English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 11/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.april11.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
It is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,and have tasted the goodness
Letter to the Hebrews 06/01-09:”Let us go on towards perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith towards God, instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgement. And we will do this, if God permits. For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt. Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and on the verge of being cursed; its end is to be burned over. Even though we speak in this way, beloved, we are confident of better things in your case, things that belong to salvation.”;

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 10-11/2022
Jesus’s Victorious Entry into Jerusalem – Palm Sunday/Elias Bejjani
Al-Rahi urges state to benefit from 'positive steps, regional developments'
Rahi presides over Palm Sunday Mass in Bkerki
Mikati receives phone call from Kuwaiti Foreign Minister
Lebanon: Nasrallah Brings Frangieh, Bassil Together to Arrange for ‘Election Aftermath’
Will Lebanon Return to the Arab Fold?/Zuhair Al-Harthi/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 10/2022
Lebanon: What is driving the judiciary's recent actions against banks?/Dario Sabaghi/Middle East Eye/April 10/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 10-11/2022
Pope calls for Easter truce in Ukraine leading to peace negotiations
Egypt: Coptic Christian Priest Slaughtered in Broad Daylight
Iran MPs Set Conditions for Reviving 2015 Nuclear Deal Amid Stalled Talks
Iran Says US ‘Imposing New Conditions’ in Nuclear Talks
Senior US Official: Biden Won’t Remove Iran’s Guards From Terror List
Israel Army Raids West Bank Town Tel Aviv Gunmen Hailed From
Bloody Clashes in Jenin Refugee Camp in the Wake of Tel Aviv Attack
Civilians flee east Ukraine as Kyiv readies for 'big battles'
Russia Raids Central, Northwestern Syria
Iraqi President Calls for New Phase of Reforms
Sharif set to become next Pakistan PM after parliament ousts Khan

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 10-11/2022
Turkey: Beware of Islamists Bearing Gifts/'Russian Oligarchs Are Welcome in Turkey'/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/April 10, 2022
Yemen and the World Cup/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 10/2022
Putin’s Ukraine Invasion Showed Biden’s Failure at Deterrence/Hal Brands/Bloomberg/April 10/2022
Tunisia’s Saied just needs to stick to his plan/Dalia Al-Aqidi/Arab News/April 10, 2022
Iran regime will never give up its nuclear ambitions/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/April 10, 2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 10-11/2022
Jesus’s Victorious Entry into Jerusalem – Palm Sunday
Elias Bejjani
(Psalm118/26): “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of Yahweh! We have blessed You out of the house of Yahweh”.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/107794/elias-bejjani-jesus-victorious-entry-into-jerusalem-palm-sunday-2/
On the seventh Lantern Sunday, known as the “Palm Sunday”, our Maronite Catholic Church celebrates the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The joyful and faithful people of this Holy City and their children welcomed Jesus with innocent spontaneity and declared Him a King. Through His glorious and modest entry the essence of His Godly royalty that we share with Him in baptism and anointing of Chrism was revealed. Jesus’ Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, the “Palm Sunday”, marks the Seventh Lantern Sunday, the last one before Easter Day, (The Resurrection).
During the past six Lantern weeks, we the believers are ought to have renewed and rekindled our faith and reverence through genuine fasting, contemplation, penance, prayers, repentance and acts of charity. By now we are expected to have fully understood the core of love, freedom, and justice that enables us to enter into a renewed world of worship that encompasses the family, the congregation, the community and the nation.
Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time to participate in the Jewish Passover Holiday. He was fully aware that the day of His suffering and death was approaching and unlike all times, He did not stop the people from declaring Him a king and accepted to enter the city while they were happily chanting : “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”.(John 12/13). Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19/39-40). Jesus entered Jerusalem to willingly sacrifice Himself, die on the cross, redeem us and absolve our original sin.
On the Palm Sunday we take our children and grandchildren to celebrate the mass and the special procession while happily they are carrying candles decorated with lilies and roses. Men and women hold palm fronds with olive branches, and actively participate in the Palm Procession with modesty, love and joy crying out loudly: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21/09).
On the Palm Sunday through the procession, prayers, and mass we renew our confidence and trust in Jesus. We beg Him for peace and commit ourselves to always tame all kinds of evil hostilities, forgive others and act as peace and love advocates and defend man’s dignity and his basic human rights. “Ephesians 2:14”: “For Christ Himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in His own body on the cross, He broke down the wall of hostility that separated us”
The Triumphal Entry of Jesus’ story into Jerusalem appears in all four Gospel accounts (Matthew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-40; John 12:12-19). The four accounts shows clearly that the Triumphal Entry was a significant event, not only to the people of Jesus’ day, but to Christians throughout history.
The Triumphal Entry as it appeared in Saint John’s Gospel, (12/12-19), as follows : “On the next day a great multitude had come to the feast. When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took the branches of the palm trees, and went out to meet him, and cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!” Jesus, having found a young donkey, sat on it. As it is written, “Don’t be afraid, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King comes, sitting on a donkey’s colt. ”His disciples didn’t understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him, and that they had done these things to Him. The multitude therefore that was with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb, and raised him from the dead, was testifying about it. For this cause also the multitude went and met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “See how you accomplish nothing. Behold, the world has gone after him.” Now there were certain Greeks among those that went up to worship at the feast. These, therefore, came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn, Andrew came with Philip, and they told Jesus.”
The multitude welcomed Jesus, His disciples and followers while chanting: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”.(John 12/13). His entry was so humble, meek simple and spontaneous. He did not ride in a chariot pulled by horses as earthly kings and conquerors do, He did not have armed guards, nor officials escorting him. He did not come to Jerusalem to fight, rule, judge or settle scores with any one, but to offer Himself a sacrifice for our salvation.
Before entering Jerusalem, He stopped in the city of Bethany, where Lazarus (whom he raised from the tomb) with his two sisters Mary and Martha lived. In Hebrew Bethany means “The House of the Poor”. His stop in Bethany before reaching Jerusalem was a sign of both His acceptance of poverty and His readiness to offer Himself as a sacrifice. He is the One who accepted poverty for our own benefit and came to live in poverty with the poor and escort them to heaven, the Kingdom of His Father.
After His short Stop in Bethany, Jesus entered Jerusalem to fulfill all the prophecies, purposes and the work of the Lord since the dawn of history. All the scripture accounts were fulfilled and completed with his suffering, torture, crucifixion, death and resurrection. On the Cross, He cried with a loud voice: “It is finished.” He bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.(John19/30)
The multitude welcomed Jesus when He entered Jerusalem so one of the Old Testament prophecies would be fulfilled. (Zechariah 9:9-10): “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth”.
The crowd welcomed Jesus for different reasons and numerous expectations. There were those who came to listen to His message and believed in Him, while others sought a miraculous cure for their ailments and they got what they came for, but many others envisaged in Him a mortal King that could liberate their country, Israel, and free them from the yoke of the Roman occupation. Those were disappointed when Jesus told them: “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom” (John 18/36)
Christ came to Jerusalem to die on its soil and fulfill the scriptures. It was His choice where to die in Jerusalem as He has said previously: “should not be a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13/33): “Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem”.
He has also warned Jerusalem because in it all the prophets were killed: (Luke 13:34-35): “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! “behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”.
Explanation of the Palm Sunday Procession Symbols
The crowd chanted, “Hosanna to the Son of David” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21/09), because Jesus was is a descendant of David. Hosanna in the highest is originated in the Psalm 118/25: “Please, LORD, please save us. Please, LORD, please give us success”. It is a call for help and salvation as also meant by the Psalm 26/11: “But I lead a blameless life; redeem me and be merciful to me”. Hosanna also means: God enlightened us and will never abandon us, Jesus’ is a salvation for the world”
Spreading cloth and trees’ branches in front of Jesus to walk on them was an Old Testament tradition that refers to love, obedience, submission, triumph and loyalty. (2 Kings 09/13): “They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”. In the old days Spreading garments before a dignitary was a symbol of submission.
Zion is a hill in Jerusalem, and the “Daughter of Zion” is Jerusalem. The term is synonymous with “paradise” and the sky in its religious dimensions.
Carrying palm and olive branches and waving with them expresses joy, peace, longing for eternity and triumph. Palm branches are a sign of victory and praise, while Olive branches are a token of joy, peace and durability. The Lord was coming to Jerusalem to conquer death by death and secure eternity for the faithful. It is worth mentioning that the olive tree is a symbol for peace and its oil a means of holiness immortality with which Kings, Saints, children and the sick were anointed.
The name “King of Israel,” symbolizes the kingship of the Jews who were waiting for Jehovah to liberate them from the Roman occupation.
O, Lord Jesus, strengthen our faith to feel closer to You and to Your mercy when in trouble;
O, Lord Jesus, empower us with the grace of patience and meekness to endure persecution, humiliation and rejection and always be Your followers.
O, Lord Let Your eternal peace and gracious love prevail all over the world.
A joyous Palm Sunday to all
NB: The Above Piece was first published in 2014, republished with minor changes

Al-Rahi urges state to benefit from 'positive steps, regional developments'
Naharnet/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday expressed relief over three developments that took place over the past days – the announcement that Pope Francis will visit Lebanon in June, Lebanon’s tentative deal with the International Monetary Fund, and the return of the Saudi and Kuwaiti ambassadors to Beirut.“These positive steps coincide with important regional and international developments and we hope the Lebanese state will capitalize on them and employ them exclusively within the national framework,” al-Rahi said in his Palm Sunday sermon. He added that the pope’s visit to Lebanon is part of the Vatican’s efforts in “helping Lebanon exit from its deep crisis and keeping it among the group of democratic nations.”

Rahi presides over Palm Sunday Mass in Bkerki
NNA/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Maronite Patriarch, Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi, presided over Palm Sunday Mass in Bkerki this morning. In his homily, Patriarch Rahi expressed his satisfaction at the return of the Arab diplomats to Lebanon, saying: “The return of the ambassadors confirms the relationship of friendship and cooperation between Lebanon that is loyal to the Gulf, those countries that opened their doors to all Lebanese in the most difficult circumstances.”The Patriarch stressed that the parliamentary elections are a way to make a difference between the present and the future, and this does not happen without the intensity of voting. Rahi also underscored that reforms are a prerequisite for obtaining the necessary funds.

