English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 10/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today

Each of us will be accountable to God. Let us therefore no longer pass judgement on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of another
Letter to the Romans 14/01-13/:”Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarrelling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgement on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand. Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honour of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honour of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honour of the Lord and give thanks to God. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God. For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’So then, each of us will be accountable to God. Let us therefore no longer pass judgement on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of another.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 09-10/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Ministry of Health: 3939 new infections, 45 deaths
Lebanon protesters block roads over political inaction, deepening poverty
Lebanese Protesters Block Roads Anew as Crises Continue
Deteriorating Lebanon concerns US officials after army warns of ‘social explosion’
Bitar Issues Writs to Unveil Real Owners of Nitrates Shipment
Umm al-Fahm man sentenced to five years for helping Hezbollah
Ibrahim Meets al-Rahi, His Govt. Initiative 'Still on Front Burner'
Presidency: No truth to what is being circulated about Presidential message to Parliament to "remove procuration" of designated PM
Aoun Discusses Israeli Violations and Syrian Refugees with U.N. Official
Hariri Meets Russian Foreign Minister in Abu Dhabi
Berri Schedules Friday Parliamentary Session
Wehbe, Shea discuss implementation of reforms, fight against corruption
The 80-year-old Lebanese musician in legal battle for a COVID-19 vaccine
FPM Bloc Calls Protests a 'Coup' against Aoun's 'Reformist Project'

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 09-10/2021

Republicans, Democrats come together to call on Biden to be hard on Iran
US blacklists two IRGC interrogators in first Iran sanctions under Biden admin
Iran nuclear probe is endless task for IAEA, Grossi says don’t politicize inspections
US citizen held for 3 years in Iran tells of ‘psychological torture’: I was a ‘pawn’
Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet says Houthi attacks on Kingdom target global economy
US says it will not ease pressure on Syria after UAE criticism of Caesar Act
UAE Says U.S. Sanctions Complicate Syria's Return to Arab League
Ten years on, peace remains elusive in Syria
US drone strikes against extremists will require Biden’s approval
Hand of Iran, Iraqi proxies seen in Ras Tanura attack
US admiral calls for ground-based offensive weaponry in western Pacific
Inside the rise of the shadowy Iran-backed militias in Iraq
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 09-10/2021

US-Iran showdown: Tehran’s expansionism must be tackled/Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/09 March ,2021
The Mullahs’ Nuclear Weapons Game/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/March 09/2021
The Arab borders of the pandemic/Oussama Romdhani/The Arab Weekly/March 09/2021
Middle East expert fears trainwreck in region if Iran emboldened/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/March 09/2021
How Saudi Arabia is our ticket to Iran/Scott Krane/Jerusalem Post/March 09/2021
RED ALERT: China Is Winning the Great 21st Century Tech War/Gordon G. Chang//Gatestone Institute/March 09/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 09-10/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/

Ministry of Health: 3939 new infections, 45 deaths
NNA/09 March ,2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 3939 new coronavirus infection cases, which brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 401810.
45 deaths have been registered over the past 24 hours

Lebanon protesters block roads over political inaction, deepening poverty
AFP, Beirut/09 March ,2021
Lebanese protesters set up new road blocks Tuesday to vent anger over political inaction in the face of deepening poverty, but security forces managed to re-open some to traffic. The country has been mired in economic crisis, which has brought surging unemployment and spiraling prices while the currency has plunged to a new low to the dollar on the black market. Yet the government -- which formally resigned after the massive Beirut port explosion last August that killed more than 200 people -- has failed to agree on a new cabinet since. Road blocks have become a near daily occurrence in the small Mediterranean country and lasted all day Monday, including in and out of Beirut. Demonstrators on Tuesday again cut off some roads in the northern city of Tripoli and the eastern region of the Bekaa, the National News Agency said. Highways leading to Beirut were also briefly closed, but then re-opened to flowing traffic. Some protesters have called for a revival of the nationwide street movement of late 2019 that demanded the removal of Lebanon’s entire political class, widely seen as incompetent and corrupt. More than half of the population is living below the poverty line, and prices have soared as the Lebanese pound has lost more than 80 percent of its value.With foreign currency reserves dwindling fast, the authorities have warned they will soon have to lift subsidies on fuel and mostly imported food. President Michel Aoun has accused demonstrators blocking roads of “sabotage”, but also called for authorities to prevent “the manipulation of food prices”. Despite growing anger on the streets, there have been no serious clashes between security forces and demonstrators in recent days, in contrast to previous rallies. Lebanon’s economic crisis has been aggravated by several lockdowns to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, the country entered a new phase of alleviating the latest stay-at-home order imposed after hospitals became overwhelmed following the winter holidays.

Lebanese Protesters Block Roads Anew as Crises Continue
Agence France Press/09 March ,2021
Lebanese protesters set up new road blocks Tuesday to vent anger over political inaction in the face of deepening poverty, but security forces managed to re-open some to traffic. The country has been mired in economic crisis, which has brought surging unemployment and spiraling prices while the currency has plunged to a new low to the dollar on the black market. Yet the government -- which formally resigned after the massive Beirut port explosion last August that killed more than 200 people -- has failed to agree on a new cabinet since. Road blocks have become a near daily occurrence in the small country and lasted all day Monday, including in and out of Beirut.Demonstrators on Tuesday again cut off some roads in the northern city of Tripoli and the eastern region of the Bekaa, the National News Agency said. Highways leading to Beirut were also briefly closed, but then re-opened to flowing traffic. The eastern lane of the Jal el-Dib highway was re-blocked later by protesters. Some protesters have called for a revival of the nationwide street movement of late 2019 that demanded the removal of Lebanon's entire political class, widely seen as incompetent and corrupt. More than half of the population is living below the poverty line, and prices have soared as the Lebanese pound has lost more than 80 percent of its value. With foreign currency reserves dwindling fast, the authorities have warned they will soon have to lift subsidies on fuel and mostly imported food. President Michel Aoun has accused demonstrators blocking roads of "sabotage", but also called for authorities to prevent "the manipulation of food prices." Despite growing anger on the streets, there have been no serious clashes between security forces and demonstrators in recent days, in contrast to previous rallies. Analyst Karim Bitar said "revolution fatigue", a "lack of clear vision or leadership" and anxiety over coronavirus were some of the reasons behind Tuesday's smaller numbers, and on-and-off road blocks. "People are far too busy with the daily struggle to survive. Issues of political change have become secondary," he told AFP. Lebanon's economic crisis has been aggravated by several lockdowns to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The head of Lebanon's main public hospital, the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, on Twitter said road blocks were impeding oxygen deliveries. "RHUH and other hospitals, full with Covid patients, are running dangerously low on oxygen," Firass Abiad warned. On Monday, the country entered a new phase of alleviating the latest stay-at-home order imposed after hospitals became overwhelmed following the winter holidays.
 

Deteriorating Lebanon concerns US officials after army warns of ‘social explosion’
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/09 March ,2021
“I want to ask them [politicians], do you want an army or not? Do you want the army to remain on its feet or not?” Gen. Aoun asked.
US officials are growing increasingly concerned over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, with fears over a security incident rising and the country’s army chief warning of a social “explosion.”
Lebanon has been without a fully functioning government since last August and the country’s politicians remain at loggerheads over the formation of a new cabinet. The US State Department previously told Al Arabiya English that it was “closely” monitoring the situation in Lebanon while also calling for a credible government to be formed quickly. However, as the situation continues to deteriorate and no solution appears imminent, skepticism is growing across the diplomatic arena. “No one should expect the people [Lebanese officials] in charge of saving the situation to act any differently than they have for decades,” a Western diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al Arabiya English. The political elite has been in power for years. Those who have stepped out of the political scene or died have been succeeded by their sons or other family members. Despite this, the security situation has been calm for the most part with nationwide protests ongoing for the last week since the Lebanese pound dipped to record lows. But comments made by the Lebanese Army chief on Monday were concerning. “Soldiers are suffering and they’re hungry. To the country’s officials I ask, where are you going and what are you planning to do?” General Joseph Aoun said, during a speech at the army’s headquarters. Gen. Aoun further criticized the country’s ruling elite as not caring about the army or “the suffering of members of the military.” He also lashed out at continuous budget cuts for the army in the annual state budget. As the currency has lost almost 80 percent of its value compared to 2019, many soldiers are now earning what is equivalent to around $80 per month. Ranking commanders and officers have seen their salaries become worth less than $500 per month. “I want to ask them [politicians], do you want an army or not? Do you want the army to remain on its feet or not?” Gen. Aoun asked. Security sources told Al Arabiya English that there was a significant increase in the number of soldiers requesting to be furloughed in the next few months, while more senior commanders were demanding early retirement. And as the morale of the army - seen as one of the key pillars of Lebanon’s stability over the years and a key US ally in the fight against terrorism - declines, the less likely they are to listen to the orders of the country’s rulers. Aoun, the army chief, made this clear on Monday when he said “political smear campaigns” would not succeed and that he would not permit any interference in the army’s affairs. Aram Nerguizian, a senior advisor at the Carnegie Middle East Center, warned that Lebanon “appears to have entered the unknown in terms of civil-military relations,” following the army general’s speech. The Pentagon did not respond to Al Arabiya English’s request for comment.

Bitar Issues Writs to Unveil Real Owners of Nitrates Shipment
Naharnet/March 09/2021
Lead investigative judge into the Beirut port blast, Tarek al-Bitar, has issued judicial writs related to the ammonium nitrate shipment that caused the catastrophic August 4 explosion, the National News Agency said on Tuesday.
The writs are aimed at unveiling “how the ammonium nitrate was purchased, the shipment’s owners, the firms involved in the deal, the party for which it was imported, who paid for it and the exact identity of those behind it,” NNA said.Bitar has recently replaced Judge Fadi Sawwan, who was removed as lead investigative judge following political pressure and controversy that followed charges that he pressed in the case against caretaker PM Hassan Diab and ex-ministers Ali Hassan Khalil, Ghazi Zoaiter and Youssef Fenianos.
 

Umm al-Fahm man sentenced to five years for helping Hezbollah
The Times Of Israeol/March 09/2021
Mahmoud Jabarin convicted of assisting Lebanese terror group’s psychological warfare efforts against Israel by providing images and video.The Haifa District Court on Monday sentenced an Israeli man to five years in prison an Israeli man for supporting Hezbollah by providing the Lebanese terror group with photos and videos from sites in the country, which were then published as part of its propaganda efforts against the Jewish state. Mahmoud Jabarin, 37, from the northern town of Umm al-Fahm, was convicted under a plea bargain in which he admitted to contacting Hezbollah operatives and helping the organization, which has vowed to destroy Israel. Prosecutors said Jabarin was in contact with two Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and starting in 2018 provided them with photos of the Lebanon border fence, Hadera power station, Megiddo Prison, Petah Tikva and other locations. The content was then published via social media and touted as showing Hezbollah’s ability to penetrate into Israeli territory as part of its psychological warfare against the Jewish state. “The defendant agreed and acted on the request [of the two operatives] out of a desire to assist Hezbollah’s media, propaganda and war effort against Israel,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment. In addition to the five-year sentence, which includes time served from the date of his arrest on February 18, 2019, Jabarin was given another 12 months’ suspended sentence effective for three years from his release from prison.He has 45 days to appeal the sentence.Prosecutors said that Jabarin began to support Hezbollah in 2005 and chose Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as his religious guide. In the years that followed, he maintained two Facebook accounts, each with hundreds of followers, where he would post messages of support for the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Ibrahim Meets al-Rahi, His Govt. Initiative 'Still on Front Burner'
Naharnet/09 March ,2021
General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim met Tuesday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkirki, as media reports said his initiative for resolving the government formation crisis is “still on the front burner.”Ibrahim did not make a statement while leaving Bkirki but informed sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Tuesday that his initiative could be “the only solution that is strongly present on the table.”“There are no alternative choices, especially that it has won the acceptance of the more obstinate party, which is the President and the Free Patriotic Movement,” the sources added. The sources explained that the initiative is based on “a 5+1 share” for the President’s camp and an interior minister candidate enjoying the approval of both Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri. “If there are good intentions, this initiative should be crowned by an imminent positive meeting between Aoun and Hariri that would lead to an active return to negotiations,” the sources added.And while Hariri is “yet to give an answer” regarding this initiative, which is expected after his return to Lebanon, the sources revealed that influential countries have voiced support for the proposed solution.

