English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese,
Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 24/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews21/english.february24.21.htm
News Bulletin Achieves Since
2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible Quotations For today
They are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Letter to the Romans 03/19-27/:”Now we know that whatever the law says, it
speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and
the whole world may be held accountable to God. For ‘no human being will be
justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law
comes the knowledge of sin. But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of
God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For
there is no distinction,
since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified
by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God
put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.
He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had
passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time
that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in
Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of
works? No, but by the law of faith.”.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 23- 24/2021
Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Ministry of Health: 2723 new infections, 59 deaths
Parliament Secretary General: 16 MPs vaccinated against coronavirus
Bizri withdraws resignation, calls committee members to a meeting tomorrow
Presidency Confirms Aoun, Wife, 10 Aides Vaccinated amid Favoritism Uproar
Aoun meets new Director of International Organization for Migration in Lebanon
Aoun’s speech at opening of 8th Conference of Arab Women Organization (AWO)
World Bank Warns to Halt Funding after 16 MPs Vaccinated in Parliament
UN’s Najat Rochdi Meets Patriarch Bechara Boutros El-Rahi
Reports: Hariri Hasn't Agreed to 22-Minister Government
Lebanon: Bassil’s Remarks Draw Widespread Criticism
Berri: 'No Country Nor Electricity' by April if Govt. Not Formed
Berri discusses parliamentary by-elections with Fahmy, meets MEA chairman
Parliamentary Committees OK $246M World Bank Loan Agreement
U.N. Official Hopes Lebanese Leaders Will 'Prioritize Lebanon's Interest'
Bukhari discusses with US Ambassador current developments
Strong Republic Bloc delegation to visit Bkirki tomorrow delegated by Geagea
Derian receives Interior Minister, Higher Relief Committee head
LF MPs hand UN’s Rushdie petition requesting formation of fact-finding mission
to investigate Beirut Port blast
Jumblatt tells LBC still accuses Assad regime of using Beirut Port’s ammonium
nitrates in Syrian war
Hezbollah’s fears laid bare/Hanin Ghaddar/Al Arabiya/February 23/2021
Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 23- 24/2021
U.S. Urges Iran to Comply 'Fully' with Nuclear Verification
Ex-IDF generals, top Mossad officials urge Biden's return to Iran deal
Netanyahu after Iran strategy meeting: Nuclear agreement is worthless
Israel to Debate Iran with Biden ‘Below Radar’ for Now, Radio Says
Egypt Postpones Trial of 5 ISIS Terrorists till March
Khartoum Reviews Decision to Seize Lands Owned by Saudi Investors
Metal Fatigue Suspected in U.S. Plane Engine Scare
'Spy for Egypt' Goes on Trial in Germany
Gulf countries have to be part of any dialogue on Iran nuclear deal: GCC SG
Republicans urge Biden against lifting US sanctions on Iran: Do not give up
leverage
Iran produced 18 kgs of 20 pct enriched uranium in violation of nuclear deal:
IAEA
Iran’s explanations on shooting down Ukrainian plane ‘don’t add up’: UN
investigator
State Department warns Egypt against purchasing Russian fighter jets
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 23- 24/2021
Why is Iran so good at nuclear diplomacy?/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem
Post/February 23/2021
Erdoğan's War Against Freedom on Campus/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone
Institute/February 23/ 2021
The Duped Generation that Supports BDS/Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute/February
23/2021
Biden and Instability in the Middle East/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/February 23/2021
Iran Between Trump and Biden/Hazem SaghiehAsharq Al-Awsat/February 23/2021
Secret recording shows Iran’s leaders are responsible for downed aircraft. Will
Trudeau act now?/Alireza Nader/ National Post/February 23/2021
Biden Administration Should Not Provide Sanctions Relief for Terrorism/Matthew
Zweig, Alireza Nader , Richard Goldberg/FDD/February 23/2021
Biden squanders leverage Trump stockpiled on Iran in pursuit of a defective
nuclear deal/Mark Dubowitz and Behnam Ben Taleblu/Think/February 23/2021
The Nuclear Deal and its Enduring Uncertainties/Charles Elias Chartouni/February
23/2021
The Middle East needs to revisit identity-based politics/Elie Abouaoun/The Arab
Weekly/February 23/2021
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials
published on
February 23- 24/2021
Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Ministry of Health: 2723 new infections, 59 deaths
NNA/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 2723 new coronavirus
infection cases, which brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases to
359,320.
59 deaths have been registered over the past 24 hours.
Parliament Secretary General: 16 MPs vaccinated against
coronavirus
NNA/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Parliament's Secretary General, Adnan Daher, indicated on Tuesday that 16
lawmakers received the coronavirus vaccine shot at the House, in the presence of
a team from the Ministry of Public Health and the Lebanese Red Cross.Daher
explained that those MPs had already registered for the vaccine on the official
online platform and that their turn had come.
Bizri withdraws resignation, calls committee members to a
meeting tomorrow
NNA/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Head of the National Committee for Vaccination, Dr. Abdel-Rahman Al-Bizri, on
Tuesday announced his resignation withdrawal after declaring earlier his
intention to resign due the vaccination of a number of MPs without the approval
of the committee."What happened today in terms of the inoculation of MPs is a
violation of the vaccination process that cannot be tolerated," Dr. Bizri said
during a press conference he held this afternoon at his Sidon residence.
He also indicated that he called the committee members to a meeting tomorrow to
discuss the reasons and justifications.
Presidency Confirms Aoun, Wife, 10 Aides Vaccinated amid Favoritism Uproar
Naharnet/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
The Presidency on Tuesday confirmed that President Michel Aoun, First Lady Nadia
Aoun and ten of the president’s close associates have been vaccinated against
Covid-19, amid controversy over the vaccination of 16 MPs who were accused of
bypassing the country’s official inoculation platform that is aimed at ensuring
a fair rollout of the vaccine. The Presidency’s statement came shortly after al-Jadeed
TV reported that “a medical team headed to the presidential palace on Friday,
where they vaccinated the president, his wife and 16 members of his team.” The
Presidency’s statement said the ten associates had “registered their names on
the vaccination platform according to the applicable procedures.” “On this
occasion, President Aoun calls on the Lebanese to register their names on the
platform to receive the vaccination and contribute to combating the spread of
this pandemic,” the statement added.
It also noted that “coronavirus infections had been previously recorded among
the ranks of the team that works directly with the president.” Aoun is 86 years
old and has been married to his wife, Nadia, since 1968. Earlier in the day, the
World Bank, which is helping fund the vaccine rollout, said the vaccination of
the 16 MPs broke the terms of the agreement with the government. "We would
record it (as a) breach of terms and conditions agreed with us for fair and
equitable vaccination," World Bank regional director Saroj Kumar Jha said on
Twitter. "Everyone has to register and wait for their turn," he added. The World
Bank has allocated $34 million to inoculate an initial two million of Lebanon's
six million inhabitants. "Upon confirmation of (a) violation, (the) World Bank
may suspend financing for vaccines and support for Covid-19 response across
Lebanon," Jha added on Twitter. News that MPs had received their injections
sparked anger on social media, in a country with a long reputation for
government corruption. "My mom is 84 she is registered and didn't (have) her
turn yet, while all the politicians, (their) families and friends will be
vaccinated before her," said one Twitter user.
Aoun meets new Director of International Organization for
Migration in Lebanon
NNA/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met Interior Minister, Brigadier
General Mohammad Fahmy, today at the Presidential Palace, and deliberated with
him the security situation in light of the reports received from security
apparatuses, in light of public mobilization procedures.
The meeting also addressed parliamentary by-elections for the 10 vacant
Parliament seats. International Organization for Migration:
The President met a delegation from the International Organization for Migration
of the United Nations Migration Agency, including Director of the Lebanese
Office, Mr. Fawzi Al-Zeyoud who is on a farewell visit after his transfer to
assume responsibilities in Saudi Arabia, new Director, Mr. Mathew Luciano and
Public Relations Coordinator, Ms. Tala Al-Khatib.
Also attending the meeting were former Minister, Salim Jreisatti, Presidency
Director General, Dr. Antoine Choucair, and Diplomatic Adviser, Osama Khachab.
The cooperation between the organization and the Lebanese state, in addition to
the activities carried out by the organization in Lebanon were tackled in the
meeting. Mr. Zeyoud praised the permanent response he received from Lebanese
administrations which he had cooperated with since the establishment of the
office in 2006, presenting the nature of tasks carried out by the organization
during those years, and expressed hope that his successor, Mr. Luciano, would
receive the same support.
For his part, the President wished Mr. Zeyoud success in his new
responsibilities, and welcomed his successor assuring him of Lebanon’s keenness
to enhance cooperation with the organization in different work
fields.—Presidency Press Office
Aoun’s speech at opening of 8th Conference of Arab Women
Organization (AWO)
NNA/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
The following is an address by His Excellency President of the Lebanese
Republic, General Michel Aoun, at the opening of the 8th Conference of the Arab
Women Organization (AWO)
Under the theme “Arab women and cultural challenges”:
“Esteemed audience, It gives me great pleasure to open today the eighth
conference of the Arab Women Organization which has chosen Beirut as a place to
discuss “Arab Women and cultural challenges”, and how to turn these challenges
into opportunities for solidarity and success.
As everyone awaits anxiously the ripple effects of the health crisis that has
shaken the world, all eyes are on women who hold advanced positions in the
confrontation of the different hardships, if trained and empowered.
How can this be achieved ? All civilizations are the fruit of culture, and
culture is a tri-dimensional work strategy, based on :
- raising awareness about the intellectual, scientific and artistic heritage; -
training about activating, developing and enriching it. This kind of development
that stems from the woman and which is indispensable for our societies, can only
be achieved through the need to provide equal opportunities to men and women,
and any reluctance in this direction is likely to deepen the gap between
aspirations and the reality.
Esteemed audience,There is a permanent discussion about precedence between
convictions and inherited mentalities. Should the mentalities be changed first
and then the suitable laws be passed? Or the other way around? I hereby
emphasize the importance of working to overcome the cultural obstacles by
resorting to cultural means, as the pioneering ladies and gentlemen of the
Renaissance successfully did at the outset of the past century.
Therefore, we all look up to your conference to succeed in laying the
foundations for the generation of a renewable culture, and spreading knowledge
in order to move forward in overcoming anything that obstructs the fulfilment of
the required equality, by relying on reason, in a spirit of openness and
acceptance of the different “other”. This was our aim when we launched the
initiative to establish in Lebanon the “Academy for Human Encounters and
Dialogue”, an initiative that earned the support of the United Nations.
Esteemed audience, Women in general have made their way to numerous advanced
positions in the various walks of life, work, creation and excellence, despite
the hurdles, difficulties and inequalities in rights, law, practice and between
one country and another. As I stress the need to activate the role of women in
societies, and through them launch an active educational curriculum, based on
the convergence with the aspirations of the twenty-first century, I avail myself
of this opportunity to express my appreciation to all those who have contributed
to the preparation and organization of this conference, hoping that its
recommendations will be up to our aspirations for a brighter future for our
peoples and States.”—Presidency Press Office
World Bank Warns to Halt Funding after 16 MPs Vaccinated in
Parliament
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
The World Bank threatened Tuesday to suspend financing for coronavirus vaccines
in Lebanon over what it said were suspected violations by lawmakers who were
inoculated in parliament. Such a move by the World Bank would have grave
consequences as Lebanon struggles through severe financial and economic crises
and is in desperate need of aid. The World Bank said last month it approved $34
million to help pay for vaccines for Lebanon that will inoculate over 2 million
people. The vaccination campaign in the country began on Feb. 14 and Lebanon has
so far received nearly 60,000 shots of Pfizer-BioNTech. "Everyone has to
register and wait for their turn! #nowasta," the World Bank's regional director
Saroj Kumar Jha tweeted, using a Lebanese term meaning that there should not be
nepotism. The World Bank "may suspend financing for vaccines and support for
COVID19 response across Lebanon!!" he warned. "I appeal to all, I mean all,
regardless of your position, to please register and wait for your turn."
He added that the vaccination "is not in line with the national plan agreed with
@WorldBank and we would record it (as a) breach of terms and conditions agreed
with us for fair and equitable vaccination." Lebanon is notorious for corruption
and nepotism, which has brought the Mediterranean nation to bankruptcy. Abdul
Rahman Bizri, who heads the committee supervising the vaccination campaign, held
a news conference later Tuesday in which he announced that he backed down from a
decision to submit his resignation and that he has called the committee's
members for a meeting on Wednesday to "discuss the reasons and justifications"
for the controversial vaccination of the 16 MPs. "What happened today was a
breach of the vaccination process over which we cannot remain silent," he added.
"What happened today is outrageous and should not be repeated," Bizri said.
"There is no political priority."Bizri said that before he held the news
conference he discussed the matter with the regional director of the World Bank.
Parliament's secretary general Adnan Daher was quoted by state media denying
that the 16 legislators had jumped the line, which prioritizes medical workers
and residents at least 75 years old. Daher said all of the legislators who
received in inoculation had registered and were properly in line. TV networks
reported that some of the MPs are not over 75 and identified the 16 lawmakers as
Nabih Berri, Abdul Rahim Mrad, Wehbe Qatisha, Mustafa al-Husseini, Ali Osseiran,
Nicolas Nahas, Ghazi Zoaiter, Elie Ferezli, Salim Saadeh, Yassine Jaber, Anis
Nassar, Asaad Hardan, Michel Moussa, Anwar al-Khalil, Fayez Ghosn and Albert
Mansour. The reports said five parliament employees also received the vaccine --
Adnan Daher, Riad Ghannam, Mohammed Moussa, Nicolas Menassa and Simon Mouawad.
MP Michel Moussa later clarified that he had received the vaccine days ago "as a
physician who is registered (on the platform) via the Order of Physicians and
after the approval of the Health Ministry."In January, Lebanon's government
launched a digital coronavirus vaccination registration platform to people
living in the tiny nation. The World Bank and the International Federation of
the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have signed an agreement for
independent monitoring of Lebanon's coronavirus vaccination campaign. "There
were many violations that took place at vaccination centers," said Sharaf Abu
Sharaf, president of Lebanese Order of Physicians. He added in a statement that
violations included vaccinating people who were not registered or not included
in the first phase of the campaign. News that MPs had received their injections
sparked anger on social media, in a country with a long reputation for
government corruption. "My mom is 84 she is registered and didn't (have) her
turn yet, while all the politicians, (their) families and friends will be
vaccinated before her," said one Twitter user. Lebanon, a country of six million
people including a million Syrian refugees, has registered more than 356,000
coronavirus cases and 4,387 deaths since the first case was registered in
February last year.
UN’s Najat Rochdi Meets Patriarch Bechara Boutros El-Rahi
NNA/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Ms. Najat Rochdi, Officer in Charge of the Office of the UN Special Coordinator
for Lebanon (UNSCOL) and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, met
yesterday with Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros El-Rahi. They discussed the
latest developments in Lebanon, including the deepening socio-economic crisis
and its impact on the Lebanese people. Ms. Rochdi listened to Patriarch Rahi’s
proposal and views on holding an international conference for Lebanon. Ms.
