Detailed Lebanese & Lebanese Related LCCC English New Bulletin For September 17/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Diversity Is an American Strength, Not Weakness
Noah Smith/Bloomberg/September 16/18
As the US population becomes more diverse, some people on the political right are questioning whether the change will fray the fabric of American society. In a recent segment, Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked a pointed question:
“How precisely is diversity our strength?...[In] institutions [like] marriage or military units, [is it true that] the less people have in common the more cohesive they are? Do you get along better with your neighbors or your co-workers if you can’t understand each other or share no common values?”
Many were quick to decry Carlson’s question as racist. But whatever his motive, his question deserves an answer.
One common justification for diversity — which has a very long history in the US — revolves around the cultural contributions that people from a variety of backgrounds bring. These can be simple things like food, clothing styles, music or holidays — taco trucks on every corner, Korean barbecue on every block. St. Patrick’s Day, Hanukkah, Cinco de Mayo and Chinese New Year. A second and more subtle rationale is the idea that diversity of ethnic and religious backgrounds generates diversity of ideas. There is a whole strain of research on the question of whether diverse teams, companies and other organizations produce better results. Although many studies find that this is the case, the question isn’t settled. But these defenses of diversity, true though they might be, don’t get at the real reason that taking in immigrants from such a huge variety of backgrounds has been a winning strategy for the US As I see it, the best answer to Carlson’s question is — to paraphrase President John F. Kennedy’s justification for going to the moon — that diversity is our strength not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.
When everyone shares a common ethnic and religious background, it can be easy to forget how different we all are from one another. Each individual has a unique combination of ideas, personal history and worldview, but within the confines of a company, school, neighborhood or team, there is a natural social pressure to submerge these differences beneath the impulse to conform. Diversity fights against this crushing weight. Ethnicity, religion and national origin are far from the only things that make individuals different, but because they are visible and unavoidable, they force people to deal with difference. Whether at the office, in school or within marriages and families, diversity pushes people to do the hard work of respecting each other’s unique individuality. Individualism, that core American value, can also make institutions stronger in the long run. Instead of expecting everyone to simply know their place and follow the rules, organizations have to explicitly take their members’ unique backgrounds into account. American institutions such as public schools, universities, corporations, cities and the military have developed both official mechanisms and deep institutional cultures designed to recognize and make use of their members’ unique strengths.
And they seem to be stronger for making the effort. The US has the world’s best universities, in large part because of an inflow of talented faculty and students from around the globe. Its companies are the highly profitable in the globalized age, in part because of their ability to leverage diverse workers and sell to diverse customers. Throughout its history, the US military has drawn its strength from its ability to integrate diverse populations of soldiers — it remains the world’s strongest, even as more homogeneous rivals like Russia have suffered from manpower shortages. And most of the country’s big cities are thriving, especially those like New York, Houston and San Diego that have been invigorated by immigration. Those of the same mind as Tucker Carlson will claim that all this success comes in spite of diversity, rather than because of it. But there’s strong evidence that through repeated contact, diversity leads to greater social trust and lower discrimination between people of different backgrounds. And the correlation between organizational diversity and performance might also come from this difficult but rewarding strengthening process.
In other words, diversity isn’t a magic pill that makes American society instantly stronger — it’s more like exercise. Just as lifting weights strengthens muscles, learning to deal with people who are obviously different strengthens the core American value of individualism.
Those survey responses are backed up by actions. As the US population has become more diverse, interracial marriage has climbed steadily, and now represents more than a sixth of new marriages. Since the 1990s, Americans have, on average, been moving to more racially diverse neighborhoods, and staying there once they move. Though some Americans — no doubt including much of Carlson’s fan base — remain dubious of the country’s growing diversity, the country as a whole has embraced it. Turn over any American coin, and you will see the words “e pluribus unum” — meaning “from many, one” — stamped in metal. That motto represents the centrality of diversity to the American experiment — the thesis that a society forged from disparate parts will ultimately be the strongest. That’s not an easy road for a nation to take, but so far the US has managed to navigate it successfully, and the payoff has been substantial.

We May Be Facing a Textbook Emerging-Market Crisis
Satyajit Das/Bloomberg/September 16/18
Emerging-market stresses have been building since at least 2013. Investors may have forgotten the effect of the “taper tantrum” on the so-called Fragile Five — Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa — a term coined by Morgan Stanley to describe their vulnerability to capital outflows. Monetary accommodation, lower current-account deficits and growth disguised the underlying challenges, attracting more capital to those markets. The textbook recipe for an emerging-market crisis requires a large dose of debt and an associated domestic credit bubble, including misallocation of capital into uneconomic trophy projects or financial speculation. Then add: a weak banking sector, budget deficits, current-account gaps, substantial short-term foreign-currency debt and inadequate forex reserves. Season with narrowly based industrial structures, reliance on commodity exports, institutional weaknesses, corruption and poor political and economic leadership.