Presidency: No truth to what is being circulated about Presidential message to Parliament to "remove procuration" of designated PM
NNA/09 March ,2021
The Presidency Press Office issued the following statement: “Media outlets and websites are reporting news, on the Central News Agency stating that President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, will send a message to the Parliament to "remove procuration" from the Prime Minister designate, Saad Hariri, “Due to his failure to form the government etc.. The Presidency Press Office denies this news, since it includes fabricated and unfounded data which certain media outlets deliberately promote despite the repeated calls by the Media Office to stop leaking such lies and refer to it in everything related to news of the President and his stances”. -- Presidency Press Office

Aoun Discusses Israeli Violations and Syrian Refugees with U.N. Official
Naharnet/09 March ,2021
President Michel Aoun held talks Tuesday in Baabda with U.N. Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi. During the meeting, Aoun handed Rochdi a copy of a report submitted by Lebanon to the U.N. about “the damage to the environmental and maritime resources” from the oil spill that has recently hit its southern shores. The National News Agency said the president also asked the U.N. official to mention the oil spill in the annual report about Resolution 1701 which will be discussed by the Security Council on March 18. “Lebanon clings to its rights to compensation for the environmental and economic damage, especially that it is still suffering from the repercussions of the oil spill that resulted from the Israeli bombardment during the 2006 war,” Aoun told Rochdi. He also called for including “the repeated and growing Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty” in the 1701 report. Aoun also discussed with Rochdi the issue of the displaced Syrians in Lebanon and the need for the U.N. to “facilitate their return to their country.”And citing “Denmark’s repatriation a week ago of 100 displaced Syrians to their country,” the president hoped such a move will “activate the issue of the safe return of the displaced with support from the international community.”
 

Hariri Meets Russian Foreign Minister in Abu Dhabi
Naharnet/09 March ,2021
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri held talks Tuesday in Abu Dhabi with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. A terse statement issued by Hariri’s press office said discussions tackled “the various situations and developments in Lebanon and the region.”The meeting was held in the presence of Mikhail Bogdanov, who is Russia’s Deputy FM and the Special Presidential envoy for the Middle East, and George Shaaban, who is Hariri’s envoy for Russian affairs.Bickering between Lebanon's political rivals has left the country in a stalemate for months, only worsening the economic disaster sparked by a debt crisis and sovereign default last year. Disagreements between Hariri and President Michel Aoun have delayed the formation of the government for more than four months. Hariri had recently announced that his meetings abroad are aimed at rallying support for crisis-hit Lebanon. “I’m visiting Arab states and countries in the region and the world to rally support for Lebanon and mend ties, especially Arab relations, so that the solution can begin quickly once the government is formed, and it will be formed,” he said at the time.

Berri Schedules Friday Parliamentary Session
Naharnet/09 March ,2021
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday invited lawmakers to hold a plenary parliamentary session on Friday at the UNESCO Palace -- parliament’s temporary venue. State-run National News Agency said the session is aimed at studying and approving draft laws and proposals that are on parliament’s agenda. Berri’s call comes amid a wave of road-blocking protests that has engulfed the country for more than a week now. Protesters are venting anger over political inaction in the face of deepening poverty. The country has been mired in an unprecedented economic crisis, which has brought surging unemployment and spiraling prices while the currency has plunged to a new low to the dollar on the black market. Yet the deeply divided political class has failed to agree on a new cabinet since a massive explosion in Beirut port last August that killed more than 200 people and led to the government's resignation.
 

Wehbe, Shea discuss implementation of reforms, fight against corruption
NNA/09 March ,2021
Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Charbel Wehbe, welcomed US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, and discussed with her on strengthening bilateral relations and exchanging support for nominations before international forums.The situation in Lebanon was tackled, as well as the importance of speeding up the implementation of reforms and combating corruption to advance the economy, and to motivate friendly countries to provide aid and support to Lebanon, in addition to the importance of bolstering stability and calm in the South and doing all that is necessary for this purpose, while affirming respect for Security Council Resolution 1071.

The 80-year-old Lebanese musician in legal battle for a COVID-19 vaccine
Thomson Reuters Foundation, Mtein, Lebanon/09 March ,2021
As a career musician who has played brass and wind instruments for most of his life, Joseph al-Hajj, 80, was particularly anxious to protect his most precious asset – his lungs – when the coronavirus swept into Lebanon last year. Hunkered down in his modest home in the mountains for months on end, Hajj said he pinned his hopes on the global race to develop a vaccine against the respiratory disease. So last month, when he saw lawmakers younger than himself jumping the vaccination queue, he felt impelled to fight for his right to be vaccinated -- filing suit against the health ministry with help from his son, a lawyer. In a nation where corruption and state mismanagement are widely blamed for causing a socioeconomic crisis, Hajj said his patience snapped when he read about the MPs’ vaccinations, which violated the terms of the national immunization plan that prioritized the over-75s. “I’m not going to lie, I’m very upset,” Hajj said, sitting in his sunny garden in Mtein, which lies about 30 km (18 miles) northeast of the capital, Beirut. “I’ve been waiting, waiting to go out again and play at parties and bring people together,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, saying he decided to go to the courts because “we had no confidence in the state anymore and I want my rights.” But in what Hajj’s son, Fadi, called a “small victory for accountability”, a judge ordered the ministry last week to vaccinate him within 48 hours, saying it had violated his right to life and health as well as the principle of equal access. “When politicians protect the perpetrators and are this shameless, there is only one authority where you can seek refuge: the judiciary,” said Fadi al-Hajj. Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hasan has defended the early vaccination of the lawmakers as a “sovereign decision” and the ministry has filed an appeal against the court ruling. It said it “does not discriminate between citizens, rather, it gives them all equal opportunities to access the vaccine,” according to a court filing seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The ministry, which said after the ruling that Hajj would be vaccinated “sooner or later”, did not respond to a request for comment.
‘We want to play music’
While he remains steadfast in his claims against the ministry, Hajj said he preferred harmony to confrontation. The walls of the house he shares with his wife are adorned with portraits of him with various musical instruments, alone and with his father, also a musician who began his career before Lebanon gained independence from France in 1943. One picture shows Hajj posing next to Betty Ford, the wife of late US President Gerald Ford, during a 1975 trip to the United States to perform Lebanese folk music. In Lebanon, he played for Pope John Paul II during the first papal visit to the country in 1997, and later for late French President Jacques Chirac, for whom he played the La Marseillaise national anthem, taught to him by his father. “I perform my duties as a musician to any party or person and everything else is the least of my concerns,” he said, adding that he had only filed suit because he believed accessing the vaccine quickly could save his life. For now, his wait continues. “I hope they give it to me soon,” he said. “In the spring, the flowers here bloom and we want to play music and have a drink.”

FPM Bloc Calls Protests a 'Coup' against Aoun's 'Reformist Project'
Naharnet/09 March ,2021
The Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc on Tuesday described the road-blocking protests engulfing Lebanon as a “coup” against President Michel Aoun’s “reformist project.”“The past days have witnessed exploitation of people’s pain for political motives, and the practices and slogans reflect a coup-like situation against the president, his position and what he represents as well as against the bloc that has been struggling alongside him,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly e-meeting. “It is a premeditated coup aimed at undermining President Aoun’s reformist project and impeding accountability, topped by the forensic audit, which has the ability to unveil the facts,” the bloc added. Also commenting on the protests, Strong Lebanon said it categorically rejects that “a small group of rioters control the right to movement of millions of Lebanese,” warning of “any act of sabotage to undermine security that some might seek in order to compensate for the failure of the ongoing coup attempt.”The bloc also stressed that “any thinking by any party of toppling the president” would be an “illusion which we advise that they quit.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 09-10/2021

Republicans, Democrats come together to call on Biden to be hard on Iran
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/09 March ,2021
Almost 150 members of Congress - Republicans and Democrats - have signed a letter imploring President Joe Biden not to ignore Iran’s militias and ballistic missile program in any new deal with Tehran. The letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken comes amid increased efforts by the Biden administration to negotiate the failed JCPOA, an acronym for the Iran nuclear deal, with Iran. It is one of the first efforts to garner bipartisan support as the split between Biden’s Democratic party and Republicans continues to grow. The letter, first reported by ABC News, calls for an all-inclusive deal, unlike the original deal signed under the Obama administration in 2015. Iran’s “malign behavior,” according to the letter, needed to be included. Iran has several proxies and militias throughout the Middle East, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Unit (PMU) and Yemen’s Houthis. Mike Waltz, a Republican Congressman, said the bipartisan consensus was clear. “Halting the Iranian Regime’s nuclear program, ballistic missile program, funding of terrorism, and release of political prisoners all must be included in any future negotiations,” he tweeted. Last month, Republican lawmakers called on Biden not to lift sanctions on Iran - a demand by Tehran before renegotiating with the US. In December, 150 Democrats signed a letter backing Biden’s plans to rejoin the JCPOA. Congressman Anthony Brown, a Democrat, told ABC News that Iran policy was “not a numbers game. “This letter provides a real opportunity for the administration to see that there’s a significant number of members that would support a balanced approach -- a bipartisan, balanced approach,” he said.