Rochdi reiterated the UN’s longstanding and continuous support for Lebanon, in
cooperation with other international partners, including through humanitarian,
recovery and reconstruction assistance following last year’s tragic Beirut Port
explosion, during the COVID19 health emergency and during the grave economic and
social crisis. This support was reaffirmed at the 2 December international
conference co-chaired by France and the UN to support the Lebanese people. The
UN hopes that Lebanon’s leaders will prioritize Lebanon’s national interest and
rapidly overcome their differences to form a new government that addresses the
country’s numerous challenges, meets the aspirations of the Lebanese people and
implements necessary reforms. The UN remains committed to supporting Lebanon,
its stability, political independence, and sovereignty.
Reports: Hariri Hasn't Agreed to 22-Minister Government
Naharnet/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Prominent political sides will seek to convince PM-designate Saad Hariri to
accept a government of 22 or 24 ministers in which no single party would have a
one-third-plus-one share, media reports said on Tuesday. “The 18-seat government
format has become a weak possibility,” al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted “credible
sources” as saying. The Free Patriotic Movement’s OTV meanwhile quoted Baabda
Palace sources as saying that Hariri has agreed to the formation of a 22-seat
government in which President Michel Aoun would get six ministers and MP Talal
Arslan would get the second Druze seat, which would prevent anyone from
obtaining the one-third-plus-one share. Sources close to Hariri have however
denied the reports, describing them as “mere wishes or analyses that are totally
distant from reality.”
Lebanon: Bassil’s Remarks Draw Widespread Criticism
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
A speech made by the head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), MP Gebran Bassil,
on Sunday stirred political reactions after he spared no party his verbal
attacks except for his ally, Hezbollah. Al-Mustaqbal Movement responded to
Bassil’s remarks, saying he was acting like a spokesman for President Michel
Aoun, while continuing to obstruct the formation of the government. The NBN
channel, which is affiliated to Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal Movement, described
Bassil as a “political virus”, accusing him of seeking “narrow and personal
interests.”A statement by Amal’s political bureau said the FPM leader was
stirring sectarian tension “instead of seizing the opportunity to get out of the
crisis by speeding up the formation of a government based on Parliament Speaker
Nabih Berri’s national initiative.”The head of the Marada movement, former
Minister Suleiman Franjieh, said listening to Bassil “is a waste of time.”
“I didn’t hear it and I don’t want to hear it,” Franjieh told Mustqbal Web when
asked to comment on Bassil’s press conference. The statements of Bassil, who is
Aoun’s son-in-law, were also severely criticized by the Lebanese Forces. LF MP
Georges Okais commented in a series of tweets, saying: “I am a representative of
the Lebanese Forces, and the Christians I represent are looking for a state, for
institutions, for a future, not for shares and strife in a state of collapse,
isolation, and adherence to the axis of resistance.” He continued: “As for [Bassil’s]
saying: Give us reform and take the government, we ask you: You have had
governments for a long time, so what reforms did you do?” During his press
conference on Sunday, Bassil lashed out at Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri,
saying: “There are those who want the presidency to lose more days [of the
tenure] without a government… They don’t have a problem if the country
collapses, what is important for them is that Michel Aoun falls.”He also
attacked the Christian leaders for not standing by him in the face of attempts
to monopolize the rights of Christians.
Berri: 'No Country Nor Electricity' by April if Govt. Not
Formed
Naharnet/February 23/2021
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has warned that “if the government is not formed
by April at the latest, there will remain neither a country nor electricity.”
Berri voiced the remarks in a February 17 meeting with caretaker Energy Minister
Raymond Ghajar according to a report published Tuesday by al-Akhbar newspaper.
The daily said Ghajar met with Berri to discuss the issue of purchasing fuel for
Electricite du Liban, the state-run electricity company. “The visit’s objective
was to ask the parliament speaker to agree to passing a law that allows granting
EDL an LBP 1,500 billion loan to enable it to continue purchasing fuel to
operate the power generation plants,” al-Akhbar added. “Berri was clear and
direct in rejecting the request, noting that LBP 1,500 billion cannot be
approved while the country is in a state of bankruptcy and the government is yet
to resolve the issue of rationalizing the subsidization” of essential goods, the
daily said. “He referred Ghajar to the president of the republic, noting that
the key to the solution is the formation of the government,” al-Akhbar added.
Berri discusses parliamentary by-elections with Fahmy,
meets MEA chairman
NNA/February 23/2021
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday met at his Ain El-Tineh residence with
Caretaker Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Mohamed Fahmy, with whom he
discussed the current security situation and the issue of parliamentary
by-elections.
On emerging, Minister Fahmi left without making any statement.
On the other hand, Speaker Berri received MEA Board Chairman Mohammed El-Hout.
Parliamentary Committees OK $246M World Bank Loan Agreement
Naharnet/February 23/2021
The parliamentary committees on Tuesday approved a World Bank loan agreement
worth $246 million and dedicated to supporting the country’s poorest and most
vulnerable families and the Covid-19 response plan. Speaking after the session,
the head of the finance and budget committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan said “the
agreement was approved, in principle, after taking the reservations of all
parliamentary blocs and MPs into consideration.” Parliament is yet to formally
approve the agreement in a plenary session. Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah
meanwhile said that his bloc’s stance last week in a meeting for the
parliamentary committees has saved $10 million from the loan’s value. “This
means that monitoring and inspection can achieve results,” he noted. “We said
that we want the loan, but according to the priorities specified by the state,
our national regulations and the interest of the people who will benefit from
the assistance,” Fadlallah added.
U.N. Official Hopes Lebanese Leaders Will 'Prioritize
Lebanon's Interest'
Naharnet/February 23/2021
Najat Rochdi, the Officer in Charge of the Office of the U.N. Special
Coordinator for Lebanon and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon,
met Monday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and discussed with him the
latest developments in Lebanon, including the deepening socio-economic crisis
and its impact on the Lebanese people, her office said on Tuesday. "Ms. Rochdi
listened to Patriarch Rahi's proposal and views on holding an international
conference for Lebanon," the office said in a statement. Rochdi reiterated the
U.N.'s "longstanding and continuous support for Lebanon, in cooperation with
other international partners, including through humanitarian, recovery and
reconstruction assistance following last year’s tragic Beirut Port explosion,
during the COVID19 health emergency and during the grave economic and social
crisis," the office added. "This support was reaffirmed at the 2 December
international conference co-chaired by France and the UN to support the Lebanese
people," it said. It added: "The U.N. hopes that Lebanon's leaders will
prioritize Lebanon's national interest and rapidly overcome their differences to
form a new government that addresses the country's numerous challenges, meets
the aspirations of the Lebanese people and implements necessary reforms."
Rochdi's office also stressed that the U.N. "remains committed to supporting
Lebanon, its stability, political independence, and sovereignty."
Bukhari discusses with US Ambassador current developments
NNA/February 23/2021
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid bin Abdullah Bukhari, on Tuesday welcomed at
his Yarzeh residence, the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea. Discussions
between the pair reportedly touched on the most recent political developments on
the regional and international scenes, in addition to issues of mutual concern.
Ambassador Bukhari underlined the Saudi Kingdom’s commitment to Lebanon’s
sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and its emphasis on the
need for a speedy formation of a government capable of achieving the Lebanese
people’s aspirations.
Strong Republic Bloc delegation to visit Bkirki tomorrow
delegated by Geagea
NNA/February 23/2021
A delegation of the "Strong Republic" parliamentary bloc will visit Bkirki
tomorrow [Wednesday] at 11.00 am, delegated by Lebanese Forces Party chief Samir
Geagea, to express solidarity with Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara
Boutros Rahi and to support his call for Lebanon's neutrality away from regional
and international crises and for holding UN-sponsored international conference
for Lebanon, as per Geagea’s Media Bureau.
Derian receives Interior Minister, Higher Relief Committee
head
NNA/February 23/2021
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Derian, received Tuesday at Dar-al-Fatwa Caretaker
Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Mohammad Fahmi, with whom he discussed
an array of local political and security affairs. Speaking to reporters
following the meeting, Fahmi indicated that his ministry was working on
finalizing the logistic preparations to hold the legislative by-elections in the
nearest time possible. He also hoped that a new government would be formed
before the ballot. Afterwards, the Mufti met respectively with head of the
Higher Relief Committee General Mohammad Kheir, and Beirut Intelligence Chief
Colonel Antoine Hanna.
LF MPs hand UN’s Rushdie petition requesting formation of
fact-finding mission to investigate Beirut Port blast
NNA/February 23/2021
A Lebanese Forces delegation including MPs George Okais, Fadi Saad, Imad Wakim,
and Majid Abillamah, handed yesterday evening the United Nations Deputy Special
Coordinator in Lebanon, and Resident Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs, Najat
Rushdie, a petition signed by the representatives of the "Strong Republic" bloc
requesting of United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, to set up an
international fact-finding mission to investigate Beirut Port blast. According
to a statement by the Lebanese Forces, “this moves is a continuation of the
endeavors made by the party since the first moment of the tragic explosion. The
party’s aim to know the whole truth. People lack the needed confidence in the
local investigation due to its inability to reveal the truth as it is,
especially in light of the obstacles it is being exposed to."
Jumblatt tells LBC still accuses Assad regime of using
Beirut Port’s ammonium nitrates in Syrian war
NNA/February 23/2021
Progressive Socialist Party leader, Walid Jumblatt, on Tuesday reiterated his
post-Beirut Port blast accusation that the 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrates were
brought to Beirut to be used in striking Syrian cities and villages instead of
chemical weapons, which in 2014, were forbidden to be used by the Assad regime
after an agreement between former US President, Barack Obama, and Russian
President, Vladimir Putin. “Ammonium nitrates were believed to be an
alternative to chemical weapons’ destruction, and they were brought to Lebanon
from an unknown source,” Jumblatt said. “That is why we demand the continuation
of Beirut Port blast’s probe,” he insisted. In an interview with "LBC",
Jumlatt added, “I still accuse the Syrian regime, which is what I did after the
assassination of Rafik Hariri. I accused the regime, and I still do," he said.
“I want to know who brought these materials that have caused this massive
destruction to Beirut and caused the death of hundreds. Some could say that
Israel or others did it, but we want to investigate the matter and find out who
had brought these materials, as well as the involvement of Lebanese allies to
the Syrian regime,” Jumblatt said.
Commenting on the Lebanese judiciary’s integrity, Jumblatt said, “It is not
permissible for Hassan Nasrallah - with all my love for him - to dictate upon us
in his latest speech to shift from the explosion investigation phase to the
compensation phase; as if he was trying to say that Beirut has been destroyed
and the victims have been killed, so we might as well move on to the
compensation phase through insurance companies. This stance will not do Sayyed
Nasrallah any good on the moralistic level. It’s only an advice.”
As for resorting to the international judiciary to investigate Beirut blast,
Jumblatt pointed out that this was an "available" option. “But what’s required
most is to lift the threat and guardianship away from the Lebanese judiciary. It
is not permissible for the Lebanese judiciary to be destroyed for the interests
of some politicians.”Moreover, Jumblatt went on to wonder whether Lebanon’s
entity was still recognized. “Has Lebanon become a mere geographical area that
carries missiles for the Islamic Republic? This is the biggest and most
important question.”
Touching on the simmering cabinet formation talks, Jumblatt said that
PM-designate Saad Hariri was still the leader of Muslim Sunnis, “whether people
liked it or not.”
He continued to say that if Lebanon had a sovereign decision, it could remedy
the situation.
“But we do not have anything. On the post blast agenda was the topic of reform,
and it was about one main point: The Ministry of Energy; however, we haven’t
been able to make any progress for the last three years. Then came French
President Emmanuel Macron and proposed restructuring Lebanese banks, but we
remain in our place without any progress. It is not proposed to reform the
political system at this moment, but to form a government that can implement the
minimum level of reform,” he explained.
Jumblatt went on to say that FPM Leader, Gebran Bassil, “has taken over the
entire country (...) his party is an abolitionist political one that aims to
annul Nabih Berri, Walid Jumblatt, Saad Hariri, Samir Geagea, and everyone
else.”
Regarding parliamentary elections, Jumblatt ruled out any attempt to postpone
them, but expected each political team to try to improve its conditions to
garner the biggest number of votes. On the internationalization of the Lebanese
situation, the PSP leader said, “Since Iran is present, Russia is present,
Turkey is present, the US is present, France is present, and we can add Saudi
Arabia and Qatar; the only question remains is whether the Lebanese entity is
still viable or has become a thing of the past — a hundred years after the
establishment of the Greater Lebanon?”
Whether he was afraid that Lebanon would be a victim of the US enthusiasm to
open a new page with Iran, he saw that US President Joe Biden's team looked at
the bigger picture in the region. “For the sake of major countries, states and
smaller entities are sometimes erased, faded, or forgotten, and here we ask, is
there an agreement among the US and surrounding countries to preserve the
100-year-old entity of Lebanon?” As for Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi’s increasing
calls for neutrality, Jumblatt said: “Rahi has been calling for neutrality for
the sake of the Lebanese entity; he did not call for neutrality for the sake of
the Lebanese Christians, thus, we meet the Patriarch at an almost equal
distance. But, we do not want to wind up being a bargaining chip for
negotiations at the table of superpower countries like Iran, the US, and
others,” the PSP leader added.
Jumblatt finally asserted that he was ready and willing to undergo any trial,
but not by a political team. “I have conducted a self-review, and I am ready to
undertake a public one, but are others willing to do the same?” he concluded.
Hezbollah’s fears laid bare
Hanin Ghaddar/Al Arabiya/February 23/2021
حنين غدار/موقع العربية: انكشاف مخاوف حزب الله
With the Biden administration’s outreach to Iran, and its readiness to resume
negotiations on the nuclear deal, new regional considerations are weighing on
the French Initiative for Lebanon, and the ongoing government formation.
Hezbollah does not want to make compromises in Lebanon if they can wait until
the US-Iran deal is clear, and the terms and conditions, set in stone.
Although the French President Emmanuel Macron has recently accelerated his
efforts to form a government in Lebanon, the terrorist group has made it clear
that they prefer to manage the crisis instead of resolve it. The country is a
good bargaining chip that could be leveraged in any upcoming negotiations, and
it’s too early to offer any compromises.
Why does Hezbollah fear change?
Locally, the group prefers things as they are, and even if this leads to the
collapse of state institutions, and instead of cooperating to form a government
that could kick off a number of positive developments to move the country
forward.
A Venezuelan scenario, with a financial meltdown, and the collapse of state
institutions, still looks better than change. Hezbollah is too vulnerable to
deal with any change to the status quo, and a new government that incorporates
the international community’s guidelines could expose that vulnerability.
A new government will need to manage the next parliamentary elections, due in
May 2022. With recent shifts in public opinion in Lebanon, the political
leaders’ loss of popular support, as well as a possible resumption of street
protests, the election result might bring changes to the current composition of
the parliament, where Hezbollah, and its allies enjoy a majority. It cannot
afford to lose what it won in the 2018 election. If it does, it will lose access
to state institutions, and budgets.
In addition, a new government could lead to reforms that may bring Western
support. Although any government will probably represent the same political
class without being completely independent, the international community might
want to move to the next step: restarting the push for negotiations with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), something that Hezbollah will prefer to avoid
entirely.
But most importantly, the group fears changes of appointments within the
security institutions pushed under international pressure. It knows the US can
assist the Lebanese Armed Forces, and the French and other Europeans states can
do the same by helping other security institutions.
In a way, there are two choices facing the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon: risk
making changes or support the status quo until the US-Iran negotiations finish.
With several challenges to deal with, such as its financial woes, Shia
discontent, and Israeli threats, it seems that the Hezbollah leadership will
prefer not to take any risks. Confronting more problems will compound its
crumbling stability.