Based on these criteria, the number of emerging markets at risk extends well beyond Turkey and Argentina. Like Tolstoy’s families, each nation has different sources of unhappiness.
Total emerging-market borrowing increased from $21 trillion (or 145 percent of GDP) in 2007 to $63 trillion (210 percent of GDP) in 2017. Borrowings by non-financial corporations and households have jumped. Since 2007, the foreign-currency debt — in dollars, euros and yen — of these countries doubled to around $9 trillion. China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and some Eastern European countries have foreign-currency debt between 20 percent and 50 percent of GDP.
In all, EM borrowers need to repay or refinance around $1.5 trillion in debt in 2019 and again in 2020. Many are not earning enough to meet these commitments.
Turkey and Argentina have twin deficits (combined budget and current-account gaps as a percentage of GDP) of 8.7 percent and 10.4 percent, respectively, that require financing. Pakistan has a twin deficit well above 10 percent. Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Ukraine are at or above 5 percent on that basis. In India, if state governments are included the number approaches double figures. Those gauges are rising in China, Malaysia, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Poland.
Then look at reserve coverage — foreign-exchange holdings divided by 12-month funding needs for the current account, short-term debt maturities and amortization of long-term debt — which measures the capacity to meet immediate foreign-currency obligations. Turkey and Argentina score 0.4 and 0.6 respectively, meaning they can’t cover their needs without new borrowings. Pakistan, Ecuador, Poland, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa have reserve coverage of less than 1. Chile, Hungary, Colombia, Mexico and India have coverage of less than 2. Brazil and China come in at 2.5 and 3.1 times, respectively. Even where reserve coverage appears adequate, caution is warranted. Long-term debt becomes short-term with the passage of time or an acceleration event. Forex holdings may not be readily accessible. Much of China’s $3 trillion of reserves is committed to the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. The ability to turn US Treasury bonds and other foreign assets into cash is limited by liquidity, price and currency effects. Reserve positions are notoriously opaque: In 1997, the Bank of Thailand was found to have grossly overstated available currency holdings.
China and India face well-documented difficulties in their financial systems. The true level of Chinese non-performing loans may be several times the official 1.75 percent. India’s NPL ratio is around 10 percent of all loans.
Events in Turkey and Argentina show how these weaknesses become exposed. Global liquidity tightening, led by the US Federal Reserve increasing rates and unwinding its bond purchases, reduces capital inflows and increases the cost of borrowing. Trade tensions, sanctions, the breakdown of the global institutional structure and rising geopolitical risks exacerbate those stresses.
Weaknesses in the real economy and the financial system feed each other in a vicious cycle. Capital withdrawals undermine currencies, driving down prices of assets such as bonds, stocks and property. The reduced availability of finance and higher funding costs add to pressure on overextended borrowers, triggering banking problems that feed back into the economy. Credit rating and investment downgrades extend the cycle.
Policy responses can make things worse. Higher interest rates to prop up currencies (60 percent in Argentina) may be ineffective. They reduce growth and aggravate the debt burden. Weaker currencies import inflation. Supporting the financial system and the economy pressures government finances. IMF remedies, which aren’t always effective, impose financial and human costs that many nations find unacceptable, prompting political and social breakdown. And the IMF’s capacity to assist may be constrained by concurrent crises.
Investors are assuming that critical vulnerabilities have been addressed. Important changes made after the 1997 Asian crisis created different risks, however. Floating exchange rates and unrestricted foreign-exchange movement increase currency volatility and allow capital flight. While local-currency debt has increased, unhedged foreign-currency debt remains significant. Higher returns on local-currency debt attracted foreign investors to India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and Eastern Europe. But weakening currencies may drive them to exit, hurting all assets.
Turkey and Argentina may be special cases. But given the fundamental problems, other emerging markets are likely to come under pressure. As Herbert Stein’s 1976 law states: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

Stop Obsessing About Countries’ Reliance on Foreign Financing
Stephen Mihm/Bloomberg/September 16/18
As a growing number of emerging markets teeter on the brink of crisis, we’re hearing more and more about “original sin.”
No, this isn’t about Adam and Eve’s transgressions. The concept, coined by economists Barry Eichengreen and Ricardo Hausmann, refers to the inability of most nations — and their corporations — to borrow abroad in their own currency. Instead, they necessarily borrow in other currencies.
Turkey, for example, has accumulated significant debts denominated in dollars. As the lira collapses relative to the dollar, those debts become harder to pay, fueling a crisis and encouraging investors to flee, making a bad situation even worse.