Mikati receives phone call from Kuwaiti Foreign Minister
NNA/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Prime Minister Najib Mikati, received a phone call from Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah, in which they discussed the current Lebanese situation and the relations between Lebanon and the Gulf states, in light of the positive relations that were recorded recently. "The Gulf countries are looking forward to the stability, security, and recovery of our beloved brotherly Lebanon,” said the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister during the phone call with Mikati. He stressed that "the ties that unite Kuwait and Lebanon in particular are very solid, and are becoming more and more solid with the days.”Al- Sabbah affirmed that Kuwait will spare no effort to support Lebanon and help it rise again. Finally, he praised Mikati's efforts in consolidating Lebanese-Gulf relations, saying: "Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati's determination to restore Lebanese-Gulf relations and his perseverance to remove impurities is worthy of appreciation and expresses his firm belief in the depth of Arab Lebanon." In turn, Mikati thanked Kuwait, the Emir and the government, for its permanent support for Lebanon, and for its efforts to restore the Lebanese-Gulf relations to their clarity and vitality. "These efforts are appreciated by all the Lebanese, and they will always remain a shining point in the history of Lebanon's relations with Kuwait,” Mikati said.

Lebanon: Nasrallah Brings Frangieh, Bassil Together to Arrange for ‘Election Aftermath’
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Friday evening hosted the leaders of the Free Patriotic Movement and Marada Movement, Gebran Bassil and Sleiman Frangieh, political rivals of each other but both close to Hezbollah. The meeting is seen as Hezbollah seeking to “arrange relations between allies” and “reduce the ceiling” of disparities in preparation for parliamentary elections and their aftermath. In a terse statement, Hezbollah said that its leader held an Iftar fast-breaking meal with Bassil and Frangieh, along with other figures. During the Iftar meal, the attendees discussed the political situation in Lebanon and the region, the Hezbollah statement added, without going further into details. Frangieh and Bassil are described as “sworn allies of Hezbollah.”The two are potential rivals for the presidency in the vote slated for October 2022 to succeed Michel Aoun, Bassil’s father-in-law. They also hail from two regions close to northern Lebanon. Deep differences between them prevented their electoral alliance in 2018 and will likely do the same in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 15. This is the first meeting between the two parties in years. Nasrallah has been seeking for some time to gather his allies, among other efforts to narrow the areas of difference between all his allies and bring their views closer. In the past, the differences between Hezbollah's allies did not affect strategic issues. Despite the political differences and electoral struggles between the Marada Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement, a common space between them remained, namely their alliance with Hezbollah. Frangieh had recently confirmed in a television interview that he was not interested in protecting Bassil, nor in removing him from the picture. “The interest of my arch ally is more important than my strategic opponent,” said Frangieh.
It does not seem that the meeting is related to the elections, for which preparations have ended. Qassem Kassir, a political researcher who follows up on Hezbollah developments, believes that the tripartite meeting “is a for the aftermath of the elections.” “Hezbollah wants to organize the ranks of its allies for that next stage, and thus forms an organized coalition that can manage matters and files in the post-election stage,” explained Kassir. Kassir noted that Hezbollah is in the process of “arranging its ranks and the ranks of its allies for a stage that requires unified positions.
The researcher moves on to highlight that election results will help crystallize many matters and that this meeting falls within Hezbollah’s efforts to find common grounds among its allies, a task that it has been working on for some time. The post-election period will include final negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, the formation of a government and the election of a new Lebanese president. Moreover, there will be a need to resolve pending issues such as demarcating the maritime borders with Israel and extracting energy from Lebanon. Kassir refuses to say that the meeting is linked to the upcoming presidential elections, saying that the upcoming mandate “is linked to its circumstances and internal and external influences.”

Will Lebanon Return to the Arab Fold?
Zuhair Al-Harthi/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 10/2022
With the perilous living conditions, general sense of frustration and despair, the news of the upcoming elections, reports about a “one third guarantee” and “blocking third” in government, Hezbollahs's horror films about stopping any attempts to limit its arsenal, threats, intimidation tactics and discourses, Lebanon is obviously in a vicious cycle. There is no hope of finding a way out of this dark tunnel which has grown longer and deeper after Hezbollah came to control everything and Iran's meddling, its infringement on Lebanon’s sovereignty, and its hijacking of the country’s political decision.
Yesterday, we received news that, I think, is joyful for the Lebanese and Arabs, with the return of the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to Beirut. The reason I celebrate this news is to stand with the Lebanese people in their plight, and push the political forces, government and moderate national leaders to feel their national responsibility towards the Lebanese citizens and help them in their current crisis.
To many, this announcement came as no surprise, as many are familiar and have experience with our nation and its big heart. Saudi Arabia has long maintained a principled stance towards Lebanon, and sought to rescue it. The Kingdom has stood beside the Lebanese people politically, financially, and morally, evidenced by its most recent response to what were known as the “calls and appeals of moderate national political forces in Lebanon.”
Saudi Arabia reinstated its ambassador in Beirut, especially after the Lebanese prime minister reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “take all needed and required measures to promote cooperation with the Kingdom and GCC countries, and suspend all political, military, and security activities that infringe upon the Kingdom and GCC countries.”
The pages of history speak to the special attention Saudi Arabia has given to Lebanon, continuing for decades to believe that Lebanon cannot be left as potential prey to those aspiring to hijack it. This is especially pertinent as the Kingdom supported all the Lebanese by rebuilding their country, and before then by pushing towards the fulfillment of political interests through the Taif Agreement, and ending the horrors of the civil war that has claimed many innocents.
The demands and aspirations mentioned in the Saudi statement have, unequivocally, revealed the Kingdom’s honest, serious intentions towards the Lebanese people, affirming “the importance that the Republic of Lebanon returns to its Arab depth, i.e. its national institutions and agencies, and that security and peace take root in Lebanon, and its people enjoy stability and safety in their own country.”
Never has Saudi Arabia sought to be in the spotlight or to reiterate lofty rhetoric, and neither does it need to do so. Instead, the Kingdom has maintained an honest belief in the fulfillment of political interests and civil peace in Lebanon, without division or discrimination, and has succeeded in averting the threat of civil war looming over Lebanon. Despite a fierce campaign of slander against it at various stages, Saudi Arabia has met these abuses with patience and prudence, maintaining the same distance from all parties and actors, as it has always pursued to see Lebanon independent and sovereign.
Despite this, a few months ago, some members of the Lebanese government transgressed red lines and fabricated facts. This prompted the Saudi leadership to set the record straight, and suspend courtesies by revealing its cards and making appropriate decisions to push Lebanon to confront its fate, revisit its past, and hold accountable those that have brought the country to its present crisis.
However, with the recent calls and appeals, and the terrible conditions of the Lebanese, as well as assurances by the PM to mend relations and curtail all abuses towards Saudi Arabia and Gulf states – including military, security, and political activities, the Kingdom reinstated its ambassador by holding the interests of the Lebanese people above all other considerations. This means that Lebanon must remain in its Arab environment, and cannot accept or welcome any attempts by regional powers to hijack it politically, culturally, militarily or in terms of its security, as a clear message that is precise in its intent and powerful in its political direction.
Here, we must remind that Riyadh has already been the target of such slander campaigns, but that it has overcome these abuses by ignoring or rising above them, as its goal is to see Lebanon as Arab, independent, secure and sovereign.
Today, Saudi Arabia is reaffirming that it will not abandon the Lebanese people regardless of inciters attempting to sow discord, disasters and crises that the country faces, or transgressions by those with power over its stances towards Gulf states. However, the heart of the Arab Gulf continues to beat solidarity and support for Arab unity, and stands beside its sister country, Lebanon, despite actions by its fifth column.
It is a sad state of affairs today to have to admit that Lebanon has entered into a dangerous, unprecedented trajectory of influence by regional powers, and a sorry state that the country has not endured since its independence. It is true that Lebanon has experienced many crises in the last decades, and that these issues surface from time to time. However, what is even truer is that the fundamental issue today is that Lebanese political decision is subjugated by Hezbollah, which itself takes its marching orders from abroad. It is no longer a secret that the role entrusted to Hezbollah is to sabotage Lebanon’s relations with Arab countries, under Iranian commands, or that the goal of this effort is to abduct Lebanon from its Arab surroundings, create disharmony and discord there and in our Arab world, and to fan the flames of sedition using its militia arms.
The Taif Agreement has already demanded the abolition of political confessionalism. However, since its independence, Lebanon has suffered structural, organic problems in its political composition, rendering it an open arena for regional and international polarization. There may be a reckoning in the middle of next month, and the trepidation in which the Lebanese find themselves today is a continuation of a cycle of “obstruction, terrorization, incitement, and intimidation” overseen by Hezbollah.
Today, the crisis in Lebanon returns us to square one, i.e. its need for its Arab brothers and sisters involved in building Arab politics that are proactive towards issues in the region, such that no non-Arab actor can fill this vacuum by proxy. Vacuum is not created from a vacuum, so to speak; it emerges as a result of the current disorder manifesting from the imbalance of power in the region, not to mention the state of division, dispute, and disintegration among Arabs – all of which are factors tempting for Iran, which does not hesitate to exploit them for its political interests and aims.

