LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 05/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Restoring the Iraqi Equation
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/June,04/18
A long list of difficult files awaits the new Iraqi government, whose birth seems challenging. An example of these complex problems is the deterioration of the water crisis after Turkey began operating the Ilisu dam on the Tigris River, which is now shyly flowing in Baghdad.
What is happening “is a dangerous indicator of a future war on water, which requires the Iraqi government to move regionally and internationally and engage in serious negotiations with the Turks,” Ahmad al-Jubouri, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Iraqi parliament, told Asharq Al Awsat.
Another problem awaits the new Iraqi government. The withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear agreement with Iran and the decision of President Donald Trump to exert unprecedented economic pressure on Tehran open the door to a difficult new round of US-Iranian conflict. It is clear that Iraq may be one of the arenas for such confrontation, although the Syrian theater provides a greater opportunity for heated action.
One should not also forget the major, well-known problems. First and foremost the reconstruction of cities and towns that were destroyed or damaged by the wars launched by ISIS and the war that led to the terrorist organization’s defeat.
This is important as it relates to the return of displaced persons. The failure to accelerate this reconstruction will lead to the return of feelings of frustration and anger among the sons of the Sunni component, the feelings that facilitated the infiltration of extremists, who had committed costly bloody adventures, during which the sons of this community were the first victims. In addition, the new government is called upon to address the deteriorating economic situation, high unemployment rates, poverty and the fight against corruption, which has led to the largest looting of the state since the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Not surprisingly, the Iraqi parliamentary elections were followed by a storm of accusations of fraud and violations. One must remember that the actual electoral practice in Iraq, which remained for decades in the custody of one party, was accompanied by a series of exhausting wars at home and abroad.
It is obvious that democratic practice requires multiple trials an errors in a country that has experienced a difficult occupation followed by bloody confrontations between its components. In addition, the stability of the democratic experience in a society depends on a number of economic, social and cultural measures.
Iraqis have said their word in the elections and this word must be respected. They gave the first position to the “Sairoun alliance” led by Moqtada al-Sadr. The second position went to the “Fateh” coalition. The “Victory” coalition led by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi reached the third position, while the “State of Law” coalition of former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki dropped to the fourth place.The election results were also striking in Kurdish areas. Some predicted that the Kurds would send a message of resentment or anger to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani in response to the latter’s assumption of the leadership of the call for an independence referendum and the subsequent Kurdish losses of gains made by the Kurdish engagement in the war against ISIS. The message contradicted these expectations as the results gave Barzani the first position among the Kurdish blocs, which may give him a prominent role in the game of alliances to resolve the battle to form the largest bloc in parliament. Competing Shiite blocs rushed to gain the sympathy of Kurdish blocs, in particular, the largest ones.
Iraq cannot face the next stage with its regional and international rivalries unless the country seriously embarks on the process of nation-building. Problems and challenges cannot be met by the logic of factions and components and the influence of arms and intimidation.
There must be a return to the logic of the state. The Constitution must be respected because that would open the door to the restoration of the Iraqi equation and the reform of the national fabric, which is suffering from the policy of dictation, discontentment and the tendency towards divorce.
It is necessary to restore Shiite-Sunni relations, not on the basis of distribution of gains, gifts and bribes, but on the basis of genuine national partnership and equal rights and duties under the institutions and the rule of law. The correction of Shiite-Sunni relations will weaken the extremists’ voices in the two camps and will close the window to the possibility of a new modified version of ISIS. This restoration process gives the whole country immunity to all external interventions and puts an end to the ambitions of managing Iraq from abroad and considering it a mere arena of conflicts.
In parallel, Arab-Kurdish relations must be repaired based on the Constitution and the results of the elections. The policy of intimidating the Kurds and cutting salaries in the region has shown its failure. The Kurds must be returned as partners in Baghdad through a president who knows Iraq, the region and the world.
Restoring the Iraqi equation reinstates Iraq as a natural and active member of the Arab family and reestablishes its position within the international community. There are lessons to be learned from the difficult experiences of post-Saddam Iraq. The first is that the absence of the state weakens the victory of the winner and multiplies the losses of the loser, depriving Baghdad of its right to assume self-decision making.
The second lesson is that over-breaking the internal equation doubles the vulnerability and keeps the door of surprises wide open. The experience of the fall of Mosul in the hands of ISIS is still fresh.