The Lebanese have a choice
The Lebanese people – including NGOs, lobbyists and activists – have called on
the international community to help with the crisis that hit Lebanon two years
ago. It is understandable that the country’s people cannot face Hezbollah’s
weapons with peaceful protests, and strong arguments. There is no doubt that it
will kill anyone who becomes influential, as the Lokman Slim assassination
shows. However, everyone can use the ballot box to face the bullet, without
risking their lives.
The parliamentary elections in May 2022 are a good chance for the Lebanese to
impose change; the street protests served their goals and catalyzed this
process. Although the current electoral law is not ideal, it is not impossible
to make breakthroughs. The protests’ organizers, activists, civil society
figures and groups need to join forces to secure the momentum and bring success.
A united message, a clear list of goals, and a unified list of candidates are
the minimum requirements. A year is barely enough time.
Instead of exhausting energy on how to organize the next protest, make room for
election preparations by spending time around the country, talking to people and
presenting them with achievable goals and a clear mission. The political elite
and current leaders have done this for decades, and new leadership should make a
serious effort too. Counting on people’s despair and fear is not enough.
The international community needs to support the people of Lebanon as they push
to have the elections on time, by making it a priority in any talks with the
country’s political figures.
Meanwhile, holding Hezbollah and its allies accountable for hindering the
government’s formation, hampering the investigation into the Beirut post
explosion, and the Lokman Slim assassination, is a priority. Using the Magnitsky
Act against the group and corrupt Lebanese figures should continue. Finally,
make no compromises.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 23- 24/2021
U.S. Urges Iran to Comply 'Fully' with Nuclear Verification
Agence France Presse/February 23/2021
The United States on Monday urged Iran to comply "fully" with verification of
its nuclear program, voicing concern about a temporary arrangement worked out
with the International Atomic Energy Agency. State Department spokesman Ned
Price praised the "professionalism" of IAEA chief Rafael Grossi on his visit to
Tehran, "while also reiterating the call on Iran to fully meet its verification
and other nuclear non-proliferation commitments." "We are of course concerned to
hear that Iran intends to cease implementation of the additional protocol and
other measures this week," Price told reporters. Grossi visited Tehran on the
Iranian parliament's deadline to stop compliance with the so-called additional
protocol on IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites unless the United States lifts
sanctions imposed by former president Donald Trump. In a technical deal hammered
out by Grossi, Iran will allow IAEA inspectors to visit declared nuclear sites
but temporarily suspend "voluntary transparency measures."The trip came after US
President Joe Biden last week offered to talk to Iran under the aegis of the
European Union in an effort to revive the nuclear deal, known formally as the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that was rejected by Trump. Price downplayed
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's warning that Iran could go up to 60
percent uranium enrichment -- well above the current level, but still below what
is needed to build an atomic bomb. "We are of course concerned that Iran has
over time moved away from its commitments under the JCPOA. This of course
started long before this administration," Price told reporters when asked about
Khamenei's comments. "There is now a proposition on the table," Price said. "If
Iran returns to full compliance, we will be prepared to do the same.""We
certainly hope the Iranians will be willing to be there."
Ex-IDF generals, top Mossad officials urge Biden's return
to Iran deal
Jerusalem Post/February 23/2021
Former senior defense officials express support for Biden's position not to lift
Iran sanctions unless it returns to 2015 deal. A group of former top officials
from Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, the IDF and the Mossad sent a letter on
Monday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressing support for a US return
to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Led by former IDF deputy chief of staff
Matan Vilnai, Commanders for Israel’s Security said in the letter that it
“welcomes the American initiative to get Iran to again transparently follow the
guidelines in the JCPOA, as long as it includes an Iranian commitment to abide
by UN Security Council Resolution 2231” regarding development of ballistic
missiles. In addition to Vilnai, the letter was signed by former Mossad director
Tamir Pardo, former IDF OC Operations Directorate Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon,
former National Security Council head Uzi Arad and Eli Levite, the former
principal deputy director-general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy
Commission. The former senior defense officials expressed support for President
Joe Biden’s current position not to lift sanctions on Iran unless it returns to
abide by the 2015 deal. The first goal needs to be to get Tehran back into
compliance and then to work on a follow-up deal that would fill the holes in the
JCPOA, they said. “This will take into account new information that has been
accumulated since the JCPOA, as well as additional problems that Iran presents,”
the letter said. It was not the first time that the group has come out against
Netanyahu’s efforts to stop the JCPOA. Ahead of the signing of the 2015 deal,
the group called on the prime minister to cancel his speech to the US Congress.
At that time, former Mossad deputy director Amiram Levin said that while it was
difficult for him to speak out against Netanyahu, who served under him in the
IDF, the prime minister’s navigation was off. “Leaders speak privately, not out
in the open,” he said. “The visit and the speech are exactly the opposite of
that.”“Rather than working hand in hand with the US president, we are going
there and sticking our thumb in his eye,” Levin said. “That not only hurts the
president, but above all, it hurts the citizens of the US, who [while they] are
fans of Israel, are first and foremost Americans.”
Netanyahu after Iran strategy meeting: Nuclear agreement is
worthless
Jerusalem Post/February 23/2021
"With or without an agreement, we will do everything so Iran isn’t armed with
nuclear weapons.”
Israel will not rely on efforts to return to a nuclear deal with Iran, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday. “Israel isn’t pinning its hopes on
an agreement with an extremist regime like [Iran's]. We already saw what these
agreements are worth… with North Korea,” Netanyahu said at a memorial service
for the 1920 Battle of Tel Hai. “With or without an agreement,” he added, “we
will do everything so [Iran isn’t] armed with nuclear weapons.”Netanyahu
referred to the story of Purim, which begins on Thursday night: “2,500 years
ago, a Persian oppressor tried to destroy the Jewish people, and just as he
failed then, you will fail today… We didn’t make a journey of thousands of years
to return to the Land of Israel in order to allow the delusional Ayatollahs’
regime to finish the story of the rebirth of the Jewish People.”
Netanyahu’s remarks came a day after he met with Defense Minister Benny Gantz,
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi,
Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, Ambassador
to the US Gilad Erdan and others, to discuss Israel’s strategy and response to
the Biden administration’s attempted rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.
In recent days, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement
together with the European countries party to the 2015 Iran deal that the US is
seeking to start a dialogue with Tehran and move toward a return to that
agreement. Officials in Washington have called on Iran to return to compliance
with the deal before the US would remove sanctions. OFFICIALS AT the meeting
were split on whether Israel should advocate for America to stay out of the Iran
deal until it can get a better, more secure agreement, or be more supportive of
what US President Joe Biden’s stated plan is: to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, as the 2015 deal is known, and then negotiate tougher terms.
Netanyahu reportedly took the first, harder line, while Gantz and Ashkenazi
supported a less-confrontational approach. As indicated by Netanyahu’s remarks,
open opposition to a return to the JCPOA is still on the table. Erdan told KAN
Bet on Tuesday that rejoining “the old nuclear deal of 2015 that paves Iran’s
path to an arsenal of nuclear bombs will be a mistake. If the US returns to the
JCPOA, lifting sanctions, it won’t have any leverage to convince Iran to reopen
negotiations for a stricter deal, the ambassador explained. Still, “a diplomatic
solution is always preferable to a military solution,” overall, Erdan said.
“The question is whether there will be an agreement that blocks any way Iran can
get a nuclear weapon,” he stated. The officials at Monday’s meeting agreed
Israel should continue its ongoing dialogue with the Biden administration rather
than opt for open confrontation, as it did in former US president Barack Obama’s
second term. Erdan emphasized the importance of dialogue in an interview with
Kan Bet on Tuesday. “The new [US] administration has shown a very honest and
deep will to hold organized consultations [with Israel], led by [US National
Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan,” Erdan said. "Israel is in a process of full
dialogue [with the Biden administration] and they are listening to our stance –
the American government and also central countries in Europe.” Israel views the
E3 – the European countries party to the Iran deal: France, Germany and the UK –
as more open to the Israeli position in recent months, KAN reported, due to
Iran’s repeated violations of the deal’s limitations. In recent weeks, Iran
announced that it would enrich uranium up to 20% and produce uranium metal,
which the E3 pointed out have no credible civilian use.
As such, Israel has increased pressure on the E3 to try to talk them out of
rejoining the old Iran deal, with many more discussions about Iran than usual,
KAN reported.
Israel to Debate Iran with Biden ‘Below Radar’ for Now,
Radio Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Israel will address disputes with the United States over Iran “below the radar”
for now, a top Israeli broadcaster said on Tuesday, citing sources involved in a
strategizing session convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The
Netanyahu government has decided to avoid public spats with US President Joe
Biden over his desire to return to a 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but that approach
could change depending on the actions of the Biden administration, Army Radio
added. The conservative premier is seeking a fifth term in a March 23 election.
Unlike previous campaigns, he has not played up foreign policy – reflecting
perhaps a change of fortune since Biden, a Democrat, succeeded Republican
president Donald Trump, a vocal ally of Netanyahu. On Monday, Netanyahu held a
first meeting about Iran with Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister
Gabi Ashkenazi, his centrist political rivals, in what officials said was an
effort to present a united Israeli front. Under the 2015 deal with world powers,
Iran agreed to limit its enrichment potential – a possible pathway to atomic
bombs – in exchange for a lifting of most sanctions. Netanyahu upset then-US
President Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president, by addressing
Congress as part of vigorous advocacy against the deal. Trump quit the deal in
2018, deeming it one-sided in Iran’s favor. Iran began breaching the deal the
2019 and has recently stepped up violations. The Biden administration announced
on Thursday that it was ready to talk to Tehran about a mutual return to
compliance with the agreement. A person familiar with the matter said Israel was
informed in advance. Israel said in a statement on Friday it was “in close
contact” with Washington on the issue and asserted that a return to the 2015
deal would “pave Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal.”Israel is reputed to have the
Middle East’s only atomic arsenal but neither confirms nor denies this under a
“strategic ambiguity” policy to deter adversaries. Tehran, which denies seeking
the bomb, has so far been cool to the Biden administration’s overture.
Egypt Postpones Trial of 5 ISIS Terrorists till March
Cairo- Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Egypt postponed the trial of five persons accused of “joining a terrorist group”
to March 28 in the case known as the "October ISIS Cell." The investigations of
the Egyptian Prosecution indicated that between 2013 and 2015, the first convict
founded a terrorist group affiliated with ISIS in the 6th October suburb of Giza
governorate. The purpose of this group was to disrupt public order, endanger the
safety of society, attack the general freedom of citizens, assault members of
the armed forces and the police, harm national unity and social cohesion, and
target churches.
The Public Prosecution charged the second, third, fourth, and fifth defendants
with “joining a terrorist group.” It also charged the first to fourth offenders
of traveling outside the country, joining ISIS in Syria where they received
training on weapons and manufacturing and detonating explosive devices.
Meanwhile, the Cairo Criminal Court postponed the retrial of Mahmoud Ezzat, the
acting leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, in the case during the events of
January 25 in 2011, when terrorists stormed Wadi al-Natrun prison and attacked
security institutions. The prosecution accused the defendants of collaborating
with leaders of the international Brotherhood organization and the Lebanese
Hezbollah to overthrow the Egyptian state and its institutions and train armed
elements by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps to commit hostile and
military acts inside the country. In 2015, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 20
convicts to life imprisonment, while Ezzat and 99 other defendants were
sentenced to death by hanging after they were convicted in the case that
included storming Egyptian prisons and assaulting security and police
facilities.
Khartoum Reviews Decision to Seize Lands Owned by Saudi
Investors
Riyadh - Fatehelrahman Yousif/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
Sudan’s Minister of Investment, Dr. Al-Hadi Muhammad Ibrahim, underlined on
Monday a strategic plan to solve issues pertaining to Saudi investments in his
country. He said he was looking forward to activating the banking mechanisms
between the two sides, after the removal of Sudan from the US list of countries
sponsoring terrorism. The minister also stressed the importance of Saudi
investments in Sudan, as one of the most significant resources for the
development of the Sudanese economy that provides job opportunities for the
youth. His remarks came during a virtual meeting with members of the Executive
Committee of the Saudi-Sudanese Business Council to discuss the main obstacles
facing Saudi investors in Sudan at the request of Eng. Hussein Saeed Bahri,
Chairman of the Council. Bahri told Asharq Al-Awsat that the meeting focused on
the reality and size of Saudi investments, the obstacles facing such
investments, and the need to develop a clear strategy to solve related problems.
He added that the discussions emphasized the need to find a solution to the
problem of ports and the means to provide fuel, in addition to reconsidering
recent decisions to reclaim some lands owned by Saudi investors in Sudan.
He also quoted the Sudanese Minister of Investment as saying that Saudi
investments would receive great attention from his government, as they currently
constitute the biggest share of investments in the country. The head of the
joint business council pointed out that Saudi investments in Sudan were
estimated at more than USD6 billion in agriculture, industry and the services
sector, with a particular focus on agricultural and livestock projects.
Metal Fatigue Suspected in U.S. Plane Engine Scare
Agence France Presse/February 23/2021
Metal fatigue has emerged as chief suspect in last week's spectacular engine
failure on a United Airlines plane, which scattered debris over suburban Denver
and led to dozens of Boeing 777 aircraft being grounded worldwide. The incident
on the Hawaii-bound flight -- which quickly returned to the airport after part
of the engine caught fire and broke off -- prompted United and other airlines to
ground planes with the same Pratt & Whitney engine. While no one was injured in
the Denver incident, the episode is the latest setback for Boeing, which only
recently resumed deliveries of the long-grounded 737 MAX following two fatal
crashes of that plane. "A preliminary on-scene exam indicates damage consistent
with metal fatigue," Robert Sumwalt, chair of the U.S. National Transportation
and Safety Board (NTSB), told a briefing Monday. He said two fan blades
fractured on the number 2 engine on the Boeing 777-200. One of them was later
found on a soccer field, while the other remained lodged in the engine. Boeing
said all 128 of the 777s with Pratt & Whitney engines were grounded following
Saturday's emergency landing of United flight 328.
Of the 128 planes, only 69 were in service while 59 were in storage.
Besides United, which removed 24 planes from service, affected airlines included
Japanese carriers Japan Airlines and All Nippon, and South Korea's Asiana and
Korean Air. British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced a temporary ban
on jets with Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 series engines from entering UK airspace.
Aviation experts said the incident especially raised questions about Pratt &
Whitney and United over engine maintenance. "It's nothing like the MAX," said
Teal Group aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia. "After all these years of service
it is unlikely to be a design issue with the engine, certainly it is something
to do with maintenance." The Denver incident followed a Japan Airlines 777
incident in December involving the same type of engine, as well as an engine
problem in February 2018 on a United flight. "There might be a common theme"
among the three incidents "but until the investigation is complete, we don't
know that," said Scott Hamilton of Leeham News, an aviation news site.
Engine on fire
A video shot from inside the United aircraft -- which had 231 passengers and 10
crew on board -- showed the right engine ablaze and wobbling on the wing.
Residents in the Denver suburb of Broomfield found large pieces of debris from
the plane scattered around their community.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered extra inspections
after the incident. FAA chief Steve Dickson said a preliminary safety data
review pointed to a need for additional checks of the fan blades, unique to the
model and only used on 777 planes. FAA officials met Pratt & Whitney and Boeing
representatives Sunday evening, he added. Pratt & Whitney said it was
cooperating with the NTSB probe and "will continue to work to ensure the safe
operation of the fleet." United said it was removing the aircraft from its
schedule, "and will continue to work closely with regulators to determine any
additional steps."
