LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 10/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations
Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms
Ephesians 06/10-23/Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing.  I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you. Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 09-10/18
Lebanon Hires McKinsey to Help Revamp the Economy/ Donna Abu-Nasr/Bloomberg/January 09/18,
Aoun and Berri's latest squabble: Don't expect an all out war/Sarkis Naoum/Annahar/January 09/2018
Canada: Trudeau's Support for Islamists a Warning to America/Thomas Quiggin/Gatestone Institute/January 09/2018
Gatestone's Person of the Week: Fiamma Nirenstein, Counter-Terrorism Expert/Ruthie Blum//Gatestone Institute/January 09/18
France's War against Firefighters and Police/Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute/January 09/18
The Tale of an Intelligence Officer’s Recordings/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18
Trump Has Upper Hand in Legal Fight With Bannon/Stephen Carter/Bloomberg View/January 09/2018
Iran is permanently on the verge of a revolution/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/January 08/2018
Why Iran's Protesters Are So Angry With Rouhani/By Alex Vatanka/Fireign Affairs/January 08/18
Iran: Hassan Rouhani caught between devil and the deep blue sea/Christian Chesnot/Al Arabiya/January 09/2018
Will Fire and Fury topple Trump/Mamdouh AlMuhaini/Al Arabiya/January 09/2018
Will a new world order start taking shape in 2018/Shehab Al-Makahleh/Al Arabiya/January 09/2018

Titles For Latest LCCC Lebanese Related News published on January 09-10/18
Israeli Rockets Hit Hizbullah Arms Depots, Syria Army
Gemayel Calls for Inquiry over Negligence of Authorities in Waste File
Future Bloc: Electoral candidacies and alliances are under careful study
French senatorial delegation visits Hariri: The Cedar Conference in Paris will determine the investment to revive the economy
Bassil after Change and Reform meeting: Government legally bound to magnetic vote cards' use
Army commander meets Chamoun, director of IOM
Berri, Richard tackle current developments
Fenianos Signs Decree Appointing 125 Individuals as Air Traffic Controllers
Monetary situation stable: Salameh
Berri to Aoun: Constitution is interpreted by Parliament only
Ball in Aoun's court in decree dispute: report
Lebanon Hires McKinsey to Help Revamp the Economy
Aoun and Berri's latest squabble: Don't expect an all out war

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 09-10/18
Mossad chief Yossi Cohen: We Have Eyes & Ears In Iran
EU to Develop Strategy to Assist Iraq
Saudi Arabia Hails Arab FMs Meeting on Jerusalem, Says City Key to Peace
Iran Lawmaker Says 3,700 Arrested in Protests
Iranian lawmaker says 3,700 arrested in days of violent protests
Egypt says its forces kill 8 suspected militants in Sinai
Senior Hamas figure shot in Gaza, in critical condition
Turkey to continue Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria, Erdogan says
Tunisian PM says difficult economic situation will improve in 2018
Syrian army says Israel fired at its territory with jets and missiles
Houthi militias threaten international navigation in Red Sea
One person killed in anti-government protest in Tunisian town
Iran's Khamenei Hails Rallies against US, Zionist 'Plot'
Jordanian intelligence stops terrorist plot targeting public security
Tunisia: Protests against Rising Prices, Tax Increases Sweep Streets
Turkey Arrests Iraqi ISIS Leader
Haftar Visits UAE, Sarraj Announces End of Ras Jdir Crossing Operation
Seoul: North Korea to Send Delegation to Olympics in South
Trump 'Likes' Oprah, but Doubts She'll Run for President

Latest Lebanese Related News published on January 09-10/18
Israeli Rockets Hit Hizbullah Arms Depots, Syria Army
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 09/18/The Israeli army overnight carried out air strikes and fired rockets at targets in Syria, causing damage near a military position, the Syrian army said in a statement on Tuesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the air strikes targeted Syrian army and Hizbullah weapon depots. Israel's army has carried out several attacks on the Syrian army and its ally Lebanese movement Hizbullah since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011. The Israeli air force carried out strikes on the Qutayfeh area northeast of Damascus, causing the Syrian army to retaliate and "hit one of its planes", the Syrian army said. Syrian air defences intercepted one rocket, but several more hit "near a military position, causing material damage," it added. The strikes sparked "successive explosions and fires, causing material damage" in the depots, where land-to-land missiles have been stored among other weapons, the Observatory said. The Syrian army also said Israel launched land-to-land missiles into Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but it intercepted them. Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community. Syria and Israel remain technically at war, and the Jewish state fought a devastating war against Hezbollah in 2006. In December, Israeli fighter jets bombed areas near Damascus including a scientific research centre and warehouses where weapons and ammunition of the regime and its allies were stocked, the Observatory said. In September, Israeli strikes hit a weapons depot by Damascus airport, targeting a warehouse belonging to Hezbollah, the monitor said. Israel rarely confirms these raids, but has admitted to carrying out strikes against convoys of weapons intended for Hezbollah. In November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take military action in Syria when it saw fit as it sought to ensure Iran-backed forces stay away from its territory. Israel has long accused Iran, its main enemy, of taking advantage of Syria's civil war to send its Revolutionary Guard and its ally Hezbollah into southern Syria, close to the Israeli border.Syria's war has killed 340,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Bassil Insists on Reforms as Panel Fails to Agree on Electoral 'Megacenters'
Naharnet/January 09/18/A ministerial panel tasked with studying the implementation of the complex new electoral law on Tuesday failed to reach an agreement on so-called polling megacenters where voters can cast ballots away from their hometowns. “No agreement was reached on the issue of megacenters, seeing as some support their establishment while others do not want them,” State Minister Ali Qansou of the Syrian Social National Party said after the meeting. Social Affairs Minister Pierre Bou Assi of the Lebanese Forces meanwhile said: “Our stance is clear: we in the LF back the idea of creating megacenters because they would allow citizens to vote in their places of residence.” And as Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq of al-Mustaqbal Movement declined to make a statement after the meeting, Foreign Minister and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil stressed that the FPM will “fight for” electoral reforms. “They have come up with a lot of excuses to back down from the reforms,” Bassil said later in the day after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc. “It will be obligatory to amend the law due to the failure to achieve (the reforms), or else the results of the elections might face appeals” before the Constitutional Council, Bassil warned. Emphasizing that the law compels the government to introduce magnetic voting cards, the minister said a draft law would be necessary to postpone the procedure to the next elections. “We can agree in advance on the issue. It would only take two minutes and it would not lead to further amendments,” Bassil reassured.

Gemayel Calls for Inquiry over Negligence of Authorities in Waste File
Naharnet/January 09/18/Kataeb MP Sami Gemayel pushed for the formation of a parliamentary inquiry commission to hold the authorities accountable over their negligence in tackling the solid waste crisis in Lebanon, the National News Agency reported on Tuesday. Gemayel lamented that the “MPs will not approve the waste management plan before the legislative elections,” are due. The MP's remarks came at the end of the joint parliamentary committee meeting. He called for the formation of an inquiry commission to hold the political authority accountable for its performance as for the waste file. “We are sounding the alarm,” he said.

Future Bloc: Electoral candidacies and alliances are under careful study
Tue 09 Jan 2018/Prime Minister Saad Hariri chaired this afternoon the Future parliamentary bloc meeting at the “Center House”. At the end of the meeting, the bloc issued a statement read by MP Ammar Houry: First: The importance of the Lebanese gathering and celebrating at Nejmeh square. The Future Bloc congratulates the Lebanese on the holidays and the New Year, hoping that the year 2018 will bring peace, reassurance, stability and economic and social growth to Lebanon. On this occasion, the bloc praised the initiative of PM Saad Hariri, which enabled the Lebanese, after a long forced interruption, to celebrate the New Year in Nejmeh Square, bringing back Lebanon’s bright image based on coexistence and modernism. With this celebration, Beirut emulated the world prosperous and stable cities and reaffirmed that it is the main gathering point for all Lebanese from all regions. In this regard, the bloc praised the initiative of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to lift barriers and obstacles in the Downtown, thus allowing all citizens and tourists to enter the commercial center as was the case in the past, a step which paves the way for the return of economic, touristic, cultural and social vitality to the heart of Beirut and the return of institutions to work after a long closure. Second: The decree of seniority for the officers of the 1994 promotion
The bloc discussed the issue arising from the 1994 seniority decree for the officers of the year 1994 promotion and the ongoing contacts and consultations to stop political and media polarization on it. Prime Minister Saad Hariri said that he is fulfilling his duties and responsibilities in this regard, within the scope defined by the constitution, customs and procedures, adding that he is not concerned by rumors about mediations, meetings and suggestions that are fabricated by media imaginations. Third: The upcoming parliamentary elections The bloc discussed the preparations to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled in May. In this regard, the bloc said that the candidacies and alliances are under careful study and any talk about alliances of four, five or six parties is a mere interpretation and does not exist for the Future movement and its parliamentary bloc.
Fourth: Peace and War decision
The bloc emphasized the fact that the decision of peace and war is a Lebanese sovereign decision and the responsibility of the state and its constitutional institutions. Any orientations that contradict this logic or call for external interference in a sovereign and national matter are devoid of any constitutional cover and any national consensus.
Fifth: The importance of Arab foreign ministers meeting in Amman
The bloc praised the meeting held last Saturday at the level of the ministerial delegation of six Arab foreign ministers in Jordan in accordance with the decision of the Arab League last month, where the ministers warned of the dangers of messing with Jerusalem and the attempts to change the legal and historical situation, especially the Israeli occupation attempts to change the Arab identity of the city. It called on the United States to rescind its decision on Jerusalem and to return to work with the international community to compel Israel to implement the international resolutions and end Israel's occupation of all occupied Palestinian and Arab territories through a peaceful solution which ensures the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. In this regard, the bloc hopes that recent developments will provide a strong incentive for a strong and proactive Palestinian and Arab position to maintain, as well as to bolster, international support for the resolution rejecting the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to prevent other countries from joining the US stance. The bloc also condemned the demand of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the work of UNRWA, which aims to end the right of return of the Palestinian people to his land. The bloc also denounces the US position to refrain from paying the United States' contribution in support of UNRWA, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 302 issued on the 8 of December 1949.
Sixth
The Future Bloc expresses its condolences to Beirut MP and member of the Bloc Dr. Ghazi Youssef for the loss of his wife, asking God to have mercy on her soul.

French senatorial delegation visits Hariri: The Cedar Conference in Paris will determine the investment to revive the economy
Tue 09 Jan 2018/The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received tonight at the "Center House" a delegation of the French Senate led by the president of the "Group of Liaison, Reflection, Vigilance and Solidarity with the Christians of the Middle East" Senator Bruno Retailleau, in the presence of the French Ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher. At the end of the meeting, Senator Retailleau said: "We were very honored, along with my parliamentary colleagues, to be received by Prime Minister Saad Hariri. You know that France has followed with particular attention his visit to Riyadh. You also know, and the Lebanese people know, the investment that France, with its president Emmanuel Macron, made to normalize the relations between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Lebanon is an old friend of France. We have a sustainable relationship. For us, Lebanon is not only a relationship, a heritage and a past, it is above all a future. We believe that Lebanon is a message and that peaceful coexistence between several communities is an example for the entire Middle East. This is what we came to say to Mr Hariri, with several important events coming. The Rome conference to be held in Italy, where countries will have to make decisions to comfort your security forces, both your army and the internal security forces, and this is important for Lebanon. Then there will be another conference for Lebanon that was suggested by the president of the council himself to Emmanuel Macron. It will be in Paris and will be called the Cedar Conference, a beautiful name for a beautiful country. It will have to determine the investment to revive the economy because it is important. We also know that Lebanon and the Lebanese welcomed more than one million refugees who weigh on your economy. There is no example in the world of a country with this proportion of refugees for its population. The stronger Lebanon's economy, the better the population will live with peaceful relations between its communities.
We are very grateful to the President of the Council for having received us tonight and we send greetings from France to the Lebanese people".
Mundis
Hariri also received the Registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Daryl Mundis.

Bassil after Change and Reform meeting: Government legally bound to magnetic vote cards' use
Tue 09 Jan 2018/NNA - Head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, on Tuesday maintained that the government was legally bound to adopting the magnetic vote cards, highlighting the necessity to make the necessary reforms in the upcoming legislative polls. "The law obliges the government to adopt the magnetic vote cards; in order to cancel them, the government must submit a draft for amendment, whereas an agreement should be previously reached," Bassil told reporters following the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc. On a different note, Bassil maintained that the bloc was ready to meet all demands that would speed up the ratification of the state budget, as long as the budget includes indicators of reform.

Rahi receives delegation of French Senate
Tue 09 Jan 2018/NNA - Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rahi on Tuesday received in Bkirki a delegation of the French Senate, led by the Senator of Vendée, Bruno Retailleau. The delegation took up with Patriarch Rahi an array of matters related to the Christian presence in the East, in general, and Lebanon in particular. The delegation included senators from Charente, Vilaine et Ile and Morbihan, as well as the French Ambassador, Bruno Foucher. After highlighting the importance of their meeting with the Patriarch, Senator Retailleau said: "As a Senate delegation, we form a support group for Eastern Christians", stressing "Christian presence is vital in the East." Senator Retailleau hailed Rahi's relentless efforts for the sake of peace in Lebanon and this torn- apart region of the world, expressing appreciation of his important role which he played to secure the return of Prime Minister Saad Hariri when he was in Riyadh. The delegation also informed Rahi about the situation of Iraqi Christians in Mosul region from Nineveh and Qaraqosh.