On a superficial level, the degree to which a country exhibits original sin offers an appealing way to predict which economies are most vulnerable to crisis. After all, if a country relies on debt denominated in another country’s currency, it is necessarily vulnerable to collapse because of fluctuations in the exchange rate. This conventional wisdom comes with a corollary. It holds that countries that exhibit high levels of original sin — in other words, are particularly reliant on foreign financing of long-term loans — must have some history of financial recklessness and instability that left them in this unenviable position. Heavy reliance on foreign financing suggests a history of trouble and a higher likelihood of future problems.
But history doesn’t really support this view. As two economic historians who studied the long history of original sin concluded, reliance on foreign financing of long-term debt does not in itself predict much of anything when it comes to the likelihood a country will sustain a financial crisis.
Prior to 1914, for example, many countries relied heavily on debt denominated in foreign currencies, or debt that contained a “gold clause” that effectively prevented borrowers from monetizing their debt. These countries, though ostensibly similar in terms of their reliance on foreign debt, did not necessarily end up in trouble. In this particular study, for example, the researchers found that some countries with exceedingly high levels of original sin — the United States, for example, as well as South Africa, Norway, Finland, Uruguay and other countries — actually sustained far fewer crises than countries with lower levels of original sin: Argentina and Russia and other countries that the researchers delicately described as having “rotten fiscal institutions and poor international track records.”
In this early period, then, original sin did not really correlate with the likelihood of crises. But that was then. What about more recently? A separate survey in this same article that assessed levels of original sin in the 1990s offered a different but equally counterintuitive finding.
Here, countries with a troubled history had the same levels of original sin as countries with a sterling track record of repayment. Like the finding for the earlier era, this suggested that high levels of original sin had little to do with the likelihood of crises.
Conversely, low levels of original sin have not correlated with better performance, either. Separate studies have found emerging markets at the end of the 19th century — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Italy and others — that managed to borrow heavily in international markets in their own currencies yet then defaulted.Likewise, a separate study found that reliance on borrowing in other countries’ currencies has little correlation with a history of capital controls, lax monetary policy, problems with fiscal solvency, inflation levels and other hallmarks of trouble. The only variable that seems to be positively correlated with original sin is the size of the country: Smaller economies have higher levels of foreign borrowing. That’s it. What does this all mean? History suggests that even if the current crisis in emerging markets plays out in the currency mismatches that come with borrowing abroad, this is a symptom, not an underlying cause. (Indeed, a sweeping study of sovereign debt found that the actual currency in which the debt is denominated does not seem to bear any relation to the likelihood of default.)
Instead, investors should pay far more attention to other problems afflicting these countries rather than reliance on foreign financing. No less importantly, low levels of foreign debt should not be construed as evidence of a low-risk environment. As one paper on the topic has noted, “minimizing foreign currency financing is not a sufficient condition to eliminate financial crises.” All of which is to say that investors should resist the understandable temptation to view foreign-denominated debt as a problem unto itself. It’s not — and never has been.

Putin the puppeteer is pulling the strings of troika counterparts ahead of the battle for Idlib
Raghida Dergham/The National/September 16/18
Russia is determined to see through the battle of Idlib at any cost as the crowning of its role in Syria’s future.
If it is true that the US Treasury Department is resisting Donald Trump’s Iran strategy by ignoring his demands for further action against the regime in Tehran, this could indicate that the holes in the US president’s policy go beyond sanctions, in a way that could affect both Washington and Tehran’s decisions. The implications are not restricted to Iran either but affect the great power game taking place in Syria and Iraq. They affect US-Russian relations, currently walking a tightrope of secret accords and mutual suspicion, especially with regard to the looming offensive in Idlib and Moscow’s relations with both Iran and Turkey.Russia is determined to see through the battle of Idlib at any cost, as the crowning of its role in Syria’s future, while also neutralising Turkey’s influence and curbing Iran’s appetite.
This is to some extent compatible with US objectives. Indeed, the Trump administration wants to head off Turkey’s role in Syria, albeit for different reasons. However, the administration is unconvinced Russia is serious about containing Iran, although it believes Moscow’s oil interests demand reining in Tehran’s ambitions in Syria. Where the US and Russia diverge primarily is the sphere of influence in Syria and the issue of its reconstruction.
While Moscow might not mind a limited containment of its partners in the Astana process, Washington wants to disentangle the triptych and strip Russia of its control of all the cards in Syria. What is more, Washington wants Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who is meeting Mr Putin tomorrow in Sochi –to reconsider his Syrian forays and Russian ventures and return to the fold of Nato. Meanwhile, Mr Trump wants to cripple Iran economically to force it to reconsider its regional and domestic policies and renegotiate the nuclear deal.