Lebanon: What is driving the judiciary's recent actions against banks?
Dario Sabaghi/Middle East Eye/April 10/2022
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/lebanon-judiciary-actions-banks-what-is-driving
Increased judicial scrutiny over Lebanese banking system raises questions around the motivation and timing behind the recent legal actions against banks
Unfettered by judicial scrutiny, Lebanese banks have for almost three years run amok while a financial meltdown - which they are widely accused of exacerbating - wreaked havoc on the lives of the majority of Lebanese. With the economic crisis showing no sign of abating, the Lebanese judiciary, long held back by political pressure, has in recent weeks taken on the banking system. Last month, Mount Lebanon's State Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun froze the assets of six banks - Bank of Beirut, Bank Audi, SGBL, Blom Bank, Bankmed, and Creditbank - as she investigated transactions made with the central bank.
She also issued travel bans against the CEOs of five of the banks.
Aoun also charged central bank governor Riad Salemeh with illicit enrichment, the first charge to be brought against him in Lebanon.
Salameh, who has denied the charges, is also facing investigation in at least five European countries over allegations of money laundering and embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars at the central bank. Salameh’s brother Raja is also implicated in these investigations.
Salameh’s history as central bank governor has come under scrutiny since the financial system imploded in 2019 following decades of corruption and mismanagement. The crisis has resulted in the Lebanese currency losing 90 percent of its value, banks locking most depositors out of hard-currency accounts, and around 80 percent of the population living in poverty. The Lebanese parliament has also yet to pass a capital control law, which is vital in order for Lebanon to secure an International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid package, leaving banks to introduce informal controls that have treated depositors unequally. A draft government financial rescue plan earlier this year estimated a roughly $70bn hole in the financial sector, according to Reuters. To date, no one has been held accountable for the economic collapse. Paul Morcos, lawyer and founder of Justicia Beirut Consult, said there have been numerous lawsuits brought against banks, but attributed the delay in legal actions to several technical obstacles, including the Covid-19 pandemic and a series of strikes by the unions of judges and lawyers. “The judiciary process takes time. Judges also struggled to issue notifications against banks, and some prosecutors hesitated to take serious actions against banks to avoid economic repercussions for a certain period,” Morcos told Middle East Eye.
'Judges are under pressure'
The increased scrutiny in recent weeks has raised speculations around the timing behind the judicial drive. Some experts linked it to the European investigations, however, others believe it is politically motivated. Nizar Saghieh, Lebanese lawyer and co-founder of Legal Agenda, told MEE that the pressure on Lebanon's banking system is taking place in both Europe and Lebanon. "Judges are under pressure because of the European investigations. Lebanese courts couldn't fully operate for two years, but now the situation has improved," he said. Targeted banks have reacted to the judicial pressure, with some retaliating against depositors.
Why Lebanon’s internal collapse seems unstoppable
Fransabank last month closed all its branches after Judge Mariana Anani froze its assets following a lawsuit by an Egyptian depositor to compel the bank to reopen his account and return his deposit in cash. Meanwhile, the six banks slapped with asset freezes went on a two-day strike on 21-22 March after the Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) announced that banks would close due to the increasing legal pressure on the banking sector. Lebanon's top public prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat later reversed Aoun's decision to bar the banks from moving money out of the country.
Depositors' Union lawyer Zeina Jaber said she believes that there is a link between the judicial action against banks and the international investigation of the central bank governor and his brother. “Lebanese public prosecutors started to investigate the cases that are now under the investigation of European courts,” Jaber told MEE. “Although each case follows its course independently, there is a link between these events, but we don't have access to the files to learn more as investigations have yet to be disclosed.”Some experts say judicial pressure on banks is legal as banks have illegally restricted depositors' access to their bank accounts. But for others, however, the decision by judges to pursue banks is driven by political influence.
Political tool
Rami Rayess, a political analyst and advisor to Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, told MEE that political motivations are leading the judicial actions. “We lack an independent judicial authority,” he said. “We have seen several steps made by some judges that are more politically motivated than judicially motivated as they are working under political influence.”Rayess added that while Salameh bears part of the responsibility for the economic meltdown, he is not the only one who should be prosecuted. Rayess highlighted the proceedings launched at the initiative of Aoun, whose critics accuse her of being close to President Michel Aoun, who appointed her. The president’s Free Patriotic Movement wants the central bank governor removed from his post. Judge Aoun has maintained that she is only implementing the law. However, Jaber, the union lawyer, countered that while the public opinion believes some judges are politically-motivated, there are still independent judges who are also fighting for a more independent judiciary system. 'Ironically, [politicians] are the same people who have allowed banks to lock depositors' bank accounts for almost three years'
Jamal Bleik, Transparency Association treasurer
Saghieh, meanwhile, said that even though prosecutors in Lebanon are in one way or another linked to political forces, it does not mean that their legal actions are illegal as they are set up on soundly-based evidence. Legal actions against banks have increased just two months before the general elections scheduled in May 2022, leading some to think that they may have political implications. Lebanese Transparency Association treasurer Jamal Bleik told MEE that the pressure on the banking system might be being used by political parties as a way of demonstrating their sympathy to voters.
“As we are approaching the elections, politicians want to be heroes showing their voters they care about depositors,” he said. “But ironically, they are the same people who have allowed banks to lock depositors' bank accounts for almost three years.”
However, Bleik thinks the scrutiny will not have an impact on the elections. "People know that the entire political establishment and the entire banking system is part of the country's economic meltdown," he said.
Government interference
But as judges target banks, the government is now attempting to counterbalance their legal actions by putting political pressure on the judiciary. Saghieh believes that Prime Minister Najib Mikati has been trying to interfere on behalf of Salameh. In January, several local news outlets reported that Mikati called Oueidat and threatened to resign if Judge Jean Tannous continued to pressure banks for information relating to his investigation of Salameh's embezzlement and other misconducts at the central bank. While Mikati denied interfering with the judiciary’s work, on 24 March, he invited Salameh to attend a cabinet meeting as a show of support. "The government wants to keep the status quo. In this context, depositors will lose a big part of their money,” Saghieh said. “The lack of capital control law means that losses will be compensated by depositors only. The government expects that the judiciary will follow this status quo.
“Through the capital control law, the government wants to enable banks to continue their practices without facing any judicial proceedings.”According to Saghieh, Mikati wants a capital control law passed to stop all legal actions against commercial banks. 'We said to the courts that these strikes are an obstruction for the rights of depositors to withdraw money for daily use
Zeina Jaber, lawyer
On 23 March, Mikati's cabinet approved the justice minister's proposal to form a committee consisting of judges and bankers to discuss the banks-judiciary situation. "I see a breach of the separation of powers principle in such an initiative. The solution should be establishing a governmental plan to reform the economic and the banking sectors," he said. Although Bleik argues that judges are implementing the law by taking legal actions against Salameh and the banks, he said that taking actions against all Lebanese banks could put the country at risk.
"The government had intentionally decided not to release a capital control law. The message behind this was that if banks decide to transfer money abroad from existing accounts, they would not be doing anything illegal," he said. Jaber, meanwhile, said that banks will not stop pushing back against legal actions. "We said to the courts that these strikes are an obstruction for the rights of depositors to withdraw money for daily use,” she said. “As Depositors' Union, we have been asking for these legal actions since the beginning of the economic crisis. Therefore, we are with any investigations that benefit the depositors.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 10-11/2022
Pope calls for Easter truce in Ukraine leading to peace negotiations
Reuters/April 10/2022
Pope Francis on Sunday called for an Easter truce in Ukraine, leading to negotiations and peace. "Put the weapons down!" he said at the end of a Palm Sunday service for tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square. "Let An Easter truce start. But not to rearm and resume combat but a truce to reach peace through real negotiations," he said.

Egypt: Coptic Christian Priest Slaughtered in Broad Daylight
Raymond Ibrahim/Coptic Solidarity/April 10/2022
Another Coptic Christian clergyman was murdered in cold blood in Egypt today [this article was originally published on Thursday, April 7]. Local Christian media reported that, while walking in a crowded street of Alexandria with a group of church youth and his own family, Fr. Arsenius Wadid was repeatedly stabbed in the neck by an unidentified but bearded man, killing him.
Fr. Arsenius, 56, headed the Church of the Virgin Mary in Muharram Bay and later the Saint Paul Church of Alexandria. He was ordained in 1996.
As this just happened, details are still sparse and sometimes contradictory. Some sources say that Arsenius died instantly, in the middle of the street in front of his traumatized family and youth group, while others say he was rushed to a hospital but died soon thereafter of his wound.
The assailant was apprehended and handed over to police by people who witnessed the murder. According to one source, “preliminary investigations [are expected, as usual] to suggest the suspect is mentally unstable in preparation for him to escape justice.”
Egyptian media will no doubt attempt to portray this murder as a strange and unexpected aberration. In reality, it is part of an ongoing continuum, whereby extremist Muslims in Egypt randomly target and attack, and often slaughter, Coptic Christian clergymen.
In one especially notable—because very similar—incident, a Muslim man slaughtered a Christian priest in broad daylight. Security camera footage (formerly viewable here) captured a man with a large butcher knife chasing and stabbing Fr. Samaan Shehata—including in the head, neck, and torso—in the streets of Cairo on October 12, 2017.
Some personally acquainted with the murderer, Ahmed Saeed Ibrahim, confirmed that he had recently “begun praying in the street, shouting loudly and calling Christians infidels.” As for motive, one report said “he had decided to kill any Coptic priest, purchased a dagger, and lay in wait for one to pass by, in a street leading to the local church.” His father “is more of a terrorist than his son,” added one woman; he “used to stop children on their way back from church and say, ‘You are multiplying, may Allah destroy your houses and burn you all. You have filled our neighborhood with filth.’”
Even so, and as Egyptian authorities appear to be positioning themselves to say about this more recent murder of Fr. Arsenius, so too back in 2017 authorities labeled Ahmed as “crazy,” prompting one Copt to ask: “Why is it that anyone who kills Christians is crazy? The person who killed two Christians in a train was crazy. We got used to this, and are expecting [that the murderer] will soon be released too. We don’t want to be unfair to anyone, but Ahmed Saeed is not crazy, he’s a religious extremist.”
One can cite more examples—in 2013, Coptic priest Mina Cheroubim was shot dead as he left his church in al-Arish, north Sinai—but the point of what happened to Fr. Arsenius, and why, should be clear by now.

Iran MPs Set Conditions for Reviving 2015 Nuclear Deal Amid Stalled Talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022 - 11:00
Iranian lawmakers have set conditions for the revival of a 2015 nuclear pact, including legal guarantees approved by the US Congress that Washington would not quit it, Iranian state media reported on Sunday. Iran and the United States have engaged in indirect talks in Vienna over the past year to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers which then-US President Donald Trump left in 2018 and Iran subsequently violated by ramping up its nuclear program. Negotiations have now stalled as Tehran and Washington blame each other for failing to take the necessary political decisions to settle remaining issues. Imposing such conditions at a crucial time could endanger a final agreement by restricting negotiators' room for maneuver in the talks. "The United States should give legal guarantees, approved by its ... Congress, that it will not exit the pact again," the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a statement signed by 250 lawmakers out of a total of 290. The letter also said that under a revived pact the United States should not be able to "use pretexts to trigger the snapback mechanism", under which sanctions on Iran would be immediately reinstated, the Tasnim news agency reported. According to Reuters, the lawmakers also said that "sanctions lifted under the reinstated pact should not be reimposed and Iran should not be hit by new sanctions". Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday US President Joe Biden should issue executive orders to lift some sanctions on Iran to show his goodwill towards reviving the nuclear pact.

