English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 05/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
An hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God
John 16/01-04: “‘I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. ‘I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 04-05/2021
Ministry of Health: 233 new infections, 5 deaths
Lebanon asks UN chief to find ways to fund special tribunal on Hariri assassination
Will Lebanese Banks Pay 'Fresh Dollars' to Depositors?
BDL Asks Banks to Pay Monthly Fresh Dollars to Depositors
Banks' Association says ready to discuss circular to be issued by Central Bank with complete positivity
Ministry of Health: Lebanon among France's "green countries" as pandemic recedes
Report: Berri 'Still Has Rabbits in His Hat'
Army chief discusses with UNHCR delegation displaced Syrians' conditions
Expert roundtable on economic security in Lebanon discussed options to prevent further deterioration and ways to revive the economy
Ghosn Grilling in Lebanon by French Investigators 'Fair'
Ex-Nissan chief Ghosn’s lawyers say client happy after days of French probe
Lebanese amputee athlete breaks Guinness World Record
Insect Pest Eats into Lebanon's 'White Gold' Pine Nut Trade
Riachy responds to LBCI: If this is what you deem corruption, I will remake the same choices at the first opportunity possible!

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 04-05/2021
US, Europe avoid resolution against Iran at IAEA board: Diplomats
Iran’s Khamenei says Tehran wants action, not promises, for revival of nuclear deal
In Washington, Gantz already exploring post-Netanyahu Israel-US ties
Netanyahu Foes Push for Quick Vote to End his 12-Year Rule
Jerusalem Evictions that Fueled Gaza War Could Still Happen
Egypt sends building equipment to begin Gaza reconstruction
Iraqi militia urged to reveal whereabouts of hundreds of missing youths
US envoy announces $240 million in new aid to Syria
Mechichi, Castex discuss economic support for Tunisia, migration
Egypt sends building equipment to begin Gaza reconstruction

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 04-05/2021
Question: "What is the purpose of the church?"/GotQuestions.org/June 04/2021
Audio from FDD/America’s Role in Afghanistan: Lessons Learned and What Lies Ahead
Biden Should Aim For a Treaty, Not a Deal, With Iran/Blooberg/Editorial Board/June 04/2021
Why America Should Hope the Regime in Iran Collapses/Cameron Khansarinia and Saeed Ghasseminejad/The National/June 04/2021
State Department Should Deliver an Honest Message about Turkey’s Religious Freedom Record/Aykan Erdemir and Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir/Providence-FDD/June 04/2021
We can't ignore Iranian influence on Hamas - opinion/Tal Braun/Jerusalem Post/June 04/2021
Algerian president stresses ‘strategic partnership’ with Turkey to put pressure on France/Saber Blidi/The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
Iran wants to expand its ruthless model throughout region/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/June 04/2021
Biden and the Ayatollah’s Game Plan/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/June 04/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 04-05/2021
Ministry of Health: 233 new infections, 5 deaths
NNA/04 June ,2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 233 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 54123.
Five deaths have been recorded.

Lebanon asks UN chief to find ways to fund special tribunal on Hariri assassination
Reuters, Beirut/04 June ,2021
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, asked the UN secretary general in a letter on Friday to urgently explore ways of financing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in light of funding difficulties. “The Government of Lebanon would be grateful to Your Excellency for urgently exploring different and alternative means of financing the Tribunal with the Security Council and Member States,” he said in the letter. An exclusive report by Reuters last week revealed that the UN tribunal, set up to prosecute those behind the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri had run out of funding amid Lebanon’s economic and political crisis, threatening plans for future trials. The tribunal, which is 51 percent funded by voluntary contributions and 49 percent by the Lebanese government, could close after July if the funding shortage is not resolved. On Thursday, judges at the tribunal scrapped a new trial against the man convicted of the 2005 Hariri assassination because of the expectations of a shut down. Lebanon is in the throes of a deep financial crisis that is threatening its stability.The crisis, which erupted in late 2019, has wiped out jobs, put more than half of the population under the poverty line and eroded about 90 percent of the value of the currency. “While we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the STL, we firmly believe that these financial difficulties should not hinder the completion of its work to the end,” Diab said.

Will Lebanese Banks Pay 'Fresh Dollars' to Depositors?
Naharnet/June 04/2021
After the Central Bank issued a memo asking Lebanese banks to pay monthly fresh dollar sums to depositors, questions arose on whether the banks will abide by the decision, especially after they reportedly said in a leaked letter that they lack the ability to do so. Quoting informed banking sector sources, the al-Anbaa news portal of the Progressive Socialist Party said “the $400 sum will be divided between $200 paid from the Central Bank’s obligatory reserve and $200 paid from banks’ own money.”The Central Bank will also pay the other $400 that is supposed to be dispensed in Lebanese lira and according to the Sayrafa platform rate, which stands at LBP 12,000 against the dollar at the moment, the sources added. “Some banks have expressed reservations that they cannot secure the $200 in cash, but the Central Bank has insisted on the demand,” the sources revealed. “Accordingly, banks will abide by the circular, and if they don’t abide, they will face measures,” the sources went on to say, also revealing that “banks had sought to pay only $150 before being obliged by the Central Bank to pay $200.”Earlier in the day, the Central Bank issued a memo to banks to monthly pay every depositor $400 in “fresh” cash as well as the equivalent of $400 in Lebanese lira at the Sayrafa platform rate. A leaked letter sent by the Association of Banks in Lebanon to Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh meanwhile said that "banks cannot pay any cash sums in foreign currency no matter how low the sums may be." The letter carries the date of Thursday, June 3 while the Central Bank’s memo was issued on Friday, June 4. "Banks' foreign currency liquidity at the correspondent banks is still negative by more than $1 billion," ABL explained, adding that "any cash withdrawals can only be provided through lowering banks' obligatory reserve at the central bank.”

BDL Asks Banks to Pay Monthly Fresh Dollars to Depositors
Naharnet/June 04/2021
The Banque du Liban (BDL) -- Lebanon’s central bank -- on Friday issued a memo to Lebanese banks to monthly pay every depositor $400 in “fresh” cash as well as the equivalent of $400 in Lebanese lira at the Sayrafa platform rate. The memo says the sums that the banks will pay in the first year will be paid from “their accounts at the correspondent banks abroad, estimated to contain $1.0-1.2 billion.” “The banks will also be able to withdraw the same sums from BDL in return for their obligatory deposits,” the memo adds. It says the move will enlarge the monetary base by $26-27 trillion in a year, effectively paying the full value of the accounts of 800,000 depositors, or around 70% of the total number of depositors. “Banks can use the %3, except for the fresh dollar accounts,” BDL said, adding that it has decided to “lower obligatory foreign currency reserves from 15% to 14%.” It added that the memo will enter into effect as of July 1, 2021, noting that it will serve as “a gateway for addressing the situations of the banks that do not abide by it.” A leaked letter sent by the Association of Banks in Lebanon to Salameh meanwhile said that "banks cannot pay any cash sums in foreign currency no matter how low the sums may be.""Banks' foreign currency liquidity at the correspondent banks is still negative by more than $1 billion," ABL explained, adding that "any cash withdrawals can only be provided through lowering banks' obligatory reserve at the central bank, which in the first place represents a guarantee for depositors and is usually used in crises and emergencies as is the situation in Lebanon at the moment." The Association also urged the Central Bank not to issue "any memo obliging banks to pay cash sums in foreign currency," hoping such a move will only be part of "the capital control draft law that is being debated in parliament."

 Banks' Association says ready to discuss circular to be issued by Central Bank with complete positivity
NNA/June 04/2021 
The Association of Banks in Lebanon issued this Friday the following statement: "In light of the statement issued by the Central Bank today, June 4, 2021, (…) the Association of Banks utters appreciation for the work done by the Central Council of the Central Bank, headed by His Excellency the Governor Riad Salameh, at this very sensitive stage, in order to maintain monetary stability and work to pay the bulk of deposits in foreign currencies to small depositors. The book issued by the Association of Banks and addressed to His Excellency the Governor preceded the Central Bank statement. The Association of Banks thus expresses its full readiness to discuss the aspects of the circular to be issued by the Central Bank in a completely positive manner, for the sake of public interest."

Ministry of Health: Lebanon among France's "green countries" as pandemic recedes
NNA/June 04/2021  
The Ministry of Public Health announced in a statement this Friday that "France has included Lebanon to the list of green countries in its classification based on health indicators, in light of the decline in the rate of epidemic outbreaks in Lebanon, and the non-recording of dangerous mutations of the virus, knowing that the classification list featured on the official website of the French government starts with the least dangerous green countries and progresses upwards towards orange and red.""Accordingly, travelers from Lebanon to Paris benefit from the facilitation provided to those coming from green countries, most notably the European Union, Australia, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, and Singapore," the statement read. "As of the ninth of June, travelers from Lebanon to France are exempted from PCR testing, provided that they have been vaccinated. If not, they could either present a PCR result dating back at least seventy-two hours, or reveal the result of their immunity test," it added.

Report: Berri 'Still Has Rabbits in His Hat'
Naharnet/June 04/2021
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is still betting that he can revive his governmental initiative in cooperation with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, media reports said on Friday. "Berri has not yet used 'all of his rabbits' and he is still keeping the 'last rabbit' in his hat until the right moment comes to pull it out," sources close to Hizbullah and Berri's Amal Movement told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper. "Contacts resumed over the past hours between Bkirki and Ain el-Tineh, between Ain el-Tineh and the Center House, and between Haret Hreik and the Baabda Palace," the sources revealed. "The contacts focused on the need to pacify the situations and not to waste the last chance that Berri's initiative represents in order to reach a format that would be accepted by everyone," the sources added. The sources also revealed that the Speaker has "a certain vision for how to name the two Christian ministers, if this is truly the obstacle that is delaying the formation.” “He also has a proposal for the redistribution of some portfolios in needed, in a manner that would satisfy both the President and the PM-designate,” the sources added.

Army chief discusses with UNHCR delegation displaced Syrians' conditions
NNA/June 04/2021  
Army Commander, Joseph Aoun, on Friday received at his Yarzeh office a delegation from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), headed by Ayaki Ito, with talks reportedly touching on the situation of the displaced Syrians in Lebanon.

