English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 21/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 16/15-18:”‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 20-21/2022
Lebanon expects deal with World Bank on food security
Lebanon crisis exposes children to deadly viruses
Depositors protest capital control session outside Parliament
Committees adjourn session on capital control as MPs, depositors voice objections
Mufti says solutions should not be at depositors' expense
Army arrests man who opened fire during Sarafand attack
Geagea says LF to call for withdrawing confidence from Bou Habib over expat voting
Aoun supports Palestinians as tensions escalate in Jerusalem
UNICEF: Lebanon Maternal Deaths Triple, Children’s Health at Risk Amid Crisis
Two Remarks on the Lebanese Elections If Held!/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/April 20/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 20-21/2022
US State Department Warns of Undeclared 'Nuclear Activities' in Iran
Iran Hands over ‘Iraq’ to Soleimani Successor
Ukraine gets warplanes as Mariupol officer warns facing 'last days'
Russian Gas Flows to Europe Through Ukraine Edge Higher
Syrian fighters ready to join next phase of Ukraine war
Spain to Extradite Turkish Citizen Suspected of Smuggling Banned Gear to Iran
US Envoy to Libya Urges Protection of Oil Revenue from Misappropriation
World Bank Earmarks Additional Aid For Yemen’s Food Security
Israeli Ultra-Nationalists to March in Jerusalem Despite Ban
Barzani, Johnson Discuss Energy Exports to Replace Russian Oil, Gas
Houthis Sign UN Plan to End Recruitment of Child Soldiers

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 20-21/2022
Biden's Middle East: Saudi Arabia Embraces China; Will They Topple the Dollar?/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/April 20, 2022
The Middle East: An American Vision/Review of Behind the Silken Curtain/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 20, 2022
Will Democrats Soon Be Locked Out of Power?/Ross Douthat/The New York Times/April 20/2022
Kafir: Islam’s Hateful Views on ‘Infidels,’ or All Non-Muslims/Raymond Ibrahim/April 20/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 20-21/2022
Lebanon expects deal with World Bank on food security
Associated Press/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Lebanon is close to reaching an agreement with the World Bank in which the international agency would give the crisis-hit country a $150 million loan for food security and to stabilize bread prices for the next six months, the economy minister has said. Amin Salam said talks with the International Monetary Fund were progressing in a positive way. "Work is ongoing and the train is moving. I am optimistic," Salam said in an interview with The Associated Press. He said the IMF is focusing on three sectors that are improving — electricity, transportation and high-speed internet — because they can help reactivate the whole economy. Salam said the government does not have immediate plans to lift bread subsidies, especially for flour used in making flat Arabic bread, the main staple in Lebanon. Lebanon is in the grip of a devastating economic crisis that has been described as one of the worst in modern history. It imports most of its wheat and has faced shortages over the past weeks as the war in Ukraine leads to increases in prices of oil and food products around the world. There have also been concerns that the government might lift wheat subsidies as foreign currency reserves drop to critical levels at the central bank. Any lifting of subsidies would sharply increase the price of bread affecting the poor in the Mediterranean nation where more than three quarters of its 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, now live in poverty.
"We are working with the World Bank to keep market stability for the next six months by getting $150 million," Salam said. He added that the deal with the World Bank will stabilize the price of bread and wheat until a ration card policy is in force so that people in need can benefit. Salam added that subsidies cannot continue forever, especially for flour that is used for making pastries and sweets. He said that such policies were implemented in Egypt and other countries where subsidies were lifted for wheat used in some products and left for the bread. Salam said meetings were scheduled with officials from the World Bank on Wednesday, after which Lebanon will propose final recommendations to the bank's board. Salam said there is tentative approval from the Lebanese state and the World Bank, adding that it could be effective in three weeks to a month. He said that the war in Ukraine is forcing Lebanon to find new sources of wheat that are far away and more expensive. Earlier this month, Lebanon and the IMF reached a tentative agreement for comprehensive economic policies that could eventually pave the way for some relief for the country after Beirut implements wide-ranging reforms.
Salam, who is part of the Lebanese negotiating team with the IMF, said the government, parliament and all Lebanese officials are fully aware that if Lebanon does not fully abide by the IMF program, conditions "will become very difficult because there is no alternative plan." He said the banking sector has to be restructured because without a banking sector it is impossible to move forward with economic growth. Salam added that during the talks with the IMF the Lebanese side worked to make "the banking sector carry some of the losses without destroying the banking sector." He said whenever a final deal with the IMF is reached and there is political intention for success by authorities, Lebanon can start achieving tangible results in the next two to three years. And in five years "Lebanon can be in a very good place."The Lebanese pound, which has lost more than 90% of its value since the economic meltdown began in October 2019, can become more stable, he said. The staff level agreement that Lebanon reached with the IMF on April 7 lists five "key pillars" that should be implemented, including restructuring the financial sector, implementing fiscal reforms, and the proposed restructuring of external public debt, anti-corruption and anti-money laundering efforts.
Salam said the country's 14 largest banks will be held up as a standard to work on restructuring the sector since they control about 80% of the market. The smaller banks that have problems should be taken over by bigger lenders. He said most likely people with deposits of up to $100,000 will eventually get their money back while those with much bigger balances will end up either getting treasury bills or become shareholders in banks or state institutions."The 100,000 figure will be a number that will be protected for everyone," he said. Breaking with the position of the prime minister, he suggested that central bank Gov. Riad Salameh should go. "His situation has become tenuous," Salam said, saying it will be difficult for future governments in Lebanon to work with him. Salameh, who has been in the job since 1993, is facing investigations in Lebanon and several European countries into possible cases of money laundering and embezzlement. The governor is protected by several top officials, including the prime minister and parliament speaker."I'm all for change," Salam said. "No one is irreplaceable."

Lebanon crisis exposes children to deadly viruses
Agence France Presse/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Child vaccination rates in Lebanon have dropped by more than 30 percent, compounding a health crisis marked by drug shortages and an exodus of trained professionals, the United Nations said Wednesday. "The critical drop in vaccination rates has left children vulnerable to potentially deadly diseases such as measles, diphtheria and pneumonia," the UN children's agency UNICEF said in a new report titled "A worsening health crisis for children". "Routine vaccination of children has dropped by 31 per cent when rates already were worryingly low, creating a large pool of unprotected children vulnerable to disease and its impact."Since 2019, Lebanon has been grappling with an unprecedented financial crisis that the World Bank says is of a scale usually associated with wars. The currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value and more than 80 percent of the population now lives below the poverty line. "Many families cannot even afford the cost of transportation to take their children to a health care center," UNICEF representative Ettie Higgins said in a statement. Between April and October 2021, the number of children who could not access health care rose from 28 per cent to 34 per cent, according to the UNICEF report. With the government too poor to afford imports of basic commodities such as medicines, many are struggling to source lifesaving drugs, including those used to treat chronic illnesses. According to the UNICEF report, more than 50 per cent of families were unable to obtain the medicines they needed and at least 58 per cent of hospitals reported drug shortages. Making matters worse, the financial crash has sparked an exodus of healthcare professionals. According to UNICEF, 40 percent of doctors and 30 percent of midwives have left the country.

Depositors protest capital control session outside Parliament
Naharnet/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022 
Depositors and activists rallied Wednesday outside Parliament to prevent MPs from attending a session on capital control held by the joint parliamentary committees. Some protestors kicked the car of Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli and threw stones at it, media reports said. The depositors syndicate and the Mouttahidoun lawyers union considered in a joint statement that the capital control will deprive depositors from their rights, describing it as a "disguised amnesty" and a "dangerously flawed" law. While some MPs also considered that the law needs amendments to protect the depositors' rights, Prime Minister Najib Miqati said on Tuesday that authorities have no plans to “eliminate depositors’ rights.” The joint parliamentary committees are studying the capital control draft law before referring it to Parliament’s general assembly. A session, last week, had ended without an approval as amendments protecting the rights of depositors had been introduced. An earlier version had also been rejected, as the committees prompted the government to send an amended version. The adoption of a capital control law is one of the reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund to financially help crisis-hit Lebanon.

Committees adjourn session on capital control as MPs, depositors voice objections
Naharnet/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
A session on capital control was adjourned Wednesday, as the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement's MPs refused to discuss the draft law.Depositors and activists had rallied since morning outside Parliament to prevent MPs from attending the session held by the joint parliamentary committees, as they considered that the law will deprive depositors from their rights. The LF and FPM's MPs said they need to look into the recovery plan before discussing the capital control draft law. LF MP George Adwan said that the depositors will bear the cost of $60 billion that will be scrapped from the loans.
He said that the capital control draft law shouldn't be discussed before approving the recovery plan. Prime Minister Najib Miqati had said Tuesday that depositors’ rights will be protected. "This is not true," Adwan said. For his part, FPM MP Ibrahim Kanaan asked for discussing the recovery plan in parallel with an amended capital control law, in order to protect the depositors' right. "Depositors' rights are not negotiable," said Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli, after the session was adjourned. A session, last week, had ended without an approval and an earlier version of the law had also been rejected, as the committees prompted the government to send an amended version. The adoption of a capital control law is one of the reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund to financially help crisis-hit Lebanon.

Mufti says solutions should not be at depositors' expense
Naharnet/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan on Wednesday called for “preserving people’s deposits and savings,” stressing that “the solutions for the financial and economic crisis should not be at the expense of depositors and their lifelong savings.”The solutions “should be at the expense of those who plunged the country into the current deterioration at all levels,” the Mufti added. “We will not accept that citizens be the victims of any measures taken by the state and its institutions, seeing as the people’s plight is huge,” Daryan went on to say. “We must stand by them and support them, because the country cannot be built at the expense of impoverishing its people,” the Mufti added.