Army commander meets Chamoun, director of IOM
Tue 09 Jan 2018/NNA - Lebanese Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, welcomed at his office in Yarzeh, MP Dori Chamoun. He later met with the Consul General of Lebanon in Halifax, Canada, Wadih Fares, and discussed with him the general situation. Aoun also received the Director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Fawzi Al-Zayyud. Darrell Mendes of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon also visited Aoun in the company of Beirut office head, Kevin Mannion.

Berri, Richard tackle current developments
Tue 09 Jan 2018/NNA - House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday welcomed at Ain Tineh residence the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Elizabeth Richard, with talks between the pair reportedly touching on most recent developments.
Speaker Berri also met with the former Director General of the Internal Security Forces, Ibrahim Basbous, who extended to him an invitation to attend the ceremony in honor of Basbous at the Pine Palace on Thursday 18 at the Pine Palace. General Basbous will be granted the Order of the French Legion of Honor during the ceremony.This afternoon, Berri met with the Financial General Prosecutor, Judge Ali Ibrahim, on top of a delegation of financial prosecutors. Berri told the delegation that they have great tasks ahead of them since "corruption is the most important problem the country is facing nowadays."The Speaker also received head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Lebanon, Christophe Martin, who briefed him on the ICRC's work program for the new year.

Fenianos Signs Decree Appointing 125 Individuals as Air Traffic Controllers
Naharnet/January 09/18/Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos on Tuesday said he signed a decree appointing 125 individuals who had passed admission exams as air traffic controllers. Fenianos said at a press conference that the “decree will be implemented after the signing of President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the related minister or ministers.”“We have to take into consideration that air traffic to Syria is halted. We will have to watch it when it resumes,” he added. "There are vacancies at the airport and we will solve this problem to prevent any possible security breach," the minister added. Air transport to and from Lebanon creates economic benefit, one of them is an expectation that “it will generate revenues worth $400 million in four years. The terminal is currently making only $100 million,” according to Fenianos.

Monetary situation stable: Salameh
The Daily Star/January 09, 2018/BEIRUT: Lebanon's monetary situation is stable, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh assured President Michel Aoun Tuesday. Salameh, who met with Aoun at Baabda Palace, said that he informed the president that the start of the fiscal year had been assuring. "The monetary stability is ongoing and the Central Bank is continuing its measures to support the economy," he said after the meeting, according to a tweet from the presidency.

Berri to Aoun: Constitution is interpreted by Parliament only
The Daily Star/Jan. 09, 2018/BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri responded Monday to President Michel Aoun in the ongoing feud over the officer's decree, saying that Parliament was the only body eligible to interpret the Constitution.Berri’s statement was released minutes after Aoun restated his position that objections to the decree should be referred to the judiciary. The decree promoted some 200 officers – the vast majority of whom are Christian - who were under Aoun’s command in the 1980s when he was an Army chief. A statement from Berri responded to Aoun’s call to defer to the judiciary to settle any issues over the decree by saying that the dispute was not only a legal issue that can be appealed before the State Shura Council. Rather, Berri said that the decree violated the Constitution, which can only be interpreted by Parliament. The statement noted that Aoun cannot issue a decree on the matter of the officer’s promotion because it had already been previously discussed and rejected by Parliament.

Ball in Aoun's court in decree dispute: report
The Daily Star/January 09, 2018/BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun has the key to resolving the dispute over a controversial decree promoting a number of Lebanese Army officers, a local daily reported Tuesday, citing sources close to Speaker Nabih Berri. The sources told Al-Joumhouria newspaper that Berri objected to the decree promoting officers who served under Aoun’s command in the late 1980s when he was an Army chief, not only because it sidelined Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil, but also because of the demographics of the promoted officers. “He was also objecting the sectarian balance in the decree,” the sources close to the speaker said. The decree seeks to promote around 200 Army officers – all Christians except for 15 Muslims - by advancing their seniority and rank by one year. The decree, signed last month by Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Defense Minister Yaacoub Sarraf, was pushed through without seeking the Finance Minister’s approval. This has caused tensions between Aoun and Berri. Aoun has maintained that the decree is legitimate and constitutional and does not require the finance minister’s signature in order to be implemented, while Berri insists that the decree should have been inked by Khalil, a top political aide to the speaker. “[Berri] has expressed his readiness to overcome this issue and ... concede [some demands] by approving the decree based on its current distribution,” the sources said. “He will do this if Aoun concedes by agreeing to add the Finance Minister’s signature to the decree.” However, the report noted sources did not see this as a likely outcome.

Lebanon Hires McKinsey to Help Revamp the Economy
Donna Abu-Nasr/Bloomberg/January 09/18,
Current economic model could send debt-to-GDP ratio to 170%
Economy and Trade Minister Raed Khoury comments in interview
Lebanon is hiring management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to help restructure an economy that’s overly reliant on remittances and banking, and grappling with high unemployment, Economy and Trade Minister Raed Khoury said. The six-month agreement with McKinsey will be signed by the end of this week and the company will start work next week with various ministries and economic bodies to formulate a new economic vision for the Arab world’s most indebted nation, Khoury said in an interview at his office in Beirut on Monday. “The government has been historically nearly absent in putting policies and procedures to do that,” said the former Barclays Wealth banker and founder of Cedrus Invest Bank. “The first thing we want to do is to identify our economic identity and then go to more specific things.”With at least three times as many Lebanese living abroad than in Lebanon, the country has been sustained by remittances that have kept flowing in, especially from Lebanese workers in Gulf and African countries. Banks use the money to buy government debt, which stands at 150 percent of economic output, according to Khoury. That is one of the world’s highest ratios, along with Japan and Greece.
Record Reserves
With foreign reserves at a record $43 billion, the Lebanese currency has been able to survive the political storms that have at various times left Lebanon without a president or prime minister, and the influx of 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have strained its resources.
But this model is “becoming very risky” and no longer sustainable, Khoury said, predicting that if nothing is done, the debt-to-GDP ratio will go as high as 170 percent in the next few years. He said Lebanon should aspire to emulate the economy of Singapore, another small country with many ethnic groups.
Lebanon’s governance has suffered from the legacy of the 1975-1990 civil war, and the country didn’t have a budget for 12 years until parliament passed one in 2017. Even now, with discussions under way over the new budget, not much thought is being given to the impact that decisions, such as imposing taxes, will have on various sectors, he said. “We’re doing the budget for 2018, you think there is a mentality of a 3-year, 5-year, 10-year plan behind it? Zero,” he said. “It’s not chaos, it’s a culture.”
‘Tricky’
David Butter, associate fellow at Chatham House in London, said such strategic plans “might not do any harm, but in the case of Lebanon it’s a bit more tricky.” McKinsey will have to analyze and quantify various areas including services, financial flows and parallel economies such as the one controlled by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which are hard to quantify, he said. “You have a lot of gray areas which might be difficult to put into the context of some sort of a strategic plan,” Butter added. The minister also said overall unemployment in 2014 stood at 24 percent, with rising youth unemployment exceeding 35 percent, the last year for which figures are available at the ministry. Lebanon’s trade deficit was $11.77 billion by September 2017, with exports at $2.12 billion and imports at $13.89 billion.
These figures show that Lebanon has no choice but to restructure its economy, said Khoury. “It’s not a luxury anymore,” he said.

ICRC Chief Says 80% of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Want to Return Home
Beirut/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18éHead of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Lebanon Christophe Martin said Monday that the majority of Syrian refugees in Lebanon want to return home. According to a statement by the presidential media office, Martin made the remarks during his meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun over the standards of ICRC to ensure the refugees' safe and dignified return. Martin pointed that the ICRC's vision for how it would support refugees in their eventual return to Syria would be discussed with senior Lebanese officials, as well as relevant international bodies and nations. He told the president that 80 percent of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon want to go back to Syria once the security situation there improves. The United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) announced last month that the number of registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon had dropped to below 1 million for the first time since 2014. The UN agency said that the number of Syrian refugees registered in Lebanon as of the end of November 2017 was 997,905. The Red Cross will distribute its roadmap on the return of refugees to senior officials in Lebanon and a number of major countries concerned with the situation of displaced Syrians, including the criteria set by the Commission to secure a dignified return of the displaced, Martin said. In the same context, Environment Minister Tariq Khatib described the Syrian displacement as a “time-bomb that can detonate at any place or time”.

Aoun and Berri's latest squabble: Don't expect an all out war
Sarkis Naoum/Annahar/January 09/2018
BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri has remained adamant, up to this point, that a decree granting a one-year seniority to army officers who graduated from the military academy in 1994 is in violation of the Taif Accord as well as Lebanon's Constitution because it lacks the signature of Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil.  The question on everyone’s mind now is whether Berri will elect to soften his stance in the wake of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah expressing his non-objection to the decree signed by both President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The answer to this highly polarizing issue remains a mystery.  With Berri maintaining both publicly and privately his opposition to the decree thus far, it remains to be seen whether he will back down in order to shield the country from a possible political deadlock if the speaker instructs Khalil – one of his representatives in the Cabinet– not to sign any other decree that comes his way.
Aoun vows to protect rights of military
Another hindering block to a straightforward solution is Aoun’s reluctance to concede as well.  The President has equally held his ground and reiterated his position on more than one occasion, with the latest defying remarks emanating following his meeting with various economic bodies and professional delegations at the Baabda Presidential Palace. The lack of a clear resolution, however, should not be misconstrued as an inevitable war pitting two of the country’s top government officials against each other, even though both leaders disagree over numerous issues. Nasrallah’s subdued approach to the power struggle can thus be credited for de-escalating a situation that could have morphed into a dangerous conflict. Were it not for the alliance forged between Nasrallah – a longtime Berri partner – and Aoun in 2006, tensions between Lebanon’s Speaker and head of state could have risen even more so, reaching an alarming boiling point. According to political observers, Nasrallah’s previous silence regarding the matter was in fact interpreted as an endorsement of Berri’s stance due to their Shiite ties and the fact that the decree was perceived by some as somewhat disrupting the balance of power stipulated in the Taif Accord between Sunnis, Shias and Maronites. However, after Nasrallah broke his silence on the issue in an interview with Pan-Arab news network Al-Mayadeen, these assumptions have now been laid to rest. Nasrallah is now expected to play a leading role in helping resolve this crisis, particularly since Hezbollah doesn’t view Aoun’s move as a strategical blow. It can be argued that Aoun might have floundered in his attempt to repay those officers who were loyal to him in the 1980’s, raising concerns over the balance of power under the Taif Accord.
That said Aoun's move can be easily overlooked while safeguarding the Taif Accord. The Hezbollah leader is also cognizant of Berri’s motives and position, yet refrained from interfering in the dispute for fear of jeopardizing his alliance with Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, or the long-lasting accord with his Shiite counterpart. Political insiders have also maintained that Hariri could have mitigated this squabble by not rushing into signing the decree, possibly holding talks with Berri, a trusted friend and ally, in order to reach a compromise that satisfies both parties. Hariri could have even tried to convince Aoun to set the matter aside for the time being. Yet Lebanon’s Premier did neither of these things. Perhaps, because he feels indebted to Aoun after he helped secure his safe return to Lebanon following his abrupt resignation from Saudi Arabia, or because he’s seeking to strengthen his cooperation with both Aoun and Bassil to achieve the goals of the Cabinet he heads. Another touted explanation is Hezbollah’s keenness on maintaining its relationship with Hariri, a relationship that’s been partially restored in the wake of the aforementioned crisis, with the party vying to steamroll any policy that doesn’t affect its local and regional strategy.
One thing is certain, however. The Hariri-Aoun dynamic is paramount at the moment.
**The article was adapted into English by Georgi Azar.

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 09-10/18
Mossad chief Yossi Cohen: We Have Eyes & Ears In Iran
Jerusalem Post/January 09/18éMossad chief Yossi Cohen spoke out at a Ministry of Finance conference Tuesday morning regarding the recent protests in Iran, according to Kan Radio. He stated that "Israel has eyes and ears there, too," and added that he would be "happy to see a social revolution in Iran."Cohen then warned that "the Iranians are coasting into the Middle East undisturbed and with very large forces, in a way that virtually creates an air and land corridor that pours fighters into the region in order to actualize the Iranian vision."Cohen gave his analysis on the Iranian motives for the demonstrations: "The Iranian citizen is crying out against the disappointing economic situation. President Rouhani, in the public's opinion, hasn't been successful at improving the state of the economy and the society." In his opinion, "a revolution might happen tomorrow or in the future - but they are facing forces that are no less than death squads, against anybody who tries to raise their head in Iran." The Mossad chief finished by commenting on Israel's relationship with the United States: "Our cooperation with the US is exceptionally good, and it is only getting better. The US, over the past year, has been changing its policies, and we are beginning to see dramatic changes in the American understanding of strategic threats." "We're seeing a positive shift, one that could possibly take into account more of Israel's security interests," Cohen claimed. "The well-being of the entire world is threatened in the shadow of Iran's dramatically extremist ambitions, and that it has the ability and the will to employ terror forces. For us, this is a positive change." Cohen's comments come amid weeks of unrest in Iran. According to Iranian officials, 22 people have died and over 1000 have been arrested due to nearly two weeks of ongoing protests across the Islamic Republic. This past October, Cohen declared that Iran was the primary target of the Mossad's actions, as it retains its nuclear ambitions and continues to threaten Israel through proxies in Syria and Lebanon, and continues to support Hamas.