US blacklists two IRGC interrogators in first Iran sanctions under Biden admin
Tuqa Khalid and Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/10 March ,2021:
The US State Department blacklisted on Tuesday two of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) interrogators for human rights violations during the 2019 and 2020 protests in Iran, amid an ongoing standoff between Washington and Tehran over reviving the abandoned 2015 nuclear deal.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced designating IRGC interrogators Ali Hemmatian and Masoud Safdari for “involvement in gross violations of human rights, namely the torture and/or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of political prisoners and persons detained during protests in 2019 and 2020 in Iran.”The two Iranian officials and their immediate family members are now barred from entering the United States. Iran is notorious for its widespread human rights abuses, specifically its violent crackdown during protests against the clerical regime. Hundreds of Iranians took to the streets in November 2019 to protest against fuel price rises, which then turned into political anti-regime demonstrations. Protests rocked Iran again in January 2020 after the IRGC acknowledged they shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 plane in error shortly after takeoff, mistaking it for a missile. The UN said Iranian security forces used excessive and lethal force, which caused the deaths of over 300 people, including women and children, during the protests. Thousands were arrested, and the UN said the regime’s forces “used physical and psychological torture against detained protesters, including for the purposes of extracting forced confessions.”Some of the detained have been handed long prison sentences, and others have been executed.
Nuclear standoff
This was the first move to impose sanctions on Iran by President Joe Biden's adminsitration. Other than affirming the new administration’s stance on human rights, the State Department’s decision could be interpreted as Washington sending Tehran a signal that it will now bow to the latter’s pressure amid the impasse over reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Since taking office in January, Biden has taken steps, perceived as extending an olive branch to Iran, to revive talks over the nuclear deal which has unraveled since his predecessor Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018.
Biden reversed Trump’s determination that all UN sanctions against Iran had been restored and the State Department eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats in New York. Yet, Tehran adamantly demanded that all Trump-era sanctions on Iran be lifted before taking any real action to return to the deal. The regime repeatedly made threats of upping their nuclear activities, effectively “turning up the heat” on Biden, trying to get as many concessions from Washington as possible before taking any real action. Biden has also faced a lot of pressure at home. Lawmakers urged him not to lift sanctions which they say is necessary “leverage” that Washington would appear “weak” if it were to give it up to “appease” Tehran during nuclear negotiations. Read: Republicans urge Biden against lifting US sanctions on Iran: Do not give up leverage
Levinson anniversary
The sanctions came on the 14th anniversary of former FBI agent Bob Levinson’s abduction. Levinson disappeared on Iran’s Kish Island in 2007, although it remains unclear what he was doing. Blinken demanded answers on Tuesday, saying the case “is not closed.”
“We call on the Iranian government to provide credible answers to what happened to Bob Levinson and to immediately and safely release all US citizens who are unjustly held captive in Iran. The abhorrent act of unjust detentions for political gain must cease immediately,” Blinken said.
The top US diplomat said the US would “never forget Bob Levinson.”FBI raises reward for missing ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson to $5 million infographic. FBI raises reward for missing ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson to $5 million infographic
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on two senior Iranian intelligence officials, believed to be involved in Levinson’s disappearance and “likely death” as Blinken said Tuesday.

Iran nuclear probe is endless task for IAEA, Grossi says don’t politicize inspections
Bloomberg/09 March ,2021
Updated: 09 March ,2021: 10:01 PM GST
The international probe into Iran’s atomic activities may go on for years, according to the official whose efforts to ensure the country doesn’t develop a nuclear weapon are inextricably linked with diplomacy to calm spiraling tensions in the Gulf. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that even if Tehran manages to clarify the source of man-made uranium particles detected last year at several undeclared locations, the work of his inspections team won’t be finished. “Additional information may come up,” Grossi, 60, said in an interview Tuesday. “In non-proliferation, there is no final, definite clean bill of health.” Grossi will need to deploy the skills he developed as an Argentine diplomat and honed during earlier IAEA stints investigating Iran’s past. The agency is pressing on with its work just as Iran and world powers approach a crucial juncture in their attempts to resuscitate a five-year-old accord that was supposed to cap Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. While former President Donald Trump’s attempt to kill the deal failed, the US exit in 2018 left the agreement badly hobbled. The administrations of Joe Biden and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani say they want Washington to return to the pact but each is insisting the other side act first. “These next few months are going to be complex,” Grossi said. “They need to see eye-to-eye at a higher political level.” The IAEA and Iran agreed last week to talks in April where technical experts will probe how decades-old uranium particles wound up at a warehouse in Tehran, as well as other locations first flagged by Israeli spies. Iran was previously subject to a 12-year IAEA investigation that only ended after the 2015 deal capped the enrichment needed to produce warheads. Iran assented to the latest round of investigations after IAEA inspectors made it clear that “this isn’t going to disappear” and that stonewalling “may have a deleterious effect,” Grossi said. Short of a new compromise, tensions between Iran, the US and its Arab Gulf allies will surge over the nuclear issue. Recent flashpoints include attacks on shipping and strikes on Saudi oil facilities by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. The original negotiators of the 2015 pact repeatedly warned that war, along with major disruptions to the global economy, was the only alternative to a negotiated settlement. Safeguarding nuclear material in Iran “is a constant process,” said Grossi, while insisting that inspections shouldn’t become a pawn in global politics. “Please don’t put the IAEA into the tradeables. Inspection work is a prerequisite.”

US citizen held for 3 years in Iran tells of ‘psychological torture’: I was a ‘pawn’
Al Arabiya English/09 March ,2021
Xiyue Wang, a US citizen who had been held in Iran for three years on spying charges, told Al Arabiya in an exclusive interview, Iranian interrogators told him they wanted to use him as a “pawn” and described the “psychological torture” he endured. “I was thrown into solitary confinement in a very tight cell for 28 days. I was questioned every day for hours. I experienced a lot of psychological torture,” Wang said. Human rights organizations have long accused the Iranian regime of arbitrary arrests, forced confessions and inhumane prison conditions. “There were etches on the wall of the cell, one of them was written in English saying: 364 days of imprisonment. That’s when I broke collapsed immediately,” Wang said. Wang, a Princeton University graduate student, was convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2017. His family and the university have always said he was in Iran for research into a history degree and denied spying. “In 2016, I was studying the Persian language in Tehran and researching Iranian archival materials. A few hours before my return to the US, members of the… intelligence called me, claiming to be the police. They asked me to bring my electronics and answer some questions,” Wang said. “In the beginning, there were no charges and it seemed like routine questioning by authorities.”International diplomats, lawyers and relatives of detainees say Iran has a history of arresting Westerners, especially dual nationals, mostly on spying charges. “The interrogator told me that he wanted to use me as a pawn to finalize a deal with the US for the return of Iranian prisoners [held in the United States] and to retrieve frozen funds in Washington,” Wang said. “You have to confess to being a spy or you’ll go back to solitary confinement until you do. If you don’t, you will not see your wife and son ever again,” he added. Iran released Wang in 2019 during a rare prisoner swap between Tehran and Washington at a time of heightened tensions under the administration of former US President Donald Trump. Switzerland facilitated the swap. The country represents US diplomatic interests in Iran, since Washington and Tehran cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet says Houthi attacks on Kingdom target global economy
Al Arabiya English/10 March ,2021
Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet said on Tuesday the recent attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on the Kingdom’s oil facilities targeted the world economy, state news agency SPA reported. “The Cabinet considered the two terrorist attempts to target Ras Tanura port and the residential area in the city of Dhahran as flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and to the extent that such treacherous and cowardly attempts target the Kingdom, they actually target in a greater degree the world economy,” the statement read. The Saudi authorities said on Sunday Iran-backed Houthis fired an explosive-laden drone at the Ras Tanura Port, site of a refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility. And shrapnel from a ballistic missile launched towards the Kingdom fell near a residential area in the city of Dhahran, used by the world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco. A Ministry of Energy spokesperson said both attacks did not result in any injury or loss of life or property. The attacks drove Brent crude prices above $70 a barrel to their highest since January 2020, while US crude futures touched their loftiest since October 2018. The Saudi Cabinet “followed the measures taken by the Kingdom to protect its national capabilities and gains in a way that preserves the security of world energy, stop terrorist attacks to guarantee the stability of energy supplies, oil exports security and guarantee free maritime navigation and international trade,” SPA reported. The Houthi attacks are the latest in a series of escalated cross-border aerial assaults on the Kingdom by the Iran-backed militia in Yemen. In 2019, Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, was shaken by a big missile and drone attack on oil installations just a few km (miles) from the facilities hit on Sunday, which Riyadh blamed on Iran, a charge Tehran denies. That attack, which was claimed by the Houthis but which Riyadh said did not originate from Yemen, forced Saudi Arabia to temporarily shut more than half of its crude output, causing a huge price spike.- With Reuters

US says it will not ease pressure on Syria after UAE criticism of Caesar Act
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/09 March ,2021
“To keep the Caesar Act as it is today makes this path very difficult for us as a nation and for the private sector,” Sheikh Abdullah said. The United States signaled Tuesday that it would not ease up on its stance toward Syria, hours after the top UAE diplomat implicitly criticized US sanctions that aim to cut off funds to the Assad regime. Under the Trump administration, Washington enacted the Caesar Act in an effort to prevent foreign entities or nations from taking part in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s reconstruction plans. Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed made his comments after meeting Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. “To keep the Caesar Act as it is today makes this path very difficult for us as a nation and for the private sector,” Sheikh Abdullah said. These sanctions aimed to force Assad to comply with UN Security Council resolutions, specifically UNSCR 2254, which calls for a political transition to end the yearslong war. As a result of the Assad regime’s gross violations and crimes against humanity, including using chemical weapons against civilians, the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in 2011. “The bigger challenge facing coordination and working with Syria today is the Caesar Act,” he said. In 2018, the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus. It has been hindered from doing more diplomatically or in terms of reconstruction due to the Caesar Act. Asked about Sheikh Abdullah’s remarks, a US State Department official told Al Arabiya English that the only way to achieve stability in Syria and the region was through a political process “that represents the will of all Syrians.” “We are committed to working with allies, partners, and the UN to ensure that a durable political solution remains within reach,” a State Department spokesperson said. Assad has been accused of blocking humanitarian aid to the Syrian people while using dwindling state funds for personal gains. “It is imperative for the regime and its supporters to engage seriously in political dialogue and allow humanitarian assistance to reach communities in need in order to achieve a sustainable end to the Syrian people’s suffering,” the State Department official said.

UAE Says U.S. Sanctions Complicate Syria's Return to Arab League
Agence France Presse/09 March ,2021
The United Arab Emirates said Tuesday that tough U.S. sanctions on war-ravaged Syria make it more challenging for Damascus to return to the Arab League. Through Washington's Caesar Act, a law that took effect in June last year, the United States is hoping to prevent any reconstruction effort or normalization of trade without accountability for atrocities under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said that while efforts were required by both the Syrians and the Arab League bloc, the "bigger challenge today facing coordination and working with Syria is the Caesar Act.""To keep the Caesar Act as it is today makes this path very difficult, not only for us as a nation, but also for the private sector," he added, during a press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. Abdullah said it was an issue that "should be part of dialogue we address clearly with our friends in the United States."Syria's conflict, sparked by the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011, has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions. Syria was suspended from the 22-member Arab League bloc in November 2011 as the death toll mounted. Several regional powers, betting on the demise of Assad's regime, suspended diplomatic ties with Damascus. The UAE and Bahrain re-opened their diplomatic missions in the Syrian capital in December 2018.
 

Ten years on, peace remains elusive in Syria
The Arab Weekly/March 09/2021
Assad is still there, a pyrrhic victor offering no credible prospects of reconciliation for the Syrian people and exercising limited sovereignty over a land left prey to foreign powers.

