, the government largely abandoned the publication of timely economic statistics, and hasn’t published complete fiscal data for two years. The Finance Ministry didn’t reply to written requests for comment.
Only a handful of countries including Dominica, East Timor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Kenya, Lesotho and Zambia are set to cut their deficits this year, according to forecasts published by the International Monetary Fund in April. The IMF doesn’t have a 2020 forecast for Venezuela.
After defaulting on its dollar bonds in 2017, and with U.S. sanctions limiting the nation’s access to financial markets, Venezuela has few sources of credit left. The government has also tried to keep a lid on spending as part of its drive to limit money printing and get inflation back under control.
Help from allies such as Russia and China has recently been limited to debt rollovers that don’t involve fresh capital.
Cafe con Leche
Hyperinflation, now estimated at 2,400% annually according to Bloomberg’s Cafe con Leche Index, has diluted the government’s ability to finance itself owing to the so-called Olivera–Tanzi effect, whereby the time lag between the generation of tax revenue and its collection slashes its value.
Government expenditure fell 29% in real terms in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to Econometrica, just as other governments in the region were spending more to offset the impact of the pandemic.
However, the upcoming legislative elections in December will make the government reluctant to further cut spending if it can avoid it. Economist Tamara Herrera, head of consulting firm Sintesis Financiera, says the government will inevitably try to finance itself by more money printing, since it’s running low on other options.
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Could Iranian Missiles Be Soon Headed To Venezuela?
Josh Chang/The National Interest/September 23/2020
It would be unreasonable to completely rule out an attempt by Iran to export its missiles to Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s recent declaration of interest in obtaining Iranian missiles alarmed many of the country’s neighbors and raised questions over the likelihood of this acquisition. On the one hand, there is some plausible reason to believe that this transaction may not go through. Iran-Venezuela military cooperation is not as credible as the two countries claim, with a continuous pattern of declarations and agreements but very little evidence of actual fulfillment. For example, Iran declared in 2018 that it would dispatch a stealth cruiser to Venezuela as part of an expeditionary mission, but this deployment never materialized. On top of this inconsistency, tight U.S. maximum pressure campaigns against both countries could also prevent the delivery of Iranian missiles to the Western Hemisphere.
On the other hand, it would be unreasonable to completely rule out an attempt by Iran to export its missiles to Venezuela. The recent shipments of Iranian oil to the country and the transfer of Venezuelan gold to Tehran via Iranian airliners demonstrate the Islamic Republic’s fervent commitment to its partner despite U.S. sanctions and geographic distance. The expiration of a UN arms embargo on Iran in October could remove a major obstacle to the country’s plans to export missiles to Venezuela. While the United States recently re-imposed UN sanctions to try to extend the embargo, the lack of broad international support for these measures may encourage Tehran to proceed with sales once the embargo reaches its official expiration date. Iran would be tempted to exploit an opportunity to pressure the United States with its missiles and counter what it perceives to be strategic encirclement by Washington and its partners in the Persian Gulf region.
Regardless of whether Venezuela and Iran follow through with this transaction, it would be useful to consider the implications of an Iranian missile deployment in the Western Hemisphere.
While there are reasons for concern related to interstate tensions and weapons proliferation, there is also a broader rationale for concern when it comes to U.S. global defense strategy.
First, the deployment of these missiles could generate alarm and further tensions between Venezuela and its neighbors, with relations already at their lowest due to regional opposition to the Maduro regime. The Venezuelan military has previously carried out military exercises along the country’s border with Colombia to simulate a defense against an invasion. However, such maneuvers have antagonized Colombia, which has had to place its own forces on high alert in response. These exercises have taken place in the midst of Maduro’s frequent accusations that neighbors such as Colombia actively seek to topple the Bolivarian regime in Venezuela. New Iranian missiles in Venezuela could embolden Maduro to be more vocal in his bellicose rhetoric and stage additional exercises with full confidence in the protection that these assets provide the regime. These moves could further increase the insecurity of Venezuela’s neighbors and lead to further regional military or diplomatic standoffs.
Second, Venezuela’s acceptance of Iranian missiles would inevitably invite Iranian technicians, engineers, and military personnel to come to the country to set up these weapons. These personnel could further entrench Iran’s presence in the Western Hemisphere and enable the Islamic Republic to gather intelligence and monitor U.S activities in the region. A successful Iranian establishment of missile platforms in Venezuela could also embolden the two rogue states to pursue other possible arms transactions and boost confidence in their ability to defy U.S. sanctions.
