LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 06/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Iran’s Response: The ‘Strategy Of Tension’
Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post /June 04/18
Posted on June 01, 2018
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/iran’s-response-the-‘strategy-of-tension’
The United States and its allies are currently in the opening stages of the pursuit of a strategy to contain and roll back the Islamic Republic of Iran from a number of points in the Middle East. This strategy is set to include an economic element (renewed sanctions), a military aspect (involving Israeli action against Iran in Syria, and the Saudi/UAE campaign against the Houthis in Yemen), and a primarily political effort (in Iraq and to a lesser extent in Lebanon).
Iran can be expected to respond with a counter-strategy of its own, designed to stymy and frustrate western and allied efforts. What form will this Iranian response take? What assets does Iran possess in the furtherance of this goal?
First of all, it is worth noting what Iran does not have: Teheran is deficient in conventional military power, and as such is especially vulnerable when challenged in this arena. The Iranians have neglected conventional military spending, in favor of emphasis on their missile program, and their expertise in the irregular warfare methods of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Qods Force.
In Syria over the last months, Israel has demonstrated that Iran has no adequate conventional response to Israeli air actions.
Yemenphoto.jpg
In Yemen, coalition forces fighting the Houthis have begun to turn the tide of the war, demonstrating Iran's weakness in this field.
In Yemen in recent days, as government forces close in on the vital Hodaida port, so Iran’s weakness in this field is once more revealed. Hodaida, held by the Houthis, is the main conduit for Iranian supplies to the rebels. It is likely to fall in the period ahead.
Economic sanctions may also limit Iran’s ability to finance its various proxies. Nevertheless, Iran possesses in the Qods Force of the IRGC a doctrine and praxis for the establishment, assembling and utilization of proxy political-military forces which still has no serious rival in the region. It will be these assets and these methods which Teheran will be seeking to utilize to strike back at its enemies in the period ahead.
In Lebanon, thanks entirely to the use of these methods, Iran is at its strongest. There is no prospect in the immediate future for Iran’s opponents to challenge Teheran’s de fact domination of this country through its proxy Hizballah. Recent statements by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggest the beginnings of an acknowledgement by the US that Lebanon today is today effectively controlled by Hizballah. But it is difficult to locate within the country any mechanism today capable of seriously challenging the Shia Islamist party.
The recent events in Gaza may well offer an example of the kind of options available to Iran in its efforts to counter US and allied moves against it. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a wholly owned franchise of the IRGC. While the apparent ‘motive’ for its commencement of rocket fire was the killing of three of its militants by the IDF after a failed IED attack. This incident, however, would not normally have been of sufficient magnitude to generate the largest barrage of rockets since Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It is probable, therefore, that the escalation in Gaza this week was an example of Iran’s ability to mobilize a proxy on one front to place pressure on an adversary, as a result of events taking place in another arena.
Yet this week’s events also demonstrate Iran’s limitations. Hamas is not a wholly owned franchise of Teheran. And the joint interest of Israel, Hamas and Egypt in avoiding a descent to a 2014 style conflagration served to put a lid on the escalation.
As noted above, in Syria, Iran has so far found no adequate response to Israel’s intelligence domination, and its willingness to take air action against Iranian infrastructure.
Further east, however, in the Kurdish-administered, US-dominated 30% of Syria east of the Euphrates, the Iranians may find an arena more to their liking. Here, a fledgling, US-associated and Kurdish dominated authority rules over a population of about 4 million people, including many Sunni Arabs. In this situation, the IRGC’s methods of agitation, assassinations, the fomenting of unrest from below are directly relevant.
Unidentified gunmen are already operating in this area. A prominent Kurdish official, Omar Alloush, was assassinated on March 15th. Graffiti denouncing ‘Ocalan’s dogs’ has appeared in Arab-majority Raqqa city.
This week, demonstrations took place at four locations across the city demanding that the Kurdish dominated YPG quit the area.
It is more usual to attribute the guiding hand behind this activity to Turkish state bodies, rather than Iran. But an IRGC officer looking for vulnerabilities and areas of potential counter pressure on the US and its allies in the neighborhood would surely focus his eyes on this US guaranteed enclave.
Tribalresistance.jpg
A new pro-Assad 'tribal resistance' was announced with the aim of fighting the U.S. presence in Syria. The initiative likely has Iranian support.
More broadly, while Israeli air action may make the Iranians think twice in terms of deployment of heavy weapons systems in Syria, the broader Iranian project of establishing local client militias and stationing proxy forces on Syria soil remains largely untouched and invulnerable to Israeli air action.
Similarly, in Iraq, the ongoing coalition negotiations and Iran’s domination of the Popular Mobilization Units and their political iteration the Fatah list offers Teheran ample scope for action. Fatah came second in the elections, with 47 seats to 54 for Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sairoon list. Much will depend on the nature of the government that will emerge from the 90 day coalition building period now under way.
But whatever coalition emerges, the independent, Iran-controlled, armed element is there to stay in Iraq. For Iran, a controlling influence in Iraq is a necessity, not a luxury. And with Saudi efforts to build influence in the country under way, this looks set to form a central arena for competition.