EU to Develop Strategy to Assist Iraq
Brussels – Abdullah Mustafa/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18
The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the European Commission adopted a Joint Communication proposing an EU strategy for Iraq in order to address the many challenges the country faces following the territorial defeat of the ISIS terrorist group. "Iraq is at a crossroads in its history following the territorial defeat of ISIS at great sacrifice. It is now crucial to act quickly and rebuild the country with the participation of all the components of Iraqi society, to promote and protect fundamental rights and the rule of law in each and every area,” said Vice President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini. The proposal outlines both ongoing and longer term EU support to the country, fully taking into account the Iraqi government's priorities. Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides, for his part, said that the EU has been providing emergency assistance to the Iraqi people since the beginning of the crisis. Humanitarian needs remain high and many people remain displaced by conflict. “I have seen first-hand the suffering in places like Mosul and Fallujah and it is crucial that all aid efforts continue to be impartial and neutral. It is essential to support all Iraqi's in need of assistance today and tomorrow, for as long as it takes," Stylianides said. Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica said that as Iraq takes steps towards a more stable future, the EU is committed to being a key partner in reconstruction, stabilization and longer term sustainable development. The EU aims to strengthen concrete support to the Iraqi people in a wide range of areas, to foster economic growth, good governance and strengthening the judicial system, as well as boosting education, according to the EU statement. The EU had announced in October the launch of a civilian mission to reform the security sector in Iraq. Brussels said the mission would work in coordination with the EU delegation to Iraq, the International Coalition against ISIS and other parties.

Saudi Arabia Hails Arab FMs Meeting on Jerusalem, Says City Key to Peace
Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18/Saudi Arabia’s government welcomed on Tuesday the Arab foreign ministers’ recent meeting on Jerusalem and its stressing of the centrality of the city as a main issue for Arabs, reported the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz chaired the cabinet session that was held in Riyadh. The foreign ministers had met in Jordan over the weekend to tackle the repercussions of US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Saudi cabinet stressed that the city was key to peace in the region and there could be no stability without the establishment of a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders and whose capital is East Jerusalem. King Salman also briefed the ministers on the telephone call made to Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, his talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Najib Abdul Razzaq and President Nicos Anastasiades of Republic of Cyprus and Egypt parliament Speaker Dr. Ali Abdel-Aal, reported SPA. Minister of Information Dr. Awwad bin Saleh Al-Awwad told SPA that the cabinet expressed its gratitude to King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, following the issuance of the royal order to pay annual allowances and bonuses. The decree covers citizens of civilian and military personnel, rewards for military personnel participating in the front lines of military operations in the southern boundary of Saudi Arabia, the addition of the allowance of high cost of living to pension salaries and monthly allocations for social security beneficiaries, increasing the reward for male and female students, the state's payment of the value added tax for citizens benefiting from private health services and private education, and the state's payment of the value added tax for no more than SR 850,000 from the price of purchasing the first house for citizens. The government said that the royal decree stems from King Salman’s desire to ease burdens on citizens and provide them with continued support. It also reflects his keenness on their prosperity and providing them with decent standards of living. It also expressed Saudi Arabia's strong condemnation of the suicide attack on a mosque in the town of Jambura in northeastern Nigeria, reiterating the Kingdom's rejection of these heinous acts of terrorism.

Iran Lawmaker Says 3,700 Arrested in Protests
Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18/An Iranian lawmaker said Tuesday that some 3,700 people were arrested in the days of protests and unrest that roiled Iran over the past two weeks. The official news website of the Iranian parliament, icana.ir, quoted reformist Mahmoud Sadeghi of Tehran as saying that different security and intelligence forces detained the protesters. Iranian lawmakers held on Sunday a closed session in which senior security officials briefed them on the protests and the conditions of the detainees, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. The protests, which erupted in late December, vented anger at high unemployment and official corruption. Some demonstrators also called for the overthrow of the government.

Iranian lawmaker says 3,700 arrested in days of violent protests
The Associated Press, Tehran/January 09/ 2018/An Iranian reformist lawmaker says some 3,700 people were arrested in the days of protests and unrest that roiled Iran over the past two weeks. The official news website of the Iranian parliament, icana.ir, quoted Mahmoud Sadeghi on Tuesday as saying that different security and intelligence forces detained the protesters, making it difficult to know the exact number of detainees. The number is far higher than the one initially offered by authorities.

Egypt says its forces kill 8 suspected militants in Sinai
The Associated Press, Cairo/January 09/ 2018/Egypt says security forces have killed eight suspected militants in a shootout in the northern Sinai Peninsula. The Interior Ministry said Tuesday the gun battle broke out when the forces raided a suspected hideout in el-Arish city. It said the militants were planning attacks targeting security forces, and were in possession of explosives, rifles and ammunition. Egypt has been battling militants in the northern part of Sinai Peninsula for years, but the insurgency became far more deadly after the 2013 military ouster of Mohammed Morsi, an elected but divisive Islamist president.
An ISIS affiliate based in the Sinai has carried out a number of high-profile attacks in recent years, mainly targeting security forces and Egypt’s Christian minority. Egypt’s agriculture ministry to revise legislation governing quarantine. Egypt’s agriculture ministry has officially brought its policy on common grain fungus ergot into line with other ...

Senior Hamas figure shot in Gaza, in critical condition
AFP, Gaza/January 09/ 2018/A senior Hamas figure was shot in the head in Gaza and hospitalized in critical condition on Tuesday, in what officials said was an accident.Hamas spokesman Fawzy Barhoum said Imad al-Alami, a former member of Hamas’s highest political body, was shot while “inspecting his personal weapon in his home and is in critical condition”. A medical source said he had been rushed to a hospital in Gaza City. There was no independent confirmation of details of the incident.

Turkey to continue Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria, Erdogan says
Reuters, Istanbul/January 09/ 2018/Turkey's military will continue its operation in Syria's Afrin and Manbij regions, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday during a parliamentary address to his ruling AK Party. In 2016, Turkey launched the Euphrates Shield operation on its Syrian border to eradicate what it called a "corridor of terror", made up by the dual threat of ISIS and Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Tunisian PM says difficult economic situation will improve in 2018
Reuters, Tunis/January 09/ 2018/Tunisia's economic is experiencing difficulties but 2018 will be the last year of hardship, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said on Tuesday after a night of protests against austerity measures. "People have to understand that the situation is extraordinary and their country is have difficulties but we believe that 2018 will be the last difficult year for the Tunisians," he told reporters in comments broadcast on local radio. One person was killed on Monday during clashes between security forces and protesters in a Tunisian town, the government said, as demonstrations over rising prices and tax increases spread in the North African country. A man was killed during a protest against government austerity measures in Tebourba, 40 km (25 miles) west of Tunis, the interior ministry said in a statement. He had had chronic breathing problems and died due to suffocation from inhaling tear gas, it said.
The protest had turned violent when security forces tried stopping some youths from burning down a government building, witnesses said. Five people were wounded and taken to a hospital, state news agency TAP said. Tunisia, widely seen in the West as the only democratic success among nations where “Arab Spring” revolts took place in 2011, is suffering increasing economic hardship. Anger has been building up since the government said that, from Jan. 1, it would increase the price of gasoil, some goods, and taxes on cars, phone calls, the internet, hotel accommodation and other items, part of austerity measures agreed with its foreign lenders. The 2018 budget also raises customs taxes on some products imported from abroad, such as cosmetics, and some agricultural products.

Syrian army says Israel fired at its territory with jets and missiles
AFP, Damascus/January 09/ 2018/The Israeli army overnight carried out air strikes and fired rockets at targets in Syria, causing damage near a "military position", the Syrian army said in a statement on Tuesday. The Israeli air force carried out strikes on the Qutayfeh area northeast of Damascus, hitting near the military position and causing the Syrian army to retaliate and "hit one of its planes", the army said. Israel also launched land-to-land missiles into Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but the Syrian army intercepted them, it said. Israel's army has carried out several attacks on the Syrian army and its ally Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011. Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community. Syria and Israel remain technically at war, and the Jewish state fought a devastating war against Hezbollah in 2006.

Houthi militias threaten international navigation in Red Sea
Al Arabiya/January 09/ 2018/In spite of the losses suffered by the Houthi militias on more than one front in Yemen, Houthi leader Saleh al-Samad, threatened, on Monday, to "cut international navigation route through the Red Sea" as a "strategic option" to consider if progress continues towards the west of Yemen, and if "a political solution reaches a dead end," as he put it. During his meeting with the Deputy Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Yemen Moin Shreim, he said that the ships will not be allowed to pass, referring to the intentions of the militia to strike international shipping in the Red Sea and Mandeb Strait. He also attacked the role of UN envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh saying it is "disappointing" and questioned its credibility in handling and reaching a resolution for the Yemeni crisis. "We have reached a point where we are no longer counting on the United Nations to find a political solution in Yemen," he said. The Deputy UN envoy said that the main reference will always be the "United Nations’ resolutions" and pointed out that his intention is to "act” in the event of receiving a political statement by Sanaa regarding the negotiations," according to the Houthi news agency. Al- Samad expressed the willingness of his group to enter into any negotiations in the event that they "sense” that the United Nations is serious about reaching a resolution, as he put it. This threat comes amid the progress of the Yemeni army on more than one front, as it has announced Monday, the restoration of a mountain range in the Directorate of Kataf and some areas in the province of Saada north of the country, near the border with Saudi Arabia. Several countries have already identified Houthi militias as a threat to navigation in Bab al-Mandeb, after the targeting of many ships.
The United States and the Arab Coalition forces have repeatedly warned against the threat of Iranian-backed militias to international navigation.

One person killed in anti-government protest in Tunisian town
Reuters/January 09/ 2018/One person was killed on Monday during clashes between security forces and protesters in a Tunisian town, the government said, as demonstrations over rising prices and tax increases spread in the North African country. A man was killed during a protest against government austerity measures in Tebourba, 40 km (25 miles) west of Tunis, the interior ministry said in a statement. He had had chronic breathing problems and died due to suffocation from inhaling tear gas, it said. The protest had turned violent when security forces tried stopping some youths from burning down a government building, witnesses said. Five people were wounded and taken to a hospital, state news agency TAP said. Tunisia, widely seen in the West as the only democratic success among nations where “Arab Spring” revolts took place in 2011, is suffering increasing economic hardship. Anger has been building up since the government said that, from Jan. 1, it would increase the price of gasoil, some goods, and taxes on cars, phone calls, the internet, hotel accommodation and other items, part of austerity measures agreed with its foreign lenders. The 2018 budget also raises customs taxes on some products imported from abroad, such as cosmetics, and some agricultural products. The economy has been in crisis since a 2011 uprising unseated the government and two major militant attacks in 2015 damaged tourism, which comprises 8 percent of gross domestic product. Tunisia is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to speed up policy changes and help the economy recover from the attacks. Violent protests spread in the evening to at least 10 towns. There was also a protest turning violent in the capital, residents said. Security forces had already dispersed small protests in Tunis late on Sunday.
On Monday, about 300 people took to the streets in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the country’s Arab Spring revolution, carrying banners with slogans denouncing high prices. A lack of tourists and new foreign investors pushed Tunisia’s trade deficit up by 23.5 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2017 to a record $5.8 billion, official data showed at the end of December. Concerns about the rising deficit have hurt the dinar currency, sending it to 3.011 versus the euro on Monday, breaking the psychologically important 3-dinar mark for the first time, traders said.
The currency is likely to weaken further, said Tunisian financial risk expert Mourad Hattab. “The sharp decline of the dinar threatens to deepen the trade deficit and make debt service payments tighter, which will increase Tunisia’s financial difficulties,” he said. Hattab said the dinar may fall to 3.3 versus the euro in the coming months because of high demand for foreign currency and little expectation of intervention from the authorities.Last year, former Finance Minister Lamia Zribi said the central bank would reduce its interventions so that the dinar steadily declined in value, but it would prevent any dramatic slide. The central bank has denied any plans to liberalise the currency but Hattab said Monday’s decline showed there was an “undeclared float” of the dinar. A weaker currency could further drive up the cost of imported food after the annual inflation rate rose to 6.4. percent in December, its highest rate since July 2014, from 6.3 percent in November, data showed on Monday.

Iran's Khamenei Hails Rallies against US, Zionist 'Plot'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 09/18/Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday praised a "massive movement of the people against the plots of the enemies", accusing the United States and Israel of inciting anti-government demonstrations.Pro-government rallies have been held across the country since late December, according to Iranian state media, following several days of opposition protests which sparked violence that left 21 dead. Such a "popular mobilisation against the enemy's plots targeting the regime... doesn't exist anywhere (else) in the world," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast by Iranian media. He accused the United States and "the Zionists" of spending months preparing demonstrations in small towns in the hope that they would spread to the capital. "This will not go unanswered," he said. "The money came from the rich governments of the Persian Gulf and the perpetrators were the criminal Monafeghin group," he added. Monafeghin ("hypocrites" in Persian) is a label Iranian authorities use for the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, an outlawed opposition group. The anti-government protests had used the slogan "no to high living costs", which "pleases everyone", he said. "But the people, who were not very many, quickly dissociated themselves (from the movement) when they realised the real objectives" of the instigators, he said. Khamenei said there was a distinction between "the just demands of the people and the wild and destructive actions of this group". He said protests for rights had nothing to do with "burning the Koran, insulting Islam, insulting the flag and burning mosques". The anti-government demonstrations were the biggest such movement in the tightly controlled country since protests over a disputed election in 2009.