BEIRUT – After a decade of unfathomable violence and human tragedy that has made Syria the defining war of the early 21st century, the fighting has tapered off but the suffering hasn’t. In 2011, Bashar Assad and his government briefly looked like another domino about to fall in the whirlwind of pro-democracy revolts sweeping the Middle East. Ten years later, Assad is still there, a pyrrhic victor offering no credible prospects of reconciliation for the Syrian people and exercising limited sovereignty over a land left prey to foreign powers. In late January 2011, the uprisings that toppled longtime rulers in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya became known as the “Arab Spring” and the contagious nature of the region’s revolts became obvious. It took time for the wave of protests to take hold in Syria, where demonstrations had been banned for half a century and the government seemed more entrenched than anywhere else in the region.
Some of the first gatherings, such as vigils outside the Libyan embassy, were ostensibly in support of the other uprisings and not a direct challenge to the four-decade-old rule of the Assad clan. “We would call for freedom and democracy in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but we were actually chanting for Syria,” prominent Syrian activist Mazen Darwish recalled. “We became obsessed with finding the spark that would put us next in line,” he says, retracing the beginnings of Syria’s revolt in a phone interview. “Who was going to be Syria’s Bouazizi?” The closest equivalent to Mohamed Bouazizi, the young street vendor whose self-immolation was the trigger for Tunisia’s revolt, turned out to be youngsters who spray-painted the words “Your turn, doctor” on a wall in the southern town of Daraa. The slogan was a clear reference to Assad, wishing the London-trained ophthalmologist the same fate as Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had to flee into exile — or perhaps even Libya’s Muammar Gathafi, who was later that year lynched by a frenzied mob. The graffiti led to arrests and torture, which in turn caused an uproar that rallied a critical number of Syrians behind the protests. March 15, the date for the start of the Syrian uprising, was not the first day of protests but the day that demonstrations happened nationwide and simultaneously. Journalist and author Rania Abouzeid describes the moment that gives its title to her book on the Syrian war: “No Turning Back.” “The great wall of fear had cracked, the silence was shattered. The confrontation was existential — for all sides — from its inception,” she wrote.
– Worst conflict in decades –
What came next led to the planet’s worst conflict in a generation. The displacement, which saw half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million forced to flee their homes, was the largest induced by conflict since the second world war.
Half of those displaced fled the country, some of them swelling a wave of refugees reaching the shores of Europe, a phenomenon whose scope affected public opinion, politics and the outcome of elections on the continent.
In the chaos that followed the eruption of civil conflict in Syria, the most violent group in modern jihad — ISIS — proclaimed a “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq that reshaped global terrorism.
Arch foes Iran and the United States both sent troops to Syria to protect their interests, as did Turkey. Russia for its part launched in 2015 its largest military intervention since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a move that turned the tide in Assad’s favour. Almost 400,000 people were killed in 10 years, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor that has continued to keep count after international organisations gave up.
Most of the 117,000 civilians in that grim tally were killed by the government, whose willingness to turn against the population surprised even its fiercest opponents. “I didn’t think it would reach this level of violence,” said Darwish. “But I was mistaken.”The government has used chemical weapons on civilian areas to subdue pockets of resistance, it has raided densely inhabited areas with crude barrel bombs that sow indiscriminate death, and systematically resorted to siege and starvation tactics. Countless strikes were carried out against medical facilities in defiance of global outrage.Huge swathes of Aleppo, once the country’s economic hub and a heritage jewel considered one of the world’s longest continuously inhabited cities, were levelled.
The rapid militarisation of the government’s response to the initial protests and the emergence of jihadist groups — helped by the government’s mass release of al-Qaeda militants — turned the Syrian uprising into the Syrian war. The ultra-violence that ISIS projected and its ability to attract fighters from Europe and beyond instilled a fear in the West that wiped out the early pro-democracy enthusiasm. The world’s focus shifted to the fight against jihadists and away from the Syrian people’s struggle against Assad, who quickly recast himself as the best rampart against terrorism. “We were very naive when we started the revolution,” said Darwish, who was among those who created the first coordination committees organising the anti-government movement. “Our outlook was sentimental, poetic, romantic. We thought our moral high ground alone would be enough. We had no tools when the others — the regime and the Islamists — had real partners and huge resources,” he explained. “We entered the revolution naked. All the others turned up armed to the teeth.”
– A multiplayer conflict –
The protest camp’s voice was gradually drowned out and outside support only ever came for the conflict’s many other players. In 2012, US President Barack Obama described Assad’s use of chemical weapons as a red line. But when it was crossed a year later, he stopped short of deciding on the military intervention many had hoped for, in what remains a defining moment of his administration. Assad had survived the pro-democracy protests but there was no guarantee he would survive the chaotic conflict that arose when he started to put those protests down. Rebels and jihadists fighting under a myriad of different banners, some receiving funding and weapons from abroad, were gradually bringing a Syrian Army weakened by mass defections to its knees.
But the intervention of Iran and its proxies — first among them the Lebanese Hezbollah — and the massive Russian expeditionary operation of 2015 stopped the rot. At one point, the government had lost control over almost 80% of the national territory, including most of its oil resources, and rebels were on Damascus’s doorstep. With the support of Russia’s air force, equipment and advisers, and with the added manpower of Shia militia groups deployed by Tehran, Assad embarked on a vengeful scorched earth campaign to reconquer the country. Siege after siege, every rebel town and pocket was bombed into submission and turned into fields of rubble. Footage of mind-boggling destruction drew comparisons with the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Images of maimed children being pulled out of pulverised homes, schools and hospitals fed global news reports year after year, in scenes that the government and Russia’s growing army of social media trolls tried to claim were staged in Hollywood-like studios to discredit Assad.
In an interview in February 2016, Assad made it clear there would be little room for negotiation and that his goal was nothing short of a full reconquest.
“Regardless of whether we can do that or not, this is a goal we are seeking to achieve without any hesitation,” he said. The bloody sieges of Aleppo and eastern Ghouta, a rebel enclave near Damascus, ended with surrender deals that were replicated across the country. Jihadists and rebel fighters were forced into the north-western province of Idlib, an enclave where around three million people now live in abominable conditions under the rule of jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
– Limited control –
Turkey has an estimated 15,000 troops deployed inside Syria and wields significant influence in the north. And the Syrian Kurdish forces that the United States allied with to combat ISIS in 2014 have remained in control of the north-east since they retook the last dregs of the so-called caliphate in 2019. “If today Assad doesn’t control the entire territory, it is in large part due to his obstinacy, to the fact that he never agreed to negotiate… and insisted on using force to impose a return to the pre-2011 situation,” a Western diplomat based in the region said. A ceasefire deal reached a year ago by Moscow and Ankara, the two main brokers in the conflict, has held despite sporadic fighting. The offensive Assad long threatened on Idlib looks increasingly unlikely in that it would send the two mighty foreign powers on a direct collision course. The Damascus government controls less than two thirds of the national territory, and geographer Fabrice Balanche argues that a look at the country’s borders paints an even less flattering picture. “Borders are the sovereignty symbol par excellence, and the regime’s scorecard remains nearly blank on that front,” he argued in a recent study showing that government forces controlled only 15% of Syria’s borders. The rest is de facto controlled by Turkish, US, Kurdish and Iranian-backed forces. External powers are “informally dividing the country into multiple zones of influence and unilaterally controlling most of its borders,” Balanche wrote. “I would say the best of the worst options we have today is an extended stalemate,” said Dareen Khalifa, Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group, in a podcast on Syria’s “frozen conflict.” She argued that for this stalemate to turn into a more constructive attempt to end the conflict, the living conditions of the Syrian people would need to radically improve. Last year saw the lowest number of casualties by far since the start of the war, with military operations having significantly wound down. But while it may look to the outside world like the conflict has essentially ended, the lives of many Syrians have paradoxically never been worse.
“The war is over in the sense that the fighting and the battles are over,” said Hossam, a 39-year-old translator living in Damascus. “But our wounds are still fresh… and now the economy is the crisis everyone is experiencing, so in fact the war may be over but the suffering is not,” he said in a phone interview.
– A quest for justice –
According to the United Nations, 60% of the population is now food insecure. The Syrian pound has lost 98% of its value in a decade and a World Vision report this month put the cost of the war at $1.2 trillion. For many Syrians, there is little to look forward to in a country where extortionist war profiteers and security services are milking the people dry. A court in Koblenz, Germany, last month sentenced a member of the Syrian secret police to four and a half years in jail for crimes against humanity. The verdict was a first and offered a glimmer of hope that some form of justice could be handed down for the conflict’s victims, but Assad and his inner circle are in no immediate danger. The 55-year-old, who came to power in 2000, is widely expected to secure another term in an election due to take place in the coming weeks. His government has so far failed to include a wider cross section of society in any political process, including the civil society that handled major aspects of the crisis response during the war. It is also reluctant to bring in the international organisations that could prop up its nosediving economy and manage some of the reconstruction for which Damascus’s war allies have insufficient resources and know-how. “Syria is one of the youngest countries in the region and a significant portion of its population wasn’t even born in 2011,” said Gilles Bertrand, who heads the EU’s delegation to Syria.
“These girls and boys will be Syria’s young adults in five or 10 years and will, in turn, want a future, economic prospects and political freedoms that the system cannot give them if it doesn’t reform,” he said. Mazen Darwish, who now lives in Paris, admitted that the picture was bleak 10 years after the revolt erupted, but he was also confident the revolution would outlive Assad’s rule. “Huge changes require time and sacrifice,” said the 47-year-old activist, who was jailed in February 2012 and tortured for more than three years. “I don’t think the revolution, including in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, has either succeeded or failed yet. The Arab world has embarked on a process that is just beginning,” he said. “It was the first revolution we took part in. We made a lot of mistakes. We promise to do better next time.”

US drone strikes against extremists will require Biden’s approval
The Arab Weekly/March 09/2021
WASHINGTON--US President Joe Biden has subordinated drone strikes in Middle East and North Africa hotspots to his approval, in a move that is likely to deeply affect US military tactics in the war against terrorism in the region. The decision, confirmed by the US defence department, suspends drone strikes outside of war zones where US forces are operating, reversing the policy of his predecessor Donald Trump, who had given the military free rein in countries such as Somalia. Any drone strikes planned against extremist groups outside of Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq will have to be approved by the White House, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday. He described the measure as “interim guidance” that was issued “to ensure that the president has full visibility on proposed significant actions.”“It’s not meant to be permanent and it doesn’t mean a cessation” of strikes, he told a news conference. “We are clearly focused on the persistent threat of violent extremist organisations. And we’re clearly still going to be committed to working with international partners to counter those threats,” he said. The New York Times said the new guidelines had been secretly passed on to military commanders after Biden came to office on January 20, but were only revealed in recent days.From his first days in the White House in 2016, Trump had rolled back the controls put in place by his predecessor Barack Obama on armed operations against jihadist extremist groups, saying he trusted the commanders on the ground. Drone strikes quickly multiplied after that, becoming the only form of operations in some countries where only a handful of US special forces were deployed in support of local governments, such as in Somalia, where the US has been battling the al-Shabaab terrorist group, or in Libya, where they have targeted ISIS extremists. Even though the military says its strikes are “surgical,” NGOs have said the attacks often cause civilian casualties, undermining their efficacy in combating extremism. In a first public report on the US military operation in Somalia published in February, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Glenn Fine, recalled that part of Africom’s stated mission is to ensure that by 2021, Al-Shabaab, the Islamic State (ISIS) in Somalia and other terrorist groups have been sufficiently “degraded such that they cannot cause significant harm to US interests.”But, Fine wrote, “despite continued US airstrikes in Somalia and US assistance to African partner forces, Al-Shabaab appears to be a growing threat that aspires to strike the US homeland.”At least 10 people were killed Friday when a car bomb blew up outside a popular restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu, an attack claimed by Al-Shabaab.