On this, if US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is one of those who believe their patriotic duty is to ignore their boss’s orders, there will be a fundamental flaw in US foreign policy. There are two outcomes here: either the anti-Trump “resistance” succeeds in sidelining the presidency by forcibly rectifying the president’s policies or the president and his faction move to suppress that dangerous mutiny. Either way, there are huge risks. According to the Washington Post, Mr Mnuchin and others in the treasury are resisting Mr Trump’s bid to pressure Iran using Swift, the system that clears international financial transactions. The president had asked the treasury to present options for sanctions using Swift to pressure Iranian banks but two months on, the report has yet to materialise, delaying the president’s ability to make a decision. The alleged reason behind the treasury’s prevarication is that Mr Mnuchin is concerned for the implications for US-European relations, already strained by the proposed additional November sanctions. Officials opposed to the treasury’s actions underscore the effect of banning Iranian banks from Swift in restricting Tehran’s ability to finance the regime in Damascus, Hamas, Hezbollah and other militias in the region and beyond. On that note, Russian sources say Hezbollah and Hamas have recently held meetings in Lebanon to co-ordinate their future strategies. One outcome of the meeting is said to be an agreement on using double strikes – or simultaneous attacks – against US interests. The sources suggest preparation would take place later this month.
In Syria, military developments move apace. Sources say the Idlib offensive is expected to launch two weeks after the Russian-Iranian-Turkish summit in Tehran, following an agreement reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. Russia would supply the air cover needed for the attack. However, the US has signalled its opposition to a major operation that could trigger a humanitarian disaster so for now, a “cleansing” mission would proceed with military operations against groups designated as terrorist organisations. This only leaves one problem, according to sources: the reaction of the Turkish president. The sources predict Mr Putin would seek to appease Mr Erdogan though sweeteners that address his concerns but do not reveal the exact nature of what they would be.
The Russian president is carefully pulling the strings connecting his troika counterparts on the eve of the crucial battle for Idlib. The Trump administration has issued warnings and vowed to respond if the regime deploys chemical weapons in the offensive. But fundamentally, Washington does not want Russia to turn US and international endorsement of de-escalation zones in Syria into consent for Moscow’s strategy to neutralise the Syrian opposition, consolidate power for Mr Al Assad and monopolise future reconstruction contracts.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Trump administration signalled it would keep its forces in Syria indefinitely. The message that sends out is that a Russian monopoly is unacceptable and the time has come to dismantle the troika. The Trump administration wants a reset in Syria that would allow it to become one of the guarantors of its future. Washington is making its move as Mr Trump sets out to participate in the UN General Assembly session next week, where he will address the Security Council. The Americans want to reinstate UN Security Council Resolution 2254 as the reference point for Syria rather than the Astana process, to remove Iran and force Mr Al Assad to reconsider his alliance with the Iranians, if he wants to remain in power in the coming period.
The US is raising issues of the constitution, elections and the distribution of powers between the Syrian president and prime minister in the coming phase and has hinted at using pressure tactics such as blocking support for reconstruction in Assad-controlled areas and prosecuting the regime for war crimes.
Mr Al Assad has become a sought-after point man for the major players in Syria but he is also on warning.The Russians are cautioning him not to even think he can operate outside their radar. The Iranians want him to think carefully before daring to dispense with them and turn his back on Iran’s role in helping him remain in power. And the Americans want him to understand he is not an absolute victor who can act with impunity in Syria and Lebanon, and that his wings have been trimmed irrevocably. As for Turkey, it finds itself in an unenviable position, thanks to its arrogant president. Russia is in the process of a major containment of Turkey following the battle for Idlib and is under US sanctions. All this carries the risk of serious domestic ramifications for Mr Erdogan, with a heavy wind blowing from Syria.

Political mainstream has to fight back in war against fascism
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/September 16/18
In these divisive times, it has become rare to see collective displays of European unity; a reassertion of the bloc’s core values of tolerance, human rights and the rule of law. It was thus cause for celebration last week when a two-thirds majority of MEPs supported a motion that Viktor Orban’s regime in Hungary posed a “systemic threat” to the EU’s democratic model, paving the way for sanctionary measures. Nevertheless, the 197 MEPs who opposed this motion are a warning sign of how xenophobic populists have transformed themselves from a contemptible minority to a continent-straddling insurgent force.
Orban stands accused of corruption, repression of migrants and undermining the rule of law. Measures against Hungary’s civil society, oppositionists and the media pave the way toward single-party statehood. Comparable measures in Poland for dominating the Supreme Court render the judiciary beholden to its authoritarian masters. Italy, Austria, France, Denmark and elsewhere are similarly blighted by a resurgent far right, with scarcely-disguised encouragement from Moscow. Meanwhile, racist violence in Germany is a stark reminder of fascism’s ugly face.