 Expert roundtable on economic security in Lebanon discussed options to prevent further deterioration and ways to revive the economy
NNA/June 04/2021
On Wednesday, June 2, 2021, an expert roundtable was held entitled “Economic Security in Lebanon” via Zoom organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the National Human Security Forum. In this panel, the resident representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Lebanon, Dr. Malte Gaier, gave an opening speech, followed by an intervention of the economic affairs advisor Hazar Caracalla as well as retired General Khalil Helou. The session was moderated by Dr. Khalil Jabara, Professor of Political Economy at the American University of Beirut (AUB).
Dr. Jabara opened the dialogue by pointing out the severity of the current, unprecedented crisis’ consequences on human security. Indicators are high levels of poverty and unemployment, and the repercussions on the health and education sectors. Moreover, in the absence of an authority that can deal with the situation, he pointed out the likely rise in crime and violence as a result of the crisis. Jabara mentioned the latest report issued by the World Bank, which confirmed that the GDP fell from 55 billion dollars in 2018 to 33 billion dollars in 2020, and the per capita GDP declined by 40 percent.
The Crisis Worsens
Professor Caracalla spoke about the causes of the crisis, and argued that it was primarily a financial crisis that has now taken different dimensions. It has become a liquidity crisis, an economic crisis, a social, financial and banking crisis, and it bears repercussions on the human capital and the Lebanese people. In addition, the crisis has taken an institutional dimension as institutions are now in danger.
Caracalla believes that the crisis dates back to before the "CEDRE" conference, which was meant to stimulate growth and inject liquidity into the Lebanese economy in parallel with financial, structural and sectoral reforms and measures to combat corruption. However, these reforms have not been implemented.
“We are facing a crisis of a very large size, and the numbers are shocking. In its latest report, the International Monetary Fund expected a large contraction in the GDP figures for the year 2020 by about 25 percent, which translates into a loss of income, job opportunities and sources of livelihood. Unemployment has reached more than 40 percent, more that 50 percent of the Lebanese people are below the poverty line, while the Lebanese pound has lost about 90 percent of its value, purchasing power has collapsed with the decrease of income and pensions and confidence in state institutions has become almost non-existent”, Caracalla states.
Moreover, she brought up the decline in services, the quality of services, ability to obtain them, as there is a major portion of people who she believes will no longer be able to benefit from such education and health services.
Caracalla considers that getting out of the crisis will not be easy and will take time, and that the reform options will be painful. This comes as a result of the reforms not being previously implemented at an earlier stage. There is a need for a comprehensive, undivided solution that addresses the causes of the crisis and establishes recovery and growth in the future. There is also a need to secure internal consensus on the solution through consultations that include all stakeholders. In addition, we cannot move forward without external support within the framework of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund as the implementation of the solution requires strong institutional capacity.
Preventing smuggling and protecting borders
Retired General Helou addressed the needs of the military body and the financial difficulties it is facing as a result of the crisis. Due to the declining value of salaries, the productivity of the military and may be affected by school grants, meals, maintenance of buildings and equipment, and the process of operating machinery.
He pointed out that the army specifically receives aid from abroad in order to sustain and bear the consequences of the economic crisis and the impact it might have on the army’s level of preparedness. Helou announced that there is support for the army expected from the Arab countries in addition to a conference that will be organized by France and the United States of America to support the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army is beneficial for stability which is essential for the economy, and this is a trilogy that must be observed, taken into account and preserved. Helou considered that if a political decision was present, the army would technically be capable of monitoring the borders and preventing smuggling.
The recommendations from the session were summarized by:
1. Mobilizing external funding
2. Develop a rescue, reform and recovery plan based on restoring confidence
3. Building the capabilities of the banking sector which could play a role in revitalizing the economy
4. Addressing the debt problem, restructuring it and restoring the solvency of public finances
5. Implement structural and sectoral reforms, and mitigate the impact of reforms on the social groups that most need it by putting in place measures that enhance social protection by expanding the coverage of social safety nets
6. Providing the political decision for the army that is technically capable of protecting the borders and preventing smuggling
7. The necessity of the presence of barracks in remote areas in order to stimulate the local economy and local development
8. Benefiting in the recovery phase from the capabilities of the Works Regiment and from the military to maintain public places and in some missions in a way that saves on the public treasury
The "National Forum for Human Security" aims to strengthen partnership, exchange and coordination among stakeholders in Lebanon with the aim of quickly responding to disasters and threats to human security. The organizing body is managed by Professor of Political Science and expert in human security affairs, Dr. Imad Salamey, and coordinated by Professor of International Relations and expert in civil-military cooperation affairs Dr. Maria Njeim.
The forum organizes a series of seminars hosting experts in human and economic security.

Ghosn Grilling in Lebanon by French Investigators 'Fair'
Naharnet/June 04/2021
A week-long grilling of former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn in Lebanon by French investigators was the first "fair" treatment he received since his arrest in Japan, his lawyers said Friday. "We consider that the whole process that happened here was fair," Jean Tamalet, one of Ghosn's lawyers, said at the end of a five-day-long interrogation process at Lebanon's Court of Cassation. Ghosn, 67, faced scrutiny from French investigators centering on alleged improper financial interactions with Renault-Nissan's distributor in Oman, payments by a Dutch subsidiary to consultants and lavish parties organized at the Versailles Palace. He was heard as a witness and would need to be in France to be formally indicted and gain access to the details of the charges he faces. Ghosn, who was arrested in Japan in 2018 on suspicion of financial misconduct, gave the French investigators "long and detailed answers to hundreds of questions," Tamalet said. Previously Ghosn "was never given the opportunity to answer these kind of questions in front of judges," he said without giving further details. Ghosn has long maintained that he would not have been given a fair trial in Japan. The hearing in Beirut was an opportunity for Ghosn "to explain his position," said another one of his lawyers, Jean-Yves Le Borgne. "It is now done and he is satisfied and happy." The defense team is now hoping for a change in Ghosn's witness status so that he can request witness interviews and trial cancelations, Tamalet said. Following his arrest in Japan, Ghosn -- who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian passports -- was released on bail with a ban on leaving the country. But he fled, smuggling himself out of Japan purportedly hidden in an audio equipment case in late 2019. He faces potential charges in France but fears that leaving Lebanon could land him back in Japan, despite the fact that France does not extradite its citizens. Tamalet said the part of the case against Ghosn has been "tainted by the mistakes made voluntarily by Japanese authorities."Wanted by Interpol, Ghosn is effectively trapped in Lebanon, even as others face court in Japan over their alleged links to the case.
Japan has urged him to return and face trial, while Lebanon has asked Japan to hand over his file on financial misconduct charges.

Ex-Nissan chief Ghosn’s lawyers say client happy after days of French probe
The Associated Press, Beirut/04 June ,2021
Ex-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has answered hundreds of questions by French investigators over the past week in Beirut and was “happy and satisfied” to have had the opportunity to explain himself over accusations of financial misconduct, his lawyers said on Friday. The four and a half days of questioning marked the first opportunity for Ghosn, a French national, to defend himself against the French allegations — including spending on lavish parties and private planes — since his 2018 bombshell arrest in Japan and escape to Lebanon a year later. However, as Ghosn was being interrogated outside of French soil, it was unclear how he could, if at all, be handed down preliminary charges. His lawyers said they will now seek the right to ask for witnesses and expert testimony in the French investigation. Earlier, the auto magnate-turned-fugitive told The Associated Press that he has done nothing wrong and hopes the investigations are eventually dropped. He didn't speak to reporters throughout the Beirut interrogation, which began on Monday. It is an unusual move for French magistrates to question a suspect abroad. Ghosn, who was given sanctuary by Lebanese authorities, grew up in Lebanon and also has Lebanese citizenship. Lebanon will not extradite him. He is Brazilian-born. Ghosn was questioned about the financing of parties he threw at the Versailles Palace as the head of the Renault-Nissan car alliance. The French investigators, in cooperation with Lebanese judicial authorities, were also examining 11 million euros in spending on private planes and events arranged by a Dutch holding company, and subsidies to a car dealership in Oman. “It was his opportunity to explain his positions,” said Jean Yves Le Borgne, a member of Ghosn’ defense team. “It has now happened and he is satisfied and happy.”
“Still unresolved, of course, is the problem of the next step in this procedure,” Le Borgne added. Ghosn has not so far been charged with anything in France, but could be, given preliminary accusations of fraud, corruption, money laundering, misuse of company assets, or aggravated breach of trust. Whether Ghosn could be charged or not by the French, Carlos Abou Jaoude, his Beirut-based lawyer, said Lebanese and French authorities have to determine what Ghosn’s “status” will be. Ghosn is campaigning to clear his name against multiple legal challenges in France after Japanese accusations triggered scrutiny of his activities there. He told the AP he had much more confidence in the French legal system than the Japanese system he had fled. He was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on accusations of financial misconduct and was kept in solitary confinement for months without being allowed to speak with his wife. He fled to Lebanon a year later in a dramatic escape that stunned the world. Meanwhile, several associates are in jail or on trial in Japan and Turkey, in cases related to his financial activities or escape.

Lebanese amputee athlete breaks Guinness World Record
Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English/04 June ,2021
Darine Barbar, an amputee athlete from Lebanon, has just made history by breaking a Guinness World Record title 28 years after losing her leg as a teenager to bone cancer. Barbar smashed the record for the Longest Samson’s chair/static wall sit (female) achieving a total of two minutes, and 8.24 seconds.
Darine has an above knee left leg amputation and lost her leg at the age of 15 to bone cancer. She had another accident in 2013 when she broke her left hip where her amputation is and had to have two screws in the hip. The record broken on Friday marks the launch of the Guinness World Records Impairment Records Initiative, which sees the introduction of an initial twenty-three classification categories for physical, intellectual and visual impairments. The classifications, created with the support of external experts, will be applicable across all sports, strength and ‘journey’ records. The result is the chance to create potentially hundreds of new record titles which can be attempted by people with impairments around the world, allowing amateur athletes, fitness fanatics and keen-sports people to achieve GWR titles for records-busting achievements. After setting the world record, Darine said: “I lost my left leg in June 1993 at the age of 15 due to bone cancer, and today, in the same month after 28 years, I am back to win the battle.”“My story has inspired many throughout the years, and today I make history hoping to inspire millions around the world. I thank Guinness World Records™ for considering the new classifications for people with determination, and I am proud to be part of a campaign that will change the lives of millions across the globe.”Director of Records at Guinness World Records Adam Brown said the Impairment Records Initiative will make GWR “instantly more relevant and accessible to millions of people around the world.”“The project has been a number of years in the making, so to see it go live with the announcement of three fantastic new record-holders is incredibly humbling,” he added. “We really hope that in launching this project and crowning new record holders, we will encourage many more people with physical, intellectual or visual impairments to get in touch and attempt a Guinness World Records title in the future.”