Third, as an unstable country with large weapons stockpiles and violent transnational guerrilla and criminal groups, Venezuela could become a hub of missile proliferation if these weapons fall into the hands of armed factions such as the National Liberation Army (ELN). The Maduro regime has reportedly distributed Russian-manufactured weapons to such groups due to the close partnerships between the government and these guerrillas. This pattern of cooperation suggests that these various paramilitary groups could also acquire these missiles either due to the regime’s own negligence or a deliberate transfer of weaponry. The unpredictability of these armed groups indicates that they could either try to leverage such weapons to blackmail state opponents in neighboring countries or even sell them to other interested clients, creating a proliferation nightmare for the United States and its allies.
Past Factory
Finally, it is important to note that whether Iran or Venezuela actually go through with this transaction or not, the mere contemplation of this possibility points to a strategic distraction that may divert U.S. attention from other important theaters. If Tehran exported missiles to the Maduro regime, this sale could cause U.S. Southern Command to request additional resources, such as unmanned aerial platforms, missile interceptors, and destroyers, that this command would not need under normal circumstances. These requests could take away from other theaters that need such critical assets at a time when the United States is engaged in strategic competition with Russia and China in other parts of the globe. In addition, Washington would also have to invest more diplomatic resources and energy to reassure partners in Latin America against this possible threat to alleviate panic and tension. With Washington hard-pressed to uphold defense commitments throughout the world, an Iranian missile sale to Venezuela would add an unnecessary item to an already-growing list of defense concerns. However, this thought exercise points to an important need for the United States to balance its strategic priorities while minimizing distractions close to home from rogue actors like Venezuela and Iran.
**Josh Chang is a research assistant at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) and a master’s candidate at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He is Associate Editor for the Americas at the Georgetown Security Studies Review and has frequently published pieces on Latin American security issues, focusing on the role of transnational threats and extraterritorial actors in the region.

Turkey: Erdoğan's Soft Spot for Hamas
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/September 23/2020
So far, Erdoğan's fanaticism has come without any cost to him internationally, or any damage to his domestic political survivability. He has every ideological and pragmatic reason to keep up his love affair with Hamas.
Erdoğan seemingly loves to make such gatherings [with Hamas terrorist leaders] public to challenge the parts of the world that designate Hamas as a terrorist entity: the EU, Israel and the United States. There is also a message to his Turkish audience: I challenge the world powers, including America, and I remain untouchable.
"In overlooking these designations and thousands of its victims, who were injured and murdered by Hamas terrorists, Turkey is actively supporting it both financially and logistically." — Spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Fox News, August 28, 2020.
In reality, it is equally possible that these developments might actually spur a two-state solution, by notifying the Palestinians that, as the Arab saying goes, "The dogs bark but the caravan moves on."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comes from the ranks of militant Islamism. His love for Hamas and his dedication to the "Palestinian cause" are genuine. Pictured: Erdoğan hosts Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (left) at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara on January 3, 2012.
It is not only ideological and not only pragmatic: it is both: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comes from the ranks of militant Islamism for which the "Palestinian cause" is sacred and "as national as any other national matter." His love for Hamas and his dedication to the "cause" are genuine. So is his pragmatism.
Erdoğan's pro-Hamas (and anti-Israeli) fanaticism is one reason why Islamist Turks vote for him. So far, his fanaticism has come without any cost to him internationally, or any damage to his domestic political survivability. He has every ideological and pragmatic reason to keep up his love affair with Hamas.
On August 22, Erdoğan met in Istanbul with Hamas's senior military leader, Saleh al-Arouri, and senior political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. That was yet another public meeting of the president of a NATO country with specially designated global terrorists. Arouri was responsible for the June 2014 kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. A few weeks after the incident, Arouri claimed responsibility for the murders at a public event in Istanbul, embarrassingly attended by some senior Turkish officials. It is embarrassing for government officials to witness a man admitting to his terrorist crimes at a venue in their home country.
Judging from recent history, that meeting was in no way surprising. On the contrary, it was as normal as two lovers meeting at a café for drinks. Erdoğan seemingly loves to make such gatherings public to challenge the parts of the world that designate Hamas as a terrorist entity: the EU, Israel and the United States. There is also a message to his Turkish audience: I challenge the world powers, including America, and I remain untouchable.