Hand of Iran, Iraqi proxies seen in Ras Tanura attack
The Arab Weekly/March 09/2021
The Saudi government has indicated that it sees the recent attacks on oil installations in eastern Saudi Arabia as an escalation that carries huge risks for the global economy.
ADEN - There are growing indications that Iran and its proxy militias in Iraq were directly involved in the attack that targeted the Ras Tanura port and Aramco facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The attack was the second of its kind after the attack on the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities in September of last year, which was described by then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as an “unprecedented act of war.”
The Wall Street Journal quoted an adviser at the Saudi Royal Court as confirming that the source of the attack could have been Iran or Iraq.
The indirect Saudi accusations of Iran being behind the operation became more obvious after an official source in the Saudi energy ministry said the oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, the site of an oil refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility, was attacked by a drone “coming from the sea.” Military experts said the drone’s trajectory could not have started from Yemeni territory.
The Saudi defence ministry also said “it intercepted an armed drone coming from the sea prior to hitting its target at an oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, site of a refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility.”
Riyadh responded to the Houthi escalation by announcing the launch of a military operation that included strikes on military targets in Sana’a and other Houthi-controlled provinces in northern Yemen.
Some speculated that the Houthi escalation’s objectives were to neutralise the Arab coalition’s air forces in order to facilitate the fall of the Marib governorate to the Houthis and hence improve their negotiating position at final settlement talks. Others linked the escalation to the pressures exerted by the Iranian regime in order to obtain concessions from the international community on the nuclear file.
Through the recent escalation, Tehran seems to be trying to take advantage of the conflicting signals coming from the US and from the European Union’s prioritisation of the return to the nuclear deal.
The Saudi government has indicated that it sees the recent attacks on oil installations in eastern Saudi Arabia as an escalation that carries huge risks for the global economy.
“Such acts of sabotage do not only target the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also the security and stability of energy supplies to the world, and therefore, the global economy,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement on state media. The official source warned that the attacks could jeopardise the security and stability of energy supplies in the world due to the impact of these actions on the security of petroleum exports and maritime traffic besides exposing the region’s territorial waters to the risk of major environmental disasters. Colonel Turki al-Malki, spokesman of the Saudi defence ministry and the Saudi-led military coalition, said in a statement that the ministry would take “all necessary, deterrent measures to safeguard its national assets.”
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree quickly claimed responsbility for the operation, which he said was carried out using 14 drones and 8 ballistic missiles. With fingers pointed at pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, which were accused last year of being behind the attack on the Abqaiq facility, the Iranian regime now stands more directly accused of involvement in attacks on Saudi facilities. Tehran was previously suspected only of supplying their Houthi proxies with missiles and drones.
That kind of smuggling has not stopped, according to Riyadh. The Saudi defence ministry spokesman reiterated Saudi accusations that Iran is smuggling missiles and drones to Houthi militias, allowing the latter to intensify their cross-border attacks on the kingdom.
Malki said in a press statement on Monday that “the ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones were smuggled by the Iranian regime to the Houthis.”
Houthi operations against Saudi Arabia have escalated since Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officer Hassan Erlo was appointed ambassador to the Houthi government in Sana’a.
Different sources say Tehran is in full control of the Houthi militia operations room and directs it according to what serves Iranian designs in the region, even if this exacerbates the Houthis’ international isolation and triggers reprisals by the Saudi-led coalition.
The US showed a relatively firmer stand towards the Houthis on Monday.
“We condemn the egregious Houthi drone and missile attack against Saudi Aramco facilities,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
“The frequency of Huthi attacks on Saudi Arabia — attacks like these — are not the actions of a group that is serious about peace,” he said.
“The Houthis, in our view and in the view of our allies and partners, have to demonstrate their willingness to engage in a political process. They need to, quite simply, stop attacking and start negotiating.”
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also said on Monday that the administration of US President Joe Biden is alarmed by the escalating Houthi attacks and that Saudi Arabia faces “genuine security threats” from Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi movement and elsewhere in the region.
“We of course continue to work in close cooperation with the Saudis, given the threat,” Psaki told a daily news briefing.
Washington was previously criticised for reversing the houthis’ terror designation. The decision was linked by Gulf analysts to the Iran-backed militias’ efforts to escalate their military moves in Yemen.
In a new indication of Tehran’s control over Houthi action in Yemen and of war and peace decisions there, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said that “the roots of the Yemeni crisis go back to the war launched by Saudi Arabia, and accusations against Tehran will not solve the crisis.”The spokesman added that “Tehran is ready to help effectively in ending the Yemeni crisis, in the event that Riyadh ends the war.”
“Ending the war in Yemen and lifting the siege on it will lead to a diplomatic settlement of the crisis,” he added. Observers believe that the Houthi escalation is likely to backfire by increasing Western opposition to the Houthis’ behaviour and reducing objections to Saudi-led military action. On Sunday, the coalition resumed its operations after a relatively long pause. The strikes were justified by the coalition as a response to Houthi attacks, stressing that the operation “is consistent with international humanitarian law and its customary rules.”The outcome of the Houthi escalation remains uncertain. There is a possibility it could push the international community to intensify its efforts towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday: “It’s really quite simple – such actions are detrimental to the mediation efforts being carried out by our special envoy Martin Griffiths.”But if the suspected involvement of Iraqi militias in attacks on Saudi Arabia is part of a new Iran-backed strategy, analysts say, this could mean that the circle of fire could extend to other fronts where Iranian proxies are ready to carry out Tehran’s regional and international agenda despite the greater risks this would pose to regional stability, not to mention delaying any peaceful settlement in Yemen.

US admiral calls for ground-based offensive weaponry in western Pacific
Reuters/10 March ,2021
The US military needs more long-range weaponry in the western Pacific, including ground-based arms, the top US admiral for the Asia-Pacific said on Tuesday, underscoring US concerns about China’s growing military strength, particularly among its missile forces. President Joe Biden’s administration has said the United States intends to compete with China’s growing influence and military strength in the Asia-Pacific. The Pentagon is carrying out a review of its strategy in the region. “A wider base of long-range precision fires, which are enabled by all our terrestrial forces - not just sea and air but by land forces as well - is critically important to stabilize what is becoming a more unstable environment in the western Pacific,” Admiral Phil Davidson, commander for US Indo-Pacific Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Davidson cited enthusiasm by the Army and Marine Corps “to embrace some of the capabilities that the Navy and Air Force have already developed.”A budget document provided to Congress last month by the Indo-Pacific Command said the US needed increased ground-based weapons along the first island chain, which would cost $408 million in fiscal year 2022 alone and $2.9 billion from fiscal years 2023 to 2027. The first island chain is the string of islands that run from the Japanese archipelago, through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China’s coastal seas. While the US has been able to use long-range weapons on ships and aircraft, there were limits placed on it because of an arms control treaty. But the US pulled out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia in 2019. While the Pentagon has said it was in favor of placing such missiles in the region, allies in Asia have so far appeared to be opposed to the idea of hosting them. Davidson said, however, that missile defense was not enough to deter a potential adversary. “Missile defense is the hardest thing to do. And if I’m the manager of a baseball team, if I can have the best defenses in the world but if I can’t score some runs, I can’t win the game,” Davidson said.
 

Inside the rise of the shadowy Iran-backed militias in Iraq
Mona Alami, Al Arabiya English/09 March ,2021
On March 3, ten Iranian-made rockets struck Ain al-Asad air base in western Anbar province, the attack was the fourth to target US. interests in Iraq since February 15. Since the US killing of Iran commander Qassem Soleimani and Kata’ib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes in January 2020, Iran and its Iraqi proxies have conducted a covert war against western interests in Iraq that experts believe was mapped by Soleimani before his death. Under the Trump administration, Iran escalated its kinetic action against western interests in Iran, by relying heavily on Iraqi militant groups. Such groups, including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haqq received direct funding and training from Iran. “Between May and October 2019, Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes increased the number of new “brands” or “facades” used to disguise the groups undertaking different kinds of attacks – against coalition, protestors and foreign embassies. This was an effort to avoid blame for mistakes or unpopular actions, especially approaching elections,” Michael Knights, fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policies told Al Arabiya English.
Asaib Ahl al-Haqq alongside Kata’ib Hezbollah led the campaign for the ouster of the United States from Iraq. The State Department designated Asaib Ahl al-Haqq and its leader, Qais al-Khazali, as a terrorist organization in 2020. According to a paper by Michael Knights for CTC, from October 2019 onwards, Kata’ib Hezbollah ensured delivery from Iran, through the Iran-Iraq border, of at least four truck containers of unguided rockets of 107mm-, 122mm-, and 240mm-caliber, Manportable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS), and 70 anti-materiel rifles. Kata’ib Hezbollah appears to have been behind several attacks against the United States namely a November 7, 2019, rocket attack on US forces, and then the December 27, 2019, killing of an American and the December 31, 2019, assault on the US Embassy in Baghdad. “Such groups were trained and armed by Iran and adhere completely to its regional agenda and are behind most of the attacks targeting coalition troops,” said Iraqi strategic expert Muayed Juaych. These attacks were a contributing factor to the US decision to kill al-Mohandes and Soleimani on January 3, 2020. Since the assassination of al-Mohandes, Kata’ib Hezbollah’s attacks against US interests have become increasingly covert in nature. Knights believes nonetheless that some of the 57 known rocket attacks on US and coalition forces in the first nine months of 2020 have been undertaken by Kata’ib Hezbollah, though to what proportion remains unclear. Previously unheard-of shadowy groups have also emerged, continuing to claim responsibility for attacks against western interests. This has allowed pro-Iran militant groups within the Popular Mobilization Units affiliated to the Iraqi state to maintain their legitimate role within the state’s institutions while avoiding political backlash.
“New specialized networks were also built in Iran, using Iraqis with no previous criminal record, for assassinations. One is called Al Warithoon,” Knights said.
Since May 2019, several fake groups have endorsed western attacks, including Usbat al-Thaereen (League of the Revolutionaries), Saraya al-Muntaqim (Avenger Companies); Ashab al-Kahf (People of the Cave); Thar Muhandis (Revenge for Muhandis); Saraya Thawra Al-Ashreen Al-Thaniya (The Second 1920 Revolution Companies); and Qasim al-Jabbarin (Defeaters of the Global Arrogance, the latter referring to the United States). The latest attack in February of US positions at the Erbil airport, killing one coalition contractor and injuring several others, was claimed by Saraya Awliya al-Dam, “the Guardians of Blood,” a group experts link to Asaib Ahl al-Haqq. According to Knights, Soleimani is the one to have proposed these new branding tactics to make it harder for militias to be held accountable by international players, the Iraqi government, or Iraqi public opinion. These new groups, he says, should be thought of brands for certain types of activities similar to “operations rooms” Middle Eastern extremists create to coordinate certain campaigns. Juhaych explained that Iran is escalating its targeting of US troops and interests to put pressure on Washington, which has made clear its intent to rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran. “All of the militia networks are now using their numbers in the Popular Mobilization Units to hand off the cost of salaries to the Iraqi government, so they need less money from Iran,” Knights said. This opinion was shared by Juhach, who believes that the PMU existing as part of the Iraqi military government infrastructure provides these militias with both the possibility to finance their troops, as well as territorial control – necessary for lucrative smuggling operations.
“As a result, they can survive even if Iran cut them off – but there is no reason for Iran to back away from them,” Knights said.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 09-10/2021

US-Iran showdown: Tehran’s expansionism must be tackled
Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/09 March ,2021
Has the US-Iran show in the Middle East begun, or is it still in the making? Since the offset of the American Presidential elections, speculation has been on the rise about the future of the region in light of the relations between the two countries. Whether they broker a new deal or revive the old one, either outcome will have their effects on the region. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached between the West and Tehran back in 2015 hit a setback when former US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the pact. Not only did this instigate American-European differences on the agreement, it gave leeway for Tehran to resume enriching uranium, and start construction at both the Natanz and Fordow nuclear plants.
These activities contravene the JCPOA.
Applauded by Iranian hardliners, the shift in focus is agreeable to them because they did not support the deal in the first place. US President Joe Biden announced his desire to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, and address the missile program. He expects full Iranian compliance with JCPOA in return for easing sanctions, allowing humanitarian aid and reducing political pressure that peaked during the Trump presidency. Biden was Vice-President under Barak Obama who pushed for diplomatic engagement with Tehran in an attempt to obstruct its ambitions to become a nuclear power.
An enormous part of discussions in the West at that time focused on whether a deal should address the regional expansionist policy adopted by Tehran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
It did not.
The JCPOA’s jurisdiction was restricted to the nuclear issue. With the release of financial funds, the tentacles that Tehran stretches from Beirut to Baghdad, and from Damascus to Sanaa’ have regained great strength after the deal.
None of those funds reduced poverty for the Iranian population. On the contrary, extra weapons and financial support for pro-Iranian regional players multiplied giving them an upper hand in the countries in which they operate.
The same problem persists. Regardless of whether Washington and Tehran return simultaneously to the old deal, or whether they indulge in long rounds of negotiations towards the path of a new follow-on agreement, if Tehran’s expansionist strategy in the Middle East is not addressed, its capacity to undermine Washington and its allies in the region will grow.