Insect Pest Eats into Lebanon's 'White Gold' Pine Nut Trade
Agence France Presse/June 04/2021
The scenic region of Mount Lebanon has long produced pine seed, a regional delicacy, but harvests have collapsed amid an exotic insect infestation experts say is accelerated by climate change. Lebanon, wedged between the mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, is best known for the iconic cedar tree depicted on its national flag -- but it also has pine trees that make up nearly 10 percent of total forest cover. Pine nuts harvested from their cones -- a popular ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine -- have been dubbed "white gold" because of their traditionally lucrative sales, especially to wealthy Gulf states. But the natural treasure trove is now under attack. The culprit is the western conifer seed bug, native to the western United States where it is sometimes called the "stink bug", and which has spread to Eurasia, most likely by hitchhiking on timber shipments. In the Qsaybeh pine forest east of Beirut, Elias Neaimeh, head of the syndicate of pine seed farmers, pointed to the damage it has caused: the dry, dead trunk of one pine tree, and cones scattered on the forest floor. In a normal year in the past, Neaimeh said, "I used to produce around 16 tons of pine cones, but today I barely harvest 100 kilograms". He used to make more than $40,000 a year from selling around 600 kilograms of white pine nuts a year, but now his income has dried up, at a time when Lebanon's deep economic crisis has plunged millions into poverty.
Heat stress
In Lebanon, farmers started noticing a decline in output in 2012, but it took them three more years to detect the cause. Entomology expert Nabil Nemer identified the insect as the western conifer seed bug, or WCSB, which pierces cones to suck out sap and developing seeds. The insect reached Turkey from Europe in 2010 before arriving in Lebanon, where it has since spread across most conifer forests. "It is very harmful," Nemer told AFP of the pest that attacks pines, cedars and cypresses. "We noticed that sometimes up to 10 insects feed on a single cone," said Nemer, a professor at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. "When they infest small developing cones, the cones wither completely and fall to the ground."Nemer said climate change is creating a favorable environment for the insects. "Higher temperatures and less precipitation extends the life cycle of insects and also weakens trees," he said. The bugs' infestation is compounded by the absence of its natural predators native to the United States, he said. Many farmers have turned to pesticides, but Nemer warned that chemicals "could cause problems for exports and food safety."Back in Qsaybeh, Neaimeh said that pesticides had allowed for a temporary and modest recovery in 2016 and 2017. "There was a 30 percent decrease in the number of infested cones," he said, bringing some relief from an infestation rate of 85-90 percent. But in the absence of a centralized pest control policy, many forests remain neglected, further devastating output. "Today we produce no more than 200 tons of pine nuts annually across all of Lebanon," down from 1,200 tons before 2015, Neaimeh said. This, in turn, has caused prices to skyrocket, with one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of pine nuts now selling for more than one million Lebanese pounds ($650) -- almost twice the monthly minimum wage.
- 'White gold' -
The village of Bkassine southeast of Beirut is home to the biggest stand of pine trees in the region, with 100,000 trees covering around 220 hectares. But these lush woodlands too are under threat -- from a double infestation. Aside from the WCSB, another insect, the pine shoot beetle, which feeds and breeds beneath the tree bark, has added to the damage, said Nemer. Bkassine mayor Habib Fares said that back in 2013, the year of the last big harvest, the municipality earned 500 million Lebanese pounds (more than $300,000) from pine seeds. Since then output has plunged 70 percent, he said, adding that "the municipality does not have the means to deal with the crisis.""Every year, we try to spray pesticides over a specific segment of the forest," he said, adding that such limited operations do not prevent the return of the pests. Combating such pests is always difficult, but Lebanon's worst economic crisis in decades has made the problem a secondary concern for authorities. Support from the agriculture ministry has declined over the past two years, say farmers. But a solution cannot wait, and would indeed help the economic recovery, argued Nemer, saying that "the local community can benefit.""But they may abandon their forests if the situation continues as it is. Pine nuts in Lebanon are known as white gold. We must find a solution."

Riachy responds to LBCI: If this is what you deem corruption, I will remake the same choices at the first opportunity possible!
NNA/June 04/2021
Former Information Minister, Melhem Riachy, on Friday responded in a series of tweets to a report that was recently published against him by the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation LBCI. “Tamer Dweik, who hails from the town of Jarjouaa, is one of the most loyal employees I’ve worked with. He was never my advisor, as the one who made this stupid report claimed in the tenth rerun of his failed, corrupt, and prepaid series. Moreover, the agreement with ‘Sama’ was strictly between two companies, and the Ministry of Information had nothing to do with it.”
He added, “The Lebanese have watched the World Cup for free via Tele Liban, and concerned companies have covered the costs, just as is the case with other festivals or basketball games, because it’s the most important sports festival in the world!”
“Not a single citizen or resident has had to pay a single penny; unlike the abhorrent year of piracy back in 2014, Tele Liban Lebanon was a source of pride for all the people across the country’s 10,452 km2. If this is what you deem corruption, I want to remake the same corruption choices at the first opportunity possible,” Riachy’s tweet concluded.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 04-05/2021
US, Europe avoid resolution against Iran at IAEA board: Diplomats
Reuters/04 June ,2021
Britain, France, Germany and the United States will not push for a resolution against Iran at next week’s meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog’s board despite Tehran’s failure to explain uranium traces found at three sites, diplomats said on Friday.A resolution could have prompted an escalation between Tehran and the West that would have jeopardized talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal taking place in Vienna, where the atomic watchdog is also based. At the last quarterly meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors, the three European powers, with US backing, prepared a draft resolution criticizing Iran but did not formally submit it as IAEA chief Rafael Grossi announced new talks. Those talks - aimed at breathing new life into efforts to get Iran to explain the origin of the traces, which are believed to be linked to activities long predating the deal - failed to produce new explanations, the IAEA reported on Monday. That raised the question of whether the resolution would be revived. “The May 31 report can’t be ignored just because the JCPOA talks are ongoing, but a resolution is not likely now,” one diplomat said, referring to the 2015 deal by its official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Five other diplomats said there would not be a resolution but simply statements by countries on the board. “There need to be strong statements,” said one diplomat from a country that backed a resolution at the last board meeting. “They (Iran) have obligations and they need to fulfill them.” It remains unclear whether a resolution would have had the necessary support to be adopted by the board, the IAEA’s main decision-making body that meets more than once a year. Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on both countries returning to full compliance with the deal will resume next week, with an election on June 18 likely to usher in a more hard-line Iranian president. “No progress has been made in the dialogue between Iran and the agency with respect to providing substantiated answers to the IAEA’s questions,” a French foreign ministry spokeswoman said, expressing “great concern” at the IAEA’s report on Monday. “We strongly urge Iran to provide such answers as swiftly as possible,” she added.

Iran’s Khamenei says Tehran wants action, not promises, for revival of nuclear deal
Reuters/04 June ,2021
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Tehran wanted action and not promises from six world powers for the revival of their 2015 nuclear deal. “I have told our negotiators that actions, not promises (by the six powers), are needed for the restoration of the nuclear deal,” Khamenei said in a televised speech. Tehran and global powers have been in talks since early April aimed at bringing back Washington and Tehran into full compliance with the deal that former US President Donald Trump exited in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. In reaction to the sanctions, Tehran has been rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, enriching it to higher levels of fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up production. While the European Union envoy coordinating the talks on said on Wednesday he believed a deal would be struck at the next round starting next week, other senior diplomats have said the most difficult decisions lie ahead.

In Washington, Gantz already exploring post-Netanyahu Israel-US ties
The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
WASHINGTON--Israel’s visiting defence minister said Thursday that Israel will stay engaged on the terms as the US tries to return to a nuclear deal with Iran, sidestepping what has long been an area of open disagreement between the United States and the now-jeopardised government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Benny Gantz told reporters before a meeting Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin that Iran’s nuclear programme and other actions were an “existential threat” to Israel. “Stopping Iran is certainly a shared strategic need of the United States,” Israel and other countries, Gantz said. But on a visit that came as an opposition coalition back home tries to end Netanyahu’s 12 years in power, Gantz, unlike Netanyahu, stopped short of openly opposing the Biden administration’s efforts to get the United States back into a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, in exchange for relief from sanctions.
Sitting across a table from his US counterpart at the Pentagon, Gantz said, “Our dialogue is so important to ensuring that any deal effectively meets its goal of keeping Iran away from nuclear weapons.”“Of course, given the scope of the threat, Israel must always make sure that it has the ability to protect itself,” Gantz added. The Israeli official made clear the change in tone was purposeful. “We will continue this important strategic dialogue in private discussion … only, not in the media in a provoking way,” he said, calling for “open dialogue behind closed doors.” It echoed Biden’s own embrace of what the administration has called quiet diplomacy when dealing with Israel. Netanyahu’s six-year fight to torpedo the Iran nuclear agreement, struck during the Obama administration in 2015, but rejected by President Donald Trump after his election, included Netanyahu denouncing it to a 2015 joint session of the US Congress as a “very bad deal.”Netanyahu has continued that open opposition in recent days, saying a deal “paves the way for Iran to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons with international legitimacy” and that the fight against that was worth any “friction with our great friend the United States.”
Biden has pressed for a return to the nuclear deal as the best way to keep Iran from building up what it says is a civilian nuclear programme and to calm a flashpoint in the Middle East. European negotiators expressed some optimism this week as they closed the latest round of talks in Vienna on getting the US and Iran back in the deal. Gantz also met National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Gantz is part of the coalition pushing to unseat Netanyahu and he is expected to remain in his post as defence minister if the government changes. His meetings Thursday underscored US security commitments to Israel as that country weathers its greatest domestic political upheaval in years and the aftermath of last month’s war with Hamas militants in Gaza. Gantz said he would lay out for administration officials a “complete plan” for a diplomatic end to hostilities with the Palestinians. He gave no details. A key aim of Gantz’s visit to Washington was believed to be securing US funding to help restock Israel’s Iron Dome, a sophisticated missile defense system that smacked down many of the rockets Hamas militants fired toward Israel last month. More than 260 people were killed, the vast majority Palestinians, in an 11-day war in which Israel struck targets in Hamas-ruled Gaza with hundreds of airstrikes while Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israel. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, touring Israel this week in a show of support after the latest Gaza war, said he expected Israelis to seek up to $1 billion from the US for Iron Dome, including for restocking the system’s interception missiles. US officials made no immediate announcements on funding. Austin noted Biden “has expressed his full support for replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which saved so many lives.”“We are committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge and ensuring that Israel can defend itself,” Austin added. The US partnership in Israel’s Iron Dome has wide bipartisan support in Congress, as does overall US support for Israel’s defence, a tenet of US foreign policy for decades. Last month’s war, however, the fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting since 2014, has exposed a rift in Biden’s Democratic Party. Progressives and some others demanded a cease-fire by Israel as well as Hamas as Palestinian deaths grew in the crowded Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu Foes Push for Quick Vote to End his 12-Year Rule
Associated Press/June 04/2021
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's opponents are pushing for a quick parliament vote to formally end his lengthy rule, hoping to head off any last-minute attempts to derail their newly announced coalition government. The latest political maneuvering began just hours after opposition leader Yair Lapid and his main coalition partner, Naftali Bennett, declared they had reached a deal to form a new government and muster a majority in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament. The coalition consists of eight parties from across the political spectrum with little in common except the shared goal of toppling Netanyahu after his record-setting 12 years in power. The alliance includes hard-liners previously allied with Netanyahu, as well as center-left parties and even an Arab faction — a first in Israeli politics. But the fragile coalition still faces a tough road ahead — it was not able to unseat the parliament speaker, a Netanyahu ally, later on Thursday and it remained unclear how events would play out over the next few days. Netanyahu lashed out at his foes on Thursday, signaling that he will continue to exert pressure on former allies who joined the coalition. "All members of Knesset who were elected with right-wing votes need to oppose this dangerous leftist government," he wrote on Twitter. Bennett, who is slated to become prime minister, has come under heavy pressure from Israeli hard-liners who accuse him of betrayal. He heads Yamina, a small right-wing party that appeals to religious, nationalist voters. But he has also said that all members of the emerging coalition will have to be flexible and pragmatic. In a televised interview, Bennett said he would never agree to freeze construction in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which is seen by the Palestinians and much of the international community as a major obstacle to peace.
"There will be no freezes," he said, acknowledging the international community will push for one. "Look, there will be pressures. We will have to manage," he told Channel 12 TV. "My attitude on this topic is to minimize the conflict. We will not solve it," he said, adding that it was more realistic to improve business ties and the quality of life for Palestinians. Israel's political drama has riveted Israelis at a time when tumult has not been in short supply: four inconclusive elections in two years followed by an 11-day war in the Gaza Strip last month that was accompanied by mob violence between Jews and Arabs in cities across the country. The country also is emerging from the coronavirus crisis that caused deep economic damage and exposed tensions between the secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox minority. Yet the political debate has focused squarely on Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges — and whether he should stay or go."We never had a coalition like this," said Hillel Bar Sadeh at a coffee shop in Jerusalem. "We like to have a new spirit, we like to have some unity." The owner of the coffee shop, Yosi Zarifi, said he trusts that Netanyahu will return to power — and distrusts the coalition. "Everybody is clear that this trick will not last, there won't be any glue (to keep it together) here," he said.
The anti-Netanyahu bloc announced the coalition deal just before a deadline at midnight Wednesday. The agreement triggered a complex process that is likely to stretch over the next week. The coalition has a razor-thin majority of 61 votes in parliament. On Thursday, it attempted to replace parliament speaker Yariv Levin, in order to speed up the vote on the new government. But the effort failed after Nir Orbach, a lawmaker from Yamina, refused to sign on, underscoring the fragility of the alliance.
Levin can now use his position to delay the vote and give Netanyahu more time to sabotage the coalition. As the coalition was coming together in recent days, Netanyahu and his supporters ramped up a pressure campaign against former hawkish allies, including Bennett and his No. 2 in the Yamina party, Ayelet Shaked. Netanyahu accused them of betraying their values. His supporters launched vicious social media campaigns and staged noisy protests outside Shaked's home. The prime minister's Likud party also called for a demonstration Thursday night outside the home of Orbach, urging him to quit the coalition. That's a taste of the pressure to be expected for lawmakers on the right. "There will be a lot of pressure, especially on right-wingers, especially for religious right-wingers," said Gideon Rahat, a political science professor at Hebrew University. "They will go to the synagogue and people will pressure them. It will be a nightmare for some of them." Under the coalition agreement, Lapid and Bennett will split the job of prime minister in a rotation. Bennett, a former ally of Netanyahu, is to serve the first two years, while Lapid is to serve the final two years — though it is far from certain their fragile coalition will last that long. The historic deal also includes a small Islamist party, the United Arab List, which would make it the first Arab party ever to be part of a governing coalition.