In 2011, Israel released 10 Hamas terrorists as part of a prisoner-exchange deal. They arrived in Turkey and have remained active on Turkish soil ever since.
In December, The Telegraph reported that Turkey was turning a "blind eye" to Hamas members planning attacks on Israel from the safety of Turkey and claimed that operatives in Istanbul were seeking suicide-bombing recruits by offering to pay their families around $20,000 for carrying out attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In August, The Telegraph revealed that Ankara had granted citizenship and passports to "senior operatives of a Hamas terrorist cell," including Zacharia Najib, "the senior Hamas operative who oversaw a plot to assassinate the [then] mayor of Jerusalem, as well as other Israeli public figures."
The Telegraph noted:
"Turkey is granting citizenship to senior operatives of a Hamas terrorist cell, the Telegraph has learned, raising fears that the Palestinian group will have greater freedom to plot attacks on Israeli citizens around the world.
"Turkish identity papers seen by the Telegraph show that at least one of 12 senior Hamas members, who are using the country as a base of operations, has received Turkish citizenship and an 11-digit identity number.
"According to a senior source, seven of the 12 operatives have received Turkish citizenship, as well as passports, while the other five are in the process of receiving them. In some cases, the operatives are living under Turkish aliases."
Israeli diplomats confirmed to Fox News that Ankara is in the process of issuing citizenship to at least a dozen members of Hamas. "In overlooking these designations and thousands of its victims, who were injured and murdered by Hamas terrorists, Turkey is actively supporting it both financially and logistically," a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington told Fox News. According to Seth J. Frantzman, executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis:
"Ankara's continued support for Hamas, including rolling out a red carpet for two senior Hamas leaders that the US and others view as wanted terrorists, once against shows the unprecedented way in which Turkey's current rulers flagrantly ignore international norms. Ankara treats Hamas as if it is an equal government, hosting it at the highest levels."
Washington made a weak signal in protest of Erdoğan's latest meeting with the terrorists, who even admitted they are terrorists. The U.S. State Department condemned the meeting as one that "only serves to isolate Turkey" on the world stage.
"The United States strongly objects to Turkish President Erdoğan hosting two Hamas leaders in Istanbul," State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement on August 25.
"President Erdoğan's continued outreach to this terrorist organization only serves to isolate Turkey from the international community, harms the interests of the Palestinian people, and undercuts global efforts to prevent terrorist attacks launched from Gaza."
Ankara quickly rebuffed the U.S. statement. It said that Hamas was a democratically-elected actor in Gaza, which is correct, and represented a significant reality in the region.
A realistic question came from an opposition lawmaker in Turkey. Ünal Çeviköz, a former ambassador and an MP for the main opposition Republican People's Party, filed a question motion in parliament. "How many Hamas members have been granted citizenship under your government's term?" he asked Vice President Fuat Oktay. In a statement, Çeviköz added:
"These developments pose a serious obstacle to the potential of a two-state solution on the Palestine-Israel issue. Such developments, which will further increase regional tension, prevents Turkey from taking an active role for the Palestinian issue."
In reality, it is equally possible that these developments might actually spur a two-state solution, by notifying the Palestinians that, as the Arab saying goes, "The dogs bark but the caravan moves on."
Erdoğan's pro-Hamas ideology is not new. Nor is it an alliance born out of strategic reasons or a temporary geopolitical necessity. It is an inseparable part of his mindset. He will always be programmed to raise the stakes in supporting a terrorist organization, especially if it comes to him with no political cost.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Mueller Team Corruption Contaminates Justice
Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute/September 23/2020
Are we truly supposed to believe that all of these phones just happened to erase themselves?
You will remember that these very same attorneys and investigators sought to imprison George Papadopoulos for 20 years simply for switching cell phones and deactivating his Facebook account. The government argued that Papadopoulos knowingly committed obstruction per 18 US Code section 1519, with the intent of impeding or otherwise influencing a federal investigation.
The flagrant, outrageous abuse of record-keeping and phone communications requirements by the Mueller team is a prime avenue for further criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Attorney General Barr recently said there will be more indictments. Let's hope so.... The only remedy is the rigorous prosecution of the offenders.
We now know the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation of the Trump-Russia "collusion" claims was a politically motivated hoax. In the end, Robert Mueller appeared before Congress and seemed befuddled throughout his testimony.