Iran Says US ‘Imposing New Conditions’ in Nuclear Talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Iran's foreign minister said Sunday that Washington is "imposing new conditions" in the negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement. "On the issue of lifting sanctions, they (the Americans) are interested in proposing and imposing new conditions outside the negotiations," state news agency IRNA quoted Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as saying. "In the last two or three weeks, the American side has made excessive demands that contradict some paragraphs of the text," he added, AFP reported. Iran has been engaged for a year in negotiations with France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China directly, and the United States indirectly in the Austrian capital to revive the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). "The Americans keep talking about the need for direct negotiations, but we have not seen the benefit of direct talks with the United States," Amir-Abdollahian said.
The 2015 agreement gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to guarantee that Tehran could not develop a nuclear weapon -- something it has always denied wanting to do. But the US unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump and the reimposition of biting economic sanctions prompted Iran to begin rolling back on its own commitments. "We seek the lifting of sanctions, but with dignity and with a lasting agreement," the foreign minister said, adding that "Iran has stood and will stand by its red lines". The Vienna negotiations aim to return the United States to the nuclear deal, including through the lifting of sanctions on Iran, and to ensure Tehran's full compliance with its commitments. They have been paused since March 11 after Russia demanded guarantees that Western sanctions imposed following its February 24 invasion of Ukraine would not damage its trade with Iran. Days later, Moscow said it had received the necessary guarantees. "During my visit to Moscow, we agreed with the Russian side that if we reached an agreement in Vienna, Russia would not be an obstacle," Amir-Abdollahian said. "We were close to concluding technical discussions with the three European countries, but at the same time we faced the crisis and the war in Ukraine," he added. Talks had progressed most of the way toward reviving the deal, with different parties pointing to the "final phase", but pending issues are still unresolved. Among the key sticking points is Tehran's demand to delist the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of Iran's military, from a US terror list.

Senior US Official: Biden Won’t Remove Iran’s Guards From Terror List
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
The Biden administration plans to reject an Iranian demand that the United States lift its designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization as a condition for renewing the 2015 nuclear agreement, a senior administration official told The Washington Post. "The onus is on Iran whether we have a nuclear deal. The President will stick to core principles. The Iranians know our views," said the official. This came as Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi said Saturday that Tehran would not give up its right to develop its nuclear industry for peaceful purposes, and all parties involved in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord should respect this. The indirect talks between Iran and the US have faltered after 11 months of negotiations in Vienna, as each side throws the ball into the court of the other to take political decisions to settle the outstanding issues.
"For more than the one-hundredth time, our message from Tehran to Vienna is that we will not back off from the Iranian people's nuclear rights... not even an iota," state media quoted Raisi as saying in a speech marking Iran's Nuclear Technology Day. One Iranian diplomat told Reuters that Tehran had rejected a US proposal to overcome the sticking point by keeping the IRGC's overseas arm, the Quds Force, under FTO sanctions while delisting the IRGC as an entity. However, the US State Department said that the Quds Force should remain on its blacklist after the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told the Senate Armed Services Committee: "In my personal opinion, I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization, and I do not support them being delisted."
In response to whether the Biden administration shares General Milley's view, State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said the President shares the chairman's view that IRGC Qods Forces are terrorists. "I would say is out of the 107 Biden administration designations in relation to Iran, 86 have specifically targeted the IRGC-related persons as well as affiliates," said Porter. Earlier, State Secretary Anthony Blinken said in an exclusive interview with NBC that the IRGC is a terrorist organization, adding that "I would say simply that I'm not overly optimistic at the prospects of actually getting an agreement to a conclusion."Blinken's consultations with his E3 counterparts in the European Troika, France, Germany, and Britain in Brussels addressed the Iranian nuclear issue. Blinken and his E3 counterparts discussed a common resolve to ensure Iran never acquired a nuclear weapon.
They agreed that a diplomatic solution entailing a joint return to full implementation of the JCPOA is the "best outcome" but noted that they are prepared for other scenarios if necessary. The administration of former President Donald Trump listed the IRGC on its terrorist list in 2019, nearly a year after unilaterally withdrawing from the agreement concluded between Iran and major powers in 2015. Biden, who succeeded Trump, expressed his desire to return to the agreement, provided that Tehran complies with all of its commitments that it has retracted in the wake of Washington's withdrawal.
Recent statements by US officials prompted some analysts to say that Washington distinguishes between the IRGC and the Quds Force. Earlier in March, US negotiator Rob Malley said that the IRGC would remain under US sanctions even if the group was removed from the terrorist list and that the stance of the United States would remain unchanged. Meanwhile, a group of Republican senators called on the Biden administration to provide Israel with the weapons and military capabilities it needed to defend itself from Iran. Mark Rubio, who led the campaign, urged the administration to take immediate action to provide Israel with the military capabilities it needs to defend itself from Iran, warning that a nuclear-armed Tehran would have significant negative regional implications. The 11 senators sent a letter to the administration calling for expediting the delivery of KC-46A aerial refueling tankers to Israel as rapidly as possible without interrupting deliveries to the Air Force. They asserted that the administration must also ensure that Israel retains adequate stockpiles of US-made precision-guided munitions. "Finally, you must ensure that Israel possesses robust, multi-layered air defenses to mitigate attacks by Iran and its proxies, to include continued support for the Iron Dome, David's Sling, and Arrow systems."

Israel Army Raids West Bank Town Tel Aviv Gunmen Hailed From
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Israeli soldiers on Sunday launched a new raid into the flashpoint West Bank district of Jenin, the home of gunmen who launched recent deadly attacks in the Tel Aviv area. At least 10 people were wounded in clashes in Jenin as well as in Jericho and Tulkarem, the Palestinian health ministry said Sunday, while the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced 24 arrests in various West Bank cities. "Troops are currently operating in the city of Jenin," in the north of the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said in a brief message, AFP reported. The military operation came after a gunman from Jenin went on a shooting rampage in a popular Tel Aviv nightlife area on Thursday evening, killing three Israelis and wounding more than a dozen others. Israel said Friday it had killed the alleged attacker, Raad Hazem, 28. A total of 14 people have been killed in four attacks in Israel since March 22, including another shooting spree in Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city near Tel Aviv. Some have been carried out by assailants linked to or inspired by ISIS. Over the same period, at least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including assailants. "We will do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, for however long and wherever needed, until both safety and the sense of security are restored," army chief Aviv Kochavi told soldiers in a video released by the military. The Israeli army and border police had previously raided the Jenin refugee camp on Saturday, killing a 25-year-old Palestinian member of Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian armed Islamist movement besides Hamas, in heavy gun battles. Israel has also restricted access to Jenin, closed Israeli crossings and stepped up security checks. The new operation comes ahead of the funerals of the three Israeli civilians killed in Tel Aviv on Thursday night -- childhood friends Tomer Morad and Eytam Magini, and father-of-three Barak Lufan -- which are expected later on Sunday in the town of Kfar Saba and at the kibbutz of Ginosar. Hamas and Islamic Jihad welcomed that attack, which was condemned by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. The recent violence has come amid heightened tensions during Ramadan, after violence flared during the Muslim holy month last year leading to 11 days of devastating conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Following Thursday's attack, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett gave security agencies "full freedom" to end the deadly violence that has surged since March 22 "in order to defeat terror"."There are not and will not be limits for this war," Bennett said.

Bloody Clashes in Jenin Refugee Camp in the Wake of Tel Aviv Attack
Ramallah – Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Israeli security forces shot dead a Palestinian, injured 14 others and arrested wanted people on Saturday in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, home of the gunman behind a recent deadly Tel Aviv attack. The Palestinian killed was identified as Ahmad al-Saadi, 23, who was reportedly a member of al-Quds Brigades (Saraya al-Quds), the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement. Two of the wounded Palestinians were hit in the abdomen by live bullets, including a 19-year-old girl, and one was hit by shrapnel in the head. The Israeli army said a military operation was ongoing in the Jenin camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the north of the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians in the camp threw bullets, stones and bottles at Israeli soldiers as violent, bloody and prolonged clashes erupted. The Israeli army announced in a statement on Saturday the end of its operation, saying that its forces “killed and arrested activists who were planning to carry out offensive operations inside Israel.”The Hebrew website Ynet quoted an Israeli army spokesman as saying that among the detainees was an activist in the Hamas movement and a gunman from the Islamic Jihad movement. Saturday’s raid came a day after Israel said it had killed Raad Hazem, 28, the alleged gunman who went on a shooting spree Thursday in a popular nightlife district of Tel Aviv, killing three Israelis and wounding more than a dozen others. A total of 14 people have been killed in attacks in Israel since March 22. Over the same period, at least 10 Palestinians have been killed. The operation targeted the arrest of Hazem’s father, Fathi, who refused to turn himself in, along with his three brothers. Fathi is a former security prisoner who previously served as an officer in the Palestinian Authority’s security services in Jenin. He has refused an Israeli request to be questioned. On Friday, Fathi praised his son’s actions to a crowd gathered in front of the family home. He promised people to see the victory and change soon, asserting they will obtain their freedom and independence. Hazem went on the run after the attack and was found hiding near a mosque in Jaffa after hours long of manhunt involving hundreds of security officers. While initially raising his hands in surrender, Hazem reportedly then drew a gun and opened fire on the officers, who fired back and killed him. Dozens of Palestinians attended Saadi’s funeral, while many gunmen vowed to “retaliate his killing.”
The Islamic Jihad group identified the dead man as one of its fighters, warning that and that the occupation will pay dearly for its crimes.