Navigating industry downturn
The engine failure is unwelcome news for Boeing, which also faces a fresh
investigation in the Netherlands after a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane showered a
small town with debris, injuring two people, on the same day as the Denver
incident. Boeing only recently resumed deliveries of the 737 MAX following a
20-month global grounding after two crashes killed 346 people. The MAX began
returning to commercial service in late 2020, with airline travel still
depressed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Michel Merluzeau, an expert at
consultancy AIR, agreed the latest problem did not appear to result from poor
plane design. "It's not really a problem for Boeing," he said. "It's more an
issue of maintenance -- how United or Pratt & Whitney is maintaining engines
that have been in use for a while."
'Spy for Egypt' Goes on Trial in Germany
Agence France Presse/Tuesday, 23 February, 2021
A German man went on trial Tuesday for allegedly spying for Egypt while he was
working in Chancellor Angela Merkel's press office. Egypt-born Amin K. is
accused of exploiting his privileged position in the office to pass on
information to Egypt's General Intelligence Service (GIS) between 2010 and 2019.
Originally scheduled to start in January, the trial was postponed due to the
pandemic, and a verdict is now expected in March. The 66-year-old had worked
since 1999 for the visitor service of the federal press office, which among
other things is responsible for communicating Merkel's activities. According to
the charge sheet, the suspect made observations about media coverage of
Egypt-related domestic and foreign policy issues in Germany, and also helped in
a failed attempt to recruit another spy. He is also suspected of handing over
the names of five Syrian-born colleagues at the press office. Contact with his
handlers was "largely conspiratorial" and took place via phone call and instant
messaging service, the charge sheet said. The suspect allegedly hoped to win
preferential treatment from the Egyptian authorities with his espionage, and
succeeded in securing help with his mother's claim to her pension payments.
The case came to light with the publication of a German intelligence service
report in 2019. According to the report, both the GIS and Egypt's domestic
intelligence service NSS are active in Germany. Their main objective in the
country is allegedly to gather information on dissident groups opposed to Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi's government, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Gulf countries have to be part of any dialogue on Iran
nuclear deal: GCC SG
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/24 February/2021
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries need to be part of any dialogue
related to Iran’s nuclear deal, GCC Secretary General Nayef Falah Mubarak al-Hajraf
said on Tuesday. “On the Iranian nuclear file, al-Hajraf called for the
necessity for the GCC to participate in any negotiations related to the security
and stability of the region,” the secretariat of the GCC, made up of Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, said in a statement after the
Secretary General’s meeting with ambassadors of the European Union in Riyadh.
Washington and Tehran are locked in a standoff over reviving nuclear talks. US
President Joe Biden’s administration has signaled to Iran its willingness to
return to talks to revive the nuclear deal Former President Donald Trump
abandoned in 2018. Biden reversed Trump’s determination that all UN sanctions
against Iran had been restored. And the State Department eased stringent
restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats in New York. Yet,
Tehran demanded that all Trump-era sanctions on Iran be lifted before taking any
real action to return to the deal. Iran also upped the ante by officially
restricting site inspections by the UN's nuclear watchdog IAEA.
The GCC SG also called on Iran to quit interfering in the internal affairs of
countries and stop “destabilizing security and stability by supporting terrorist
groups” in the region. Gulf countries have been at odds with longtime foe Iran
for decades, condemning Tehran’s long history of arming and financially
supporting its network of proxies – Shia militias across the Middle East – to
further its influence in the region.
Iran's rulers close ranks, raise pressure on US to lift
sanctions
Reuters/23 February/2021
An Iranian state newspaper, taking aim at hardline lawmakers' intervention in
Tehran's nuclear row with the West, warned on Tuesday that overly radical
actions may lead to Iran's isolation after a new law ended snap inspections by
U.N. inspectors.Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers has been fraying
since 2018 when the United States pulled out and reimposed harsh sanctions on
Tehran, prompting it to breach the deal's limits on uranium enrichment, a
potential pathway to nuclear weapons. On Monday, Iranian lawmakers protested
against the government's decision to permit “necessary” monitoring by the
International Atomic Energy Agency for up to three months, saying the move broke
a new law they passed that mandated an end to IAEA snap inspections as of
Tuesday. Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to observe the IAEA's Additional
Protocol that permits short-notice inspections at locations not declared to the
agency - to bolster confidence that nuclear work is not being covertly put to
military ends. The three-month compromise secured by the IAEA's director-general
on a trip to Tehran last weekend kept alive hopes for an eventual diplomatic
solution to rescue the nuclear deal. But the state newspaper Iran, seen as close
to pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, a former chief nuclear negotiator,
suggested in an unusually critical commentary that the new law blocking snap
inspections could be counter-productive. "Those who say Iran must take swift
tough action on the nuclear accord should say what guarantee there is that Iran
will not be left alone as in the past..., and will this end anywhere other than
helping build a consensus against Iran?" it said. Both Tehran, whose economy has
been crippled by sanctions, and new US President Joe Biden's administration want
to salvage the deal repudiated by his predecessor Donald Trump, but disagree
over who should take the first step. Iran insists the United States must first
lift sanctions, while Washington avers that Tehran must first return to
compliance with the pact. Since Trump's pull-out in 2018, Iran has been
rebuilding stockpiles of low-enriched uranium, enriching it to higher levels of
fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up production.
HIGH-LEVEL SHOW OF UNITY
Biden's refusal to lift sanctions first has been met by a show of unity from
both sides of Iran’s political divide, uniting hardliners who cast the United
States as an implacable enemy with pragmatists who seek rapprochement with the
West. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, although the top hardliner with the
last word on policy, endorsed the inspections deal with the IAEA in a tacit
rebuff of hawkish lawmakers. The hardline daily Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is
appointed by Khamenei, also approved it, saying the deal "could not have been
prepared without the participation and opinion of the Supreme National Security
Council". But Iran's overall strategy appears to be cranking up enrichment and
raising questions about cooperation with the IAEA to push the Biden
administration into dropping the "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions
launched by Trump. Khamenei, upping the ante on Monday, said Iran might enrich
uranium up to 60% purity if needed, while repeating a denial of any Iranian
intent to seek nuclear weapons, for which 90% enrichment would be required.
"Iran's economy is doing badly because of sanctions, COVID-19 crisis and
mismanagement," said Meir Javedanefar, a lecturer at the Interdisciplinary
Center Herzliya in Israel. "Therefore, if Biden takes the first step by removing
at least part of the sanctions..., Khamenei would be willing to reach a deal
with him." Washington, which said last week it was ready to talk to Tehran, said
Khamenei's comments "sounds like a threat" but reiterated US willingness to
engage with Iran about returning to the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran’s clerical
rulers face challenges in keeping the economy afloat under US sanctions that
have slashed its vital oil exports. The economic hardship bodes ill for the
presidential election in June, when Iran’s rulers typically seek a high turnout
to show their legitimacy, even if the outcome will not change any major policy
that is decided by Khamenei.
Republicans urge Biden against lifting US sanctions on
Iran: Do not give up leverage
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/ 23 February/2021
Republican lawmakers urged US President Joe Biden on Tuesday against lifting
Washington’s sanctions on Iran to resolve the standoff over reviving the 2015
nuclear deal. “Iran’s malign activities, including its nuclear program,
ballistic and cruise missile development, weapons proliferation, support for
terrorism, hostage-taking, cyberattacks, and gross human rights violations, are
unconscionable. Regime demands for sanctions relief as a prerequisite for the
administration’s proposed bilateral negotiations are not made in good faith,”
they wrote to Biden in a letter led by Ranking Member of the House Committee on
Homeland Security, John Katko. Biden’s administration has signaled to Iran its
willingness to return to talks to revive the nuclear deal Former President
Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. Biden reversed Trump’s determination that all UN
sanctions against Iran had been restored. And the State Department eased
stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats in New York.
Yet, Tehran demanded that all Trump-era sanctions on Iran be lifted before
taking any real action to return to the deal. “The United States must apply
immense pressure to the Iranian regime and cannot afford to be perceived as weak
or wavering on these important national security threats,” wrote the Republican
lawmakers. “Appeasement will not effectuate change.”“Sanctions are an important
point of leverage if we intend to achieve this goal diplomatically and
peacefully. Lifting sanctions will only serve to back the US into an inescapable
corner and removes any power we hold in our attempts to normalize Iranian and US
relations,” they said. Iran has been upping the ante, trying to pressure the US
to lift the sanctions. Tehran officially restricted site inspections by the UN's
nuclear watchdog IAEA.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday Iran might enrich
uranium up to 60 percent purity if needed, while repeating a denial of any
Iranian intent to seek nuclear weapons, for which 90 percent enrichment would be
required. The Iranian regime is trying to get more concessions from Washington
before taking any real action, especially in light of growing pressure at home
due to economic hardship worsened by the US sanctions. “Tehran urgently needs
sanctions relief.. Iran also holds its presidential elections in June 2021 and,
for the outgoing Rouhani administration, securing a quick return to the deal
would build back lost economic and political confidence, and perhaps also impact
the election outcome,” according to Sanam Vakil, Senior Research Fellow at
Middle East and North Africa Program, Chatham House.- With Agencies
Iran produced 18 kgs of 20 pct enriched uranium in
violation of nuclear deal: IAEA
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/23 February/2021
The UN's atomic watchdog IAEA said on Tuesday Iran has produced 17.6 kg of
uranium enriched to up to 20 percent, a step away from producing weapons-grade
levels. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a confidential
document distributed to member countries and seen by international news agencies
AP, AFP and Reuters that as of February 16, Tehran had added 17.6 kilograms of
uranium enriched to 20 percent to its stockpile. Overall, it increased its
stockpile of enriched uranium to 2,967.8 kilograms, up from 2,442.9 kilograms
reported on November 2.
“The agency is deeply concerned that undeclared nuclear material may have been
present at [an] undeclared location and that such nuclear material remains
unreported by Iran under its safeguards agreement,” the IAEA said.
The nuclear deal signed in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France,
Britain, China and Russia, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or
JCPOA, allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms. It also allows
enrichment only up to 3.67 percent.
This translates to Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium being more than 14 times
over the limit set down in its 2015 nuclear deal.
US-Iran nuclear deadlock
The new IAEA report comes as Washington and Tehran are locked in a standoff over
reviving nuclear talks. US President Joe Biden’s administration has signaled to
Iran its willingness to return to talks to revive the nuclear deal Former
President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. Biden reversed Trump’s determination
that all UN sanctions against Iran had been restored. And the State Department
eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats in New
York. Yet, Tehran demanded that all Trump-era sanctions on Iran be lifted before
taking any real action to return to the deal.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday Iran might enrich uranium
up to 60 percent purity if needed, while repeating a denial of any Iranian
intent to seek nuclear weapons, for which 90 percent enrichment would be
required. Iran also decided to restrict site inspections by the UN's nuclear
watchdog after a US refusal to lift existing sanctions. Britain, France and
Germany condemned on Tuesday the Iranian decision and said: “We urge Iran to
stop and reverse all measures that reduce transparency and to ensure full and
timely cooperation with the IAEA.”- With Agencies
Iran’s explanations on shooting down Ukrainian plane ‘don’t
add up’: UN investigator
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/24 February/2021
Iran’s explanations of the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane last
year present many inconsistencies that “do not add up,” requiring the need to
further investigate whether it was “intentionally targeted,” the independent UN
investigator said on Tuesday.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said they shot down the Ukraine International
Airlines flight PS752 plane on January 8, 2020, in error shortly after takeoff,
mistaking it for a missile at a time when tensions with Washington were high
over the US assassination five days earlier of Guards General Qassem Soleimani.
All 176 people on board were killed, 138 of whom had ties to Canada. Agnes
Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions, released a 45-page official letter to Iran. The results of my
investigation into #Iran strike of #PS752 are made public today. I found
multiple human rights violations, including of the right to life of the 176
people on board. The press release is here: https://t.co/B7gOp83fFX (Photo:
Aljazeera) pic.twitter.com/vcBR0WmDze
— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) February 23, 2021
She wrote: “I have not found or received concrete proof that the targeting of a
civilian plane was intentional and premeditated. However, it also appears that,
on the basis of the information released by your government, it is not possible
to answer many basic questions and clarify conjunctures.”
“Without answers, suspicions such as whether civilians were intentionally
targeted will remain. The question of intentionality thus needs to be further
investigated.”
Callamard's letter detailed a large number of contradictions with Iran's
explanations, including:
Iran alleges that an error in the alignment of the mobile missile unit
contributed to the mistaken targeting, but it has not provided any explanation
as to why this radar miscalibration occurred, why it had not been detected, and
how it led to the targeting.
Iran did not explain why the IRGC failed to follow the most basic standard
procedures, such as monitoring altitude, climb or descent rate and airspeed to
evaluate unknown radar tracks, evaluating the target's size, or checking the
target visually.
Even without an Identification Friend or Foe system in the unit itself, failsafe
measures should have been instituted to ensure that transponder or other
tracking data was accurately and promptly provided to the mobile missile system
crew. Iran failed to explain how information about cleared civilian flights was
communicated to IRGC units, a critical step to ensure the safety of civilian
aircraft and one that clearly failed.
Contrary to the IRGC Aerospace Force Commander allegation that the unit had only
10 seconds to decide to fire, it would appear that the unit had at least a
45-second decision window and possibly more time to evaluate the target.
No information is provided on why other flights that took off that night, before
PS752, were not targeted.
The investigator also highlighted “the Iranian Government's refusal, over three
days, to admit that the plane had been shot down by its military, even though
high placed authorities knew almost immediately what had occurred.”
Violations of the right to life
Callamard's letter highlighted multiple violations of international law by the
Iranian authorities, most crucially violations of the right to life of the 176
passengers and crew.
“In situations of high military tension, the most effective means to prevent
attacks on civil aviation is to close the airspace," she said. "Had Iran,
knowing full well that hostilities with the US could readily escalate, closed
its airspace for civilian traffic that evening, 176 human beings would not have
been killed.”
“Instead of opening a proper investigation, the authorities allowed the crash
site to be looted and then bulldozed, hampering the collection of evidence and
depriving families of irreplaceable mementoes of those whom they had lost,”
Callamard said. “The investigation by the Iranian authorities also disregarded
the responsibility of high-level officials.”“The Iranian Government claims it
has nothing to hide, yet it has failed to carry out a full and transparent
investigation in line with its international obligations. As a result, many
questions are left unresolved.”
“Absent an impartial, independent and comprehensive investigation, the families
of the victims are left without the answers they deserve; left churning over and
over in their minds how could this have happened; why was it that this
particular flight was targeted while other flights on the same route in the same
period escaped attack. Some may even wonder if that particular flight was
targeted deliberately.”“Moreover, the Iranian Government has failed to meet its
obligations of respect for the remains of the deceased, including by its
disrespectful handling of the crash site, its efforts to obstruct family wishes
to repatriate remains; by its interference with private burials. All this is
compounded by entirely unacceptable harassment and threats against some family
members,” Callamard said.- With Reuters
State Department warns Egypt against purchasing Russian
fighter jets
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/ 23 February /2021
The United States Tuesday expressed its concern over Egypt’s potential purchase
of Russian fighter jets, the State Department said Tuesday. US Secretary of
State Antony Blinken raised the issue during a phone call with his Egyptian
counterpart Sameh Shoukry.