Democratic Europe breathed a sigh of relief last week when the anti-refugee Sweden Democrats only gained 17.5 percent of the vote in the Swedish elections, despite fears that it could outperform the mainstream parties. The integration of refugees was a dominant issue when I chaired the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 2016 security conference and I was impressed by the refreshingly enlightened desire of politicians and citizens alike to facilitate the absorption of Syrians and Iraqis into Swedish society. If the extreme right can win 17.5 percent of the vote in moderate, tolerant Sweden, then God help the rest of Europe. Having proved too treacherous and self-serving even for Donald Trump, the loathsome fascist demagogue Steve Bannon has embarked on a neverending road-trip to unite Europe’s disparate extreme right. If these transnational forces of evil act collectively through EU institutions, neo-Nazis could wield greater international influence than at any moment since World War II. America, with its complex federal system, has a long way to go before becoming an authoritarian state; yet the Trump administration’s war against the media, gerrymandering of state boundaries, obstacles to minorities’ voting rights, and demagogic governance style fly in the face of the US Constitution’s inspiring aspirations.
Last week we marked 25 years of the Oslo Accords. This historic breakthrough was trampled underfoot by the inexorable rise of the Zionist far right and the implosion of Israel’s political center ground. Instead of being challenged by a resurgent left wing, Israel’s far right was outflanked and hijacked by a messianic extreme right, which gleefully hacked to pieces any remaining hopes for Oslo’s enlightened vision of two sovereign states living peacefully side by side.
Political mainstream must rise to the challenge and define its strategy in this war against anti-liberal authoritarianism, while winning back disaffected communities vulnerable to far-right incitement.
During the EU vote on Hungary, the UK’s Conservative Party MEPs disgustingly held their noses and voted on Orban’s behalf. As one Tory politician explained: “We are going to gain brownie points with people who might be able to help us in the Brexit negotiations.” This demonstrates how Brexit necessitates Britain’s surrender of the moral high ground on the world stage. The EU has collectively faced down autocrats in Russia, China, Israel, Iran and Turkey over human rights abuses. When the EU stands determinedly together, it is difficult for bullying authoritarian states to take retaliatory measures against individual European nations.
As Britain attempts to go it alone, the land of the Magna Carta and the cradle of parliamentary democracy finds itself groveling and scraping before tinpot dictators to win trade deals, appease egos and avoid disfavor. A populist knee-jerk referendum vote for supposedly reasserting sovereignty has surrendered the UK’s international relevance as a core European state, leaving the British Isles fading into humiliating dotage as a declining backwater. As former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned last week, such insular, populist tendencies undermine the world’s ability to muster a collective response to severe economic crises, humanitarian threats or genocide. The US’ escalating trade war against friends and foes alike also exemplifies how populist leaders are resorting to petty, spiteful and counterproductive measures that ultimately punish their own most fervent supporters. The Hungary vote may give MEPs a sense of righteous vindication, yet Orban and his cronies will become even more trenchant in mobilizing supporters against “liberal European elites.” The last time European parliamentary democracy collapsed heralded the ascendance of Nazism, a world ripped apart by war and the senseless slaughter of millions in industrial-scale extermination camps. If this Pandora’s box of hatred, prejudice and violence is unleashed again, should we expect the consequences to be fundamentally different a second time around?
Why is it only the ultranationalists who are mobilized and organized, with the likes of Bannon and Nigel Farage contributing their malevolent talents to subverting the mainstream? Why is it only populist propagandists who are tapping into the frustrations of ordinary citizens? Liberals appear so transfixed by the Mueller inquiry and Trump’s Twitter feed that they miss the bigger picture of how the world is being deluged by an authoritarian tidal wave, exemplified by Vladimir Putin, Orban, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It is axiomatic to the liberal world view that mankind collectively benefits by working together to address global challenges. Compare this with fascism’s nihilistic ideology that diametrically opposed civilizations are fated to fight to the death. How could such a narrative ever be considered populist?
The malign disease of fascism sets communities against each other, infiltrates and subverts institutions of state, and erodes the very foundations of democracy. The political mainstream must rise to the challenge and define its strategy in this war against anti-liberal authoritarianism, while winning back disaffected communities vulnerable to far-right incitement. If they fail to vigorously block these extremists at every turn and mobilize the world behind an optimistic, progressive world view, then the political center ground will find itself brutally swept aside and banished to the margins, as the train of human progress thunders off its rails and plunges into hell.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

Erdogan hopes to pressure Putin into delaying Idlib offensive
Maria Dubovikova/Arab News/September 16/18
Following the failure of the tripartite meeting in Tehran involving the Iranian, Turkish and Russian leaders, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan will head on Monday to Sochi to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a bid to convince him to postpone the attack on Idlib for three to four weeks. He wants the time to take the necessary steps to neutralize the terrorist groups using the province as a shelter. When the meeting in Tehran resulted in misunderstandings and a lack of cooperation regarding the upcoming battle in Idlib, Putin gave the order that there must no leniency with terrorists in the province and that he will not allow any of them into Russia. Though preparations for Erdogan’s visit to Russia are on, Turkish forces have deployed tanks in the eastern suburbs of Idlib city for the first time since Syrian forces started massing reinforcements nearby. According to the latest reports, tanks and soldiers with heavy machinery and artillery crossed the Turkish border and entered Idlib.