Civilians flee east Ukraine as Kyiv readies for 'big battles'
Agence France Presse/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Ukraine is preparing for "big battles" against Moscow's forces in the east of the country, officials in Kyiv said, as thousands of civilians flee in fear of an imminent Russian offensive. Evacuations resumed on Saturday from Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, where a missile strike killed 52 people at a railway station a day earlier, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest Western leader to visit Kyiv. Hailing the country's response to the Russian invasion, Johnson offered Ukraine armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles to help ensure, he said, that the country will "never be invaded again". His offer came after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was readying for a Russian onslaught."Sadly, in parallel we see the preparations for important battles, some people say decisive ones, in the east," he said Saturday at a press conference with visiting Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. "We are ready to fight and to look in parallel to end this war through diplomacy." Zelensky's adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine must beat back Russia in the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow controls two separatist territories, before a meeting can take place between the Ukrainian leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Ukraine is ready for big battles. Ukraine must win them, including in the Donbas. And once that happens, Ukraine will have a more powerful negotiating position," he said on national television, as quoted by the Interfax news agency. "After that the presidents will meet. It could take two weeks, three." A video released by Zelensky's office showed him and Johnson walking through largely empty city streets to Kyiv's historic Maidan Square, as snipers kept watch. The two men greeted passersby, and one visibly emotional man called out to Johnson: "We need you." Johnson said the discovery of scores of civilian bodies in Ukrainian towns had "permanently polluted" Putin's reputation. Six weeks into Russia's invasion, Moscow has shifted its focus to eastern and southern Ukraine after stiff resistance thwarted plans to swiftly capture Kyiv. With thousands killed in the fighting and more than 11 million fleeing their homes or the country, the Ukrainian president called on the West to follow Britain's example on military aid. "We need even more sanctions" against Russia, Zelensky said in a video address Saturday. "We need more weapons for our state."
Plea to evacuate
EU leaders were meeting with Zelensky in Kyiv on Friday as news emerged of the devastating attack on Kramatorsk's station. The 52 victims included five children. U.S. President Joe Biden accused Russia of being behind a "horrific atrocity" in Kramatorsk, and France condemned the strike as a "crime against humanity." Moscow denied responsibility for the rocket attack, which also wounded 109 people, according to the latest official count. As Russian forces regroup in the east and south of Ukraine, local officials are urging residents to flee before it is too late. The mayor of eastern Lysychansk, Oleksandr Zaika, on Saturday asked residents to evacuate as soon as possible due to constant shelling by the Russian army. "It has become very difficult in the city, enemy shells are already flying," Zaika said in a video message. While the city had stocks of humanitarian aid, he added, "that doesn't mean it will save your life if an enemy shell arrives". And more Russian shells did arrive on Saturday, killing five people in the eastern cities of Vugledar and Novo Mikhaylovka, local governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. Meanwhile, in Kramatorsk, minibuses assembled at a church to collect shaken evacuees. Almost 80 people, most of them elderly, sheltered in a building near the targeted station. "There were around 300 to 400 people who rushed here after the strike," Yevgeny, a member of the Protestant church, told AFP. "They were traumatized. Half of them ran to shelter in the cellar, others wanted to leave as soon as possible. Some were evacuated by bus" on Friday. The Kramatorsk station was serving as the main evacuation hub for refugees from parts of the eastern Donbas region still under Ukrainian control. AFP reporters at the station saw the remains of a missile tagged in white paint with the words "for our children" in Russian -- an expression used by pro-Russian separatists to invoke their own losses since fighting in Donbas began in 2014. The governor of Donetsk claimed a missile with cluster munitions -- banned by an international treaty -- was used in the attack, according to remarks published by the Interfax news agency.
NATO plans new force
Speaking Saturday from Warsaw, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a global pledging event for Ukrainian refugees has raised 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion). In another sign of Western solidarity, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance was drawing up plans for a permanent military force on its border to prevent further Russian aggression. "What we see now is a new reality, a new normal for European security. Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a longer-term adaptation of NATO," he said in an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph published Saturday. He said the new force would be one of the "long-term consequences" of Putin's invasion. Russian troops appear intent on creating a long-sought land link between occupied Crimea and the Moscow-backed separatist territories of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbas region. Growing evidence of atrocities has also galvanized Ukraine's allies in the EU, which has approved an embargo on Russian coal, frozen billions in assets of sanctioned individuals and ordered the closure of its ports to Russian vessels. Bucha -- where authorities say hundreds were killed, some with their hands bound -- has become a byword for the brutality allegedly inflicted under Russian occupation. And Ukrainian officials say they are uncovering even greater devastation in nearby towns. Fresh allegations also emerged from Obukhovychi, northwest of Kyiv, where villagers told AFP they were used as human shields. Moscow has denied targeting civilians.
Prisoner exchange
Ukraine said Saturday it had completed a third prisoner exchange with Russia, bringing 12 soldiers and 14 civilians home. But Moscow said Russian troops also fired on a Ukrainian vessel trying to evacuate commanders of the Azov battalion from the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol. The Azov Special Operations Detachment has been fighting Russian forces in Mariupol -- scene of some of the war's most grievous civilian suffering -- as it lies between Russia-occupied Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist regions in Ukraine's east. Fighting has become increasingly fierce in the region as Russia redirects its focus. The governor of Donetsk said that Russian shelling had also killed five civilians and wounded five others in two eastern Ukrainian cities Saturday. Four of them died in the city of Vugledar, and one in the town of Novomikhaylovka, Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram post.
The Ukrainian army announced on Facebook that it had "destroyed four tanks, eight armoured vehicles and seven enemy vehicles", as well as "a plane, a helicopter" and drones.

Russia Raids Central, Northwestern Syria
Idlib – Firas Karam/Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Russian and Syrian regime warplanes targeted ISIS sites in the Syrian desert, within the administrative regions east of Homs, Raqqa, and Deir Ez-Zor, coinciding with Russian raids in Jabal al-Zawiya, south of Idlib. Regime forces and affiliated militias also targeted the countryside of Idlib and Aleppo, northwest Syria. A source in eastern Homs said that the Russian fighters, along with helicopters of the Syrian regime forces, carried out about 90 airstrikes, during which they targeted sites of ISIS fighters in Deir Ez-Zor and Raqqa countryside from the southern side and other areas in Homs. He added that the Russian and regime escalation on ISIS remnants in the middle of the Syrian desert came after they lost contact with a group affiliated with the Afghan Fatimiyoun Brigade. It coincided with massive military reinforcements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and forces affiliated with the Fourth Division. The forces combed the areas from al-Sukhna to the Iraqi-Syrian border and failed to find the group. The source explained that massive military forces affiliated with the regime’s Fourth Division, Iran-affiliated groups, and the Lebanese Hezbollah units are preparing to launch a new combing operation within Homs, Raqqa, and Deir Ez-Zor. The groups want to search the area for ISIS remnants to curb its recent activity, which targeted military convoys of the regime and Iranian-backed militias on the Deir Ezor-Sukhna road, east of Homs. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) indicated that four days ago, Russian warplanes launched more than 40 airstrikes on the Syrian desert, totaling 172 raids since the beginning of April. Activist Mulhem al-Hassan reported that the Russian fighters carried out a series of air raids with high-explosive vacuum missiles on areas around Sufuhun, al-Fatirah, and Flaifel in Jabal al-Zawiya, south of Idlib. He indicated that violent clashes erupted in the Lattakia countryside between the two parties with heavy artillery, tanks, and rocket launchers, amid reports of casualties among the regime forces. Hassan pointed out that a new Turkish military convoy, including armored vehicles, personnel carriers, and logistical trucks, entered the Syrian territory from the Kafr Losin crossing. The vehicles were distributed to several Turkish military bases and other units in Jabal al-Zawiya and west of Aleppo, during which a military convoy of the Turkish forces entered the military points near the Aleppo-Latakia international road (M4).

Iraqi President Calls for New Phase of Reforms
Baghdad – Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Iraqi President Barham Saleh warned against the political deadlock and delay in forming a new government after six months of conducting the early elections. In a statement marking the 19th anniversary of the US occupation and the overthrow of former President Saddam Hussein's regime, Saleh called for a new political phase. In a statement distributed by his office, the president cautioned that the continuation of the political crisis might lead the country towards having a different dangerous situation, in which everyone will pay for it. "On April 9, we recall the fall of the Baath regime that committed the most heinous crimes against Iraqis, squandered the country's national wealth, and caused the waste of human potential of Iraqi youth as a result of engaging in wars and senseless conflicts," read the statement. Saleh called not to underestimate the significant political transformation achieved after toppling the Saddam regime in 2003.
He explained that there is an urgent need to meet the Iraqis' demands for good governance that can address the flaws, errors, and gaps of the past and deal with structural imbalances of the governance system where there should be genuine and drastic reforms. All of these urgent tasks can't be postponed, asserted the president. Establishing good governance will not be achieved without restoring the Iraqi people's confidence in the state as the people are the legitimate source of authority, said Saleh, adding that the Iraqi people's interest should be placed over any other. "After the past two decades, our country is going through a sensitive juncture amid the political deadlock and the delay in forming a new government," said Saleh, adding that it is unacceptable that more than five months had passed since conducting an early election. "All political forces have a historical national and moral responsibility to bring all positions together through having further serious and positive dialogues that would help the country to emerge from the current crisis." Saleh urged political parties to work together to form a new national, sovereign, and independent government that can protect the country's interests and meet the Iraqi people's demands amid the regional and international developments. Saleh stressed that the months following the October elections are essential for making constitutional amendments that must be initiated in the coming period through national consensus and understanding. Addressing corruption in the country, the president stated that there should be an equal opportunity for all the Iraqis to build and develop the country, which requires speaking frankly and being honest with having a unified will to make reforms and review the trajectory.