We now know the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation of the Trump-Russia "collusion" claims was a politically motivated hoax. The investigation dragged on for months. Despite increasingly hysterical Leftist speculation of criminal conspiracies and treason -- not a single claim was ever made against the President. In the end, Robert Mueller appeared before Congress and seemed befuddled throughout his testimony -- "Not with a bang, but with a whimper."
Consequently, it appears necessary that Mueller and his team need to be the subjects of a criminal investigation. Last week, responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, the Justice Department released heavily redacted documents showing that several dozen phones belonging to members of Mueller's team were "wiped" or disabled before they could be examined by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz during his office's review of the special counsel's investigation.
In each case, the government phones were somehow "accidentally" rendered useless. Two were "in airplane mode, no passcode provided, data unable to be recovered so had to be wiped." FBI lawyer Lisa Page's phone was inexplicably restored to factory settings. Lawyer James Quarles' phone was said to have spontaneously wiped itself. Several other phones, such as the one used by Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman, were disabled after inputting too many incorrect passwords. It should be noted that disabling an iPhone this way, including the timeouts, would take well over an hour of effort.
Are we truly supposed to believe that all of these phones just happened to erase themselves? You will remember that these very same attorneys and investigators sought to imprison George Papadopoulos for 20 years simply for switching cell phones and deactivating his Facebook account. The government argued that Papadopoulos knowingly committed obstruction per 18 US Code section 1519, with the intent of impeding or otherwise influencing a federal investigation. One set of rules for ordinary citizens -- another set of rules for the Titans of the Justice Department. This is yet another reason why people loathe attorneys and government bureaucrats.
More than 37 years of investigative experience has taught me that there is no such thing as a coincidence. The size and scope of the "accidental" phone erasures within the Mueller team office is incredible and outrageous. What were these people hiding?
Was Mueller aware of what his underlings were up to? Given his dazed performance before Congress, one would conclude that Mueller had little or no idea what was happening in the office. The flagrant, outrageous abuse of record-keeping and phone communications requirements by the Mueller team is a prime avenue for further criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Attorney General Barr recently said there will be more indictments. Let's hope so.
The "you or me" standard, when applied to this case of official misconduct is the key. Simply substitute "you or me" -- the reader or Chris Farrell -- for any of the Mueller team operatives, and then ask yourself if you would be permitted to get away with it. Could we walk away unscathed? No questions, no legal exposure or jeopardy? Of course not. That is what is so deeply corrosive to the public's trust and faith in the Department of Justice -- and the criminal justice system generally. As that continues to disintegrate, we move closer and closer to being a failed state. The only remedy is the rigorous prosecution of the offenders.
*Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer. For the past 20 years, he has served as the Director of Investigations & Research for Judicial Watch. The views expressed are the author's alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Trump’s Two Contradictory Messages to Iraq and Syria
Robert Ford/Asharq Al Awsat/September, 23/2020
Within days the US military will finish withdrawing 2,200 US soldiers from Iraq, as the US commander for Middle East forces, General MacKenzie, announced on September 9. This will leave about 3,000 US forces in Iraq. At the same time these forces are leaving Iraq, Washington is sending reinforcements into northeastern Syria. Instead of paying attention to their government’s military decisions in the Mashreq, the big majority of Americans are only watching the election campaign.
But in fact, it is impossible to separate the election from the foreign policy of the Trump administration.
Six weeks before election day, the opinion polls for President Trump are not good. It is vital for him to keep the strong support of his political base. That base rejects wars in the Middle East. Trump, therefore, emphasized the new withdrawal from Iraq, and in addition Secretary of Defense Mike Esper has promised that half of the remaining American soldiers in Afghanistan will withdraw by November.
Trump also tells the American public that the Americans are “practically” out of Syria except for guarding oilfields. He indicates the Syria operation has no costs (in fact, the Syrian operations are costing several billion dollars annually). At the same time, the Trump campaign team warns that Joe Biden voted for the war in Iraq in 2002 and if he wins the election, he will send America into new wars. This is the political message of the recent American military withdrawal.
It is notable that many analysts here insist that American must keep forces in Iraq to contain Iranian influence, but the Trump administration did not condition the new withdrawal on additional actions by Iraqi government against the Popular Mobilization Forces.