Jordanian intelligence stops terrorist plot targeting public security
Al Arabiya/January 09/ 2018/Jordan's intelligence service foiled, on Monday, a major terrorist and sabotage scheme with a premeditated effort planned by a terrorist cell supporting ISIS organization during the month of November 2017. According to the agency "Petra", elements of the cell has planned to carry out a number of terrorist operations, simultaneously with the aim of destabilizing the national security in Jordan. Early intelligence operations resulted in the arrest of 17 members involved in these operations and the seizure of weapons and materials that were to be used to carry out the terrorist attacks. Investigations with the cell members revealed that this cell prepared complete strategies to carry out their plans, as well as initial inspections of these targets, setting up the mechanism to carry out the operations. Among the most important targets of the terrorist cell (security and military centers, commercial centers, media stations, moderate clerics. They have also planned to secure financial support for the implementation of their plans for the purchase of automatic weapons through the execution of robberies on a number of banks in the cities of Rusaifa and Zarqa and by stealing a number of vehicles, with the aim of selling them. They intended as well to manufacture explosives using raw materials available on the market. All the elements of the cell were transferred to the General Prosecutor of the State Security Court, who initiated the investigation. They were charged of conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts, promoting the ideas of a terrorist group, engaging in terrorist acts, selling weapons and ammunition for use in terrorist attacks, supplying money to perform acts of terror, possession of weapons for use in terrorist acts. The detained cell members will be referred to the State Security Court once the Prosecutor has completed the investigation proceedings.

Tunisia: Protests against Rising Prices, Tax Increases Sweep Streets
Tunis - Al Munji Al Saidani/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18/Tunisia's economy is experiencing difficulties but 2018 will be the last year of hardship, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed promised on Tuesday. The dashing statement came after a long night of protests against austerity measures hit Tunisian streets. On Monday, protests erupted in more than 10 towns across Tunisia against price and tax increases imposed by the government to reduce a ballooning deficit and an economic crisis. "People have to understand that the situation is extraordinary and their country has difficulties but we believe that 2018 will be the last difficult year for the Tunisians," Chahed told reporters in comments broadcast on local radio. Protests have intensified in response to a reviewed tax policy and price increases guaranteed by the current fiscal law in Tunisia. The wave of protests came a day apart from the city of Tale (Kasserine, central western Tunisia) to nearby Sidi Bouzid. The Labor Union organized a peaceful march in which slogans were raised calling for the abolition of a number of items included in the Finance Law and a ban on the cost of living. In recent days, parties have called for peaceful demonstrations against government measures to raise prices to curb the budget deficit. On Sunday night in the city of Tala, a protest was led by a number of young people and regional residents to block the main road to the city and ignite the rubber wheels. The protests soon turned into confrontations with security men who fired empty rounds into the air and used tear gas to disperse protesters. "The protests are due to spiking prices, worsening social and economic conditions, staggering unemployment rates and the lack of the region's share of national development," said organizer Hamza al-Sayhi. In the same context, Reuters pointed to a gathering of youths in the neighborhood of flowers in the Kasserine and raised anti-government slogans and refused to raise prices and threw stones at the police.

Turkey Arrests Iraqi ISIS Leader
Ankara - Saeed Abdul Razek/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18/Turkish anti terrorism forces arrested Monday an Iraqi senior member of ISIS in Kayseri province, central Turkey. He is described as an "Emir" or "Mufti" in the terrorist organization and was referred to the court, which ordered his arrest. More than 300 people have lost their lives in ISIS-claimed attacks in Turkey, where the terror organization has targeted civilians in suicide bombings, and rocket and gun attacks. Turkish security forces have been involved in a long-running campaign to thwart ISIS attacks. Turkish security forces have carried out simultaneous raids in 14 states, during which more than 300 people suspected of links with ISIS have been arrested, mostly foreign nationals. Documents and digital materials have been seized too, revealing plans to carry out separate attacks on the eve of New Year's celebrations. Security sources revealed that Turkish authorities also arrested 1,447 people in Istanbul alone during 2017, most of them were foreigners suspected of belonging to the terrorist organization. The sources said that the anti-terrorism teams in the Istanbul Police Department carried out 58 operations against ISIS in 2017, and Turkish intelligence teams thwarted many of the armed and suicide attacks last year, including attacks targeting restaurants, parking lots, shopping malls and celebrations in Istanbul. They pointed out that the Turkish authorities seized a number of weapons and ammunition, as well as explosive belts and bombs. Several Turkish cities, including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, have been the target of suicide attacks by members of ISIS since July 2015 that killed 319 people. The Turkish authorities arrested, in more than 20,000 security operations over the past year, more than 5,000 members of the organization, mostly foreigners, and deported dozens.

Haftar Visits UAE, Sarraj Announces End of Ras Jdir Crossing Operation
Cairo - Khalid Mahmoud/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18/Commander-in-chief of the Libyan National Army started an unannounced visit to the United Arab Emirates on Monday, Asharq Al Awsat learned. Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar is currently visiting the UAE, a senior Libyan official told the newspaper without giving further details. The visit, which is the first of its kind this year, comes in the context of ongoing contacts between Libya’s National Army Command and the UAE. Meanwhile, calm was restored to the Libyan capital Tripoli after it was announced Sunday that a locally mediated agreement was reached to end the clashes east of the city between armed militias loyal to the Government of National Accord, which is headed by Fayez al-Sarraj and supported by the United Nations. Sarraj also announced the end of the military operation carried out by his government forces in Ras Jdir on the border with Tunisia. Hours after the announcement of a ceasefire agreement in Tripoli, the UN mission announced that special representative to Libya Ghassan Salameh met Monday with Sarraj in Tripoli. The two parties discussed the implementation of the UN action plan, the security and humanitarian situation, and the return of Tawergha refugees. For his part, Sarraj said in a statement that his talks with the UN envoy tackled the developments of the political situation in Libya, the steps taken to complete the current transitional phase, the elections and the beginning of the stage to build a stable Libya. The statement quoted Sarraj as saying that there is a mechanism to implement the reconciliation agreement between Misrata and Tawergha (east of Tripoli). Sarraj announced that the return Tawergha refugees will begin in February and expressed hope that this move will mark the beginning of a new stage of civil peace. In this context, the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord announced the end of all military operations in and around Abu-Kammash area. “Orders have been issued for the competent authorities to take over the crossing on Tunisian border," said the government in a statement.
"The government confirms that necessary security arrangements have been made to secure the entire area and to restore a normal life. The government also confirms that efforts are made, with all possible means, to pursue criminals and those who manipulate the livelihood of citizens," the statement added.
Head of the Libyan Higher Council of State Abdurrahman Swehli on Sunday called on fighting parties in western Libya to calm down and refrain from military actions in civilian area. Swehli made his remarks during a meeting with mayors of western cities in Tripoli, where they discussed military developments in western Libya. He called for calm and stressed rejection to intimidate civilians. Swehli and the mayors agreed to hand over the Tunisian border to the government's presidential guards service and the Ministry of Interior.

Seoul: North Korea to Send Delegation to Olympics in South
Associated Press/Naharnet/January 09/18/North Korea agreed Tuesday to send a delegation to next month's Winter Olympics in South Korea, Seoul officials said, as the bitter rivals sat for rare talks at the border to discuss how to cooperate in the Olympics and improve their long-strained ties. The Koreas' first talks in two years were arranged after North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un recently made an abrupt push for improved ties with South Korea after a year of elevated tensions with the outside world over his expanding nuclear and missile programs. Critics say Kim may be trying to divide Seoul and Washington in a bid to weaken international pressure and sanctions on the North. During the talks, the North Korean delegation said it would send an Olympic delegation, which includes officials, athletes, cheerleaders, journalists and others, South Korea's Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung told reporters, according to media footage from the border village of Panmunjom, the venue for the talks. The South Korean delegation, for its part, proposed North Korea send a big delegation and conduct a joint march during the Feb. 9-25 Game's opening and closing ceremonies, Chun, one of the five South Korean negotiators, said.
He said South Korea also suggested resuming temporary reunions of families separated by war and offering military talks designed to reduce animosities in frontline areas. South Korea also stressed the need to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Chun said.
North Korea responded by saying the two Koreas must try to promote peace and reconciliation through dialogue, he said. The two sides were to continue their negotiations later Tuesday at Panmunjom, the only place on the tense border where North and South Korean soldiers are just feet away from each other. A North Korean soldier late last year defected to the South across Panmunjom amid a hail of bullets fired by his comrades. He was hit five times but survived.
The meeting began with an amicable atmosphere Tuesday morning, with chief North Korean delegate Ri Son Gwon saying he hopes the talks would give "a New Year's first gift — precious results (of the talks) to the Korean nation." Ri's South Korean counterpart, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, said he also hopes they would come up with a "good gift" for people in both Koreas.
The overall prospect for the negotiations was still unclear. The two Koreas have a long history of ending key talks without any agreement and failing to follow through with rapprochement accords. An agreement on the North's Olympic participation had been widely expected before the talks began, but the Koreas remain sharply at odds over how to improve their overall ties. North Korea is expected to demand rewards in return for South Korea's offer for family reunions and military talks, like Seoul halting propaganda broadcasts and scaling back or halting military drills with the U.S., observers say.
Suspension of the military drills would be unacceptable for Seoul because that would seriously undermine the alliance with its chief ally the United States, which wants to put more pressures on Pyongyang. The North views the drills as a rehearsal for a northward invasion.
President Donald Trump on Saturday expressed hope for some progress from the talks and said he was open to talking with Kim himself. But U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley later said the U.S. administration isn't changing its conditions regarding talks with North Korea, saying Kim would first need to stop weapons testing for a "significant amount of time."
In his New Year's Day address, Kim said there is an urgent need to improve inter-Korean ties and that he is willing to send a delegation to the Pyeongchang Games. He urged Seoul to halt the military drills with the U.S. and said he has a "nuclear button" to launch missiles at any target in the United States.
South Korean liberal President Moon Jae-in, who favors dialogue as a way to defuse the North Korean nuclear standoff, welcomed Kim's outreach and proposed talks at Panmunjom. Kim quickly accepted. "As President Moon has said, the improvement of relations between North and South Korea cannot advance separately from resolving North Korea's nuclear program," Brian Hook, a chief adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, told reporters in a conference call late Monday Washington time. "And so, we remain focused on our global pressure campaign. That campaign is designed to bring Kim Jong Un to the table for meaningful negations."The Trump administration agreed last week to delay springtime military drills with South Korea until after the Games. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis insisted the delay was a practical necessity to accommodate the Olympics, not a political gesture. Trump and Kim traded bellicose warlike rhetoric and even crude insults last year, as the North conducted it sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation and three tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The International Olympic Committee said Monday it has "kept the door open" for North Korea to take part in the Games. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the registration deadline has been extended and that the Switzerland-based committee supports North Korean athletes in the qualification process, while respecting U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

Trump 'Likes' Oprah, but Doubts She'll Run for President
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 09/18/Donald Trump said Tuesday he liked actress and talk show host Oprah Winfrey, but speculated that she probably would not run against him in the 2020 presidential election. "I like Oprah," Trump said, adding that he had appeared on her long-running afternoon program. "I know her very well," he said, before adding: "I don't think she’s going to run."Winfrey's rousing speech at Sunday's Golden Globes ignited speculation in Hollywood and on America's political left that the billionaire chat show queen is harboring White House ambitions -- buzz that delighted her legions of fans.