“The Secretary raised concerns over human rights, which he emphasized would be
central to the US-Egypt bilateral relationship, and Egypt’s potential
procurement of Su-35 fighter aircraft from Russia,” State Department Spokesman
Ned Price said in a statement. Washington has increased its opposition to
allies, specifically Turkey, acquiring Russian fighter jets.A US sanctions
regime was put into effect to allow the US to sanction any allies for doing so.
Separately, Blinken and Shoukry highlighted the importance of the strong
strategic partnership between the United States and Egypt, “particularly in
security and ongoing counterterrorism cooperation, and exchanged views on
regional issues.” The ongoing UN-backed peace talks in Libya and the Middle East
Peace Process were also touched upon, Price said.
The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 23- 24/2021
Why is Iran so good at nuclear diplomacy?
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/February 23/2021
Because US policy is always compartmentalized and because the end goal is a
“deal,” Iran knows that it can exert pressure through various means.
It’s hard to go a day without some new headline about Iran’s nuclear efforts.
On the one hand, the US signals it wants to strengthen the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, or Iran deal, that was signed in 2015. The US left the deal in
2018 during the Trump administration. On the other hand, Iran is seeking a deal
with the IAEA about inspections.
You would not be remiss if you begin to glaze over the more you hear about this.
This is the goal of Iran. Its regime understands that Western countries like
complexity. Iran understands that Western nations largely compartmentalize
foreign policy. That means the West doesn’t view its foreign policy as a
Clausewitzian sum of all the country’s parts.
That is why Iran can do economic policy, military policy and foreign policy in
dealing with Iraq, while Western countries pursue one policy through their
military and another slightly different policy with diplomats and yet a third
possibly policy with their economic interests.
Of course, Western countries don’t say this. They say they care about their
“interests.” But the interest of diplomats is to talk. They like discussions and
minutiae and engagement. For a Western diplomat, endless discussions about
discussions are prized over the use of force.
Western policy-makers tend to see the use of force as a last resort, despite
talk about “holding Iran responsible” for its recent attacks in Iraq, or “all
options are on the table,” or “proportionate response.”
In the minds of Western diplomats, diplomacy has failed when the fighting
starts. This is not the case for Turkish, Iranian and Russian diplomats.
Diplomacy is part of the carrot and stick, where the carrot and stick are all
part of the same stick.
Latest articles from Jpost
Iran’s top diplomat, Javad Zarif, doesn’t view proxy attacks on the US in Iraq
as somehow undermining his mission of engaging the West; rather, it is part of
leverage.
US State Department officials have sometimes viewed troops from Central Command
as “in the way.”
Former US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey, one of America’s most veteran diplomats
and a very pro-Turkey voice, said US Central Command was “out of control.”
“We’re just here to fight terrorists,” he told Al-Monitor in December while
characterizing how he views the US military. “Let the f---heads in State
Department take care of Turkey, and we can say or do anything we want that
pleases us and pleases our little allies, and it doesn’t matter.”
How would one like to be a Western military commander leading a patrol in Syria
or securing facilities at Erbil, where US troops recently came under rocket
attack by an Iran-backed proxy, knowing that US diplomats speak this way about
your role?
Meanwhile, the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, the IRGC and Iran’s proxies, such as
Kataib Hezbollah, can sit secretly and plan rocket attacks.
This compartmentalization affects how the US deals with Iran’s nuclear game of
mirrors and threats. Because US policy is always compartmentalized and because
the end goal is a “deal,” Iran knows it can exert pressure through various
means.
It can, for instance, encourage the US to end the terrorist designation of the
Houthi rebels in Yemen and then immediately increase attacks on Saudi Arabia.
There is no “deal” or quid pro quo.
In Lebanon, Iran knows it can have its Hezbollah proxy murder Lokman Slim, a
publisher and commentator, without any repercussions. In Iraq, the Iranians know
they can fire missiles at US forces in Erbil or US diplomats in Baghdad, and
there will be no pushback.
In each instance, the quiet messaging is, “If you go back to the deal, we might
be able to stop these attacks.”
Iran understands that one simple message conveys the endgame for its
negotiations: The only way to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is
war. Western countries and the US do not want war. Therefore, the only way to
slow down Iran’s production of a nuclear weapon is to give Iran what it wants.
In the absence of Iran getting what it wants, it will have a “right” to use
proxies in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon to attack others. If Iran gets what it
wants, it might be able to reduce these attacks and give the West quiet in the
region.
This methodology, linking Iran’s actions across the entire region – including
Hezbollah’s trade in narcotics, which spans Africa and South America – is how
Iran successfully keys in each proxy group and its overall agenda and obtains
what it wants.
Iran may not even want nuclear weapons. But it knows it can use every step of
uranium enrichment, every centrifuge and every inspection deadline to its
advantage.
Iran runs circles around Western negotiators because it understands this game
works. It doesn’t behave the same way when dealing with Turkey, Russia, China or
other regimes and groups.
For instance, it never mobilizes proxies to attack Turkish embassies. The
challenge for those who deal with Iran is wondering if the messaging from Tehran
about nuclear weapons is really the issue that underpins what Iran’s main goal
is.
The Western goal is to avoid war and also avoid a nuclear Iran. Iran’s goal may
not be nuclear weapons, but rather using the distraction of the process of
nuclear proliferation to give it impunity in other areas.
It also wants to achieve a scenario that gives it a route to a nuclear weapon in
such a way that it appears to not violate the deals it made, which is why the
JCPOA had a series of time frames in it so that Iran could begin to import arms
again and eventually return to its nuclear program when necessary
Erdoğan's War Against Freedom on Campus
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/February 23/ 2021
On February 2, Turkish police detained more than 150 people peacefully
protesting Erdoğan's appointment of a party loyalist as BOUN's new rector. It
was the first time a non-BOUN graduate was appointed as head of the university
since 1971. Students, professors and alumni have been protesting the appointment
of rector Melih Bulu, a former member of Erdoğan's Justice and Development
Party, since early January.
On February 3, Erdoğan denounced student protesters as "terrorists" and vowed to
crackdown on demonstrations. By then the police had detained more than 250
students. Erdoğan admitted he feared the BOUN protests could grow into
anti-government protests and said he would not let them swell.
In [Erdogan's] Islamist worldview, youth dissent is good only if it protests
ideas Islamism opposes, not if it protests Islamists.
Since February 2, Turkish police have arrested more than 250 students at
Istanbul's Bosporus (Boğaziçi) University for peacefully protesting President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's appointment of a party loyalist as the university's new
rector. Police even raided some of the demonstrators' homes and barricaded the
campus. Pictured: Police surround and detain several female protestors at
Bosporus University on February 4, 2021. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty
Images)
Bosporus University (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi in Turkish, or BOUN in its acronym)
is one of Turkey's top three "Ivy League" higher education institutions.
Established as Robert College in 1863, BOUN was the first American university
founded outside the US. Its founders were wealthy philanthropist Christopher
Robert and missionary Cyrus Hamlin. Robert College was handed over to the
Turkish government in 1971 and reflagged itself as BOUN.
BOUN's notable graduates include former prime ministers Tansu Çiller and Ahmet
Davutoğlu. Times Higher Education put BOUN in 601-800 in its 2021 world
university ranking. Every year about 2.5 million Turkish pupils take a national
examination to enter a university. In last year's examination 708 of the top
1,000 in 2.5 million contenders enrolled at BOUN. In other words, 70% of
Turkey's best students prefer this university.
Turkish Islamists have always been at odds with the liberal, pro-Western
traditions of BOUN. In an interview, Binali Yıldırım, President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan's choice for prime minister in 2016, commented that he did not attend
BOUN in his youth because he "saw boys and girls sitting and talking together in
the university's yard" and found the genders intermixing unacceptable. It was
precisely this ideological incompatibility that opened a new front in the battle
between tyrannical Islamism and an elite university.
On February 2, Turkish police detained more than 150 people peacefully
protesting Erdoğan's appointment of a party loyalist as BOUN's new rector. It
was the first time a non-BOUN graduate was appointed as head of the university
since 1971. Students, professors and alumni have been protesting the appointment
of rector Melih Bulu, a former member of Erdoğan's Justice and Development
Party, since early January. Police even raided some of the demonstrators' homes
and barricaded the BOUN campus.
In non-violent demonstrations, protesters called for Bulu to resign as the
university's rector and for the university to be allowed to elect its own
president, saying the appointment was an affront to academic liberties. On
February 3, Erdoğan denounced student protesters as "terrorists" and vowed to
crackdown on demonstrations. By then the police had detained more than 250
students. Erdoğan admitted he feared the BOUN protests could grow into
anti-government protests and said he would not let them swell.
In addition to branding demonstrators as terrorists, Erdoğan and government
officials stoked a polarizing and poisonous tradition battle, by singling out
the university's LGBTQ college students as instigators of unrest and portraying
them as deviant from Turkish values. "There is no such thing as LGBT. This
country is national, spiritual, and marching toward the future with these
values," said Erdoğan. Tweets posted by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu
denigrating the LGBTQ college students by calling them perverts were found by
Twitter to have violated its guidelines about "hateful conduct," marked with a
warning label and partially hidden from public view.
After a barrage of criticism came from the United States and Europe, Erdoğan
accused the U.S. and European nations of double standards, for "crushing"
protests in their countries but portraying as "innocent those who terrorize the
streets" in Turkey. "We will not show mercy toward those who have become the toy
of organizations involved in terror and who regard the use of violence as a
means of seeking justice," he said. "We will grab hold of their collars and
bring them to justice."
In a speech to the Turkish youths, Erdoğan said in May 2015: "Never bow before
men of power, not even before a president, a prime minister, the rich and
wealthy. Remember, sycophancy never befits the dignity of this nation's youth."
Two years later, in 2017, Erdoğan again said: "We do not need a youth that
unquestioningly obeys. We need a youth that knows what [ideas] it defends and
why."
BOUN protesters are precisely the kind of youth Erdoğan prescribed in 2015 and
2017. All the same, instead of praise, Erdoğan wants to punish them as
"terrorists."
Has Erdoğan changed since 2015? He has not. He only said those brave lines for
the sake of rhetoric. In his Islamist worldview, youth dissent is good only if
it protests ideas Islamism opposes, not if it protests Islamists.
*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.
© 2021 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.
The Duped Generation that Supports BDS
Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute/February 23/2021
BDS tells its supporters that it is "an inclusive, anti-racist human rights
movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including
anti-semitism and Islamophobia". That is a lie.
BDS has also succeeded in making life worse for Palestinian Arabs, the very
people they falsely claim to help. This includes backing and strengthening the
leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas....
Vast international funds provided to assist them have been systematically
embezzled by their leaders for their own enrichment.... This month, the UK's
Jewish News revealed that $145 million of British taxpayers' money has been
spent on incitement in Palestinian schools since 2016 alone.
Young and impressionable men and women, whose main attention is on studying for
their degrees, have been duped by Barghouti's BDS rabble-rousers into thinking
they were demonstrating in support of a two-state solution to be achieved by
peaceful means.
Using words chillingly resonant of the Third Reich, Mahmoud Abbas said during a
speech in Egypt: "In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a
single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands". He meant Jews. Israeli
Arabs would be welcomed.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he and President Biden are
"resolutely opposed" to BDS because it "unfairly and inappropriately singles out
Israel and creates a double standard". The US administration should take up the
plans... to target organisations that engage with or otherwise support BDS, such
as Amnesty International, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch, and cut off government
funding. British and European governments should follow suit....
Yet again we approach the depths of the annual Jew Hate Week around the world.
Its organizers know better than to call it what it is. They brand their hatefest
"Israel Apartheid Week", but their true meaning and purpose is blindingly
obvious. Since its early festerings in Toronto in 2005, Jew Hate Week has
inflicted itself on the world, polluting universities from America to Australia
and from South Africa to Northern Ireland.
Held on campuses at around this time each year, Jew Hate Week is the racist
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement's flagship event for subverting
university students to their malevolent cause. Palestinian-led, at the forefront
of BDS are Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in the
US, and Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and War on Want in the UK. Democrat
Squad members Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are among its main cheerleaders in
America. In Britain, disgraced former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is a
staunch supporter as are many of his party including members of parliament.
BDS trumpet their claim to support "freedom, justice and equality" for the
Palestinian people. They are less open about their desire to eradicate the
Jewish state for fear they would lose backing from individuals and organizations
that have a genuine desire to improve the lives of Palestinians but do not want
to eliminate a whole country and its Jewish citizens.
Qatar-born Omar Barghouti, founder of BDS, has repeatedly rejected a two-state
solution, instead advocating one state: "Definitely, most definitely, we oppose
a Jewish state in any part of Palestine". He makes clear that his definition of
"Palestine" includes the entirety of the State of Israel.
Barghouti's fellow traveller, Harvard graduate, writer and activist Ahmed Moor
agrees: "BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state". Across the Atlantic last
week, notorious BDS supporter Professor David Miller of the UK's Bristol
University demanded an "end" to "Zionism as a functioning ideology". Zionism is
support for the existence and development of the State of Israel. Miller's
message is therefore a barely-veiled code for ending the existence of a
universally-recognised democratic UN member state. His poison was reinforced
this week by fellow BDS proponent and former Labour MP Chris Williamson, quoting
terrorist hijacker Leila Khaled in the process.
While purporting to be a nonviolent movement, internationally proscribed
terrorist groups -- such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine -- are represented on the BDS National
Committee. Barghouti says: "We're not ashamed to have armed resistance in
addition to peaceful resistance throughout our existence." He and his henchmen
refuse to condemn terrorist violence.
I have discussed all this with students brandishing BDS placards while squawking
cliché-ridden slogans during Jew Hate Week on various campuses, including New
York University and the University of Bristol, at the invitation respectively of
Realize Israel and the Pinsker Centre, two outstanding student bastions against
Jew hate. All the protesters I met denied that they thought Israel should be
destroyed or that they supported violence. Young and impressionable men and
women, whose main attention is on studying for their degrees, have been duped by
Barghouti's BDS rabble-rousers into thinking they were demonstrating in support
of a two-state solution to be achieved by peaceful means.
The real truth about the global BDS movement is understood by very few and is
even more squalid than any of their publicly declared or privately whispered
grandiose ideas for political change. A 2015 report by Israel's Knesset showed
that BDS had no impact on the country's economy and was not expected to in the
future. Israel's exports to the EU, where BDS is strongest, had nearly doubled
since the movement was founded 10 years earlier. In 16 years, BDS have not laid
a glove on Israel, achieving none of their main objectives. Despite endless
efforts to boycott, divest from and sanction the Jewish state, they have had
zero effect on its economy, politics or culture.
That stark and indisputable reality points to their genuine but unspoken
purpose. The leaders of the BDS movement are far from stupid. They know from
bitter experience that they cannot and will never end the Jewish state
economically and are incapable of taking on the might of the Israeli military.
Instead, their campaign is all about hounding Jews wherever they can find them,
to punish Jews around the world for the existence of the Jewish state and
undermine support for Israel among Jews as well as non-Jews. The strongest
supporters of Israel outside the country are members of the diaspora. Depleting
that support and persuading Jews to vilify Israel is the goal of the BDS
movement.