Army arrests man who opened fire during Sarafand attack
Naharnet/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
The army announced Wednesday the arrest of an Amal Movement supporter who had opened fire Saturday from a handgun during a violent protest against a rival electoral rally in the southern city of Sarafand. “A patrol from the Intelligence Patrol has arrested in the Sidon town of Sarafand the citizen A. Kh. for opening fire in the air in the aforementioned town during a protest by a number of the town’s residents against the announcement of an electoral list,” an army statement said.“The detainee is being interrogated under the supervision of the competent judicial authorities,” the statement added. An online video shows the man opening fire from a handgun towards a candidate and his vehicle despite the presence of army troops. Another video shows around ten men beating up a young man. The altercation started when the Amal supporters blocked a road leading to the al-Wadi Restaurant in Sarafand, where a rally to announce the program of the "Together For Change" electoral list was supposed to be held. The list is backed by the Lebanese Communist Party, independents and members of the Tyre Protest Movement. Amal's press office had issued a statement denying any involvement for the Amal Movement in the incidents. The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) meanwhile warned that the incident represents a "serious threat to the safety of candidates, citizens and journalists and subjects the entire course of the electoral process to danger."

Geagea says LF to call for withdrawing confidence from Bou Habib over expat voting
Naharnet/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday announced that the LF will call on parliament to withdraw confidence from Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib over accusations related to the distribution of polling stations abroad.
“We will call for withdrawing confidence from the foreign minister based on what he is doing in the expat voting file,” Geagea said.
“The premier must ask the foreign minister to distribute expats on the polling stations that are geographically closer to them and to hand over the electoral rolls,” the LF leader added. Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran “Bassil and his team at the Foreign Ministry are practically responsible for the distribution of expats and the foreign minister is taking the role of the apologetic in an academic way,” Geagea went on to say. Moreover, he decried that “a crime is taking place against expats abroad,” adding that “instead of facilitating their voting process, the Foreign Ministry is making things harder for them.”

Aoun supports Palestinians as tensions escalate in Jerusalem
Agence France Presse/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
President Michel Aoun expressed Wednesday his support for Palestinians and Jerusalemites, after a weekend of violence in Jerusalem. "The systematic attacks of the Israeli occupation forces on al-Aqsa Mosque will not change the identity of the Holy City," Aoun said. He added that al-Aqsa is being "Judaized" in a "blatant violation to international laws and conventions." "Pressure must be put to end these violations," Aoun added. Early on Tuesday, Israel carried out its first air strike on the Gaza Strip in months, in response to a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave after a weekend of violence around al-Aqsa. The latest tensions in Jerusalem have focused on the highly contested mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Israeli-annexed Old City. Palestinian worshippers gathering there for Ramadan prayers have been outraged by visits by religious Jews under heavy Israeli police protection -- as well as restrictions on their own access. The violence, coinciding with the Jewish Passover festival as well as the Muslim holy month, has sparked fears of a repeat of last year's events, when similar circumstances sparked an 11-day war that levelled parts of Gaza.

UNICEF: Lebanon Maternal Deaths Triple, Children’s Health at Risk Amid Crisis
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
The number of women in Lebanon dying from pregnancy-related complications has nearly tripled amid a crushing three-year economic crisis that has seen doctors and midwives leave the country, the UN children's agency UNICEF said Wednesday. The crisis is also affecting children, especially among Syrian refugees who have fled over the border into Lebanon. UNICEF said a third of children could not access healthcare by October 2021, and the number of children who die within the first four weeks after birth "increased dramatically among refugees in four provinces assessed, from 65 neonatal deaths in the first quarter of 2020 to 137 in the third quarter". Lebanon hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees, making up about a quarter of the population, according to official estimates, according to Reuters. "Repeatedly, anguished parents and families are unable to access basic health care for their children – as many dedicated health workers struggle to keep operations running during the crisis," said Ettie Higgins, UNICEF Lebanon representative. Some 40% of doctors, including those that work specifically with children and women, have left the country, as well as some 30% of midwives, UNICEF said, diminishing the quality of services in a country formerly seen as a regional healthcare hub. "Lebanon had achieved remarkable success in reducing maternal deaths, but numbers rose again between 2019 and 2021, from 13.7 to 37 deaths per 1,000 live births," the agency said in a report released Wednesday. It did not give the raw numbers. Faysal al-Kak, coordinator of the Lebanon's National Committee on Safe Motherhood, said the number of maternal deaths had spiked largely due to the coronavirus delta variant in 2021 but said the crisis was also a factor. "The Lebanese crisis is a strong variable – maybe the mom is not visiting enough, afraid of going to the doctor because it costs money. It gave women a sense that 'I can't go to the doctor'," he told Reuters. "Delta and the low vaccination rate - in addition to the compounded crisis that we live in – could have affected indirectly the accessibility, cost, and transportation."The rising cost of transportation and services due to the collapse of the country's currency and the removal of most subsidies on fuel and medicine has left healthcare out of reach for many, UNICEF said. Childhood vaccination rates have declined, leaving hundreds of thousands of children vulnerable to preventable diseases such as measles and pneumonia.

Two Remarks on the Lebanese Elections If Held!
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/April 20/2022
Let us suppose, for a moment, that the Lebanese general elections take place and that Hezbollah and its allies manage to achieve a parliamentary majority. In this event, we imagine the media would cover the outcome with emphatic headlines like: Elections Consolidate Legitimacy of Resistance. Hezbollah Will Assign the Next President and Form the Government, Several Governments. The Last Hurdle to Relations with the Syrian Regime has been Overcome. Iran Has Secured a Major Victory in Lebanon…
Thus, Hezbollah and its allies would achieve significant gains, adding them to many other gains they have already made.
Suppose, on the other hand, that Lebanese elections take place and Hezbollah and its allies are unable to attain a parliamentary majority. In this case, one can imagine media headlines would cover the event with questions: Will Hezbollah Accept the Election Result and the Government Produced by it? Will Hezbollah Agree to a Presidential Candidate Chosen by the New Parliamentary Majority? Can This Majority Achieve Where its Predecessors Failed? Will Tehran and Damascus Stand Idly by and Accept Lebanon's Parliamentary Elections Results?
The difference, here, sums up a lot. In the former scenario, electoral victory perpetuates the status quo forged through force of arms. In the latter scenario, electoral victory only renews the dilemma of the victors– a dilemma with many faces and forms.
And so, in the first case, the victor ascends to his pinnacle; Hezbollah achieves total victory and translates it directly into power and political decision making. In the second case, the victors embark on a journey whose destination has not yet been determined. They win nothing but a document for the archives.
The affirmation of the first scenario is not subject to interpretation. The second only raises questions –ones that may devolve into puzzles.
Political significance thus does not derive from the elections themselves or from the "popular will" that they express. It hinges on the winner, whose identity determines the political implications. In the first scenario, the electoral victory can be translated into a political victory; in the second, it only translates to depriving rivals of such a victory.
This contrast suggests that, in Lebanon, there are citizens who make policy and half-citizens who are governed by others' policies. The former remain victorious, while the latter is more or less defeated in uneven degrees.
Moreover, and mainly due to the force of arms and other factors, a Hezbollah victory would be a victory for Hezbollah. As for a "victory" by Hezbollah's opponents, i.e. obtaining a parliamentary majority, it would turn into a cohesive political body.
In the first camp, Hassan Nasrallah is the unanimously agreed-upon ultimate arbiter. Reconciling Gibran Bassil and Suleiman Franjieh in his headquarters in Beirut's Southern Suburbs speaks to his ability to impose consensus, even among members of distant sects in distant regions. His ties with the Amal Movement are stable, ensuring his sect's loyalty. His affiliation with Iran and Syria, and the resistance, guarantees him the ability to infiltrate the remaining sects and regions of Lebanon – aided by the weakness and fragmentation of these sects and regions.
On the second front, what do we find? Rifts between March 14 and October 17 ("civil society") forces that could not be sorted out. Hariri's "strategy," which has left Sunni votes scattered, further lowering the threshold for victory for Hezbollah's candidates in mixed regions and portraying the main political battle as being against Fouad Saniora and Samir Geagea. Many coalitions and attempts at developing consensus have faltered, perhaps due to Hariri's positions, like halting the formation of a united list between the Progressive Socialist Party and the Lebanese Forces in the Western Bekaa, for example. This fragmentation is also the result of petty quarrels, old or new, that politicians of narrow loyalties could not overcome, such as the Kataeb Party's disagreements with the Lebanese Forces, to mention but one example. Finally, and this is a foregone conclusion, there will be no ultimate arbiter in this camp.
The infamous political fragmentation of the Lebanese is controlled and regulated within the first front, allowing it to remain unified. With the second front, Lebanese fragmentation reigns supreme and is fully manifest; it may as well be multiple fronts.
As soon as we add the contingency of individual decisions to the big picture, especially the disastrous actions of Saad Hariri, we arrive at a very bleak outcome.
This does not mean that these elections, if held, would be an exercise in futility or an effort to be avoided. Obtaining a document presented to ourselves, the outside world, and history, on our situation and how the havoc wrought on politics in Lebanon by arms, is an endeavor worth making. However, it would be better to contain ourselves and our hopes for the elections, to forget the assumption that they could guarantee a smooth transition to a new, significantly improved state of affairs. That is not the case and never will be. After all, the arsenal can disrupt Parliament at will any time at the whim of those who have it!