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 09-10/18
Canada: Trudeau's Support for Islamists a Warning to America
دعم رئيس وزراء كندا للإسلاميين هو انذار لأميركا
Thomas Quiggin/Gatestone Institute/January 09/2018
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=61696
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11679/trudeau-support-islamists
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada has an nine-year long record of supporting the Islamist cause while refusing to engage with reformist Muslims.
Perhaps most disturbing were Trudeau's comments to a gathering of Islamist front groups: he told them that he shared their beliefs, their set of values and their shared vision.
Canada will not be able to plead ignorance or inability while facing accusations of complicity from any future American terrorist victims.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada has an nine-year long record of supporting the Islamist cause while refusing to engage with reformist Muslims. With respect to ISIS fighters returning to Canada, Trudeau has argued that they will be a "powerful voice for deradicalization" and that those who oppose their return are "Islamophobic." Furthermore, the Government of Canada is not adding the names of returning ISIS fighters to the UN committee responsible for the listing of international jihadists.
Many Canadians (and others) are starting to believe that Prime Minister Trudeau's position on reintegrating and deradicalizing ISIS fighters is unreasonable, if not delusional. Canada's "Centre for Community Engagement and Deradicalization" has no leader and no deradicalization centre. Nor does it appear to have plans for a program which could operate inside or outside of government. It is also not clear that the law of Canada could force a returning ISIS fighter to attend such a program, even if it did exist. In France, a similar government sponsored program was a failure.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada has an nine-year long record of supporting the Islamist cause while refusing to engage with reformist Muslims.
Canada also has an unclear position on the arrest of returning ISIS fighters, with few facing any consequences to date. The number of ISIS fighters in Canada is unclear; estimates back in 2015 suggested that about 60 had returned. The Government of Canada has tried to claim that his number has not changed since 2015, despite the near total collapse of ISIS over the last several months.
Prime Minister Trudeau's earlier comments on politicians needing a position of "responsible neutrality" on the issues of wife beating and female genital mutilation render his current positions on Islamist groups such as ISIS even more troublesome. Perhaps most disturbing were Trudeau's comments to a gathering of Islamist front groups: he told them that he shared their beliefs, their set of values and their shared vision. Adding to this concern is his 2014 interview, as a Member of Parliament, to the Montreal-based newspaper Sada al-Mashrek. This paper is known to be Khomeneist in nature and supports Iran (as well as Hezbollah). In this interview, Trudeau told the paper that he would have a special immigration program that was more open to "Muslims and Arabs."
The degree to which Islamist extremism has spread in Canada can be demonstrated by the number of fighters who have travelled to ISIS. According to the Soufan Center, 180 Canadians went overseas to fight for for "terrorist groups" (ISIS) in Iraq & Syria while only 129 Americans did the same. Given that the US population is about ten times that of Canada, the American number should have been closer to 1800 rather that the 129 reported.
Prime Minister Trudeau's position on Islamists should be of concern to both Canadians and Americans. While the history of Canada and American relations is largely positive, Islamist attacks against America have been attempted from Canada. Among these attempted attacks have been Ahmed Ressam in 1999, Chiheb Esseghaier in 2013 and Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, convicted of an attempted attack in New York City in 2016.
In addition to his support for Islamists, Prime Minister Trudeau appears to be re-engaging with Iran after the previous Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) closed the Embassy of Iran in Canada and deported all of its diplomats. During the 2015 federal election, Trudeau said he hoped Canada "would be able to reopen its mission" and he was "fairly certain that there are ways to re-engage." Progress to date on this has been uneven, but talks appear to be continuing.
Prime Minister Trudeau's support for the Islamist cause has been consistent since he was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2008. This position appears to have been reinforced since he became Prime Minister in 2015. In addition to his own position, Canada's Liberal Party also has an entryist problem as it has been targeted by Islamist groups.
Unfortunately for all concerned, the global Islamist ideology and its inherent problems of confrontation, oppression and violence are growing. Canada appears to be doing little to address these issues while accommodating those who form the ideological basis of the problem. Canada will not be able to plead ignorance or inability while facing accusations of complicity from any future American terrorist victims. The price of Canada's submission to the Islamists may indeed be high.
Tom Quiggin is a former military intelligence officer, a former intelligence contractor for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a court appointed expert on jihadist terrorism in both the Federal and criminal courts of Canada. Much of the material for this article comes from the recently published book, "SUBMISSION: The Danger of Political Islam to Canada – With a Warning to America", written with co-authors Tahir Gora, Saied Shoaaib, Jonathon Cotler, and Rick Gill with a foreword by Raheel Raza.
© 2018 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.

Calling Out Europe: Where Is the Diplomacy of Truth?
Gatestone's Person of the Week: Fiamma Nirenstein, Counter-Terrorism Expert
Ruthie Blum//Gatestone Institute/January 09/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11708/fiamma-nirenstein-interview
The "Lawrence of Arabia" syndrome goes back to Old Europe. It is the snobbery of people who become enamored with exotic cultures. There is a romanticism surrounding the Middle East, associated with magic carpets and Aladdin lamps. But with that romanticism comes fear, as well – fear of... invading Islamists who slit people's throats.
This fear has led European states to try and do business with terrorist groups. In the early 1980s, for example, Italian officials forged a secret deal with Palestinian terrorists, which culminated not in cooperation, but in a series of deadly attacks...
Too many lies have been the basis of international relations. These include "dialogue" between religions to counter Islamist terrorism; the false notion of the "peaceful aspirations" of the Palestinians; the view that Turkey is a "bridge" to the Muslim world; the ridiculous view of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a "moderate"; the belief in a "united Europe" as the future of the old continent; and faith in the U.N. as a legal arbiter for international affairs. Policies based on these lies are not only fruitless; they are dangerous.
As an expert in global terrorism, anti-Semitism, Middle East wars and European policy, Fiamma Nirenstein has been following the popular uprising in Iran with particular interest. Nirenstein – award-winning journalist, best-selling author, former MP of the Italian Parliament and a fellow at the JCPA and says that just as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's election and foreign policy were instrumental in the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, President Donald Trump is probably responsible for the street demonstrations across Iran that could lead to the downfall of the ayatollah-led Islamic Republic.
Nirenstein says that Europe, which has been silent on the uprisings in Iran, can no more take credit for this welcome turn of events than it could for the defeat of the U.S.S.R. -- or even of Hitler's Third Reich. It is America, she asserts, that has always been at the forefront of the struggle for freedom from the bondage of dictators; it is America that always saves Europe.
Gatestone: Why is it not the other way around? Europe, after all, is geographically closer to those struggles than America.
Fiamma Nirenstein: Europe's key approach always has been one of appeasement, because when you are weak, you try not to interfere too much, not say what you think. Deep in its heart, Europe probably would have liked to stop Hitler from the beginning, and see the Soviet Union collapse earlier, but it did not have the courage to voice this opinion loudly or strongly enough. The same applies to the situation with Iran today.
Gatestone: But hasn't Europe been expressing, loudly and clearly, its antipathy to fascism? And hasn't America exhibited what you call "weakness"?
FN: Europe is split. It has been both fascist and communist, and also has fought against fascism and communism – if not early enough. It therefore might suffer from guilt and humiliation relating to its past. The United States, too, seems to have guilt and humiliation relating to racism in its history. But there is a difference between Europe and America: As is the case with individuals, nations must confront and untangle their feelings. When a person does this, he becomes an adult. One could say that while America matured into adulthood, Europe never did.
Gatestone: Has Europe not changed dramatically in the past decades?
FN: Only cosmetically. Take the example of French President Emmanuel Macron. Everyone thought that he was going to be the new leader of Europe. He was the candidate who defeated the extreme Right in France, under the banner of the European Union. Everyone thought his presidency signaled the rebirth of the EU under this very young, very strong, very Western leader – one who was not anti-American and anti-Israeli.
But look what has happened since his election. Faced with global realities, including Iran's imperialism and race for nuclear weapons, Macron not only has failed to realize this fantasy; the most he has been able to do is represent the heritage of the same old Europe that it has always been.
When Washington, Jerusalem and Riyadh responded to Iranian protests against the regime, Macron said: "The official line pursued by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are our allies in many ways, is almost one that would lead us to war." Meanwhile, French Ambassador to the U.N. Francois Delattre shamefully told a meeting of the Security Council that the events in Iran "do not constitute a threat to international peace and security," and therefore the crisis should not be "exploited for personal ends."
Macron called for the same old failed policy of appeasement: keeping a "permanent dialogue" open with Iran, so as not to risk sparking a "conflict of extreme brutality" and "rebuilding an 'axis of evil.'"
The implication is that those who oppose the ayatollahs are liable to cause a war. This is outrageous. It is Tehran that is spreading terrorism, building a nuclear capability, and fomenting wars all over the world. It is Tehran that has caused the immense number of refugees from Sunni or half-Sunni states, such as Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and other places, who have been fleeing to Europe to escape the Shiites trying to take over their countries
It is simply not true that Europe has no interest in this situation; the extreme degree to which it is terrified of the brave revolution taking place in Iran against this repressive Islamist regime is surprising. On paper, such a crisis for the regime in Tehran should be a wish fulfillment for Europe; it might even benefit from a reduction in immigration. In addition, Europe boasts of favoring human and civil rights, while Iran is a place where women are stoned, homosexuals are hanged and dissidents are imprisoned, tortured and executed.
Europe in 1959 established a whole court in Strasbourg for the protection human rights. Europe should be very happy with the uprising against the Iranian regime. But this is not how it is behaving.
On the contrary, Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, used the language of both appeasement and false moral equivalence in her statement to the press on the protests. She said, "We have been in touch with the Iranian authorities. In the spirit of frankness and respect that is at the basis of our relationship, we expect all concerned to refrain from violence."
Gatestone: If, as you say, it is not in Europe's interest to enable Iranian-backed Shiite imperialism, because it has led to a flood of Sunni refugees, why did German Chancellor Angela Merkel respond to the influx of migrants and asylum-seekers by touting the policy of "wir schaffen das" – "We can do it" – a phrase she said last year that she decided to stop using, due to the barrage of criticism it generated?
FN: Germany probably has more guilt than any other EU country, and rightly so, because of its responsibility for committing the worst slaughter in the history of man. It is no accident that Merkel approximated the slogan "Yes, we can," made famous by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008, because Obama was not only like a European leader, but he even pushed Europe to be more Europe than Europe. He himself sometimes acted as if he would have preferred to be European. He was anti-American and anti-Israeli, as Europe has always been. More significantly, Obama relieved Europe of the great burden of having to be thankful to the United States – the country that saved it during World War II. In addition, his basic message was that America must stop feeling superior to other countries.
Gatestone: How are Europeans responding to Trump?
FN: They are horrified by him.
Gatestone: Are they horrified because he demanded that NATO members meet their financial obligations?
FN: It goes much deeper than that; it is almost anthropological in nature. In Europe, there is a sort of aristocratic snobbery that cannot tolerate what it sees as Trump's vulgarity. When Trump told the UN that it cannot keep taking American money and then "vote against us at the Security Council," Europeans gasped and said, "Oh, money, what a disgusting word. It is so horrible to hear this businessman, who is not a politician, reduce everything to money. It is simply blackmail." This is wildly hypocritical, of course, as money plays a key role in all of Europe's attitudes and policies – not least in its apparent preference to keep doing business with Iran's regime to hearing the Iranian people's pleas for freedom. Europeans claim to despise politicians, whom they consider corrupt, ignorant and inefficient. Whenever elections are held in Europe, every political party attempts to recruit as many candidates as possible from the business community, because they are viewed as people who are serious about civil society and know what they are doing professionally.
The anti-Trump snobbery – like Macron's behavior -- is part of a reactionary mindset characteristic of both Old Europe and new Europe.
Gatestone: How is this mindset evident in Europe's attitude to the Middle East?
FN: The "Lawrence of Arabia" syndrome goes back to Old Europe. It is the snobbery of people who become enamored with exotic cultures. There is a romanticism surrounding the Middle East, associated with magic carpets and Aladdin lamps. But with that romanticism comes fear, as well – fear of what the great historian Bernard Lewis called the "first assassins," invading Islamists who slit people's throats. There is a common expression in Italian that best describes this fear: "Mamma, li Turchi" -- "Mom, the Turks are coming" -- which refers to the Ottomans, but it is still used today to denote fear of "barbarians" arriving to commit brutal murders. This fear has led European states to try and do business with terrorist groups. In the early 1980s, for example, Italian officials forged a secret deal with Palestinian terrorists, which culminated not in cooperation, but in a series of deadly attacks: the 1982 attack on the Great Synagogue in Rome; the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in 1985; and, also in 1985, the simultaneous attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports.
In addition to snobbery and fear, Europeans have interests, particularly in relation to oil. This issue is only about 100 or so years old, when oil first became a crucial global commodity, and Middle Eastern countries were found to possess large quantities of it.
Then there is the matter of the sheer number of Muslims. When the Islamic nations band together in an international assembly, such as UNESCO, they have an automatic majority with the "Non-Aligned Movement" countries. The Soviet Union understood that by uniting the Third World in this way under its auspices, it would have even greater power. In the past, Europe was paralyzed in the face of this majority. It remains so, in spite of the fall of the Soviet Union nearly three decades ago.
Gatestone: Is this why Europe voted with UNESCO when it rejected the historical connection of Jews to Jerusalem?
FN: Yes, but there is an even more disturbing trend responsible for this. There is no important issue – other than hostility towards Israel – around which the EU is able to unite. They do not agree about the economy; they do not agree about migration; they do not agree about the nature of Islam. But they all vote together to condemn Israel. It is a theater of the same hate that they now pretend to regret. Luckily, because of Eastern Europe, this maybe starting to change.
Gatestone: What makes Eastern Europe different?
FN: Eastern Europe lived and suffered under both the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, and Communism. It is therefore both less naïve and free of guilt; Eastern Europeans do not feel the "white man's burden." All they want is to live free, good lives. They do not want migrants to import a patriarchal and often fundamentalist culture, as well as terrorism. Many Western Europeans cannot even admit that many migrants import terrorism.
Western Europe is also in denial about the concept of human rights and values. That is how Paris today is a city in which hundreds of thousands of its residents live in polygamous families. As a European, can you admit that you have polygamous families? No, you cannot. Can you admit that women are not safe in the streets of Denmark, Holland and Sweden? No, you cannot. The only people who acknowledge it, and that its origin is Islam, are on the Right, and this is why the right wing is growing in Europe.
This is tricky, because there are anti-Semites among these right-wingers, and such elements must be condemned. On the other hand, most of the right-wing parties do not hate Jews; on the contrary, the majority of them like and support Jews and Israel. The fact is that the most dangerous anti-Semitism today comes from the Left, and that the most dangerous anti-Semitism is that which is directed against Israel.
The Left thinks that the worst violation of human rights is to impose Western culture on other people – something they associate with colonialism. They do say that it is wrong to beat women, for example, and they do support implementing the law against those who violate it. But, when you allow a culture that segregates and persecutes women to flourish, you necessarily have a lot of honor killings and other behavior that is unacceptable in the West and should be unacceptable anywhere.
Gatestone: Trump has been called a racist for banning unfettered travel to the U.S. from eight Muslim countries, unless there is a way of vetting people entering the country. What do you think of his policies?
FN: I think his policy is sound, but it is often impossible to make a distinction between innocent victims of terrorism and terrorists arriving from Middle Eastern countries. Many of the people come to Europe on boats, fleeing persecution and terrorism. Those who make it without drowning at sea are taken to shore half-naked and wrapped in blankets. They do not have documents on them for the authorities to examine. But what are you going to do? Let them drown?
The problem is that in 2015, when these migrants began arriving in droves, Europe again closed its eyes, and did not consider the necessity of providing help to enable them to remain in their countries of origin. There is now an attempt to reverse the trend of Europeans simply opening their arms to refugees, but it is too slow a process and very late to begin it.
Gatestone: How does Europe view the legal immigrants, or their children, who return to the Middle East to receive training from ISIS and other terrorist groups, in order to commit attacks in Europe?
FN: The problem here is Islam, not immigration. "Islam" is the word that Europeans must learn to utter if they intend to confront the difficult issues posed by unfettered immigration, both legal and illegal.
Gatestone: Returning to Iran, the regime in Tehran is accusing "foreign enemies" – implying America, Saudi Arabia and Israel -- of being behind the current demonstrations.
FN: That is as false as it is ridiculous. Those countries are simply conveying messages of support for the Iranian people. This is just the opposite of how the Obama administration reacted to the 2009 "Green Revolution," which was quickly quashed by the regime.
Gatestone: What are the chances that the current uprising will topple the regime?
FN: A revolution succeeds when the leaders and security forces of a country are broken from within, and its members begin to defect. This is how the Soviet Union fell. As soon as the leaders were weakened, the security forces and police abandoned them. In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia are tightly aligned with the regime religiously, ideologically and financially. So it is hard to imagine that there will be mass defections. Here, again, we arrive at the conclusion that Islam is the problem. It is a problem the world over. We have to recognize that when we speak about a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, for example, it is actually between Israel and Islam – which rejects the very existence of Israel. This is why there has been no peace.
Gatestone: How do you explain, then, the recent cooperation of some Arab and Muslim countries with Israel? Can political Islam be lumped into a single category? Don't different Islamic countries have different interests?
FN: Currently, there is a strong Sunni alliance against Iran's rampant Shiite imperialism, which makes Sunni states natural allies of America and Israel. But alliances in the Middle East fluctuate. Today, Egypt has an interest in being a strong ally with the West. However, just before President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power, there was a Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo, and who knows who or what will come next?
Gatestone: One could make the same argument about the United States. Before Trump became president, Obama was in power for eight years, and nobody knows how long the current administration will last.
FN: The two are not comparable. In America, the rules remain the same, no matter who becomes president. In Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, the rules change with every shift in power.
Gatestone: Why, then, would regime change in Iran really make a difference? After all, Russia today is ruled by Vladimir Putin, a KGB officer and prominent member of the old Soviet regime.
FN: Usually when a regime is toppled, it goes down with the main values it represents. This is especially relevant when talking about Iran, which is Muslim, but not Arab, and has a rich, historical Persian tradition, which includes Zoroastrianism.
Gatestone: What scenario do you envision for Iran?
In general, what the world needs today is a diplomacy of truth. This is what Netanyahu has been so good at engaging in, courageously warning the U.S. Congress and the U.N. against the nuclear deal with Iran, in spite of Obama's wrath.
Too many lies have been the basis of international relations. These include "dialogue" between religions to counter Islamist terrorism; the false notion of the "peaceful aspirations" of the Palestinians; the view that Turkey is a "bridge" to the Muslim world; the ridiculous view of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a "moderate"; the belief in a "united Europe" as the future of the old continent; and faith in the U.N. as a legal arbiter for international affairs. Policies based on these lies are not only fruitless; they are dangerous.
The diplomacy of truth, adopted by Trump and his U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, is the only hope for stability and peace.
Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
© 2018 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.