Sharif set to become next Pakistan PM after parliament ousts Khan
Agence France Presse/Sunday, 10 April, 2022
Imran Khan was dismissed Sunday as Pakistan's prime minister after losing a no-confidence vote, paving the way for an unlikely opposition alliance that faces the same issues that bedeviled the cricket star-turned-politician. A new premier will be chosen Monday, with centrist Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) chief Shehbaz Sharif already anointed to lead the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people. His first task will be to form a cabinet that will draw also heavily from the center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), as well as find space for the smaller conservative Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) group. The PPP and PML-N are dynastic parties that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades -- usually as bitter rivals -- and their relations are sure to fray in the lead up to the next election, which must be held by October 2023. Shehbaz Sharif is the brother of disgraced three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, while PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the son of former president Asif Ali Zardari and assassinated ex-premier Benazir Bhutto.
'Fight until last ball'
Khan's exit was met with a mixture of glee and sympathy. "Back to the pavilion," screamed the influential Express Tribune newspaper, using a cricket metaphor headline writers have found difficult to resist during Khan's tenure. No prime minister has ever served a full term in Pakistan, but Khan is the first to lose office via a vote of no-confidence. "Sad day for Pakistan... a good man sent home," his former information minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Twitter. There had been high hopes for Khan when he was elected in 2018 on a promise of sweeping away decades of entrenched corruption and cronyism, but he struggled to maintain support with soaring inflation, a feeble rupee and crippling debt. Militancy is also on the rise, with Pakistan's Taliban emboldened by the return to power last year of the hardline Islamist group in neighboring Afghanistan. Khan had vowed to fight "until the last ball", and he certainly took his exit to the wire Sunday. He tried everything to stay in power -- including dissolving parliament and calling a fresh election -- but the Supreme Court deemed all his actions illegal last week, and ordered the assembly to reconvene and vote. Still, there was drama right until the midnight deadline ordered by the court, with the speaker of the assembly -- a Khan loyalist -- resigning at the last minute. The session restarted after midnight with a replacement, and the vote was finally held. Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers stormed out, but the no-confidence motion passed with 174 votes in the 342-seat assembly.
No vendettas
New Pakistan governments frequently have a reckoning with those they replace, but Sharif said there would be no vendettas. "We will put a balm on the wounds of this nation," he said immediately after the result was announced. Khan insists he has been the victim of a "regime change" conspiracy involving Washington, and he is certain to tap into anti-US sentiment from the opposition benches. "Khan's politics don't stop here, his support base is intact," said Zahid Hussain, a political analyst and author. "His narrative of last few months, that he has been removed through a foreign conspiracy, has earned him some support." Khan says the PML-N and PPP conspired with the United States to bring the no-confidence vote because of his non-aligned international outlook and opposition to US foreign policy, particularly in Muslim nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. He vowed late Friday to never support any incoming new government and has called supporters for a rally in the capital later Sunday. "From what he has been saying, he seems to want to create problems for the government and pursue a kind of a policy of trying to sort of rebel rather... make things better for the country and society," said Talat Masood, a former general and now political analyst. Publicly, the military appears to be keeping out of the current fray, but there have been four coups since independence in 1947, and Pakistan has spent more than three decades under army rule.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 10-11/2022
Turkey: Beware of Islamists Bearing Gifts/'Russian Oligarchs Are Welcome in Turkey'
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/April 10, 2022
Then there was what turned out to be a myth about the success of Turkish drones used by the Ukrainian army inflicting "huge" damage on the invading Russian columns. Drones, regardless of their capabilities, cannot be game-changers in a conflict with such vastly asymmetrical military might. The West must send jets, tanks, anti-aircraft, anti-armor and anti-ship missiles, and other weapons to Ukraine to repel Russia's Chinese-backed aggression -- fast -- or the US and Europe will soon find themselves enmeshed in wars even messier to fight.
What else does Erdoğan -- who is and always has been ideologically anti-Western -- think he can win from the West by his hoax charm offensive?
Erdoğan seems to think that just because the madman of Russia did something mad, he, the president of Turkey, can once again fool the West by posing as a pro-Western ally. Let's do a reality check....
Believing that the TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles could be game-changers in Ukraine is similar to thinking that the Turkish drones could be used to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, former CIA official Paul Kolbe suggested that "Turkey should send Ukraine the Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems." Turkey said, however, that it dismissed the idea of transferring those systems to Ukraine to help Kyiv resist Russian troops.
The West's primary weapon against the Russian aggression is sanctions. Who is in it? And who is not? As Western governments targeted Roman Abramovich and several other Russian oligarchs with sanctions to isolate Putin and his allies -- but not most Russian oligarchs or businesses -- a second super-yacht linked to the Russian billionaire docked in a Turkish resort. In addition, no one seems to be touching the $700 million yacht docked in Italy and reportedly owned by Putin.
A source in Ankara told Reuters that given the sanctions imposed elsewhere, Abramovich and other wealthy Russians were looking to invest in Turkey.... Another source in Ankara said Turkey was not currently considering joining the sanctions action against Russia and was expecting wealthy Russians to purchase assets and make investments.
Turkey apparently hopes to get all it can from this "Christian-to-Christian" conflict: Let the infidels destroy each other as Turkey cashes in with geostrategic gains and spill-over Russian business from the West.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is and always has been ideologically anti-Western, seems to think that just because the madman of Russia did something mad, he, the president of Turkey, can once again fool the West by posing as a pro-Western ally. Pictured: Erdoğan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on March 10, 2017.
Few people could imagine that on a cold March day in Turkey's capital, Ankara, the presidential corps, after more than a decade of hostility to its neighbor Israel, would welcome Israeli President Isaac Herzog by playing Israel's national anthem, Hatikva, with two presidential guards holding Turkish and Israeli flags on horseback. Pundits were quick to talk about a "reset in relations," or a "historic visit." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he now intends to host Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Ankara.
Shortly after Herzog's visit to Ankara, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez met with his Israeli counterpart, Karin Elharrar on the sidelines of the International Energy Agency conference in Paris. Dönmez said he hopes to travel to Israel in April to discuss possible Israeli-Turkish cooperation on a gas pipeline.
Next move. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has said that it supports Ukraine's territorial integrity, that the invasion was "unacceptable," and that it was "siding with Ukraine." Then there was what turned out to be a myth about the success of Turkish drones used by the Ukrainian army inflicting "huge" damage on the invading Russian columns. Drones, regardless of their capabilities, cannot be game-changers in a conflict with such vastly asymmetrical military might. The West must send jets, tanks, anti-aircraft, anti-armor and anti-ship missiles, and other weapons to Ukraine to repel Russia's Chinese-backed aggression -- fast -- or the US and Europe will soon find themselves enmeshed in wars even messier to fight.
Nice words, "drones." Nice propaganda. And, finally -- while Turkey was playing as if Erdoğan were the pro-Western pivotal player in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict -- Erdoğan wanted to abuse the European Union's suspension of accession talks with Turkey. Europe's blockade of accession talks with Turkey is realistic, is due to Turkey's increasing authoritarianism in recent years, the death of the rule of law in the country, its swelling democratic deficit and, most recently, Erdoğan's refusal to comply with rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. Nevertheless, Erdoğan said, "We expect the EU to open quickly the chapters of the membership negotiations and to start negotiations on a customs union without yielding to cynical calculations."
What else does Erdoğan -- who is and always has been ideologically anti-Western -- think he can win from the West by his hoax charm offensive? Well, he immediately called on NATO allies to lift sanctions on Ankara's defense industry, saying it is in the alliance's "joint interests... to remove restrictions that have been put on our defense industry by some of the allies... I shared my expectations with the leaders. Veiled or open embargoes shouldn't even be a topic among the allies."
He seems to be hoping that no one will notice that his entire performance is a hoax. Are the US and Europe looking the other way just because Turkey is being helpful with Afghanistan and Ukraine?
Erdoğan seems to think that just because the madman of Russia did something mad, he, the president of Turkey, can once again fool the West by posing as a pro-Western ally. Let's do a reality check:
On February 25, Turkey "abstained... from voting on suspending Russia's membership in most bodies of the Cooperation Council in Europe in response to the military operation in Ukraine. 'During the vote in Strasbourg (the seat of the Council of Europe), Turkey decided to abstain,' Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview with Turkish TV channel NTV. 'We don't want to break off the dialogue with Russia.'"
On February 24, senior Turkish and Pakistani officials announced that the NATO member and China's staunchest regional ally have joined forces in the development and production of a new fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
On March 13, Çavuşoğlu said that humanitarian aid on its own cannot adequately address Afghanistan's problems, and that countries should offer diplomatic recognition of the Islamic Emirate as well – the first time a foreign political leader publicly called for this step.
According to a report submitted to the UN Security Council, a Turkish maritime company owned by a businessman widely known to be an Erdoğan associate, helped the Turkish government violate the United Nations arms embargo on Libya. The move prompted UN investigators to flag the shipping line operating out of Turkey.
Turkish drones used by the Ukrainian forces, the TB-2 Bayraktar, are cost-efficient solutions in conflicts between symmetrical powers. However, according to a report submitted to the UN Security Council by the Panel of Experts on Libya, the TB-2s were an easy target for ground fire, "they were easily destroyed in the air by the (Russian-made) Pantsir S-1 air defence system." Anyone with some "Warfare 101" knowledge understands that drones, however successful, are not game-changers in conflicts between forces that are wildly asymmetrical. Believing that TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles could be game-changers in Ukraine is similar to thinking that the Turkish drones could be used to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, former CIA official Paul Kolbe suggested that "Turkey should send Ukraine the Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems." Turkey said , however, that it dismissed the idea of transferring those systems to Ukraine to help Kyiv resist Russian troops.
The West's primary weapon against the Russian aggression is sanctions. Who is in it? And who is not? As Western governments targeted Roman Abramovich and several other Russian oligarchs with sanctions to isolate Putin and his allies – but not most Russian oligarchs or businesses -- a second super-yacht linked to the Russian billionaire docked in a Turkish resort. In addition, no one seems to be touching the $700 million yacht docked in Italy and reportedly owned by Putin.
A source in Ankara told Reuters that given the sanctions imposed elsewhere, Abramovich and other wealthy Russians were looking to invest in Turkey. "He wants to do some work and may buy some assets," the source said, adding that the oligarch already had some assets in Turkey. Another source in Ankara said Turkey was not currently considering joining the sanctions action and was expecting wealthy Russians to purchase assets and make investments. Indeed. "Russian oligarchs are welcome in Turkey," Çavuşoğlu said on March 26, "but must abide by international law in order to do any business."
Meanwhile, Russia keeps using Turkish airspace as freely as if no one had ever invaded Ukraine. Turkey apparently hopes to get all it can from this "Christian-to-Christian" conflict: Let the infidels destroy each other as Turkey cashes in with geostrategic gains and spill-over Russian business from the West.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Yemen and the World Cup
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 10/2022
Optimism and pessimism aren’t a part of the realm of political action, politics is an art of what is possible, according to data, what could be taken and what is up for negotiation. To save bloodshed, politicians must remain cold-blooded. Such an introduction is vital when examining Yemen’s most prominent and recent events. Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi announced the sacking of Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and the formation of a new leadership council for completing the transitional phase. President Hadi delegated the leadership council an irreversible mandate with all its powers in accordance with the Yemeni constitution and the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanism. This decision is considered a historic step, a real correction to the path of legitimacy, and it reaffirmed Saudi Arabia's keenness on Yemen.
It also shows the skill of the Saudi leadership in handling a thorny and complex file in a clever political way.
“This Saudi political action is in my view equivalent to nothing but the Saudi political action that brought UN Resolution 2216 to light,” an informed Arab official told me. It is noteworthy that Resolution 2216 was issued on April 14, 2015. With 25 articles, it won the support of 14 members of the UN Security Council, while Russia abstained. The Resolution refers to President Hadi's request from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab League for military intervention to protect Yemen from Houthi aggression. It stipulates the imposition of sanctions against Abdul-Malik al-Houthi and others accused of “undermining peace, security and stability” in Yemen. “In my opinion, working in the world of politics and international relations is equivalent in the world of football, not only for qualifying, but for winning the World Cup,” the Arab official added about the ingenuity of Saudi political work and the focus on the Kingdom qualifying for the World Cup. A well-informed diplomat told me that the “corrective” movement achieved two main goals: “Uniting the anti-Houthi political body with all its components, and leaving the Houthis an opportunity to negotiate to be a partner in the political solution.”
Accordingly, we are facing a historical correction that ensures that the decision today is entirely Yemeni and taken among the parties on the ground, and not by a single Yemeni individual or component. The decision would be based on political, not ideological, understandings.
It also blocks the way to the game of accusations, as everyone is involved in the decision-making.
This corrective step also means that Saudi Arabia was and still is more careful and effective than the West, or the Americans, in dealing with the Yemeni crisis. It also goes to show that Saudi Arabia is keen on Yemen's unity and stability and does not have subversive roles like Iran.
To date, the international community remains silent about Iran’s sponsoring of a military coup in Yemen and its support of militias in front of institutions that claim to defend human rights. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is moving within an Arab alliance under Resolution 2216 to restore legitimacy in Yemen.
The formation of a leadership council that transferred all the powers of the Yemeni president, and the dismissal of the vice president, mean that Saudi Arabia is a rational state. It proves that the Kingdom has sufficient flexibility to achieve stability in Yemen and support the state and not individuals, militias, or any single component. Yes, the road is long, but this “historical corrective” movement paved the way for making real political decisions that have nothing to do with optimism and pessimism, but rather to facilitate political solutions with serious work, silently without false slogans, as many do in the West, or as destructive Iran does.