The Mullahs’ Nuclear Weapons Game
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/March 09/2021
د. مجيد رافيزادا/معهد كايتستون: الملالي ولعبة السلاح النووي

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/96808/dr-majid-rafizadeh-gatestone-institute-the-mullahs-nuclear-weapons-game-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7-%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af/

ذا كان القادة الغربيون يعرفون أي شيء عن المؤسسة الدينية في إيران، فسيكونون قادرين على رؤية أن النظام الملالوي القمعي والدكتاتوري قد استخدم الدين الإسلامي الشيعي لتبرير قمع الإيرانيين وقتلهم واعدامهم وبنفس الوقت رعاية الجماعات الإرهابية في جميع أنحاء المنطقة.
لذا، ما الذي يمكن أن يمنع الملالي من إصدار فتاوى دينية مزيفة إذا كانوا سيطورون برنامجهم النووي من خلال إخفاء حقيقة أنهم يريدون أسلحة نووية وضمان بقاء نظامهم الديني؟
يقول الخميني: إن الحكومة الإيرانية مخولة من جانب واحد إلغاء أي اتفاقيات تخص الشريعة أبرمتها مع الشعب عندما تتعارض هذه الاتفاقيات مع مصلحة البلاد أو الإسلام”.
القضية المهمة لملالي إيران هي بقاء ديكتاتوريتهم ولذلك هم على استعداد لإستخدام أي شيء من أجل هذه الغاية، بما في ذلك الدين.
إن القضية المهمة لملالي إيران هي بقاء ديكتاتوريتهم لذا لا شي يمنعهم من إصدار فتاوى دينية مزيفة إذا كانوا سيطورون برنامجهم النووي من خلال إخفاء حقيقة أنهم يريدون أسلحة نووية وضمان بقاء نظامهم الديني؟
If the Western leaders know anything about the theocratic establishment of Iran, they would be able to see that the regime has used the Shia religion of Islam to justify repressing its population, killing, executing and sponsoring terror groups across the region.
So, what would stop the mullahs from issuing a fake religious ruling if it is going to advance their nuclear program by concealing the fact that they want both nuclear weapons and ensuring the survival of their theocracy?
“The government is empowered unilaterally to revoke any Shahri’ah agreements which it has concluded with the people when these agreements are contrary to the interest of the country or Islam.” — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, quoted in “Iran: The Formation of Trans Identity and Possible Paths Toward the Acceptance of Greater Gender ‘Deviance'”, Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law [Vol. 9:1].
The important issue for the ruling mullahs of Iran is the survival of their dictatorship. Anything, including religion, can be used to ensure that.
The important issue for the ruling mullahs of Iran is the survival of their dictatorship. Anything, including religion, can be used to ensure that. So, what would stop the mullahs from issuing a fake religious ruling if it is going to advance their nuclear program by concealing the fact that they want both nuclear weapons and ensuring the survival of their theocracy?
The Iranian regime has acknowledged for the first time that it might pursue openly obtaining nuclear weapons.
The Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, a close advisor to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pointed out recently that Iran might in fact very likely pursue that path:
“I must make it clear that if a cat is pushed into the corner, it may behave differently from a cat that walks freely. If Iran is pushed into a corner, it will not be its fault [i.e. the pursuit of nuclear weapons] but rather the fault of those pushing it.”
This statement is critical. The Iranian leaders have long argued that there is no way they can seek nuclear weapons due to a religious fatwa (legal opinion under Islamic law) issued by Khamenei.
Khamenei did indeed previously issue a fatwa forbidding the pursuit of nuclear weapons. He has been previously quoted as saying:
“We consider the use of such weapons as haraam [religiously forbidden under Islamic law] and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster”.
Khamenei also stated that the production or use of nuclear weapons are governed by Islamic laws which supposedly ban them. On his official website, he adds that “Both sharia [Islamic laws] and aqli [related to logic and reason] fatwas dictate that we do not pursue them.”
This fatwa of banning nuclear weapons has been the Iranian regime’s ready answer on international stage to prove that their nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. When Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met with US Senator Rand Paul, in 2019, for example, Zarif told Paul about Iran’s unwillingness to seek nuclear weapons precisely because of Khamenei’s fatwa.
Other world leaders have also used the Supreme Leader’s fatwa to buttress Iran’s claim that it does not want a nuclear bomb. President Barack Obama, for instance, in an attempt to reach a nuclear deal and appease the mullahs, declared in his address to the U.N. General Assembly in 2013 that “The Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons.”
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry supported the mullahs’ line by calling the fatwa “the Highest form of Islamic prohibition”:
“The supreme leader… says he has issued a fatwa, the highest form of Islamic prohibition against some activity, and he said that is to prohibit Iran from ever seeking a nuclear weapon.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also lent her support by further pushing the narrative of the Iranian regime. According to her:
“The other interesting development which you may have followed was the repetition by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei that they would – that he had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, against weapons of mass destruction. Prime Minister Erdogan and I discussed this at some length, and I’ve discussed with a number of experts and religious scholars.”
If the Western leaders know anything about the theocratic establishment of Iran, they would be able to see that the regime has used the religion of Shia Islam to justify repressing Iran’s population, killing, executing and sponsoring terror groups across the region. So, what would stop the mullahs from issuing a fake religious ruling if it is going to advance their nuclear program by concealing the fact that they want both nuclear weapons and ensuring the survival of their theocracy?
Secondly, if the Western leaders know anything about Shia Islam, they would realize that a fatwa can be changed at any time. Third, if the Western leaders know anything about the Islamic Republic of Iran, they would realize that the Iranian leaders have drafted the Islamic Republic’s constitution in a way that allows the government to pass laws prioritizing those codified laws over religious rulings and fatwas. According to Article 167, “the judge is bound to endeavor to judge each case on the basis of the codified law [passed by the parliament and endorsed by the Guardian Council].” Then it adds, “In case of the absence of any such law, he has to deliver his judgment on the basis of authoritative Islamic sources and authentic fatwa.”
Simply put, the Iranian parliament can immediately pass a law allowing the government to pursue nuclear weapons. According to the Iranian constitution, such a codified law would override any fatwa that banned a nuclear program.
Even the Islamic Republic’s founding father, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, mentioned on several occasions that Islamic laws could, if necessary, be ignored . He pointed out, for example, that “the government is empowered unilaterally to revoke any Shahri’ah agreements which it has concluded with the people when these agreements are contrary to the interest of the country or Islam.”
On another occasion, Khomeini stated that “the government can prevent the hajj, which is one of the important divine obligations, on a temporary basis, in cases when it is contrary to the interests of the Islamic country.”
The important issue for the ruling mullahs of Iran is the survival of their dictatorship. Anything, including religion, can be used to ensure that.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The Arab borders of the pandemic
Oussama Romdhani/The Arab Weekly/March 09/2021
The coronavirus pandemic has anchored the borders of the Arab world on firm ground where each small nation-state tries to sail to safe harbour on its own power. Month after month, the pandemic seems to impose these borders as the only vital space for each Arab country to manoeuvre, far-off from the once sought loftier edifice of the Arab Nation.
Even before the COVID-19 horror story started to unfold, de facto insularity of the post-independence Arab nation states was emerging as the only possible reality. It was clear that this trend was not a figment of any isolationist’s imagination. It was the real thing. It came to dispel the illusion of a larger parallel world hiding underneath all the diminutive states. What you saw was what you got. For years, there were hints this was already happening. The way a border police officer stared at you if you carried the passport of the wrong Arab country left you in no doubt that you were not about to enter a home away from home. With few exceptions, you could not expect the Arab country you visited to be your “second country,” to use the favourite pro forma expression of visiting officials and old time artists aiming to please their hosts. That feeling worsened with security concerns created by war and terrorism situations. Those eligible for a second passport found it safer to carry a Western travel document. In the sad new world of corona-related lockdowns, a public health rationale has emerged for those borders which many of us dreamt decades ago would eventually fall.
For a long time, we were told that they were an artificial legacy of the colonial era. But they instead proved incredibly resilient. Much more so than the Berlin Wall and the other borders of European nations, although divided by ethnicity and language.
Regional and bilateral arrangements made visa-free travel possible in parts of the Arab world but borders reigned supreme. For economic reasons, travel routes were more available between Arab capitals and European cities. Inter-Arab trade amounted to less than 15% of the trade between Arabs and the rest of the world. We got used to the contradiction between these facts and the favourite narrative of Arab summit leaders proclaiming their intent to “overcome the challenges facing the Arab Nation.”
Then came the nasty virus and the exhausting quest for inoculation. The truth came out in the open.
Each Arab country scrambled for the precious vaccines as Western nations reserved their total needs of vaccines many times over.
The end result was a huge discrepancy between those who managed to secure their needs and those who did not. It was not always an issue of means. It was often a reflection of the unequal quality of governance and of the ability to engage the outside world. Some had a glut with which to engage in vaccine diplomacy. Others were left counting the days until the magic shipment would arrive.
Most of the rulers were wary about their citizens’ unhappiness about delays in ensuring the vaccines and hopefully reopening the afflicted economies.
In many instances, the Arab world had no antidote to the global “vaccine nationalism” trend which swept the planet even if it made no sense in terms of global economics. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), warned in January that the unequal distribution of the vaccine could cost the world about $9.2 trillion.
The UN will probably continue calling for a global vaccine procurement strategy till the pandemic ends, if it ever will. There will be no takers, however. True, there has been the Covax initiative, which aimed to help the poorer nations of the world. But for those who wanted proof, the UN was clearly no world government. There were variegated strategies or no strategies at all across the Arab region. Each country, in any case, was on its own.
Regional groupings, like the European Union and to a certain extent the African Union, did something about it.
Some of the Arab countries located on the African continent found solace in their African identity as it shortened the path to vaccines.
Gulf Cooperation Council countries ensured some level of coordination among each other. From the Arab Maghreb Union there wasn’t even a stir.
There are now, according to the WHO, nearly 6 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the region and nearly 130,000 deaths.
The uneven pace of vaccination will drive a checkered pattern of economic recovery, with some countries of the region hoping to bounce back by the end of this year and others not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for many years to come.
Worse still, there is no sign of a joint Arab effort to re-examine scientific research and development strategies or better coordination of public health policies.
The Arab League or maybe a collective of Arab leaders could have done something about the pandemic.
They could have promoted more flexible licensing permits by Big Pharma for local Arab pharmaceutical companies who could produce the vaccines locally. They could have coordinated or suggested emergency help to the least endowed Arab countries.
Arab leaders, very often enamoured with words, were strangely silent about the regional and global implications. They could have at least denounced the “global moral failure” as the UN chief did. Based on their past dialogue experiences, they would have been in position to engage the G7, the G20 and other groups already shamed by their moral frailty during the pandemic.
If they did say something, nobody heard it.
“Speak so that I can see you,” said Socrates.