The BDS movement and associated anti-Israel propagandists have successfully
turned many Jews against Israel, with some even joining BDS. This increases year
on year. Witness Jewish Voice for Peace, leading the charge in the US; and in
Britain, Jewish Voices for Labour, among whose founders was the BDS vanguard,
PSC.
BDS tells its supporters that it is "an inclusive, anti-racist human rights
movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including
anti-semitism and Islamophobia". That is a lie. Evidence of its true nature can
be found in the classic antisemitism that permeates so much of its activity,
including calling for death to Jews, attacking the Jewish religion, targeting
people for being Jewish, and promoting blood libels, Holocaust denial and
Holocaust approval. All of this has been extensively documented in a May 2020
report by CAMERA, the Campaign for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and
Analysis. A 2017 dossier from Jewish Human Rights Watch in the UK showed that
almost 50% of Scottish PSC's supporters had openly shared antisemitic material
on social media accounts.
As well as successfully recruiting unwitting Jews, the BDS movement has
succeeded in inciting and incubating active antisemitism on campus. AMCHA, a US
nonprofit that documents, investigates and combats antisemitism at colleges and
universities, finds that: "Schools that are promoting BDS or other kinds of
anti-Zionist rhetoric... are three to eight times more likely to have incidents
that target Jewish students for harm," including assault, the suppression of
speech, and destruction of property.
BDS has also succeeded in making life worse for Palestinian Arabs, the very
people they falsely claim to help. This includes backing and strengthening the
leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, both of whom for decades
have used their own people as political pawns against Israel — their welfare and
prosperity, and often their very lives, thrown away on the altar of hatred for
the Jewish state. Vast international funds provided to assist them have been
systematically embezzled by their leaders for their own enrichment, used to
violently attack Israel, murder Jews and condition Palestinian children to hate
the Jewish state. This month, the UK's Jewish News revealed that $145 million of
British taxpayers' money has been spent on incitement in Palestinian schools
since 2016 alone.
Time after time, Palestinian leaders have rejected all efforts at peace,
preferring poverty for their people, violence and endless conflict to any
proposals to share the territory with Jews. Despite anything he might say in
English, the unwavering policy of Holocaust-denying PA President Mahmoud Abbas,
now in the 17th year of his four-year term, remains the same as the declared
stance of the BDS leaders: a one-state solution and the eradication of Israel.
Flaunting their favourite slogan in Israel Apartheid Weeks, the BDS movement
brands Israel an "apartheid state" at every turn. That is one reason for their
abject failure: no government or international institution believes them. On the
contrary, they know it is the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that are
practitioners of apartheid. Using words chillingly resonant of the Third Reich,
Abbas said during a speech in Egypt: "In a final resolution, we would not see
the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands". He meant
Jews. Israeli Arabs would be welcomed.
Within territory controlled by the PA, since 2010 the punishment for selling
land to Jews has been death. Although there have been many extrajudicial
killings of those who transgressed, no court has so far handed down the death
sentence. But several Palestinians have received severe punishments. For
example, in 2018, a court in Ramallah sentenced a Palestinian man from east
Jerusalem to life in prison with hard labour for trying to sell property to
Jews.
Meanwhile, as well as the 1.8 million Arab Israelis (approximately 20% of the
population), all of whom have equal citizenship and rights in Israel, thousands
of Palestinian Arabs travel to work at Israeli businesses. That is something the
BDS movement have done their best to put a stop to. For example, hundreds of
Palestinian Arabs were laid off and their families deprived of income in 2015
when BDS protests against SodaStream forced the relocation of their factory from
Judea to the Negev. Not content with that, Barghouti's BDS continued to protest
against SodaStream's new factory, which employs more than 300 Bedouin Arabs.
Most of the hapless students in Britain, America and elsewhere who naively
support BDS have little idea of any of this. They have been betrayed above all
by the very university professors whose job is to guide and influence them for
the good, not to hoodwink them into such a pernicious cause.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that he and President Biden are
"resolutely opposed" to BDS because it "unfairly and inappropriately singles out
Israel and creates a double standard". In other words, it is antisemitic. The US
administration should take up the plans made by former Secretary of State Pompeo
to target organisations that engage with or otherwise support BDS, such as
Amnesty International, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch, and cut off government
funding.
British and European governments should follow suit, as should all nations where
BDS has taken hold. They should be in no doubt that the purpose of this venomous
movement with its Jew Hate Weeks and other poisonous activities is not to effect
legitimate political change or support Palestinian people as they duplicitously
claim, but to exploit the Israel-Palestinian conflict as an excuse to terrorise,
bully, harass and drive out Jews at every opportunity.
*Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of
the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer
and speaker on international and military affairs. He is a Shillman Journalism
Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2021 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.
Biden and Instability in the Middle East
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/February 23/2021
Since President Joe Biden took office, Iran’s regional proxies have been busy.
This month alone, Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed credit for a drone attack
against Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport; one of the most prominent critics of
Hezbollah, the journalist Lokman Slim, was found murdered in his car in Lebanon;
and in Iraqi Kurdistan, a front group for one of the country’s most deadly
Shiite militias claimed credit for a series of rocket attacks in and around
Erbil.
It all feels like a chilling replay of US foreign policy under former President
Barack Obama. While US diplomats were negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal with
Iran, the regime’s proxies went on a rampage. After those talks ended, Iranian
General Qassem Soleimani defied UN travel restrictions and went to Moscow to
negotiate his own deal with Russia to protect and defend Syria’s Bashar
al-Assad. Obama denounced that escalation and sent his secretary of state to
plead for restraint and cease-fires, but the effort had no effect.
The question for Biden is whether he wants to repeat the mistakes of his former
boss as he seeks to revive the nuclear agreement his predecessor abandoned in
2018. So far, the signs are not good that Biden has learned any lessons from the
Obama years.
Consider the rocket attacks this week in Erbil. Biden’s spokespeople have been
quick to denounce these escalations, which killed at least one contractor and
wounded both Americans and Iraqis. They are awaiting the result of an
investigation, however, before blaming Iran.
“We are supporting our Iraqi partners in their efforts to investigate these
attacks, whether they were conducted by Iran, whether they were conducted by
Iranian-backed militia forces or elements of such forces,” State Department
spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday. “We’re not going to prejudge that.”
A relatively unknown group called Saraya Awliya al-Dam, or the Guardians of the
Blood Brigade, has claimed responsibility for the Erbil attacks. Michael
Knights, the Bernstein fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
and an expert on Iraqi militias, told me this group is almost certainly a front
for Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a fanatic Shiite militia that has menaced Iraq since the
2000s. It’s possible that the Erbil rocket attacks were not sanctioned by Iran,
Knights said. But Iran has enough influence over Asaib Ahl al-Haq that it could
have prevented them.
Viewed in this light, Price’s parsing does not matter. A group nurtured and
guided by Iran just mounted a major escalation in Iraq. What will Biden do in
response?
At the very least, Biden should halt any efforts to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal
so long as Iran’s proxies are running wild. While it’s true that Biden and his
top advisers see the 2015 deal as a way to forward US interests by temporarily
limiting Iran’s enrichment of uranium, Iran also has an interest in ending the
secondary sanctions that the US re-imposed in 2018. Biden has more leverage, at
the moment, than Iran.
An even better option for Biden would be to adopt a version of his predecessor’s
policy toward Iranian proxies. Former President Donald Trump’s administration
did not bother with distinctions among the offshoots, factions and militias that
Iran supported. If a militia attacked US forces in Iraq, the US attacked the
militia in response. Trump was also willing to escalate to deter, as he did a
little more than a year ago after militias nearly overran the US embassy in
Baghdad. Trump authorized the strikes that killed Soleimani and a top militia
leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Biden is not Trump, of course. But if he wants to calm tensions in the region,
he must convince Iran and its proxies that he, too, is willing to escalate and
respond to their provocations. If Iran concludes that it can obtain sanctions
relief while sowing further chaos, then Biden will be returning the Middle East
to a status quo of dangerous instability.
Iran Between Trump and Biden
Hazem SaghiehAsharq Al-Awsat/February 23/2021
Would it be wrong for someone to say that he/she supports Joe Biden’s policies
everywhere but prefers those of Trump when it comes to Iran?
In all likelihood, this opinion is accurate. Regarding the United States itself,
its foreign relations, the environment, globalization, NATO, taxes on the
wealthy, racial and gender issues, the celebration of diversity, human rights,
immigrants, and refugees. The same applies to their general view of politics,
institutions, diplomacy, and international organizations... In all of these
regards, it is difficult to equate the two presidents and their administrations.
This is also true of the Palestinian-Israeli question and the decision-making
process in general.
Why the exception when it comes to Iran?
Because Iran is an exception; of course, it is not the only source of evil in
the world, but it is the source of the most dangerous and most immediate evil.
It is the only place where, now, an extremely destabilizing and deeply
disturbing imperial project is being built, not to political regimes, but the
nature of things: a bridge to several Arab countries that expands its sphere of
influence, one which not only crosses borders and violates these countries’
sovereignty, but which has also led to the emergence of devastating civil
conflicts, sectarian and ethnic, throughout the region. On top of this, the
issue with Iran goes beyond nuclear weapons to also include ballistic weapons,
and it goes beyond ballistic weapons to reach explosives, pistols, and knives.
He who does not die by this will die by that.
It could be said- rightfully- that China and Russia are overseeing imperial and
expansionist projects as well. With that, they are more restrained by
international balances and standards and they have an interest in protecting
global economic stability, especially China, which recently presented itself, in
Davos, before and after it, as globalization’s pioneer. Iran, on the other hand,
threatens its neighbors’ economic and oil interests as soon as it opens its
mouth.
Moreover, China and Russia neighbor countries are weaker than they are but
influential enough to be taken into consideration: Germany and Poland in the
case of Russia, Japan, and Vietnam in the case of China. In the Middle East,
Erdogan’s Turkey is not capable of fulfilling this role, nor is it willing to do
so in the first place. As for the general Arab atmosphere, in a time of
counterrevolution and civil strife spurred by Iranian interference, it, in turn,
is not encouraging either.
Russia and China, both of whom are Security Council members, have other
requisites for expansion in addition to destruction, whether economically-
despite the disparity between the two countries- culturally or in terms of
political weight. These are all capacities that Iran, with its ancient
civilization and oil wealth, could have possessed had the Khomeinist regime not
squandered them successively.
More importantly, Iran’s evil is also ideological, in contrast to that of Moscow
and Beijing, which have given up on grand ideologies. It is more similar to
North Korean evil, with the difference between the two being that the latter,
despite its theatrical nuclear ambitions, is contained within its borders.
The 42nd anniversary of the Khomeini revolution was celebrated a few days ago,
but Iran, 42 years later, still seems like it is in the first few days of its
revolution. Russia, 42 years after its revolution, that is, in 1959, was
undergoing a phase of relative openness under Khrushchev; three years had gone
by since the Twentieth Communist Party Congress that chastised Stalin and
Stalinism. 42 years after China’s revolution, in 1991, Jiang Zemin announced
what he called a “socialist market economy,” continuing the path of Deng
Xiaoping’s reforms. Vietnam, 42 years after the fall of Saigon in 1975, in 2017,
had come a long way in the process of opening up to the world that started early
in 1986.
In Iran, there is an astonishing insistence on not maturing, remaining
adolescent forever. Perpetual adolescence is dangerous to oneself and others.
Those who bet on the opposite had miserable endings: Abolhassan Bani-Sadr ended
up in exile. Mohammad Khatami is in the dark. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi
Karroubi have been placed under house arrest.
Inspired by never-ending adolescence, the Iranian leadership issued its response
to the signals of openness shown by the Biden administration. It did not show
any willingness to meet halfway, escalating everywhere the Iranians are present
instead. With empty bellies, they went about screaming their habitual and vulgar
cry “we are victorious.”
But why not? Some in the Biden administration love perpetual adolescents and do
not see the evil that comes from their actions. Symbols of appeasing Iran are
part of this administration, like Robert Malley, who handles the US relationship
with Tehran and is described as “understanding” Assad’s Syria, Hamas and
Hezbollah, as well as Iran, or Philip Gordon, advisor to Vice President Kamala
Harris, who implicitly views US intervention in the region as absolutely harmful
and believes that the people of the region can be harmed only by forces from
outside it. The former represents a brand of leftist-populism, and the second
represents Kissingerist “realism” twisted left. The practical conclusion that
they agree on is that this region deserves nothing but what was written for it
and Khomeinist Iran was written for it. It is the good whose gushing spring is
only constrained by the United States, which does not understand it.
For us and for Iran, Trump was undoubtedly better.
Secret recording shows Iran’s leaders are responsible for
downed aircraft. Will Trudeau act now?
Alireza Nader/ National Post/February 23/2021
Trudeau has come to a critical juncture. He can either pursue friendly relations
with the regime and hope for the best, or exert pressure on Tehran
A recently revealed audio tape of a “senior” Iranian official demonstrates the
Islamic Republic of Iran’s continuing attempt to hide its responsibility for the
downing of Ukrainian Airline flight PS752 shortly after take-off from Tehran’s
Imam Khomeini International Airport on Jan. 8, 2020. The speaker in the
recording appears to be Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif, a man who
often attempts to portray himself as the “moderate” face of the regime abroad.
In the recording, Zarif admits that the truth about PS752 “will never be
revealed … they (Iran’s government and military) won’t tell us, nor anyone else,
because if they do it will open some doors into the defense systems of the
country that will not be in the interest of the nation to publicly say.”
Zarif’s admission provides additional evidence that the regime shot down PS752
and deliberately covered it up. Importantly for Ottawa, Zarif’s involvement in
the cover-up demonstrates the need for a tougher Canadian policy toward Iran,
one that puts pressure on the regime rather than than continuing to operate
under the misguided belief that diplomatic engagement will achieve anything
meaningful.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’s (IRGC) downing of PS752 resulted in the
deaths of 176 passengers and crew, many of whom were citizens, permanent
residents or others with ties to Canada. After initially denying any
culpability, the regime later said it was the result of “human error” on the
part of low-level IRGC personnel. Zarif’s recorded conversation demonstrates
culpability at the highest levels of the regime, including senior members of the
IRGC, as Zarif admits that senior officials are aware of their guilt but will
not ever admit to the truth publicly.
The audio tape also confirms Zarif’s integral role in the regime’s apparatus of
terror and repression. Zarif, dubbed the “Ribbentrop of Iran” by the victims’
families, may present a suave and more sophisticated face of the regime, but he
is attempting to buy more time for the IRGC and prevent the truth about the
regime’s crimes against humanity from ever emerging.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has favored a policy of rapprochement between
Canada and Iran, including re-establishing diplomatic relations and restarting
Canadian investments in the country. Trudeau’s strategy is to “work together”
with Zarif, without exerting any pressure on the regime.
Trudeau’s overly friendly February 2020 meeting with Zarif, which included a
warm handshake and abundant smiles, was roundly condemned by Iranian-Canadians.
Trudeau cannot afford to make a similar mistake again given Zarif’s admission,
as he faces intense scrutiny from the relatively large and increasingly
mobilized Iranian-Canadian electorate.
Trudeau has come to a critical juncture. He can either pursue friendly relations
with the regime and hope for the best, or exert pressure on Zarif and his
masters in Tehran. He has the tools of a pressure policy easily at hand. First,
he must designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, as a motion passed by
Parliament in 2018 called on the government to do. The designation should be
followed by a widespread investigation into the regime’s extensive political
influence and money-laundering network in Canada.