Jerusalem Evictions that Fueled Gaza War Could Still Happen
Associated Press/June 04/2021
A long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families in east Jerusalem is still underway, even after it fueled weeks of unrest and helped ignite an 11-day Gaza war. An intervention by Israel's attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed. The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The settlers are using a 1970 law that allows Jews to reclaim properties lost during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, a right denied to Palestinians who lost property in the same conflict, including Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The Israeli rights group Ir Amim, which closely follows the various court cases, estimates that at least 150 households in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan have been served with eviction notices and are at various stages in a long legal process.
The plight of four extended families comprising six households in Sheikh Jarrah, who were at risk of imminent eviction, triggered protests that eventually merged with demonstrations over the policing of a flashpoint holy site. After warning Israel to halt the evictions and withdraw from the site, Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem on May 10, triggering heavy fighting between Israel and the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza. As tensions rose, Israel's Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit secured the postponement of the final hearing in the case of the four families. Another group of families requested that the attorney general also intervene in their cases, securing a delay. Israelis are currently trying to form a new government, adding more uncertainty to the process. That has bought time for the families, but nothing has been resolved.
"Everything is very much hanging in the balance," said Amy Cohen, a spokeswoman for Ir Amim. Rights advocates fear Israel will proceed with the evictions once the furor dies down and international attention turns elsewhere.
"We're talking about over 1,000 Palestinians in both these two areas that are at risk of mass displacement," Cohen said. "Because these measures are taking place in such an incremental manner, it's so much easier to dismiss." The families in Sheikh Jarrah are stuck in limbo. A total of at least 65 families in two areas of the neighborhood are threatened with eviction, according to Ir Amim, including a group of families set to be evicted in August. Banners hang in the street in Sheikh Jarrah, and small, occasional protests are still held there. Police man checkpoints at either end of the road and keep watch as Jewish settlers — who seized one of the homes in 2009 — come and go.
The settlers say they acquired the land from Jews who owned it before the 1948 war, when Jordan captured what is now east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Jordan settled several Palestinian families on the land in the early 1950s after they fled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war. Settlers began trying to evict them shortly after Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
For Palestinians, the evictions conjure bitter memories of what they refer to as the Nakba, or "catastrophe," of Israel's creation, when some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the population — fled or were driven from their homes as the new state battled five Arab armies. Most ended up in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring countries. "This isn't just about Sheikh Jarrah, it's about the entire Israeli occupation, that's the problem. They aren't going to stop here," says Saleh al-Diab, who was born, grew up, married and raised his own children in one of the homes under threat in Sheikh Jarrah. "You lose your home to them in 1948 and then they come back after 1967 and take your home again," he said.
Yaakov Fauci, a settler from Long Island, New York, who gained internet fame after a widely circulated video showed a Palestinian resident scolding him for stealing her home, says the Palestinians are squatting on private property. "They've lived here since 1956. This is not exactly ancestral land going back to the times of Abraham," he said. Fauci says he is a tenant and has no personal involvement in the legal dispute, but he insists the land belongs to the Jewish people. "We don't want to cause them any pain and suffering, but we need to have our land back," he said. "If there are people there, they have to unfortunately get out." Ir Amim estimates that settler organizations have already evicted 10 families in Sheikh Jarrah and at least 74 families in Silwan, a few kilometers (miles) away, in the last few decades.
The Israeli government and a settler organization that markets properties in Sheikh Jarrah did not respond to requests for comment. Israel has previously said the evictions are a private real estate dispute and accused Hamas of seizing on the issue to incite violence.
The settler movement enjoys strong support from the Israeli government and the right-wing parties that dominate Israeli politics. The settlers have benefitted from Israeli policies going back to 1967 that have encouraged the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem while severely restricting the growth of Palestinian communities. Today, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers live in both territories, mostly in built-up residential towns and neighborhoods. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as a violation of international law and a major obstacle to peace. Ir Amim says Israeli authorities could intervene in any number of ways to prevent the Jerusalem evictions, including by modifying the law that allows settlers to take over such properties. Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, has demanded that Israel rein in the settlers as part of the informal truce brokered by Egypt that ended the Gaza war. Egyptian mediators are exploring ways to prevent the evictions, and previous cease-fires have included significant concessions to Hamas. A war that destroyed hundreds of homes in Gaza may have ensured that residents of Sheikh Jarrah can remain in theirs, at least for now.

Egypt sends building equipment to begin Gaza reconstruction
The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
Footage aired on state television showed dozens of bulldozers, cranes and trucks waving Egyptian flags lined up along the border to begin crossing into the Gaza Strip.
CAIRO/GAZA--Egypt has sent a convoy of engineers and building equipment to Gaza following orders from President Abdelfattah al-Sisi to begin reconstruction in the enclave after recent Israeli-Palestinian fighting, Egyptian state television reported on Friday. Aired footage showed dozens of bulldozers, cranes and trucks waving Egyptian flags lined up along the border to begin crossing into the Gaza Strip. Palestinians lined the street on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing to welcome the convoy as it rumbled into the small coastal enclave. A Palestinian border official said 50 vehicles had crossed. Eleven days of conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist rulers of Gaza, erupted on May 10. More than 250 Palestinians were killed in hundreds of Israeli air strikes in Gaza. More than 4,000 rockets, many intercepted, fired by Gaza militants killed 13 people in Israel. Egypt played a major role in brokering a ceasefire between both sides and has said it would allocate $500 million to fund the rebuilding of devastated areas in Gaza. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem on Friday reiterated the group’s appreciation of Egyptian contributions to the rebuilding efforts. Gaza’s housing ministry said 1,500 housing units were destroyed during the fighting, another 1,500 units had been damaged beyond repair and 17,000 suffered partial damage. A ministry official put the cost of rebuilding at $150 million.

Iraqi militia urged to reveal whereabouts of hundreds of missing youths
The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
BAGHDAD – Amnesty International on Thursday urged Iraq to reveal the whereabouts of 643 Sunni Muslim boys and men abducted five years ago by Shia paramilitaries. The men and teenagers disappeared during an operation by the Hashed al-Shaabi in June 2016 to retake Fallujah in the western desert from the ISIS, which then held the country’s Sunni provinces. The Hashed have since been integrated into Iraq’s state security forces. Witnesses cited by Amnesty International said that on June 3 gunmen wearing Hashed al-Chaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) uniforms “took an estimated 1,300 men and boys considered to be of fighting age away from their families.” “At sunset, at least 643 men and boys were boarded onto buses and a large truck. Their fate remains unknown” while the rest had since alleged they were tortured, the human rights watchdog said in a statement. On June 5, Iraq’s then prime minister Haider al-Abadi set up a committee to investigate disappearances and abuses during military operations to retake Fallujah. “The committee’s findings have never been made public,” Amnesty said. “For five years, the families of these men and boys have been living in anguish, not knowing the fate of their loved ones or whether they are even alive,” said the London-based rights watchdog. “The families deserve to know what happened to their loved ones. They deserve an end to their suffering.” The Hashed denies having abducted or arbitrarily arrested people, but its commanders oftenassert they have jails packed with jihadists, without proving the prisoners really belong to ISIS. Sunnis regularly claim to be discriminated against in post-ISIS Iraq, where thousands of them have been arrested and often sentenced to prison or death for belonging to ISIS, rightly or wrongly. Today, the Iraqi government is under fire for closing camps for those displaced in the fight against the Islamic State group. “The government has closed 16 camps over the last seven months, leaving at least 34,801 displaced people without assurances that they can return home safely, get other safe shelter or have access to affordable services,” said Human Rights Watch.
The displaced people forced to leave their tent cities have often had their homes destroyed or are considered “terrorists” by the authorities and their communities, accusations “without any evidence,” HRW said in a statement.

US envoy announces $240 million in new aid to Syria
The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
A senior UN aid official said on Thursday millions of people in northwest Syria face disaster if the United Nations fails to approve an extension of cross-border humanitarian operations next month.
DAMASCUS--The US Ambassador to the United Nations announced on Thursday nearly $240 million in humanitarian funding to support the people of Syria, Syrian refugees and countries hosting them, and called for access through international crossings to allow the delivery of aid. Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the announcement during a visit to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Turkey and Syria — the sole remaining point of access for humanitarian aid to enter the conflict-ravaged country. The ambassador is in Turkey on a four-day visit seeking to ensure that humanitarian aid can be delivered to Syria across borders — a programme which Russia, Syria’s closest ally, has severely limited in recent years, insisting that the Syrian government should control all assistance to millions in need. The international crossing points were reduced to a single border crossing from Turkey to Syria’s rebel-held northwest at Russia’s insistence.
Millions in need
“I’m proud to announce the United States is providing nearly $240 million in additional humanitarian funding for the people of Syria and for the communities that host them,” Thomas-Greenfield said, according to a statement from her office. “Right now, more than 13 million Syrian people are in dire need of assistance. That’s the population of Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington D.C. combined.”“Four in five people in northwest Syria need humanitarian assistance. For millions of civilians in Idlib, this is their lifeline. Over the last year and a half, some members of the Security Council succeeded in shamefully closing two other crossings into Syria… Bab al-Hawa is literally all that’s left,” she added. A senior UN aid official said on Thursday millions of people in northwest Syria face disaster if the United Nations fails to approve an extension of cross-border humanitarian operations next month.
Some 3 million people, many of them displaced by fighting elsewhere in Syria during the decade-long conflict, have sought shelter near the border with Turkey, outside the control of President Bashar al-Assad’s government. “It’s going to be a disaster if the Security Council resolution is not extended. We know that people are really going to suffer,” said Mark Cutts, UN deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis. “Our expectation from the council is that they put the needs of the civilians first,” Cutts said at an aid supply centre in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. “In northwest Syria you have some of the most vulnerable people anywhere in the world.”
Restricted access
Currently around 1,000 UN trucks a month enter Syria at the single crossing point of Bab al-Hawa to deliver food, medical supplies and humanitarian aid, trying to meet the needs of four out of five people in northwest Syria. The United States is seeking the reauthorisation of UN access at Bab al-Hawa and the reopening of other border crossings before the current UN Security Council mandate for humanitarian aid deliveries expires on July 10. There is strong support in the 15-member council for maintaining and even adding border crossings, but Russia holds the key. “This isn’t a complicated issue. We want the UN to bring food to starving children and protection to homeless families. We want the UN to be able to deliver vaccines in the middle of a global pandemic. We want the suffering to stop,” Thomas-Greenfield said. She said she was also willing to work with Russia to find ways for aid to be delivered “cross-line” from Syrian government-controlled areas. Russia, which supports Assad, has accused his Western opponents of ignoring the role that could be played by supplies brought cross-line from Damascus. “We have spent more than one year negotiating on both sides to have both cross-line and cross-border aid,” Cutts told the US envoy in a briefing near the border. “Despite all our efforts, we have not managed to get a single truck cross-line. This is not for a lack of trying from the UN side, but rather because it is a war zone.”
In addition to the difficulties over restricted access, the aid operation was starved of cash, he said. “What we really need is to scale up funding. We need more access, not less. Take that back with you to the United Nations Security Council,â€‌ Cutts told Thomas-Greenfield.
Tensions with Turkey
Thomas-Greenfield met Wednesday with Ibrahim Kalin, a top aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey hosts some 4 million refugees. The talks come ahead of US President Joe Biden’s first meeting with Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14. Ties between Ankara and Washington, which once considered each other as strategic partners, steadily deteriorated in recent years over differences on Syria, Turkey’s cooperation with Russia and Turkish naval interventions in the eastern Mediterranean, which US officials have described as destabilising. The US Agency for International Development, or USAID, said the new US funding announced by Thomas-Greenfield, would support aid agencies providing assistance, “including food for displaced families in Syria and the region” and support bakeries in Syria. It would also provide psychosocial support and other services for children, rehabilitate water and sanitation systems and provide cash or vouchers to help Syrians meet basic needs. USAID said the United States was the world’s largest donor to the Syria crisis, and has provided more than $13 billion since the start of the conflict.