Putin’s Ukraine Invasion Showed Biden’s Failure at Deterrence
Hal Brands/Bloomberg/April 10/2022
Foreign policy suddenly has a very retro feel. A US president visits Europe to give a soaring speech on the fate of human freedom. An adversary is threatening nuclear war to intimidate the West. The dream of a fully integrated global system is crashing as geopolitical tensions break the world into rival blocs. It all seems so Cold War.
Not the least of these historical echoes is that America’s chief strategic task is once again deterring aggression by hostile, well-armed great powers.
Deterrence is coercion, pure and simple: It is the craft of preventing harm by threatening harm. That technique was a vital part of Cold War statecraft, when the US sought to keep the peace by threatening to inflict appalling destruction on the Soviet Union in the event of war. And following an anomalous quarter century in which the threat of great-power conflict receded dramatically, the war in Ukraine has given the dilemmas of deterrence immediacy anew.
President Joe Biden’s administration has offered its answer to this problem: “integrated deterrence.” That concept has many facets, but its key tenet is that deterrence requires synchronizing all tools of American power — military, economic, diplomatic and otherwise — into a package of pain that no rival wants to suffer. The Ukraine crisis shows that integrated deterrence has potential — but also that it has real drawbacks, given that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not, in fact, deterred.
After a generation of great-power peace, the US is relearning one of the Cold War’s dark arts. Given the way the world is trending, Washington had better be a quick study.
Deterrence Is Coercion
Deterrence requires both the capability and the will to make an adversary pay for aggression. Yet the perception is arguably more important than the reality. What the enemy thinks one can and will do matters most. Deterrence is principally about the threat of action rather than action itself: Once you are implementing the threat you have made, deterrence has failed.
Experts typically distinguish between two different, but not mutually exclusive, forms of deterrence. “Deterrence by denial” seeks to prevent an adversary from attacking by convincing him that he will fail. “Deterrence by punishment” seeks to prevent an adversary from attacking by promising that, even if he succeeds, he will pay an intolerable price.
As I write in “The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry Today,” the US-Soviet contest gave Americans a decades-long education in deterrence. It forced them to master so-called extended deterrence — how to prevent Moscow from attacking vulnerable countries located thousands of miles from the US.
America’s answer was a three-part package made up of alliances such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization, supported by forward-stationed forces in Cold War hot spots like West Germany and South Korea, all backed up by threats of nuclear escalation.
In essence, Washington erected an elaborate global security system and crafted intricate theories of nuclear statecraft to deter a potentially catastrophic war. It also developed a cadre of strategists who devoted their lives to understanding these issues. One of the greatest, the economist Thomas Schelling, coined the idea of deterrence as a “competition in risk-taking” — a game of who could use credible threats of escalation to force the adversary into restraint.
After the Cold War, deterrence fell from this intellectual and policy prominence. One reason was that America’s military dominance meant that deterrence by denial seemed easy, even automatic: There was no question Washington could defeat China or Russia, let alone Iraq or Iran, in a major war. And deterrence got little thought in the war on terrorism because it seemed impossible: How does one deter a suicide bomber who is willing to die for his beliefs?
This atrophy is no longer acceptable. Long-term military buildups by Russia and especially China have made wars in Eastern Europe or the Western Pacific a more frightening prospect. Moscow and Beijing appear to be laying plans to use nuclear weapons as tools of geopolitical revisionism, by threatening the US and its allies with limited nuclear strikes if they intervene in wars of regional conquest. The inescapable challenge of this era is preventing autocratic powers from reordering the regions around them by force.
In 2018, President Donald Trump’s administration warned that a shifting military balance would “challenge our ability to deter aggression.” Biden’s team has taken matters a step further, making integrated deterrence the centerpiece of its National Defense Strategy, which was sent to Congress last week along with the White House’s budget proposal.
Deterrence for the 21st Century
To proponents, integrated deterrence is about bringing deterrence into the 21st century. The Pentagon concedes that the US won’t recover the degree of outright military overmatch it had in the 1990s. So Washington must strengthen its deterrent punch by pulling together a wider range of capabilities.
This means multilateralizing deterrence — for example, tying Washington more closely to key allies in the Indo-Pacific so that Chinese aggression would result in a big, regional war that Beijing cannot easily control. It involves integrating capabilities across different domains, such as better synchronizing the use of air power and sea power with the ability to defend and attack in cyberspace. Integrated deterrence is meant to span the spectrum of conflict, by focusing the US on threats ranging from incremental coercion to high-intensity warfare.
Deterrence must also be integrated across theaters. The US can use its global reach to punish China, perhaps by cutting off its energy supplies, if Beijing attacks Taiwan.
Most important, integrated deterrence involves using many tools of national power. There may be scenarios — the seizure by China of one of the offshore islands claimed by Taiwan — where a military response is infeasible and financial or technological threats must suffice. To deter major war, the US must complement a military response with all the devastating nonmilitary pain it can inflict. Integrated deterrence headlines America’s defense strategy, but it can’t be carried out by the Pentagon alone.
There is little to object to here, in theory. The US will indeed need global strengths to beat back aggression by rivals engaged in local aggression. The more tightly Washington is coupled to Japan and Australia, the less tempted China will be to try to pick off rivals one by one. The global dominance of the dollar, US power over key technological supply chains, and other non-military strengths offer tremendous coercive leverage that US officials must exploit. In practice, however, implementation has been rocky. Integrated deterrence was devised mostly with China and peace in the Pacific in mind. But it has been first tested by Russia, in a crisis that has reminded us that nonmilitary punishment works best as a complement to military denial, not a substitute for it.
The Putin Paradox
When it became clear, in late 2021, that Putin was mobilizing for a potential invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration faced a dilemma. America has a compelling interest in preventing revisionist powers from destabilizing the global system through large-scale aggression — and in preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine and threatening NATO’s entire eastern periphery.
Yet Ukraine is not a US treaty ally. It is located on the wrong side of the world for a superpower hoping to focus on China. It was being threatened by a dictator with a penchant for risk-taking and thousands of nuclear weapons. And America’s military posture in Europe was so minimal that the Pentagon might have anticipated great difficulty defending Ukraine even had Biden wanted to. The result was a deep, and obvious, ambivalence in US policy.
US officials repeatedly stated that they sought to deter Putin from invading. Yet Biden simultaneously took the use of force off the table early in the crisis. This left the administration relying on a form of deterrence that was very creative but not very integrated.
The administration began with “deterrence by disclosure” — the release of detailed intelligence to reveal Putin’s plans, frustrate his deceptions and rally an international coalition. This enabled Washington and its allies to threaten Russia with sharp, multilateral economic sanctions.
The administration also promised that Moscow would suffer adverse strategic consequences, such as additional US and NATO force deployments in Eastern Europe. Finally, the West rapidly bolstered Ukrainian military capabilities, raising the price Russia would pay if Putin pounced.
This was classic deterrence by punishment. The US was not threatening to prevent Russia from conquering Ukraine — the military element of integrated deterrence was absent. Biden was threatening Putin with a bundle of penalties that would leave Russia weaker even if it accomplished its military objectives.
When Putin attacked, in late February, the democratic world showed, as one US official put it, that the US and its allies could indeed use their economic power to “absolutely pummel aggressors.” Official and private-sector sanctions are causing shortages of basic goods and a degree of financial and technological isolation Moscow clearly did not expect. The US has pursued a “new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that rivals military might,” Biden has said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian resistance, bolstered by Western weapons, has put Moscow in a military vise.
Yet it is hard to take seriously the Pentagon’s boast that “integrated deterrence comes out smelling pretty good,” because Putin — in invading Ukraine — did exactly what America tried to prevent him from doing. And had Putin been less greedy, ordered only a limited operation in Donbas or elsewhere, he might have succeeded in grabbing Ukrainian territory without suffering global blowback. So why did integrated deterrence fail?
Biden Said Too Much
One answer involves an inherent problem with deterrence-by-punishment — it can be hard to signal, before an act of aggression, how bad the eventual punishment will be. Had the West credibly and explicitly threatened to do what it actually did — killing the Nord Stream II pipeline, sanctioning Russia’s central bank, booting Russian financial institutions from the SWIFT global payments system, and so on — perhaps Putin might have reconsidered. As Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov admitted, “No one” in Moscow anticipated “what sanctions the West might apply.”
The problem, though, was that not even Western officials knew how far they would go until Putin tried to erase Ukraine from the map. By the time that reaction came, deterrence had already failed.
A second answer is that Washington botched the application of deterrent threats. To be clear, Biden mostly deserves high marks in managing this crisis. The administration is waging an extremely successful proxy war against Russian forces. But Biden’s declaratory policy — the effort to shape Putin’s incentives through precisely worded statements — has been a disaster.
While it is undoubtedly important to avoid a great-power military showdown over Ukraine, removing any threat of American intervention simply ensured that Putin didn’t have to worry about matters getting out of hand. Similarly, Biden’s offhand remark that the allies would simply bicker among themselves in the event of a “limited incursion” was probably accurate — and it probably gave Putin hope that he could split the opposing coalition.
The third answer is the most sobering. Perhaps Putin simply valued the subordination of Ukraine, and the restoration of a Russian empire, so highly that anything short of the threat of a major war with the West would have failed to move him. If so, then the one thing that might have deterred Putin was the one thing that US and Western officials were unwilling — whether wisely or unwisely — to contemplate.
Calculated Risks
That’s a problem, because Ukraine isn’t the last great-power military crisis the US will face. The threat of economic and financial sanctions alone probably won’t prevent Xi Jinping from attacking Taiwan, in part because it would be far harder for the democratic world to do to China — with its larger, more globally integrated economy — what it has done to Russia. Even if Putin doesn’t attack a NATO country, he or a successor could provoke another showdown in Eastern Europe involving Finland, Sweden or Belarus.
Moreover, deterrence doesn’t stop when the war begins, and America still faces hard questions about how to deter Russia in Ukraine. As Moscow struggles to achieve its objectives, it could take several actions — employing chemical weapons, striking neighboring states that support Ukraine, or further escalating its brutal siege tactics — that would dramatically increase the damage or even lead to a wider war. So far, however, Biden has been wobbly in applying the calculated risk-taking that deterrence requires.
When Putin first raised the alert status of his nuclear forces, Biden canceled a scheduled US missile test — a demonstration of responsibility, but also of a proclivity for restraint when confronted with even the vaguest risk of escalation. Then, on March 11, Biden promised to defend “every inch of NATO,” while also pledging to stay out of Ukraine at all costs, given that intervention would cause “World War III.”
Of course, saying that virtually nothing could prompt direct US intervention in Ukraine may make Putin feel that he has license to escalate. And if any war with Russia would indeed be “World War III,” then would Washington really defend even its NATO allies in a crisis? Biden has subsequently tried to clean up some of these statements, and his administration may be signaling privately that there are forms of escalation it will not tolerate. Yet when it comes to a problem we haven’t faced in decades — deterring major aggression by a nuclear-armed adversary — America is still shaking off the rust.
Lessons of Ukraine
Fortunately, things aren’t all bleak. If Putin’s army gets mauled as badly as now seems possible, then his capacity for fresh outrages will be reduced for years. Conflict in Ukraine has certainly shown that conquering large swaths of territory is hard, particularly against a resolved, capable defender — an insight that one hopes China will take to heart. But the true lesson of Ukraine may be that there is no shortcut to deterrence. Sure, nonmilitary tools give the US added ability to pummel the bad guys. Yet if Washington and its allies lack the military capability and will to blunt Russian or Chinese aggression, then the promise of economic pain may not suffice to keep the peace. And if America is to deter its adversaries effectively, it must avoid the trap of forgetting that those adversaries fear escalation as much as we do, and thus suffering from asymmetric timidity in a crisis. Deterrence, whether integrated or otherwise, is still fundamentally a competition in risk-taking. That’s an ugly truth that Biden and his successors will need to relearn, and fast.