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 20-21/2022
US State Department Warns of Undeclared 'Nuclear Activities' in Iran
Washington - Muath Alamri/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
In an annual report on compliance with arms control and non-proliferation obligations, the US State Department warned of undeclared nuclear activities conducted by the Iranian regime. It said that Iran did not cooperate with the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at a time when Iran seeks the removal of US sanctions in exchange for a return to the nuclear agreement. The annual report of the US State Department highlighted Iran’s efforts to continue enriching uranium and deploying centrifuges in its nuclear facilities, non-compliance with agreements, in addition to covering up a number of undeclared sites that saw nuclear activities. The report warned that Iran’s continued expansion of uranium enrichment activities would lead to the production of enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon. It also noted that although “uranium metal” has conventional civilian and military uses, it is a major enabler for the production of nuclear weapons, because “Iran will need to convert weapons-grade uranium from the gaseous form used in enrichment, to metal to make nuclear weapons components.”
The report emphasized that Iran abandoned the protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on February 23, 2021, which “seriously” undermined the verification activities of the IAEA. In this context, it pointed to concerns about possible and undeclared nuclear activities in Iran, including four sites, as evidenced by the IAEA’s ongoing safeguards investigations. According to the report, the United States continues to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the major nuclear weapons development activities that it deems necessary to produce a nuclear weapon. However, if Iran manufactures or acquires a nuclear weapon through different means, such actions would violate its obligations under Article II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Based on reports provided by the IAEA on the implementation of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the Additional Protocol, the United States concluded that there remain serious concerns about possible undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran. The 56-page report issued by the US State Department added that Iran has not yet provided a reliable explanation for the existence of man-made uranium particles and a full answer to the IAEA’s original questions.
During the reporting period, the IAEA Director-General, Rafael Grossi, repeatedly called on Tehran to fully cooperate with the agency and to provide the necessary information and documents to answer outstanding questions, noting that Iran had not provided technically reliable or satisfactory answers to the agency’s inquiries. The report noted that atomic energy inspectors have been subjected to inappropriate treatment, which is inconsistent with internationally accepted security practices, such as invasive body searches by Iranian security personnel at nuclear facilities. According to the report, one year after the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, Iran announced its intention to gradually begin expanding its nuclear program. Tehran enacted a law entitled, “The Strategic Action Plan for Lifting Sanctions and Protecting the Interests of the Iranian Nation,” which required the Iranian government to further expand Iran’s nuclear activities in the event that the nuclear agreement was not implemented. Expansion activities included the production of 20 percent enriched uranium, the installation of advanced centrifuges and reduced cooperation with the IAEA. Production was later expanded to 60 percent, shortly after the explosion in April 11 last year, which caused a power blackout at Iran’s Natanz fuel enrichment plant and a number of centrifuge failures. The report referred to commercial satellite images, which indicated that the TESA workshop for the manufacture of centrifuge components in Karaj was damaged by a drone attack on June 23 last year 2021. Iran claimed that atomic energy cameras may have been hacked, which facilitated the attack, pushing Iran to reject the access of atomic energy inspectors to the site. The report comes as US lawmakers, from both Republican and Democrat camps, are increasingly opposed to President Joe Biden’s efforts to return to the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Iran Hands over ‘Iraq’ to Soleimani Successor
Baghdad – Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
The US and Iran have appointed new ambassadors to Iraq. The diplomats come from an intelligence and military background and were involved in the region's crises at different levels. What does this mean for a politically dysfunctional country that has been unable to form a new government since the October elections? Iran has named Mohammad Kazem Al-Sadeq as its new ambassador to Baghdad. As is often the case with Iranian ambassadors to Iraq, Sadeq is reportedly a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force. Al-Sadeq would replace Iraj Masjedi, who has held the post since April 2017. Even though Iraqi diplomats deny the change “having anything to do with the crisis of forming the Iraqi government,” many behind-the-scenes Shiite actors suggest otherwise. In Washington, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, earlier this month, heard the testimony of the new ambassador, Alina Romanowski. Romanowski described Iraq as a “cornerstone” and warned against the influence of armed factions there. After finishing her mission as ambassador in Kuwait, Romanowski is on her way to Baghdad with a strong resume packed with experience in the US Department of Defense and the CIA. Romanowski is motivated to redraw the rules of engagement with the Iranians, who sent Al-Sadeq to wait for her in Baghdad. The story of how Al-Sadeq ended up as an Iranian ambassador to Iraq is more remarkable than Romanowski’s. It exposes the dynamics of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iraq, and the desire of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to address the confusion in which Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force (the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards), and Masjedi did not succeed in resolving. Al-Sadeq born in Najaf, hails from an Iranian-Iraqi family known for its commitment to “religious studies.”His family enjoys connections dating back to the 70s to prominent religious families in Iraq and Iran. Al-Sadeq was one of the most prominent figures to accompany Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of the Quds Force. In Iraq, Al-Sadeq has deeply rooted connections with the leaders of Shiite parties. This has allowed him to understand and get involved in doctrinal issues in the Iraqi crisis and created the needed atmosphere for him to be Soleimani’s possible successor in the region. It seems that Al-Sadeq’s main task will be focused on keeping the Iranian influence strong and growing in the central government in Baghdad. His appointment could provide a different administrative model for the implementation of Iranian policy, and this may greatly affect the negotiations to form the new Iraqi government.

Ukraine gets warplanes as Mariupol officer warns facing 'last days'
Agence France Presse/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Ukraine received fighter jets to help resist the Russian invasion, as Moscow intensified its offensive in the east where a besieged officer in Mariupol warned Wednesday his forces were facing their "last days, if not hours".The West has responded to a renewed Russian push into the Donbas region with fresh weapons for Kyiv and a push to increase "Moscow's international isolation".The Pentagon said that Ukraine had recently received fighter planes and parts to bolster its air force, declining to specify the number of aircraft and their origin. Kyiv has asked its Western partners to provide MiG-29s, which its pilots already know how to fly and a handful of Eastern European countries have. Control of Donbas and the southern port of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a southern corridor to the Crimean peninsula that it annexed in 2014, depriving Ukraine of much of its coastline. In the latest ultimatum issued in its battle to capture Mariupol, Moscow made another call for the city's defenders to surrender on Wednesday by 2 pm Moscow time (1100 GMT) and announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor for any Ukrainian troops who agreed to lay down their arms. As the deadline approached, a commander in the besieged Azovstal power plant issued a desperate plea for help, saying his marines were "maybe facing our last days, if not hours". "The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one," Serhiy Volyna from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade said.
"We appeal and plead to all world leaders to help us. We ask them to use the procedure of extraction and take us to the territory of a third-party state."
Thousands of troops and civilians remain holed up in the plant. An advisor to the mayor of Mariupol described a "horrible situation" in the encircled complex and reported that up to 2,000 people -- mostly women and children -- are without "normal" supplies of drinking water, food, and fresh air. During an interview broadcast on CNN Tuesday, Pavlo Kyrylenko -- who oversees the Donetsk region's military administration -- insisted Mariupol remained contested. "The Ukrainian flag is flying over the city," he said. "There are certain districts where street fighting is continuing. I can't say the Russians are controlling them."Offering some respite, Kyiv said early Wednesday it had agreed with Russian forces to open a safe route for civilians to flee the devastated city. "We have managed to get a preliminary agreement on a humanitarian corridor for women, children and elderly persons," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
'We are bombed everywhere'
Elsewhere on the front lines, Ukraine's defense ministry reported its troops had beaten back a Russian attack in the city of Izium, south of the partly blockaded second city of Kharkiv. In the town of Novodruzhesk, 65-year-old resident Nadya said: "We are bombed everywhere." "It's a miracle that we're still alive," she said, her voice trembling. "We were lying on the ground and waiting. Since February 24, we've been sleeping in the cellar." Kyiv also claimed enemy losses in a Ukrainian counter-attack near the town of Marinka in Donetsk. The governor of the eastern Lugansk region Sergiy Gaiday said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground in the face of heavy fighting. "We have positional battles in the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna. The enemy cannot do anything though. They are losing people and equipment there," Gaiday said. "Our guys are shooting down drones there. Shooting down planes on the border of the Lugansk and Kharkiv regions, so they are holding on."Russian forces, meanwhile, said "high-precision air-based missiles" hit 13 Ukrainian positions in parts of Donbas while other air strikes "hit 60 military assets", including in towns close to the eastern front line.
'War crime' -
President Vladimir Putin has said he launched the so-called military operation in Ukraine in February to save Russian speakers in the country from a "genocide" carried out by a "neo-Nazi" regime. But his forces have faced allegations of war crimes -- most recently from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said Tuesday that Putin was responsible for atrocities in Ukraine. "The killing of thousands of civilians as we have seen is a war crime for which the Russian president bears responsibility," Scholz said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also denounced Russia's offensive, and issued calls for a four-day truce to mark the Orthodox Holy Week. "Instead of a celebration of new life, this Easter coincides with a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine," Guterres told reporters. "The intense concentration of forces and firepower makes this battle inevitably more violent, bloody and destructive." Guterres called for a "humanitarian pause" from Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday on April 24. "Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance."