Mechichi, Castex discuss economic support for Tunisia, migration
The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
TUNIS--French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Thursday pledged to help Tunisia forge ahead with reforms, as the small Arab country grapples with a deep economic crisis compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysts are reserved about the ability of France to help Tunisia out of its current rut, considering the North African country’s internal political tensions. Castex said Paris was ready to help Tunisia, a former French colony he described as a “friend”, carry out economic and social reforms that could improve conditions, with unemployment rates standing at 18 percent.
“These reforms are important for Tunisia, for the Tunisian people and for the French-Tunisian partnership,” Castex said after talks with his Tunisian counterpart Hichem Mechichi. Castex also discussed the return of radicalised Tunisians and those illegally in France. In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, Mechichi said that Tunisia is willing to cooperate with Paris on the repatriation of Tunisians “who have no reason to be in France”. He noted that signed agreements “are working”. Last year, Paris gave Tunis a list of some 20 Tunisians it wanted to expel, because they had been convicted on terrorism charges or were suspected of jihadist links. Castex also held talks on how to stem the flow of illegal sea crossings, with Tunisia acting as a key launch pad for many of those risking the dangerous journey from North Africa to Europe. Tunisia believes the issue of illegal migration cannot be resolved without addressing the socio-economic roots of the problem, principally unemployment and the lack of economic opportunity. Stemming the illegal migration outflow with the current approach is not realistically achievable, stressed the Tunisian prime minister. “Blocking migrants on Tunisian or North African coast is insuffciant and impossible,” he told Le Figaro, insisting “A solidarity-based model of development” is needed. A decade since its 2011 uprising, Tunisia still faces deep political and economic crises.
In exchange for implementing reforms, the country is hoping to secure a three-year loan from the International Monetary Fund, which expects to see GDP growth of 3.8 percent this year, after an unprecedented 8.9 percent contraction in 2020. France last year pledged to lend Tunis €350 million, with €100 million handed over so far. Tunisia is also discussing the recycling of its French debt of €831 million. Tunisian analysts said the promised aid is not sufficient in itself to solve Tunisia’s budget deficit nor impel its long-term reform. More important, they say, is France’s backing for Tunisia’s drive to receive the help of the European Union and that of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which requires a better coordinated stance between Tunisia’s feuding politicians. President Kais Saied is currently in Brussels meeting with EU institutions. Paris has sent three oxygen concentrators, 18 ventilators and more than 200,000 face masks to help Tunisia’s health authorities cope with a spike in COVID-19 cases. A delay in the acquisition of vaccines by the country’s government has compounded Tunisia’s public health crisis and overwhelmed hospitals. Tunisia, a country of almost 12 million, has officially recorded more than 348,000 coronavirus cases and 12,793 deaths.Slightly more than one million people have received at least one vaccine dose and more than 300,000 two doses. This puts the inoculation drive much below the million two-dose vaccination benchmark previously announced by health authorities for the end of June. Last month Mechichi said the country was going through “the worst health crisis in its history” and that health facilities were at risk of collapse.

Egypt sends building equipment to begin Gaza reconstruction
Najia Houssari/Arab News/June 04/2021
BEIRUT: Lebanon officially announced on Friday its inability to pay its share for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) which was inaugurated in 2009 to prosecute those involved in the assassination of former premier Rafic Hariri and related cases. On Friday, caretaker PM Hassan Diab sent a letter to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, in which he announced Lebanon’s default on payments “due to the country’s deep economic crisis”.Diab called on Guterres to “urgently explore different and alternative means of financing STL with the Security Council and member states, to help the tribunal complete its mission in line with the resolution n.1757 and the related agreement between the UN and Lebanon to set up the international tribunal.”Lebanon’s position came two days after STL announced that “it is facing an unprecedented financial crisis, and that without immediate funding, it will not be able to operate beyond July 2021.” In this context, STL launched an urgent appeal for international contributions, “otherwise, it will not be able to resume its work beyond July.”The tribunal is funded by 51% by voluntary contributions and 49% by the Lebanese government. In his letter to Guterres, Diab considered that “the recent donation ($15,503,355) by the UN General Assembly to support STL’s financial resources and overcome the shortfall in Lebanon’s share, did not resolve the problem.”
Diab considered that “these financial difficulties should not hinder the completion of STL’s work to the end,” and that “the most painful consequences of the cessation of the STL's work lie in the reflection of a fragmented and incomplete justice for all justice seekers and those who believe in the sovereignty of the law and the need to prevent impunity.”STL’s Trial Chamber has cancelled “the trial of fugitive Salim Ayyash, convicted of the assassination of Hariri and related cases, which was supposed to begin on June 16.”The chamber has also suspended “all decisions on filings presently before it, and on any future filings until further notice.”Ayyash’s trial proceedings are in relation to three attacks against prominent political figures Marwan Hamade, Georges Hawi and Elias Al- Murr, on Oct.1st, 2004, Jun. 21, 2005, and Jul. 12, 2005, respectively. Hamade and Al-Murr made it out alive, while Hawi was killed in a car bomb.
STL has announced that “these attacks are connected to the attack of Feb. 14, 2005, which killed former premier Rafic Hariri and many others.”
Families of the victims of the terrorist attacks against Hawi, Hamade and Al-Murr held a press statement on Friday, at the the Press Federation's headquarters. They considered that they “have been killed twice; the first time when they lost their loved ones and the second time when their cases are being deliberately dropped.” Nara Georges Hawi said the victims’ families have been informed of “the cancellation of the session to begin proceedings in our cases due to the shortage in funding”.She considered that “when the case reached the trial phase, the international community distanced itself from the tribunal, amid the total nonchalance of the government and political leadership.”“Isn’t the international community responsible for the tribunal’s mismanagement? Aren’t influential countries the ones who designate the registrar, the judges, the public prosecutor and the head of defense office? Why are you holding the victims responsible for your bad choices and poor control over the tribunal’s work?” She added that Hawi’s family “will hold every person who is proved to be behind the delay in serving justice responsible in the assassination case.”
“Our family has been robbed of justice and we were denied access to the confidential filings in the case” “If the court closes its doors, the family of George Hawi will sue every official either in the tribunal or in the United Nations who caused delays in our case, and every official in the Tribunal who took away the competence of Lebanese courts and deprived us of justice for 16 years,” she said.  Widower of Ghazi bou Karroum, one of the victims who were killed in the bombing that targeted Hamadeh, said “the tribunal’s closure means killing all our hopes for justice and accountability for us and for the victims of this nation.” She urged the international community and donor countries “not to abandon the victims of Lebanon and their families.”Osama Abdelsamad spoke on behalf of the family of Khaled Moura, who was killed in the bombing that targeted Al-Murr and said: “The worst thing that could happen to the Lebanese is not only for the tribunal to close due to funding problems, but for the official authorities to remain passive and do nothing. In this case, justice will never be served.”

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 04-05/2021
Question: "What is the purpose of the church?"
GotQuestions.org/June 04/2021
Answer: Acts 2:42 could be considered a purpose statement for the church: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” According to this verse, the purposes/activities of the church should be 1) teaching biblical doctrine, 2) providing a place of fellowship for believers, 3) observing the Lord’s supper, and 4) praying.
The church is to teach biblical doctrine so we can be grounded in our faith. Ephesians 4:14 tells us, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” The church is to be a place of fellowship, where Christians can be devoted to one another and honor one another (Romans 12:10), instruct one another (Romans 15:14), be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32), encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11), and most importantly, love one another (1 John 3:11).
The church is to be a place where believers can observe the Lord’s Supper, remembering Christ’s death and shed blood on our behalf (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). The concept of “breaking bread” (Acts 2:42) also carries the idea of having meals together. This is another example of the church promoting fellowship. The final purpose of the church according to Acts 2:42 is prayer. The church is to be a place that promotes prayer, teaches prayer, and practices prayer. Philippians 4:6-7 encourages us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Another commission given to the church is proclaiming the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). The church is called to be faithful in sharing the gospel through word and deed. The church is to be a “lighthouse” in the community, pointing people toward our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The church is to both promote the gospel and prepare its members to proclaim the gospel (1 Peter 3:15).
Some final purposes of the church are given in James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” The church is to be about the business of ministering to those in need. This includes not only sharing the gospel, but also providing for physical needs (food, clothing, shelter) as necessary and appropriate. The church is also to equip believers in Christ with the tools they need to overcome sin and remain free from the pollution of the world. This is done by biblical teaching and Christian fellowship.
So, what is the purpose of the church? Paul gave an excellent illustration to the believers in Corinth. The church is God’s hands, mouth, and feet in this world—the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). We are to be doing the things that Jesus Christ would do if He were here physically on the earth. The church is to be “Christian,” “Christ-like,” and Christ-following.

Audio from FDD/America’s Role in Afghanistan: Lessons Learned and What Lies Ahead
June 04/2021
https://www.fdd.org/events/2021/06/02/americas-role-in-afghanistan-lessons-learned-and-what-lies-ahead/
Introductory remarks:
Clifford D. May, FDD Founder and President
Speakers:
Leon E. Panetta, Former Secretary of Defense; Member of the Board of Advisors, FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power
LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster, Former National Security Advisor; Chairman, FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power
Bradley Bowman, Senior Director, FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power
TRANSCRIPT
MAY: On behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, thank you for joining us. I’m Cliff May, FDD’s Founder and President.
We are pleased to be joined by former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta and former National Security Advisor LTG (Ret) H.R. McMaster to discuss a critical policy decision: the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists, who regarded themselves as engaged in a jihad, hit our homeland, killing almost 3,000 innocent people. By taking the fight to our enemies and standing with our partners abroad who need our help, we have prevented another attack on that scale over the years since. But roughly twenty foreign terrorist organizations currently operate in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Nevertheless President Biden is implementing a timeline-based withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, one that explicitly ignores conditions on the ground.