The Trump administration seems comfortable with Mustafa Kadhimi and his long-term security reform goals. Some American military training for Iraqi forces will continue. The Trump administration also decided that the 2,000 troops leaving had not contained Iranian influence very well. Instead, the soldiers were a political and military target for Iraqis loyal to Iran. By staying in only a few bases in Iraq, the forces can better protect themselves from the militias, and Kadhimi can say the Americans are gradually withdrawing. Above all, for Trump a short-term political advantage in the November election is more important than a maximum effort against Iranian influence in Iraq.
The Americans are not entirely leaving Iraq, however. They train Iraqi forces in their bases, and they also provide logistical support for the American operations in northeastern Syria. A report from the military experts at the RAND institute last May warned that a complete American military withdrawal from Iraq would make the American military operations in Syria untenable. The RAND military experts recommended only a limited withdrawal from Iraq in order to minimize the difficulties for the military mission in Syria.
Despite Trump’s election politics, that is what the Defense Department is implementing. The base in Erbil is especially important, and it is not a coincidence that the American ambassador visited Erbil last week and announced 250 million dollars in new military aid to the Peshmerga at a time when Erbil suffers from big financial problems.
Thus, the Americans keep bases in Iraq to train Iraqi forces and to provide logistics and intelligence support for the American operations in Syria. The American military mission in Syria no longer really about ISIS. US forces don’t need new armored vehicles and more fighter plane patrols to fight the remaining ISIS guerrilla bands. Instead, Washington hopes the new forces will deter Russian forces that have confronted the Americans in northeast Syria. The Defense and State Departments refuse to withdraw from northeast Syria because of Russian pressure. (Trump himself doesn’t care about staying in Syria as long as there are no casualties and costs are limited. His team hopes the Russians and Iranians will not respond with their own escalations.)
The American mission in Syria still aims to compel Assad to make big political concessions in Geneva and to force Iran to withdraw from Syria. Notably, Ambassador James Jeffrey early this week was again trying to achieve a deal between Syrian Kurdish parties in order to increase political pressure on Damascus. The State Department facilitated a commercial deal between a new American company and Syrian Kurdish general Mazloum Abdi to stop Damascus from buying oil in northeast Syria. There is unspoken satisfaction in Washington at the long lines for benzine and bread shortages in Syrian cities.
Washington is trying to convince the Syrian Kurdish leaders that its forces will stay until the day somewhere in the future when the Assad regime collapses – a different message from the one about ending Middle East wars that Trump is sending to Americans at home.

Republicans Would Regret Replacing Ginsburg Before Election
Noah Feldman/Bloomberg/September, 23/2020
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, immediately announcing their intent to nominate and confirm a replacement. Tempting as it is for Republicans to install a third Supreme Court justice during Trump’s first term, it would nevertheless be a serious mistake — and potentially a historic one — for Senate Republicans to go along. The result would not only likely be the long-term erosion of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy as a third branch of government, but also a backlash so strong it would hurt the Republican Party itself.
The reason for Republicans to hold off isn’t the extraordinary hypocrisy they’re showing by pushing a rapid confirmation now, despite holding Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat open in 2016. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where voters will punish a party for arrant hypocrisy. Republicans and Democrats alike all understood that McConnell was making a specious argument when he claimed the March nomination of Judge Merrick Garland was too close to the November election to deserve a vote. We all knew it was power politics then; and we all know it is power politics now.
To be clear, Trump has the constitutional authority to nominate a new justice right now and the Senate has the authority to vote — or not vote — on that nominee. The arguments pro and con are moral and political, as I’ve noted before, not legal.
In a rational version of Senate confirmation politics, the party in the majority thinks about how its actions will affect the other party when it takes control. Ideally, that norm leads to balance and some fairness: I don’t take advantage of you so that in turn, you won’t take advantage of me.
In our current world of power politics, the norms have eroded to the point of near-disappearance. What that leaves is medium-term self-interest about what the other side will do immediately, as opposed to what both sides would do if norms of fairness applied.
The self-interested reason Republicans shouldn’t confirm Trump’s nominee in short order is that it will create a potential backlash that could have disastrous effects for Republicans. If a conservative fills Ginsburg’s seat, and then the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress in November, an outraged, left-leaning Democratic base will pressure Democratic leadership to do things leadership would never otherwise have considered.
The most obvious is that left-leaning Democrats will push their leadership to pack the Supreme Court by adding new seats and filling them with progressive justices. Until now, when the left of the Democratic Party has talked about court packing, moderates have pushed back strongly. They may change their tune if Ginsburg is replaced by a conservative before the election. That will place enormous pressure on Joe Biden, who — before Ginsburg’s death — made it clear that he opposed packing the court, because it would lead to an arms race in which the legitimacy of the court would ultimately be undermined.