Again, the evidence of recent years shows that where Iran enjoys an advantage over its rivals in such arenas is in its greater ability to utilize paramilitary and terrorist methods. There are already some indications of possible targeting of elements linked to the Sairoon list. Unknown assailants bombed two offices linked to the Sadrists on May 15th. One was placed at an office of the Saraya al-Salam, the Sadrist militia. The other targeted a religious organization linked to Sadr, Malek al-Ashtar. In addition, on May 25, a double IED attack on the Iraqi Communist Party’s headquarters in Baghdad took place. No group has claimed responsibility for any of these attacks. The evidence suggests that Iran’s methods are at their strongest where it can take on its opponents within a populated area, in a mixed political and military context, and weakest where it faces conventional resistance and a hard border separating it from its enemies. This means that in the emergent contest, Iran is strongest in Lebanon and regime-controlled Syria, powerful and dangerous in Iraq and potentially in the Kurdish controlled, US guaranteed part of Syria, and weaker and with fewer options in Yemen and Gaza.
Iran enjoyed and benefited from the moment when the Arab world was at its most fragmented, and the west at its most rudderless. That period may now be coming to an end. The ‘strategy of tension’, utilizing political and paramilitary means, eschewing conventional ones, remains the IRGC’s preferred method of struggle. The period now opening up in the region will determine its continued efficacy.
**Jonathan Spyer is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and an associate fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

Dr. Bashar and comrade Kim, passion and revenge
Mashari Althaydi/Arabiya/June 05/18
North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad decided to visit “wise leader of outstanding political caliber” Kim Jong-Un. This generous description of the Korean leader was made by Bashar himself, according to the news agency of comrade Kim.
US President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with the “wise” comrade Kim in Singapore on June 12 after some bumps faced the upcoming historical summit. North Korea is just like the Khomeinist Iran and the Syrian Assad regime. They are evil states or regimes that spread chaos and sponsor terrorism and that do not hesitate to use any prohibited weapons to target their rivals and eradicate civilians. Pyongyang ranks first on the technological level in the summit of evil because it is a nuclear state that has fiercely invested in developing ballistic missiles. According to UN reports, North Korea had provided the murderous Syrian regime with weapons, technologies and material that could be used for Bashar’s chemical arsenal.  Bashar’s attempt to ride Pyongyang’s boat to end his international isolation is like “escaping out of the frying pan into the fire!”The regime of comrade Kim has a friendly relation with Tehran. North Korean “nuclear” and missiles’ experts have for years visited Tehran’s nuclear and missiles’ warehouses and camps. There is mutual flirtation between the two regimes. A UN report issued in February accused North Korea of sending 40 shipments of material that could be used in chemical weapons between 2012 and 2015. The New York Times quoted a UN report as saying that experts in manufacturing missiles from Pyongyang were seen in Syrian facilities that manufacture weapons. The American Wall Street Journal said a governmental military research institution in Syria paid money to North Korea via a series of front companies. A report published in September 2017 said reports that there is military cooperation between North Korea and Syria are being investigated.
‘Unforgivable hostile act’
When American battleships targeted the Shayrat Airbase in April 2017 as per President Trump’s orders to punish the regime for using chemical weapons against civilians, North Korea described the attack as an “unforgivable hostile act.”Therefore, Bashar’s attempt to ride Pyongyang’s boat to end his international isolation is like “escaping out of the frying pan into the fire!”Let comrade Kim save himself, his regime and his economy first then he can save the isolated and outcast comrade Bashar. Washington is clear and despite the anticipated summit between Trump and Kim, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said few days ago: “North Korea will receive relief only when it demonstrates verifiable and irreversible steps.”In this case, will these maneuvers benefit the Syrian regime?

Is Russia now the main sponsor for global terror?