Biden Should Aim For a Treaty, Not a Deal, With Iran
Blooberg/Editorial Board/June 04/2021
Insulating an important agreement from presidential whim benefits everyone.
Among the many revelations in a recently leaked interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is a passing reflection on the nuclear deal his country signed with the world powers in 2015. Zarif admits he was “naive” to assume that U.S. President Barack Obama could keep a bargain he had made without approval from Congress.
He’s right. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is formally known, has been a case study in the limitations of presidential power in dealmaking. The absence of any congressional imprimatur on the agreement made it easy for Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, to simply walk away from it.
Now, as the signatories enter the home stretch in negotiations to bring the U.S. back into compliance, they’re making the same mistake. President Joe Biden, keen to resurrect the deal, is exerting no meaningful effort to bring Congress onside; the Iranians, despite questioning the reliability of American promises, are not insisting they be backed by law.
The smarter course for both sides is to hold out for a treaty, sanctioned by the U.S. Senate.
Without such affirmation, the credibility of a resuscitated nuclear deal will remain contingent on the political calculations of presidents to come. In turn, this will undermine the economic value of the deal: Who would invest in Iran in the knowledge that sanctions could easily be reimposed by the next occupant of the White House? And if the dividends of the deal fail to meet Iran’s expectations, it may well feel compelled to reconsider its own commitments.
An agreement that mitigates the menace Iran poses to the Middle East and forestalls conflict with the U.S. is far too important to leave to executive whim. Both Washington and Tehran should make good-faith efforts to achieve domestic consensus.
The Iranians will have an easier time of it. While there is some divergence in views about the deal among different political factions, there is general agreement on the need to free the Islamic Republic from economic sanctions. This is also the view of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — and unlike the American president, his office is not subject to the fluctuations of electoral politics.
Biden has a higher mountain to climb. Under the U.S. Constitution, turning the nuclear deal into a treaty would require the approval of two-thirds of the Senate. On the face of it, this seems an impossible standard. There is bipartisan skepticism about the agreement, and broad support for a revised deal that addresses not only Iran’s nuclear threat but also the other ways it endangers the Middle East, including its support for terrorist groups and sectarian militias.
Khamenei has said Iran will not widen the scope of the negotiations currently underway in Vienna, but it was not so long ago that he was refusing even to discuss its nuclear program. The election of a new president this month will give Tehran an opportunity for a reset. Biden needs to convince the Iranians and Congress that a comprehensive treaty is the outcome they both want — a deal that will survive the vagaries of time and presidential politics alike.

Why America Should Hope the Regime in Iran Collapses
Cameron Khansarinia and Saeed Ghasseminejad/The National/June 04/2021
Advancing the collapse of the Islamic Republic will not bog the United States down into another Middle Eastern war or cost further blood and treasure. It can be done by maintaining sanctions on the Islamic Republic and its officials and by beginning a policy of maximum support of the Iranian people.
In Vienna, the American negotiating team is busy snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as the Islamic Republic demands concession after concession from Washington in exchange for Tehran’s return to the 2015 nuclear deal. In a stark shift from just a few months ago, when the Islamic Republic was under extraordinary economic pressure, the regime is once again confident on the international stage. Indeed, it appears that the Biden administration, which promised to center its foreign policy on human rights, is potentially saving one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships from collapse and building it back better.
Buoyed by the assist from Washington, it will be a busy month ahead for the newly confident Islamic Republic. The full power of the state, crossing any and all factional lines, will be marshaled for the quadrennial theatrics of the regime’s elections, whose candidates are handpicked by a twelve-member, unelected body known as the Guardian Council. In Clubhouse chats and among foreign-based journalists, the conventional wisdom is that the Islamic Republic is stable and its existence unquestionable. That is just how the regime likes it.
Yet while the regime’s public relations efforts continue to fool many in the Western media and on the world stage, it is a far cry from the reality for everyday Iranians, who largely view the regime as defunct and illegitimate. In a poll run by the regime’s own state propaganda network (which proudly airs the torture-induced, Soviet-style forced confessions of dissidents), 51 percent of respondents said they would not vote in the regime’s upcoming elections.
The ongoing protests of pensioners, workers, farmers, and the families of murdered activists validate privately conducted polling that shows many Iranians are simply waiting for the next opportunity to revolt. Far from the fantasy world on display in Vienna and on Twitter, there is a reality simmering just beneath the surface of Iran’s politics that should guide American policy: Iranians do not want the Islamic Republic; they want regime change.
The mere utterance of the words “regime change” raises alarm bells in the United States. However, as many Iranians envision it, the collapse of the Islamic Republic would neither be led by Washington nor require an American military intervention. The fall of the Islamic Republic will be led by the Iranian people. Their expectation of the United States, however, is that it does not save the dictatorship from crumbling. Yet to many Iranians, that is exactly what Joe Biden is doing.
Though there is no question that Iranians want change. To determine whether that change would benefit the United States necessitates asking what kind of change the Iranian people want. While Covid-19 has limited mass protests, Iranians’ past demonstrations offer a glimpse into their views on America and what a future Iran might look like if they had their way. In nationwide anti-regime demonstrations in 2017, 2018, and 2019, Iranians refused to step on American flags planted by the regime as props. They often chanted, “Our enemy is right here, they lie when they say it is America!” Unlike the Islamic Republic, the Iranian people look to America as an ally.
U.S. action to serve as an ally with the Iranian people would present America with opportunities to address three significant threats.
First, the radioactive elephant in the room. Despite attempts made by negotiators in Vienna, the Islamic Republic’s nuclear threat will never truly be put “in a box,” as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan put it. Many have argued that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s unpublished fatwa, or religious edict, banning the production of nuclear weapons remains a guarantee Iran will never build a bomb. Former Secretary of State John Kerry went as far as to say he had “great respect” for the fatwa. Yet even after the Biden administration announced its intentions to remove sanctions and rejoin the nuclear deal, the regime’s intelligence minister said Iran might nonetheless pursue an atomic bomb. As long as the Islamic Republic is in power and retains its nuclear industry and infrastructure, it will pose a nuclear threat to the United States and its allies. A free Iran, however, would likely have no such aspirations. Four decades of investing Iran’s limited resources in the regime’s endless wars in the region and nuclear ambitions have brought Iranians poverty, misery, and isolation. Therefore, Iranians chant “leave Syria alone and do something for us” or “what happened to the oil money? It has been spent in Palestine.”
Second, the Islamic Republic continues to be the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Tehran supports leading Sunni terrorist groups like Al Qaeda by providing refuge to its top leadership and by acting as a “main artery for funds, personnel, and communication” to the terror organization, according to a letter written by Osama bin Laden and found during the raid that led to his death. Even during its period of rapprochement with the West after Iran and world powers reached an interim agreement in 2013 known as the Joint Plan of Action, Tehran did not cease its funding for international terrorism. The regime reportedly spends more than one billion dollars per year to finance foreign terror groups around the world that target America and its allies, especially Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Islamic Republic is not only the financial backer but also the spiritual Mecca of Shiite radicalism, having enshrined the directive to “export the revolution” in its constitution. The Islamic Republic also aims to serve as a role model for radical Islamist groups that seek to overtake a government and use it to transform society and remain in power.
The end of the Islamist regime in Iran will weaken radical Islamists, especially Shiite militants, around the world by depriving them of a major source of funding and inspiration. The best way to hasten that change is to support Iranians—who, as popular protests show, reject such religious fanaticism—in establishing a secular, democratic government.
Third, American support for the Iranian people’s movement for regime change can end the threat of the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, which the Center for Strategic and International Studies calls “the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East.” The threat of the regime’s missiles—with their ability to sow destruction on three continents—increases when one considers the regime’s ability to deploy such missiles to its terrorist proxies and allies not only throughout the Middle East but also in Latin America. The threat posed by these missiles will only continue to grow if the regime stays in power. Every day Iranians often lambaste the Islamic Republic on social media for its superfluous spending on the offensive missile program, envisioning a future where the government puts food on their tables, not missiles in silos.
An Iran without the Islamic Republic not only would entail the reduction of hostilities with the West, but also would present three significant economic and political opportunities for the United States as well.
First, Iran is one of the world’s sole remaining truly untapped markets. With half of its well-educated and Western-friendly population of 85 million being in their prime working and earning years, Iran would represent a significant opportunity for trade and investment for American companies of all kinds. Yet with the Islamic Republic’s anti-Americanism, its penchant for taking Western citizens hostage, and the mafia-like involvement of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s praetorians, in the economy, that opportunity cannot be realized until the Islamic Republic is gone.
Second, a free Iran marks an opportunity for the expansion of the Abraham Accords and lasting peace in the region. An Iran without animosity toward America’s regional allies would allow the United States to empower those allies to coordinate regional security more effectively. After the establishment of a stable, democratic government in Iran, the country would likely play a key role in partnering with other American allies in the region as it did before the Islamic Revolution, when Iran played a constructive and diplomatic role across the region.
Third, relaxed tensions in the region would allow the United States to refocus its assets in the region on its more consequential security challenge: China, especially Beijing’s expansion in the Persian Gulf. The Middle East and the Persian Gulf are critical to American interests, not only because they sit at the linchpin of global energy markets but also because of their importance to the hegemonic ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Almost half of China’s oil imports come from the Persian Gulf, and with its newly minted twenty-five-year cooperation agreement with Tehran, it is looking to strengthen its foothold.
Russia has also relied on the Islamic Republic to increase its influence in the Persian Gulf and the Levant. Putin worked with the Islamic Republic to neutralize Washington and its allies’ plans in Syria and used the Persian Gulf for joint military exercises. The removal of the Islamic Republic would complicate Moscow and Beijing’s efforts to expand their influence in the region. It would also facilitate U.S. efforts to create a pro-Washington block in the Persian Gulf and greater Middle East to buttress its position in the great powers’ competition.
Iran sits on one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world and is close enough to Europe to export it to the continent. In other words, Iran can be a credible rival to Russia’s dominance in the European Union’s gas market. However, large multinational companies require long-term stability before committing massive investment to such a project. The Islamic Republic’s threatening, erratic, and destabilizing behavior in the region allowed Russia to dominate the natural gas market in Europe, giving Moscow political leverage over its European customers.
Advancing the collapse of the Islamic Republic will not bog the United States down into another Middle Eastern war or cost further blood and treasure. It can be done by maintaining sanctions on the Islamic Republic and its officials and by beginning a policy of maximum support of the Iranian people, including providing Internet access, a strike fund for laborers, and a defector fund to encourage regime officials to step aside to ensure a stable and bloodless transition. Such a change presents the potential to end one of the most significant threats to America and its allies. It also offers opportunities for economic growth and for rebalancing American involvement in the world. It is a policy that will promote America’s vital interests while advancing its most cherished principles.
**Cameron Khansarinia is Policy Director for the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI). Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow them on Twitter @khansarinia and @SGhasseminejad. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