The Erdogan-Putin meeting will focus mainly on the latest developments in Syria, as Ankara seeks a cease-fire in Idlib, while Russia regards an escalation as the only way to liquidate armed opposition factions. Turkey, which provides support to some opposition groups in Syria, fears a large-scale attack on Idlib close to its border, which could lead to more refugees flowing into its territory, adding to the burden on its troubled economy and weakening the Turkish position in the settlement of the Syrian conflict. It has to be noted that Erdogan stands on very shaky ground on the world stage and is swinging between the rival camps of Russia and the West. He has long-term ambitions he is seeking to implement, playing on the differences between the camps and making contradictory statements. He does not want to let relations with either side deteriorate to conflict level as this would not be in Ankara’s interests. At the same time, Erdogan feels that he is being targeted by his old Western allies, including the US, and he does not want to anger Putin, who he believes would help bail his country out if targeted by a Western plot.
Turkey, which provides support to some opposition groups in Syria, fears a large-scale attack on Idlib close to its border, which could lead to more refugees flowing into its territory.
The West has warned Russia and the Assad regime against proceeding with a direct assault on Idlib. Previously the threats were only that they would take action in the case of a chemical attack, but now any military action may be followed by a response from the Western powers. Erdogan will definitely play this card and attempt to persuade Putin to wait before taking the final decision to allow Turkey more time to separate the terrorists from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) it supports. Erdogan in this sense will play a role as peacekeeper and mediator in the eyes of the West, as he is trying to stop Putin from sparking further violence and bloodshed in Syria. Initially Turkey was not opposed to any military action against the militants in Idlib, but Ankara is now seeking a means to defuse the tensions temporarily and to neutralize as many terrorists as possible in order to avoid any refugee influx and to save the FSA and its own positions. Erdogan hopes to convince Putin that such terrorists would then be closer to Russia and this would not be in Moscow’s favor. However, it is unlikely that the Kremlin will yield to international pressure, regardless of who is making the call to think twice.
Damascus and Tehran are also putting pressure on Russia over its interests in Syria as they want to control all the territory in the country themselves, depriving the Western players of any leverage on the settlement of the Syrian issue.
Syria and Iran are looking to crash the last stronghold of the opposition, hoping that any wins will be more significant than any risks and losses. But they are underestimating the probable response of the West, which might be catastrophic for all their gains and for Russia and its interests as well. Nevertheless, sources in Moscow believe that the Idlib operation will not start before Oct. 10, and Erdogan will not be capable of preventing it. *Maria Dubovikova is a prominent political commentator, researcher and expert on Middle East affairs. She is president of the Moscow-based International Middle Eastern Studies Club (IMESClub). Twitter: @politblogme

Dancing our way to multifaith peace
Philip Rosenberg/Al Arabiya/September 16/18
So few, in fact, that when I attended the 7th World Peace Forum on behalf of the World Jewish Congress alongside Rabbi David Rosen from the American Jewish Committee, the two of us represented an immediate 1% increase in the Jewish population. Estimates are that Indonesia’s Jewish community numbers around 200, or less than 0.000001% of the total 261 million majority-Muslim population of the country. Indonesia’s constitution envisages a secular country, but its law requires the identity card of every citizen to list them as being a member of one of six religions: Islam, Protestant Christianity, Catholic Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism or Confucianism. Judaism is not an option. The country’s Jews must either proclaim themselves to be part of another faith or, after a court ruling in 2017, enter, ‘believers of the faith’.
Hope for the future
Regrettably, the small, Jewish population is required to operate discreetly out of fear of hostility. What was for a long time the only purpose-built synagogue in the country often attracted protests and was forced closed by extremists. There are different views about wearing a kippah – Jewish religious headwear – in public. Some have experienced overt hostility whereas others have had no problem. The basis for this tension is often the unfair projection on to all Jews of political frustrations with Israel’s government, which is as unjust as blaming all Muslims or Arabs for the actions of specific governments or movements within the Islamic world.
Imagine a world in which people actively seek out friendships with people who are different from them
But all this notwithstanding, the World Peace Forum’s decision to invite Jewish representatives was an encouraging sign that can give us all hope for the future. The conference’s theme of the ‘Middle Path’ – Al-Wasatiyyah – of moderate Islamic thinking, combined with Indonesia’s national philosophy of Pancasila (‘five principles’) which includes unity and social justice, is a good basis for constructive conversations. Furthermore, I have long been impressed by the fact that alongside being the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia is also the world’s third largest democracy (after India and the USA).