Middle East expert fears trainwreck in region if Iran emboldened
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/March 09/2021
"Because of the Iran threat and possibility of US abandoning the Saudis, the Saudis may decide that they need a strategic alliance with Israel sooner rather than later."
An Iranian-backed war against Israel involving Hezbollah in Lebanon on one end, and a Saudi peace deal on the other, could be in the air, according to author Joel Rosenberg, who has spoken with leaders in the region.
"I write about worst case scenarios,” said Joel Rosenberg.
The author of political thrillers has also become a witness to history in the region in recent years, meeting monarchs and political leaders as the Abraham Accords took shape. As such his political thrillers, the fourth of which has just been released, can be a window into what might happen in the region, gleaned from real life scenarios.
“One of themes of my novels is this: To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it. I’m not trying to predict a Third Lebanon War is going to happen, much less in 2021. I don’t want it to happen at all.
"But a novel can act like a war game, it can take people into threats and dangers that they may not be thinking about and help them imagine what could happen if American leaders are blindsided by threats they don’t see coming,” he says.
The last time I saw Rosenberg was in Dubai during the brief window when thousands were traveling daily from Tel Aviv to Dubai.
In December he met the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for an interview he published at All Israel News. In the past he has met the King of Jordan and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.
In November I spoke to Rosenberg after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia. His views tend to reflect some of the tectonic changes taking place in the region.
Now he has a warning, and it is one that is mirrored, in a way, by his recent book. “The Second Lebanon War in 2006 was horrible. But I actually believe that the Lebanon theatre is the most likely next major war in the Middle East, and possibly even in 2021.
"In the 34 days of the Second Lebanon War, we saw 4,000 missiles fired by Hezbollah at Israel – but in a Third Lebanon War, we could see 4,000 missiles a day being fired at Israel. I am very concerned. This is the type of thing that could erupt at a moment’s notice.”
He says that in his new book Beirut Protocol, a former US Marine named Marcus Ryker, gets caught up in a war that breaks out on the Lebanese border. “In The Beirut Protocol, the US is trying to finalize a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the US is also worried that Iran is going to try to use the peace process to foment trouble,” he says.
If this reminds us of what is actually going on in the region, it is for good reason. Like Tom Clancy’s books, which looked at real concerns during the Cold War era and after, this is about the here and now.
In his book, the Secretary of State is coming to the region to try to finalize the peace deal. On her way to Riyadh, she plans to stop in Israel and wants to tour the border with Lebanon and get a briefing on the latest threat from Hezbollah, he says.
Today, in the non-fiction world, the US administration has said that it supports a possible peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Rosenberg encourages us to look at Lebanon as a major focus and one the US should take seriously.
He notes that the US was more focused on Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. “But in recent years, very little attention has been paid to Lebanon.”
He says that the Biden administration is “beginning to take a series of actions that looks very weak toward Iran. There is a growing sense among senior Israeli officials that they may have to go back to the way they were thinking in 2012 – that if the US and international community don’t take decisive action either diplomatically or militarily to stop Iran from getting The Bomb, then the IDF may be forced to launch pre-emptive airstrikes against nuclear facilities inside Iran.”
These concerns have been made clear by Israeli defense officials in recent weeks. Warnings about Iranian nuclear enrichment have been made public. In addition Israel is concerned about Iran’s role in Yemen and its threats from Syria, as well as Hezbollah.
“Israeli official are increasingly worried that the Biden administration could stumble into a weak and ineffectual Second Nuclear Deal,” says Rosenberg. “What people don’t realize is that Iran’s number one way of striking back at Israel is not primarily with Iranian missiles but with Iranian-built missiles – 150,000 of them – positioned in Lebanon and all aimed at us here in Israel.”
He has a bitter warning for the future as well. “That type of scenario – with thousands of missiles raining down on Israel every day – could completely overwhelm Israeli missile defense systems. That is a terrifying prospect and not just for Israel. It could also pull the US into a war inadvertently and the Biden administration must take this seriously.”
This is an important issue that is not well understood sometimes. During the Trump era Israel was given a free rein to do as it wanted. Israel’s choices, given that blank check, was generally to keep the status quo. That meant continuing the so-called ‘Campaign Between the Wars’ in Syria by carrying out airstrikes on Iranian targets. It also meant warning about Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs.
Most important, Israel concentrated resources on the northern threat, and eschewed a cycle of conflict with Hamas.
Now things may be changing. Iran is threatening the US in Iraq with rocket attacks. It is hammering Saudi Arabia with almost daily ballistic missile and drone attacks which are escalating.
It attacked an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman. “If the White House and State Department make Israel feel vulnerable, and don’t find a way to force Iran to back down on its nuclear program – if Biden cannot or will not find a way to neutralize the Iranian threat – then Israel won’t sit around and do nothing.
"Israeli leaders may feel they have no other choice but to strike Iran, and the implications for every country in the region – and for the US – are huge,” says Rosenberg.
Rosenberg knows that some people may judge his warnings as those of a novelist, but they are to be taken seriously. “I write political thrillers to thrill people – to get their heart pumping and the blood pressure soaring. I want them to stay up reading all night and because they just can’t put my book down.
"But I also write these novels to get people thinking. Most people don’t want to be educated. They want to be entertained. But in books like The Beirut Protocol, I’m trying to do both.”
While he began writing fiction, in many ways his fictional world has come to intersect with the real world because he has been invited to meet the very leaders he was writing about in the countries he was covering. This is an instance where art imitates life which imitates art.
“It has been one of the great surprises and fascinating elements of my career that I have been invited to meet with American leaders, Israeli leaders, Arab leaders at the highest levels. Presidents and prime ministers. Kings and crown princes. Spy masters and special forces operators,” he says.
“I didn’t see this coming. When I started writing novels, I didn’t expect world leaders to read them. But in a way I have been given access to leaders because they don’t see me as a journalist. They know I am writing fiction. And yet they agree with the idea that a novel on the New York Times bestsellers list can sometimes be the better way to communicate threats and dangers and fears that they have – and warnings they want to deliver – than through classic journalism,” asserts Rosenberg.
He harkens back to Clancy, whose books were read by Ronald Reagan, the Cold warrior. A bit like how US military planners wondered how Dr. Strangelove got some things right about US nuclear strategy and also key aspects of B-52 operations, Rosenberg describes how he analyzes the region.
“In my case," he said. "I’m operating in a grey zone between classified information and open source. I’m not actually dealing with classified information. But sometimes I’m using off-the-record conversations with world leaders and current and former senior intelligence officials, and that is a new way of writing a thriller and not everyone gets a chance to do it.”
In his latest novel he hasn’t factored in the prospect of a new administration. However, “one of the key points I’m making is that officials in Washington and Brussels and elsewhere don’t always recognize is that efforts to make peace in the Middle East, while right and noble, can also draw actors into the mix who are literally determined to blow up the peace process,” he says.
“When you get closer to making Middle East peace, you need to brace yourself for counter-actions by terrorist forces and terror states that are hell-bent on keeping Israelis and Arabs from making peace. Making peace is the right thing to do, but never think for one moment that you’re operating in a static environment. I want to show in my thrillers that every action has a reaction," he said.
"There are forces that are hell-bent on making sure that Arabs and Israelis never make lasting peace and they will do everything in their power to create war and terror to prevent peace from taking hold.”
Rosenberg is focused today on the prospects of Israeli-Saudi peace. “I want to see it happen. And I believe it can. But I also want to show people that such a peace treaty is going to be far more explosive and controversial to the extremists in the region, from Iran to Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis.
"Why? Because the Saudis are the custodians of the Two Holy Mosques,” he notes. “For them to make peace with Israel could very well set off the mullahs in Tehran and all their allies. So that is something that we have to sort of understand and factor in.”
He is concerned that the US has already relaxed its previous terror designation of the Houthis in Yemen. “Biden strikes me as more desperate than Iran to get back into the deal. This has all the makings of emboldening the terror masters in Tehran… I think Tehran is getting ready to attack Israel.
"I think the mullahs are making it clear that if the US or Israel try to do something to neutralize their nuclear program, they have 150,000 missiles in Lebanon aimed at America’s number one ally.”
To stop a train wreck in the region requires a careful balance. “I believe Biden thinks he is threading the needle carefully on the whole issue of Mohammed bin Salman’s culpability in murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” he says.
The US has released a report pointing to the crown prince but hasn’t sanctioned him. “If you accuse an ally of cold-blooded murder but don’t offer proof, will that ally take that well And then you add to it taking the Houthis off the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, even as they fire missiles at the capital of our main ally. This is a very dangerous situation. There is a risk of a train wreck,” he says.
However, there could be a silver lining in that a Saudi Arabia under pressure from the US might be more inclined to a peace deal with Israel. “Because of the Iran threat and possibility of US abandoning the Saudis, the Saudis may decide that they need a strategic alliance with Israel sooner rather than later.”
Rumors over the last months have pointed to that possibility, as well as some kind of closer alliance between Israel, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The author is realistic on the trajectory of Saudi Arabia. He points to how Turkey has recently become more extreme and hostile in its rhetoric while Saudi Arabia is trying to move in a different direction. “They want to become a moderate and friendly and peaceful country. Turkey under [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is going in absolutely the wrong direction. Rosenberg sees the possibility of peace with Riyadh.
“My recommendation is if they truly believe they should make peace with Israel for their own national interests, then they should do it as soon as possible. A Saudi-Israeli peace deal will dramatically change Americans’ view of Saudi Arabia for the better. It is the one move that the Saudis can make that will break through to the American people and show Americans and the world that the Saudis truly are trustworthy and long-term partners for peace.” He has said this directly to the Crown Prince and senior Saudi leaders, he says.
“The region is changing very fast. It used to be that if Israel got itself in a war in Lebanon or with any Arab group or state, this would drive back any Arab desire to make peace with us. But I no longer think this is the case. The Saudis are now experiencing what Israel has experienced for years, where Iran and its proxies fire rockets and the world hates you for defending yourself.”