France's War against Firefighters and Police
Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute/January 09/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11697/france-firefighters-police
A silent war against French police and firefighters is in full swing. "2,280 firefighters were assaulted in 2016... As a result, the police are called to certain areas just to protect the firefighters." — National Observatory of Delinquency, Radio Europe 1.
Two Paris police officers, who risked their lives to save children from a burning apartment, were attacked and stoned by a mob when they emerged from the blaze carrying the children in their arms.
As usual, politicians are minimizing the problem. The government does not consider the spread of urban violence to be terrorism. As usual, the government will try to buy peace with money.
France's Minister of the Interior, Gerard Collomb, was clearly happy on January 1st. Why? No terrorist attack had occurred on New Year's Eve. Collomb warmly thanked the 140,000 police officers, soldiers, firefighters, and civil security associations who had been mobilized to block any potential terrorist attack. To give just an inkling of the size of this security deployment on New Year's Eve, consider that the entire French army (land forces only) consists of only about 117,000 active-duty soldiers.
All French governments since 2015 have denied that Islam is at war with France, but the Ministry of the Interior nevertheless mobilized higher numbers of security personnel than the French army has soldiers, to make sure that this New Year's Eve would be a peaceful event.
In a press release, Minister Collomb said:
"Because of the strong police presence combined with efficiency of protection measures, the festivities of New Year's Eve were able to happen peacefully for everyone in France."
Although no terrorist attack took place on New Year's Eve, calling it a "peaceful" night is, at best, a stretch. In keeping with the annual "tradition," 1031 vehicles were intentionally burned (compared to 935 in 2016) in the majority-Muslim suburbs of many big cities.
250 cars were torched in the Paris area alone, and eight police officers and three soldiers of the Gendarmerie were attacked and wounded. A video went viral on the internet, showing a mob of "youths" (the euphemism used by the media for African and Arab young men) assaulting and savagely beating a female police officer. She had been trying to disperse a crowd of "youths" attacking a private party in the Champigny suburb of Paris.
In Strasbourg, according to Alliance, a police union, "five police officers were slightly injured, including four victims of fireworks that were used as weapons." In addition, 70 cars were torched intentionally.
In every big city, dozens of cars were burned, and in the suburbs, "youths" attacked the police.
Even in central Paris, where the police were demonstrably visible, "incidents" resulted. According to Le Figaro, which leaked a confidential report from the Ministry of Interior, there were no end of assaults:
"At 8.50 pm, at the corner of the Champs-Elysées and Balzac Street, gendarmes arrested seven individuals who threw empty bottles into a crowd. The victims could not be identified. The attackers, illegal migrants from Afghanistan, were placed in administrative detention."
The report also mentions a waiter at the restaurant Le Fouquet's on the Champs Elysées; he was wounded with a knife while trying to put an end to a fight. This confidential report was dedicated only to violence committed in the Paris area. A far larger report, indexing the violence in all of France, arrived on the Interior Minister's desk.
All these events -- except the car-torchings, which for years have sadly been the New Year's "fireworks" tradition of the suburbs -- are not confined to New Year's Eve. Assaults and crime are the suburbs' daily bread. On January 2, 2018, two police officers, who risked their lives to save children from a burning apartment in a Paris suburb, were attacked and stoned by a mob when they emerged from the blaze carrying the children in their arms.
In November 2017, the radio station Europe 1 released confidential data about attacks against firefighters:
"The figures of the National Observatory of Delinquency, released exclusively by Europe 1, show a 17% increase in assaults against firefighters in 2016. 2,280 firefighters were assaulted in 2016, compared to 1,939 in 2015. ...firefighters are confronted on a daily basis with increasingly extreme situations. With 366 assaults in 2016, the Paris area is the most affected region, after Aquitaine, in southwest France, with 406 reported assaults. As a result, the police are called to certain areas just to protect the firefighters."
According to Bruno Retailleau, MP, head of a parliamentary commission on security forces:
"in 2016, half the gendarmes officers (part of the Ministry of Defense) in 2016 that were injured, were injured by assaults. As for the police, weapons-caused injuries for police officers on the ground skyrocketed by 60%."
Five months after a law was passed to ease the rules of self-defense for police officers, the news channel LCI revealed that the use of firearms by police officers had sharply increased, including "intimidation or summons" (where officers shoot in the air or at the ground), which was up 89%. This type of gunfire is "justified and justifiable," noted the IGPN (internal affairs department) in a confidential note of July 2017, also revealed by LCI.
A silent war against firefighters and police is in full swing. On January 3, 2018, the headline in Le Parisien was, "When the Police Frighten Nobody." The same day, Lydia Guirous, speaker of the opposition party, Les Republicains, declared:
"In the suburbs, the authority of the State no longer exists, and impunity predominates. The police are in a state of fear and the means [to respond] is lacking. This sense of impunity must be broken".
As usual, politicians are minimizing the problem. The government does not consider the spread of urban violence to be terrorism. On January 1, 2018, the Minister of the Interior was explaining away the violence against the police and firefighters as the consequence of "social injustice." After he congratulated himself for the "peaceful" New Year's Eve, Collomb talked the same rubbish as usual: namely, that the Muslim "youths" involved in destruction and violence are not criminals, rather they are victims of their "environment":
"I think it is those neighborhoods that need to be changed. Those huge apartment blocks in the suburbs represent an inhuman environment generating violence... I do not think these neighborhoods can stay that way."
As usual, the government will try to buy peace with money. Meanwhile, suicides are spreading among police officers. In November 2017, in a single week, five police officers committed suicide in different French cities. On December 3, 2017, a police officer committed suicide inside the precinct of Alençon, in southern France. On December 5, 2017, a security officer of the Ministry of Labor committed suicide in the parking lot of a Gendarmerie precinct. Between January 1, 2017 and December 1, 47 police officers and 16 gendarmes took their own lives. It was an all-time high.
Pictured: Police and fire service vehicles at the site of a terrorist attack on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, France, on April 20, 2017. The attacker murdered one police officer and wounded another.
**Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde. He is completing a book, "Collaborators and Useful Idiots of Islamism in France," to be published in 2018.
© 2018 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 Tale of an Intelligence Officer’s Recordings
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/January 09/18
The New York Times (NYT) is a reputable newspaper known for journalistic integrity and fact-checking to a point where it’s said the paper cannot find anything good to publish.
Anyway this is just a myth. Just like any other newspaper, NYT is strict when it wants to and lenient when it suits it. There might not be a journalist in the whole world without an opinion or affiliations. This can be seen in the coverage of media opposing President Donald Trump as it became a smear campaign of insults resulting the media coverage in violating the profession’s ethics.
NYT recently published a report claiming that, contrary to official statements, Egyptian authorities, are not against Trump's decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. It included recordings of an Egyptian intelligence officer coordinating with Egyptian television hosts, explaining the Egyptian government's policy and asking them to agree with it.
This report, if true, like plenty of recent news about the region, seems to be part of the Qatari public relations’ activity that uses journalists to spread facts and fake news.
When I listened to the recordings, I did not discover any new political stance. All Arab countries approved the Arab initiative, which clearly accepts West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and recognizes Israel as a state. When Trump insisted on activating the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, all Arab countries voiced their opposition, but they are aware they cannot stop it.
At the same time, the majority of Arab countries did not want to fall into the Iranian or Qatari trap, with both seeking to incite regional people for reasons irrelevant to Palestine or Jerusalem. They are part of the regional political game.
Incitement has been Qatar's approach since the 1995 coup led by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah against his father. Sheikh Hamad is still ruling the country from behind the curtains. We should not forget how US jets bombed al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan flying from a base in Qatar, while the Qatari media was calling for jihad against US infidels. Hypocrisy and fraud have continued to this day.
Qatar rushed to translate Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury" and published it on social media. When comparing the Qatari version with Wolff’s, we can see that the original one is 260-pages long while the translated version is only 120 pages. This is because Qatar selected and negatively translated chapters discussing Saudi Arabia.
Falsification is common. Even during live broadcasts of Trump's speeches, Qatari interpreters have put words into the President’s mouth according to Qatar’s position. This is the credibility of sources quoted by NYT.
Qataris and Muslim Brotherhood filled the internet and social media with false media garbage by fabricating interviews with political figures like Henry Kissinger and deceased men like Brzezinski or publishing false analyses attributed to German and British papers.
They also exploited Western media outlets that are eager to learn interesting stories about the region, and willing to publish without validating the sources, leading to a less of credibility.
Countries like Egypt need to carefully tackle major issues unlike Qatar which does not hesitate to gather US bases, Taliban offices, and Sheikh Qaradawi in one place. The Muslim Brotherhood, along with their Qatari allies, have been trying for two years to stir problems with the Egyptian people. They were trying to do so in every possible way and under any slogan, whether supporting people’s demands or Jerusalem, in order to destabilize the current regime. In addition, they launched a campaign against late President Anwar al-Sadat when he signed the Camp David Agreement, until he was assassinated.
The Brotherhood exploits public support for Palestine for reasons that have nothing to do with Palestine. Exaggerating the significance of these recorded phone calls falls within that context.
It is not difficult to understand Egypt’s position as it is well aware that defying the Trump administration would have repercussions on Palestinians. The US is one of the biggest supporters of refugee relief programs and the only country capable of pressuring Israel.
Egypt also realizes that Trump's decision can be dealt with in the same way the 1995 Congress decision was resolved when they ordered the move of the embassy, but it never happened. The mission will not be moved for five years, and during this time Trump may change his mind or another president may halt the decision. Governments have no interest in entering into a lost battle just to satisfy instigators. Because of Qatar and Muslim Brotherhood's incitements, 15 Palestinians were killed and 600 injured in confrontations with the occupying forces.
It is naive to believe that recorded phone calls published by media outlets can remove any obstacle in the way of negotiations whether by adopting an alternative capital or resettling the refugees. These are complex issues that will not be solved as long as Netanyahu is prime minister.
The goal of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood is to portray leaders of countries who disagree with them as traitors. They incite others to assassinate or overthrow the regimes. This is what the Muslim Brotherhood did with President Sadat.
I understand when a journalist constantly promotes Qatari messages, as the New York Times did. If only he mentions the sources, we would understand the story.