I was very glad I took part in the conference. First-hand contact is an important starting point for relationship and peace-building. Attending the Jakarta event enabled ample opportunity to engage in wider conversations or challenge assumptions. On a more basic level, there is something powerful to being the ‘first’ Jew that many people had ever met. My home city of London is a very global place, where relationships and friendships between people of very different backgrounds are normal rather than novel. However, this is not true everywhere in the world. Many societies are mono-cultural in fact, or at least in practice. I felt like I had temporarily become a minor celebrity, with dozens of people from across Islamic world wanting to take photos and selfies with me in my Kippa. It caused a positive stir when a Hijab-wearing female leader from one of Indonesia’s biggest Muslim organisations took my hand and we launched in to a spontaneous dance in front of all the delegates. Whilst conservative traditions in Islam and Judaism do not encourage mixed dancing between the genders, this harmless act made a point better than thousands of words or workshops could have done. Imagine a world in which people actively seek out friendships with people who are different from them, hear their side of the stories in conflict, learn empathy and practice moderation instead of extremism. All these things are easier said than they are done, but that does not take away from us all obligation to try.

Oslo Accords: A Silver Jubilee for false promises
Amir Taheri/Al Arabiya/September 16/18
Last Thursday marked the silver jubilee of an event that at the time it happened was hailed by some as a landmark in the use of diplomacy to achieve peace.
If you wonder what we are talking about, don’t worry. Few people remember the event and most of those who do pretend not to remember. We are talking of the so-called Oslo Accords shaped between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat in secret negotiations in the Norwegian capital. At the time, the accord was marketed as the home-run to a solution of the “Palestinian problem” that had haunted the Middle East and generated much violence and many wars for decades. The excitement the “accord” created was so intense that a few weeks later it led to Nobel Peace Prizes for the trio that concocted it: Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and the PLO chief Arafat. Right from the start, however, the true nature of the “accord” was either kept partly secret or hyped beyond limits of diplomatic double-talk. The Palestinians and their supporters in the West claimed that “Oslo”, as the accord came to be known in shorthand, was a first step towards the creation of a Palestinian state. They chose to ignore Rabin’s repeated statements about a Palestinian “entity short of a state that will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its control”.Even Peres, who got carried away into a romantic muddle of thinking that he and Arafat could create a “new Middle East” of peace and prosperity, a delusional version of Theodor Herzl’s “Altneuland” (New-Old Country), didn’t talk of a two-state solution. He excluded a purely Palestinian state; instead, he promoted a Jordanian-Palestinian state, an idea he tried to sell to Americans and Egyptians without success. Even if one does not believe that the Oslo Accords was still-born, it should be clear by now that the scheme is now all but dead.
There was also deception on the other side.
As early as 1988 at a press conference, Arafat had promised to recognize the right of Israel to exist as a state. After “Oslo”, however, he took no steps to transform that promise into political reality. To those who visited him after he had been installed as head of the Palestinian Authority, he played his old tune about a Palestine from “the river to the sea.”Arafat made it clear that he saw “Oslo” as a transient phase in a long-term campaign to eliminate Israel. When pressed, he would say he accepted the United Nations’ Security Council Resolution 224 which recommends talks between Israel and Arab neighbors to resolve their territorial disputes and make peace. At the time “Oslo” was unveiled some of us wondered about hidden reasons that produced it. The first reason that came to mind was that “Oslo” was designed to save Arafat from irrelevance. Arafat had lost much of his credibility with Arab and Islamic states first by siding with the mullahs of Tehran in 1979 and then by hanging to Saddam Hussein’s coat-tail during the invasion of Kuwait. Arafat was running short of money as his latest benefactor Saddam Hussein’s finances were squeezed as a result of sanctions imposed in 1991.
Shadowy figure
Without diplomatic support and without money, Arafat would be no more than a shadowy figure languishing in Tunisia. His downward slide had been accelerated by the Madrid Peace Conference in which “real Palestinians”, that is to say, people who lived in the West Bank and Gaza, fielded an alternative leadership that quickly won respect and admiration across the world. Unlike Arafat who was notorious for a career of violence, including attempts at destroying Jordan and plunging Lebanon into civil war, not to mention countless acts of terror in a dozen countries, the Palestinian delegation in Madrid established itself as a voice of reason and compassion. Haidar Abdul-Shafi, Hanan Ashrawi and Faisal al-Husseini, who had remained inside, did look like people who genuinely desired peace because they were directly affected in their personal lives.
Thus one undeclared aim of “Oslo” may have been to destroy the “Madrid” figures and re-impose Arafat’s hold on the Palestinian “cause.”Another reason may have been the failure of part of the Israeli leadership to consider the possibility of peace with Syria at a time that the US, having flushed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, had established itself as the arbiter of things in the region. At the time one heard echoes of feelers put out by Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad who promised Israel peace not only with Syria but also with Lebanon which was under his occupation. There is evidence that Rabin was initially tempted by the Syrian feelers. However, it seems that some in the Israeli leadership felt that giving up even part of the Golan Heights was too risky while giving Arafat an office in the West Bank would keep him in a cage.