So say Biden caves to the pressure and installs two, or three, or even four new justices on the Supreme Court. This would delegitimize the Supreme Court, which would be bad for the country as a whole. But it would also be bad for conservatives, who might find themselves stuck living under three Democrat-dominated branches of government for some time.
The other danger to Republicans is probably even deeper. Democrats enraged by a quick confirmation of a conservative might be motivated to admit Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico as states — each with their own (presumably Democratic) senators. Constitutionally speaking, this can be done with a bare majority of both houses and the presidency. Four more Democratic senators (or even three out of four, if Puerto Rico elected one Republican) could change the balance of the Senate over the long term.
Of course, admitting D.C. and Puerto Rico as states would represent a significant change from the tradition of maintaining some Senate balance by admitting Democratic- and Republican-leaning states at the same time. And to do it, Democrats would have to eliminate the filibuster. But progressive Democrats are already angry enough to do that, and a quick vote to confirm Ginsburg’s replacement could enrage moderates enough to join them.
Senate Republicans therefore have to calculate whether they would be better off confirming a conservative justice and risking these consequences or delaying until after the November election and confirming a Trump nominee only if Trump wins re-election.
In our current political moment, only rational Republican self-interest can stop the Trump-McConnell juggernaut. Republicans had better start thinking about whether the road they’re walking is taking them to a destination they really want to reach.

Biden’s Bipartisanship Is Good for Democrats — for Now
Francis Wilkinson/Bloomberg/September, 23/2020
I don’t know what Joe Biden truly believes about bipartisanship in the year 2020. I only know that his continued insistence on working with Republicans is both a tragic fantasy and good politics.
The Republican Party is not an institution that Democrats, or democrats, can do much business with. It is led by an erratic demagogue who has destroyed vast swaths of the credibility and competence of the federal government. The stated principles and positions of lesser party leaders are often nothing more than naked power grabs. And the party is committed to racial politics that require it to subjugate the nation’s multiracial majority through minority rule.
That doesn’t leave much to work with.
Yet it’s clear that Biden believes in the rhetoric of bipartisanship even if he knows that the GOP is incapable of practicing it. Biden last weekend urged Republican senators not to follow President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in ramming through a conservative Supreme Court justice before the next president is inaugurated.
At most a handful of Republican senators possess either the democratic conscience or the political circumstance to weigh Biden’s appeal. Both Trump and McConnell will work to subvert any GOP pangs about legitimacy.
Biden is still correct to pay lip service to the bipartisan ideal, if only to pledge allegiance to a myth embraced by swing voters and partisans alike. “We can’t keep rewriting history, scrambling norms, ignoring our cherished system of checks and balances,” Biden said in a speech Sunday in Philadelphia.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts can afford to be more blunt. Speaking of Republican efforts to fill Ginsburg’s seat, she said: “This is the last gasp of a desperate party that is overrepresented in the halls of power.”
It’s true that the GOP is a desperate party: Who else would empower a leader whose own senior advisers and cabinet officials describe him as a national security threat and lawless ignoramus? It’s also true that Republicans are overrepresented. States with populations smaller than Brooklyn each send two GOP Senators to Congress, where those senators proceed to tell 39 million Californians what’s what. The Democratic minority in the Senate won 14 million more votes than the Republican majority. Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.
But “last?”
Precisely because the GOP exploits the rewards of the Constitution’s rural state bias, and because the party has proved ruthless in both gerrymandering and suppressing votes it believes will aid Democrats, its “last” gasp is not imminent.
Indeed, the war may have only just begun. A majority of voters may have concluded by now that Trump is unfit for office. That this is even debatable is a measure of troubled times. The Trump era has featured norm-breaking, corruption and authoritarianism on a scale too vast and frenetic for many political journalists to process. Millions of Americans with normal lives simply have not registered that the Republican Party is no longer in the democracy business.
Educating them is vital. It will also have to be speedy. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says “everything” will be on the table as a corrective if the GOP rams through a Ginsburg replacement. Many on the left are calling for Democrats to close what writer Paul Waldman calls the “ruthlessness gap” with Republicans.
An ugly bout of tit for tat is probably inevitable. Still, Biden’s strategy makes sense: First, make it clear that you’d prefer a bipartisan path, and make a public effort to forge one. Then use the resulting GOP resistance to educate the public on the anti-democratic state of the GOP; the problem goes far deeper than Trump, and extends beyond Washington. That argument will be easier to make from the White House, should Biden reach it, than from Congress.