Russian Gas Flows to Europe Through Ukraine Edge Higher
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Russian gas deliveries to Europe through Ukraine and via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany rose marginally on Wednesday morning while eastbound flows into Poland from Germany through the Yamal-Europe pipeline held steady. Daily nominations for Russian gas deliveries to Slovakia via Ukraine increased on Wednesday, data from Slovakian operator TSO Eustream showed, Reuters reported. Nominations via the Velke Kapusany border point were about 411,546 megawatt hours (MWh) per day on Wednesday, up from 398,668 MWh on Tuesday, the data showed. Russian gas producer Gazprom on Wednesday said it continued to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine in line with requests from European consumers. Flows to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline across the Baltic Sea stood at 73,301,709 kWh/h on Wednesday morning, up slightly from about 73,000,000 kWh/h for the previous 24 hours. Eastbound gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Germany to Poland were largely steady at 6,457,686 KWh/h, data from pipeline operator Gascade Russian Gas Flows to Europe Through Ukraine Edge Higher. Russian gas deliveries to Europe through Ukraine and via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany rose marginally on Wednesday morning while eastbound flows into Poland from Germany through the Yamal-Europe pipeline held steady. Daily nominations for Russian gas deliveries to Slovakia via Ukraine increased on Wednesday, data from Slovakian operator TSO Eustream showed, Reuters reported. Nominations via the Velke Kapusany border point were about 411,546 megawatt hours (MWh) per day on Wednesday, up from 398,668 MWh on Tuesday, the data showed. Russian gas producer Gazprom on Wednesday said it continued to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine in line with requests from European consumers. Flows to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline across the Baltic Sea stood at 73,301,709 kWh/h on Wednesday morning, up slightly from about 73,000,000 kWh/h for the previous 24 hours. Eastbound gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Germany to Poland were largely steady at 6,457,686 KWh/h, data from pipeline operator Gascade showed.

Syrian fighters ready to join next phase of Ukraine war
Associated Press/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
During a visit to Syria in 2017, Vladimir Putin lavished praise on a Syrian general whose division played an instrumental role in defeating insurgents in the country's long-running civil war. The Russian president told him his cooperation with Russian troops "will lead to great successes in the future."
Now members of Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan's division are among hundreds of Russian-trained Syrian fighters who have reportedly signed up to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, including Syrian soldiers, former rebels and experienced fighters who fought for years against the Islamic State group in Syria's desert. So far, only a small number appears to have arrived in Russia for military training ahead of deployment on the front lines. Although Kremlin officials boasted early in the war of more than 16,000 applications from the Middle East, U.S. officials and activists monitoring Syria say there have not yet been significant numbers of fighters from the region joining the war in Ukraine. Analysts, however, say this could change as Russia prepares for the next phase of the battle with a full-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine. They believe fighters from Syria are more likely to be deployed in coming weeks, especially after Putin named Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, who commanded the Russian military in Syria, as the new war commander in Ukraine.
Though some question how effective Syrian fighters would be in Ukraine, they could be brought in if more forces are needed to besiege cities or to make up for rising casualties. Dvornikov is well acquainted with the multiple paramilitary forces in Syria trained by Russia while he oversaw the strategy of ruthlessly besieging and bombarding opposition-held cities in Syria into submission. "Russia is preparing for a greater battle" in Ukraine and Syrian fighters are likely to take part, said Ahmad Hamada, a Syrian army defector who is now a military analyst based in Turkey. Syria observers and activists say the Russians have been actively recruiting in Syria for the Ukraine war, particularly among Russian-trained combatants. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that so far about 40,000 people have registered -- 22,000 with the Russian military and about 18,000 with the Russian private contractor Wagner Group. Around 700 members of al-Hassan's 25th Special Missions Forces Division, known in Syria as the "Tiger Force," left Syria over the past weeks to fight along Russian forces, Abdurrahman said. The numbers could not be independently confirmed. Pro-government activists posted videos over the past two weeks on social media showing members of the Tiger Force performing military drills including parachuting from helicopters. Russian officers appeared in one of the videos advising the paratroopers inside a helicopter as al-Hassan praised the young men by tapping on their heads. It was not immediately clear if the videos were new.
Abdurrahman said there are also volunteers from the Russian-trained 5th Division; the Baath brigades, which is the armed wing of Assad's ruling Baath party; and the Palestinian Quds Brigade, made up of Palestinian refugees in Syria. All have fought alongside the Russian military in Syria's war.
"The Russians are looking for experienced fighters. They don't want anyone who was not trained by the Russians," Abdurrahman said. The Tiger Force took credit for some of the biggest government victories in the 11-year conflict. It was involved in a monthslong Russian-backed campaign into the rebels' last enclave, located in the northwest province of Idlib, which ended in March 2020 with government forces capturing a vital north-south highway -- though rebels remain in control of the enclave. Al-Hassan "is one of Russia's men and Russia will depend on him," said Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who runs the DeirEzzor 24, a Syria war monitoring group.
Hundreds of fighters from the 5th Division and the Quds Brigade have registered at Russia's Hmeimeem base in western Syria, which is leading recruitment efforts, and are waiting for orders, he said. In late March, a Russian-trained force known as the "ISIS Hunters" militia, which fought for years against IS, posted an ad calling on men aged 23 to 49 to come forward for screening, saying those who pass the test and are found suitable will be called on later. So far, about 100 men have registered their names in the southern province of Sweida, according to Rayan Maarouf of Suwayda24, an activist collective that covers IS activities in the Syrian desert. He added that they were promised a monthly income of no less than $600, a huge sum of money amid widespread unemployment and the crash of the Syrian pound. Earlier this month, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. had indications that the Wagner Group is trying to recruit fighters, mostly from the Middle East, to deploy in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. But he said there has been "no specific information" on numbers recruited. "We just aren't there yet to see anything real demonstrable when it comes to reinforcement," he added. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in early March that so far there are only "very small groups" trying to make their way from Syria to Ukraine, calling it a "very small trickle."
Retired Lebanese army general Naji Malaeb, who follows the war in Syria closely, said there is no indication so far of Syrian fighters traveling to Russia, but this could change as the war drags on. "This all depends on what the Russians plan to do in the near future," Malaeb said. Syrian and Palestinian officials in Syria have played down reports of fighters heading to Ukraine. The Syrian government is likely wary of having Syrian fighters flock to Ukraine, opening opportunities at the front lines that its many opponents could exploit. In a potentially worrying sign for the Syrian government, Russia has significantly scaled down its operations in Syria since the war in Ukraine started, with fewer airstrikes targeting IS or opposition positions in Idlib. "Any change in the posture of Russian forces or pro-regime militias creates security gaps that anti-regime actors including Turkey, ISIS, al-Qaida and Syrian opposition groups can exploit," the ISW report said. Muhannad Haj Ali, a former legislator and a commander with the armed wing of Syria's ruling Baath party said no Syrians have gone to fight in Ukraine and that he didn't expect any to go. He said he was certain Russia will win in Ukraine without any need for Syrians' help. "The way the operations are going is clear indication that Ukraine will not be another Afghanistan," he said.

Spain to Extradite Turkish Citizen Suspected of Smuggling Banned Gear to Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Spain's high court has agreed to extradite to the United States a Turkish citizen suspected of smuggling to Iran equipment that can be used in making missiles, circumventing an arms embargo, court documents showed on Wednesday. Spanish police arrested Murat Bukey in the Barcelona airport in September at the request of US prosecutors, who suspect him of importing from the United States and selling in Iran fuel cells that can be used in powering ballistic missiles and biodetection in 2012 and 2013, the court said. Iran was then under a UN arms embargo that banned imports of missile components and technologies. The embargo expired in 2020, but Iran remains under US economic sanctions. In its ruling the court said Bukey had "falsely declared the material wouldn't be exported to Iran". He is also accused of money laundering. During the extradition hearing, Bukey's lawyers argued the US statute of limitations had run out on the alleged offenses and that they had been allegedly committed while he was in Turkey, not in the United States. Still, his lawyer, Llorenc Caldentey Morey, said he was not appealing against the decision. Bukey will remain in custody pending the approval of the extradition by the Spanish government.

US Envoy to Libya Urges Protection of Oil Revenue from Misappropriation
Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
The US ambassador to Libya Richard Norland urged the country's central bank to safeguard oil revenue from misappropriation, a statement by the US Embassy said. Norland also expressed concern about the shutdown of half of Libya's oil production, saying that forced, prolonged disruptions create adverse conditions for the people. Libya is currently losing more than 550,000 barrels per day in oil production from blockades on major fields and export terminals, the National Oil Corporation media office said on Wednesday.

World Bank Earmarks Additional Aid For Yemen’s Food Security
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors endorsed a new two-year Country Engagement Note (CEN) for Yemen aimed at preserving institutions that provide services to the Yemeni people and promoting food security. In a statement, the World Bank Group (WBG) said that its overarching goal was to support the people of Yemen and preserve the institutions that serve them. It added that the WBG would stay engaged in the country across multiple possible scenarios, with a focus on basic service delivery and human capital, and food security, resilience, and livelihood opportunities.
“Our $2.8bn program reflects the World Bank’s investment in preserving Yemen’s development assets, and our hope for a better future for a generation of young Yemenis who have grown up in the shadow of war but will play a key role in the recovery” said Tania Meyer, Country Manager for Yemen.
“By increasing our support at this critical juncture, we are affirming our unwavering commitment to the people of Yemen and the institutions that serve them.” According to the statement, the war in Ukraine was already having a significant impact on food prices worldwide. “The CEN recognizes that with a worsening food crisis and widespread malnutrition in Yemen, short-term interventions alone cannot provide sustainable solutions. To help break the cycle of aid dependency, the World Bank will pilot a “continuum of support” approach that bundles short-term and resilience-building interventions in geographical areas where food insecurity is the highest,” the statement read. It continued: “The World Bank recognizes the critical role of the private sector in Yemen’s resilience and growth prospects. The new strategy was prepared by the three parts of the Bank Group—the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Together, they will redouble efforts to promote private sector-led solutions to fill infrastructure gaps, support job creation, and lay the groundwork for recovery.”