In choosing the path to “Oslo” the Israel leadership ignored a key lesson of the state’s founding father David Ben Gurion who insisted that the solution to the “Palestinian problem” had to start with peace with Arab neighbors. For without such peace, he argued, any Arab state could manipulate the Palestinians for its own ends.
“Oslo” not only did not envisage the creation of a Palestinian state but may have even postponed it sine die. It created a new status quo in which those with guns and money on the Palestinian side felt comfortable while the Israeli side could also avoid contemplating the longer-term prospects of an unstable situation.
Ironically, the two-state idea has morphed into a cliché, especially for anyone running out of ideas as to how to deal with what Tony Blair once described as “the most difficult problem in the world.” Since “Oslo”, with the exception of Rabin, all Israeli prime ministers, that is to say, Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu have endorsed the “two-state” formula. The official Palestinian side has been more ambiguous on the subject, and, in the case of Hamas, hostile to the idea. It was only during the premiership of Salam Fayad that the Palestinians Authority came close to genuinely adopting the two-state formula as the basis for its strategy. Even if one does not believe that “Oslo” was still-born, it should be clear by now that the scheme is now all but dead. A quarter of a century later, we are left with a status quo that, though far from ideal, seems stable and the flickering hope of a new deal brokered by the US. In both cases, contrary to common perceptions, it is the Palestinians, weak and divided though they are, who will have to make a choice.

Concessions from UN envoy Martin Griffiths and Houthi intransigence
Abdullah bin Bijad Al-Otaibi/Al Arabiya/September 16/18
Those who believe that ideologized groups seek the interests of their countries or are capable of finding political solutions are doomed to failure. Adopting “the policy of begging” with them only makes them more stubborn. This is exactly what has happened at the Geneva conference on Yemen a few days ago, where the legitimate government delegation attended the talks and waited, but the Houthis did not turn up and invented trivial excuses for not attending. This action proves how the Houthis disregard the UN and its special envoy to Yemen, Mr. Martin Griffiths who right after he announced that the Houthis will not attend, he added that he will go to Muscat and Sanaa to renegotiate with the Houthis. He did not even express his displeasure at the Houthi’s actions and did not reprimand them for not committing to the understanding which he had personally reached, as if it was given that the Houthis would let him down from the beginning. After Griffiths’ press conference, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani, also the head of the legitimate government delegation, held a press conference in which he spoke with unprecedented candor about the discontent expressed by the UN envoy behind closed doors concerning the truancy of the Houthi delegation and its illogical demands to get out some wounded Houthis along with trainers from the terrorist Lebanese Hezbollah from Yemen. This condition is out of the scope of the preparation for the Geneva conference. Thus Al-Yamani was angry and declared that Griffiths takes a contradictory position publicly and privately.
When politics fail in war, armies start to move in, and Yemen is not an exception. Thus the Yemeni army, the popular Resistance and the Coalition to support legitimacy have started to move again on all fronts that had witnessed calm in the past period in an attempt to pave the way for a political solution that everyone believes is the best solution. However, the Houthis are resisting a political solution in disregard of the challenges facing the Yemeni people in terms of poverty, hunger, epidemics and the plight of education in the areas they control.
The Houthis are resisting a political solution in disregard of the challenges facing the Yemenis in terms of poverty, hunger and epidemics.
Flaws in UN approach
The way the UN approaches the Yemeni crisis has plenty of flaws and its positon on the armed and terrorist Houthi militia that staged a coup is incomprehensible. Dealing with it, as if it is legitimate by any means is completely wrong. It is a terrorist and armed militia that has overtaken authority in some areas in Yemen that does not exceed 20%. Negotiating with it should be about disarming it, its exit from the areas it occupies and about renouncing violence and terrorism, but what is happening is exactly the opposite. When dealing with the Houthis in this way, the UN is committing a mistake. It is prolonging the armed conflict and delaying the liberation of Yemen from the terrorist militia. According to history and logic, such militias only understand the language of force and weapons, and they will not abandon any of their gains for political negotiations. This is what makes the real and actual solution dependent on the legitimate government, the Yemeni army and the Coalition to get the militia to accept the conditions of force; the force of rights and weapons. The noose is tightening on the Houthis as the table has turned against them. Time has become their main and fiercest enemy. This has been one of the legitimacy’s and the Coalition’s biggest successes in the past phase. All the givens on the ground indicate sequential defeats of the terrorist militias on all fronts, especially at the Hodeidah front which fully controlling all its crossing points towards the Houthis’ areas have become near.
The next military escalation will further subjugate the Houthis, weaken them and deepen their losses and defeats. It would not be easy for the Houthis to confront another wave of tight military confrontation. In the end, due to the mandate that governs the mission of special envoys in war, they usually do not succeed in solving crises. The Syrian and Yemeni crises are the best evidence to that.