Canada should also work with Ukraine and the United States to initiate
arbitration proceedings under the Montreal Convention of 1971, which
criminalizes the use of violence against civilian aircraft.
The recent recording is additional evidence of the regime’s criminal
recklessness and, as a party to the convention, Iran is required to investigate
and prosecute all offenders and accomplices. But so far, it has sought to ensure
that its most senior officials will not be held accountable.
Initiating the Montreal Convention may also increase the chances of the
international community holding the regime accountable by imposing financial and
criminal sanctions on it. The victims of PS752 deserve truth and justice. The
Islamic Republic of Iran, and especially Zarif, have worked hard to hide the
regime’s crimes against humanity. Trudeau should not hope for answers from Zarif.
What Zarif and the IRGC deserve is a steel hand, not a warm embrace.
*Alireza Nader is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD),
where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power.
Follow Alireza on Twitter @AlirezaNader. FDD is a Washington, DC-based,
nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Biden Administration Should Not Provide Sanctions Relief
for Terrorism
مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديموقراطية: لا يجب على إدارة بايدن تخفيف العقوبات على جماعات
ودول الإرهاب
Matthew Zweig, Alireza Nader , Richard Goldberg/FDD/February 23/2021
As President Joe Biden looks to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, or Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran is likely to pressure the Biden
administration to provide broad sanctions relief, including to entities targeted
since 2015 for financing terrorism. The new administration and its supporters
should resist such pressure and keep U.S. terrorism sanctions in place –
particularly those targeting the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).
One of the JCPOA’s core weaknesses was that it imposed temporary, reversible
restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in return for permanent, comprehensive
sanctions relief. The Biden administration should not make the same mistake;
undermining the global terrorism sanctions regime in order to achieve a
temporary, reversible agreement with the Iranians is not a price the United
States should be willing to pay.
Iran’s Well-Documented History of Terrorism
Iran has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 and is
currently labeled by the State Department as “the world’s worst state sponsor of
terrorism.” This designation derives from Iran’s long history of providing
financial and material support to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah,
al-Qaeda, Hamas, and others, collectively responsible for the deaths of
thousands of Americans.
Iranian financial institutions, including the CBI, have played a key role in
these activities. The CBI has long been identified as the principal Iranian
government entity responsible for providing funding to terrorist organizations.
In 2006, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice labeled Iran “the central
banker of terrorism.” In 2007, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
issued an advisory on the Iranian financial system, reminding financial
institutions about U.S. sanctions applied to Iranian government-owned banks and
other entities owing to their links to terrorist activity and proliferation.
Subsequent designations by the U.S. Treasury Department noted the role of the
CBI in financing terrorism.
In November 2011, under the Obama administration, FinCEN published a draft rule
designating Iran as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern, based on
the fact that “Iranian financial institutions, including the Central Bank of
Iran … and other state-controlled entities, willingly engage in deceptive
practices to disguise illicit conduct” such as support for proliferation and
terrorism. While not binding, banks largely complied with the draft rule.
In September 2019, the Trump administration designated the CBI as a Specially
Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Executive Order (EO) 13224, for
providing “billions of dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),
its Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its terrorist proxy, Hizballah.”
In October 2019, FinCEN also issued a new evidentiary finding and a final rule
designating Iran as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern and
imposing binding restrictions for U.S. banks under Section 311 of the USA
PATRIOT Act. FinCEN stated that “Iran has developed covert methods for accessing
the international financial system and pursuing its malign activities, including
misusing banks and exchange houses, operating procurement networks that utilize
front or shell companies, exploiting commercial shipping, and masking illicit
transactions using senior officials, including those at the Central Bank of
Iran.”
Finally, the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018
(HIFPAA) included a provision imposing mandatory sanctions against agencies or
instrumentalities of a foreign state that have “provided significant financial
support for or to, or significant arms or related materiel to, Hizballah.” Thus,
the application of terrorism sanctions against the CBI is at the very least
consistent with the mandatory sanctions provided for in HIFPAA.
Divorce Terrorism Sanctions From JCPOA Considerations
Notably, a recent analysis published by the Atlantic Council argued that the
Treasury Department’s 2019 designation of the CBI “represented a departure from
the practices of past US administrations, which have historically applied such
designations only to groups and persons cited for direct participation in
terrorism or support for acts of terrorism or Iran-inspired political violence,”
whereas “the Trump administration justified its designation policy on the
grounds that the sanctioned economic entities were generating the revenue and
financial channels with which Iran supported regional factions that have
committed acts of terrorism.”
This is a flawed argument. Issued in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, EO 13224 created the SDGT designation and provided expanded
legal authorities for the State Department and Treasury Department to target
individuals and entities responsible for carrying out terrorist activities. EO
13224 was itself an outgrowth of a terrorism sanctions regime specifically
targeting organizations disrupting Middle East peace.
Specifically, it was created as a global authority to target terrorist
financiers that accessed the U.S. financial system. In 2019, the EO was expanded
to include the application of secondary sanctions on any individuals or
entities, including financial institutions, that allow their services to be used
by SDGTs. This expansion further increased the risk associated with banking
terrorists. As noted above, the CBI’s activities provide ample evidence to
justify its designation.
Indeed, in 2017 – while the United States remained a participant in the JCPOA –
Congress near-unanimously directed that terrorism sanctions under EO 13224 be
imposed on the IRGC and entities connected to it, noting the IRGC’s role as the
“arm of the Government of Iran for executing its policy of supporting terrorist
and insurgent groups.” The very nature of EO 13224 ensures that this applies to
IRGC supporters and facilitators, such as the CBI.
The Atlantic Council analysis states that “Iranian leaders are demanding the
lifting of any US sanction that prevents its economic entities from operating
freely in the global economy.” As such, the analysis says, the Biden
administration might have to “justify de-listing all Iranian economic
entities—even those with terrorism designations—on the grounds that the
de-listing is a necessary sacrifice for the broader objective of ensuring that
Iran does not become a nuclear weapons state.”
This is a false choice that the Biden administration and Congress should reject.
There is no evidence to suggest that Iranian support for terrorist organizations
has ceased; effectively creating a list of terror-financing entities exempt from
sanctions would undermine the basis of U.S. terrorism sanctions writ large.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of
State Antony Blinken stated that “there is nothing inconsistent” between the
JCPOA and U.S. terrorism sanctions on the CBI. This view is consistent with a
2018 article co-authored by former Obama administration senior official
Ambassador Dennis Ross, arguing “the sanctions relief provided under the JCPOA
should not be interpreted as a blanket immunity for Iranian officials, banks and
other government instrumentalities to expand their illicit activities. If such a
person or entity is found to be connected to the Revolutionary Guard, terrorism,
missile proliferation and human rights abuses, it most certainly can and should
be subject to sanctions—even if sanctions for that person or entity were
initially suspended by the JCPOA.”
Finally, the Atlantic Council analysis stated: “The Trump administration and
many of its predecessors have tended to characterize Iran’s support for these
groups as support for terrorism or as ‘malign activities.’ However, it can be
argued that Iran’s embrace of armed factions represent implementation of a
strategic ‘playbook’ to build influence throughout the region and secure its
national interests.”
Any attempt by the Biden administration that would directly or indirectly
legitimize Iran-sponsored terrorism ignores the grave national security threat
such terrorism poses. Tehran continues to aid Iraqi terrorist organizations such
as Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, whose members were
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. personnel in Iraq.
Iran also supports Yemen’s Ansar Allah, which has perpetrated repeated attacks
on international shipping and aviation. The U.S. State Department has designated
the IRGC, Hezbollah, and Hamas as foreign terrorist organizations, and the U.S.
Congress has voted time and again to impose sanctions on all three.
It is also important to recall that Democratic and Republican administrations
have determined that for over a decade, Tehran has “allowed [al-Qaeda]
facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through” Iranian territory,
“enabling [al-Qaeda] to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria.”
The large body of publicly available evidence that the CBI has played key a role
in financing terrorism warrants its designation as an SDGT. The Biden
administration could significantly, if not fatally, undermine the credibility of
U.S. terrorism sanctions if it were to lift or waive terrorism designations
against the CBI or other Iranian entities based on a desire to provide Iran
JCPOA-related sanctions relief, rather than based on evidence that those
entities have verifiably ceased financing or facilitating terrorism.
For the safety and security of all Americans, there should be no “tradeoff” when
it comes to terrorism directed, sponsored, and/or supported by Iran and a
limited, temporary, and flawed nuclear agreement with Tehran.
**Matthew Zweig and Alireza Nader are senior fellows at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor. They
all contribute to FDD’s Iran Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power
(CEFP). For more analysis from Matthew, Alireza, Richard, the Iran Program, and
CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow the authors on Twitter @MatthewZweig1 and @AlirezaNader
and @rich_goldberg. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_Iran and @FDD_CEFP. FDD
is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national
security and foreign policy.
Biden squanders leverage Trump stockpiled on Iran in
pursuit of a defective nuclear deal
موقع ثنك: من أجل االعودة إلى اتفاق نووي معيب مع إيران يضرب بايدن كل ما كدسه
ترامب من انجازات في مواجهة نظام الملالي الإرهابي
Mark Dubowitz and Behnam Ben Taleblu/Think/February 23/2021
The administration’s strategy for getting Iran to play ball clearly involves
making upfront concessions to Tehran for nothing in return.
“We’re not going to prejudge.” State Department spokesperson Ned Price deployed
this classic Washington euphemism last week to avoid responding to a question
over how much culpability Iran and its Shiite militias bear for recent rocket
attacks against a U.S. military base in northern Iraq. The strikes killed one
contractor and wounded several other service persons, including Americans.
Twice since then, rockets have been fired at positions affiliated with the U.S.
presence in Iraq: a military base on Saturday and at the area around the U.S.
Embassy complex in Baghdad on Monday. These strikes are not new. Since May 2019,
Iran-backed militias have been behind at least 83 such strikes on U.S.
positions, a damning pattern consistent with almost two decades of Iran-linked
attacks against the U.S. in Iraq.
The administration’s refusal to directly call out this time-tested method of
Iranian escalation also follows its public unwillingness to blame Hezbollah —
Iran’s most deadly proxy group — when condemning the assassination of Lokman
Slim, a prominent anti-Hezbollah activist, in an attack in Lebanon this month.
Why is the Biden administration not connecting the dots between the Islamic
Republic of Iran and its proxies — and not doing more to publicly deter this
behavior? Is it simply that the new administration is still finding its feet
after just one month in office?
Possibly. But there is a better explanation.
President Joe Biden is actively signaling a change in approach from his
predecessor. He wants to find a way back into the nuclear deal aimed at curbing
Iran’s nuclear program that his former boss, Barack Obama, concluded in 2015
only to have Donald Trump abandon in 2018.
The Biden administration’s strategy for getting Iran to play ball clearly
involves making upfront concessions to Tehran, including de-linking the nuclear
and regional threats it poses. In contrast, Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy
was characterized by forthright condemnations and more direct responses to
Iran-backed aggression. Team Trump also believed that sanctions relief should
occur only in exchange for a wholesale change in behavior by the Islamic
Republic that included nullifying its regional threats.
Biden’s approach draws directly from Obama’s playbook: turning a blind eye to
regional aggression and offering economic relief to signal support for
engagement to get back to the negotiating table. And it’s unfortunate, because
the result is sure to be the same as before as well: an overly deferential and
defective deal that offers Iran patient pathways to nuclear weapons because its
restrictions eventually sunset, while handcuffing Washington from using its most
powerful economic punishments and doing nothing to stop the improvement of the
clerical regime’s warfighting abilities or that of its proxies.
It’s not just the willingness to overlook Iran’s role in recent attacks in the
region that makes this clear. It’s that the Biden administration has done this
while going out of its way to tempt Tehran to talk through a policy of
unilateral concessions while continuing to declare American interest in renewed
nuclear negotiations.
Absent any reciprocity, the Biden administration reversed the Trump
administration’s restoration of U.N. penalties on Iran’s military-related
procurement and proliferation activity. Moscow and Beijing will now be able to
arm Tehran free of international censure and the Islamic Republic’s weapons
proliferation activities will face fewer impediments. Also at the U.N., the
State Department is easing travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats in New York.
The regime in Iran has used its diplomatic personnel and facilities in the past
to support terrorism.
Furthermore, the administration signaled that it doesn’t oppose a $5 billion
International Monetary Fund loan to Iran. While ostensibly for Covid-19 relief,
this windfall will fill the regime’s coffers with little accountability at a
time when it’s down to less than $10 billion in foreign exchange reserves. The
more cash Iran has on hand means the more it can fund its regional proxies and
bolster its missile, military and nuclear programs, regardless of what the IMF
money is designated for.
Price did speak of “consequences” for the recent rocket attack, and to be fair,
Washington so far has maintained the bulk of the penalties Trump imposed on
Iran. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s press release on the attack
contained zero mentions of Iran, or any other indication of what type of
concrete action would be taken.
Similarly, in Yemen, where Houthi rebels continue to fire drones and missiles at
Saudi civilian targets, a recent State Department press release urging the
rebels to end their assaults failed to mention Iran despite it providing the
rebels with weapons and training. The Biden team even decided to remove the
group from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations —
another missed opportunity for demanding reciprocity.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this movie before. As the Obama administration courted
Tehran for nuclear talks from 2012 to 2015, it restricted its counterterrorism
and counternarcotics policies toward the regime’s proxies like Hezbollah. As
Politico exposed in 2017, U.S. efforts against Hezbollah lessened as the
importance of getting a nuclear deal with Iran grew.
The desire to achieve and maintain the Iran nuclear deal also had other negative
regional effects. Some of those in the Obama administration arguing for a more
robust Syria policy in support of protestors and against the atrocities of
President Bashar al-Assad — Tehran’s man in Damascus — were overridden since
targeting his regime would have necessarily aggravated the Islamic Republic.
The Biden administration’s eagerness for diplomacy will likely be read by Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as a vulnerability to exploit. And in
response, Tehran will do what it has done for decades: intensify its aggression
and only back down if presented with no other alternative.
Iran is watching Washington begin to dismantle maximum pressure in favor of
“maximum diplomacy.” Absent a willingness to add to or even maintain existing
sanctions, as well lacking broader efforts to tackle the clerical regime’s
regional threat network, such an approach is indeed possible to prejudge: It
will end in failure.
The Nuclear Deal and its Enduring Uncertainties
Charles Elias Chartouni/February 23/2021
شارل الياس شرتوني/24 شباط/2021
Engaging the Iranian regime in negotiations is a tedious exercise which tests
the nerves and ability to cope with the corrosive effects of deliberate
ambiguity, dissembling, indeterminate and shifting goals. The painstakingly
negotiated 2015 agreement rather than inaugurating a dynamic of gradual
normalization and multilateral cooperation, ended up being instrumentalized for
destabilization purposes, arms racing and unleashing a spate of wrestling
imperialisms. Cashing and feeding on the pitfalls of the failed Arab springs and
their cascading State failures, the Iranian regime has worked its way towards a
strategy of systemic sabotaging throughout the Middle East, which paired the
destructive nihilism of Sunni radicalism, and contributed to the creation of the
congenial embedding for endemic instability and entrenched chaos.
Notwithstanding the fact that the successful and laborious negotiations of 2015
were marred by vocal opposition, double speak and cynical insinuations emitted
by the regime’s hardliners, and featured by a policy of bloody internal
repression and clampdown on cultural liberalization.