Israeli Ultra-Nationalists to March in Jerusalem Despite Ban
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
A group of Israeli ultra-nationalists said it is determined to go ahead with a flag-waving march around predominantly Palestinian areas of Jerusalem's Old City later Wednesday, brushing aside a police ban of an event that served as one of the triggers of last year's Israel-Gaza war. Israeli police said a large number of officers were deployed around Jerusalem's historic Old City, home to religious sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims, out of concern that confrontations could further ignite an already tense atmosphere in the city during the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Palestinian militant groups said Tuesday evening that they were “raising the state of general alert” and warned against Israeli radicals holding a flag march in Jerusalem, The Associated Press reported. “At this stage the police are not approving the protest march under the requested layout,” the police said in a statement, without elaborating. They could not be reached for comment Wednesday on whether the march would be banned altogether, or just on the proposed route past the Damascus Gate. In a similar situation last May, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets toward Jerusalem as Israeli nationalists holding a flag march were making their way to the Old City. The events set off an 11-day war between Israel and the militant group Hamas that rules Gaza. Israeli-Palestinian tensions have surged in recent weeks after a series of deadly attacks inside Israel, followed by military operations in the West Bank.
On Monday, Palestinian militants fired a rocket from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel for the first time in months, and Israel responded with airstrikes. These followed days of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians at a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem. Noam Nisan, one of the organizers of the planned march, told Kan public radio that it would proceed as planned on Wednesday. “A Jew with a flag in Jerusalem is not a provocation," he said. He said that the demonstration was a response to buses being stoned earlier this week while driving to the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, located in Jerusalem's Old City.

Barzani, Johnson Discuss Energy Exports to Replace Russian Oil, Gas
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani spoke with his British counterpart Boris Johnson about his desire to export energy to Europe and reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas, Reuters reported. “Prime Minister Barzani spoke about his aspiration to export energy to Europe, and the Prime Minister (Johnson) lauded his efforts to help reduce Western reliance on Russian oil and gas,” a British government readout of a meeting between the two in London said. In late March, Barzani told an industry conference in Dubai that Kurdistan would soon become an important source of energy. “I am confident that Kurdistan will soon become an important source of energy for the world's growing demand,” he stressed. He affirmed that Kurdistan has capacity now to make up for at least some of the shortfalls of oil in Europe. “We will become a net exporter of gas to the rest of Iraq, to Turkey and Europe in the near future,” he added.