State Department Should Deliver an Honest Message about Turkey’s Religious Freedom Record
Aykan Erdemir and Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir/Providence-FDD/June 04/2021
The US Department of State’s annual report on international religious freedom, released on May 12, documents the ongoing erosion of freedom of religion or belief in Turkey. The report echoes the concerns the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) raised three weeks earlier in its annual report. Foggy Bottom, however, will likely continue its tradition of giving Ankara a free pass by ignoring USCIRF’s recurrent recommendation since 2009 for the US government to include Turkey on the State Department’s “Special Watch List” for “engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom.” Given the Turkish government’s particularly troubling conduct in 2020, Secretary of State Antony Blinken should deliver an honest message about the alarming trajectory of religious freedoms in Turkey.
Both the State Department and USCIRF issue their respective annual reports in compliance with the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The law established the Office of International Religious Freedom at the State Department, headed by an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The statute also established USCIRF as an independent and bipartisan federal government entity. While the State Department submitted its first annual report to Congress on international religious freedom in September 2009, USCIRF has been issuing annual reports since May 2000. In preparing its annual report, the State Department is required to take USCIRF’s report and recommendations into account. The secretary of state has the option of designating a grave offender as a “Country of Particular Concern”—a category reserved for the governments with the worst records, whose violations are “systematic, ongoing, and egregious.” Such a designation has the potential to trigger IRFA-based sanctions.
Turkey is the only country among NATO’s 30 members—and one of the two, alongside Azerbaijan, among the Council of Europe’s 47 members—that USCIRF has singled out as deserving a “Special Watch List” designation this year. This is a label for second-tier countries that fall short of a “Country of Particular Concern” designation. Although Ankara’s 2016 imprisonment of US pastor Andrew Brunson on trumped-up charges for almost two years has prompted discussions in Washington about Turkey’s designation as a “Country of Particular Concern,” Russia this year is the only Council of Europe member that USCIRF has put into that category, alongside 13 other offenders, including China, Iran, and North Korea.
In their latest reports, the State Department and USCIRF renewed their criticism of persistent problems, such as Ankara’s refusal to open the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary, attacks targeting places of worship, and rampant anti-Semitic hate speech, among others. Yet there were also new concerns, including the Turkish government’s decision to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque and the accelerated pace of deportations targeting Protestant faith leaders for posing a purported “national security threat.”
The conversion of Hagia Sophia on July 10, 2020, and the accompanying rhetoric by Turkish officials mark a particularly troubling moment in Turkey’s downward trajectory regarding minority rights and religious freedoms. In his televised address marking the occasion, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Hagia Sophia’s conversion would gratify “the spirit of conquest” of Mehmet II, the Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1453. The next day, Erdoğan’s ultranationalist coalition partner Devlet Bahçeli echoed the Turkish president by proclaiming that the course of the Turco-Muslim conquest, “which has been going on for 567 years, has entered a new phase.” He also claimed that the legal basis for converting Hagia Sophia rests on “the right of the sword” resulting from the Ottoman conquest.
Turkey’s pro-government news site A Haber went so far as to publish a guide—entitled “What does the right of the sword mean?” Two weeks later, Ali Erbaş, head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, gave the first Friday sermon at Hagia Sophia with a sword at hand, symbolizing the tradition of conquest.
Turkish officials’ attacks against Turkish citizens who opposed Hagia Sophia’s conversion were equally troubling. The deputy leader of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party accused Turkish citizens who oppose the conversion of acting like “the Byzantines among us,” insinuating they are traitors. Similarly, Bahçeli referred to the move’s critics as “remnants of the Byzantines” and the “clandestine Byzantine lobby’s Westophile native collaborators.”
Such attacks targeting Muslims and non-Muslims alike as fifth columns is a frequently deployed trope that aims to relegate Turkey’s religious minorities to the status of subjects of a Muslim-dominated polity, silence dissident voices, and further undermine equal citizenship. Elpidophoros, the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America—and a native of Istanbul—warned that “a mentality of the conqueror, and claiming conqueror’s rights … changes the relationship of the state to its citizens.” He added, “I am a Turkish citizen myself, and I don’t want the state to have the mindset of the conqueror, because I am not a conquered minority. I want to feel in my own country as an equal citizen.”
The Turkish president’s name-calling extended beyond Hagia Sophia’s conversion. Erdoğan insulted Turkey’s Christians and Jews in April by publicly using the slur “gavur” (infidel), a pejorative designation for non-Muslims, to criticize his political opposition. This followed his May 2020 use of another slur, “the leftovers of the sword”—a pejorative term that denotes surviving members of ethnic and religious minorities following mass killings—to attack his political opponents again. Erdoğan’s ultranationalist partner Bahçeli used the same term to highlight a journalist’s religious minority family roots in 2017.
The Turkish government’s targeting of Protestant faith leaders, which picked up steam following Turkey’s failed coup attempt in 2016, became another major concern in 2020. To deport Protestant faith leaders, Ankara has intensified its use of the N-82 code—designating foreign nationals as a national security threat—to deny them entry or residence permits. Turkish authorities not only expelled 30 Protestants in 2020 alone but also started deporting foreign spouses of Turkish Protestant clergy, hoping the move would also drive out Turkish Protestants, who do not want the state to separate them from their loved ones.
These alarming developments show that 2020 was a particularly alarming year for religious freedoms in Turkey. Although over the last two decades the State Department has preferred back-channel talks with Ankara over publicly shaming a NATO member state by slapping it with a “Special Watch List” designation, this strategy has not prevented Turkey from backsliding. This year, Secretary Blinken should consider delivering an honest message about the Erdoğan government’s alarming religious freedom track record in the form of a “Special Watch List” designation rather than continuing a tradition of appeasement that has failed to deliver any results.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). He is the rotating co-chair of the Anti-Defamation League’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities and a steering committee member of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief (IPPFoRB). Follow him on Twitter @aykan_erdemir.
*Tugba Tanyeri-Erdemir is a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Anthropology Department. She is the coordinator of the Anti-Defamation League’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities and the co-chair of the Middle East Working Group of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable. Follow her on Twitter @TurkishFacade. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

We can't ignore Iranian influence on Hamas - opinion
Tal Braun/Jerusalem Post/June 04/2021
Sneh is a person with a wealth of knowledge and experience, but in his article, he seems to have neglected both.
In his May 23 op-ed “An alternative approach to Gaza is possible” former minister and brigadier-general Dr. Ephraim Sneh asserts that the time is ripe for a new government in Gaza since Hamas has been weakened and the Palestinians in Gaza now realize that Hamas is to blame for the most recent calamity. He advocates for a Palestinian civic body to be established in Gaza that would be subordinate to the central government in Ramallah but run independently with the support of Arab countries that oppose the Hamas regime. Sneh states that this plan would ensure that Qatar would no longer be deeply involved in Gaza and that the external security of the Strip would be assured by Egypt with civic assistance by Israel, thereby allowing for an alternative, though imperfect solution that Gazans would embrace.
Sneh is a person with a wealth of knowledge and experience, but in his article, he seems to have neglected both. Having commanded the security zone in southern Lebanon, one can imagine he has not forgotten the State of Israel’s attempt to reach agreements in Lebanon with seemingly moderate elements, which resulted in the destruction of Lebanon, its “capture” by the Syrians and later Hezbollah, a continued IDF presence in the security zone and the Second Lebanon War.
Being deputy defense minister in two former governments and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for four terms, he surely recognizes that it is not just Qatar but also Turkey and Iran at play, especially with Hamas. How does he ignore the influence of the Iranians, who are stirring up our region and investing their energy, money and ammunition in supporting terror?
Anyone who has held a number of senior positions and is familiar with the situation, culture and language of the Middle East, such as Sneh, who served as head of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria understands that there is no real expectation that “Hamas rule will be nonviolently replaced by a new subordinate to Ramallah” unless the central government in Ramallah is controlled by Hamas itself, which the Palestinian Authority has refrained from allowing for years, including the recent cancellation of elections in its territory. Is Sneh suggesting Islamic Jihad or members of other terror organizations as an alternative leadership? Are these in his view, democratic organizations that sanctify human rights, tolerance and brotherhood?
I am sure that Sneh remembers the reasons and circumstances that led to Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip between June 12 and 14, 2007, less than three years after the end of the Israeli unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the expulsion of Gush Katif Jews from their homes. Is it now a different situation, in which the Arab leaders in the Palestinian Authority and the Arab leaders in the Gaza Strip are able to communicate with each other, rather than eliminate each other through murderous means?
Throughout his military service and his many senior positions in the Knesset, he must be aware that despite the damage dealt to its leaders, people and infrastructure, the Hamas movement has shown impressive survivability, and as the political process with Israel has failed, so has the proportion of its supporters. Lastly, surely Sneh is aware that Hamas was not weakened as he claims but strengthened in the eyes of the Arab public in Judea and Samaria and even in Jerusalem, as their acts of defiance united Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians in the West Bank, and even in Lebanon in solidarity.
In short, the assumptions underlying the proposal outlined by Sneh in his opinion piece are nice in theory but fundamentally null and void and can be considered another dream or vision waiting for the end of days when a wolf with a sheep and a goat with a tiger will lie down together in peace.

Algerian president stresses ‘strategic partnership’ with Turkey to put pressure on France
Saber Blidi/The Arab Weekly/June 04/2021
ALGIERS - Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has sent veiled messages to France implying his country’s willingness to establish a strategic partnership with Turkey to ease pressures sparked by the tense relations with Paris, especially in light of the lack of serious French intent to settle the contentious issue of history and common memory between the two countries.
The irony seems to be that the Algerian president, in his attack on the French colonial legacy in his country, presents the Turkish model of investment as an alternative, somehow ignoring that the Ottomans themselves, were a colonial power in Algeria and that one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan priorities is to revive the Ottoman project, as a formula for dealing with the former Ottoman provinces, especially those situated on the Mediterranean basin.
Tebboune told the French magazine Le Point, that, “Algeria has excellent relations with Turkey, which has invested about $5 billion in Algeria with no political strings attached. Anyone who is annoyed by this relationship should just invest in our country.”
According to the Algerian Agency for the Promotion of Investments, Turkey has overtaken France and become the leading foreign investor in the country with investments reaching about $4.5 billion dollars. Furthermore, more than 800 Turkish companies are active in Algeria in various sectors.
Analysts saw in Tebboune’s statements an explicit message from the Algerian president to the French who are unhappy with Turkish expansion in Algeria, especially in the economic and cultural fields.
While there is a consensus in Algeria over condemning the French colonial era (1830-1962) and the ambiguous relations between the two countries since independence, the Algerian-Turkish relations enjoy a kind of favourable bias from official circles and those close to them.
This accommodating attitude vis à vis Turkey has not been dampened by warnings against what is described as “soft Turkish colonialism,” a tool that Erdogan is notorious for using in his drive to revive the past glories of the Ottoman Empire and rule its old colonies. In his interview with the French weekly, Tebboune did not express any alarm or wariness over the risk of the return of the forces of political Islam supported by Turkey in next parliamentary elections scheduled for a this month, as he believes the Islamist ideology is no longer a source of concern for the country’s authorities.
He said, “Islamism as an ideology, that has tried to impose itself in the 1990’s in our country, will not exist anymore in Algeria.” He was alluding to the change in political attitudes of Islamist parties as a result of the bloody legacy of the Black Decade (1990-2000). The lexicon used by Tebboune suggests that he has firm assurances over the intent of active Islamist parties and that he does not mind working with them if they put up a good performance during the parliamentary elections.
Some analysts believe that the experience of the bloody decade taught the Islamists to avoid confrontation with the authorities and shift their strategy to infiltration of the system from the inside. Tebboune pointed out as an illustration of his argument to the approach followed by Islamist parties that participated in the executive bodies and official institutions from the mid-1990s to 2011. He was referring to Brotherhood parties that sat in parliament and took part in previous governments, led by the Peace Society Movement (Hams).
The Algerian president stressed that Turkish-backed political Islam does not hinder development in Algeria. It is expected that Turkey will be one of the most important destinations scheduled on Tebboune’s agenda, after the global health crisis subsides, along with Qatar, Tunisia, Italy and Russia.
It seems according to analysts that by waving the Turkish card and emphasising that Ankara is an ally, Tebboune wants to put pressure on the French and to remind them of the unresolved issue of history and common memory, as he stressed that, “Algerians expect a full recognition of all the crimes.”He said that in the history of French colonisation of Algeria “there were three painful stages: the start of colonisation, with the extermination during forty years of whole tribes and villages … Then there was the period of spoliation when land was confiscated from Algerians and distributed to Europeans, including the horrors of May 8, 1945 and their 45,000 dead. Then, there was the war of liberation when Algerians took up arms to free their country.”
Although Tebboune has expressed little interest in clinging to power and ruled out running for reelection, he seemed to welcome plans to launch a presidential political party that would draw forces loyal to him, especially organisations, associations and civil society activists and independent candidates for parliamentary elections, who are expected to win a large segment of the seats in the new parliament.
But Tebboune excluded the possibility of opening any political dialogue in the country, especially with the radical opposition and the protest movement. He rejected the description of the ongoing protests as a popular Hirak.
“I do not use the word (Hirak) because things have changed. The only Hirak in which I believe is the blessed and authentic Hirak, that had assembled millions of Algerians in the street. That Hirak chose the path of reason by taking part in the presidential election.”
He added that the organisers of current protests “are a minority that wants to go to a transitional phase with unknown consequences and I will not succumb to the pressure of the minority.”