The measures that Democrats contemplate to blunt minority rule include statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, ending the filibuster and expanding the Supreme Court if McConnell and Trump’s court play can’t be stopped. Those are big changes that have been discussed among partisan activists but not much among the broader electorate. Republicans will scream bloody murder and cast them as illegitimate power grabs. (That Republicans are unwilling to compete for Black or brown votes in D.C. and P.R. is simply a given.)
To win these and future battles, Democrats must be ruthless about being reasonable. Biden has the right approach. When appeals for unity reach a near-certain dead end, it will be easier to make the case for a bolder, partisan path.

History Proves John Kerry Wrong ... Again
A.J. Caschetta/JNS/September 23/2020
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addresses the Brookings Institution's annual Saban Forum on December 4, 2016.
Conventional wisdom took one on the chin last week when the Trump administration did what the establishment said couldn't be done. No chin took a harder hit than former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's, when one clever social media user unearthed and isolated 44 seconds of him assuring the world that no Middle East peace deal will be possible without the Palestinians. "There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you," he stated.
The clip was from December 4, 2016, when Kerry made some of his final remarks as secretary of state to the Brookings Institution's annual Saban Forum. The diplomat, haughty from his success in the Pyrrhic victory of the Iran nuclear deal, said things he probably now wishes he could take back.
"There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world," Kerry predicted.
At the forum, titled "The Challenges for the Trump Administration in the Middle East," Kerry was looking to impart his expertise gained from 30 years as a U.S. senator and three as secretary of state by warning the incoming diplomats that they really didn't understand the complexity of the Middle East peace process. After interviewer Jeffrey Goldberg joked with him "that President-elect Trump himself is going to instigate an international crisis," Kerry started by assuring his audience that his concerns were "not because we don't care about Israel. It's because we do care. It's because we want to be able to see this thing develop into the full-blossomed beacon that Israel has the potential of being."
If one ignores the bizarre reference to Israel as "this thing," it becomes apparent that Kerry believes that only U.S. intervention can create the "thing" he desires. In the Obama administration, intervention meant pressuring Israel to give in to the grievances of its neighbors, particularly to the Palestinians. This mindset has preoccupied American foreign policy in the Middle East ever since Loy Henderson packed the State Department's Office of Near Eastern, African and South Asian Affairs with Arabists and peace-processers.
Kerry continued: "I've heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, well, the Arab world is in a different place now, we just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world and we'll deal with the Palestinians. No, no, no and no."
Kerry's four "no's" echo the 4th Arab League Summit in Khartoum, when fresh from defeat in the Six-Day War, the Arab nations announced their infamous three "no's" in solidarity with the Palestinians: no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no recognition of Israel.
It must have felt good, and the audience (Goldberg included) must have been responding positively to his sage council, because Kerry came back for more: "I can tell you that, reaffirmed even in the last week as I have talked to leaders of the Arab community, there will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality."
2020 has intervened to school Kerry on what the "hard reality" really looks like.
With the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signing the Abraham Accords, and other nations lining up to do the same, 2020 has intervened to school Kerry on what a hard reality really looks like. Concessions are perceived as weakness. Strength is respected.
Earlier in 2016, Kerry explained that "the art of diplomacy ... is to define the interests of all the parties and see where the sweet spot is that those interests can come together and hopefully be able to thread a very thin needle."
But compromise alone cannot make peace, especially when only one side is willing to compromise and the other remains intransigent. Effective and authentic peace deals are only reached after one side loses its fight and "sues for peace."
Now that he has been proven wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong, will John Kerry continue to offer his advice? And who will listen to it? Joe Biden, that's who. In a Biden administration, John Kerry will almost certainly play a major role, pushing Israel to compromise and fight proportionately instead of pursuing victory. If U.S. President Donald Trump is reelected, Kerry might want to fail up and pursue a teaching career in the ivy leagues where success can be a liability. He should set his sights on Harvard, where Saeb Erekat, the mastermind negotiator behind Palestinian rejectionism, was just hired to mentor graduate students. If Harvard can rationalize promoting Erekat's failed diplomacy, it should be equally interested in rewarding Kerry's.
*A.J. Caschetta is a Ginsberg-Milstein fellow at the Middle East Forum and a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.