Houthis Sign UN Plan to End Recruitment of Child Soldiers
Washington - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 20 April, 2022
The United Nations announced on Monday that the Iranian-backed Houthi group has signed an “action plan” with the international organization to stop the recruitment of children, who have fought by the thousands during the country's seven years of civil war. The UN says nearly 3,500 children have been verified as recruited and deployed in Yemen's civil war, but the number of child soldiers drafted by Houthis could be much larger. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that more than two weeks after reaching a truce, the Houthi group signed a plan of action with the UN to “protect children and prevent grave violations against them in the context of the armed conflict.” The action plan completely bans the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, including in support roles. Dujarric said the Houthis committed to identifying children in their ranks and releasing them within six months. It is noteworthy that the Yemeni internationally recognized government has made similar pledges in documents signed since 2014. The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly saw the plan as “a step in the right direction toward protecting Yemen’s children.” “The UN is committed to children’s welfare and helping the Sanaa authorities and forces they control turn the plan into action starting now,” he said. Virginia Gamba, the UN's top official looking out for children in war zones, called the Houthis' move “a positive and encouraging step,” but she noted that “the most difficult part of the journey starts now.” “The action plan must be fully implemented and lead to tangible actions for the improvement of the protection of children in Yemen,” Gamba, who signed in New York as a witness to the Houthis’ commitment, said in a statement. According to the action plan, Houthis would work in close cooperation with the UN task force on monitoring and reporting on grave violations against children in Yemen, and in cooperation with relevant United Nations agencies and departments, and international and local civil society partners. The plan has opened the door to addressing Yemen’s urgent humanitarian and economic needs while also creating a genuine opportunity to restart Yemen’s political process. Gamba called on all parties to the conflict to use the opportunity of the current truce to include child protection provisions in ongoing peace negotiations. She reiterated the availability of the UN to support the Houthis and other Yemeni parties in measures reinforcing the protection of children from the ravages of hostilities. “Ultimately, obtaining lasting peace is the best way to protect children in Yemen and should be the first objective of all parties to the conflict in the country,” the senior UN official emphasized. At the same time, UNICEF Representative Philippe Duamelle described the signing as “an important milestone” for Yemen’s children “whose lives have been so horrifically affected by the conflict. “We look forward to the full implementation of the Action Plan and to continue working with all parties for the protection and wellbeing of children in Yemen,” Duamelle added.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 20-21/2022
Biden's Middle East: Saudi Arabia Embraces China; Will They Topple the Dollar?
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/April 20, 2022
If Saudi Arabia were to break the tradition of pricing its oil in US dollars, as it is contemplating doing, others could well start to price oil in Chinese yuan or other currencies -- negatively affecting the US dollar's status and potentially the entire US economy.
"China must brace for a full-blown escalation of the struggle with the United States and prepare to gradually decouple the Chinese yuan from the US dollar." — Zhou Li, former deputy director of the Communist Party's International Liaison Department, South China Morning Post, July 5, 2020.
That Saudi Arabia now seems to be seriously considering selling its oil in yuan signifies the extent to which the Biden administration's Middle East policies have left countries such as Saudi Arabia hedging their bets on China, as the ascendant power in the Middle East. China, on the other hand, is simply taking advantage of the current US administration's deprioritization of the region and its alienation of strategic US allies such as Saudi Arabia.
That alienation has mainly come, according to reports, because of Saudi "security concerns" -- a diplomatic euphemism, presumably, for America's enabling Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. This game-changer is doubtless seen by Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Sunni Gulf states, as a mortal danger.
The vacuum that the US left behind -- the second one after Afghanistan -- is rapidly being filled by China.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) initiative seeks dramatically to enhance China's global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China. China has signed cooperation agreements with 19 Arab countries for construction projects under the BRI.
China is also Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner -- an arrangement that extends to military cooperation....
In August 2021, the fifth China-Arab States Expo took place in China; during it, agreements worth an estimated $24 billion in investments between China and Arab countries were made.
If Saudi Arabia were to break the tradition of pricing its oil in US dollars, as it is contemplating doing, others could well start to price oil in Chinese yuan or other currencies -- negatively affecting the US dollar's status and potentially the entire US economy. (Image source: iStock)
Saudi Arabia is considering selling oil to China -- which buys more than 25% of Saudi oil exports -- in exchange for yuan (China's currency), according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal. The move would be unprecedented. Saudi Arabia, ever since its 1974 agreement with US President Richard Nixon, has been selling oil in exchange for US dollars.
The change, if realized, would be significant. The status of the US dollar, including as the world's reserve currency, depends on its dominance of global markets, especially the oil market, where 80% of sales are done in US dollars. If Saudi Arabia were to break the tradition of pricing its oil in dollars, as it is contemplating doing, others could well start to price oil in yuan or other currencies -- negatively affecting the US dollar's status and potentially the entire US economy.
Shortly after the news broke about the Chinese-Saudi talks on selling oil in yuan, according to Bloomberg, China's currency "surged". If Saudi Arabia were to sell its oil to China in yuan, it would be a victory for China, which is anyhow actively seeking to undermine the US dollar's global dominance.
"China must brace for a full-blown escalation of the struggle with the United States and prepare to gradually decouple the Chinese yuan from the US dollar," Zhou Li, a former deputy director of the Communist Party's International Liaison Department wrote in July 2020.
That Saudi Arabia now seems to be seriously considering selling its oil in yuan signifies the extent to which the Biden administration's Middle East policies have left countries such as Saudi Arabia hedging their bets on China as the ascendant power in the Middle East. China, on the other hand, is simply taking advantage of the current US administration's deprioritization of the region and its alienation of strategic US allies such as Saudi Arabia. That alienation has mainly come, according to reports, because of Saudi "security concerns" -- a diplomatic euphemism, presumably, for America's enabling Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
This game-changer is doubtless seen by Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Sunni Gulf states as a mortal danger. It was signaled through America's negotiations to reactivate what is reported to be a worse version of the 2015 JCPOA "nuclear deal," which the Trump administration pulled out of after evidence kept emerging of massive Iranian cheating. In addition, last year, the US officially took Yemen's Iranian-sponsored Houthi terrorist group off the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations – and refused to put it back even after the Houthis resumed missile and drone attacks on their neighbors in the Gulf.
The vacuum that the US left behind -- the second one after Afghanistan -- is rapidly being filled by China. Not only is Saudi Arabia one of China's most important energy suppliers, but the kingdom is an important link in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a gigantic global development project that Chinese President Xi Jinping launched in 2013 to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond. The BRI seeks dramatically to enhance China's global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China. China has signed cooperation agreements with 19 Arab countries for construction projects under the BRI.
China is also Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner -- an arrangement that extends to military cooperation, which China's Minister of National Defense, Wei Fenghe and Saudi Arabia's Deputy Defense Minister, Khalid bin Salman, agreed to boost in a virtual meeting in January. China, which has been selling weapons to Saudi Arabia for years, has reportedly also helped the Saudis to start manufacturing their own ballistic missiles.
The news about the Saudis considering switching oil sales to the yuan came after US President Joe Biden found himself snubbed by Saudi Arabia, which refused to take his phone call to discuss the current energy crisis, the spiraling prices of oil, and apparently what was to be a request for the kingdom to pump more oil so that the US, which has plenty, would not have to. "There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn't happen," a US official said about a planned conversation between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Biden. "It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi oil]."
OPEC, already in November, was showing perfunctory signs of being fed up with being betrayed by the US in favor of an expansionist Iran. "If you want more oil," OPEC said then, "pump it yourself." The snub clearly showed that America's standing in the Middle East, under Biden, has become -- unnecessarily -- immensely diminished.
"So the relationship is very strained," the Wall street Journal's Middle East correspondent Stephen Kalin said recently about the Saudi-US relationship.
"It's hard to really say exactly how bad it is. It might be the worst it's been in 20 years... What we hear from the Saudis is they feel like American politics is so unpredictable and so polarized that they can't really be sure whether the next administration is going to be friendly to them or hostile to them. Whereas with a place like China that has a leader who's been there for years, there's a bit more predictability, and that sort of matches the Saudi model of government, which obviously doesn't have elections and has a long sustained leadership."
While Saudi Arabia rebuffs the US president, it has invited President Xi Jinping to visit the kingdom in May. "Riyadh is planning to replicate the warm reception it gave to former President Donald Trump in 2017 when he visited the kingdom on his first trip abroad," according to the Wall Street Journal. "The crown prince and Xi are close friends and," according to one unnamed Saudi official, "both understand that there is huge potential for stronger ties... It is not just 'They buy oil from us and we buy weapons from them'." In January, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud visited China, where he met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Saudi Arabia will be hosting the first China-Arab summit, scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia later in 2022. "Going forward, China is ready to make good preparations for the China-Arab Summit, inject more momentum into bilateral ties and join hands to build a China-Arab community with a shared future in the new era," Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry, recently said.
In March 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, issued a joint statement, declaring that the China-Arab summit will, "constitute a qualitative leap to advance Arab-Chinese relations and the Arab-Chinese strategic partnership to broader horizons..." Both sides stressed "the necessity for a long-term cooperation with higher level and quality between China and Arab states, particularly in the fields of trade, investment, industry, transportation, energy, agriculture, tourism, culture, education, science, health, media, sports and so on." China is constantly looking to deepen relations with the Arab world. In August 2021, the fifth China-Arab States Expo took place in China; during it, agreements worth an estimated $24 billion in investments between China and Arab countries were made.
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The Middle East: An American Vision/Review of Behind the Silken Curtain
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 20, 2022
"If my experiences in the days and weeks devoted to this problem have taught me any one thing, it is that everywhere the need is felt for an American foreign policy -- a foreign policy so firmly embedded on principle that it will hold equally for United States troops in China or the atom bomb, or Palestine." — Bartley Crum.
[Crum's] account ... clearly shows that President Truman, who always... sided with the forces of freedom and progress, was often opposed by his own State Department that practiced a value-free diplomacy in the name of preserving the status quo.
"We can throw our lot in with the forces... who prop up feudalistic regimes in the Arab states in the hope that these will serve as a cordon sanitaire against Soviet; who believe they can successfully continue the same processes of exploitation in the future which have proved successful in the past. Or we can throw our lot in with the progressive forces in the Middle East. We can recognize that there is a slow rising of the peoples, and that we must place ourselves on the side of this inevitable development toward literacy, health, and a decent way of life." — Bartley Crum.
He was against a status quo that subjected the nations of the region to despotism and poverty. He also realized that Arab despots and their hangers-on used the issue of Palestine as a means of diverting attention from their own misdeeds, wasting Arab energies on xenophobia and religious bigotry. The irony in all this was that Great Britain... sided with the Arab despots, and did all it could to discourage and weaken the very forces of reform and change that Crum saw as the natural allies of Western democracies.
The history of the past six decades shows that... [b]etting on the Arab "strongmen" was morally wrong and politically shortsighted.... By 1960, the switch that the British had tried to prevent in the Middle East had taken place almost everywhere, leaving the Western powers with no reliable ally but Israel, the very state whose emergence they had tried to prevent.
"[H]ere we Americans, too, have compromised with the basic principle of freedom for reasons of expediency. We have taken our cue from those British statesmen who have based their policy.... upon cooperation with local potentates rather than upon promotion of the genuine interests of the masses." — Bartley Crum.
Crum believes that Jews in Palestine could bring the modern world to the Arabs.....A Jewish state could be a model of modernity and democracy that Arabs could adopt. Arabs, Crum believed, needed a dose of the same creative spirit, love of hard work, social solidarity and egalitarianism that marked out Jewish settlements alongside poor and insalubrious Arab villages. Crum was shocked to see that none of the Arab witnesses testifying to the mission showed the slightest interest in improving the lives of the Arab masses.
In other words, real peace... depends on reform and democratization in the region.
Although war has a bad name these days, there are occasions when it is the only reasonable means of preventing even greater tragedies.
The Middle East conflict has been and, to a large extent remains, a struggle between the future and the past, democracy versus tyranny, and an open society against closed ones.
Bartley C. Crum's 1947 account clearly shows that President Harry Truman, who always sided with the forces of freedom and progress, was often opposed by his own State Department that practiced a value-free diplomacy in the name of preserving the status quo. Pictured: Crum (top left) with some of the other members of the Anglo American Committee on Palestine at the U.S. State Department, on January 5, 1946.
Behind the Silken Curtain: A personal account of Anglo-American diplomacy in Palestine and the Middle East
by Bartley C. Crum
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1947. 297 pp. $3.00
In 1946, with the tragic memory of the Second World War still very much alive, few Americans could have imagined, or would have wanted to admit that far away Middle East would soon develop into one of the top concerns of US foreign policy.
One American who realized this before many others was Bartley C. Crum, recruited by President Harry Truman to serve as a member of the American team on a United States-United Kingdom mission on Palestine. Although a Republican, Crum enjoyed enough of a reputation as a man who could transcend partisan boundaries to serve under a Democrat president, in the interest of the nation.
Prior to his mission, Crum had had little interest in the Middle East that, to most Americans, was not the popular, and often passion-arousing, subject it has since become. This enabled Crum to embark on his mission with an open mind and certainly no hidden agenda.
For Crum, the mission that took several months and covered more than a dozen countries in the Middle East and Europe became an introductory course on the politics of a region that has dominated the headlines to this day.
Crum writes:
"If my experiences in the days and weeks devoted to this problem have taught me any one thing, it is that everywhere the need is felt for an American foreign policy -- a foreign policy so firmly embedded on principle that it will hold equally for United States troops in China or the atom bomb, or Palestine."
However, no one had told Crum what that policy was supposed to be. And his account of the mission clearly shows that President Truman, who always relied on his own instincts and sided with the forces of freedom and progress, was often opposed by his own State Department that practiced a value-free diplomacy in the name of preserving the status quo.
Crum states that the US faces a choice in the Middle East:
"We can throw our lot in with the forces of reaction who prop up feudalistic regimes in the Arab states in the hope that these will serve as a cordon sanitaire against the Soviet; who believe they can successfully continue the same processes of exploitation in the future which have proved successful in the past. Or we can throw our lot in with the progressive forces in the Middle East. We can recognize that there is a slow rising of the peoples, and that we must place ourselves on the side of this inevitable development toward literacy, health, and a decent way of life."
Crum had no doubts as to where his own sentiments lay. He was against a status quo that subjected the nations of the region to despotism and poverty. He also realized that Arab despots and their hangers-on used the issue of Palestine as a means of diverting attention from their own misdeeds, wasting Arab energies on xenophobia and religious bigotry. The irony in all this was that Great Britain, then under a Socialist Labour government, sided with the Arab despots, and did all it could to discourage and weaken the very forces of reform and change that Crum saw as the natural allies of Western democracies.
Before winning power in the general election of 1945, The British Labour Party had passed a key resolution on the Middle East, in effect endorsing the creation of a Jewish homeland in mandate Palestine. Once in power, however, Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin were convinced by the Foreign and Colonial Office, where British policy was made, that any change in Britain's traditional policy could weaken the Western position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union in the context of a looming Cold War.
The British establishment's policy on the Middle East was based on three assumptions.
The first was that it is natural for Arabs to be ruled by a "strongman". The second was that the Arab "strongman" had no principles apart from a keen desire to stay alive and in power. The third was that, if handled intelligently, the Arab "strongman" could be useful to the West.
The "strongman" could take decisions that no democratic government, subject the vagaries of public opinion and the pressure of elections, would be able to contemplate.
Within days of the start of the Anglo-American mission, it had become clear to Crum that some members of the American team found the British analysis irresistible. Loy Henderson, the senior State Department diplomat and head of the Middle East desk at Foggy Bottom, was one example. At times, he sounded more British than the British themselves. (Henderson was to become US Ambassador to Iran in the early 1950s.)
When the Anglo-American mission ended, it had become clear that the British colonialist view had triumphed over American idealism as echoed by Crum and a few other members of the US team. This meant that the two allies were committed to preventing change in the Middle East.
At the time change also included the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Crum's account refutes one of the most persistent fables in the Middle East: that Britain and the United States created Israel as an outpost of the "Imperialist West" in the Muslim world. Crum shows that, far from creating Israel as a state, the two Western powers did what they could to prevent its birth. It was the Jews' determination and their readiness to fight that forced both powers to admit the emergence of Israel as a state.
The history of the past six decades shows that Crum was right. Betting on the Arab "strongmen" was morally wrong and politically shortsighted. Five years after the Anglo-American mission, Egypt's feudalist monarchy had been replaced by a leftist military regime that regarded Britain and the US as guarantors of the ancien regime, and quickly turned to the Soviets for support. Six years after that the second pillar of the British policy in the Middle East collapsed when another group of leftist army officers toppled the British-installed monarchy in Iraq. In between, the Syrian "strongmen" had also found their way into the dustbin of history. By 1960, the switch that the British had tried to prevent in the Middle East had taken place almost everywhere, leaving the Western powers with no reliable ally but Israel, the very state whose emergence they had tried to prevent.
The tragic irony in all this is that while the British assumed that the Arab masses would not accept a Jewish state in Palestine, Crum found evidence to the contrary. Both Arabs and Jews in Palestine told him that they could, and in some cases actually desired, to live and work together. It was up to Britain and to a lesser extent the US to show leadership and help Arabs and Jews create the post-colonial state structures required for their coexistence.
Crum quotes a senior Arab supporter of reform:
"If they were sure that Britain and America wished the Jews and Arabs to get together, we would. But they are not convinced, these Arab leaders: they wish to maintain their position of power, and they know that depends upon toeing the {British} Colonial Office line."
While opposing the creation of a Jewish state, Britain moved quickly to create an Arab state in mandate Palestine. However, this was not a state for the Palestinians. It was an emirate carved out for the Hashemite family of Hejaz as a reward for their collaboration with Great Britain during the First World War. The newly created state was named the Emirate of Trans-Jordan, ignoring that its territory covered almost 90 per cent of mandate Palestine while 90 per cent of its inhabitants were Arabs from the British Mandate of Palestine.
Crum saw this as a scandalous example of colonial cynicism, and recommended that the United States reject the admission of Trans-Jordan to the United Nations. He writes: "There is no question that the removal of Trans-Jordan from the terms of the mandate was a violation of its original purpose."
One could only guess Crum's sense of outrage. While Britain used its military and diplomatic power to prevent the entry of Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust into Palestine, the Colonial Office, was creating an emirate for a wealthy Arab family whose members lived in Britain in golden exile and hardly felt homeless.
Crum is saddened by what he regarded as Britain's change of course in the name of Realpolitik. However, he is not censorious. Major powers make their biggest mistakes in the name of realism and expediency. He writes:
"It is tragic that Great Britain today seems to have forgotten the original intent of her own men of vision who knew what they were building and why. However, we must be careful, in judging Britain, to remember that here we Americans, too, have compromised with the basic principle of freedom for reasons of expediency. We have taken our cue from those British statesmen who have based their policy in undeveloped regions of the earth upon cooperation with local potentates rather than upon promotion of the genuine interests of the masses. Our course has been one of duplicity, with conflicting public and private pledges. I am sure our policymakers have been able to do this only because of lack of clear popular understanding of the issues involved."
Crum makes no claims to prophethood. However, it seems that having spent time in the Middle East where prophecy has been an export item for millennia, he acquired a vision that most of his fellow mission-members lacked. In a series of policy proposals at the end of the book, he foresees the so-called two-state solution that became official US policy only in 2004 under President George W Bush. He also insists that it must be made "fundamentally clear that Arab states have no special position in relation to Palestine."
Crum's wish was granted in 1980 at the Khartoum Summit when the League of Arab States eventually gave up its claims with regard to Palestine, accepting that the matter be left to Israel and the Palestinians. Thanks to Crum's exceptional powers of observation and the meticulous notes he took, we catch telling glimpses of a number of interesting figures who were to play bigger roles in later years.
Appearing in cameo roles here are such figures as Habib Bourguiba, the future father of Tunisia's independence. A French citizen at the time and a lawyer, he was enlisted by the Arabs to argue the case against a Jewish homeland at a series of hearings organized by the Anglo-American mission. A decade later, the same Bourguiba was to become the first Arab leader to recommend full Arab recognition of Israel. We also meet Hassan al-Banna, the mysterious Egyptian schoolteacher who had founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a rightwing religious outfit the British often used against the Left in Egypt. Here, al-Banna is fielded to back the British position and argue for the inclusion of Palestine into an undefined "Arab world."
Crum describes the grandfather of present-day Islamist terrorism as "a dark-headed, heavy-set figure with glowing eyes."
Echoing British claims, Banna tells the Anglo-American commission that Muslims will never accept a Jewish state in their midst.
Crum writes:
"El-Banna insisted that the Koran mentioned Christians and Moslems favorably, but had nothing good to say about the Jews, and that religious bonds between Jews and Palestine meant nothing because these bonds were diametrically opposed to the Koran and Moslem practices."
Incidentally, Crum describes the Muslim Brotherhood as "a Fascist religious organization", thus refuting the claim that "neo-cons" invented the concept of an Islamic fascism in the 21st century.
Other characters fielded by the British in what looked like a theatrical production included His Eminence Sheikh Ahmad Murad al-Bakri who bore the lofty title of The Grand Chief of the Sufis but was on British Colonial Office's payroll. We also meet Muhammad Fadil al-Jamali who was to become Iraq's Prime Minister thanks to the British before being put to death by pro-Soviet officers who seized power in 1958. At the time al-Jamali wanted the coastal part of mandate Palestine to be handed over to Iraq.
Then there was Azzam Pasha, an Egyptian grandee, who told the commission that it was not the Jew but the West that Arabs regarded as evil. He said European Jews were being brought to the Middle East as "Westerners in disguise" and "with imperialist ideas." In the next breath, however the same Azzam was calling on Britain to let Egypt annex the Sudan!
The Syrians testifying at the commission denied that a Palestinian entity ever existed, and argued that the mandate Palestine should be handed over to the military regime in in Damascus.
Remarkably, while all Arabs opposed the creation of a Jewish state in any part of the mandate area, few were prepared to hint at the possibility of creating a state for Arab Palestinians. The Syrians insisted that Palestine was part of Syria while the Egyptians had claims of their own. The Iraqis believe that Palestine actually belonged to them because, in al-Jamali's words "the coastline of Palestine represents the seaport of Iraq."
In his book, Crum makes no secret of whose side he is on. He is on the side of the Jews who came to Palestine to build a new country. However, he is not on their side solely, or even largely, because they are Jews. Nor is he supporting them only because so many Jews had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Crum believes that Jews in Palestine could bring the modern world to the Arabs as well, a vision first raised by Theodor Herzl in his "New-Old State", one of the founding texts of Zionism.
A Jewish state could be a model of modernity and democracy that Arabs could adopt. Arabs, Crum believed, needed a dose of the same creative spirit, love of hard work, social solidarity and egalitarianism that marked out Jewish settlements alongside poor and insalubrious Arab villages. Crum was shocked to see that none of the Arab witnesses testifying to the mission showed the slightest interest in improving the lives of the Arab masses.
He writes:
"One felt their ever-present sense of fatalism. A child born crippled limps through life; a child made blind by trachoma is a victim of Allah's will, not man's. And, who is to say that Allah chose wrongly in singling out this child?"
To Crum the blame rests with nature and the imperial powers that dominated the Arabs for centuries. He writes:
"I did not blame the Arabs: they were the products of a cruel physical environment where nature sapped strength and vitality. They were the products of a political and social environment that only complicated their helplessness. For four centuries under Turkish rule, they had been subject to every pressure of ignorance. Human welfare had no part in the Ottoman Empire. It was truly pointed out to us that as far as the Middle East was concerned, the French and American revolutions might never have taken place. The doctrine of human rights and personal liberty -- the concept that man had dignity as human being and the latent power to lift himself from the mire of animal existence- had not penetrated the citadels of Islamic authoritarianism. "
Crum could not have known that the Anglo-American decision to effectively side with the Arab despots would in time breed four major wars and seven decades of tension and conflict in a region of vital importance to the Western powers. However, he knew full well that Arab ruling elites were not prepared to accept the existence of a Jewish state and that they would continue to use the Palestine issue as a means of diverting the attention of their own people from real problems such as tyranny, terror and poverty. Many Arab leaders still use the same arguments and excuses they did 70 years ago. The reason is that many Arab states have failed to modernize and democratize. In many cases, they remain as despotic as they were at the end of Second World War. Regimes of this type cannot conceive of rivals or adversaries in the normal political sense of the terms. What they need is an "enemy" who could be vilified on religious, ethnic and ideological grounds. Israel continues to fit the bill on all those scores.
The Human Development reports prepared by Arab intellectuals in the past few years paint a picture that is strikingly similar to the one that shocked Crum six decades ago. Israel remains the enemy because, being democratic, modern, economically successful and self-confident, it is the quintessential "other" to states that remain despotic, semi-medieval, economically underachieving, and ridden by self-doubt. Real peace, that is to say durable and "warm" peace, is possible only between states organized on similar principles and subscribing to similar values. Only like with like could live together in warm peace. The best that states based on divergent principles could hope for is a ceasefire or "cold" peace."
This means that as long as Arab states have not democratized, that is to say not transformed themselves into modern societies based on the rule of law, they cannot live in warm peace with Israel or any other democracy. In other words, real peace and thus Israel's ultimate security depends on reform and democratization in the region. In the meantime, while every effort should be made to promote peace, even in its "cold" version, that is to say a ceasefire with a more attractive label, armed vigilance remains necessary. Although war has a bad name these days, there are occasions when it is the only reasonable means of preventing even greater tragedies. For Israel, it is important to understand that it is involved in a long game in which patience and steadfastness are keys to ultimate success that in its case means survival. Building policies on quick fixes or looking for miracle solutions could generate even more complications, as did the rehabilitation of Yasser Arafat through the Oslo accords.
Crum's valuable book clearly shows that no amount of politics and diplomacy would have saved the still fragile Jewish "homeland" from total destruction, an eventuality that the British Colonial Office would not have regretted.
What saved the Jews was their readiness to fight even when the odds seemed heavily stacked against them. And, as Crum shows they were ready to fight because they knew they were fighting for themselves not for a despotic lord and master. David Ben Gurion's adamant quest for statehood was based on the understanding that the ideal could be an enemy of the real. This is why he accepted to build his dream state on a tiny chunk of land as full of holes as Swiss cheese. What mattered was to transform a cause into a state as quickly as possible.
The Middle East conflict has been and, to a large extent remains, a struggle between the future and the past, democracy versus tyranny, and an open society against closed ones. It also illustrates a fight between the ideal, which for many Palestinian elders is the destruction of Israel, and the possible reality of coexistence by two nations even in the context of a cold peace. Much of what Crum wrote 70 years ago remains true today.
*Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.