Iran wants to expand its ruthless model throughout region
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/June 04/2021
A French tourist by the name of Benjamin Briere, who has been held in an Iranian prison for the past year, is set to be prosecuted for espionage and propaganda against the regime, along with other charges.
Briere had been on the adventure of a lifetime. He fitted out his van and in 2018 began a long journey across Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Iraq’s Kurdistan, and Iran. This adventure came to a brutal end in May 2020. While he was in a desert area close to the Turkmenistan border, the Iranian authorities arrested him and he has since then been held in a prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad. The court filed the charges against him this week.
The Frenchman was documenting his journey via social media and is accused of filming with a recreational drone in a restricted area. He also questioned on social media the mandatory wearing of a veil for women in Iran. Both actions reveal clumsiness and a lack of knowledge about the region, but certainly do not deserve jail time. When I saw the videos on a recent news report, my initial reaction was to remark on what a beautiful country it was — the greenery and the landscape were just breathtaking.
People who share such sights on social media do not mean harm. In fact, it is quite the opposite: Briere was sharing beautiful scenery from a country people know little about. This should, in theory, not be banned but rather encouraged, especially for the tourism economy. Regarding the post about the veil, the authorities could have reached out to inform him that this goes against the beliefs of their country and is not permitted, leaving him to continue his journey with a harsh warning. I agree that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and one should respect the laws and customs of any country one visits, but this did not need to go so far. We have seen similar examples across the world that have been solved within months; yet, for Iran, the promotion of tourism and good relations is not a concern.
The reason it goes so far is because the Iranian regime’s strategy is different: It is a hostage-taking strategy. This includes Briere, UK charity executive Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and US citizen Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, who have been in jail for years, as well as many others. It has been the same ever since the regime’s inaugural hostage-taking operation at the US Embassy in Tehran, which lasted from 1979 — when President Jimmy Carter was in office — until Jan. 20, 1981: The first day of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The date of the end of this 40-year-old crisis tells you a lot about how the regime sees leverage and the messages it sends.
Iran has been good at holding Western citizens like Briere as bargaining chips. For each hostage’s country, one can think of many reasons and files for negotiation. When it comes to the UK, for example, there is the $530 million debt owed to Iran by London, which was a payment made for military equipment by the late shah, prior to him abandoning the throne, and which was never delivered. As the nuclear deal is about to be revived, Tehran will likely need these bargaining chips to negotiate an advantageous agreement.
It is interesting to see the humiliation Western countries are willing to go through to push ahead with the nuclear deal. I cannot help but see the fact that Europe is expecting a sharp increase in trade with Iran as one of the reasons. In an age of pragmatism over principles, this leaves many of the prisoners in a tough situation. In 2016, less than a year after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal came into effect, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Obama administration had secretly organized an airlift of $400 million-worth of cash on wooden pallets to Iran to coincide with the release of four Americans. Now, as Tehran is suffering from a sclerotic and corrupt economy, the only fresh money its leaders can find relates to a deal negotiated by the shah they toppled more than 40 years ago. Talk about irony.
It is interesting to see the humiliation Western countries are willing to go through to push ahead with the nuclear deal.
But this shows how long this strategy has been working for the regime. It has worked so well that it has even moved from taking people hostage to entire countries. Indeed, if the West is willing to trade hundreds of millions of dollars for their citizens, what would they be willing to offer for stability in a key region? The Iranian regime expects a full mandate to run and control the entire region. Nothing else. And so today the only difference between Briere being held by wardens in a jail in Mashhad and Lebanon being held hostage by Hezbollah is the price. French President Emmanuel Macron tries to help, but goes back to pragmatism.
The same applies to the regime’s interference in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Tehran has been extremely efficient at benefiting from others’ mistakes to push for these hostage-taking and bargaining situations. Hence, the Iranian regime sees JCPOA 2.0 not as pallets of cash but as power over these countries. It also understands the West’s eagerness to negotiate.
This is unfortunate, as the international community is rewarding misconduct and malign activities. The Iranian regime is not acting this way to protect itself, as it might have done in the 1980s. Today, it is attempting to gain control and expand its ruthless model throughout the region. The coming years will determine how the region will move forward. The ball, as so often, is in the hands of the Iranian regime. Will it choose appeasement and enhanced bilateral relations as the JCPOA 2.0 sponsors imagine, or will it continue on its path of violent expansionism?
This is all taking place amid the backdrop of the current US administration re-examining historical pacts, especially with Israel. Regional powers understand this new dynamic and are willing to face both options. Yet, this time around, the second option, which would mean a continuous need to contain Iran’s malign activities, will lead to the unknown. The early signs of what happens to all Iran’s hostages will reveal this.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is CEO of Eurabia, a media and tech company. He is also the editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.

Biden and the Ayatollah’s Game Plan
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/June 04/2021
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99468/%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%b7%d8%a7%d9%87%d8%b1%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%af%d9%86-%d9%88%d8%ae%d8%b7%d8%a9-%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%a8%d8%a9-%d8%a2%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%87amir-taherib/
Last February when the new Biden administration launched its promised bid for a revival of the Obama “nuke deal” with the Islamic Republic, apologists described it as an attempt at preventing another Middle Eastern war. This echoed the old mantra that in dealing with the Khomeinist regime, the choice is between appeasement and full-scale war.
Adepts of that mantra have failed to understand that in dealing with the mullahs it is appeasement that encourages war.
Thus, no sooner had Biden’s appeasement squad been deployed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the cleric heading the Khomeinist regime, ended almost four years of relative self-restraint by trying to revive the embers of several conflicts into blazing flames.
He started with Yemen where he had withdrawn his embassy, military mission and religious propagandists, transferring them to Oman on a “temporary basis”, by sending one of his generals as the new ambassador with the mission to upgrade the Houthis ramshackle war machine. The next move was to speed up the supply of new rockets and missiles to his Hezbollah units in Lebanon. That was followed by a massive cash handout to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza in exchange for launching a new round of missile and rockets attacks on Israel. In between he also ordered a military build upon Iran’s borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia, to signal the end of the low profile he had been forced to adopt during the Trump administration.
But that was not all. Believing that the new US administration may help him solve his cash flow problem, the ayatollah re-wrote the official national budget, prepared by outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, to dramatically increase his military’s share. The revised budget, rushed through the ersatz parliament like a knife in butter, includes a 62 percent raise in the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ share. The Quds (Jerusalem) Force, which is in charge of exporting revolution and keeping the pot boiling in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, sees its budget increased by almost 40 percent. Some estimates put the total increase of Iran’s military budget since 2019 at around 150 percent.
The message going to surrogates in the region and beyond is that Tehran expects to be able to end the budget cuts it had been forced to introduce during the Trump tenure as the US, with a wink and a nod, allows some allies, notably South Korea and Japan to release part of the money they owe oil imports.
In theological terms, Khamenei and his associates see the expected deal with Biden as “relief after constraint” which is promised to believers who go through a period of suffering without losing faith.
The ayatollah seems determined to use this “window of opportunity” for changing gears in domestic politics also. The seven-man list of “approved candidates” he has launched for the forthcoming presidential election shows that he intends to install a war cabinet of radicals totally loyal to his person.
Does all that mean that the “Supreme Guide” is preparing for war?
Not all, if by war we mean a full-scale classical clash of military forces on land, in air and at sea. Khamenei knows that his disorganized military, divided into countless corps and commands with conflicting cultures and interests and often saddled with antiquarian materiel is in no position to fight a classical war against a serious enemy. None of his 13 highest ranking generals, all in retirement age and deeply involved in their own business activities, has the profile of a putative conqueror.
Khamenei implicitly admits that by repeating his “neither compromise, nor war” slogan.
As far as diplomacy is concerned he will play the game that Tehran started almost 30 years ago, negotiating accords on the “nuke issue”. The new US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, says the aim is to persuade Tehran to reduce its nuclear activities so that it is always no less than a year away from building a bomb. Khamenei, who has no intention of building a bomb at this time, is ready to offer the Americans the candy that they crave.
Last month he said: If we decide to build the bomb neither they (the Biden team) nor those greater than them could stop us!
Using he “nuke deal”, a non-sequitur worthy of the Man of the Mancha, as a diversion the ayatollah hopes to get the sanctions lifted so that he can pursue his kind of war with greater vigor.
His kind of war is labelled in many different ways: proxy, asymmetric, low-intensity, low-cost, cottage industry war. Aware that few Iranians are prepared to fight his kind of war he pursues it through surrogates and mercenaries recruited in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. The use of mercenaries in such wars has a long history. The Abbasid Caliphs used the Turkish Mameluke slaves and the Ottomans had the Bashi-Bazouks while the Safavids used the Qizil-Bash and the Kurdish Peshmerga. The British in India employed the Nepalese Gurkha (Tomb-seekers) and the French did their dirty work through Alawite recruits known as “auxiliaires” or “ helpers”.
According to best estimates the Islamic Republic has spent around $20 billion in its various low-cost wars since 2000, a relatively modest sum compared to the huge cost of a full-scale war. According to Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif, the regime needs a minimum of $60 billion a year to cover its basic costs and survive while continuing its decades-long campaign to de-stabilize the Middle East in the hope of what Kayhan, a mouthpiece for Khamenei, describes as “the inevitable tsunami of Islamic revolution” that would establish a new base for the eventual conquest of the world by “faith and justice” by the Iranian-led Resistance Front.
Blinken talks of his hopes for a “breakthrough” in the currently stalled “nuke” talks. Khamenei, too, wants a breakthrough based in a promise to enrich the uranium he does not want or need at a lower grade in exchange for the cash flow he needs to reactivate his momentarily interrupted special kind of war against the US and its regional allies, indeed against what is often known as “ the world order”.
Fear of an illusory war may lead to a deal which would allow a real war to continue behind the façade of an illusory peace.