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arabiya/June 05/18
This week, the Ukrainian security services staged the death of a Russian dissident journalist, they claim in order to draw out a Russian assassin who was hunting him on the orders of Moscow. The Kiev authorities have received a huge amount of backlash from Western commentators and media outlets for the stunt, because they felt they were used in a dishonest way. While the frustration of Western sources with the Ukrainian operation is understandable, we must not lose sight of the background in which these events happened: journalists critical of the Kremlin have an unfortunate tendency to end up dead – whether within Russia, or indeed on the streets of foreign cities. The West fell for the Ukrainian ruse because dead journalists are firmly within the normal pattern of Kremlin politics. As indeed are dead Russian dissidents in general. “Something about the climate” in Western countries seems to quite inhospitable to those Russians fleeing the wrath of Putin or his cronies, for whatever reason. It is almost as if the forces of nature themselves actively enforce the omerta underpinning the core of current the Russian state. But wayward Russians are not the only ones whose life-expectancy is adversely affected by the Kremlin’s opinions. Nobody should expect to fly over areas where Russia is “not fighting a war”, and not be blown out of the sky by Russian rockets fired from Russian territory. Unless, of course, they are deliberately trying to get themselves blown up by Russian Buk missiles, to stoke international Russophobic sentiments. But perhaps the deadliest thing you can do, is be Syrian and need to go the hospital. If Assad bombs and chemical weapons won’t get you, then “accidental” Russian aerial bombardment most certainly will. When Libya’s Qaddafi did half of this stuff, he was shunned by the world and blockaded into oblivion. When Putin does this stuff, it is a Russophobic conspiracy by the very Western leaders he helped elect to power. And aspiring European leaders will stand by him. Journalists critical of the Kremlin have an unfortunate tendency to end up dead – whether within Russia, or on the streets of foreign cities
Complete disdain
What we have with the current Kremlin government is a long standing and fast exacerbating pattern of complete disdain for international laws and diplomatic norms. In fact, the very point of many of these actions seems to be nothing more than to test the West’s commitment to those norms, and to undermine them – perhaps best exemplified by the Skripal poisoning in London. There is not other discernible reason for why Moscow would risk direct confrontation with London than to prove that it can flout norms with impunity, in the expectation that London would be incapable of mounting a meaningful response. And so far that gamble has largely paid off: Russia is not substantially worse off for attempting to assassinate British citizens on British soil, despite all the international condemnation. But this needs to stop. We cannot allow Putin to undermine the fabric of our international order any further. This is a distraction we can do without as we must face the existential challenges of climate change in the decades to come. The actions of the Kremlin so far already warrant the kind of blanket containment imposed on North Korea. The first step is to acknowledge a blatant reality and categorise the problem appropriately: the current Russian regime is a terror state. The next step is to use all available international mechanisms we have used previously on terror states, to impose appropriate costs on the Kremlin, and to circumscribe their ability to kill random civilians around the globe with impunity. And lastly, we will need to engage with the Russian people and confront them with this existential question: are you happy being governed by a terrorist, mafia-style regime?

The condition of Iran’s withdrawal for Assad to stay
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Arabiya/June 05/18
The Khamenei regime and the Assad regime seek to fulfill two aims: keep the Damascus regime as it is and keep Iran’s military and intelligence presence and militias in Syria and negotiate over everything except that. The most recent US proposal though is the opposite: keeping the Assad regime is conditional on ending Iran’s presence in Syria while the rest is negotiable. However, recent trips and statements lower expectations to Iran and its militias “making concessions” and abstaining from engaging in the Daraa battles, where the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli triangle is, in exchange of having the Kurdish units QSD, that support the US, withdraw from Manbij, and this is Damascus’ and Turkey’s request. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem had said that America’s withdrawal from Manbij is essential before committing that Iran’s forces will not be present in Daraa. The Iranians will do like Hafez al-Assad and later Bashar al-Assad did in Lebanon and transform the country into an arena for conflict with Israel. It’s not unlikely that Damascus, which is Iran’s mouthpiece, will later negotiate and accept America’s presence east of the Euphrates River in exchange of letting Iranian General Qassem Soleimani’s forces stay outside Daraa 20 kilometers away from Israel’s “borders.” With this tactic, Syria is “legitimizing” Iran’s presence with international consent and it does not settle with considering it as its own sovereign decision. The occupying Iranian forces will thus be like the Syrian troops in Lebanon in the 1970’s which was an occupation legitimized by the Arab League and approved by the Lebanese government!
Original proposal
This is why there are fears that the negotiations will deviate from the original proposal which is that the Assad regime must choose between its presence and the Iranians’ presence. It’s not possible to have both. Some may ask who has the right to impose such conditions and why?
The Syrian regime’s situation does not allow it to dictate what it wants despite its recent victories which it achieved thanks to its allies’ forces and which turned into huge losses due to the Israeli strikes. Rejecting conditions means the international community does not want it to stay and this puts it in the danger zone again. The Americans want to give it a chance to stay but in exchange of officially stating that it’s asking the Iranians to withdraw from Syria. Let’s keep in mind that one of the 12 American demands is that Iran must militarily withdraw from Syria. However, their withdrawal will not be easy because it will end their long project, one of their prominent foreign policy projects, by imposing their domination over Syria and maximizing their influence to threaten the region from there.
Submitting to Iran
Setting this condition on their withdrawal also tests the sovereignty of the Damascus regime and tests whether it’s really capable of making its own decisions without submitting to Iran’s directions. The Assad regime is between the hammer and the anvil. On one hand, the withdrawal of the Iranians, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the rest of the militias will weaken its power and it can collapse without them and on another hand, if these forces stay in Syria, it means it (the regime) will become a puppet in their hand. The Assad regime is well-aware how the situation will later unfold in their presence. The Iranians will do like Hafez al-Assad and later Bashar al-Assad did in Lebanon and transform the country into an arena for the conflict with Israel. Like Lebanon, Syria will be a country with no authority except through Tehran which will use Syria in its upcoming indirect battles against its rivals, the Americans, the Israelis and perhaps the Turks and others. Regardless of the Iranian and Syrian regime’s goals, allowing Iran and its militias to be militarily present in Syria, even if in a small area, will cause tensions and future wars. Partial solutions like allowing Iran to be militarily present in specific areas often become permanent with time.