Trump Has Upper Hand in Legal Fight With Bannon
Stephen Carter/Bloomberg View/January 09/2018
The increasingly bizarre dispute between President Donald Trump and his former campaign aide and White House staffer Steve Bannon continues to boggle the mind. Yet for me as a contracts professor, one corner of the contretemps raises a simple and clear question. I refer to the letter from Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, insisting that Bannon is in violation of a non-disparagement clause in the contract that he signed when he joined the campaign. If the facts are as claimed, I think the clause is enforceable.
Earlier this week, my Bloomberg View colleague Noah Feldman wrote that a court would probably find that First Amendment considerations rendered the clause void, because enforcement in this instance would suppress robust public-policy debate. There is force to this argument, but the precedents point the other way. As regular readers know, I am a great believer in strong First Amendment protections, but in this case I don’t think the Constitution is a bar.
Let’s begin with a basic proposition: Non-disparagement clauses are increasingly a part of employment contracts, and the courts routinely enforce them. It’s easy to see why. If an employer and an employee are bargaining at arm’s length, the employer’s insistence on such a clause will result in higher compensation for the employee. In other words, employers will pay employees a premium to give up the right to disparage. As long as the employee understands the trade he's making when he signs the contract, why should the courts interfere? As a general rule, they don’t.
We can put aside non-disparagement clauses buried in the boilerplate of consumer contracts, which companies sometimes try to use to prevent those who buy their products from posting negative reviews. Most courts have understandably held such clauses unenforceable. But when non-disparagement clauses are included in employment contracts or separation agreements, they are enforced more or less routinely. The reason isn’t that judges don’t understand that the clauses might be abused. The reason is that the employee who agreed to the deal is bound by his own free choice.
For example, in Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. v. Farese, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit faced an argument that a non-disparagement clause might be used to prevent a former employee from disclosing instances in which the employer broke the law.
The judges were unimpressed. In 2005, they refused to strike down the clause based on “the mere possibility that an employer could use a non-disparagement clause to hide illegal activity.” The court conceded that the clause might possibly be set aside should the employee seek to disclose actual crimes. But the opinion implies that the proper venue for such allegations is the relevant public authorities. Free-speech claims are routinely raised by parties who are sued for violating non-disparagement clauses. Judges are generally unpersuaded. For example, here’s the response of a California appellate court in a 2010 case called Sahlolbei v. Montgomery:
Simply put, if Montgomery agreed not to disparage Sahlolbei, then a reasonable person could conclude that Montgomery waived his right to speak freely about Sahlolbei, and therefore, even if Montgomery’s statements are protected, he could be found in breach of the settlement agreement.
Even when the party in violation makes a disparaging statement with an eye toward publication, the courts reject claims that the public’s right to know should prevail. In Fisher v. Biozone Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a federal district judge enforced a non-disclosure agreement in 2013 when one of the parties emailed a journalist with disparaging claims about the other.
Nor have courts been impressed by claims of a public right to know. Just last fall, a federal court in Maryland rejected a First Amendment challenge to a non-disparagement clause included in the settlement of a police brutality suit.
“The agreement itself was only eight pages long,” the judge wrote in Overbey v. City of Baltimore, “and the non-disparagement clause was not hidden in fine print.” The plaintiff, had she chosen to, “could have leveraged her position to demand that the non-disparagement clause be removed.” She chose not to do so, wrote the court, so the clause was enforceable. If a victim of police brutality can’t escape her arms-length promises, it’s hard to see why a presidential adviser should.
Don’t get me wrong. That Trump’s legal threat against Bannon might have some degree of merit doesn’t mean the threat should have been made. It should be beneath presidential dignity to go after a former staffer for cooperating on an uncomplimentary book, although given the thin skin of the current incumbent, I suppose we should expect little else.
I should add that the president’s legal threat against the book’s publisher is utterly groundless; the publisher is not a party to Bannon's campaign-employment contract. And of course the fact that Bannon is distasteful to so many Americans should have no effect on his right to speak freely; on the contrary, those who are most despised are most in need of constitutional protection.
But if, as Harder’s letter claims, Bannon is in violation of a signed agreement not to disparage Trump or the campaign – and if, as I have suggested, Bannon entered into the deal with his eyes wide open – then what we are left with is not a test of the First Amendment but a simple action for breach of contract. I hope the action is never filed. Given the precedents, however, the outcome would be clear.

Iran is permanently on the verge of a revolution
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/January 08/2018
The Iranian regime has resorted to various crackdowns to suppress the recent protests.
The regime deployed brute force through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and volunteer militia organization Basij. Its forces fired at protestors, killing young people, and arrested many innocents, including more than 1,000 university students.
The Iranian leadership immediately cut off modes of communication, such as the internet and mobile phones, in an attempt to prevent further mobilization against the regime — a lesson it learned from the widespread protests of 2009.
The regime claims victory and says that the protests have been defeated. But what is important to point out is that, even if the regime succeeds at suppressing these protests, the deep anger shared by millions of Iranians will continue to simmer under the surface. Any flashpoint could again turn their frustrations and anger against the regime into a conflagration; nationwide protests that could ultimately endanger the ruling mullahs’ hold on power.
There are several reasons why Iran will always be on the verge of a revolution under the current regime. Every time the regime cracks down on protests, it does not address people’s underlying concerns. These fundamental problems can be categorized into several sectors.
First, the economic difficulties that ordinary Iranian people suffer from are clearly evident in the country’s statistics. The rate of unemployment among young people is high, even though many are highly educated and skilled. According to Iran’s Central Bank, inflation has soared back to 10 percent, while the cost of everyday foods has increased by over 35 percent.
While the monthly salary of a teacher hovers at around $300, the expenses for a four-person family in an average neighborhood (food, rent, utilities) is over 88 million Rials or about $2,500, making it more expensive than the cost of living in some Western countries, including some US states.
It is worth noting that we are talking about a nation which is one of the wealthiest in the world when it comes to natural resources. Iran has the second and fourth-largest oil and gas reserves in the world respectively. It also enjoys high levels of exports in chemicals, plastics, fruits, ceramic products and metals.
Even if the regime succeeds at suppressing protests, the deep anger shared by millions of Iranians will continue to simmer under the surface and any flashpoint could again turn their frustrations into nationwide demonstrations that could endanger the rulers’ hold on power.
The Iranian regime does not appear to be concerned about the financial needs and economic difficulties of its citizens. Instead, it is focused on supporting, financing, arming and training terrorist-designated groups in the region — militias that advance the ruling mullahs’ objectives, as well as those of dictators such as Bashar Assad.
The regime sent a message to the international community, as well as promising the Iranian people, that a nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions would benefit the ordinary people of Iran. Nevertheless, the economic situation of the ordinary people continues to deteriorate since the 2015 nuclear deal was struck because the regime is hemorrhaging billions of dollars on its proxies. The beneficiaries of the extra revenue are the IRGC, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and loyalists to the regime.
While the overwhelming majority of the people are suffering economically, the regime has significantly increased the budget of the IRGC and its affiliates such as the Quds Force, as well as investing in its ballistic missile program.
Another reason behind the Iranian people’s financial suffering is structural and widespread corruption at the top. There exists no rule of law to hold the gilded circle of the regime’s leaders accountable for stealing the wealth of the nation.
It is also important to point out that the people’s economic suffering is not the only reason behind these protests. Other reasons include general disaffection with the regime’s political establishment when it comes to human rights abuses; suppression of freedom of speech, press and assembly; and a lack of rule of law and justice. This is evident because some of the protesters chanted against Khamenei and his administration, saying: “Islamic Revolution was our mistake”, “Down with Rouhani” and “Death to Rouhani”.
The Iranian regime should be cognizant of the fact that these protests will not totally disappear. They can resurface at any time and have the potential to quickly turn into nationwide demonstrations, making it impossible for the IRGC to subdue them, no matter how powerful the regime’s forces are. These kinds of protests can one day mark the end of the regime if it doesn’t address its people’s demands.
The Iranian regime has made the country’s society like a tinder-dry forest that only needs a spark for it to burst into flames.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for Commerce and Business.
Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Why Iran's Protesters Are So Angry With Rouhani
Empty Promises of Reform Have Disappointed Millions
By Alex Vatanka/Fireign Affairs/January 08/18
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2018-01-08/why-irans-protesters-are-so-angry-rouhani?cid=int-lea&pgtype=hpg
Ever since the recent wave of protests in Iran began on December 28, Western media coverage has disproportionately focused on socioeconomic causes as the main drivers behind citizens’ anger. Economic hardship is undeniably a key root cause, but to ignore the underlying political grievances is to lose sight of the bigger fight for the country’s future. Although Iranian President Hassan Rouhani may be neither the primary target nor the proximate cause of the demonstrations, his record in office since winning reelection last May has been an enormous disappointment to the nearly 24 million Iranians who voted for his second term. Instead of seeking to be his own man, Rouhani has repeatedly fallen back into following the playbook of the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, widening the already dangerous disconnect between ordinary Iranians and the ruling Shiite Islamist elite that purports to represent them. Nothing short of major reform can save the Islamic Republic in the long term.
Despite his portrayal in some Western media outlets, Rouhani has never called himself a political reformer nor has the Iranian public ever considered him to be one. His election victory had less to do with his own popularity than with the unpopularity of his hard-liner opponent, Ibrahim Raisi. Over the course of the campaign, however, Rouhani made a key pledge that stuck with voters: citizens would gain greater political freedom were he reelected. In his second term, he said, his government would belong to “100 percent of all Iranians” and he would seek to open the path for political participation for youth, women, and ethnic and religious minorities. And he again vowed to seek the release of opposition leaders under house arrest since 2011, a pledge he first made before his initial election in 2013. Overpromising during an election year is not unique to Iran, but in the case of Rouhani the gap between slogans and reality has been dazzling.
The disappointment began at his first press conference after reelection. Unduly cautious and uninspiring, Rouhani chose not to even mention the country’s political prisoners, whose release had been a cornerstone pledge of his campaign. It was a bad omen, foreshadowing his reluctance to claim an electoral mandate at the risk of being perceived as a challenge to Khamenei.
Overpromising during an election year is not unique to Iran, but in the case of Rouhani the gap between slogans and reality has been dazzling.
Next, Rouhani appointed a cabinet devoid of reformists. Worse, he had each cabinet minister preapproved by Khamenei. During his campaign, he expressed sympathy for Iran’s restless female activists and voters, yet appointed no women to his cabinet despite urging from many corners. He similarly passed over Iran’s Sunni minority, which makes up about ten percent of the population and gave him record support at the ballot box. (In Kurdistan and Baluchistan, the country’s largest Sunni-majority provinces, about seven out of ten voters backed him.) Rouhani chose instead to appease the hard-line Shiite Islamist clerics who supported his rival, Raisi, and kept Sunnis out of his cabinet. The Rouhani government did not even appoint a single Sunni governor for any of the country’s 31 provinces.
He then remained silent as the 12-man unelected hard-line Guardian Council—which effectively answers only to Khamenei and acts as a filter that has to approve all government legislation and candidates seeking office—overruled a parliamentary legislation and barred non-Muslims from running for office in municipal elections. This is tantamount to codifying Iran’s ancient Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian communities as second-class citizens in the political process.
This episode highlighted a major demographic gulf between Iran’s rulers and those they rule. The head of the Guardian Council, Ahmad Jannati, is a 90-year-old regime ideologue, while 90 percent of the protesters arrested in recent days have been under the age of 25.
Since his reelection, Rouhani has let down the key demographics that voted for him and instead sought to create a platform for lasting coexistence with the hard-liners. As a man who aspires to succeed Khamenei as the next supreme leader, he sees this faction in the Islamic Republic as pivotal for his chances to continue stepping up the ladder of power. The campaign promises he made only a few months ago are seemingly a distant memory.
Most notably, Rouhani has stayed out of the way of the Revolutionary Guards, the elite political-military force that spearheads Iran’s military operations in the region in places such as Iraq and Syria while stifling protests at home. In December 2017, he announced an increase in their budget and has resisted international pressure to curb the corps’ controversial, if troubling, activities. More money for the Revolutionary Guards–controlled ballistic missile program or the Quds Force—the foreign branch of the Revolutionary Guards—had not been on the agenda when Rouhani ran his reelection campaign back in May. One could hear the growing public resentment against the Revolutionary Guards in demonstrators’ chants of “No Gaza, No Lebanon, my life is only for Iran.” In recent months, as Iran has been hit by a number of deadly earthquakes and the state’s response has been wanting, the Islamic Republic’s foreign priorities became a matter of much scrutiny and scorn.
Even when the Revolutionary Guards have openly defied Rouhani—as when its intelligence branch arrested a number of dual citizens and risked scaring away foreign investors that Rouhani so desperately courts and needs to create jobs—the elected president has chosen to still go along with the most hard-line elements in the regime. In the presidential debates in May that were aired on live television, Rouhani thrilled many when he attacked the hard-liners—including those in the Revolutionary Guards—for gangster tactics that undermine Iran’s global image. He has since done little, however, to confront the same elements. In not doing so, he has not only failed to bring about more of a balance in the distribution of power among elected and unelected organs in the Islamic Republic, but has also raised the question of whether this system is able to be reformed at all via the ballot box.
Back in 2009, when Iran last had large-scale popular protests, the key popular demand was to repeat an election that many considered patently fraudulent. This time around, the protesters have been far angrier, demanding wholesale replacement of the entire political system. The chants of “death to Khamenei” and “the clerics have to go” by the protesters are the most radical of demands for change since the Islamic Republic was born in 1979. The intransigence of the political model has seemingly convinced a younger generation of Iranians that reforming the system is not possible. Of course, Rouhani alone cannot be blamed for this. Since the 2009 protests, it has been Khamenei and his cohorts, such as the Revolutionary Guards, that have done the most to strangle the process of political reform in Iran.
And yet Rouhani can look at the latest protests as an opportunity to emerge as his own man. Since last May, he has moved toward the hard-liners in order to give himself a fighting chance to become the next supreme leader. With the shock from the scale of popular anger likely to reverberate in the ranks of the regime for some time, Rouhani should consider turning the tables on his rivals. He has but one choice for the message he must convey: the only viable way to keep the Islamic Republic alive is to launch deep and meaningful political reform. It might well be too late, but Rouhani owes as much to the nearly 24 million who reelected him.