Will Democrats Soon Be Locked Out of Power?
Ross Douthat/The New York Times/April 20/2022
Throughout the Trump era it was a frequent theme of liberal commentary that their political party represented a clear American majority, thwarted by our antidemocratic institutions and condemned to live under the rule of the conservative minority.
In the political context of 2016-20, this belief was overstated. Yes, Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2016 with a minority of the popular vote. But more Americans voted for Republican congressional candidates than Democratic congressional candidates, and more Americans voted for right-of-center candidates for president — including the Libertarian vote — than voted for Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein. In strictly majoritarian terms, liberalism deserved to lose in 2016, even if Trump did not necessarily deserve to win.
And Republican structural advantages, while real, did not then prevent Democrats from reclaiming the House of Representatives in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 and Senate in 2021. These victories extended the pattern of 21st century American politics, which has featured significant swings every few cycles, not the entrenchment of either party’s power.
The political landscape after 2024, however, might look more like liberalism’s depictions of its Trump-era plight. According to calculations by liberalism’s Cassandra, David Shor, the convergence of an unfavorable Senate map for Democrats with their pre-existing Electoral College and Senate disadvantages could easily produce a scenario where the party wins 50 percent of the congressional popular vote, 51 percent of the presidential vote — and ends up losing the White House and staring down a nearly filibuster-proof Republican advantage in the Senate.
That’s a scenario for liberal horror, but it’s not one that conservatives should welcome either. In recent years, as their advantages in both institutions have increased, conservatives have defended institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College with variations of the argument that the United States is a democratic republic, not a pure democracy.
These arguments carry less weight, however, the more consistently undemocratic the system’s overall results become. (They would fall apart completely in the scenario sought by Donald Trump and some of his allies after 2020, where state legislatures simply substitute their preferences for the voters’ in their states.)
The Electoral College’s legitimacy can stand up if an occasional 49-47 percent popular vote result goes the other way; likewise the Senate’s legitimacy if it tilts a bit toward one party but changes hands consistently.
But a scenario where one party has sustained governing power while lacking majoritarian support is a recipe for delegitimization and reasonable disillusionment, which no clever conservative column about the constitutional significance of state sovereignty would adequately address.
From the Republican Party’s perspective, the best way to avoid this future — where the nature of conservative victories undercuts the perceived legitimacy of conservative governance — is to stop being content with the advantages granted by the system and try harder to win majorities outright.
You can’t expect a political party to simply cede its advantages: There will never be a bipartisan constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, on any timeline you care to imagine. But you can expect a political party to show a little more electoral ambition than the G.O.P. has done of late — to seek to win more elections the way that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon won them, rather than being content to keep it close and put their hopes in lucky breaks.
Especially in the current climate, which looks dire for the Democrats, the Republicans have an opportunity to make the Electoral College complaint moot, for a time at least, by simply taking plausible positions, nominating plausible candidates and winning majorities outright.
That means rejecting the politics of voter-fraud paranoia — as, hopefully, Republican primary voters will do by choosing Brian Kemp over David Perdue in the Georgia gubernatorial primary.
It means rejecting the attempts to return to the libertarian “makers versus takers” politics of Tea Party era, currently manifested in Florida Senator Rick Scott’s recent manifesto suggesting tax increases for the working class — basically the right-wing equivalent of “defund the police” in terms of its political toxicity.
And it means — and I fear this is beyond the G.O.P.’s capacities — nominating someone other than Donald Trump in 2024.
A Republican Party that managed to win popular majorities might still see its Senate or Electoral College majorities magnified by its structural advantages. But such magnification is a normal feature of many democratic systems, not just our own. It’s very different from losing the popular vote consistently and yet being handed power anyway.
As for what the Democrats should do about their disadvantages — well, that’s a longer discussion, but two quick points for now.
First, to the extent the party wants to focus on structural answers to its structural challenges, it needs clarity about what kind of electoral reforms would actually accomplish something. That’s been lacking in the Biden era, where liberal reformers wasted considerable time and energy on voting bills that didn’t pass and also weren’t likely to help the party much had they been actually pushed through.
A different reform idea, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, wouldn’t have happened in this period either, but it’s much more responsive to the actual challenges confronting Democrats in the Senate. So if you’re a liberal activist or a legislator planning for the next brief window when your party holds power, pushing for an expanded Senate seems like a more reasonable long ball to try to train your team to throw.
Second, to the extent that there’s a Democratic path back to greater parity in the Senate and Electoral College without structural reform, it probably requires the development of an explicit faction within the party dedicated to winning back two kinds of voters — culturally conservative Latinos and working-class whites — who were part of Barack Obama’s coalition but have drifted rightward since.
That faction would have two missions: To hew to a poll-tested agenda on economic policy (not just the business-friendly agenda supported by many centrist Democrats) and to constantly find ways to distinguish itself from organized progressivism — the foundations, the activists, the academics — on cultural and social issues. And crucially, not in the tactical style favored by analysts like Shor, but in the language of principle: Rightward-drifting voters would need to know that this faction actually believes in its own moderation, its own attacks on progressive shibboleths, and that its members will remain a thorn in progressivism’s side even once they reach Washington. Right now the Democrats have scattered politicians, from West Virginia to New York City, who somewhat fit this mold. But they don’t have an agenda for them to coalesce around, a group of donors ready to fund them, a set of intellectuals ready to embrace them as their own.
Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and necessity may impose itself upon the Democratic Party soon enough.