How Saudi Arabia is our ticket to Iran
Scott Krane/Jerusalem Post/March 09/2021
Saudi Arabia refuses to recognize Israel as a sovereign state. Nevertheless, now is not the time to impose sanctions on Riyadh as a punishment, even if it is in the name of ‘human rights’.
The Saudis (specifically Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS) have been found by US intelligence to be the murderers (or political assassins) of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. After 73 years, Saudi Arabia refuses to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, and will probably not be signing onto the multilateral and ever-growing Abraham Accords anytime soon. Nevertheless, now is not the time to impose sanctions on Riyadh as a punishment, even if it is in the name of ‘human rights’.
Currently, the IDF, and all the more so, the United States military, in the Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Syria, et al.), is under almost constant attack by Iranian proxy militias that most of the time fire rockets from ground vehicles toward Iraqi-US joint bases, (except one mysterious recent attack on an Israeli civilian cargo ship at sea in the Gulf of Oman). While there seems to exist, a relatively nonconformist, by Iranian standards, dovish, diplomatic element within the Islamic Republic that wants to immediately re-sign onto the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement, it cannot and will not be able to control the mendacity of Revolutionary Guard brass, nor the pugnacity of these deadly Shi’ite militias and subgroups.
Two weeks ago, when the US intel report dropped, (the Trump administration withheld the report despite a 2019 law requiring its release), citing MBS as the mastermind for the crime which took place inside the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “I would like to see the administration go beyond what it has announced in terms of repercussions to make sure there are repercussions directly to the crown prince. To me it’s discordant... to go after those who followed the orders but not who gave the orders.”
According to CNN’s Josiah Ryan, “shunning” and “banning entry into the United States” are among the possible punishments. So for those who do not want to see President Joe Biden risk foolishly curtailing the supplying of arms to the Saudis in their battle in Yemen against the Houthi rebels, (an issue that was on the table between Iran’s initial attack on a US base in Iraq during the early days of the Biden administration), all the Democrats really have in mind is a mild slap on the wrist. And that, dear readers, is after all, a good and comforting thing.
“I would like to see them do more,” Schiff told Blitzer, “I think that would be consistent with our championing of human rights, and we can do so without bringing about a complete rupture of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
On March 3, 10 rockets hit an Iraqi base with joint coalition, Iraqi and American troops. Written on the Business Insider website, and gleaned from Twitter, was this: “Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State terrorist group in the country, said the rockets targeted the Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq at about 7 a.m. local time.”
Not altogether different from the scale of Hamas rocket and missile attacks on southern Israeli civilian areas, there were no mass damages or casualties to report. The strike Thursday morning could have been a response to a US bombing on Shi’ite Iranian military sites located within Syria that killed one fighter and injured two others, according to the Pentagon.
“That operation was... carried out in retaliation for a deadly rocket attack on a US-led coalition base in Irbil in Kurdish northern Iraq last month, as well as two other attacks,” reads a report on NBCNews.com. It could also have been a response to Pope Francis’s pre-Easter visit to Iraq.
WHETHER OR not he agrees with The New York Times’ Tom Friedman’s insistence that MBS isn’t a murderer at all, that he is a really cool, hip, progressive guy, Biden has his hands full. The troops – and nobody would dare claim they don’t belong stationed as peacekeepers in the Fertile Crescent – are under frequent attack. But Biden and the United States military aren’t alone in this hairy situation. There’s action in the Jewish state as well – same cause, different country, different battlefront.
In response to the (presumably Hezbollah) Iranian proxy attack on the Israeli commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman, Israel launched missiles into Syria that were intercepted over Damascus.
“Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out raids in Syria, mostly targeting Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces as well as government troops,” reads a sentence lifted from the British website, The New Arab. “The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strike hit the area of Sayyida Zeinab south of Damascus, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese Hezbollah are present.”
The name of the Israeli vessel was the MV Helios Ray, “a vehicle carrier,” according to the report. “Israel rarely confirms strikes in Syria, but the Jewish state’s army has said it hit about 50 targets [in Syria] in 2020... earlier this month,” continues the news report in the New Arab. “Israeli missile strikes against arms depots near Syria’s capital killed at least nine pro-regime militia fighters.”
The US military currently maintains 12 bases in Iraq. There are six belonging solely to the United States Army. Then there are five joint bases for US and Iraqi troops. Then, importantly, we list the lonely Camp Baharia Marine Corps Base in Fallujah, as well as the one sole naval base: Muharraq Airfield (Adjacent to Bahrain International Airport, Iraq).
In Syria, the United States has only one known remaining outpost: the Al-Tanf US Military Base. There were some 1,500–2,000 US Marine and Special Operations Forces in Syria during the Arab Spring and ensuing civil war, extended across 12 different facilities that were being used as training bases for Kurdish rebels, according to DefenseNews.com. These same US troops withdrew from Syria to western Iraq in October 2019, according to BBC News. This is probably the reason for there being a seeming surplus of US troops in Iraq.
Now, however, they have renewed purpose. With remnants of the Islamic State and even al-Qaeda kept somewhat at bay, Biden ought to fight the Iranian presence in the Fertile Crescent until the last drop of blood. Meanwhile, it is up to Israel to preserve democracy in Lebanon – away from the Iranian influence of Hezbollah – and to continue its naval, air and land blockade and measures against the Gaza Strip, so long as it is a breeding ground for Islamic Republic-bankrolled terrorism.
The writer is a popular blogger and critic of culture and policy.
 

RED ALERT: China Is Winning the Great 21st Century Tech War
Gordon G. Chang//Gatestone Institute/March 09/2021
China, pursuant to [its 14th Five-Year Plan]... will increase spending 7% per year to achieve "major breakthroughs" in areas of "frontier technology." Specifically, the country, will devote resources to artificial intelligence; quantum information; semiconductors; brain science; genomics and biotech; clinical medicine and health; and deep space, deep sea, and deep earth.
In addition to theft, [China's leaders] adopted a determined, methodical, and disciplined approach to developing their own innovations. Beijing's efforts to master key technologies have been massive, state-directed, and government-funded. Government funding has been China's key tactic.... Ye Yujiang, the head of basic research at the Ministry of Science and Technology, just announced that China's spending on basic research nearly doubled during the just-completed 13th Five-Year Plan.
Beijing's effort depends on large, top-down projects. Take the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences, a multi-billion-dollar facility spread over 86 acres.... It is the world's largest quantum research lab.
As a practical matter, the U.S. government has not paid much attention to the development of tech in recent decades.
[I]n building the world's 5G networks—the fifth generation of wireless communications that will permit an unprecedented connectivity of devices—the [U.S.] let-the-market-do-it approach has been close to a total failure. There are, for instance, no American companies that compete with China's Huawei Technologies, which President Trump in August 2019 labeled "a national security threat."
"The threat of Chinese leadership in key technology areas is a national crisis and needs to be dealt with directly, now." — Dr. Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, February 23, 2021.
Americans companies such as IBM and Google have led the world in key areas, such as quantum computing, without significant federal support. Yet in building the world's 5G networks — the fifth generation of wireless communications, which will permit an unprecedented connectivity of devices — the let-the-market-do-it approach has been close to a total failure. There are, for instance, no American companies that compete with China's Huawei Technologies, which President Trump in August 2019 labeled "a national security threat." (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
China believes it is on track to take over the world.
At the ongoing "Two Sessions" in Beijing, the Communist Party has publicly told us how it will accomplish its ambitious goal. If the Chinese ruling party succeeds, the rest of the 21st century will be painted only in shades of red.
Fortunately, America is beginning to mobilize itself. Americans, however, need to act, immediately. Tech is the real arms race of our era.
On March 5, at the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp legislature, Premier Li Keqiang announced the 14th Five-Year Plan, which begins this year.
China, pursuant to the plan, will increase spending 7% per year to achieve "major breakthroughs" in areas of "frontier technology." Specifically, the country, will devote resources to artificial intelligence; quantum information; semiconductors; brain science; genomics and biotech; clinical medicine and health; and deep space, deep sea, and deep earth.
Moreover, Beijing is also talking about the Sci-Tech Innovation 2030 Agenda and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035. Officials are silent when it comes to Xi Jinping's now-notorious Made in China 2025 initiative — the plan is on its face a violation of the country's trade obligations — but there is no question that the effort remains underway nonetheless.China is going all-in on what Wang Zhigang, the head of the Ministry of Science and Technology, called the development of a "new ecology" for innovation. In that ecology, China has been able to lead the world in important areas, such as "unhackable" quantum communications. Moreover, the country is not far behind — if it is behind at all — in quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
China's recent progress has been impressive. A decade ago, Beijing was not considered a tech contender.
There should be no surprise how Chinese leaders made their regime a technology powerhouse. In addition to theft, they adopted a determined, methodical and disciplined approach to developing their own innovations. Beijing's efforts to master key technologies have been massive, state-directed and government-funded. Government funding has been China's key tactic. The 7% figure of the 14th plan comes on top of a massive increase in tech spending in the last half decade. Ye Yujiang, the head of basic research at the Ministry of Science and Technology, just announced that China's spending on basic research nearly doubled during the just-completed 13th Five-Year Plan. Beijing's effort depends on large, top-down projects. Take the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences, a multi-billion-dollar facility spread over 86 acres in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province. It is the world's largest quantum research lab.
The concept is to bring all Chinese researchers to a single location. Some, questioning the idea of a national lab, think it is not a good idea to concentrate the nation's quantum work in one place. Others believe the "enormous bet" on quantum research is not smart in the first place because it draws funding from other crucial fields. Nonetheless, the lab is now China's hope for quantum. "This may sound a bit old-fashioned, even Soviet-style, but it can give China a chance to win the race," said Guo Guoping, a professor at Hefei's University of Science and Technology of China.
As a practical matter, the U.S. government has not paid much attention to the development of tech in recent decades. For one thing, that is not America's current style. U.S. tech efforts this century have been diffuse, and many people favor the hands-off approach. As Chris Fall of the Department of Energy's Office of Science put it to the Washington Post, "The beauty of how we do science in this country is that it isn't top-down."
Americans companies such as IBM and Google have led the world in key areas, such as quantum computing, without significant federal support. Yet in building the world's 5G networks — the fifth generation of wireless communications, which will permit an unprecedented connectivity of devices — the let-the-market-do-it approach has been close to a total failure. There are, for instance, no American companies that compete with China's Huawei Technologies, which President Trump in August 2019 labeled "a national security threat."
As Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and now chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, declared in Senate testimony in February, "The threat of Chinese leadership in key technology areas is a national crisis and needs to be dealt with directly, now."
In this crisis, the U.S. is going to have to adopt a whole-of-society approach. "We need academia, we need industry, we need traditional defense contractors, we need the technology companies, and we also need small business," said Steve Chien of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Chien also served on the AI commission, which just released its 756-page report.
In short, the U.S. to compete is going to have to ditch "free-market fundamentalism" and go into the business of tech creation. We need to start a series of "Manhattan Projects" — and fast.
Washington is no stranger to top-down efforts, such as the rapid mobilization during World War II, the 1960's race to the moon, and the building of the Interstate highway system. Unfortunately, the free market cannot meet the emergency the country now faces. China's approach is working, and America has to move fast. The United States, Brandon Weichert, the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, told Gatestone, needs to invest at least $1 trillion and preferably more into tech.
Many concur. David Goldman, the deputy editor of Asia Times, recommends restoring federal R&D to Reagan administration levels. That translates into an additional $200 billion a year of such spending. "The Biden administration," he told this site, "has said a lot of the right things about the need to maintain America's technological leadership, but it is asking for $1.9 trillion of helicopter money for economic stimulus and very small amounts for the kind of tech investments that raise future productivity."
Americans, Weichert says, perceive innovations "as nothing more than fanciful exotic technologies that one is likelier to see in the next iteration of Star Trek than in the real world."
The Chinese, he says, "dare to dream because they recognize that bringing these dreams to reality in China will ensure that the Communist Party survives, thrives, and writes the rules of a new world order."
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
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