Tunisia’s Saied just needs to stick to his plan
Dalia Al-Aqidi/Arab News/April 10, 2022
When Tunisia is mentioned in the Western media, it usually relates to July 25, 2021, when the people revolted against the Muslim Brotherhood party, Ennahda, for its incompetence, corruption and crimes against innocent Tunisians.
Back then, I wrote that President Kais Saied’s prompt response to the demands of his people by announcing strict corrective measures to end the structural chaos and prevent a possible civil war was admirable. Saied brought down the curtain on the last act of horrible players who used their religious slogan to steal a whole country. “There are serious challenges ahead as Tunisia seeks a new government to serve the people and lead the country away from the 10 years of turmoil under Ennahda,” my article read.
What has happened since then? And is Tunisia now better and safer than before? Certainly. Closing the doors in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood, which wreaked havoc and stole the state’s public wealth, was a positive step toward a brighter, secular future. But it is not enough.
Late last month, Tunisia entered a new phase in its volatile political scene when Saied issued a decree dissolving the parliament, which had been suspended since last year. The president’s decision was a response to an initiative by more than 100 members of the Tunisian parliament, who challenged the decision he took eight months ago to freeze its work.
Saied described their online parliamentary session and vote to consider his extraordinary measures decree null and void as a “failed coup attempt” and vowed to bring these deputies to justice for breaking the law. He reiterated in a taped speech his promise to prevent the abusers from continuing their aggression against his country. “I tell the Tunisian people: Feel safe and be assured that the state’s institutions are active and there is a nation ready to protect them from those who work as a group, not as a state,” he said.
The former law professor explained his decision based on Article 72 of the 2014 Tunisian Constitution, which states that “the president of the republic is the head of the state and the symbol of its unity, guarantees its independence and continuity, and ensures respect for the constitution.”
In January, Saied announced a political roadmap to end the crisis in the country, which included the formation of a committee to rewrite the constitution, hold a referendum on July 25 to approve it, and then organize parliamentary elections on Dec. 17.
If the Tunisian president is committed to his roadmap, the dissolution of the frozen parliament will not affect the reformed political path of this struggling North African country. However, the Muslim Brotherhood's Ennahda, the largest political bloc in parliament, whose leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was the parliamentary speaker, will not accept being the biggest loser of this political maneuver. Ghannouchi strongly rejected the presidential decree, considering it a prelude to a general dismantling of the state and a new constitutional violation.
Closing the doors in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood was a positive step toward a brighter, secular future.
On the other hand, the powerful Tunisian General Labor Union supports Saied’s measures, according to a statement issued last month, which gave the president greater confidence to continue moving forward. “The dissolution of parliament is an opportunity to restore confidence and reassure the people in order to correct the course,” the union’s statement read, accusing what it described as the “influential parties in parliament” of bullying and dividing Tunisia with the support of foreign regimes.
Saied is preparing to launch a national dialogue, which he says will end the system that came after the fall of former President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, and the Muslim Brotherhood is not invited. “The national dialogue in Tunisia will not include those who wanted to overthrow the government, plundered the state’s resources and violently attempted to divide our people,” he stressed.
As the economy heads toward disaster and the country is on a political cliff edge, Saied has no option but to stay committed to his vow to end the era of Islamist political fascism and move Tunisia forward to build a democratic and free country.
Everyone who believes in freedom and human rights will come to the aid of the Tunisian people to prevent a historical catastrophe that may set them back hundreds of years. All that Saeid needs to do is stick to his plan.
*Dalia Al-Aqidi is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy. Twitter: @DaliaAlAqidi

د.ماجد رفي زاده/ لن يتخلى النظام الإيراني أبدًا عن طموحاته النووية
Iran regime will never give up its nuclear ambitions
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/April 10, 2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/107812/dr-majid-rafizadeh-iran-regime-will-never-give-up-its-nuclear-ambitions-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d9%87-%d9%84%d9%86-%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%ae%d9%84%d9%89-%d8%a7/
As long as the theocratic establishment is in power, it is extremely unlikely that the Iranian regime will give up pursuing its nuclear ambitions or that any deal will put an end to Tehran’s nuclear threat.
By examining the Iranian regime’s nuclear file, it ought to become evident that achieving its nuclear ambitions is a key priority for Tehran.
In 1984, five years after coming to power, the regime appeared to make the advancement of its nuclear program a top item on its agenda. Over the following decade, it began working on its nuclear program with the help of intermediaries such as Russia, China and Pakistan. In 2005, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, acknowledged that Pakistan had assisted Tehran. He said: “I do have information that, some years ago, through intermediaries, we received pieces for centrifuges.” According to US intelligence, A.Q. Khan, who was known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, sold expertise and equipment to North Korea, Libya and Iran, making more than $50 million.
Since then, the Iranian regime has been progressing steadily and investing in its nuclear program for more than three decades. It has now reached the point where it is close to the nuclear threshold. The regime is thought to be only weeks away from obtaining the weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon.
The New York Times reported: “Iran has come within roughly a month of having enough material to fuel a single nuclear weapon, crossing a threshold that may raise pressure on the US and its allies to improve the terms of a potential deal to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement.” Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz last year told ambassadors from countries on the UN Security Council, during a briefing at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, that the Iranian regime “is only around 10 weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon.”
The Iranian regime has supposedly scaled back its nuclear program during some periods, but it is critical to understand why. Such hiatuses in Iran’s nuclear program have only occurred for a short period of time and for two important reasons.
The first is linked to the drastic economic sanctions that threatened the hold on power of the ruling clerics, forcing the leadership to recalculate its priorities. The sanctions prior to the 2015 nuclear deal were significant, as they endangered the hold on power of the ruling clergy and ultimately brought the Iranian leaders to the negotiating table between 2013 and 2015.
There were four rounds of sanctions. The five permanent members of the UNSC unanimously called on all countries to freeze the financial assets of Iranian entities linked to the nuclear program, to ban Iran’s import and export of “sensitive nuclear material and equipment,” and to sanction the supply or sale of nuclear-related equipment and technology. They also imposed restrictions on Iranian bank transactions and called on countries to inspect Iranian ships and cargo planes where there were reasonable grounds to believe that the regime was smuggling prohibited products.
But after the Iranian regime was able to make the world powers lift these major economic sanctions, it once again began clandestinely pursuing its nuclear ambitions, even within the nuclear deal. For example, the detection of radioactive particles in Turquzabad, Iran’s reluctance to answer simple questions about that secret facility and nonpartisan evidence about Iran’s nuclear activities at the location all point to the fact that Tehran had most likely violated the 2015 nuclear deal ever since it came into effect.
Tehran is thought to be only weeks away from obtaining the weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon.
The second reason that the Iranian regime may have scaled back on achieving its nuclear ambitions is the fear of military operations against it. For instance, after the US invaded Iraq in 2003, the Iranian leaders rushed to offer the Bush administration a deal that would have reportedly curtailed their nuclear program. This was probably because the regime was concerned that the US might attack Iran or its nuclear facilities next. In fact, then-US President George Bush did debate bombing Iran, as he pointed out in his memoir: “I directed the Pentagon to study what would be necessary for a strike.” He added: “This would be to stop the bomb clock, at least temporarily.”
In conclusion, do not expect the Iranian regime to give up its nuclear ambitions. Also, it is very unrealistic to expect that any deal between the world powers and Iran will force the regime to stop its nuclear program, which it has been investing in for more than three decades.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2060541