Iran: Hassan Rouhani caught between devil and the deep blue sea
Christian Chesnot/Al Arabiya/January 09/2018
For President Hassan Rouhani, the latest outbreak of protests in Iranian cities comes as a major threat that exposes the current fragilities of a beleaguered Iranian presidency. Although he remains popular, Hassan Rouhani needs to be held accountable. With the green light of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei he “sold” the idea of the “nuclear deal” to the Iranians and promised shutdown of the atomic program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. This was the cornerstone of his first presidential campaign in 2013, which stated: “It’s better to run factories than centrifuges,” he said at the time.
Deal that did not deliver
Economically exhausted, the Iranian regime understood that there was an opportunity which may not be available again anytime soon. The circumstances were never as favorable with Barak Obama being the President of the United States. As a result, the reformers’ camp mobilized all their might to support the nuclear deal. They were rewarded in the 2016 Majlis elections with a very good score. The problem is that the Vienna agreement did not really bring all the anticipated benefits to the population, even though it raised enormous expectations. Certainly some contracts with foreign companies were concluded in the aviation sector (Airbus and Boeing), oil (Total) or the industrial sector (Peugeot). But the bulk of the sanctions have not been lifted, preventing international banks from investing substantially in Iran. Iranian president is now forced to harden his discourse against the popular discontent … especially the Conservatives who want to exact revenge on the reformists
The arrival of Donald Trump at the White House changed everything. The new US president put Iran back on “the axis of evil” list, calling the Vienna agreement as the worst deal the United States ever signed. Hassan Rouhani today finds himself in a delicate position with the change in the American leadership. The Iranian president is now forced to harden his discourse against the popular discontent rumbling in the streets of Iranian cities and especially the Conservatives who want to exact revenge on the reformists. Their argument is simple or even simplistic. Iran has made many concessions and Westerners want even more from the ballistic program, but to what end? It will now take great political skill from Hassan Rouhani to overcome the obstacles and very quickly. He will have to rapidly effect improvement in the daily lives of Iranians which is withering under the blows of inflation and unemployment. He could introduce changes in the area of subsidies for basic necessities. In any case, the conservative faction of the regime does not intend to make it easier for him.
Trump versus Europe
Paradoxically, Donald Trump’s fanfaronade and bellicose rhetoric could help him. He is one of the most pro-Israel presidents in US history, as his recent decision to transfer the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has shown. In short, the more Donald Trump and his friend Benjamin Netanyahu urge the Iranian masses to rise, the more they discredit the protesters in the eyes of the vast majority of Iranians. The return to calm will be all the easier. Hassan Rouhani also intends to mobilize other signatories of the Vienna agreement, i.e. Russia, China, Great Britain, Germany and France. None of them wish to call it into question and even less want a destabilization of Iran. The warlike rhetoric of Donald Trump is unpleasant and worrying in some major capitals, especially in Paris. Emmanuel Macron has certainly canceled the visit of his foreign minister to Tehran, but he repeats that it is necessary to maintain dialogue with Iran. The French president has not canceled his planned trip to the Islamic Republic, which he promised to make in 2018. Hassan Rouhani knows he is walking on a tightrope and the slightest misstep could cost him greatly. He also knows that he needs to reform the Iranian system, because other waves of protests may emerge again. However, Hassan Rouhani has no intention of becoming the ‘Iranian Gorbachev’ who would precipitate the end of his regime as did the former head of the Soviet Union.

Will Fire and Fury topple Trump?
Mamdouh AlMuhaini/Al Arabiya/January 09/2018
It’s rare for a book to cause a fuss worldwide as has been the case with Fire and Fury about President Donald Trump written by Journalist Michael Wolff.
Everyone is talking about it these days but let’s wait for a week or two. We will forget about it because it did not provide anything new or a destructive evidence that has the potential to topple Trump like Wolff had promised. It relied on gossip, a pattern that has become common. Almost all political leaders were featured in books with names like “The president’s scandals” or “The secret life” or “Dangerous secrets.” These are all interesting titles but there’s nothing more to them. All they do is stir a temporary emotional uproar without changing anything. They do not topple the president or even his personal bodyguards. The writer and the publisher are the only ones who financially benefit from these shallow scandalous books. Wolff’s book made a huge promise which it’s difficult to imagine how it will be kept. I think it is all part of the campaign to market the book which promised to topple Trump. Wolff has repeatedly hinted at that, particularly in interviews he gave after publishing the book. His argument is that a White House team is discussing the idea of isolating Trump based on the 25th amendment that deals with succession to the presidency in case of presidential disabilities. These are dangerous statements but Wolff did not rely on a well-known source to back his story. When asked about it, he said this topic was being discussed by the team’s top officials but he did not name anyone. It’s impossible for all these officials to agree to say one thing in front of Trump and the complete opposite behind his back – like what happens in low-budget detective stories
Illogical point
Another illogical point in the book is that all of the administration members doubt his mental health and emotional stability. Some people may believe that but to say that all of them are convinced that he cannot lead seems like an exaggeration that’s difficult to believe. American officials including Mike Pompeo, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, spoke on the matter. Pompeo, who meets with the president on a daily basis and knows how he thinks and makes decisions, said that the book is full of silly details and does not rely on facts. Nikki Haley and Trump’s aide Stephen Miller described the book as “trash.” Tillerson and others refuted Wolff’s account which relies on one source. Logically speaking, it’s impossible for all these officials to agree to say one thing in front of Trump and the complete opposite behind his back – like what happens in low-budget detective stories. It was said that the most important part of the book is the talk with Steve Bannon. It’s true that the book without Bannon would not have created all this excitement especially that Bannon was close to Trump and that Bannon himself is an interesting character. What Bannon said about Trump’s son is nothing new. Although Bannon voiced regret and retracted his statements and said he did not mean to accuse him of treason, his analysis is actually right. Meeting with the Russian lawyer, who claimed to have ties with the Kremlin, was a huge mistake committed by Trump’s impulsive and naïve son. It was a trap to set him up and she did not have any significant information on Hillary Clinton like she claimed. However, Wolff’s statements that Bannon doubts Trump’s abilities are suspicious because Bannon has not stopped supporting his former boss via his famous website Breitbart News. Bannon however dislikes Trump’s truce-like policy towards the financial and political institutions in Washington and which Bannon wants to destroy. There are people who met with Bannon to write new books but they all denied that he is hostile to Trump or that Bannon said Trump suffers from dementia. Wolff is the only one who recounted this story that Trump is a stupid man surrounded by clowns.
A snoopy fly
Wolff recounted information like he’s present in every single room in the White House or like he’s a snoopy fly which no one noticed its presence. Truth is he quoted others and this recount of statements is doubted because of the weak quoting style. Wolff admitted that he heard contradictory statements about certain events and in the end decided to adopt one narrative which he personally felt was the most honest. However, this increases doubts that he chose the thread which leads to the final outcome which he already had in mind. Wolff’s credibility shook again when he said that a reporter at the Washington Post was present in a breakfast that Ivanka Trump attended. The reporter denied the allegations and said he was at the hospital witnessing the birth of his baby. It turned out that Wolff confused the names Mike and Mark. The book mentioned correct and well-known information such as that Trump does not read and does not like to listen for a long period of time and that he brags and boasts about his achievements. His talk about Trump’s love for MacDonald’s and that he eats it not to be poisoned and how he and his wife sleep in separate bedrooms and talks about his friends’ wives and adopts a misogynist approach comes within the context of assassinating Trump’s character. The leftist liberal media has been hostile toward Trump and described him as a clown and trolled him during the presidential campaign, and after he won, it described him as a madman who is incapable of leading. There’s been this fuss for over a year now and Wolff succeeded in collecting these narratives and put them in one book with an attractive headline. The important question is: Will the book topple Trump? It’s very unlikely considering that conclusive evidence which convicts him has not surfaced so far.

Will a new world order start taking shape in 2018?
Shehab Al-Makahleh/Al Arabiya/January 09/2018
The US National Security Strategy document, which was released on December 18, 2017, marks the completion of an important stage in international relations and balance of power in international politics. Russian military intervention in eastern and southern regions of the Mediterranean after many had started believing that Russia was a marginal power and the resumption of its military and political activities as a mediator in the Middle East has raised alarm bells in the US Congress and the Pentagon.
The resurgence of Russia
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and decided to intervene in the course of the Syrian war in 2015, it became clear that Kremlin was looking beyond its borders to protect its national interests. However, a new international order is yet to fully take shape, which suggests that there will be no change in the existing order until the Syrian conflict is settled. The US National Security Strategy document describes the existence of forces in competition with US power, namely China and Russia, which thrived under the Obama administration for Moscow and Beijing believed that the former US president was against direct confrontation with both countries and was an advocate of containment through economic measures alone. In other words, Obama tried to merely inhibit China and Russia from becoming powerful enough to oppose American policies. In the recent years, Moscow’s expanding alliances and openness in foreign relations along with its military activities and the adoption of collective security theory with its partners has weakened US influence and there appears a shift in the center of gravity with the emergence of Eurasia. The expanding sphere of Russian influence includes countries that were once important pillars and major allies of the US in the international sphere, such as Turkey and India. Its influence has increased through sale of strategic armaments including sophisticated weaponry. In fact, strategists believe such transactions have multiple implications. First, Russia (through its military) and China (through its economic might) have decided to play an international role at the expense of US leadership of the world. Second, both countries seem determined to oppose US policies in many theatres, be it in Iran, Syria, and North Korea. US Department of Defense has recently published a report stating that the US Congress had asked the Pentagon to prepare a military plan for 2018 that would allow the US to attack Russia and China with nuclear bombs without giving them an opportunity to respond. Russia has many Muslims living in its republics and it fears that if chaos ensues in Iran, it would spread to its borders in so-called ‘Arc of Crisis’
Conflict scenarios 2018
With the ending of terms of agreement in the de-escalation zones and possible reversion to an open-ended war — coming on the heels of the recent Iranian protests, as well as Saint Petersburg bombings (2017) — the military situation in Syria might intensify. Things might get further complicated in view of two major events in Russia: The first being the presidential elections in March and the second is the World Cup to be held in that country in the summer. These events might influence Russian response to developments in Syria and Iran or even at its borders with Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Thus, Trump can use these cards to exert more pressure on Moscow. It is expected that Washington will become more involved in events taking place in Iran, if not at present then at a later stage in order to achieve a set of US goals linked to preventing Russia and China from transforming the international system into a multipolar order, noting that the Sino-Iranian economic partnership in the field of energy and security, specifically in Afghanistan threatens US strategy there. Iran’s influence in the Middle East has given strategic depth to Russia’s military presence in the eastern Mediterranean. The security of Iran, Iraq and Syria ensures a safe haven for Russia in the Caspian region due to its proximity to the Middle East. Thus, Washington finds in Iran the weakest power among its strategic adversaries, which include North Korea, Russia and China. The US can start a process by destabilizing Iran which could then have a cascading effect on its neighbor Russia. If Washington is unsuccessful in its attempt at destabilizing Iran, it would look for other ways to confront Russia and China.
The ‘Arc of Crisis’
During US President Carter’s term in office, George Ball was appointed head of a special White House Iran task force in 1978, which recommended the President to stop supporting the then Shah of Iran in favour of the radical Islamist movement of Ayatollah Khomeini, which would instigate the balkanisation of the region along tribal and religious lines and would cause more chaos. This explains the commonality of interests between Moscow and Tehran as Russia has many Muslims living in its republics and it fears that if chaos ensues in Iran, it would spread to its borders in the so-called “Arc of Crisis” that is likely to destabilise Muslim regions in the Russian Federation and the same applies to China. If the year of strategic confrontation between the United States and Russia has begun with the destabilizing events unfolding in Iran, Ukraine, the Baltic and Korea, it is expected that many developments will be witnessed in 2018 on many fronts surrounding China and Russia to affect the political positions of both countries vis-à-vis international affairs. This entails targeting the bases of Russian action in the Middle East and most importantly Iran and Syria as they both clash with the interests of Washington’s regional ally Israel which has kept raising alarm to Russians and Americans over a confrontation with Iran which is approaching its borders from Syria and Lebanon. Thus, Israel and the US want to take the battle to Iran, a major ally of Russia, in order to put pressure both on Tehran and Moscow. Tehran by then would consider pulling out of Syria and Iraq and Russia will be in trouble once Iran retreats because of protests. However, the sphere of public discontent may expand and reach Russian territories.