The third lesson is that a self-reconciling Iraq can reconcile with the region and the world and can be a balancing element controlling Iranian and Turkish appetites. Lebanon is also waiting for a post-election government. The government is called upon to revive the relations between the Lebanese and restore the idea of the state after it has been widely abandoned and violated. It is no secret that the Lebanese are currently hugely disappointed and deceived with the horses on which they have bet.

With Talks Back On, Kim Bets Trump Will Accept Half a Deal
Noah Feldman/Bloomberg/June,04/18
Like so much else that President Donald Trump does, the North Korea negotiations dance is all about breaking the unwritten rules. Past presidents would have never allowed themselves to be put in the position where they could appear to be jerked around by a tin-pot dictator. Trump genuinely doesn’t care.
But how far would Trump go in breaking the rules, especially if a Nobel Peace Prize were in the offing? Would Trump be prepared to sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War and freezing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program without insisting that North Korea definitively denuclearize?
In announcing Friday that the June 12 summit in Singapore was back on (after calling it off last week), Trump said, “We are going to deal and we are really going to start a process.” He added: “Remember what I say, we will see what we will see.”
A partial deal would essentially mimic President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, which Trump long condemned and from which he has withdrawn. Making a deal with North Korea that is essentially the same as the Iran deal would be an extraordinary act of political self-refutation.
Yet Trump embodies what you might call the Walt Whitman principle of politics:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself;
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
It’s therefore conceivable that Trump would be willing to make a partial deal with North Korea.
I can think of at least two important players who seem to think so. One is Kim Jong Un. It seems almost impossible that he would permanently give up his nuclear capability – his only significant bargaining chip with the rest of the world. That way lies the fate of Moammar Qaddafi or Saddam Hussein. If Kim is actually hoping to get some sort of an agreement out of Trump, he must imagine that it’s possible Trump would agree to something less than full denuclearization.
The other is John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser. A wily, experienced operator like Bolton doesn’t just accidentally bring up Libya as an example when discussing the North Korean talks. The best interpretation of his remarks is that Bolton knew perfectly well that North Korea would respond to the Libya comparison by making a fuss and threatening to withdraw from the negotiations. If Bolton expected that to happen, he must’ve wanted it to happen – because he fears that if the summit takes place, Trump will be tempted to agree to a partial deal so he can declare victory and go to Oslo to pick up his Nobel.
For a hawk like Bolton, the partial-deal scenario is a nightmare. Would it actually be so bad? Gary Samore, who was Obama’s arms-control coordinator and has many years of experience negotiating with North Korea, thinks otherwise. He argues that it would be valuable if negotiations led to a test freeze that could be sustained for years and then lead to partial dismantling of existing weapons.
The basic logic of Samore’s view is that other than negotiations, there is no credible way to pressure Kim. Negotiations and peace are better than confrontation and war.
This is, of course, the same logic that led to Obama’s Iran deal. If you think that deal made sense, there’s reason to think that a partial deal with North Korea would, too.
The downside of a partial Trump-Kim deal is that it would, in effect, reward Kim for the conduct that brought him onto Trump’s radar screen in the first place: testing nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That’s not ideal, because it sends the message to North Korea that the way to get concessions is to behave aggressively and ramp up fears of war.
The same message is also undesirable when directed to other nuclear powers like Pakistan or near-nuclear powers like Iran. It says that the best way to get concessions from the U.S. in the Trump era is to make threats, blow things up and then offer to negotiate.
Most significant, rewarding Kim sends a broader global message that confrontation and bluster is the way to win any sort of attention and make progress in any negotiation with Trump. What works in nuclear policy can also work in trade policy. After all, confrontation followed by negotiation seems to be Trump’s own impulse, as seen in his trade policy toward China
There are global systemic costs to this high-risk approach to international problems. Raising the temperature in the hopes of being rewarded for lowering it only works if the threat is real.
That’s one way wars start, whether trade wars or shooting wars. When both sides are trying to signal that they are dangerous and that their threats are serious, it becomes easy to misunderstand the other side’s strategy. Bluff leads to counter-bluff. Pretty quickly, it can become impossible to back away from threats. When seen in the light of the Iran deal, it might make sense to pursue a similar deal with North Korea. But from a broader perspective, there’s reason to fear the possibility that Trump would make peace with Kim without extracting meaningful concessions from him. Just this once, Bolton might be right.