Kafir: Islam’s Hateful Views on ‘Infidels,’ or All Non-Muslims
Raymond Ibrahim/April 20/2022
The popular Egyptian daily newspaper and website al-Masry al-Youm (“the Egyptian Today”) recently published a fatwa titled “What Is the Ruling on Selling Food to Infidels during the Daylight [Hours] of Ramadan?” The fatwa concluded that, no, it is not permissible for Muslims to sell food, even if the purchaser and consumer is a non-Muslim.
As discussed here, because the daily newspaper that published this fatwa, al-Masry al-Youm, has long been seen as a progressive, reformist newspaper—one that thrives on exposing and combatting Islamist intolerance—its readership, which includes many Coptic Christians, responded in uproar. Hours later, the online version of the paper deleted the fatwa, suspended its editor, and issued an apology.
Most instructive of this entire episode—especially for non-Muslims unfamiliar with the minutia of Islam—was the focus of the apology. No one was upset at, and the newspaper did not apologize for, the fatwa’s conclusion (many Egyptian Christians, out of “consideration,” already know to refrain from handling food in public during Ramadan). Rather, the point of contention was that the fatwa utilized—and, worse, the paper published—the word kafir (usually translated into English as “infidel”) to refer to all non-Muslims.
As the daily explained in its apology, “This fatwa applied the term kafir to those who are of a different religion. This is a term that al-Masry al-Youm never uses and completely rejects, as this term draws upon a negative framework that has long afflicted many in Egyptian society.”
Some context is needed to appreciate the significance of all this. In the Koran, the Arabic word for those who disbelieve its message and messenger (Muhammad)—that is, all non-Muslims—is kafir (in the singular; kuffar or kafara in the plural). Accordingly, all throughout history and in their writings, whenever Muslims referred to non-Muslims, they referred to them as kuffar. This remains evident in the fact that many older English translations of the Koran rendered the words kafir/kuffar as non-Muslim(s) or disbeliever(s).
The problem, however, and what few apologists for Islam want to admit openly, is that the word kafir is chock-full of decidedly negative associations. To Muslim ears it connotes “enemies,” “evil-doers,” and every vile human attribute.
In short, Islam’s sacred scriptures present the kuffar—meaning all non-Muslims—in the most negative terms possible.
Thus the Koran refers to kuffar as inherently “guilty” and “unjust” (10:17, 45:31, 68:35); terror is to be cast into their hearts (3:151); they are the “vilest of beasts” (8:55, 98:6), comparable to “cattle,” and “devoid of understanding” (47:12, 8:65); they are natural born “enemies” to Muslims (4:101), “disliked” and “accursed” by Allah (2:89, 3:32, 33:64), who further declares himself their implacable “enemy” (2:98).
Again, this is how the Koran describes non-Muslims, even if they have never once spoken against or harmed Islam.
Unsurprisingly, then, sharia mandates hostility for the kuffar—unremitting jihad, with all the attendant death and destruction that has always entailed, when Muhammad’s followers are strong; deception and smooth-talk, when they are weak and in need of biding time for a more opportune moment.
Thus, according to Koran 9:5, Muslims must “slay” those non-Muslims who reject Islam’s political authority, “wherever you find them—seize them, besiege them, and make ready to ambush them!”
What about ahl al-kitab, the so-called “people of the book,” a phrase the Koran sometimes applies to Jews and Christians. Are they kuffar or not? Although Islam’s apologists regularly argue for the latter, ahl al-kitab is ultimately a subcategory of kafir.
Certainly the rules governing them are less severe: instead of being enslaved or killed outright, Christians and Jews, on payment of tribute (jizya), were allowed to live, but only as second class citizens (who, according to Koran 9:29, must feel themselves subdued and humbled). That said, any Jew or Christian who refused to pay monetary tribute and/or refused to submit to being treated as a second class citizen, instantly defaulted back to their status as kuffar—meaning, they too became existential enemies to be warred on, enslaved, or killed (see the Conditions of Omar).
From here one begins to understand the scandal that the popular and supposedly “progressive” newspaper al-Masry al-Youm created by publishing a fatwa that referred to non-Muslims—of whom there are at least ten million in Egypt, known as Coptic Christians, many of whom subscribe to the daily—as kuffar.
(For more on this topic, including as it pertains to Egypt, see my 2011 exchange with Sheikh Ali Gomaa, back when he was Grand Mufti of Egypt.)
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