The Iranian regime is turning to the erstwhile playbook of prevarication,
unstructured negotiations, and playing on New Cold War rivalries, while pursuing
the course of deliberate geopolitical destabilization and internal political
repression. The review of the Iranian negotiations methodology displays their
unmistakable hallmark, the stalling and delaying tactics along which they
proceed: they are asking for the lifting of financial and economic sanctions and
the resumption of global oil trade, while juggling power rivalries (USA vs EU,
China, Russia), wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq,
Yemen, Bahrain....), putting at stake Israel’s and the GCC strategic security,
pursuing arms race (conventional and nuclear), and refusing to resume back
negotiations on the very basis of reviewed priorities and a comprehensive
lineup. One wonders what would be the ultimate objective of the Iranian
negotiations aside from the regime’s survival, the endorsement of its
expansionist drive regionally, domestic brutal repression, and discretionary
relationships with the international community.
These equivocations have undermined the nuclear accord of 2015, and raised
serious questions about the Iranian regime willingness to normalize, and engage
disarmament and conflict resolution politics in a volatile Middle East. The
chances of diplomacy are dim as long as the political narrative doesn’t change,
the dystopian delusions perpetuate, and the vested interests of the Mollah,
guardians of the revolution and Bazaar merchants perpetuate the foreclosures,
and stymie the tidal wave of irreversible liberalization of the Iranian civil
society. The rejection of democratization on the domestic side is corollary to
the repudiation of outward normalization and accounts for the perpetuating
stalemates and the inability of diplomacy to break down walls. The stonewalling
tactics of the Hezbollah and its acolytes in Lebanon and the Middle East testify
to the predatory nature of Iranian power politics, the delusions of a
Counter-World Order, and its felonious and psychotic framing.
The Middle East needs to revisit identity-based politics
Elie Abouaoun/The Arab Weekly/February 23/2021
If the current paradigm does not evolve, the region will continue to witness
destruction, violence, and despair.
Ill-defined “sectarianism” is often mentioned in the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA) region as the reason for its population’s misfortunes. For
decades, the international community and most of the region’s elite have tried
vainly to impose Western-style secular nation-state models. The outcome has been
either civil wars, failing states or dictatorships. Looking ahead, it is
necessary to first acknowledge the reality of identity-based politics in this
part of the world and second to generate a new governance encompassing an
overlap between national identity and the multiple subnational ones.
“Sectarianism” (or “confessionalism”) in countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and
Yemen, is often blamed for being the main driver of violence. In other places
such as Libya, “regionalism” and “tribalism” get a similar bad rap. In the
broader MENA region, power sharing (aka “al-mouhassassa”) is usually
incriminated as the root of all evil. The concepts of “civil state “and
“secularism” are also used interchangeably in political discussions and
analysis. More recently, terminology like “subsidiary identities” (in reference
to sub-national identities), as opposed to “national identity,” have emerged in
the same discussions. What is the region’s predicament exactly?
The first aspect of the problem is that a combination of political illiteracy
and the manipulation of the political discourse by the elite has created
misleading narratives using ill-defined terms such as “sectarianism,”
“secularism,” “civil state,” “quota system” and others.
For the last few centuries, political constituencies in the region have formed
primarily around religious, ethnic, tribal, regional or other subnational
identities rather than around political ideologies or projects. There is a host
of reasons leading to this situation; reasons that are misunderstood – or worse,
ignored — by local, national and international decision makers.
— Deeply rooted realities —
While not exclusive to the MENA region, this reality is deeply rooted in a long
social and political history dating back to the occupation of the region by the
Ottomans. For more than five centuries — until the end of the first world war —
the region was ruled by the “Sultan” who happened to be at the same time the
“Caliph.” Beyond this amalgamation at the top of the hierarchy between state and
religious affairs, the Ottomans found fertile territory to exercise the infamous
“divide et impera” in the region’s diverse religious, ethnic and tribal
populations like any other occupier would have undoubtedly done.
As the Ottoman Empire was dismantled, the region found itself under the control
of two colonial powers – Britain and France- who had to delineate their
respective zones of influence in territories populated by communities with
little or no national identity. In some cases, like that of the Maronites and
Druze in Mount Lebanon, communities organised themselves around their shared
identities to attain a degree of autonomy from the empire. This granted them a
special status which is still seen as a win in these communities. In their case,
the sub-national identity was the why and wherefore of walking off with an
autonomy of sorts from the Sublime Ottoman State.
Moreover, France and Britain attempted the impossible mission of setting up
governance models where the requirements of a Western style “nation state” would
be in harmony with the reality of an all-time low national identity. The region
ended up with a short period of relative but artificial stability (mostly the
1930s and 1940s) under the colonial powers leading to a troubled
post-independence era (late 1950s onwards) characterised by successive coups
d’état, authoritarian and corrupt monarchies, dictatorships and police states or
chaos in the form of civil wars. During this same period, two main ideologies
emerged in the region to fill the legacy vacuum of the Ottomans: Pan-Arab
nationalism and the political Islam project owned by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Although some political groups mimicked other ideologies (communism, liberalism,
socialism…), the political space remained dominated by the clash between a
romantic, staunchly secular but authoritarian pan-Arabism and a faith-based,
often violent project of political Islam. The proponents of both models embraced
exclusionary approaches in the sense that the first camp attempted to annihilate
any reference to religion (often even in the private personal space) while the
second esteemed the religious identity as the end-all be-all. Several
communities who still identified with their religious, ethnic, tribal or other
affiliation found themselves under attack and resorted in a reflex of
self-defense to further entrenchment.
The second half of the 20th century reveals some important elements about the
viability of a secular political project – i.e. the Lockesian model of
separation between religion and state — in a region mired in an identity crisis.
Two main examples are quite conspicuous in this context: Turkey-Tunisia on one
hand and Syria-Iraq on the other hand.
In the first case, both countries went through a transformation towards a
secular political system under the leadership of a charismatic political figure
(Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Habib Bourguiba respectively). Despite their
authoritarian style, both leaders ended up building European-like state
institutions and imposed secular political practices and a modernistic lifestyle
that lasted for decades. But what was bred in the bone came out in the flesh and
in the last decade or so, both countries reversed their progress towards
secularism. In Turkey, the process was challenged first by the transition to a
multiparty system in the 1950s, then economic liberalisation in the 1980s. It
was challenged further by the rise to power of the Justice and Development party
(AKP), which has won all elections since 2002, promoted a heavy Islamic
political agenda in the region and relentlessly pursued its strategic depth
doctrine that includes weakening the nationalist pan-Arab identity while
strengthening the Islamic identity.
Tunisia post-2011 has seen the revival of a suppressed religious identity and a
resilient political constituency for Islamist parties ranging from 25% to 35% of
voters, as visible in successive elections since the fall of the regime of
former President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
— Secularism models —
The outcome of forced secularisation in Syria and Iraq is completely different
as it led to the creation of one party dictatorships followed by civil wars
centred around religious and sectarian identities. In a nutshell, none of the
secularisation models tested in the region worked well. This historical overview
clearly indicates that collective identities in the region are more political
constructs than faith related. As a matter of fact, the various violent
conflicts in the region involved people vehemently fighting for a religion while
ignoring its most important precepts. These political constructs flourished in
the wake of underperforming state institutions, leaving the space for non-state
actors (religious, ethnic, or otherwise) to fill in the vacuum.
Unlike the transition to secularism in many parts of Europe, the concept in the
MENA region was never an organic process caused by socio-economic developments
and supported by intellectuals, but rather an imported model imposed by force.
It was essentially modelled around the French anticlerical system and became a
symbol of colonialism and equivalent to “fighting” religion.
This fake and ill-adapted form of secularism is not viable in the MENA.
Therefore, the region is in dire need of an innovative governance model and a
change in how identity is defined and whether it is used to undermine or
strengthen state building processes.
The constitutions of both Lebanon and Iraq are built around sectarian based
power sharing and quota systems, and given that both are closer to failed states
than anything else, analysts and think-tanks are quick to diagnose this power
sharing model as the reason for their falls. However, this conclusion ignores
the myriad of other underlying and systemic issues plaguing the region’s failed
states, (i.e. corruption, exclusion, and harmful social practices). It is
distressing to see many thought leaders underestimating or even dismissing power
sharing arrangements as valuable and advocating for traditional nation-state
models in countries like Syria, Yemen and Libya that totally disregard the fears
and interests of local populations.
It is true that in both Lebanon and Iraq, the concept of “power sharing” has
been manipulated to serve the interests of a politico-business oligarchy and
that this same system distorted the practice of democracy, impeded the
accountability of public and corporate entities and figures and contributed
significantly to endemic corruption and profuse violence that subvert societies
in both countries. What is not clear though is whether any other political
system would have yielded a different result. The answer to this question comes
from other countries in the MENA (Egypt, Algeria, Syria…) that never embraced
power sharing but continue to struggle nevertheless with political exclusion,
violence, corruption, lack of accountability, inefficiency and social disparity.
This article’s vocation is not to explore the root causes of the common trends
of fragility in the region. However, the problem clearly does not lie in the
nature of the regime itself. Many other countries in the world have used similar
models and did not end up becoming failed states. So far, beyond the anecdotal
realm, there is no solid evidence about the causality between these types of
systems and the region’s disasters.
Concretely, many cite the electoral laws and government formation process in
either Lebanon or Iraq as an incarnation of how the quota system undermines
democratic practices. But in any other country, including the most advanced
democracies, the ruling parties legislate for the elections and the winning
political parties negotiate respective shares in the to-be government. The
problem in this case is not the quota system (also dubbed “mouhassassa”) as much
as the fact that political constituencies in the MENA are mostly shaped by
religious, ethnic or other subsidiary identities. Furthermore, the electoral
behavior of most voters is anchored in their anxiety to protect their identity
and access material services. Until these fears are addressed and people have
easy and equal access to services, any political system, whether power sharing
or not, will be manipulated to serve the pernicious goals of a perverted
political establishment.
In 2014, F. Gregory Gause rightly made the case that the main drivers of the
MENA conflicts are not sectarian. However, most of the actors mentioned in the
report are identity based. Furthermore, a study (2018) about the barriers to
return for ethno-religious minorities in Iraq states that in the case of the
Yazidis, identity based politics is “at the core of intra-communal divisions”
and that the main split among Christians in Iraq is “between political and
religious stakeholders.” Furthermore, the author proves through multiple data
points and examples that the “obstacles preventing the return of ethno-religious
groups to their areas of origins in the liberated areas of Northern Iraq is not
lack of infrastructure or jobs”as it is often insinuated but rather“protection
concerns and general sense of instability.” This same study goes further to
suggest that even the administrative units’ boundaries in Nineveh Plain
(Northern Iraq) should be modeled to address the issue of identities and assuage
concerns about representation of ethno-religious groups in local councils, local
police and other elements of the local government.
Surprisingly enough, a poll of Lebanese youth on politics and sectarianism
(2020) highlights the changes –away from sectarianism — that have occurred among
Lebanese youth. However, several figures in the poll reflect a lack of
understanding – by the respondents — of some essential concepts, vague
definitions and a political dilemma of sorts that is weighing on the political
debate in Lebanon. Of the total sample, 58% of respondents claimed to be
“religious,: While 90% said that religion does not affect their “judgement or
relation to the other,” 31% did say that religion affects their “daily life and
convictions”; and 53% said that religious affiliation somehow affects their
political views.
— Overlapping notions–
On another set of questions about separation between state and religion, some of
the results are also confusing. While 48% said they support such a separation,
83% said they support the establishment of a “civil state” and only 13% support
“secularism.” Knowing the overlap between the three concepts, the answers are
indicative of ambiguous definitions and a lack of political awareness. On the
other hand, the overwhelming majority (87%) who want to abolish the sectarian
quota is not consistent with those who support a non-sectarian parliament (64%).
If the sectarian quota is not abolished in parliament, where else is it relevant
to abolish it?
As per the same poll, another overwhelming majority claim that the sectarian
system failed to protect Lebanon, is behind corruption and lack of
accountability (90%) and causes crisis (81%). But 69% nevertheless believe that
the sectarian system protects the sects (though it discriminates against
minorities), and 25% would still approve of“protecting the sectarian character”
of their region.
In a recent report by the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, three findings
contradict a prevailing assumption that sectarianism is legal and political
rather than social. The report analyses the results of independent secular – aka
non confessional — candidates in the 2018 elections in Lebanon. The report found
that “higher turnouts harmed independent lists’ results.” Given that the
traditional political parties in Lebanon stem from a single specific religious –
or even sectarian — constituency, the fact that independent secular candidates
were not able to successfully compete with the “establishment” candidates in
smaller electoral districts is by itself indicative of how pervasive identity
based politics is in the society.
Despite the growing anger from Lebanon’s mainstream politicians, the waste
management crisis, the 2015 massive demonstrations and other disappointments,
most voters reverted to their identity-based groups rather than voting for
emergent maverick candidates. The report further states that “independent
candidates were more popular among their co-sectarian voters” and that even when
voters had the opportunity to vote for someone from a different sect, 65%
nevertheless chose a co-sectarian candidate. The report concludes that the
independent candidates faced sectarianism on two levels: the state and the
voters, and that the latter factor shaped to a large extent the outcome of the
2018 elections despite an all-time record of independent secular candidates.
These few examples corroborate the premise that the current plight in the region
unfolds a lingering reality about persistent communal fears and collective
identities.By just changing electoral laws or political systems, this problem
will not be fixed. Worse, by “forcing” people — whether through violence as
Saddam Hussein, Bashar Assad, Muammar Gadhafi and others did, or by “moral
pressure” (i.e. making people feel bad about their own identity( – these
collective identities will be pushed to further entrenchment rather than the
much needed hybridisation.
Addressing the above-mentioned fears while changing the paradigms of political
constructs from being identity based to cause based could be achieved through
the fostering of an inclusive national identity and by providing constitutional
guarantees.
Kristina Kausch, a senior resident fellow at the German Marshal Fund, rightly
points out that in “reducing the potential of political instrumentalization of
communal affiliations, the policy challenge is to reinforce the constituent
dimension of identity, build inclusive identity narratives, and use identity
politics not as a disruptor but as glue between communities.” The process of
fostering an inclusive national identity should not lead to asking people to
renounce their other identities. One can be a Kurd or Yazidi or Turkmen or
Christian… and a loyal Iraqi or a loyal Lebanese citizen at the same time. The
two (or more) identities are not- and should not be portrayed as- mutually
exclusive, but rather complementary.
Constitutional guarantees are cursed by many “secularophiles” as
anti-democratic, encouraging discrimination…etc. As much as this theory looks
“convenient” and astounding for some elitist activists and international
analysts, there are many examples in the world (Switzerland, Canada, Belgium,
Romania…) where these kinds of guarantees were used to address communal concerns
but did not go so far as to undermine democratic practices. Therefore, a
reasonable compromise between both requirements is possible. Constitutional and
legal checks and balances can ensure that a power sharing system does not get in
the way of healthy democratic practices and effective functioning of the
administration/access to services.
All in all, and despite what some analysts may assert, the region is in dire
need of a new governance model that lets go of the romanticisation of the
“nation state” and instead leans into accommodating all of the MENA’s vast array
of subnational identities and their coexistence with inclusive national
identities. If the current paradigm does not evolve, the region will continue to
witness destruction, violence, and despair.
**Elie Abouaoun is the director of Middle East and North Africa programmes for
the US Institute of Peace. He is based in Tunis.